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As a self-proposed geek and a professional software developer, it is hard for me to admit that I was totally clueless about online shopping for the longest time. Early last year, I got hit by the Hallyu wave and got addicted to all things Korean. KPOP, Korean hairstyle, Korean girls and Earmuffs!
 Isn't she cute with those earmuffs? At first, I thought “Can I wear earmuffs? I mean, those are for girls only right?” and then I found this:
 Even KPOP Boybands wear cute earmuffs! I was ready to get my own pair of those cute earmuffs but then I realized that THERE IS NO FREAKIN WINTER IN THE PHILIPPINES! Unfortunately, continental drift wasn’t on our side when it decided to the place Philippines near the freakin equator. So until the next Polar Shift, I’ve agreed to settle on a compromise: Headphones. So the search was on for my KPOP inspired headphones. I am glad to have watched the S.E.O.U.L music video by SNSD and Superjunior where I saw the SuJu guy wearing a very cute headphone:
 Mixstyle headphones! I am not really a big fan of Super Junior. But I am the biggest SNSD fan in the Philippines (Self-Proposed). So when I saw SNSD wearing Mixstyle headphones, I just have to get one for myself!
 Yoona, Sooyoung and Hyoyeon loves their Mixstlyle! So I tirelessly searched for a shop (online or not) that sells Mixstyle headphones in the Philippines. My search was fruitless. There are a lot of people selling Mixstyles on Multiply but a lot of them are fake! I saw a dude selling Mixstyles for only 1,500 PHP but how is that possible when Mixstyles retails for about 4,000 Yen (or about 2,000 PHP) in Japan (these are Japanese headphones, afterall)? My friend, Carlos, even told me that Mixstyles are available at Trinoma for only 500 PHP! Since I don’t really want to use cheap, fake ripoffs, I was glad to know that Mixstyles can be bought online for a reasonable price (around 50 USD). But there was a dilemma, I have never bought anything online! But fortunately, I found out that its so easy to buy stuff online! Read on and be amazed on how easy it is!
(For more of my experience with Yesasia, stay tuned next week as I will blog about my Yesasia shopping experience and my Mixstyle unboxing event!)
Continue reading “How to buy stuff online if you’re from the Philippines or My First Online Shopping Experience” »
 Ian Uy posted this in Articles on January 24th, 2010 |  Email This Post |  Print This Post
 Larry Wall haz dem Larry Wall, the creator of the infamous Perl programming language, has once said that the greatest virtues of a good programmer are Laziness, Impatience and Hubris. To not mislead the lazy “computer science” students, allow me to define each virtues:
- Laziness — The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer. See also impatience and hubris.
- Impatience – The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don’t just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer. See also laziness and hubris.
- Hubris – Excessive pride. Also the quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won’t want to say bad things about. Hence, the third great virtue of a programmer. See also laziness and impatience.
A few days ago, a tester at our company filled a track that contained multiple attachments (Screenshots, Error Logs, etc) to assist the developers on their investigation. As we are using Microsoft’s Team Foundation System for source control and bug tracking, the most obvious way to get these attachments is through TFS Web Access; Frankly speaking, this is the only “official” way to access the track (bug report) on our company.
 The TFS Web Access homepage UI I don’t know if its a lack of feature or what, but there is no way in TFS Web Access to download multiple attachments at once. Additionally, when downloading attachments that contains a space on their filename, TFS Web Access will automatically concatenate the filename and that will remove the file’s extension (EG: Screenshot of the bug.jpg will be renamed to Screenshot)… You still need to manually rename the file with the proper extension to open it. And because I’m lazy, I don’t want to log-in to TFS Web Access, type in the track ID, click on the attachments tab, click on the file(s) I want to download, browse for the location where to save the file, create a new folder for the track, click save, minimize my browser, open the download location and (unzip the attachment, it its zipped, which normally is) to just view a single screenshot.
Since I am a big believer of Wall’s three virtues, I created a tool that will automate those boring and repetitive tasks for me (and allow me to download *all* attachments from a work item + workaround the “spacing” bug). The tool is called WIF or Work Item Fetcher and it is currently in Closed-Limited Beta.
At first, I thought about parsing the web pages to download the attachments using HTML Sanitizers and Regular Expressions but then I remembered that only Chuck Norris can parse HTML using regular expressions! So I searched the web and found out about the TFS SDK! Go .NET! Go Laziness! Okay, enough chit-chat, the rest of the post will be dedicated to discussing how to use the TFS API to download attachments from TFS. 
Continue reading “Laziness, Impatience and Hubris or How to download Work Item attachments programatically using TFS SDK” »
Ian Uy posted this in Articles on October 27th, 2009 | Email This Post | Print This Post
Almost everyone that I interact with everyday knows that I have been a long time fan of So Nyeo Shi Dae (Girl’s Generation). I have been spazzing (google it) about the 9 girls for almost a year now. I even made it a point to know YoonA’s blood type so that on the rare event that YoonA accidentally fall off the stage while performing (God forbids), I will be able to donate my blood to save her. No, my blood isn’t actually compatible with hers but I am willing to change my blood type, even if it costs me my life. (I Kid, I Kid ) I’ve watched every darn performance, I’ve listened to all of their albums (Listened is an understatement, the album collection is on a loop on my mp3 player), and I followed the girls’ adventure by watching their T.V shows (Girls Go To School, Factory Girl, etc). Yes, I am an obsessed fan who smiles when listening to Gee at 5:00 AM before going to sleep. And I can actually enumerate those 9 girls’ names faster than I can name the last five presidents of our country. So yeah, I’m a big fan.
 My nine precious girls Continue reading “What does it mean to be Jologs? (Or my violent reaction to SNSD’s popularity in the Philippines)” »
Ian Uy posted this in Articles on September 17th, 2009 | Email This Post | Print This Post
 Paul Graham (Author of Hackers and Painters) I love Paul Graham. The guy speaks my mind. Although I don’t agree with all of his ideas (E.G. Java programmers are stupid. PERIOD.), most of his ideas are golden. For those of weak hearts (and sensitive ego), please proceed with care. 
The essay that will follow, entitled Great Hackers, basically compliments the main idea of my previous post which is “To do something well you have to love it.”
Some quotable quotes from this essay:
“Ordinary programmers write code to pay the bills. Great hackers think of it as something they do for fun, and which they’re delighted to find people will pay them for.”
“Hackers like to work for people with high standards. But it’s not enough just to be exacting. You have to insist on the right things. Which usually means that you have to be a hacker yourself. I’ve seen occasional articles about how to manage programmers. Really there should be two articles: one about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you’re not. And the second could probably be condensed into two words: give up.”
“The distinguishing feature of nasty little problems is that you don’t learn anything from them. Working on nasty little problems makes you stupid. Good hackers avoid it for the same reason models avoid cheeseburgers.”
“I’ve found that people who are great at something are not so much convinced of their own greatness as mystified at why everyone else seems so incompetent.”
“The key to being a good hacker may be to work on what you like. When I think about the great hackers I know, one thing they have in common is the extreme difficulty of making them work on anything they don’t want to. I don’t know if this is cause or effect; it may be both.”
“One difference I’ve noticed between great hackers and smart people in general is that hackers are more politically incorrect. And I can see why political incorrectness would be a useful quality in programming. Programs are very complex and, at least in the hands of good programmers, very fluid. In such situations it’s helpful to have a habit of questioning assumptions.”
AND NOW, THE ESSAY
Continue reading “Ordinary Programmers vs Great Hackers” »
Ian Uy posted this in Articles on September 14th, 2009 | Email This Post | Print This Post
 Judy Ann Santos - Philippine Superstar If there is someone that I hate more than Ms. Judy Ann Santos, that someone would have to be a person who has a job that he or she is not passionate about.
I don’t know if it’s the Philippine economy or just the Filipino culture that makes it “okay” for someone to live a life of suffering; enduring a job he or she hates for exchange of a comfortable life and a prestigious career. I’ve heard countless stories of teenagers being forced by their parents to take a course like Medicine, Law or Engineering (Courses which will attach fancy-sounding, age-old, titles to their child’s name) against their child’s will. I’ve accidentally watched countless Pinoy movies with the same theme. (Kid wants to major in Fine Arts, MOM aka Mrs. Attorney wants the kid to major in Law and be a lawyer. Sounds familiar?)
Five years ago, Nursing became a popular course for High School graduates to take in college. I know that because that was the year when I graduated from High School. During that time, some of my classmates took Nursing courses not because they want to be nurses but just because being a nurse would almost guarantee a free-work pass to the US and a chance of snatching that American dream. And you know what? I think majority of the newly graduated nurses thinks the same too.
Continue reading “High Salary is Killing the Software Industry” »
Today’s post is a simple reminder that Localization is a dirty job!
 DateTime.Parse() will break your software on localized system So, after some time working on the migration project, we finally released a stable Release Candidate. While the Test Team is still running their Critical Regression testing (that’s the final test before release) on the release candidate, I was transferred back to the Localization project.
My current task is to make a certain web application work with the localized version of our product which is running on a localized version of Windows.
So far, there are 8 tracks filled against this certain web application. A quick look at the tracks revealed a common problem:
“String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.”
Continue reading “DateTime.Parse on Localized Systems” »
I can still clearly remember the words of our Tech Lead as if it was just said yesterday…
“Madali lang to sayo. Parang laro laro lang.”
He would always give me that answer while putting on a big, warm smile. Every time that I see him coding or preparing a design document, I would always approach him and ask him out of curiosity, “Ano ginagawa mo Sir? Mahirap ba yan?” and he would always give me that answer. And I have always wondered what he meant by “parang laro laro lang“. Sadly, I was never able to ask him about the actual meaning of it (he is now in Singapore) but as an Intern, I assumed that he meant that “If you’re having fun, it’s easy!“.
 So much for work being fun? Continue reading “Work is now officially “WORK”” »
When I was an Intern at a large Global 500 company, my major responsibility is to deliver a Software Delivery process that uses the software engineering practice called Continuous Integration. In simple terms, I am responsible for a project to create and setup a Continuous Integration Build Server that will be used to “build” the company’s products.
During those days, when I hear the word “build” or “compile”, the first thing that comes into mind is to press the F5 button. Ever since I started programming, when someone asks me for a copy of my program or if I need to distribute the “binaries” of my program, all I do is press the F5 button to create an EXE (sometimes with a DLL), then browse to the output folder(Bin) and copy the binaries. Suffice to say, that is my “Software Delivery” process however crude it is.
In College, I got a little bit more sophisticated. My major projects are all carefully packaged in a very neat MSI installer — but that is just for the major projects. Most of my standalone tools are still made using the “Press F5 button to build” method. 
Continue reading “The Importance of a Dedicated Build Machine” »
EDIT: Since a lot of people got offended by some parts of this post, I have decided to remove the offending part(s). It was not my intention to offend people, I just want to share my opinion in my personal blog. Again, If I have offended you, I apologize.
EDIT: Some of my blogger friends pointed out that I should just strikeout the offending parts but I should not remove them.
I apologize for the sudden lack of software development updates. Its just that I got hit by the Korean Fever (no, its not a pandemic Flu! ) So please forgive this non-programming blog post.
 Girls Generation My addiction to all things Korean started when my Ex showed me a cute music video of a South Korean nine-member girl group called Girls Generation (SNSD/????). At first, I got very annoyed with the crazy jingle, but I instantly recognized the cuteness of the video. Now, I have a total of 4 GB of SNSD videos (meticulously stolen from Youtube), their complete discography on my Phone, and SNSD Ringtones. I am so addicted to them that I even have my four office monitors with SNSD wallpapers and SNSD Screensavers. I even watch and listen to my SNSD videos while working. My colleague, too, is also uber addicted to them and he says that the video increases his productivity!
To make my addiction worse, my brother who is addicted to Korean and Japanese Dramas, introduced me to Boys Before Flowers – the Korean drama adaptation of the Japanese manga Hana Yori Dango. After watching the said video, I suddenly want a Korean Hairstyle and a wardrobe makeover. Now, my TV set is locked-in to KBS. (And somebody please remind me to call Sky Cable to inquire YTF they removed Arirang from my TV Listing).
To my curiosity, I researched about the history of South Korea, the culture of South Korea and the economy of South Korea. And one thing was apparent, South Koreans love their country. They are proud of their lineage. They are both protectors of their future and guardians of their past. Just like the Japanese, they are nationalistic.
So it begs the question, Why are they Nationalistic and Why Filipinos are not? After sometime thinking bout this, I arrived at a simple answer.
Because they have something to be proud of!
Continue reading “On Filipino Nationalism (Or My pathetic explanation on Why Filipinos are not nationalistic)” »
 ASP.NET Migration Problem If you’ve read my previous blog post, I talked about some of the problems encountered while migrating some of our web applications from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0. Well, those products are now handed off to the Test Department for their routine torture.
Just a couple of days after the hand-off (Hand-off to Test or HOTT), the tester who is testing the product filed two (2) Tracks (Incident/Bug/Problem). Since I am the only developer working on the product, all of the tracks will automatically be assigned to me. The said tracks that were filed have the same “type” of problem.
When browsing for a file (Backup File / File Upload), the value of the Textbox would change back to its default value when the page re-loads.
Continue reading “ASP.NET 1.X to ASP.NET 2.0 Migration Postback Problem” »
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