Low fuel price near 100 cents per litre

Today, I found a few woolworth petrol stations in Sunnybank area sells fuel near 100 cents. The E10 fuel is even lower price. If you fueled E10 and have 4 cents discount voucher, the price is below 100 cents per litre. Such a good deal, I quickly fueled up in Calamvale woolworth for 105 cents per litre. Do not wait, I am worrying the good price won't last long

Building website is not that easy

A lot of people believe that is easy to build a website, even they can do that better than someone who build web sites for the living.  Yes, maybe , they are right. They can install a WordPress with free templates and add some images which are downloaded from the Internet.  It looks nice on his/her PC or mobile phone. However, if you are building a commercial website, you cannot do those things.
Firstly,  we cannot use any copyrighted images, we have to use our own photo or bought some stock photos.  Some photos even took by us, because there are some people, we need to get a written approval from those people to use those photo on the website.
Secondly, we build a website which can use in Desktop and Mobile phones. not just yours one. We have to consider some cross-devices tissues.  We did some trade-off on our designs.
My dearest friends, I believe we can do a good website in some aspects, however, we build a commercial website which is good at every aspect.

Working with users

A lot of young programmers believe they have some good programming skills. Then we can build a good application which a lot of people will buy that. Let’s start a business. In the most of cases i heard, we built a good application,but only they liked their software. Building a good application only reqiures good programming skills. The most important skills is understanding what your users like and hate. Not just what you like.

Thus, that is important to know your users.

Not just about programming

A lot of people think building software is only about programming. We,programmers,only need to sit in front of a computer and spend all of our time to code. Then the software can be built.
Actually, I spent at least of 30% to have meetings. I need to understand what kind of features are actually useful for our clients. Unless, the final product is only useable for myself. Another 20% I need to spend with our team. The building software is a kind of teamwork.
We are just coding, we talked a lot too

Petrol- Below 100 cents per L

This morning, when I was on the road to work, I saw the woolworth calamvale listed 99.3 cents per litre.  I have not seen that price for years! That is great!

We have to have our own code

There are open source or some off-the-shelf software components. We can glued them together a product. Maybe, only with a few custom codes. However, we may not know enough those components. We have to have our own codes. We need to understand every line of source code. So that, we can change them to adapt into fitting those requirements. Moreover, if we have our codes, we have advantages against with our competitors.

Hot weather arrived

This week, the Brisbane weather is very hot. When I walked out from my office, I felt my skin was burning.  Sometimes, I checked the thermometer at home during afternoon often was over 35 degrees. I think summer is arrived.

Can we develop app in iPad Pro?

iPad pro got a 12" screen and keyboard. Some people suggested apple should build xcode in iOS.
I think that is so wrong. I used storyboard in xcode to build UI. I need a big screen, I am using a 15" mac book pro. That is still too small. Moreover, we are developing mobile app for living. We used keyboard for around 7 hours per day. We need a super comfortable keyboard. iPad pro keyboard is too small.We just need a "big" computer to code!

Rebuild the software, rather than upgarde

I am writing a new version of my client's website. There are some contents and a new layout. However, that is not a upgrade. I am re-writing the whole system. Actually, that is a common practice. The system is about 3 years ago. In some companies, they will rebuild systems every few years. That is because a lot of times, programmers put the patches to fix the bugs. In the most times, those patches are not the best way to implement functions. When the system rebuild those fixes can be cleanup. Also, that is the chance to upgrade the system libraries. In my client's websites, that is using MVC2. Now, I am using MVC5. That is a major upgrade. Rebuilding the whole website can be do this kind of libraries cleaner.

I still like to write desktop applications

Nowadays, every one likes to talk about Mobile App and Cloud technologies.  A lot of developers are keen to learn iOS and Android programming. Well, I build iOS and Android apps too. However, I still like to build desktop applications.  I like to build somethings in a bigger screen. In a bigger screen,  I can add more components and more complex user interactions in the screen. Moreover, the desktop application can be more standalone, without any cloud resources. I believe in some situations which are better to keep your data and application logic in your local desktop, such as your tax and financial information.  They are the reasons to make myself, still building desktop applications.

Replacing pc

A lot of clients asked me when they need to replace their pc. Should they get a new one when old pc cannot work anymore?
I will ask how long they can work without a new pc. If they can work without a pc for a week, I will just recommend backup data and wait pc die. If they always need a pc, I will recommend they even need some backup pc sitting aside. When pc get old and even it can work well, I still will recommend they should replace them.

Testing cannot be done by programmers only

If a programmer tells me, he/she tested their codes, I would consider that is not completely tested. I am a programmer too, I found we will test the codes following our own logic. It won't find the bugs we have not considered all. So, the codes need to be tested by another team. Also, that is good to test by some general users, they test the programs completely out of technical context. This way can find some very very uncommon bugs.

Multi-webhosting providers

We are managing a number of websites, most of them owned by us and there are a few of them we managed for our clients.  We put them into a number of different datacenters and the hosts are provided by a various providers too. We are worried about the single point of  failure. Moreover,  any things related with our core business or clients' business, we will put them in a web hosting has phone support.
Today, one of our travel blogs web host are down. That is because the provider has some hardware issues. This travel blog is not our core business. The other websites are affected because they are in a different providers.  That is good to use multi-webhosting providers

Fuel Price Raising

This morning, when I went out to my office, I found the most of petrol stations in Eight Mile Plains and Sunnybank. The price is jumped up to 149 cents per litre. So far, I only found Calamvale Woothworth sell the fuel at 125 cents per litre.

SO many admin works!

Recently, I found I got more and more admin work, I have to spend my first half hour at work for paying bills, salary and reply emails everyday. They are very annoying, well, that may be the life of your own small business.

Websites need to be maintained!

 A lot of people expected after a website released,they need to spend anytime on that. Actually, especially, you have a content management system, you really need some one to maintain your website.  A content management system is a piece software, it has bugs or security holes. That is really to need someone to keep it updated.
If you have not time or skills to do, I suggest you should some cloud websites. The cloud service providers look after that for you!

Simple UI, light, not fat

The android app we built is using a very basic layout, which is very similar with the default theme. We are building apps for everyone, not just for those high end users. Thus, we are more focused to make the apk file as small as possible, and loading time is as short as possible too!

Busy with building Mobile app

After Android released 4.0, that is a brand new world for us. We need to rebuild all UI. This week, finally, we released our first android 4.x app, AdvGen Notes. Moreover, I got a lot of feedback to improve our UI and features request. I am so happy about that, now, we are working on the next version now!

Setup your work email in your personal mobile

I setup work email in their personal mobile for my friends, family members, workmate and even clients. They found this is very convenient. They can do their work outside of office. But the downside is you cannot get away from work. Even you are dinner with your family, you will have temptation to check your work emails.  Your work life is mixed with your personal and family life. Well, whether the technologies can help us or bring more pains to us?

Happy New Year

2015 is comming. I wish to say happy new year to every one. I wish your guys having a wonderful 2015!!!