James Leong | Web Developer

Today, just met an amazing developer.  Honestly, I did not really think I will meet someone of that caliber in a country like Pakistan.  I mean… my intention of coming to customer was to find labour to handle simple projects.

Never did I expect to chance upon another AJAX genius – somewhat like the Chuen Yang I knew.  Well, the guy built up a full scale AJAX desktop environment complete with windowing features, etc.  It looked just like Google Ajax API… just that it was custom made… and they did it on PHP.

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This is a test on the ability of you to quickly grasp the concept of the Joomla Framework. Well, for more information on Joomla, please go to:

http://www.joomla.org

Please make sure you download the latest version before doing the test….

Now to the test itself:

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It was a crazy day.  First stop was the air-con.  Took a drive down to Haier and got an electrician down to our office to inspect.

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We were getting desperate.  Day 9 and still did not manage to sign an office lease.  We got our driver and started wondering around…

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Yeah man… today is the first day we go the car.  So much more convenient!  I am even writing this blog in the comfort of an air-con Toyota Corolla.  Anyway, its only costing 40 SGD (with driver – petrol)….. but the convenience.  And…:P  this is one of the strange places where the petrol costs more than the driver…

1st stop was for the signing of the company memorandum with Tahi.  Looking at the amount of forms to sign, boy were we glad that we outsourced the entire project.  On top of it, Tahi was really nice, and volunteered to help us find day laborers for the painting of the office.  Apparently, such daily labourers are in abundance in Lahore and u can get a man for 500-600 Rupee per day.

1st stop was to Gloria Jeans.  Wanted to log into my GF’s email to find the company which was willing to find employees for us at a costs of only 50% employees wages.  However, after struggling for 15 minutes without success, decided to outsource this to my capable girl, Hwee Shan.

While going through the mails… realised that we have a big contract going for Chevrons.  Boy.. must go and get it man.  Hee hee….

Man.. this driver really pampers us.  Open door for us, help us carry our lap tops, throw away coffee, even volunteered to dispose my finger nail clippings (But this part is too much for me already… a bit disgusting….)  Anyway, he only earns 4k Rupee at the hotel, which is about 80 SGD monthly.  Will give him a good tip at the end of the day. 

Anyway, now going to look for the furniture for the office….

Got some Taiwan made chairs at 4000 PKR.

We also got some paints for 950 PKR each.  Dulux Paint – 2 tins – 5 liter

Drop by to see some carpets. 40 PKR for pretty good stuff.  18 PKR for run of the mill stuff.

Lightings going for 700 PKR with installation

Partition Building

Curtains

False Ceilings (35 PKR, 900 PKR Lights)

Another False Ceiling Alternative 30 PKR, 900 PKR Lights

UPS Supplier

Salon at Al-Hafeez View

Actress at the Salon

I worked really hard today, going through the yellow pages once again.

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Just some rip offs from online articles to bear in mind.

http://soa.sys-con.com/read/381227.htm

• Build the team yourself
• Put every candidate through at least the same vigorous interview process
• Do not leave your office until you  know what the offshore team will be working on tomorrow.
• Do not let the local geek manage an offshore team – geeks are interested in cool techniques and coding only. They do not really care that spending a week on finding the most efficient solution jeopardizes the project deadlines.
• Cut the losses quickly – if you hired a new offshore member and he did not deliver within the first two weeks, let him go. Cutting the umbilical cord sooner saves money (actually a lot of money).

http://www.indiainfoit.com/blogs/tips_-_offshore_outsourcing.html

• Define your service level requirements (SLR) in unambiguous terms.
• Visit the provider’s office at least once. Meet the team that will work for you. Get familiar with them.
• Insist on reward and penalty clauses

After a lot of complaining from my girlfriend of not doing anything other than work… Finally tried to do something romantic…  Today planned to do the following:

• Meet a customer (who refused to meet me another day…. this is a bubu.. the only unromantic thing…)
• Eat Prata at Prata House at Thomson
• Go to Science Center to watch omni theatre
• Play Tennis

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Recently I wrote something about how free markets will divert more land from the production of food to biodiesel resulting in people dying from starvation.  I thought it was something quite new.  Currently, I am idling around at Gloria Jeans cafe at Orchard Cineplex waiting for my girl to finish off her other engagements…. sitting next to me is an issue of The Economist, reading "The silent tsunami"….

Then a strange thought just came to me.  Actually, similar kind of disasters has already been inflicted on by the free market economy.  This food shortage is just another one of those things… and nothing really different….

In the drug industry, billions of dollars are diverted to treat rich people disease like obesity, diabetes, etc…  while millions are dying in Africa from AIDs, etc…  Surely, treating life threatening diseases like AIDs will be of far greater benefit to society at large then some cosmetic improvements in human kind….

Once again, free markets worked for the worse of man kind…

This reminded me of another saying:

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."  Churchill

I guess maybe similarly:

Free markets is the worse way of allocating resources, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time….