My working experience in Spread Sdn Bhd.

I reviewed the company that I worked in 2016-2017 when I just joined as "good", because it is the truth. Some people (not only 1) even emailed me to ask about that company before they decided to join.

But for the one that I just left... definitely not even average compared to all my previous job. A lot of room of improvement but I am not sure they will improve or not because there are no experienced people in there.

If they can change a few things, then it will be good. If not, then good luck to you :)

Random short trip

My employer is so "nice" that they give extra 2 days holiday for CNY which is 15 and 19 February. Then we worked extra on Saturday last week so we get another replacement leave on 20 February.

19 and 20 February is Monday and Tuesday. It's a bit waste if I don't fully utilise them because I come back to KL from my hometown on 18 February (Yeah, they didnt tell us earlier that there will be extra 2 days holiday). So I randomly booked a flight ticket to Cambodia for a short trip. (But some argument happened there with the company)

This round, I will not book any hotel room, so will just find a bag packer hostel to stay when it's night time. I will only carry one bag to travel so it will be convenient to move around. 

Now I am excited. Only need to work one more day until my syok vacation~

2017 achievements and 2018 resolutions

As usual, every end of the year, I will post an update of what I have achieved and what is my next year resolutions.

2017 achievements based on 2017 resolutions.
1. Saving more than 50k. Failed. Where got so easy. Haha.

2. Go to one foreign country for vacation. Yup, done. I went to Phuket, Ho Chi Minh and Taiwan.

3. Made at least 2 local trips. Done too. I went to Taiping, Penang, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching in 2 more days.

4. Learn one more foreign language (Japanese or Korean will do). Learned Korean, but can't really speak or remember any of it.

5. Reduce weight to 80kg. Failed terribly. Haha

6. Make one more website. Done this and the website is progressing well. :-)

7. Learn to cook better and more healthy. I failed this too.

8. Get a freelance project once every 4 months. Done this. Basically I got about 4 or 5 freelances project this year. 

So in total, it is 5/8, not bad for this year.


As of now, I felt a bit tired of taking freelance project while working on my full time job. So I plan to not take any freelancing project anymore unless the payment is really good. I also hope my income in 2018 can reach 5 figures because it is my wish since few years back. Health wise, I really need to get to 80kg as soon as I can. So in conclusion...

1. Accept less than 3 freelancing projects (only good pay). Those carried forward in this year won't be counted.
2. Diet to 80kg.
3. Go to 1 foreign country for vacation
4. Go to 2 local places for vacation
5. Get a girlfriend in 2018 because I wanna get married by 2019. Haha.
6. Learn to read chinese mandarin
7. Learn AI Programming (Python) for fun
8. Perfecting my guitar skill. 

Seriously, there are so many things I wanna do in 2018. I am not even sure if I have enough time for all of them but if not, I might have to sacrifice some like perfecting guitar skill or learning AI Programming (Python).

Hope 2018 will be a good year for me. 

Mooncake festival 2017

This year, is the year that I eat the most mooncake.

This is local mooncake but the Doraemon crafted on mooncake, is quite special. It's lotus with egg yolk mooncake, which taste really really good!

This is mooncake from Vietnam. I made a friend in Ho Chi Minh when I sit in Starbucks on my last day there and she send it over to me.

There are so many ingredient inside this mooncake like beans, nuts, egg yolk and also some meat.

Nothing big about mooncake festival but Darlie, the toothpaste brand, made a video advertisement, and I happened to see it when I was browsing youtube.

It is a bit emotional for me because the video started with a mother asking their kids to go home for dinner. This is something that I will never have chance to experience anymore. 

Feeling envy.

Sometimes I really envy my friends. Specifically those who are born or the whole family is in KL / PJ and they are staying together.

Main reason is because, their life, seems like so systematic, consistent, full of joy and always happy. I try to be happy always but sometimes it's hard. I think main reason I will feel this way is because I lost both my parent at young age. Feels like there is no one else that I can depend on. 

Many people, when they have problem or when they wanna do something, they will decide on their own, but if problem arise from there, they still have their parent, they can seek for advise from them. They are like the last wall behind them. However, for my brothers and I, we have none of those. We basically swallow everything on our own. Whatever problem we faced, we need to handle it on our own. 

Life is getting harder and when we grow older, a single mistake in decision making, will cause a big problem. So usually we will try to play as safe as possible. I am not willing to take big risk, if I do, it will be a risk within safe boundary. I don't dare to quit my job, and go to travel for 2 months without any income. I also don't dare to go freelancing full time. These are all a risk for me. While I envy those who dare to be full time entrepreneur, starting their own business or company, be it selling clothes, opening a restaurant or IT solutions company and so on, I know there are risk to all of that too. That's why I don't dare to do that.

Man.... sometimes, I really miss my mom..... a lot. I don't even remember when is the last time the whole family sit down properly at a round table to eat together. That's why I envy my friends because, most of them, still have chance to spend time with their family.

So if you are reading my blog..... please.... please spend more time together with your family. You never know when it will be the last time you eat together with them.

Hard work paying off.

Some people might not agree because no matter how hardworking they are, they couldnt get what they want. Sometimes passion and talent comes in different package. You might have passion in teaching but your talent is in pottering. What should you do?

I have no answer. This post is about myself, so I dont have answer for you. Hahaha. 

Since young, my talent is in maths. I am good in math to a point where pure maths test, which is considered as hardest test in school, form 6, I manage to get full marks. But good in math doesnt mean I am passionate in maths. I discovered my passion in programming after a bit of struggle after form 6. Since then, I didnt practise maths a lot. I just used it wherever needed in my passion. 

Programming doesnt require a big talent in maths. Logic is more important. Formula can be googled. However, I recently discover, why not I program a website where it can generate maths questions. It will require a further step of maths knowledge because instead of solving it, I need to know how to generate it and provide the answer at the same time. 

It will be fun for sure. Since then, I had started this small project and found a partner to work together with me. My partner who work together with me is really smart too. 

It is really exciting seeing where this thing will go. I really hope we are able to change how Malaysia education system works. Revolutionalize it and make it online. 

Back to Senior Web Developer.

My current job position is Application Developer, sometimes it's misleading. Some recruiter thought I am Mobile Apps Developer but I am not. And there are no senior title in the current position.

Accepting this new job "Senior Web Developer" is definitely something that I want because of few reason.

- It's doing backend programming.
- It's senior position
- Slightly better pay
- Potential startup with brilliant boss and colleagues.

So I had decided to accept this offer. I am quite excited now.

Getting another job offer

I had been continuously being headhunted by job recruiter. I ignored all of them.

But recently, my friend from first company, approached me and told me that his company is hiring Web Developer. They need someone who is proficient in Laravel framework. As for front end, I am not sure what database are they gonna use but anything should be fine.

After the interview to discuss about benefits and remuneration, I was offered an amount that was not to my liking. So I rejected on the phone call. I told them my final stand of the offer that I can take on.

Yesterday, they called and agreed to give me the amount that I requested. Now is the time to do some thinking and decide whether I should take the job or not.

Getting to know more about myself.

After today's incident, I find out more about myself. Definitely not a good habit that I found out of myself.

I realize I slowly become more and more perfectionist. I want everything to be planned properly and go through according to my planning. 

So today, I messed up a bit the plan that I made on Friday..... I feel so bad.... so bad that I feel like throw up..... so bad that I don't feel like doing anything else today.... aih....

I feel a bit emotional now....

Generating one image from multiple image using Imagick.

When I completed this feature in Laravel PHP frameworks last night, I got so hyped up, feeling so achieved. Then I thought, maybe I should share my excitement with someone. But then I realize, not many people understand this kind of excitedment, in the end, it is just a syok sendiri things.

So this Imagick can put many images into one image dynamically. You can set the image size (width x height), then decide which image to be the first in the code, the margin from the left and top. Once you tried one or two, you will feel it is very easy. If you need save, let say 5 images in first row and 2 images in second row, some condition checking need to be done for the minimum width of the whole image being generated. 

So first step
- check which row has more images
- use that max images count times the width of each image
- then the total had to be add with the gap size of each image. 
- After that, calculate number of rows (in this case it's 2)
- Then use the number of rows times the height of each image and add the gap of each image again.
- After setting the height and width of the main container, create new imagick object with the image that wanted to be input into the main container
- Attach it into the main container with the margin.
- Continue attach more images and in the end, just export it as a file name.

I will share some code and example in my next post. :-) 

A little update about myself.

Pass few months, had been the most hectic month in my life. Receiving a lot of freelance request and only pick up few projects that I think worth my time. Now I am still engaged with the freelance project but manage to free up a bit of time to update my blog.

While writing this post, I stumbled upon a song sing by Sandy Lam in The Singer 2017 called 我最亲爱的. 

Many people feel this song is for lovers but when I heard this song, I think of my mom. Really wonder how is she doing in heaven and what will happen if she is still alive.


More people around me is getting married soon. Among my colleagues, I am the only one left that is not married. Even so, I don't feel the rush of it. Life should be taken seriously and I don't want to repeat the same thing happened last year. Haha.

Going for vacation is my next big thing. Then after that should be getting my house ready and enjoy my life more. 
 

Start of 2017

This year will be the most challenging year for me in my whole 29 years of living. Main reason is because I have to start worry about my housing loan. Even though I haven't need to start paying in full, but I can already feel the pain of paying it. Hahaha.

Anyway, this is a short update, because I am too busy on a new website lately. There is a possibility of totally neglecting this blog too. 

When the people that you love and love you left you.

Back in secondary school, I am quite close with this one girl in my class. Coincidentally, we stayed in the same taman, so sometimes I will cycle pass her house to see if she is around. Sometimes she is outside, so I can have some chat with her. She is a girl that I really care about. 

I remember there is once, we need to write an English essay with computer and print it out. Basically we just need to type something and print. When I reach her house by cycling, she told me she had no idea what essay to write. However, next day is the due date already. So I cycle back home, finish typing something from an essay book that I got from my elder brother, basically I just copy everything word by word from the book to computer, save it to diskette and then pass it to her. She is shocked that it was done in such a short time.

When we finish form 5, we didnt contact each other anymore. It is because the last time I met her, I knew she already had a boyfriend. Few months after SPM, I got a news that she passed away. I am quite shocked but the tears didn't come immediately. It only came when I am thinking about it at night time.

If she didn't pass away, we might be going to form 6 together, we might be even together....

Thinking back, when I stayed in hospital with my mom, I texted her using sms that I am in hospital. She called me immediately to ask what happened.... I felt a bit touched at that time. 


I became kinda moody after she passed away, but life goes on.


There is this one person in church, an advisor, that really take good care of my brothers and me. He sees us like his own son, taking good care of us, teach us how to play harmonica and so on. We are also very close with his eldest son.

One day, he got caught in an accident and hospitalized. We felt shocked and visited in hospital but he is in coma state. After few weeks of treatment, there is no improvement because he is fully depending on machine to survive. So the doctor told the family, they have to take off the machine and let him survive on his own. The chances to live on is slim. He then passed away leaving his 3 sons that is still very young. 

I tried to comfort his eldest son because we are very close.


Few months if not a years later, my mom is the one who passed away. She is having a hard time breathing. Dad got back from work, saw mom is suffering, called pastor, pastor came, we prayed, we sang some peaceful song, we realized my mom's blood vein at her neck is pumping slower, I looked at my elder brother and he looked at me at the same time, we are scared, she slowly stopped breathing. We cried. 

It felt sucks when all the people that you love and the people that love you left earlier. I wonder who else will have this kind of sad experience. 

Nightmare when I was a kid.

I always have this nightmare when I was a kid.

Something like someone is shouting inside my head, loudly, fiercely and made me a bit scared every time that happened. It hasn't happened for quite some time but it appeared again just now. Now it's gone again. Usually it happens when I am resting or sleeping but just now it happened when I am wide awake, playing games. 

I guess I am just too tired. And maybe a bit emotional too because I remembered that 3 persons that really care about me when I was studying, all 3 of them passed away in 1 year. 

I will write about them ... maybe in my next post, just to remember them.

My First Dota 2 MMR

I had play Dota 2 since its release. But I never really play a ranked to a point that I got MMR. The first time I played MMR game is with Luke when I was in Bintulu with him. He told me MMR game won't have leaver for sure. Surprisingly, he is quite a good dota 2 player.

So recently, I went to cyber cafe to play Dota 2, sometimes play up to 6 hours. Sometimes play other game too. However,  Dota 2 MMR only appear if you play ranked game.

Solo MMR can be gotten if you search for ranked game alone.

Party MMR can be gotten if you party with someone and searched for ranked game in party. 

Both type of ranked game need 10 games to start evaluating your MMR. So I finished my first 10 games of ranked match and got 3.2k MMR. Not sure if that is below or above average start.

When luck turn into sorrows.

When I was a kid, my family and I stayed with my relatives. So when I was playing about 20 meter away from my parents, who are talking to my relative, I found RM5 on the ground and picked it up. I am so happy and ran towards my parent shouting "I found RM5!". RM5 is a big value for me at that time because it was about 20 years back. Unfortunately for me, my relative who is talking to my parent straight say "Oh, you found my RM5. That day I lost my RM5". I have no choice but to return it to her...... 

My elder brother's colleague, found RM5 in the office and she didnt ask the colleague whether anyone lost their RM5 or not. She used the money and buy food. Next day, she had stomach ache.

My younger brother's friend, found a wallet with RM500 inside. His friend is just a kid at that time. With such a big amount of money, of course he will tell his parent. So his mom kept the wallet and say "I will apply astro with this". A bit funny too because astro is recurring payment every month and how long can the RM500 last.

Some benefactor in my life in KL/PJ

Long post ahead~

When I started my life in KL/PJ, there are a few people who helped me out in my life, personal and career growth. I remember everything that they had done for me and I will help them out if they need any.

First person is Jeremy Tay. He helped me when I just reach KL. He asked a friend, Daniel Nguoi (my current house owner) to fetch me from KL Sentral to Jeremy's house. We did eat at Burger King in KL Sentral first before we depart. Jeremy taught me the basic thing I need to know to survive in KL. 
On the 5th or 6th day, I went to Bukit Jalil on my own using LRT and I got scammed RM800 by some random scratch and win people. When I got back, I felt so emotional and Jeremy is the one who motivate me, push me back up and borrow me the RM800 that I really need to survive the next month. So I promised to pay him back bit by bit when I got my salary. After 4 months, I settled the debt and I managed to survive with less than RM1400 per month (RM1800 salary - 200 epf - 200 pay to Jeremy). 


Next is the team lead of one of my job. His name is Benjamin See. During the job interview with him, I didn't manage to impress him, but I told him I really hope to get this job. So he gave me an assignment, something that need to use twitter API to integrate to my localhost. I do it at night time because I still have to work at day time. So after 2 nights, I completed the assignment and showed it to him in his office after work. So I got the offer on the spot. 

After working for half year, Benjamin find out that I am doing Amway aggresively. He advised me not to do it anymore by telling me Web Developer can easily earn the money that I get extra from Amway. The truth is I only earn about 200-300 from Amway that time. I dont believe it at first but after the first increment as much as RM700, then I believed it. Slowly, I left Amway's life and I am now on my right track. 


Third benefactor in my life is Wong Kien Wai. Benjamin See hired Wong to replace him. So after Benjamin left the company, I had some arguments with Wong because of work. However, Wong reminded me nicely that working is only to earn money and live peacefully. No need to argue so strongly about something small. We don't need to think so far ahead in a small company because there are only 3 people in the whole IT team. That makes me realize I am actually still very narrow minded. To tell the truth, I don't take advise from anyone. I only take from those I really respect. So being able to make me taking advise from him and make myself realize that I need to widen my view, he is really a great person.


Next and maybe the last for this post is Hikmat Iskandar. I worked under him in Bemalas. Bemalas got a good starter funding from some investor and hired a few of us to help in the web development. Hikmat joined in as CTO and had many awesome project planned ahead. I joined in to help mainly on payment gateway of the website, but in the end, I do most of the backend.  I have no complain on that too.
So in the first few months, we worked hard together, sometimes until night time, but the other few other people that he hired, always go back home on time and rarely commit enough to work. I always complained it to him and he sometimes try to protect other people that he hired. But most of the time, he is unable to protect them because it's really their mistake. 
He told me, his most regretted decision is to hire 2 fresh and expensive staff. That 2 fresh graduates salary should be around my pay or maybe even more and demand the salary of the CTO after they got confirmed. Their technical skill is ok but logic and flow wise seems a bit weird. We used Laravel framework in my web development. So whenever we have some request on certain feature, they will said it can be easily done in CakePHP. Well, it can be easily done in CakePHP because they had done it before. And it doesn't mean that it cant be easily done with Laravel. 

So that's the people that had helped me a lot in my life in KL/PJ. I still met with some of them recently. Even if I don't, I will still chat with them once in a while. I appreciate them so much and I don't take things for granted, so if they need help someday, I will try my best to do what I can to help them.

Worst fever in 2016

It had been quite some time since I got ill..... Last week, I started my meatless meal and after less than a week, I got sick. Not sure if it is because my body cannot adjust to it or it's just pure coincidence. 

I started to feel bad on Tuesday, went to see doctor and get an MC on Wednesday, continue to work on Thursday and went to camp on Friday. I ate all the medicine that doctor give because I want to recover quickly. 

The first day in camp, I feel bad. Really bad to a point that I don't feel like moving. My friends asked me to go to hotspring and fish spa but I really dont feel good. So during the dinner that serve meat, I ate them. Maybe it's just an excuse for me to eat meat. Hahaha.

That night, I cant sleep early. I only fall asleep after 3.30am. Surprisingly, my fever is gone the next day. What's left is just cough. I cough a lot but it's slowly fading too. By third day, I feel that I am completely recover. Of course, only then I am energetic enough to plan to go to fish spa with friends. 

I would say this camp really comes at the right time as a good retreat for someone sick like me. I escaped from a busy life in big city and hide in a small resort to refresh my body and mind. With the refreshing and clean air, my sick recover even faster. I feel so good now. 

A bad day for my housemate.

Today is quite a bad day for my housemate......actually he is the house owner.

Long story short, we decided to go for dinner together. We invited another housemate, a female young girl, who just moved in for half month because she is still quite new to PJ. We also invited Sing Juon, our church friend to the dinner.

So knowing Daniel, the house owner, had already fixed his car air conditioner with RM650, we decided to sit in his car to go for the dinner. When we are on the way, his car temperature meter go up a lot steadily.... when we are stuck in traffic jam, the car is not moving but the temperature is still going up. We are really shocked. We quickly look around to see if there is any place to park. 

We saw one safe place but we are stuck in the jam. So he turn off his car engine and wait for green light before turn on the car engine again. By that time, the temperature is already at the highest. We saw some smoke coming out from the front bonnet. 

We got no choice but to continue to drive to a safe car park. After that, we called Sing Juon to fetch us for dinner. Luckily he haven't sit down and order the food at the place we mentioned to him. He picked us up and we went to Piccadilly.

At Piccadilly, we choose a table and sit down. After all of us take our seat, Daniel try to sit down but the chair is broken.... he got no choice but to take the chair and switch with the chair from the other table that has no one sitting there. We all agreed that Daniel's luck is quite bad today. This reminds me a post that I made 7 years back...also related to smoke coming out from car... lol

http://choozin.blogspot.my/2009/05/little-update-of-last-week-activity.html

Back to Malaysia after 2 months in Montreal

So this is how I feel after I come back to Malaysia from 2 months in Montreal, Canada.

• Weather is still very hot here in Malaysia. Night or early morning, it's still hot. Can't even jog for too long because getting out of breath easily.
• The air here is bad. With haze and humid air, my eyes feel itchy very often. Don't even feel like going out even at night time.
• The food in Malaysia is still nice. Cheap, delicious, oily and unhealthy.
• As usual, I get hungry faster in Malaysia... no matter how much I eat. Hahah.
• I get to do exercise that I like anytime I want to. Badminton at least twice or sometimes more in a week.
• I drink less coffee compare to when I was in Montreal. But drinking coffee might made me less hungry. So I gonna try to drink some coffee soon.
• Finally I get to speak some chinese with my friends, unlike when I was in Montreal, my colleagues talk in English, strangers talk in French and I only sing or talk to myself in Chinese. 

The feeling to get a job in foreign country that has 4 seasons grow stronger. I suddenly hope that I can get a job in Korea or Japan, like how I wish back earlier this year. After I come back from South Korea end of this year, maybe I can start building up my portfolio and learn some Korean language so I can prepare myself to go there after my bonding ends in my current company..... Well... let see how it goes.