Increasing Responsibilities

I'm feeling pretty awesome today. It could be the fact that it had been a joyous weekend spent in church being with my Father and siblings-in-Christ, could also be the nap that I stole in the afternoon, or could just be the worship songs that I'm listening to now. :)

Anyway, I wanted to write this post about two weeks ago, on Oct 31, but I just got too busy. The reason for this post is let you get a little into my life and understand "why am I always so busy?" *loL~*

If you check out over at my resume at linkedin.com, it should give you a small hint.

Obviously at the moment, I'm working full-time at my current job, five days a week. Come every weekend, I have committed my time to serve in the choir of my church. This of course is nothing new. :)

For the past year till now, I am also in the committee of the Singapore Flex Usergroup, which is a local technology focused group on Adobe Flex. We are not just a technology focused group though; we just organised the first ActionScript conference in Singapore, called The ActionScript Conference (TAC). It was a really good experience to be involved in organising the conference in Singapore, with all the event planning and stuff. :)

The reason why I wanted to write this post in October is because in the last month, I have *three* new responsibilities now.

When Frank, the product manager of FDT came down to TAC, we hit right off. Since I was very enthusiastic about their product, we had a great chat over it, but I never thought that would land me as FDT's Official Technology Evangelist! You can see the official announcement at their blog.

Ryan from the Singapore Flash Usergroup, which is another technology focused group except that it's on Adobe Flash, contacted me last month as well. He asked if I was interested to be the usergroup's co-manager! It was awesome if you ask me, because I've been messing with Flash since 5 years ago and am ever passionate about the entire flash eco-system. Naturally, I said "yes". :)

My final new responsibility is the one which I felt was a high calling from God. My cell group leaders mentioned to me last month about roping me in to co-lead our cell group. I felt inadequate at first, but thought it should not be my will that is to be done, but God's. You can read my entire post over at my cell group's blog.

Other than this blog, I still maintain other blogs like my walk with God at flashmechchristianwalk.blogspot.com, my tech blog at blog.flashmech.net, and lastly my cell group's blog at infaithwithlove.blogspot.com.

That's a whole lot of new stuff in my life, but I am encouraged daily with this verse from my Father's love letter to me, which you can also see at the masthead too.

Philippians 4:13
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

So yeah! That pretty much wraps up my 24th year on earth at the current junction. Just want to thank God for these opportunities and for fueling my passion in all these things. Praise God! :D

Milk Crisis

Who would have expected something like this would happen so quickly post Olympics? hmm.. smacks China's reputation back to where it was. :S

I am a mountain tortoise, but thanks to friends and family, this situation was brought to my attention: 53,000 children ill from tainted milk powder.

As a public service, here's the list of food that *YOU ARE TO THROW AWAY* if you still have them at home.

• M&M's
• Snickers
• Mento's yoghurt bottle
• Dove chocolate
• Oreo wafer sticks
• Monmilk
• Dutchlady sterilised milk
• Wall's all natural mango
• Mini poppers ice cream
• Magnum ice cream
• Moo sandwich ice cream
• Mini cornetto
• Youcan ice cream
• White rabbit sweet

I'll continue to add to this list if I happen to catch wind of more updates.

In the meanwhile, please pray together for those who are sick and affected, for the full expulsion of the poison and that they will be healed.

I'm Already Back

Just in case that you guys are thinking that I'm still having an awesomely good time in Japan, well I'm actually back since Tuesday already. *lol~*

Very busy once back ah, had to settle the luggage, pack stuff for work, do this do that, oh gosh~ And when I went back to office on the first day, got shining new project came in already!

Project's deadline is super tight however, and it's a language I'm not very familiar with. So these days I'm like crash-coursing through multiple tutorials and reading as much articles as I can to pick the language up. Real intense stuff!

Due to the above factor, I will not be able to post any photos anytime soon. Will try my best la, but earliest seems to be at least 2 weeks later. :S

Try try la hor.. :P

A Need To Straighten Out

I think I'm in a dire need to organise my life. Getting too busy recently to the point I'm afraid of losing track. In view of the coming months, I think it’s only going to get busier. :D

Firstly, I joined a coding competition, code::XtremeApps::2008! It'll be a 24hrs coding marathon which will be held from 19-20 July, and I'm totally psyched about it. :D As preparation, coding on Flex and AIR has to be scheduled in for the next 3 months, as they are totally out of my job scope.

Secondly, my company has offered a program where they will subsidise us with SGD500 O_O!! for any course or skill that we want to pick up! It was a tug-of-war between Japanese language course and guitar course, but at the end of the day, guitar won. :) I've always yearned to be able to play a musical instrument (especially now that I'm serving in a music related ministry in church), so this couldn't happen at a better time. :D

Next thing is that I'm finally serving in the Sunday services as well! Today was the first day, and I felt pretty zombie just dragging myself off bed so early in the morning. To be exact, it was 0645hrs, which was much earlier than the usual time that I wake up on my work days. Nonetheless, the joy of serving and being in God's anointing atmosphere cannot be compared. :)

As a next move to a closer walk with God, I've also purposed in my heart to attend online Christian courses. Unfortunately because of my busy schedule, I've been a stagnant member for a month already. Really time to get started.

And I guess the last thing will be my Jap language studies on MRT. *lol~*

Sooo many things one lorrrrr. I think I really need to make out a timetable to straighten things out.

One of the dangers you face when you have so many things at hand is the possibility of being overwhelmed, and end up not doing anything. Another possibility is too much time might be focused on some till others are totally neglected. A timetable should help me to prioritise and schedule them properly.

Now the next challenge is keeping to it. *MUAHAHAHAHA*

Good Friday Aftermath

And so it all wraps up yesterday. :D

It was three months worth of weekly rehearsals, with the songs stuck in my head no matter where I was, be it traveling on the road, relaxing at home, or working in the office. After investing so much time into memorising the lyrics and learning the tenor parts of the songs, they left such a deep impression that they bring back sweet reminiscence with every playback. :)

Even the choreography for the songs affected our future decisions for choices in dance moves and steps. :D (For example, today's Miracle Service~ :P)

The warmth of ministering to God's people, the joy that raises from within, the souls that were won, the cheers of the crowd, the enlightening message, the touching mime performance, together with the God anointed atmosphere, I nearly dint want the service to end.

To sum everything up, it was an unforgettable Good Friday. :)

A little side info, I dint realise that we were featured on Channel News Asia! :D Watch the news video here!

No Access To Internet

Two days back when I returned home, it was to my displeasure to find that my internet service is down. Now I have no idea what the problem might be. It could be a case of a spoilt modem, temporary poor service (highly unlikely since it had been a good two days), or could be any other plausible reasons that you might think of.

Bottom line is, I don't know what happened. :S

Furthermore, these days had been really busy for me. Rehearsals for tomorrow's Good Friday performance had been running very often, and in the interim other important stuff found their way to fill up my schedule. After this busy period, I will go and check out what actually went wrong and hopefully be able to update from home again.

Till then guys! :)

2 x Happy News!!

Here's some quick happy news to update everyone. :D

Firstly, as of yesterday, I got my confirmation in my job! *yayyyyy!!* :D After three months of grueling work involving programming exploration and intense effects research, not to mention several extreme deadlines, I'm glad I've proven myself worthy to stay in Tequila! :D

Just something I would like to share. :) For the time that I've worked till now, I've realised that it's important not to perceive work as mundane chores, which if you allow, will steal away your very passion itself. Though in the event of tight deadlines some stuff have to be given up, always find time to play with your work, and be yourself.

In this way, work becomes playtime and your job evolves to become your playground. ;) (what an idealist? :P Nahh.. you can make it if you so chooses. :))

Secondly, which I consider to be my next huge step in my spiritual journey with God, is that I've gotten confirmation in my Praislight ministry! :D

Strange that the timing is around the same with my job confirmation, but my six months worth of probation apparently ended today when sister Girlie called me up to inform that I will start serving from next Saturday at the Miracle Service onwards! *whoohoo!*

Excitement as it is, I'm kind of feeling jittery about it. The turnout every Saturday for Miracle Service, if I'm not wrong, can go up to a few hundred!! The entire sanctuary will be flooded with people every single time! To be one of those performing on stage is like.... is like... wobbly? :S

I will trust God though, for He is my provider of strength and talent. Since He arranged for me to be in this ministry, and with sister Girlie's patient guidance over the last six months, I believe I can make it one. *wosh!*

Actor Heath Ledger Dead

Slightly depressing news today, but please bear with me. The news that actor Heath Ledger being found dead shook me this morning via an overseas friend.

Heath Ledger, from the "Brokeback Mountain" fame, acts in a couple of very well known movies, including one of my favourites, "The Patriot". In the new series of Batman, acted by Christian Bale, Heath acts as the psychotic bank robber known as The Joker in the upcoming "The Dark Knight". I love the new series of Batman and had been anticipating this movie since two years ago. To know that Heath gave his final performance in this movie, it kinda saddens me even more. :(

I got reminded too, of my post "An Awakening Nightmare". The reality that life is so fragile and delicate hits me again. Life IS a fleeting moment, please don't take it for granted.

Live your life to the fullest everyday, give thanks to people who have helped you in every single way, forgive people who trespass against you, remember to do good and be kind to all the people around you, and if you made a promise to someone, fulfill it today.

What if tomorrow never comes?

SingNet Broadband Connectivity Improved?

Well at least for me, it improved slightly. :D

I used to have friends who were SingNet broadband subscribers telling me that my geek blog is not really accessible, either it loads too long or doesn't even load at all. :S These aided to confirm what I felt too because I'm a SingNet broadband subscriber myself.

Today however, I'm pretty delighted to find out that it loads well, and the connectivity was much smoother! :D

If you're a SingNet broadband subscriber, and have difficulty loading my geek blog, could you kindly leave a comment and let me know? If the problem still persist I'll have to write a customer support email to Singtel and ask their tech team to check things out, because apparently, Starhub had no such hiccups (I know because I tried. hehe..).

Thanks in advance!

简单就是美2

Am sure that not all of you know right? haha.. But in just 3 more days (22nd Jan), 简单就是美2 (So Simple Goodies 2), will have it's debut episode aired! *whoohoo* It's every Tuesday 9:30pm on Channel U oh! Don't forget hor? :P

Actually I got to know this news like super long ago (last year Oct?), haha.. but when I saw the commercial on TV, hey hey!! Time to blog about it! :P

Wa... so eager to see Peifen on screen again. *excited*

Unofficial So Simple Goodies blog here. It's here where I got the information from since last October btw. :D

I totally ♥ the theme song, so here's for all to enjoy!! :)

N95 SGD200 Cheaper?!?!?!

Talk about feeling cheated. I just heard this from my god mom and checked it out over at Singtel's website.

For those who dint know, I bought Nokia N95 on 22 Oct, just a day less than 2 weeks ago. The motivation behind this was because Singtel sent a mailer that I could save SGD30 on my next 3G phone with it. I had to use the mailer before 31 Oct, if not the promo will be over, and since I had to head to Japan on 25 Oct, I had to use it before I leave. It had been 21 months since I changed my phone, and added with the fact that I wanted a phone that I can play Flash Lite with, I invested SGD568 on the N95.

WHO KNOWS!?!?!

Singtel came up with this surprise that threw me off balance. My god mom messaged me today that for this week only, the N95 is going at SGD200 lesser! WA KAO!!! Can you believe it???? :( Instead of saving me SGD30, I spent an additional SGD170 just because of that mailer. :(

For the rest of you guys, lucky for you. Go get this phone this week before Singtel ends the deal. Feeling totally dumb and cheated. BAH~~~

If Singtel reads this, I hope they can offer a percentage rebate (like what Steve Jobs did with the iPhone price cut) to those who just bought the N95 (say.. 2 weeks ago?) before this current offer, I will be so happy with them I will kiss the Singtel logo in their AmkHub store.

Really! I'll do it!

[Update 04/11/2007 23:03]
I've just emailed Singtel with a "complain", and I hope something good comes out of this.

Hi,

I've just upgraded my handset to N95 less than 2 weeks ago (~22 Oct), and paid SGD568 for the new phone.

Just saw your new hot deals this week that N95 is going at SGD200 cheaper, and I can't help but feel unhappy with the entire event.

Having been a loyal consumer of your good services till date, I hope that something can be done to make a paying customer happy again.

If an example is required, please kindly refer to what Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, did after the price cut of the iPhone.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/

If customers are informed of future offers, say for those within the next month, we would have a better idea of when to get our desired phone, and such unhappy events can well be averted.

I look forward to your reply.

Thanks in advance.

Lionel

Last Day At Radixs...

Just a week ago I celebrated my anniversary in Radixs, a week later it's my last day.

A bit emotional, a bit sad. Not much photo taking because I was still rushing for features. haha.. so don't ask me why no photos hor.

Just want to thank all the wonderful colleagues who played a part in making my time in Radixs such a memorable and valuable experience. And of course, to both my bosses, thank you for having me in your company.

It had been my great pleasure to have worked with you all. :)

Happy Anniversary At Radixs!

I can't believe that I've gotten so busy lately that even my personal blog has been brought to a nasty halt, and started collecting digital dust! I wish I had more time for more things, but oh well, we got real jobs to do. :D

Anyway, today marks the anniversary of me working at Radixs! waa... Suddenly I feel the year passed so quickly. Exactly a year ago, I was just out of army, looking around for a good job that I can utilise and expand my programming skills (You know la, after 2 years of army, things get a little rusty. :P).

Till today, I'm still very glad that I found this job at Radixs, which had been absolutely tough, steep learning curve, and possibly everything that I never expected I will be doing. Why am I glad? Well because since I survived, it only meant that I grew! :P

From procedural programming, I advanced to writing modular codes through Object-Oriented Programming. For a period I was totally obsessed with Design Patterns, and then I learnt about different frameworks for deployment of projects, and animation engines to tween using codes. I've also gotten the chance to develop in the company's latest project with Flex and Cairngorm!

Looking back, before I entered, I was writing AS1 codes. Several months down the road I learnt and adapted to AS2. Recently AS3 and MXML are the main tools of the trade. haha.. talk about the pace man!

Thanks to great bosses and colleagues, the time here has been made absolutely wonderful and fruitful. Would like to extend special thanks to Arul, for his guidance and invaluable experience, which hopefully some had rubbed off on me. *chuckles* Oh.. for those who didn't know, I came in on the same day with Arul. :D

Ok la.. today is a happy day. :D But I still have to get back to work. Deadlines are real, and I still have real stuff left to complete. haha..

Blogless August

Hello everyone! Missed me? haha... Just in case you thought I was captured by aliens, well I'm not. Hope you're not disappointed to hear that! :P

It's ridiculous how fast time flies. Blink blink blink one month just flew away like that. Of course, I haven't been wasting my life away. :) I've basically just kept myself very very busy with work, coding some additional features for our software, and making sure bugs dare not appear. :P

My bosses promised more work coming, but I'm sure I can make time to write some things down. I have so many things to blog at the moment I'm lost at where to start!

Till next post! whoohoOO~~

Live Earth 2007

Today is 7th July 2007, Live Earth Day. I'm not gonna act like an environmentalist and preach all about what humans have done, the ignorance and negligence of their actions that have caused global warming, animal extinction, blah blah blah...

What I wish to bring across is just simple.

Earth is a place we all live in. We have to be responsible and at least do a little part on our side. If each of us does a small bit, the impact will be great when it's consolidated.

We probably just have to do a little bit of adjustment here and there in our life, small sacrifices like taking public transport instead of driving, switching off appliances when not in use and using environmental friendly appliances. Who knows, if everyone acts in faith, the entire world's population can make a HUGE drastic change!

I'm writing in faith. A faith that will possibly give a better tomorrow. :)

Will you join me?

Dreamy iPhone~~

This is no new news. iPhone will be launched in US in 3 more days, 29 June 2007, and it's probably the biggest gadget bang this year. But right about a week ago, Apple announced that the dreamy iPhone has just gotten better. :O

Now check this out:

• Talk Time: 8 hours
• Standby Time: 250 hours (more than 10 days!)
• Internet Use: 6 hours
• Video Playback: 7 hours
• Audio Playback: 24 hours

See the full technical specifications.

It's astounding stats from any angle that I see. I can get a 8GB iPhone that plays my favourite songs(for even longer hours than my current ipod nano), podcasts, videocasts, while at the same time enjoying the long hours of talk time, and checking emails on any journey. Important thing is that I can finally use VelvetPuffin! :D Now how cool is that package? It's north-pole-cool. **brrr***

There's probably 2 areas that I'm very concerned about. The prone-to-scratch-glossy-surface, and that I'm a prone-to-drop-phone-person. :(

Apple addresses my first concern that "the entire top surface of iPhone.. has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity". Now how nice is that! :) I don't have to worry about scratching the surface now! **YAY!!**

BUT the glass gives me more reasons to worry than ever! I drop my phone so regulary(once a month on average), will the glass shatter? :S I mean I would rather have a scratchy phone than a phone that shatters if I do drop if you get what I mean. Furthermore, the advanced hardware that's in this baby might break after dropping once! That's why I always go for cheapskate phones(free ones especially). Not that their hardware won't break, but it's just that they're easily replaceable. sigh... :(

In an indirect way, I'm glad that the US market gets to be the first batch of guinea pigs. :P When iPhone eventually comes to Singapore, I'll most probably read up on some reviews before deciding if this is the phone for me. :)

Until then, this is just a **dream** phone. :P~~~~

Geek Blog Announced! Again?!

Wow, how many days had it been since I first announced my geek blog? hahaha.. just 2 weeks? :D

Anyway, I found that while it's great to get the wordpress blog, everything seems to be so limiting. I dint like any of those. In order to have the ability to change the Cascading Style Sheets(CSS), I have to pay USD15 a year? Forget it. Even blogger gives it for free. To add to my pain, I can't add any side widgets or tools and there's no upgrades I can buy to do that(not that I will really buy if there IS really an option. :P).

I was desperate.

That naturally lead me to the thought, shouldn't I get a hosting service for myself? It's high time if you ask me. :D I had my limited website on freewebs.com for way too long. Friends recommended godaddy.com, and so after checking out and comparing a lot of other hosting services, found that godaddy.com had the best deal of all!

For 4 kick-ass years of hosting service, I only paid SGD320! Did I mention that the package gave me 100GB of space and 1TB(terabyte) of bandwidth? haha.. It was absolute awesomeness. In addition to this, I shared the hosting with 3D, which meant another ~SGD75 off the bill. :D Can't get any cooler than that. ;)

Anyway, after all that long grandmother story, here's the link to my new geek blog:
http://blog.flashmech.net

And do check out my portfolio website!
http://www.flashmech.net

PS: I just have to say this. Wordpress on wordpress hosting sucks. But wordpress on your own hosting rocks big-time. :D It's no wonder that they're the winner of the Webware 100 in the publishing category. :D

Annual ICT 2007

Received a SMS yesterday night, from an unknown number. The first 2 words in the SMS probably sank my mood into the deepest realm for the year. :(

(fm MINDEF:)
Still got smiley some more. pengz..

For the uninitiated, MINDEF is Ministry of Defense (Singapore). sigh... As expected... a Call Up Notification! This is gonna be the first In Camp Training (ICT) post my army days and I must say the feeling is pretty dreadful. To break away from my job, from what I love doing is.... IS..... SIGH............................................

It's gonna be a 5 days ICT at Seletar East Camp, from Oct 15 2007 0730hrs (SO EARLY!) to Oct 19 2007 2359hrs (SO LATE!). Oh well... I know I know... being a Singaporean male , this is unavoidable. Every guy has to do up their responsibility to protect the COUNTRY!!

At least there's one good part amidst all these, and that's the *timing*. They did not take away Oct 20, which is xf's bday. :D Army still clever after all la... know it's my best friend's bday know cannot take. wahahaha...

PS: I know it's just pure conincidence. Army got nothing to do with xf's bday perfect timing and if they really wanted to call me back, they still could! :( Just glad they dint. :D

Geek Blog Announced!

The objective of this blog post is simple. I've decided for certain reasons to get another blog to satisfy my geekiness. :P

Had been a very tough decision though, as I love my current address, flashmech.blogspot.com, a lot. I wanted to change it to a more personal, lionellow.blogspot.com and make way this place free for a full geeky blog.

Thought it over, and nope, that's not gonna happen. :D Though this blog has not been established for long, I like the current way it is, and it should stay that way. I've thought about other site names on blogger and somehow, ideas along that direction were pretty lame.

Hence, it was decided that I create an account on WordPress, another popular blogging website. This new blog will be entirely use for the geeky stuff, like the latest news on the Flash Platform, my own experimentations, silly mistakes, things like that.

Still awaiting for MXNA to add my blog to be aggregated at the moment, and planning to get a Creative Commons license for it too. Still pretty much in the infancy stage, but will get it bigger I promise. :)

Here's the address for my geek blog:
http://flashmech.wordpress.com

(Updated on June 25 2007 16:40:00 SGT: Oh no! I've moved again! http://flashmech.wordpress.com is no more! Official geek blog at http://blog.flashmech.net)

New toy: JSFL

I first came across JSFL when I tried to compile a Flash file through FlashDevelop. That was the time when I saw in Flash IDE's Output panel, some error message about a particular JSFL file failing to execute (I can't remember what's the exact error message, as it's so random and I never really take note).

Of course at that time, I had no clues about what JSFL was and I'm not bothered to find out what it might do. I'm more pressed with the concern that my Flash file is failing on me. :D (The dateline was so tight, JSFL don't blame me. :P)

Recently, while reading Grant Skinner's blog, I stumbled upon his gAlign extension tool for Flash IDE. In that blog post, he mentioned about using "custom JSFL calls" to accomplish his stuff. Seeing how JSFL is able to manipulate Flash IDE's content, that got me seriously curious about the technology behind it.

Googled for JSFL as I had absolutely no idea where to start from, and found this introductory article by Guy Watson. In the article, he establishes facts about JSFL and where did it came from. Unfortunately, it didn't seems to be what I'm looking for.

How can one ever forget about Flash Help? :D I did a search in there and found exactly what I needed. All the treasures and secrets about JSFL were all lying in the book Extending Flash, waiting for me to uncover them. hehe..

So now, I'm getting all excited about this new discovered "power" (of course the power itself is not new, and existent for a pretty long while. it's just my ignorance. :D but no more!). Got some opinions from friends about what should I develop as an extension for flash, and Arul in particular gave an interesting one.

My first JSFL project will hence be,




*drum roll*




*drum roll*




*drum roll*








an Arrow Drawing Tool!







Stay tuned!