If you had to ask me which online giant has the worst support of them all, it has to be PayPal. I'll find time to write a detailed story but here's briefly why:

The won't bother with what ever you wrote to them via e-mail. All you get is an e-mail reply with broken English that looks like some sort of standard template to tell you to fax some documents and upload them via their site, which is by the way, NOT WORKING. Hello? Your HTTP FORM POST is giving me a 500 error. Yes, you are looking it into it. Half a year later, STILL BROKEN?

For the Singapore dudes, I'm sorry man... that number you called is sent straight to China where they can't speak proper English and neither can you understand their Chinese.

My account got withheld again and again and again due to all sorts of weird shit reasons. I've had tens of thousands of transactions flowing through PayPal and 3% is no loose change. It's a totally unacceptable level of service.

Anyhow if any of you intend to stomp up to PayPal Singapore's office, it's at Neil road. Buzz me and I'd love to join in and kock on their door to see if it's theres actually people in the Singapore office!

I'm beginnng to wonder if Singaporeans can really work. I deal with few of the largest telco providers here in Singapore and believe me when it comes to work people are as good as dead. It's a world of difference from my previous experience in startups and US-based companies.

For one project, I attended two meetings lasting 3-4 hours each where ten of us from four different companies and departments try to sort out a service provisioning process flow. While I do not disagree that a proper structure should be in place, half the time was spent simply just pushing responsibilities between groups simply because they have "never done it before", it's "too troublesome", or they are "only supposed to do [a defined list of responsibilities]" .

Too troublesome? Talk about calling department X, Y and Z just trying to get a simple thing resolved!

Then comes the product manager (PM) who insists that the vendor (us) provide 99.9% SLA for a service that does not really warrant the need for such a stringent SLA. The PM having worked with a telco enviroment for years was so familar with traditional fixed-line services that she applied the standard guidelines to a totally different product. I call this the brain-dead template driven work.

I was at a datacenter (D)C migration yesterday morning at 2AM to physically move servers to a new DC. We got the servers shifted and racked at the new DC by 4.30AM, but to our surprise the new DC had no network set up for us. We were sent a brand new IP subnet via e-mail about a month ago and nobody did anything about it - the cables weren't patched, the VLANs weren't set and the routes weren't added. The most amusing part was that the engineer onsite simply said he wasn't informed and that it wasn't planned and seemed ever so reluctant to help. My colleague dug up his e-mail that showed the new IP range assigned with the e-mail sender's name and only then he decided to act upon it with "somebody else to blame". Even then, it took them a whole 2 hours (from 5AM to 7AM) to get the link working.

A few weeks ago, my (personal) datecenter had a major power blackout. When they sent me the final report, I was surprised to find that the report set the blame on building electrical technicians who were simply carrying out their routine electrical maintenance jobs. Nobody related to the poor design of the DC's power supply system or NOC engineers was mentioned in the report. I wrote back saying the report was flawed, and that they (the NOC) failed to properly notify customers of a planned electrical maintenance. It's been three weeks and I have yet to get a reply.

There are many such incidents that I'm sure some of you may be so familiar with or even guilty of. This "responsibility push syndrome" is simply a killer of productivity. Many people are well educated and technically capable but unwilling to bear any form of responsibility. Some are worse - they don't want any responsibility AND are technically uncapable. These people just want to sit at a job with no responsibilities and no challenges where they spend half their life at. While I do not understand why, I have no respect for such people.

What troubles me is that we lack people who would stand up and take action during a situation and do what's required to resolve it without worrying having to "answer" for his/her actions. If a person stands up for what he thinks is right, then he/she shouldn't be worried about having to answer for making a positive decision. If he/she is reprimanded for taking such an action then I think it's only right that he/she seeks a new job.

While some people say you're trying to "act hero", think to yourself the next time you get robbed at gunpoint, you'll be hoping there was indeed a hero.

Wow check out this piece of news from the Straits Times (link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_293432.html)

Quote:

THE ceremony in the Old Parliament House had all the pomp and circumstance associated with any graduation.

The professors and graduands were in full academic regalia. Speeches flowed in English and Mandarin. And afterwards, a gala dinner at a hotel.

At the ceremony, the university's honorary president, a Professor Bernard Cadet, delivered an inspiring speech, urging graduands to transform the world.

'Believe nothing is impossible. West Coast University (WCU) will be proud of you in the future,' he told the 76 graduands from Singapore, Indonesia and China, before handing them their doctorates, master's and bachelor's degrees.

But this was a ceremony for an unaccredited university based in Panama, not Los Angeles, as its school in Singapore had claimed.

The Asia-Australia School of Management (AASM), a Case-certified school in Middle Road, offers West Coast University programmes here with a related company, Huanyu Training Expert.

At least two American states have outlawed degrees from WCU, describing it as a 'degree supplier' that offers 'fraudulent or substandard degrees'.

The Texas State Higher Education Coordinating Board warns on its website that WCU 'is used by multiple unaccredited entities. The extent to which they are related is unknown, but more than one operator is suspected.'

In some parts of the United States, it is a criminal offence to use degrees from unaccredited institutions.

'Dr' John Huang, one of the owners of AASM and Huanyu, insisted that the university is based in Los Angeles and faxed The Straits Times documents showing West Coast University International registered as a business in California.

But he confirmed that it was not the California-based West Coast University reputed for nursing and health science-related degrees. He admitted that WCU was unaccredited, but said his students had been given the facts.

His doctorate is from Ashwood University, the same degree mill that granted this reporter's pet dog a doctorate for US$599 (S$886) just two months ago.

The guest of honour at Monday's ceremony was MP for Joo Chiat Chan Soo Sen, who delivered a speech in Mandarin and English.

Contacted afterwards, he said he had been invited by a grassroots leader and accepted as he wanted to encourage the habit of life-long learning.

Told that WCU was unaccredited, he said he had not been given any information about it. 'If my presence there had given the university credibility, that was not my intention,' he said.

Several graduates interviewed after Monday's ceremony believed the university was based in Los Angeles and that it was a proper institution.

They had paid between $13,000 and $19,000 in fees to take up bachelor's, master's and doctorate courses lasting one year to 15 months.

Those who took up the doctorate programme said they attended classes two days a month, from 9am to 5pm.

Several said they did not know a university can be registered and yet have no academic accreditation, where it is subject to quality checks by an independent body. It also means employers may not recognise the degrees.

An electronics factory quality controller who paid $13,000 in fees for her bachelor's degree said: 'I was hoping to get a better job in logistics with this degree, but now it may not be possible.'

Ms Ho Fee Men, director of a Chinese medical hall, said she had heard rumours that the university was unaccredited, but continued with her PhD programme anyway. To get her doctorate, she paid $19,000 in fees, attended classes twice a month over 15 months and wrote a 50,000-word thesis.

Two businessmen said they knew their doctorates were worthless but took up the programme to learn about business management.

Mr Chang Chia Sheng, 55, managing director of X.L. Handle, which makes industrial fasteners, said he gained from discussions with other businessmen.

Earlier this year The Straits Times exposed another school, Boston Business School, which also offered degrees from West Coast University. It has since stopped running the courses.

At least 218 people here have been found with degrees from dubious universities such as Preston, Wisconsin International and Kennedy-Western.

Business owners make up one of three groups here who have degrees from unaccredited institutions and degree mills. For many of them, an honorary PhD has become a must-have symbol of success.

Another group comprises consultants and private school lecturers who may have a first degree and some expertise in a particular area, but seek a master's degree or doctorate to bolster their credentials.

And lastly, there are those who pay for undergraduate degrees and transcripts - usually non-graduates who want qualifications to gain jobs or promotions. 

'nuff said. Sorry guys, I had to flame you for being silly. $16k! Fuck dude, I started WhyMobile with way less cash than that!

As I think about the recent mayhem, it began to seem apparent that the world has been living on imaginary cash for the longest time. The recent economic downturn is probably long overdue.

The problem began ever since cash was free to value itself against gold. Then, we have stocks and property market that are actually made up by us humans putting an imaginary value to it. It's sort of like a super intelligent and legalized pyramid scheme you know - putting money into a money pool and "cashing out" at the right time.

To put it simply, one moment I could get a valuation of your house and it's worth $1m. The next moment another person comes in and values it at $1.1m. You think you have gained an extra $0.1m, but that's not true until you actually sell your house. And to really sell your house, you'll need somebody to pay you cold hard cash.

That guy valuating your house ain't the person that's going to buy it. He's just looking at general market statistics and putting a price tag on your house. Until somebody out there has $1.1m to spare, your house is probably worth as much as how much a person is willing to pay for it. If you ask somebody from Zimbawe, it goes like: "the bricks and cement".

About cold hard cash. Where do you get it from? Maybe take a loan from the bank... well, where did the bank get their cash from? It's from all the people who put money into it. People who clean your toilets, sell you fishes at the wet market, deliver your goods to your office, milk the cows.

Yes, money originates from something very basic, and that's trade (tada, your supply and demand topic); you have something I want, and I give you something in exchange for it. It used to be exchange of farm produce (barter trade), then it became precious metals (gold, silver), and finally, money. Money used to represent gold, but now, it's just a piece of paper with a floating value! If you look at it objectively, US dollars is probably worth nothing. If you hold a dollar bill, it's likely that piece of paper meant you owe Japan some money... better sell that "IOU" to somebody else who wants it :P

Singaporeans don't really realize that day-to-day, they pay for something that doesn't even physically exist. Don't believe me? Check this out...

• PSLE, GCE O Levels, GCE A Levels, Diploma, Degree, Masters', PhD
  
• Housing Valuation
• Certificate of Entitlement (COE)
  
• Registry of Marrige (ROM) Certificate
  
• Lottery Tickets
• Certificates, certificates, certificates

Some may tell me, oh yes, education is for knowledge. I'd agree that to learn something has to be paid for, but for the sake of a "piece of paper" (as many Singaporeans affectionately call it) is basically a form of bribery. Certifications are glorified testimonials, albeit highly inaccurate. It's like you getting a letter from Bush saying that you are good in Computer Engineering. How many times have you seen your company hire a new degree graduate and you think to yourself, "this guy is dunk"?

Back in the old days, testimonials were made out of goodwill: "John makes great pizza!". Without a dollar value pegged to testimonials, they were honest and accurate.

People are telling me, times are bad; go study. I was like: "Uh? Siao boh? Buy another certificate?" In fact, 9 in 10 government sector tell me to go study and join the government. You'll be safe. Nice try. Methinks please go get some cash and gold... in times of war, your degree is as good as toilet paper.

I'm sure a lot of you would have been offended by my post. Well, times are bad... what to do? It makes me think harder :P

A notable time in history worth blogging about. This is the first time NZD, AUD, GBP and EUR went so low against SGD:

• 1 NZD = 0.8904 SGD
• 1 AUD = 0.9878 SGD
• 1 GBP = 2.5265 SGD
• 1 EUR = 2.0057 SGD

On the contrary, USD, JPY and CNY (RMB) is on a crazy rise...

• 1 USD = 1.4786 SGD
• 100 JPY = 1.4751 SGD
• 1 RMB = 0.2163 SGD (1/x = 4.6233)

And for the record, a lot of money changers decided not to do business last Friday. Let's see what happens today.

I mean, who can get as stupid as this goes:

http://sheylara.com/2008/04/09/xiaxue-gets-flamed-on-high-profile-usa-blog/

http://gizmodo.com/377601/crazy-popular-asian-blogstar-prefers-fake-chinese-iphone-to-the-real-thing

I've seen XiaXue's blog but I really never bother because her entries are of no interest to me (mostly bimbotic complaints and crap). I never knew she had a stupid talk show but wow this video was... OH MY GOD. *Palms forehead* I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I can't believe she actually thought the chinese iPhone was a real iPhone. That goes to show it's empty up there, or she's been living on the moon. I hope chang'er will slap her to Mars. XX, if you see this, please get the fuck out of Singapore.

I'm not an Apple fan but I simply love the iPhone. It's a brilliant piece of engineering. Even if a proper, not-so-bimbotic, 5-minute style review of the iPhone does not justify the amount of work Apple has put into this product. There's so many nitty gritty details that Apple has put into the iPhone that a 5 minute review won't tell, like the automatic keypad lock when you put the phone up against your face, the automatic light detection that varies the screen brightness, the amazing ability to text with your THUMBS (I'm not kidding) on a tiny touch screen, a on-screen keyboard that finally responds to your tapping (as opposed to the crappy Windows Mobile keyboard that sits there even when you tap it), the text input error correction, the ability to detect an intent to scroll than to tap, the astounding quality of the 2MP camera, the crazy lots of apps available out there whether you need it or not, the super intuitive "slide to unlock" and "slient mode" switch, the browser based on Safari that actually WORKS... the list could go on.

Sure the lack of MMS and SMS forwarding turns a few off, but seriously probably 5% of the world uses MMS.

Have you even tried the Samsung Omnia? Slide the screen and it triggers a tap? It's crap! In iPhone's justice, you really need a STYLUS to operate that thing. A phone is a phone, I shouldn't need to bring a toothpick around.

2MP camera? Grab a Nokia 2MP camera. No way you will get anything close to picture quality. The iPhone's white balance and compression quality surpasses any Nokia or Dopod or HTC out there... maybe Sony Ericsson has some exceptions.

They are the cause of this. AIG took a second loan after spending $440k for their top performing agents to go on a chill out at a resort. What the heck are the Americans thinking? They should be eating raw coffee seeds by now and not sipping wine. The war is still going on (a losing battle? was that the latest?).

Japan insurer up lorry. Oil at $82/barrel. People here are still wishing they get $40k COV on property? WTF are Singaporeans thinking? Hello?! Stop reading the local junk papers like New Paper and Lianhe Wanbao can? Who you think is going to sponsor soccer teams if the world economy up lorry? Read some real news from Yahoo!, Reuters and Bloomberg...

Edit: I striked out the statements below due to my misunderstanding of the International Dollar used to compute PPP. (Thanks JJ!) Essentially PPP is using a normalized dollar value taking into account each country's living standard; e.g. a sushi may cost SGD$2 in Singapore but US$4 in the USA, so this is normalized and if we take sushi as comparison then the "exchange rate" of USD to SGD is 2:1. However, if you take an iPod for comparison and an iPod costs SGD$150 here and US$100 in the US then the exchange rate changed to 1.5:1. But there is a list of what they use called the "basket of goods", which are essentially basic necessities. Sorry for the crappy explanation. Please read Wikipedia for more accurate explanation.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

Our GDP per Capita (PPP) ranks 5th and we are above the United States which is now ranked 6th. This means each individual (on average) here has higher purchasing power than a typical angmor, which also means even after currency conversion we are in control of their asses.

This also means at USD 49,714 or the equivalent of SGD 70,653, most of us are grossly underpaid. Calculated including AWS and less employer's CPF, that's an average SGD 4,810 per month paycheque.

This also means that it's time we started shifting our operations to USA instead of vice-versa, because it will be relatively cheaper to hire somebody there?

Am I right to say this? JJ! Your comments again, please!

I'm no economics expert, but just sharing what I think seems to be the start of another downward economic spiral.

People around me are cutting back on expenses, yet prices are soaring. With the recent AIG fiasco, it's just gotten worse. For a history (as a school subject) hater like me, I found myself reading about the Great Depression on Wikipedia and started to link some theories to the current-day economy, albeit superficial.

There are a lot of details and knowledge surrounding economics, but to me the simple basis of supply and demand is enough for a high level understanding of things happening around us.

From a personal perspective, I take property prices and car prices as a benchmark. I know this is not very accurate, but to me that's the easiest thing I can find and relate to because property and car are the two most expensive things people buy in Singapore.

It's amusing that people are still thinking of reaping 30-40K of cash from a 4 room flat sale hoping the cash can tide them over the stormy economy, but hey, nobody's going to buy your flat!

Same thing goes for car prices. When we see the COE prices take a sharp dip, it is a tell-tale sign that consumer spending taken a dip.

If everyone in Singapore cashes out their AIA policies, I am confident that AIA will run into a crisis as well.

With all the soaring prices and reduced spending, things will start to go into a vicious cycle, crashing the economy.

At least that's what I see now, with my very superficial understanding of the economy...

And US is surely in deep shit, whether AIG goes poofh or gets a $85b backing.

Well well, whare are we going to do?

GST credits are as good as useless, although better than none. It can buy you about 30 plates of fried rice including transportation to the hawker center. Time to buy a bicycle!

Again, correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm no economist... JJ?

Have you ever been in a position where you had to evaluate and compare several products side-by-side and made your judgement based solely on technical aspects, such as reliability, performance and technology used? I see you nodding.

Have you ever wondered why poorly engineered products sometimes sold very well and why well engineered products fail to sell at all? Think of Apple iPod vs Creative Zen, MacOS X vs Windows Vista, iPhone vs Samsung Omnia. Granted, the Creative Zen, Windows Vista and Samsung Omnia are feature-packed, but why aren't they as popular as the other?

Having been working in the technology sector for a while now, I realize that when we make a product design decision, or when we are to write up a comparison (more on writing stuff later) against several products, we tend to derive a product's value from how things are built and not how it will satisfy a need of the customer. Chinese have a perception that if they squeeze as many features into one product, it will be the best because it fulfulls everybody's needs, but that is an unfortunate misconception. If that was the case then phones, cameras, music players and portable game consoles wouldn't exist individually today.

Living in Singapore further accentuates this technology obsession with the modern lifestyle we live in where broadband is available islandwide and technology is seen everywhere.

In my previous job, part of my role was to explore the latest and greatest technology and kick developers in their butts so they will start using them. When Facebook picked up heat in Singapore, we rode the hype and built a Facebook app, but it failed to sell and the uptake was poor. They never figured out why. I even gave a short presentation at the first Singapore Facebook Developer Conference on Facebook API and .NET inter-operability, where a large turnout from the local university (NUS) gathered to learn more about Facebook, but sad to say we have yet to see any sensible developments ever since that event.

A lot of companies I've seen places majority of her manpower in two areas - technology (possibly R&D or service engineers) and sales. While I do agree that the sales brings the money home and engineers do the ground work, the lack of a person who derives a product from customer's perspective is the cause for feature-packed products that fail because the sales guys have nothing they can really sell.

A few days ago, I was at a meeting where we had to finalize the user interface (UI) of a webmail service for a prominent broadband service provider here. The product manager rambled on during the meeting and dictated the layout of the UI and based it off what she saw on Yahoo! Mail and Gmail. "Oh the buttons need to be on the left, and please change these words to xxx." I held back my urge to ask if she had made these decisioins based on her understanding of consumers or it was purely her own idea, but as a new guy in the company on my first meeting, I kept mum.

Francis, a good friend of mine and also an excellent brand and marketing consultant, hates it when people mutter "UI" without understanding what it really means. In his perspective, a "UI" is something that has gone through testing with users and systematic case studies of its usability and friendliness. It's not a designer's work of intuition and creativity, which he coins as a pure "design". When taken into perspective, you will realize why people choose Mozilla - a relatively simpler "UI" - over Internet Explorer 7.

As I left the fateful UI meeting, thoughts went through my mind about how broadband products are packaged and marketed here. The UI aside, I pondered why e-mail services are still being packaged with broadband access.

With prominent e-mail providers like Yahoo! and Google already providing more storage than you can ever utilize, the password slip for the bundled 1GB e-mail service from your provider is just going to be sitting around feeding algae. If you start picking on it's features such as the UI and the reliability [of an entire Gmail grid with hundereds - if not, thousands - of servers compared to just a few servers sitting in a corner of your ISP's datacenter], it's obvious what a consumer's choice would be, be it for personal or business e-mail. (Google Apps, anyone?)

Building e-mail systems for ISPs here don't come cheap either. It's not just two servers running Postfix and another web server with Apache and Horde calling it a day. IDA has strict rules governing all ISP's service availability and these translate into maintenance contracts and SLA agreements with the vendors and system integrators providing the service. Such an arrangement can easily translate into hundereds of thousands of dollars paid out per annum for an underutilized system when these savings could have been passed on to consumers or used to buy more outgoing international bandwidth.

Another problem working with businesses in Singapore (in general) is that communication tends to be very haphazard and slow. It has become a norm for e-mail replies to be short (like an SMS) and take longer than two days for a simple follow-up. Procrastination, laziness, acting busy, really being busy (writing e-mail?), whatever it may be, this will be the doom of our economy as the effect snowballs.

Singaporeans are a bunch of people who have grown up in a place where policies, guidelines and burecratic procedures rule the day. As much as we hate seeing people who keng their day through, we will eventually turn into them as it becomes the accepted norm for working here.

I do it a little differently. Call me naive, stubborn, aggressive, whatever. I will push you, I will bug you, I will get it done, and you will see me at Starbucks with a cuppa coffee reading the papers. I'm not going to sit in the office spending half my time acting busy, replying burecratic e-mails, writing dumb reports, or filling up timesheets.

As much as I believe in working shorter days, I also believe that people are paid based on their work output, not for the hours they are doing. Doing hours are for people in the prison. Professionals and executives are all paid based on their qualifications, and with qualifications come knowledge and quality. Quality is an expensive price to pay and is hard to quantify, but it's where the real dollar goes (think a BMW and a Cherry QQ).

If you deliver better quality than expected, I will be happy to pay more, but if you can't deliver the quality, you don't deserve to be paid, because that's exactly what it is - you won't buy something that sucks, will you?

So with this blog entry, I leave two questions to be answered.

Does your product meet your consumer's needs?

Are you sinking into this pathetic society?

It's time to open up and think again.

Yes, a new version is ready with some important changes:

Version 1.0.0.2 (never released)
- Added ability to add multiple tunnels

Version 1.0.0.3
- Added ability to use private key file
- Added string escape code for User, Password, PrivateKeyFile, CommandFile
- Fixed bad process exit handling
- More intuitive minimize to tray. Close button now prompts for exiting of
  program and minimize button hides window
- Main window no longer hides itself in tray when process is started
  (annoying behaviour?)

Download PTray 1.0.0.3 (Requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Plink)

Instructions

1. Install the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
2. Place plink.exe in somewhere, I recommend C:\WINDOWS so the chances of it going missing is low
3. I apologize for not having an installer because I'm using Visual C# Express to build this
4. Unzip the PTray files and copy the files to somewhere, e.g. create a folder and place in C:\Program Files\PTray
5. Create a shortcut for PTray.exe on your Desktop
6. If I ever release a new version, simply delete the old and copy the new files over again

I've just started at my new job and things are going a little slow, including the office's Internet link. I suspect that the router's probably fubar'ed - SingTel SpeedTouch taking on an office of about 10 IT guys is just about overwhelming for it's connection state table. Since I don't have access to the router, I had to make do with my own temporary solution for all mankind - reduce the number of connections for the router to handle.

I used PuTTY to create a SSH tunnel back to my personal bastion host at the datacenter and then tunnel all my web request through that one single connection. I also enabled SSH compression so that should help with the laggy office broadband a bit. But one thing was annoying me still... the PuTTY window is taking up space on my taskbar.

So I wrote an app called PTray. What PTray does is that it uses the nice little command line tool Plink and calls it in the background. It also hides in the system tray so it reduces taskbar clutter. A simple UI allows you to manage the connection profile and it saves it to the registry automatically in HKEY_CURRENT_USER, so its Vista compatible too!

PTray's Main Control Window

PTray Configuration

So far this is excellent! Just what I wanted - reduce clutter on my desktop. It also gets rid of you having tonnes of screens to alt-tab around.

PTray running as a Tray Icon

I found a tool on the Internet called PuTTY Tray. It's super feature packed and looks awesome but I didn't quite like it because it was not an add-on; it is actually a fork of the original PuTTY code. So if there's any bugs in the original PuTTY, I'm sure it will take some time before PuTTY Tray gets updated. PuTTY is a prominent tool used by security professionals for encryption, so this will be quite a concern.

Do give some feedback on my little application. It's a little rough, I know. Especially the console - it's just a pure console with no terminal emulation, i.e. you will see all the gibberish that is being sent by the terminal for cursor movement and colors.

PTray's Native Console (No Terminal Emulation)

Finally, here's a tip for those who use VMware Server. The console's very, very slow over a non LAN connection. In fact, anything less than 1mbps is almost unusable. Use PuTTY and enable SSH compression, then tunnel your VMware Console through SSH. Turn off your VMware Console's encryption so SSH can actually compress your data. Once you've done that, you will see significant improvement in your VMware Console session.

Download PTray 1.0.0.1 (Requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Plink)

Instructions

1. Install the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
2. Place plink.exe in somewhere, I recommend C:\WINDOWS so the chances of it going missing is low
3. I apologize for not having an installer because I'm using Visual C# Express to build this
4. Unzip the PTray files and copy the files to somewhere, e.g. create a folder and place in C:\Program Files\PTray
5. Create a shortcut for PTray.exe on your Desktop
6. If I ever release a new version, simply delete the old and copy the new files over again

I wrote this e-mail out to a business entity I am involved in (won't mention which) but is worth sharing:

Poor communication not only makes work inefficient and people unhappy, it also REFLECTS BADLY on us.

In the service industry communication is even more important because it is what we SAY and what we DO that get paid for. If you buy a PC and it's spoilt, just exchange for a new PC; but a service involves PEOPLE, and PEOPLE need TIME and have EMOTIONS.

It is not the principle of PAYING someone and therefore you can LEVERAGE as a customer. In the service industry people do this thing known as "loss recovery" whereby we charge higher for the next service when we realize a particular customer takes a lot of effort to work with.

This is the REASON why you see that after changing so many (contractors) the prices they quote keep going up and up. Did you find that it also becomes more and more difficult dealing with them? Ask yourself what will YOU do if somebody sends you e-mail every time it says URGENT?

I see this with my own eyes waiting in the kitchen (backstage) for a musical performance at a wedding dinner in a hotel. One table guest was very rude to the waitress and she just went to the kitchen and told the chef that the next dish she is bringing out needs to "add extra"... so customer is not always right!

Having changing business requirements "to adapt to the changing world" is not acceptable and I deem that as an EXCUSE to properly plan and think ahead. Decisions should be FIRM in the planning process and all risks identified out before carrying out execution. Having your plans change whilst executing them is AS GOOD AS NOT PLANNING (Why waste the time? If today like this, tomorrow like that, no need to call me up for a meeting/planning.)

As the products get more complex and the revision cycles get longer, having these ad-hoc changes will only kill the company.

Always write a summary of a meeting (aka minutes) in black and white for reference. This is not to "cover backside" as many government sector idiots think it is for. This is to make sure everybody stays on the same page so there is less back and forth, less effort and more results.

Surprisingly, Kelvin sent me a message...

Kelvin says (11:48 PM):
chwee ah
Me says (11:48 PM):
???
Kelvin says (11:48 PM):
chwee (smashed)
Kelvin says (11:50 PM):
need to work hard to find new kang tao

So I decided to come up with:

The Singapore "Chui"

Everything here is chui;
food prices expensive until your wallet chui,
ballot for flat but your queue number chui,
take train squeeze until chui,
take bus lagi more chui,
drive car erp and parking pay until chui,
weather so hot aircon use until chui,
sleep at home pay water bills also chui,
go overseas economy also chui,
end of the day, we chui.

Hi! Welcome to my website. It is closed for the day.

This site is available daily from 6 a.m. to midnight (including Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays).

Sounds funny? I'm not making this up. I just visited ONE.MOTORING and the site showed me this prompt. I can't remember exactly which other government site showed such a message but I can be very sure I've seen this message more than once on several different government sites.

What's the point of building a site that has official opening hours? Maybe there's a clerk at the other end typing my Road Tax out while I click Submit, huh?

Must be the biggest joke of the tech era. 

I just returned from a very interesting talk at Sunshine Empire. I was 'invited' unknowingly to sell my mobile phones on an online Internet portal, which later turned out to be Emwealth, part of Sunshine. Honestly, how many MLM people have you met are actually HONEST about their intent? This is the number one biggest flaw with MLM people. If there's no honesty, there's no trust. No trust means also... no business.

I've been to numerous MLM talks. Amway, Nuskin, Bel'air. After so many talks it becomes apparent that a pyramid scheme would quickly distinguish itself from a legit MLM scheme. For one, a particular group in Bel'air was trying to sell me a $17k pyramid scheme.

Sunshine's been under the gun recently with all the press releases. What people don't really know much yet is the scheme in gross detail. I must say the person who came up with this scheme is extremely brillant, but yet the people who jumped onto the ship lacked sense of basic economics.

The Scheme

Here's the deal. You pay a SGD $1,240 registration fee to join the scheme. Not a whack lot of money, but enough to set any typical person back for a month or two. Together with this, you'll get some small perks like Emcall - an almost worthless calling plan (a.k.a. 'callback' service), Emwealth - an online store like eBay but only operates on a point redemption system, and some variety of redemption points to start with. More about the points later.

Top up SGD $12,000 and you will become a GP... gold partner or something. All MLMs have odd names for their people. A GP gets more points to start with, and also additional perks known as CRP and CLP. CRP works in a way that it returns you cash-rebatable points using some calculation to the likes of 1% of the company's monthly turnover, and CLP is some investment scheme crap which I won't even bother with right now because really, think about it - will you trust your money with a pyramid scheme for an investment? Not me.

Using CRP, the recruiters will show you a track record of the past months of returns, usually about SGD $1k or more per month. Although it's a 'bonus', they tell you it never failed them. Yes, for sure, because everybody ELSE is investing $12k in the scheme.

Using some 'historical' records from CRP, they will tell you that your return on investment (ROI) would be in about 10 months. Makes sense? For now, let's just bear this in mind. I will get to this later.

So, in quick summary the entire scheme sells you points and also a non-guranteed monthly cash bonus scheme. Why is this a pyramid? A scheme that does not sell you goods and requires you to invest a hefty sum of money for something that doesn't have value - in this case 'virtual' points - is a pyramid scheme.

Let's talk about the points - there's two type of points. One which you can use to redeem products from Emwealth.com (yes, real products you could bring home) but NOT exchange for cash, and another called 'e-points' which you can exchange for cold hard cash.

Right now 1 e-point has an equivalent value of SGD $1.60. On Emwealth's website, e-points are listed as USD. USD went as low as 1.4405 this month, so here's another questionable point on the dollar value of an e-point.

So how are these points used to trade? 

As a member, you can either be a consumer (i.e. redeem points) or a merchant (i.e. sell products in exchange for points). Since members get a lot of points when they first sign up for this scheme and like your NTUC/credit card/StarHub points they aren't exchangable for cash, the products listed are usually valued above market average and traded on their 'e-commerce platform'.

Not being able to convert points to cash, people simply use these points to 'redeem' products, like a PSP or an iPod. What they DON'T realize is that they've actually paid for these points, somewhat overrated 10 times its actual value.

So, once a redemption is made, the 'merchant' will be credited with e-points and you can convert e-points to cash and hance make a profit.

Brilliant scheme, eh?

On top of that, of course there's the whole galore of the typical MLM structure with group bonuses, etc. which doesn't really matter at this point.

Right about now, let's take a break from overwhelming information from a seemingly possible pyramid scheme and study some simple facts of life.

What is Sunshine surviving on?

Recruitment. If they sell a scheme that derive its returns from the company's turnover, then the 'sales' must be sustained every cycle to feed the exponentially growing population waiting on their ROI.

Think about it this way - the only thing that contributes to the turnover IS the signup of new members. Without new members, there will be no 'sales' and with no 'sales', there will be no returns and no payouts.

Very simple, how can all those uncle aunty I saw there not understand?

But, people are greedy? Yes.

In fact, people are extremely greedy. The highest level 'executive' I met so far at Sunshine was using all the luxury he had to entice people like me to join. That young chap probably twenty years of age was telling me that he owns a Merc and gets 5-digit payouts each month. "Wow! I want to join too!", you think?

Fair enough, but the world goes round. Think a little deeper. Where did YOU get $12k from to join this scheme? Surely your money has to be earned from somewhere legit, and there's surely people who must still exist at the end of the food chain - the people who sweat for their living, like fishmongers, farmers, gold miners. The world cannot survive on a money laundering scheme alone and have everybody else hope to own a Ferrari. If so, who will work for our natural resources and food?

Okay, so you tell me there's billions of people in this world. Fine. Read on...

As you get a scheme growing into the hundered of thousands at the lowest heirarchy, you'll need to feed this ENTIRE (note the word - ENTIRE) structure with a multiple of that number of new signups to pay out all that money upwards.

Simple economics tells you that this scheme will collaspe one day when the lowest level cannot recruit enough, and this day will come sooner than you expect because not everybody will be able to cough up $12k of cold hard cash. One thing for sure, I can't! Can YOU? So, where did YOU get $12k from?

The faster the scheme grows, the higher the return it promises, the faster the market will saturate and the sooner the scheme will blow up.

Emwealth only started in late August '07 (more on this later) and has grown at such exponential rate in 2.5 months. Who wants to make a bet it will blow up by year end '07? Read on...

When it blows up...

So when the scheme blows up, what happens? "Oh nevermind, I joined early. I'm the 'pioneer' batch and by that time nothing would happen to me," you think?

Think again. You were promised returns in 10 months from the 'bonus' scheme (a.k.a. CRP). BUT wait - check this out - believe me or not, the scheme WILL blow up in less than half a year.

Each GP (premium member) can get a group size of 30. Of course, with every MLM scheme, the success rate of recruitment is about 10% or less - this is a known FACT.

Assuming so, 30 people probably takes you about 2-3 months to recruit if you talk to 1 person a day. (Binary tree scales to the power of 2.) 

So what happens? Let's do a simple calculation...

Aug-Sep Level 1 = 30^1 = 30 GPs
Oct-Nov Level 2 = 30^2 = 900 GPs
Dec-Jan Level 3 = 30^3 = 810,000 GPs
Feb-Mar Level 4 = 30^4 = 656,100,000,000 GPs

At level 4, that's 656 billion people, mind you. Where on earth can you find a computer system or facility to even support 0.01% of 656 billion people? 0.01% is 65.6 million. For god's sake the computer system calculates your monthly payout! The 10 level cap they told you about is basically... BULLSHIT.

So, as the papers report, they are at approx. 50,000 GPs WORLDWIDE and 20,000 GPs in Singapore ALONE.  That's merely halfway through the second level of the pyramid. By the time they hit the end of the third level, they are close to a million GPs.

If you think of it and size that accordingly to the population in Singapore who can afford to cough up $12k, no damn way you would get that many signups in the next ONE month, let alone THREE months.

Nevermind Singapore, add up China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan, level 4 won't happen and will probably only apply to ant colonies.

So much for economics, let's dig a little deeper into Emwealth.com...

If anybody tell you they are based in Singapore, hear this - BULLSHIT again.

Here's paper proof. Emwealth.com resolves to IP address 202.190.203.124. An IP block lookup reveals so nicely...

inetnum: 202.190.0.0 - 202.190.255.255
netname: JARING-MY
descr: JARING Communications Sdn Bhd
descr: Technology Park Malaysia
descr: 57000 Kuala Lumpur
country: MY
admin-c: JIA1-AP
tech-c: JIA1-AP
remarks: service provider
notify: ip-request@jaring.my
notify: abuse@jaring.my
mnt-by: APNIC-HM
mnt-lower: MAINT-JARING-AP
changed: ip-request@jaring.my 19991217
changed: hostmaster@apnic.net 20020304
changed: hm-change@apnic.net 20020625
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20031117
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20031124
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20070709
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20070711

So the server is hosted in Jaring, an ISP in Malaysia.

Wait, that's not done yet. Check out the domain WHOIS record...

Registrant:
    n/a
    Michael Ooi wei keat        (wkwebsite@hotmail.com)
    kl
    kl
    Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur,50450
    MY
    Tel. +6.0164433126

Creation Date: 22-Aug-2007  
Expiration Date: 22-Aug-2008

Bingo. A malaysian postal code and telephone number. Anybody wants to try calling him? *winks*

Here's another solid proof this thing runs from Malaysia... a freaking Job Ad! Check out the Engerish (underlined). Ha. 

Emwealth (Asia Pacific) Sdn. Bhd. is a new company located in the KUB.com in Kuala Lumpur. We focus on delivering state of the e-commerce platform and infrastructure support services 7 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

In the next 2 years, we are targeting to build a workforce of 100 employees and are now inviting applications from dynamic and talented individuals with a strong desire to achieve, whilst being customer focused and possessing excellent communication skills.
Web Developer (Team Lead / Senior/ Junior)
(Kuala Lumpur - Kuala Lumpur)

Responsibilities:

    * Responsible for developing and programming in Microsoft .NET (ASP.NET/ VB.NET) or Java/J2EE applications.
    * Perform application development life cycle (SDLC); requirements gathering, analysis, design, development, documentation, testing & user training.
    * Post-project application support or maintenance.
    * Deliver stable, reliable and scalable applications.

Requirements:

    * Candidate must possess at least a Higher Secondary/STPM/"A" Level/Pre-U, Professional Certificate, Diploma, Advanced/Higher/Graduate Diploma, Bachelor's Degree, Post Graduate Diploma or Professional Degree in Computer Science/Information Technology or equivalent.
    * Required skill(s): JAVA, JSP, .NET.
    * Preferred skill(s): PHP, MSSQL, ORACLE.
    * Required language(s): English, Chinese
    * Applicants must be willing to work in Kuala Lumpur.
    * Applicants should be Malaysian citizens or hold relevant residence status.
    * Fresh graduates/Entry level applicants are encouraged to apply.
    * 10 Full-Time positions available.

Emwealth (Asia Pacific) Sdn Bhd
No.12 14 Floor, KUB.com, Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, 50450 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-21649088 / Fax:03-21624088
career@emwealth.com 

Right on. Same postal code as WHOIS record.

Lastly, with a domain name registerd since Aug 22, 2007 and for only 1 year, it is a tell-tale sign that this entire scheme was set up to not last more than a year, anyway.

So, who's going to buy a Sunshine GP scheme, still?

Further reading:

• Direct Selling Association of Singapore
• The truth on MLM or Network Marketing