Office Location

I come across this article talking about a new trend that hi-tech companies are moving into cities again from the suburbs. Immediately I thought of my current office location. I moved to Wu Chung House, the building next to Hopewell Centre in the Queen's Road East, back in 2004. At first I was quite unease about the new office 'cos the building is quite far away from the main office in the HKCEC (thus I commute between Wu Chung House and HKCEC almost every day - a waste of time!), plus it's a challenge during lunch time, and the environment is too "residential". But now I'm used to my life in Wu Chung House already after all these years. But still, when I read this article, I thought about my office location again.

(QUOTE from MSN) Autodesk is one among a raft of tech companies, including Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and newer players like professional networking Web site LinkedIn, striving for that same San Francisco symbiosis. These companies have long occupied suburbs to the south, east, and north of the city. Now they see expansion downtown as a way to attract and retain some of the brightest talent, quicken the travel time to meetings, and impress customers from around the world. "There's a lot of talent we can attract" who don't live near Google's Mountain View, Calif. headquarters 36 miles south, says engineering manager Julie Pearl, who works in San Francisco. "It's very appealing for folks." Soaring gas prices have only enhanced the appeal of ditching a 40-mile commute.(UNQUOTE)

Read the full article: I Left My Staff in San Francisco

Weekend Clearance

A slow and long weekend again ...

I spent some time at night with TVB for 2 football matches, stayed in office & home preparing for the upcoming week, and more importantly stayed @ home to clear up the piles of documents, magazines, bills ...etc. I can no longer bear with all those piles sitting on my desk and sleeping next to me!

CRM in Taxi

I met a sophisticated taxi driver today.

When I was in a taxi traveling from my office in Wanchai to SOHO in Central for dinner after work, I saw a large PDA (pretty old model of 02 but the screen is huge!) in front of the driver. For no reason, I asked the driver if he keeps his customers' contacts and frequent travel routes in that PDA and to my surprise, he did! You won't believe that taxi drivers have better CRM than some companies ...

Optimizing the EeePC

Seeing the previous posts and you'll that I'm kind of addicted to the new toy.

Having installed a slim version of Windows XP as well as purchased a high capacity SD card to increase the laptop's storage, I did the followings as well:

(1) researched online to find tweaks and optimization tips;
(2) sent an email to Asus to clarify whether my laptop's warranty will be voided if I remove the yellow sticker on the back of it to upgrade its RAM;
(3) installed Office 2003 + Firefox;
(4) configured Remote Desktop Connection to my office's PC;
(5) configured it so that it plays now.com.hk & MOOV smoothly.

But I was so impatient to wait for Asus' confirmation that I teared off the yellow sticker 2 days after sending the enquiry to them! I bought a 2GB Kingston notebook RAM last night in Wanchai Computer Centre at HKD320 (I was told that RAM price is dropping significantly recently) on my way back from HKCEC to my office in Wu Chung House. Again, couldn't wait any longer and thus "borrowed" a screwdriver from IT and replaced the RAM module right away. It worked "perfectly" immediately but then I noticed that it took quite long time to boot up, thus I checked and found out that the hard drive free storage dropped to an unusual level: 28MB!!! Spent a few minutes but still couldn't figure out the reason. So? I reworked everything from scratch (i.e. from removing the hard drive partition, install Windows again, repeat the 1-5 steps above) ... all problem solved. I believe the new toy is now configured optimally.

Finally spent 3 hours for the rework + watching Commercial Radio Music Award via now.com.hk at the same time. Went to bed at 3:30am last night!!!

By the way, I finally got an email reply from Asus confirming that removing the sticker and upgrading RAM myself won't void the warranty. You may also
read this from Asus US.

Vietnam Journey - Day 4 - Saigon (Sept 26, 2007)

Rushed to Sinh Cafe - the local travel agency - to enrol for the half-day Cu Chi Tunnel tour. I actually went there during my previous visit to Saigon a few years ago but I thought it looked strange if Denis hadn't visited it for his Saigon trip. Spent about 2 hours on the bus again. Before arriving Cu Chi, the bus stopped somewhere officially for the group to use washrooms + practically "allowed" the group to shop for souvenirs. Coincidentally I met my friend Sammy and his wife in the souvenir shop.

As soon as we arrived the Cu Chi Tunnel which is located inside a forest, it rained heavily. You can imagine how bad it is when you're in a forest while it rains heavily. But anyway we had to move. It was really a challenge for me to enter the tunnel again 'cos it is really a small one. I was almost exhausted already when I was in the middle of the tunnel. Denis and I tried shooting with M16 and AK47 at USD26 - pretty expensive - though it was fun.

After we were back to Saigon city, we rushed to a supermarket to shop for some frozen Vietnamese food and spring rolls. Having had a big lunch again, we proceeded to a place for massage and shower (without this shower, everybody in the plane would have fainted when we boarded the plane!) before rushing to the airport.

I really love the journey!

It's time to face the reality ... the piles in my office and my mailbox! Well, life can be fun sometimes but most of the time, it's tough!

Ice-cream Treat by Rebecca in Office

Work-Life Balance (cont')

My work-life balance initiative didn't work in the first workday after I was back from Shanghai. I finally left office at 11pm. Let's see ...

Aries and Michelle's Birthday

Colleagues celebrated Aries and Michelle's birthday together last Friday in our office. There are quite many new faces in the team actually.

From Birthday