Going onto 2010!
Posted by Steven Chia in Personal on December 30, 2009
2009 flew by in a heartbeat. It was one of the best years of my life. Here’s why:
- After five years at Simon Fraser University I completed my Bachelors in Business Administration and a certification in Computing Science. During this time I also completed three terms of Coop Education.
- Earned 2008 Dean Student Service Award for demonstrated exceptional leadership in the SFU Business community.
- Successfully executed CaseIT 2009, a four-day international undergraduate MIS case competition. It took an entire year of planning including 12 executive members that planned the event with me for at least nine months, 13 volunteers who lend a helping hand during the event, and the largest budget for any case competition at SFU.
- Landed my first post-grad position at HSBC.
- Owned my first real estate… well, co-owned.
- Went to Las Vegas for three days with my buddies.
- Went south of the border (USA’s border that is) to Cancun, Mexico for a week. This was during the swine flu epidemic! Here it was my first time snorkeling, sea-dooing and swimming in the ocean.
- Ran the Sun Run for the 2nd straight year. Achieved a time of just under an hour: 59 mins 31 secs.
- Learned to swim at least one lap at a time!
- Attended Toastmasters.
- Helped with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler! I assisted in business continuity planning.
- Found true love.
2010 will be another great year with another set of goals.
- Learn as much as I possibly can at work. Touch on all aspects of the software development lifecycle including all tasks related to planning, analysis, design, development and testing. Be promoted to full time status before contract ends.
- Volunteer at least five times in the year, either at work or elsewhere.
- Here’s a big one: Save 60-70% of my net earnings each month. This does not include using my savings on investments.
- Obtain a certification of some sort. Perhaps a CAPM certificate?
- Read at least one book per month. This means reading at least 5 hours per week!
- Work out at least two times a week.
- Continue to swim at least once every two weeks.
- Try a new restaurant at least once every month.
- Learn how to cook one new dish each month, starting with Kimchi udon?
- Run the Sun Run in under 55 mins.
- Learn something new everyday! This includes the most random things.
- Attend Toastmasters at least once a month, probably starting in May/June.
- Visit my sisters in Toronto and travel somewhere outside of Canada–hopefully Hawaii!
- Enjoy each day to the fullest.
I’m sure there are more goals that I forgot to put down. I’ll keep adding to this until the first of January!
I hope your 2009 was as eventful and fulfilling as mine! If not there’s always 2010! Happy New Years everybody!
And this is what I’ve been doing
Posted by Steven Chia in Personal on December 5, 2009
I’m still here (if you were wondering where I was this whole time)! I just have been crazy busy doing nothing and getting ready for work on Monday! Yep! WORK! Finally… after five years of schooling and five months of job-hunting I’ve been able to land a job. Therefore, over the past few weeks I’ve been reading up on design patterns such as abstract factory pattern, frameworks such as Spring and Hibernate, and going through Java concepts. I’m super excited to learn and master all these skills that I will be using on the job.
I have also been busy with closing my jointly-owned condo in New Westminster. It’s called Plaza 88 at Marinus and it’s a two-bedroom and two-bathroom 817 sq ft apartment. I’ve learned so much on how to choose a mortgage, the buying and closing processes of getting a property, and all other relevant things that I needed to do. Just a warning to all of you who are planning or will be purchasing/renting a property later on–be careful with your attorney fees! That’s all I’m going to say… you can speak with me if you want more details.
I have also tried to stay healthy and fit over these past couple of months. A month ago I purchased the Nike+ sensor that tracks my run time, distance, and how much calories I lose (I don’t really look at this because I’m trying to gain weight!!!). I love this piece of technology! It also allows you to set goals so that you are always motivated. Other than running I haven’t been doing much weight training, which I’m hoping to start doing soon…
Well that’s it for now! I’m currently at Delani’s, a coffee shop in North Vancouver, and am going to go eat Indian food with my love. Happy six months babe!
New Condo for Rent – 2 Bedrooms & 2 Bathrooms – New Westminster
Posted by Steven Chia in Personal on November 23, 2009
The Marinus condo above New Westminster skytrain station (and shopping mall) is near its completion date — December 4th to be exact! I’m looking to rent this 817 sq ft, 2 bedrooms and 2 washrooms condo for $1450 per month. It also includes a 117 sq ft balcony. For more information on this rental property visit my ad on craigslist.org.
New Technology 2009
Posted by Steven Chia in Random on November 3, 2009
This video is way too cool. What is particularly interesting is what we learn in our first year of university will be outdated by the time we hit our third year.
Three things you can do to help your PC run faster
Posted by Steven Chia in Techie-Stuff on November 2, 2009
Don’t you wish your old beat-up computer was just as new? Running like new several months down the road, without having to reformat it? Well you can help your computer perform its best by following these very simple steps. Before I list out the steps, here’s why I decided to write this article. Since February 2008 I’ve been an Apple guy, following most of Apple’s products. Lately, however, I’ve been using a PC and remember how easy it was to use it. Currently I’m running on an older Dual Core PC on Windows 7. After using it for a while PCs, like any other computers, will tend to get slower, causing frustrations–and who likes being frustrated? Several reasons why your computer performs worse and worse is because of installations, files occupying disc space and all the other unnecessary junk! We will assume that you do not have any virus or spyware on your computer. To eliminate this you need to install anti-virus and anti-spyware software!
So if you’re using Windows here are three things you can do to help your PC run faster.
- MSCONFIG – Remove unnecessary start-up programs. You will undoubtedly install programs on your PC over time. Those installed programs will sometimes allow themselves to start up automatically whenever you turn on or restart your computer. After a while of installing programs you will get many start-up programs causing your computer to run very slowly. A quick fix is to actually stop those programs from starting up automatically. Click “Start” button > “Run” > Type in “msconfig”. A system configuration pop-up will appear. Click on the “Startup” tab. Here you will see all the programs that currently have a start-up status. Deselect the nonessential programs. Make sure you absolutely know which programs to deselect. Deselecting an essential program can disrupt your computer. As you can see I’ve deselected Acrobat, iTunes, MobileMe, etc. because I know I don’t need to run these programs all the time.
- CCleaner – ccleaner.com – A “Crap Cleaner” software you can download for free at filehippo.com that allows you to… clean all the crap from your computer. The more you use your computer the more unnecessary files will be kept and therefore will slow your PC down. For example, just by surfing the Internet you could have many many megabytes (MB) of temporary files. In addition with this application you can also clean up your registry. It will help you clean up all the unlinked/unused registries. Be sure to backup your registry before you go ahead doing this! CCleaner allows you to backup your registry very easily.
- Defraggler – piriform.com/defraggler – Another fabulous freeware by Piriform that allows you to “defrag” your computer. Defragmentation is the process that reduces the amount of fragmented files in systems. As you install and uninstall programs, or add and delete files you will get chunks of files scattered throughout your hard drive. These fragmented files make it less efficient for your computer system to locate the files it is looking for. Defraggler is very similar to the built-in defragmentation application found on Windows OS.
With these simple steps and tools you will have a better experience with your PC.
Google Android vs. Apple iPhone OS – neat competitive commercials
Posted by Steven Chia in Techie-Stuff on October 30, 2009
Google has been responding to Apple’s tremendous successes in the telecommunication industry with one of their witty marketing stunts: a commercial that directly competes with Apple’s iPhone, much like what Microsoft and Apple has been doing for a while now. Android’s commercial can be found below. It’s pretty cool and I definitely am currently deciding on whether I want to stick with the iPhone or get a new smartphone with Android on it. Perhaps the new Motorola CLIQ or an HTC. Unfortunately the Motorola CLIQ is not available in Canada until 2010.
iDon’t
“All the things your phone doesn’t do, Droid Does.”
Fans of the iPhone responded to Google’s commercial:
iDon’t Care
Pretty cool!
Markets Down, Luongo Down, Steven Down
Posted by Steven Chia in Investing, Sports on October 28, 2009
YIKES! That’s all I can say at the moment. TSX has seen red for three days straight — with a 5% loss over those days. Now I wish I didn’t splurge on AIG and CENX stocks last week. By the way, CENX released their third quarter earnings just yesterday and they did pretty well, yet managed to falter with the market. YIKES! YIKES! YIKES!
And what?! Luongo injured? He was playing a couple games injured?! Should he even be that dedicated this early in the season? Come on Bobby Lu. Let’s heal a bit quicker, shall we? By the way last night’s game was a gongshow. It felt like I was watching game six of the Canucks and Blackhawks series. Ouch… (even I can’t believe I went there)
Crystal Reports class DONE!
Posted by Steven Chia in Personal on October 20, 2009
Woot! I’m writing this post before my final exam at BCIT. Over the past six weeks I’ve been taking a course on Crystal Reports. Why, you ask? Because I think it will be useful in the future, that’s why! It’s an awesome reporting tool owned by SAP that allows you to create very informative and complex reports for just about anything. Whether it’s for financial reporting, HR reporting, consumer reporting, or business intelligence reporting you can create it with ease using Crystal Reports.
The class I have been taking is a level one course and may be the easiest course I have taken in post-secondary! I did, however, learn a lot from this class and have no regrets taking it. I know that in the future when I am asked to create a business report of any sort the first question I’ll ask is not “What is the purpose of the report?” (which is the first question you should always ask when creating any report so I learned), but “Do we have Crystal Reports to generate such a report?”. Next up: creating a report for my investment records.
Song of the day to cheer me up is Up Up and Away from Kid Cudi.
Microsoft Interview
Posted by Steven Chia in Job Hunting on October 19, 2009
I had my first Microsoft interview on Friday. I’m really hoping it went well and that I’m given a chance to prove myself again during the second round in Redmond. Overall the first interview was about the interviewer getting to know who I was, my past experiences, and how I think in around 30 minutes. Before going into this interview I really had no idea what kind of questions they were going to ask. Microsoft is famous for their puzzle and thought-provoking questions. So, I did my research beforehand. I practiced solving puzzles, reviewed my Java and C++ and went over some design questions. Since I applied for a Program Manager position which was more of a designing software role than a programmer role, I had a design question. My challenge was to create a GPS for a 16 year old novice driver. I think the trick was to ask a lot of questions and talk out loud when trying to solve these types of problems. The interviewer wants to hear and understand your thought process.
I don’t know how it went, but whether or not I get through to the second interview I’m grateful for the experience and the chance to practice my interviewing skills.