MSC-IHL Business Plan Competition 08/09

The MSC-IHL Business Plan Competition just ends today with a prize giving ceremony at Nikko hotel at KL. Well, the result is a little unexpected, UTP get the champion in the Business Plan Competition, which we miss the presentation and later found out their idea was really interesting and good. USM won first runner-up in Business Plan Competition and Merit prize in Business Idea Category. I know the school has a little disappointed as they expect us to win at least a champion come back, but we did our best for everything already. APEX this title on USM sure has given a lot of pressure on lectures and students.

Yesterday was the most tired day, as that is the day of competition. We have practice until late mid night and wake up early morning to attend the competition as we will be the first team to present in Business Plan Competition. We are well prepare and waiting for our time to present. Because of the time keeper misunderstand the timing rule, he only give us 10 minute to present instead of the actual 20 minute. Lucky we still can manage to complete it although we have already skipped a few slides and skip a lot of explanation. The feedback from judge is quite positive as first, so we though this is a good start. Later on they told us they have did the mistake for the timing, so they will give us an extra 10 minute to present what we miss after lunch. At first we was very happy, but thing did not turn up as we think. The judge request us to skip the presentation and turn the 10 minute into just Q and A. The judges were well prepared after the lunch and bring a lot of tough questions and a lot of comments/feedbacks. What we can do at there is just listening. After that, our team has lost the confident and packs our thing and goes for Business Idea Category to prepare the next presentation.

The Business Idea Category room was so small, what we can do is just stand there with my heavy bag on my back. After a small break, we are there to prepare for our idea presentation. As what we expected, we will hit by a lot of tough questions about our idea weakness from judges and the presentation was not really smooth as well. After that, we have a small talk with one if the judge and knowing our result are not too good. Kind of depress that time.

One of our friend in Microsoft call up for a tea drink as he is passing by that area and knowing that we are there. After have some small chit chat we went back for dinner and go back to sleep. Really need to thanks to Ian that helps us reduce the pressure and forget about those bad things we have gone though in the competition. We are just too tired that night, and we fall asleep very quickly.

I really want to thanks to my teammates, jasy, matthew and wan koe as they done a lot of hard work prepare the slides, document and research while I can’t really provide much help at there. I think without them, I wouldn't have come so far to KL and even won 2 prizes. I also want to thanks Roslan, Dr. Vincent, Pn. Rosnah, PPKT stuffs for their advisor and support. We learn a lot in this competition, not just about business thing but I also learn about my future with just programming is not enough.

Chain mail – Are you really helping others?

Once in a while I will receive some chain mail from friends regarding about saving someone by forwarding this e-mail to others. To be honest to tell everybody, I will delete the mail as soon as I found out. Cold-blooded right? But, did you all really spend some time thinking what can you help by forwarding the e-mail? Are you really helping them or you are just falling into a trap of spammer?

Seriously, did you believing by forward more e-mail to others and the one mention in the e-mail will receive more donation? Are you thinking by just forwarding more e-mail to others, will save the child from rape by others in Africa? I will tell you, you did not help anyone of them yet you are pulling all your friends in your contact list into the trap of scammer/spammer. This kind of e-mail is how they gather your e-mail address and sell to scammer/ spammer, or they are the scammer/spammer.

I just received 2 e-mails about South Africa's Child Protection Unit is to be closed and urges recipients to "sign" a message protesting the closure before sending it to others. After a simple search on Google, I found that the e-mail is just another scam e-mail.

Link:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/child-protection-unit-petition.html
http://www.joewein.net/hoax/hoax-saps-child-protection-unit.htm
http://www.saps.gov.za/org_profiles/core_function_components/fcs/hoax.htm

Now ask yourself, are you really helping others or you just a helper of scammer/spammer? Think twice before you forward an e-mail to your friend next time. A kind heart which trying to help others is good, but don’t let other misuse it.

Attacked by spam

Recently, I receive a lot of spam mail, especially streamyx mail which don’t have any build-in Spam filtering system receive almost at least 1 spam mail every hour. This problem really annoyed me when the notification will notify me every time receive the spam mail. I don’t need any medication to prove that I’m a male and I don’t want to earn and fast money by bank transfer. Spammer! Just left me alone!

Recently my mobile phones also receive a lot of spam SMS since I joining a lucky draw contest organize by public bank. Yes, is from Public bank, the contest form is given by their customer service worker to me. The SMS is not from Digi, but from some unknown numbers. Now I cannot stop relating the Public bank with the spammer…

Ahh… I hate spammer!!! I HATE THEM ALL!!!

P.S.: To all my friend, don’t send me meaningless empty mail (no content inside) and please put a title for your e-mail and please write something in the content although you are just send me file using e-mail, because my mail filtering system is very sensitive and myself also very sensitive, I might delete your e-mail before read it.

Vitrox: CS student lost to EE student?

Yesterday, Vitrox Company has sent 2 peoples come to our school to give a career talk. Well, I was there as some rumor said that the company’s pay was not bad after all and I do not know much about that company. I think it is not a bad idea to spend some time and go listen although I plan to continue my study after all.

I was happy to hear that the benefit and salary provide by Vitrox is almost the same like those other multi nation company, but there are something I piss off when they mention Computer Science (CS) student usually will have lower pay then those from Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EE). Why Computer Science student must mark a lower rank compare with those EE student? Well, that kind of thing always happens in industrial world, but I just not happy to hear from someone outsider saying this.

After that, the girl (from Vitrox) said, “I’m surprise to found that EE student all done well in the programming test we given compare with CS student.” The first thing came into my mind, “What the xxxx? You must be kidding.” I bet they did perform any search or research on CS before they come. I was so upset with that sentence. I pack my thing and walk out that time as I have no longer have any interest to listen anymore.

After that, I go have a lunch with my friend who just got an interview from Vitrox. She told me that the test mostly covers C programming and many other non Computer Science related thing. Now I know why CS student done badly compare with EE student. EE student only learn C programming while our Computer Science student learn so many type of languages (C, C++, HTML, PHP, Java, C#, VB .NET, ASP, Perl, and etc). They are just comparing an apple with an orange. Did they done a search on USM CS school achievement before they come to hire the student? I bet not, while they just come and blindly search for people.

If Vitrox think that EE students are just better than CS students then go ahead hire all EE students to build a software department, why come to our CS students. They are just like the other who thinks CS student must know how to fix a hardware problem PC. Thanks to the talk, now Vitrox are no longer listed in my top listed company to apply, although I admitted that I may still apply this company if I really jobless in the future, but this company has just give me a bad first impression.