This afternoon while sitting in Labrador park reading for the 4th time Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, a signification truth suddenly dawned upon me. This flash of insight happened when I was staring at the waves in front of me thinking about happened the night before.
I spent most of the afternoon before with Embre, helping her sort out her company’s computer needs. We had dinner after that and parted our ways. I was reading the same book in the train on the way home when Ada stepped out from my past memories into the present and sat right beside me.
To the Ada now, I was no more than a mere stranger, she had no recollections of me as a person. I choose to remained in this shroud of anonymity and studied her as I did so many years age when she buried her tear strewn face in my lap lamenting how cruel life was to her with her first losing her beloved brother to a traffic accident and then losing her extremely wealthy boy friend due to her own stubbornness. In the midst of her crying back then she would occasionally lash out at the person beside as an injured wild animal would. I did what I could to console her. It was emotionally draining for me sitting beside her those late nights. After her bouts of tears, I would return her to her door steps, while I, being the broke student that I was, would spend the next 3 hours walking home to Clementi from Boon Lay.
I had this inkling since our start that we will never make it together, however for some unknown reasons I stayed put. Till this day, I do not know if such an act of mine was out of sympathy, affection, loyalty, obligation or pride? My release from this chain came the night she went to bed with another man. Ironically he was gay. Thank the lord and amen to that, I excused myself from her presence and moved along in my path. I felt much pain initially but over time, the usual sense of lightness and relief returned.
It was strange now sitting beside her in the train. I felt like a ghost. Or maybe she was the ghost. Some of her nails were chipped, her hair now showed a few more strands of white. Nothing much about her has changed since the day we parted.
Staring at the waves thoughts of Ada soon left my mind, followed by thoughts of a few others whom I had very similar encounters with, quite a few of them pretty recent…
Finally, the voice of Robert himself spoke to me. What he said could be found in a paragraph from page 42 of this book I was holding in front of me.
Paraphrased “Life is the best teacher of all. But unlike lecturers in school, most of the time, life does not talk to you. It just sort of pushes you around. Each push is life saying ‘wake up, there is something I want you to learn.’ ”
I finally realized there was a lesson to be learned here. This time I knew what it was I needed to learn.
Everyone has their own path and I should restrict my aid to any person to just words of advice as Robert’s rich dad did on Robert during his time of trial. Committing money, resource, time and effort towards bringing them to a path I wish for them is futile. Such will only delay me in the pursuit of my own path and serve them no purpose in their pursuit of their own, if not detract them from their own.
Let Life be their teacher and they make their own decisions for better or for worst. Henceforth situations which require my commitment of money, resource, time or effort will be tightly coupled with a strong profit motif and stay strictly business. So it is, I have finally understood and accepted the principal past down from dad to son and I finally free of the chains of this false sense of obligation.
Today while corresponding with Embre over the email this idea occurred to me. It is an idea which I thought would be useful for myself if I put it down into writings for future references.
Based on my understanding, the degree to which a product or service type is unique (the proximity of it to the apex of creativity and art) determines the general price at which the product or service will be procured.
Case One
A simple 5 pages web design is a commodity and will hence have problem fetching a price more than 10k, whereas a mission critical system that forms the core of the a company’s operations will unlikely be sold for anything less than 10K (in fact a company will start having doubts if that item is sold for less)
Case Two
A mass produced casio watch is a commodity and hence will have problems fetching a price more than $100, whereas a new hand crafted Rolex time piece (art) will unlikely be sold for anything less than $5000.
Case Three
A mass produced retail clothing item is a commodity and will hence have a problem fetching a high price, whereas a limited edition designer clothing item will likely fetch at least a 100 times the price of its commodity substitute.
As technology improves and more power is placed in the hands of the individual, more and more items will be commodified, however due to this newly formed based of commodities, the newly formed economic environment will make possible the support of more unique items ( that is one step closer to being an art piece than the commodity). However due to the fact that our state is in a constant flux, these items will over time be commodified.
Central to Darwin’s theory of evolution is the phrase “survival of the fittest” the essence of which means the better a species is able to fit into its surrounding environment the higher the chance for its survival. If we consider these tools that we see made available in the market as an external manifestation of the human specie’s attempt to better fit into our environment, we should observe that the speed at which the human specie evolve has been accelerating through the ages with the information age being the most rapid amongst them all:
Prehistoric age
Stone age
Bronze age
Iron age
Agrarian age
Industrial age
Electronic age
Information age
A further thought on the three cases I highlighted previously just occurred to me. It might be possible that the more creative product alternative comes in built with ability to solve more problems than the generic product.
Case One
Increased productivity of company operations
Case Two
Guaranteed ability to perform in more extreme environments such as outer space, the Artic north and the Antartic south.
Case Three
Ability to stay comfortable in more extreme environments such as outer space, the Artic north and the Antartic South. Another speculative use, though one which is highly questionable, is the ability to differentiate one relatively unmarked human from another in terms of technical expertise and access to resource. However due to the inherent inaccuracy caused by the human ego, the variance between what one does and how one dresses is subjected. A common example would be a person who has resource that allows him access to a $100,000 worth clothing item, decided to opt for a $10 clothing instead, while an idiot who aspires to look like the rich get himself into a debt of $100,000 for that relatively useless piece of clothing item instead of opting for the more practical $10.
In an age whereby more and more people proclaims that religion is no longer relevant, I counter propose that religion, more specifically defined as the link between us (who are relative) and the Great Spirit (that which is absolute) has became more important in this increasing rate of evolutionary flux.
I further propose that materialism, more specifically defined as the egotism of equating our personal identity to our profession and sometimes what we own (an ideological legacy from the agrarian & industrial age), as a very dangerous approach to this state of evolutionary flux.
With the rapid rate of evolution happening within the human species, the rate of which new professions are created and existing professions become destroyed becomes faster. As such the rate at which resource is accessible to an individual human varies more across time in the information age as compared to the industrial or agrarian age. Ownership of items that consumes a constant rate of resource over time thus becomes infeasible if the rate of resource consumption is exceedingly huge.
The act of fixating on a dying profession or on an infeasible item ownership, both impractical, is an external manifestation of an ego that does not fit to the environment and hence lowers the chances of the being’s survival in the long run.
In essence the mind is a miniature reflection of the great spirit that is around us. A good example is the ability of our mind to freely time travel (the forth dimension on top of the three dimensional world we see around us). I am speculating on the possibility of applying the ideas of quantum physiques to the link between the mind and the great spirit. There has been multiple literature (Carl Gustav Jung’s included) that states the existence of a link between our subconscious mind and the collective mind(the great spirit). Hence it can be speculated that by discarding all fixations that occur in our conscious mind, there is a possibility of allowing the free follow of thoughts from our subconscious mind to our conscious mind. If the first item of my hypothesis is true (that our subconscious mind has a valid link to the great spirit), we would in essence be aspired to the absolute and hence achieve a higher rate of survival.
Now that my great friend Pasha and the team from Russia has taken over majority of the day to day running of our company, my mental resources has been freed up. I could thus focus more of my attention on sales and marketing. One of the first things I keenly felt was the law of scarcity and the idea of competitive advantage.
Simplistically modeled, the time and effort of Pasha and team is what we term resource. This particular group of resource is very effective when applied on solving problems of a technological nature, most especially on complex technological problems. This resource is less effective when applied in the solving of other problems, for example cooking rice. To get maximum effective when it comes to the problem of cooking rice, it is advisable instead to engage the help of a housewife. In other words, a unit of Pasha’s time will generate 100 items of technology or 1 bowl of rice, while the same unit of a housewife’s time will generate 1 line of workable codes or 100 bowls of rice.
The philosophy of my operation is to generate maximum value for our society. Since Pasha has a competitive advantage in producing codes and a house wife has a competitive advantage in producing rice, Pasha should concentrate on producing technology while the house wife on cooking rice. This in a nut shell is what is called competitive advantage. It would be stupid of me to deploy Pasha and team to cook rice and the house wife to do programming. It would mean an overall drop in value that society in general could enjoy.
The laws governing economics can never be bent or broken, they are very real. To have continued access to a certain pool of resource, be it the type used that solves complex technical problems or the type that cooks rice, we need to maintain it with another kind of resource called money. Failure to generate money in worst case scenario would result in health issues on Pasha and team since there is no more money for rice, hence no more resource to solve complex problem, or in the latter example would mean no more rice to eat since the house wife runs off with another man. Squandering or inefficient utilization of resources would result in the depletion of such resources in the short run and a lack of it in the long run. This ties closely with the idea of competitive advantage. If Pasha and team focus on solving complex technological problems, they will generate more value for society than they would cooking rice. Thus they would get more monetary resource for the upkeeping of their health doing programming. If the housewife focus on cooking rice instead of solving complex technolgical problems, she will generate more value for society than she would solving technological problems. Thus she would get more monetary resources for the upkeeping of her health cooking rice.
Everyone have some kind of problems. Due to the law of scarcity, everyone has limited amount of the resource called money however much they claim to have it. It is everyone’s desire to solve their problem with as little as possible the use of their limited resources. It is everyone’s dream to have their problems solved without the utilization of their own resources. However we live in a real world where the law of scarcity is very true. It is naive to believe one can gain something from nothing.
There are only a few cases I can think of which proves contrary, they are:
- By act of God (only God can bend the iron clad rules of economics. However to ensure against end of the world, chaos and the collapse of the system he built, God does not do this. He instead resorts to the manipulation of the very rules he created which often means he gets his hands tied as well.)
- If one lies and cheat (this is a short lived tactic, what goes around comes around)
- One thinks one is indeed getting what one wants but is however having this mistaken believe (which is usually the case, hence all the scandals)
As mentioned the above three tactics are either exceptionally rare or short lived.
To sustain this pool of resource, I thus see the job of the sales and marketing personal as one who seeks out target audiences with a certain set of technologically based problems. Next I see myself as a function which which fulfills two very important roles in this value chain.
- Reducing as much as possible the required resources from clients
- Ensuring continued availability and prolonged life span of Pasha and team by utilizing their time and effort on problem sets with the closest fit to their capabilities.
It is unrealistic to engage Pasha and team to solve a problem with no renumeration of the resource called money. Something cannot come from nothing. Pasha and teams still needs rice to eat. However it is hard to convince a client to part with his resource so as to exchange for a solution. To solve the deadlock, it is important to next introduce the concept of pain.
The degree to which a client feels pain at not having a solution is the degree to which he is willing to part with his current resource for a solution to the pain. To fulfill role 1 and 2 concurrently, I came up with another rule:
- Pasha and team’s time are most efficiently used when employed on problems which there has not yet been a solution for and is extremely painful to the client if not solved
An assumption and also a third role for myself:
Assumption :
There are already solutions to a sub set of problems that is causing pain to the client
Role :
Find the cheapest solution with the closest fit to the problem that is causing extreme pain to a client at the same time utilizing Pasha and teamonly when absolutely necessary.
These set of rules when applied by the role that I assume allows for some really interesting possibility.
Profit maximization scenario:
Offer the same service that other vendors are offering but with less cost incurred.
Market penetration scenario:
Offer the same service that other vendors are offering but at a cheaper price and with less cost incurred.
Value Maximization scenario:
offer the best possible service to all clients at the cheapest possible price and the lowest possible cost.
In accordance to my guiding philosophy, we are currently operating in value maximization mode. Already signs are showing that competitors are not able to produce the same results at the price we are offering. While Pasha and team is not overloaded with work, the cost of production is kept low. This move is in accordance with the philosophy of Kaizen (muri, muda, mura)
Muri (unreasonable) happens if Pasha and team is expected to fulfill the entire requirement set at the price offered to the client. This would mean Pasha and team being under compensated for the value they generated to society, in worst case scenario being unable to sustain themselves.
Mura (uneveness) happens if the results of operations are inconsistant. While we already do have a well defined operating process in place, we are still constantly incorporating new practises into the value chain to further even out our work
Muda (wastefulness) happens if the time and effort of Pasha and team is utilized for solving problems that has already been solved by someone else on the web. This is avoided by the adoption and non-charging of freely available plugins from the web that fulfills the requirement subset of clients.
Such a strategy when applied in the long run would mean a lean and effficient operation model that imposes the least amount of pain on all involved in the entire value chain while generating the maximum possible value for our society.
Taking a step back one might say I am simply being the middle man that does not add value to the value chain. Such is not true. Let examine this in terms of competitive advantage again.
We simplistically model this again. Pash and team being highly specialized in technical work generates 100 technological items, 100 existing technological mapping to customer needs or 50 sales per unit time while me being the jack of all trades generates 90 technological items per unit time, 100 existing technological mapping to customer needs or 65 sales per unit time. My existence in the value chain frees Pasha and team up to generate the maximum amount of technological items possible, since I took charge of the technological mapping to customers needs and the sales. In essence, the amount of value I generate in the value chain is a function of the three components:
- The amount of money the customer saves
- The amount of time Pasha and team saves
- The extra amount of money Pasha and team makes with the time saved due to more effective allocation of their time and effort
In general everyone resents the middle man who contributes nothing but leaches much from the value chain. It is impossible to get something for nothing in the long run. Information being so efficient nowadays makes the non value addding middle man redundant really fast. However due to the way this operation has been structured, both the client, Pasha and team will require my presence in the value chain.
Thinking further, I am now considering the possibility of retaining a specialist who has a competitive advantage in closing sales. Ideally, he or she should be one who can generate 50 technological items, 50 existing technological mapping to customer needs or 100 sales per unit time. Such a specialist would be a nice fit to the team.
This afternoon while I was putting together the final pieces of Poise.sg, I was suddenly inflicted by a bout of self doubt. Not wanting this negative pyschological state to affect the quality of my work, I decided to take a break for the day and instead do some skate boarding.
While on my skate boarding travelling up Bukit Timah road, I meditated upon this phenomena. Strange, I thought I should have been beyond this physchological weakness by now. Nevertheless, since this phase of self doubt rared its head as it did, it was good to dig further into it and understand the cause.
It suddenly rained when I arrived on the opposite of the road from Ngee Ang Polytechnic. I decided to seek shelter under the bus stop to wait out the down pour. The shelter was in fact not much of a shelter. As the wind blew more rain water my way, I was starting to feel really drench.
It was refreshing. Mother nature, my favourite girl, understood my needs and gave me some spiritual cleansing. She never fails always to remind me how insignificant I am compared to the rest of the universe. From this point of view, any failures I might encouter is not really a failure at all. It is but a mere speck of dust in this entire cosmic universe easily swiped away. It was then I suddenly remembered this other travelling companion of mine, Death.
With my inner eye I took a glance behind me. Sure enough, there he was just a few steps behind me, busy toying around with his scythe. This trick he does with his scythe must be a new one. I have never seen him play with it that way before. His face as usual was hidden under the hood. He think he looks cool and mysterious that. Once in a while, with his hood drawn too far down over his face such that it blocks his line of sight, he bumps into the lamp post. Most from the world of living would fear him for the duties God ordains he carry out, I do find him to be quite an entertaining a companion for the road though. His humour is always somewhat ironic.
He must have noticed me looking his way, for he finally stopped the bazzaire twirling of his scythe.
“Is something the matter?” he asked genuinely curious. The sunlight glinted dangerous on the sharp edges of his scythe.
“No but yes. I am contemplating the reason for this self-doubt which unknowingly crept into my psyche this afternoon.”
“Oh I see. Your time is not up yet, so it is nothing to worry about. Must be Lucifer playing some tricks on you with his cosmic mist. ”
“Damned! You caught me red handed! ”
I turned my inner eye to the source of the voice and saw old man red. Two horns were sticking out from his fore head and a long goatie growing from his chin.
“See… I told you so.” Death stated non-chalant and went back to toying around with his scythe again.
“Thank you my friend. ” Good man Death is always so reliable when it comes to pointing the way to the absolute when one becomes momentarily distracted all the cosmic flux, not that Lucifer always curious about new knowledge and always experimenting to find more uses for the cosmic mist around us helped.
“And Lucifer my friend, you with the two horns, I am running short of time. You almost nearly got me distracted there for a moment. Enough with the cosmic powder experimental of yours now, I have got things to do.”
“Alrite, ” he replied somewhat subdued, for the time being at least, and once again took his place to my left. Death, as usual happily playing with his scythe took his position on my right. We continued along my path. Mother nature had her duties to perform and bid us farewell till we meet again.
This cosmic mist that Lucifer so much likes to play with seems somewhat dangerous. I think quite a few from the world of the living have in fact took the images portrayed in these mist as real. In the process, they gave up their dreams and surrendered their souls to something that was not even real. This non-sense is utterly crazy.
Recently, I have been focusing my programming efforts on mainly Poise.sg. Poise.Sg is built using WordPress as the backbone, the choice of which I stated in a previous article (choice of platform for a new concept). To date, my choice using wordpress has proven to be a sound one. I have been able to achieve the 3 following objects through the use of wordpress
- Ensuring conformity in look and feel
- Accomodate multiple different layouts
- Maintain role based access control to specific views
- Incorporating new external Javascript and PHP libraries into Wordpress as a plugin
Now as the project progresses, I am faced with a software architectural issue. This has to do with the way the jQuery library is ultilized. Due to the fact Poise.Sg is a heavily Ajaxed system, there are many instances of the client browser doing an off the screen call back to the server via an Ajax Post method.
Due to the flexibility of the jQuery Library, there are three different methods available I could handle data transfer between the server and the client browser. They are
- To return raw HTML from the server and append the parent HTML DOM node via the method
jQuery.post(’server.php’, {data:”something”}, function(data){//data is a raw HTML
jQuery(”#parentNodeID”).append(data);})
- To return javascript, to be executed in the function that will handle the response data
jQuery.post(’server.php’, {data:”something”}, function(data){//data is a series of javascript
eval(data);})
- To JSON object to be interated in the function that will handle the response data
jQuery.getJSON(’server.php’, {data:”something”}, function(data){//data is JSON Object and can be iterated through with a for loop
jQuery(data).each(function(index){var value = jQuery(this).val()})
})
After having tried each method, I have come to realize there are Pros and Cons to each of the three methods.
Method 1 was is an easy and straightforward method to employ. However, it results in data and presentation being mixed in the response. A change presentation layout would translate into the need to go back and edit the codes sitting in the server end. It does not cater for the eventual possibility of data source reuse due to the tight coupling between data and presentation. The repercussion is the need to create a different ajax server method each time a server call needs to be made from a different view from the client end.
Method 2 is a somewhat less straightforward method to employ as compared to method one. It is a doubly bad option. Not only does it face the none data source reusability issue described in method 1, it also face the possibility of PHP introduced javascript error, in the event whereby PHP inserts invalid characters into the javascript string or integer location.
Method 3 does allow for flexible reuser of data source, since the styling is handled at the client side Javascript level, while the server side is only responsible for generating valid JSON responses. This means multiple different views with drastically different layouts could share the use of the same data source. The only downside to this method is similar to the PHP introduced error as described in the method 2. The main difference is that instead of PHP introducing invalid characters to disrupt the javascripting, it introduces invalid characters in the value JSON fields thereby rendering the JSON response invalid.
For the sake of system extensibility on Poise.sg, I opted for method 3. The down side is that while the content will be mainly user generated as similar to ThingsToDoSingapore.com, there will be instances when the result will not be displayed as generated by the user due to their use of invalid characters.
These are my thoughts for today. Being the workaholic as I am, I have over the course of a few hours today (a Sunday) finished the search form on Poise.sg and will now take a break till tomorrow.
After sourcing for hours, I managed to acquire the viewing of this movie “Singapore Dreaming” on Tudou.com. To me the whole notion of the value system portrayed in the movie seemed at once familiar and strange. I wonder how much of what is portrayed in the movie is actually true to real life. I do know from hearsay that Singaporeans are obsessed with the 5Cs, car, condominium, cash, credit card and country card. However if the actual level in society for such an obsession is indeed accurately in portrayed in the movie, this would be a very dangerous act on a social level as well as a personal level.
Such a level of obsession for superficial appearance imposes not only undue stress on the self but also on those immediate relations around the self. Also this obsession, if examined under the framework of wealth as proposed by Robert Kiyosaki, is a big no, no. The choice of expending resources, in this case money, on items to appear wealthy such as the 5Cs, instead of on investments in systems that would potentially generate an incoming cash flow, is a fool’s decision. The ugly situation is further compounded by the attempt to achieved a fool’s decision through borrowed money. In the cash flow sense, it is getting further in debt with no possibilities of any potential cash flow gains in the long run.
In my opinion this obsession with the 5Cs is as much an adaptation of the American dream, as it is an inherent tendency amongst the Han Chinese races from the southern coastal cities of China (the origins of the current day Chinese immigrants in Singapore).
As observed, the American dream is a illusion that is both unsustainable on a national level as well as on a global level in the long run. America is currently in debt by trillions of dollars. America currently ranks number 2 in the list of carbon emitting countries worldwide, recently overtook by China. International conservation organizations have all come to the consensus that consequences will be dire in global warming progresses by another 2 degrees.
Quoted from Achim Steiner, Director General of the World Conservation Union “The Kyoto Protocol was an important milestone, but it is simply not enough. This conference must find new ways to achieve more serious emissions reductions after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol expires.” 2012 is less than 365 days away. Even Mr Lee Kwan Yew himself had attested against this excessive materialism in his interview in his interview (see from section 1.05seconds of this video on YouTube)
My personal opinion would be for fanatics of the 5C dream or its variants to relent and desist, opt instead for a more sustainable life style and value system, if not one that is worldly ascetic. Such an alternative value system and philosophy towards life will restore the world to its natural balance over time as well as have the human soul centered. Such might in fact free the mind of distractions thus grant the person freedom to pursue his calling. Those who are religious might see it as a return to God, or the continued pursuit of Nirvana. Those who are free thinkers or agnostics will see this as living a simple and uncomplicated life. Those who are artist with their heads in the air, or air in their heads will see this a pursuing the bohemian lifestyle. Whichever the case choose a path.
Nevertheless, I think my worries are ground, already the signs of the forth coming Age of Aquarius are manifesting themselves. Fingers crossed, December 21, 2012, might just be the day of our salvation or the end of the world as we know it.
Thus far functions that allow for the creation of accounts for the three user roles have been created. People coming to Poise.sg will be able to login to Poise.sg using their facebook connect details and create an account type of their choice. There are basically 3 defined account types.
- Models & Talents (Male & Female)
- Agents
- Media Houses / Production Houses / Advertising firms / PR firms
Functions accessible by Models & Talents are well defined.
Thus far there is a lack of differentiation between the user roles of Agents and Media Houses system wise. There is almost no difference between these two roles with the exception that when media houses attempt to contact models directly, the notification gets routed to their agents as well as the models.
This is the main issue of concern which I have been pondering over these past few days. I will need to identify the key value an agent contributes to this process other than just being the middle man whose sole purpose is to pass information along the channel. From a superficial perspective an agent is one that simply contributes by passing information along. However in this new system that will be known as Poise.sg, information will be made transparent, thus eroding the role of agents as information transferrers. As such an agent might in fact come to see Poise.sg as a threat to their role in the supply chain, thus resist the adoption of the use of the Poise platform.
However from an industrial perspective, why is it that Media Houses / Production Houses / Advertising firms / PR firms choose to engage the agents on some occasions and by pass the very same agents during other occasions? There must indeed be a defining difference between these two decision outcomes, therein lies the true value of agents.
Ideally when Poise.sg is eventually launched, this platform should safeguard the interest of all three parties. The only way I could envision this to be possible would be to ascertain the core value adds these three roles contribute to the supply chain and enhance the effectiveness of their roles by providing them with supporting software functions. Thus far I have approached 3 modelling agencies of which I am closely acquainted with for feedbacks and insights into this issue.
- Esther from Ezen Models
- Justin from Style House
- Kirk from Perspective Models
Hopefully the insights, I gain from this round of interviews would lead me to the solution of this wall I hit.
After some delays, I finally started work programmically on this new concept I have in mind. The first step was to choose how to start.
I have 3 choices in front of me:
- Start by creating a platform from scratch as I did for ThingsToDoSingapore.com
- Start by using the Joomla Content Management System as I did for Name1price.com
- Start by using the wordpress Content Management System as I did for WinterInVenice and PixieMagicalland.
The following are the basis on which I made my decision:
- Conformity of look and feel across pages
- Fast loading
- Ease of programmability
- Flexible deployment of plugins
- Ability to leverage on existing codes
The main reason as to why I choose Wordpress over building one from scratch is because it allowed me to ensure conformity of look and feel across pages. It does however take away somewhat from the ease of programmability department, since I will need to program in the functionality via the hookup system that is the inherent core of wordpress
The framework of Joomla is somewhat more rigid as compared to wordpress. It scores even lower in the ease of programmability department. It scores the same in the conformity of look and feel department. The main downside of Joomla as compared to wordpress is that each page is limited to just one main component and multiple modules. As this concept of mine is still in its infant stage, I will require flexibility in that department as well. A hookup system will thus fit my requirements nicely.
All said I will now start working on the initial landing page which allows for registration of 3 different types of accounts.
Just these few days I had the opportunity to handle the migration of data for a few web sites. Some were running on the fat cow server. Others were running on the host hi server. All of them were to be ported over to the Vodien server.
The fatcow server has over the past few months proved to be a disappointment, while the hosthi server has all along been a disappointment. Often do I get complains from customers that there web servers are either not loading or their sub domains are showing errors. Come next year I will allow both the fatcow and hosthi accounts to expire. I guess the moral of the story is that if some service providers promise unlimited something, there must seriously be a limited something else somewhere.
While migration of files across servers are easy, the migration of databases and email accounts are somewhat more complicated.
Large MySQL Database migration process
There is an instance where I had to migrated a database that is 100mb in size. To do so via the standard database admin panel called the phpmyadmin would have took forever. Hence I wrote a php script that to fetch a file via a handle
$fp = fopen(”databasedata.sql”, “r+”);
instead of reading in the whole file at one shot.
file_get_contents(”databasedata.sql”);
The latter method would have used up all the allocated resources in a normal php installation unless of course I went ahead and changed the configuration in my php.ini file. However this latter method is not at all a very elegant method to handle the task.
To further expound on the prior method, I coded the script to parse the $fp stream line by line and consolidate them into one big line everytime the latest line does not end with the string chunk ”;\r\n”. In the event this chunk was detected, I will that this consolidated line and execute them to the database.
while (!feof($fp) && $counter<100 ) {
$query .=”\r\n”.trim(fgets($fp));
if(substr($query, -1) ==”;”){
execute_query($query);
$query = “”;
}
}
Lastly to free up unnecessary resources, I closed the stream $fp which I did not need to use anymore.
fclose($fp);
var_dump($myvar);
Each morning I wake up with gratitude knowing that I have been once again presented with the gift of life for another day. Each day I strive along my path. Each night I sit in regret knowing I have once again failed.
Until the day comes when I could live each and every second of my life unstained by personal egotism, all I have done along the pursuit of my path will amount to nothing. Until that day comes, each and every of my action will translate immediately into failure at the very moment of their manifestation. Until that day comes, I can only live in gratitude that I have been once again presented with the gift of life and regret that I am unworthy of that gift.
When that day comes, my works and efforts will no longer be a manifestation of personal egotism and vanity, something I have personally come to despised and look upon with regret. When that day comes, my works will be a tribute in its purest sense unstained by my failings due to the animal within. When that day comes, I will truly see myself as a man and not a abomination of nature that is half man and half animal.