Dear Blizzard

I wrote the following email to Blizzard on the 4th of August 2011:

RE: Blizzard's bleak financial future

Hi,

If you could forward this to the Blizzard's board of directors or anyone with the actual power to affect the business direction of Blizzard, I would much appreciate it.

I'm Albert Zhen, writing in from Singapore and because of the lack of access, I am unable to write directly to the people whom actually have a say in the business direction of Blizzard.

I'm a massive fan of Blizzard ever since the very first Warcraft, I am really disappointed with Starcraft 2 as it no longer allowed for me to play on my laptop offline when travelling or overseas.

The authentication requirement meant that people whom do not have a constant connection to the internet now have no way to ask for their money back for a game that they PAID UPFRONT for.

I have completely stopped playing Starcraft 2 because of the authentication requirement and get my fix of RTS gaming from Dawn of War 2: Retribution as well as Supreme Commander 2 on Steam, which I am able to play on Offline mode.

Which is IRONIC since they are an ONLINE digital distribution platform. If they can do it, then I don't see why any other company can't. Since you have the advantage of a physical media and they don't.

If it is at all possible, I would like a refund of the full sale amount of SGD $109 dollars from Blizzard, paid to IAH games Singapore, because their online requirement had made the game unplayable due to a lack of internet connection during my travels to Japan in the beginning of this year.

Now it seems apparent that Diablo 3 will be the same. First as a loyal fan that has purchased every Blizzard game until Starcraft 2 INCLUDING World of Warcraft and every subsequent expansion and an avid WoW player until recently, I know that EVERY SINGLE ONE of my 10 gamer friends within my closest circle who DID NOT buy Starcraft 2 and are continuing their boycott of Blizzard games on a permanent basis because of the inclusion of online authentication EVERY SINGLE TIME you play. I was the ONLY one in my circle of friends who bought Starcraft 2, means that you could have gotten 10 times more sales if Starcraft 2 was fully playable in offline mode without authentication. Those 10 of my friends whom are avid gamers who are planning or have bought games like, Witcher 2, Crysis 2, Skyrim, Torchlight 2 and many other offline supported games that aren't nearly as good as Blizzard games will NEVER buy another Blizzard game in our lives if this trend continues.

It is with a heavy heart, that I am going to say that I have lost all hope that I will ever buy a single product from Blizzard ever again.

You have lost 10/10 of what used to be 9/10 of your loyal customers. This is heart wrenching and it only goes to show, that Blizzard may not out-live the other less dedicated companies because they are willing to improve the experience of their paying customers. Whereas Blizzard only seems to make it worse.

P.S. You know that people who pirated Starcraft 2 are able to play offline mode without authenticating or going online at all? I feel sick as a paying customer that a person who pirates the game for free has a better experience than me, who paid full price for the game. While I don't stoop to their level, it goes to show that you're losing more money from paying customers than what you would be gaining from having a DRM in the first place. Majority of people whom I know have pirated Blizzard products out there would not have bought your game because it is simply too expensive for them, but now, you're going to lose your paying customers because you're trying to catch a market that was never really there in the first place. Or are you secretly out to encourage piracy of Blizzard products?

P.P.S. Think about it. Catching a non-existent market that can't afford your game in the first place or regaining the trust by removing the barriers for those who can afford it to enjoy your games and keep your paying customers. You can't convert a pirate who can't AFFORD the price of your game in the first place. The answer should be quite obvious to those with acute business acumen. Having a DRM isn't cutting your losses, it's increasing it dramatically. Just ask the retail shops here in Singapore who have been complaining to me relentlessly about how Starcraft 2 is gathering dust on their shelves. Whereas Witcher 2 after completely disabling their DRM have been sold out ever since. SOLD OUT despite not having "protection" Counter intuitive or just common sense? People will buy a good game if they like it. That's the culture here, because we want to support the companies that make them.

P.P.P.S. And also, Blizzard is a global franchise and internet connection globally isn't complete, constant or fast enough. I'll bet you that you will make more money than you can care to count if you dare to add offline support to all future single player capable games. I'd get my 10 friends and ask them to get their friends to buy Diablo 3 if that does happen before the official launch date as well as each and every Blizzard game with offline support that is released after that.

--
Yours sincerely,

Blizzard's Ex-Fan
Albert Zhen

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Oystered World

Money, power or freedom?

Is getting financial freedom really going to break you free from the rat race?
Is power enough to get you free from the drudgery of etching out a living?
What IS freedom? Do we have it at all? Have we a choice in our place in society?

My take on everything? It's TIME. If you can control your own use of time, the world is truly your oyster. If you can push aside deadlines on a whim with little or no repercussions then I say you have power.

If you can afford the time to spend time with your family and not need to worry about putting food on the table, then you are rich.

If you have NO time to do what you want, then you are poor.

If you have too much time and do not know how to spend it, then I feel pity; for you should be spending that time to find a reason for you to spend time on.

Time is the only currency where you are richest when you can spend it ALL on something you want.

So go out and spend your time! Alauz out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Good, Evil, Nature and Chaos

I had the strangest dream in a span of an hour's nap today. I got the strangest feeling to share it.

The Dream

I dreamt that I was a boy who survived an accident. After the accident, the boy was living alone somewhere in China but looking for his father. His mother seems to have died before the accident or at childbirth. The boy remembers nothing about it. The age of the boy was pre-pubescent about 11 or 12.

His father was missing after the accident. But never reported dead, just missing. The boy had a memory, one that was garbled but I managed to see through the fractures. He thought he had seen his father at the nearby noodles stall. He was a worker or a customer that seemed to be passing through and stopped by to eat noodles. It was crowded so the boy could not push through the crowd in time for a better look. The father seemed not to recognize him and then one of the patrons at the stall called for them to leave.

The boy managed to get to his father but his father would not acknowledge him, the boy asked around and it seems that the father is suffering from some memory condition that makes him forget about his past. A local medicine woman had nursed him back to health after a terrible accident several years ago.

The boy found the local medicine woman who told him that the damage was permanent and his father will have no chance of remember if the boy was his son. The boy was disappointed but was brought away by the two scientists who are now his foster parents.

There was a strange couple that took the boy in after the accident. They were Caucasians. The boy was Asian. This strange couple were scientists who were studying ancient lore and knowledge about a particular legend of the four primordial forces on the planet: Good, Evil, Nature and Chaos. An unknown amount of time will pass but personifications or avatars that represented each of the primordial forces have been born and they have always met up for a competition with one another and then all of them perished either during or after the fight.

When the time was right, Good will pick Nature, while Evil picks Chaos. Two boys and two girls will meet. Their essence infused with one another across great distances even before they meet. They will think in step and act together. Until you cannot tell which primordial force the child had originally been born with.

In my dream, I was the boy. But because our minds were joined, I also glimpsed the girl and her past. She was born in America, same age as the boy. And she was locked up in the basement because of her unusual behaviour and temperament. Her parents gave her drug treatments in hopes of controlling her emotional outbursts and also gave her lots of toys. Keeping her in the drug haze was not enough to control her.

With the drugs, the dolls and toys around her seemed real, real enough to talk to her. And they had a life of their own. ‘Crocky’ was a toy crocodile but was longer than 3 meters and was swimming in the moat around their home. ‘Dahlly’ was a Bunny who walked on hind legs and was 2 meters tall bulging with muscle. There were other toys, but they had less significance and were forgotten once our minds combined.

When the time for the clash was about to begin, our minds melded and we were one. I helped her move her sedated body to the train station where the male scientist picked up the girl and brought her to me. During the move, she kept asking ‘Dhally’ about ‘Crocky’ and if ‘Crocky’ would be coming with us. ‘Dhally’ told her that ‘Crocky’ is busy making sure that she gets to meet me safely. Even while drugged, our combined powers were enough to make her parents lose their ‘sight’ of her. Even though she was staggering step by step towards the door, her parents ran panicked around the room and brought out the other toys that she didn’t remember to tempt her to remain. We both saw ‘Crocky’ near the end, snapping its mouth around her father’s neck decapitating him. She got to the train station safely after that.

Upon holding her hand, our appearance went through an alteration. Our skin turn green and purple, our hair was mottled brown and our eyes flashed with lightning. When next we spoke, we spoke together with our voices mingled with one another directly from our throats. Even if one of us spoke, you heard both voices.

“So it is done? Good and Nature are one again. So it is time?” The male scientist asked with anticipation.

“It is done.” Dual-toned my voice was mixed in with hers; strangely melodious.

“So what are you going to do? Evil and Chaos are so violent! Is there a chance?” The female scientist lamented.

“Do not doubt Nature, she is violent and ceaseless. Good is not without its protection. If Evil and Chaos becomes violent, so will us.” We chided with our voice rumbling.

It was only an hour’s dream. And this is all I can remember. So vivid, so real and I will try to remember more of the feelings I had felt during the dream, I am so strangely disoriented.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Searching

We seem to be always searching for something in every moment of our lives. Searching for your toys, parents, love, job, breakthrough and the list goes on into infinity.

I suppose during the wait now, I'm still making productive use of my time by trying to come up with a cheap way to recreate the mineral oil PC.

I am also attempting to create an offline backup solutions for people who cannot afford to lose their data due to REAL-TIME backup because their system copies viruses or data corruptions directly into their backups due to ineffective real-time solutions like RAID. It'd be a painless 5 min offline backup process that is manually controlled with a separate button on your computer.

Found a breakthrough for one part of my solution today as well. Not sure how it'd work out until proper testing has been done.

Who knows? Once I am done with this piece of research, the next computer you buy maybe from me? Haha... Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Last Leg of Advertising

Here's my final post for advertising.

It's been a tough time trying to do advertising and literary journalism at the same time. Since advertising has 6 assignments and journalism has 5 papers to write.

But looks like I'm almost done with everything. I do believe that it's made me a stronger person, but also looks like I've gained weight from the lack of time for myself. Haha, but I'm sure that after this, I finally have time for myself and to be able to take some proper care.

First thing I'm going to do after the end of this semester? Graduate haha.... but then after that, I'm probably going to start hitting the gym again.

And we at KaleidoVision, hope everyone enjoys the show we are going to put up for them today.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Advertising in Video Games

So I've already mentioned in my previous post, lets say a couple years ago about how video games would be the next big thing in Advertising.

Guess what, I actually read about it in my advertising textbook.

Quite amazing that it's still not fully caught on yet. But slowly and surely, the businesses will understand and know, that as video games become more and more prevalent, it acts like a completely new medium unto its own.

Where are all the youths going for their dose of entertainment? What are youths doing with majority of their free time? If you are in an affluent enough nation, the answer is probably going to be "The Computer". And what do youths love to do on the computer besides surf and chat? That's right, playing video games.

Now imagine if you can tap that potential when people are young, you've got yourself a powerful priming effect for your product. The tobacco companies knew this, and look at how many more people who cannot quit smoking because of that powerful influence to get people to TRY their product.

The key is to get the potential consumers to try the product. If they are satisfied with it, then the door is open for more welcoming news about the product. It's very scary what influence a video game might have on people's psyche, so let's hope that advertisements in video games remain as they are right now. Few and far between.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Julie & Julia

Here's an irony, I'm blogging about a blogger who blogged about Julia Roberts.

Here's an even bigger irony, the whole experience is in a form of a movie.

What is it about blogs and advertising? When a popular blog becomes a platform for advertising, the novelty of the blog sometimes wears off the moment it "hits the big time". Ironic isn't it?

What does it mean to hit the big time? Become recognized? A blog has two levels of recognition, first level is the general consumer recognition. It used to be that this level of recognition is all you get as a blogger.

But times have evolved. Now, the blog has the commercial recognition. Once a blog has a critical amount of readers the commercial entities start taking notice of them. Once that happens, a blog gets publicized by the media and then gets bogged down by tons of advertising banners. It is then that people either get very interested or just get disinterested and leave the readership of the blog.

The "Bloggersphere" has evolved past the events recorded in the movie. The movie shows that once people start noticing the blog, they read it and pass the information about the blog via peers instead of the regular advertising/media channels. But now, popular blogs are BLASTED out through multiple channels at people.

It's become an Advertising platform that requires Advertising. The irony.

Hope you guys enjoyed this silly observation, Alauz out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Advertising?

In my everyday life, I'm not one to deny the increasing impact of interesting advertisement on my life. I may not buy or do what the Ads desire, but it does add an interesting spin on the way I would look at things.

Here are some interesting advertisements I've seen recently. First one even won an international advertising award but at the same time, banned after a short run in Germany because people found the content to be offensive to some. It is both a good but ironically a bad advertisement.

I'd explain why after you've seen it.

First Ad



So did you think that's an interesting advertisement that might accomplish its goal of getting people to sign up for classes? If I had a basic grasp of the language, then I would be horrified at the thought of being so ignorant in the face of my kids! I'd definitely go for classes. Then again people probably think differently.

Difference between good and bad?

Second and third ads are special, the second ad is not a recent advertisement but it's the predecessor of the third advertisement that's been run recently. And actually you might not get the third advertisement if you never watched the first one. So I would consider them linked advertisement.

Second Ad



Third Ad



And if I were to consider if they were successful advertisements, I personally would say yes! If I drank alcohol I would most definitely buy this brand of beer because of the entertaining ad that would play in my head when choosing my beers. Sadly I stopped regular consumption of alcohol for a couple of years already and I'm not planning on getting back on it, so this ad has only its entertainment value for me.

And I do think that my last semester taking advertising is like a crushing swan song right now, with Student week almost over, Literary Journalism increasing its workload; I'm happy to just get 3-4 hours of sleep a day. At least I'm done with the coughing fits, but hopefully after this week, I might be able to get a couple nights of decent rest without worrying too much about club responsibilities as well as academic stuff.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

A Little Commentary

Here's a video I commented on, it is nothing fancy but is in High Definition for those who enjoy sight as their primary sense. Oh yeah it's done in Windows Movie Maker.

I hope the commentary speaks for itself, for Blizzard breeds obsession beyond comprehension with their pursuit of perfection in their products. Alauz Out!



Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Future of the Internet

Future? The internet is technically THE FUTURE right now. It has changed almost everything in modern city life and it has still yet to realize its full potential. It has barely scratched the possibilities of what the early visionaries of the internet had seen. I see even more possibilities for the internet with every passing day.

The picture below shows an example of a prototype internet device that allows details about objects or even people. Giving you the person's name, hobbies, interests that the person allows the public to view about himself or herself. And this is spawned from but ONE SIMPLE idea. Imagine many more such inventions and applications that the internet would bring about.



The internet is the future, and if you want to talk about the future of the internet, it is the same as talking about the future of the world. And with this collective resource of the majority of current human knowledge on our existence and our way of life, we are able to learn faster than any of our ancestors and also to think in ways that we have never thought before.

What I see in the future of the internet, is permeation of its presence in our daily lives. We will be dependent on it like we are on air. It will educate us in the things we need to know to survive in our daily lives. We will use devices that are permanently connected to the internet, to do simple things like plan our schedule or contact our friends. We probably have fewer devices if the convergence of communication/mass communication mediums are complete. Maybe a single holographic projection device with an inbuilt internet connection with basic processing power would be enough for us to do things from playing an online game with our friends, to booking our next meal at the restaurant we're about to enter. The internet would be seemless, completely meshed into our reality and we would be as dependent on it as we are on our cell/mobile phones if not more.

The future of the internet, what a silly question is it not? We can all see what is coming, for it is inevitable. Sleep well tonight children, for tomorrow is future! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Obama and Internet Politics




With his victory, Obama has just opened the floodgates (opening a whole new area of opportunity) for politics worldwide. Floodgates to what you might be asking, it is the floodgates of using the internet as a main tool for politics. While politics have been constantly exploring new mediums, politicians are seldom willing to try a brand new medium unless it has been tried and proven to WIN their elections.

Behind this mindset, you can see that Obama either had very good foresight and vision OR he had an advisor who has these qualities. Both of which bodes very well for America indeed. For the future of the world lies in digitization. Digitizing politics and government only further reduces the resources that we strain the planet for. As technology improves, devices require less power, use cheaper and more replacable resources and most importantly, we use less older technologies such as NEWSPAPERS which incidentally KILLS TREES without discrimination thus indirectly killing ALL LIFE as habitats are destroyed along with the trees that are cut down.

We are stopping the mindless genocide of our forests and jungles which are important homes for our planet's ecological systems, that is a major step towards saving our planet if it is to be saved. I advocate advancing technology whenever I can because older technologies are destructive and pollute our environment needlessly. And by advancing technology forward, we encourage the price of new technology to drop faster as there is less lag time between "early adopters" and the normal adopters.

With the advent of internet politics now coming into play, I forsee politicians driving the masses to "GO ONLINE and VOTE for THEM!" thus directly creating a need for people to upgrade their lives towards newer technology. Why read the newspaper on what the president elect said, when you can get it "straight from the horse's mouth" when you read his online diary (blog) the very day it is broadcasted?

I forsee a bright future for the world, as long as people move towards the digital age with fevor and optimisim. Maybe, just maybe we can save our world one step at a time. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Convergence (Multimedia)

What isn't multimedia is probably a better question. But hey, if you don't know the implications of the word MULTI-MEDIA then I'd tell you. It is a mix of more than a single type of media, for example radio (sound), newspaper (text & static images) and television (moving images).

What enabled all these media to merge in single platform? It would be Da Intarwebs (the Internet for those of you who cannot l33t speak). At first glance, multimedia computing tried to use optical disks which were able to store large amounts of data (at that time) and were mobile and able to be mass produced and probably serve as a form of entertainment.

But now, multimedia has gotten really serious. What do I mean? Ever since the internet allowed news companies to go online, it has fundamentally changed the way people with an internet connection seek out news. For the moment, it seems that people watch television for a primary source of information, then go to the internet to do secondary confirmation. Simply put, people use the internet to either seek out the latest information on the piece of news they just received from their television sets OR to confirm that what they are seeing on television isn't a hoax.

BUT that's just for the current, older and less net savvy generation. For future generations where the internet is something children grow up and spend copious amounts of time with, then the impact of convergence of the media would fully come to bear. Newspapers if they still exist will disappear in their conventional forms. "Television" would be viewed through the internet on internet enabled television, visual projection devices such as monitors or even designer eyewear. The radio would be accessed digitally through an internet connection and the airwaves would be dominated by internet bandwidth instead of a radio broadcast.

Everything will move digital, because it is cheaper. If I only had to pay an internet access fee to get a free telephone line, free television, free radio, free library and free consultation for almost any topic known to man, then why must I continue to pay more to have continued access to the same material I can access online?

From the common person's point of view, it just doesn't make sense for me to waste my money which I can then spend on other things I find more important. If the prices of computers are coming down, cheaper than a television and the definition of a monitor that's 1/10 a price of a television has 2x or more the resolution sharpness of a TV, I no longer see the reasons for television or any other media to continue to exist. Computers and the internet have used "multimedia" to the highest effect and this convergence of media would only continue to happen as we move towards the 22nd century.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Norton Endpoint Protection (Internet Security Tools)


I'd be talking about Norton Endpoint Protection software today. It's the protection I'm using for the moment. Main reason why I'm using it is because of it's almost complete protection for the most comment threats on the internet.

What's going for the brand of norton at the moment would probably be the institutions supporting it, such as State University of New York for example. And through the students and the staff, they get a great number of loyal customers, until they leave the institution.

This probably means that things like protection from "the bad stuff" on the internet means little to people. A very perfect analogy is the condoms.


Why is it like a condom? We only use it, reluctantly because we want to avoid unwanted "complications" and diseases which are much like the "bad stuff" on the internet... and we are most certainly not going to be loyal to a brand of condom because when we need it, we don't really care about the brand, unless its cheap or even free.

Interesting perspective is it not? Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Google Chrome (Internet Tools)

Here's a look at Google Chrome:

What is it? In essence it is a new web browser that is in development by google. It's probably the first browser with an inbuilt anti-phishing and malware system that checks a constantly updated library manned by Google.

By being the world's premier search engine, there is incalculable data on sites and how they are accessed. And of course this allows for Google to maintain a super updated if not real time library of these harmful sites. Besides that, how does it fare against its competitors such as Internet Explorer, Opera and Mozilla Firefox? Sadly the most stable version still has some catching up to do interms of Acid testing compared to Opera and Firefox.

What other features does it have? It's a very security based browser that doesn't allow read write operations intiated from the browser. Very prudent sandbox design that seems to follow what Java tried to do with their security concious web applets. But because it currently only has 1.29% of the internet population using chrome, there would be some time before we see if such a browser is resistant to hackers & crackers attempts to mess it up.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

E-Learning 2.0

What the heck is e-learning? That was the question I literally asked myself when I first heard of it on the internet somewhere in 1996. Electronic-learning? Or just learning on another platform?

I never really understood WHY they must call it E-learning when all there was to it, was simply LEARNING. Why didn't we call it P-Learning when people started using paper to learn instead of merely depending on ORAL tradition?

If you do that comparison, then E-Learning should soon lose it's luster and be considered just learning in general. I mean LDL degrees that came out all depended on E-learning in the early days anyways. But the degree that was earned was nothing less than if you actually got the degree from the university on-site. So why do we always cheapen something that is equally difficult to get but merely gotten over a long distance using an electronic medium?

While most people of the previous generation here in ASIA, commonly cheapen or discount heavily on e-learning, our current generation is learning many times more information in a single year that our predecessors have ever did in their lifetimes because of E-learning.

Examples such as learning a new language, COMPUTING based languages such as L33T speak, internet Lingo, foreign vocabulary so that we can better communicate with our overseas internet friends. These things are COMPLETELY overlooked by our seniors and thought to be garbage by them. They can never pick these languages up even if they wanted to, thus putting the rest of us who are learning these language skills at an almost sub-concious level and at an alarming pace. Just ask all the gamers on the internet if they know l33t speak. Even if they don't speak it, they will understand it.

I learnt a large portion of my Japanese online via chatting and interacting with the Japanese online. Could we have done that in the past without paying exorbitant fees to language schools and having few if any Japanese companions living around in our country? The simple answer is NO. We all are learning more and more via the internet, but we only "credit" it when what we learn is given "value" by companies that eventually find out that these skills learnt on the internet are what is required of their staff in the impending future.

So is the term e-learning flawed? I don't know if we should even continue labelling it as such. Simply because to label something as DIFFERENT is enough to allow people to cheapen its value because they do not understand or want to understand why is there such a difference in the first place.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Lesson learnt in E-Commerce

It was 2001, at the end of the dot com bubble burst. More and more internet companies are going belly up. But one of my friends said, "Hey why don't we set up a web hosting company?" He was completely oblivious to the fact that the bubble had just burst and he was thinking on catching the "wave" that just wasn't there anymore.

But the group of friends with him, were similarly oblivious and was wondering if such a venture would work. I was one of those friends. So we decided to try it out, 8 years ago. And I heavily invested in a high bandwidth internet connection and the hardware for the server. Among all of the participants, I suppose I was very optimistic that this would work in the beginning.

But as time wore on, we realized that we bought the equipment too early and did not even have any customers who wanted our services as of yet. Probably the dot com bubble bursting had a huge impact on our business prospectus but in the end, I was badly burnt by the experience because I had put in so much of my own money in at the time.

It wasn't a great amount by today's standards, but it was my personal savings and it was a lot when I was still a freshman at Nanyang Polytechnic and not yet earning much from my games reviewing that I just started a couple months before I decided on the venture.

Looking back almost ten years ago, I realized that we would have required a huge amount of luck, dedication and tons of publicity. Obviously we did not have that or I wouldn't be here typing this blog right now. Anyways, it was still a valuable lesson learnt in how to do an E-business, in fact not just an E-business but any business in general is to have a solid vision of your business model right from the start or your not going to go anywhere fast.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Language Roles

Computer Language
Let's talk a little bit about the automation of this Web 2.0 that people have been talking about. The reason behind the ability for people to start creating their own content so effortlessly actually lies in the complicated web-programming language that created the social media websites.

CGI
Let's talk somewhat about these powerful tools that I've spent several years learning and perfecting while studying Business Informatics at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore. First up would of course be "CGI". Of course the term CGI was first widely accepted by the movie industry to describe computer generated effects. But in internet terms, CGI was the first innovation of interactivity between a static and a dynamic webpage.

PERL
Let me paint a simpler picture, with CGI which was written in the PERL programming language, it allowed for the first time, a web-server to recognize userless input from the browser's terminal and connect form information directly into a database instead of merely churning out text files.

Application
Among the things available to the PERL programmer were, the user's IP address, Ping information, Traceroute information, basically identifying information on whether or not this user is a repeat user based on IP addressing and also the powerful ability to link up in real time to databases using a database driver on the server side. It's like knowing the past, present and future. The applications for this were immense, the possibilities endless.

The Lost
While PERL has officially been relegated away as a piece of old technology, it still lives on in many older companies' websites. The next time you surf our wonderful government's or even established banks' websites, look out for any URLs with "/cgi-bin/" or "/cgi/" in them. Why? Because these are webpage still generated by PERL using the CGI method of execution. So damn cool huh? We're living along technological dinosaurs and few if any notice.

The Now
So what's the most widely used languages on the web right now? HTML, XML, ASP, JSP and of course PHP which is the child of PERL. The popularity of PHP is immense now because the language allows reuse of the old PERL webservers with little or no upgrading at all! Just plug in the new language and a semi-new webserver plug in, and it's good to go for another 3-5 more years! It comes complete with a new set of commands, all modifying the old inputs of the legacy CGI execution method. Now who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? In this day and age, the old dog is still the top dog! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Web 3.0

Pre-cursor Web 2.0
Welcome again to a new wave of thought. Now that Web 2.0 has officially replaced web 1.0, large parts of content and traffic are no longer generated by proprietary companies with copyrights but rather it is now up to the users themselves to generate such content and drive traffic.

Leading the current wave are Blogs and Social Media such as Facebook, Friendster and MySpace. The power of such content has impacted and changed how society is beginning to work from the ground up. It's a classic example of how the virtual influence affects the brick and mortar.

A simple yet powerful example of this influence would be the ability to simply google a person your about to hire for your company. You could find out his facebook account, blog details and even the friends that he hangs out with online. This will completely change your opinion of hiring this person or not. And this is all because of web 2.0, it's because the users themselves put their own preferences and expose themselves to the public.

Baby Web 3.0
Now comes Web 3.0. What is web 3.0? It's often touted a move towards an integration of the virtual and reality. So what would it look like? It would be moving of reality based learning in the classrooms into virtual classrooms; complete with a 3D environment, an instructor as well as individual students that you can see, hear and feel in a hyper realistic manner. One such example available today would be 2nd life, where you can create anything you desire into virtual reality.

The probable full integration of Web 3.0 would be an advent of new technology such as spectacles with inbuilt monitors, advanced wireless broadband nation-wide and integration of professional "graphical overlays" or "skins" that would simplify everyday life.

A vision of Web 3.0
Here's a hypothetical scenario of a complete Web 3.0 experience. Imagine waking up in the morning and the first thing you do after the morning trip to the washroom to get ready for you day is to wear your stylish shades with the inbuilt monitor by 'Rayban'. As you get changed, you access your daily morning mail and handle your bills which just came in. You notice a memo from your company calling you in for a meeting later in the afternoon.

As you leave the house, you book your travel arrangements such as your plane ticket and your hotel for your vacation over the weekend via your shades. As you get into your car, you notice a stranger driving into the lot next to yours and your shades identify the person in the car as your new next door neighbor. You send him a welcome to the neighborhood greeting card as you leave your parking space.

After you get into the office, you turn on your office helper "Modification" changes your monitor to update the latest happenings regards to the company, the current attendance of employees who have called in sick and your company stock value. As you sit at your desk you see virtual documents piled up high past the ceiling. It looks like it's going to be another long day indeed.

Back to Reality
That future isn't so far fetched, infact it looks poised to happen within this lifetime. The benefits of it are immense, we will stop using paper which in turn saves the trees and we might find it easier to interact with others because we can avoid the embarassment of forgetting another person's name. We will never be lost because of inbuilt landmark recognition, there's so many possibilities and so many applications.

Just imagine. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

Spartan Beauty

What can I share this week in Com 125? Well, if I were to focus on teaching people something about blogging or this piece of communication marvel; then it is tempting to say that more is not always better.

If you notice the layout of my blog, it's not bogged down with pictures, menu bars and other "technological garbage" that fills up so many of our fellow blogs. Now why would a self proclaimed "techie" like me choose such a spartan setup?

It is simple. Ergonomically speaking, the less clutter there is to distract your audience, the better they are better able to concentrate on the message you are intending to send them. First basic rule of any communication, regardless of medium is to focus your audience's attention on what you want them to pay attention to.

If you think what I am talking about is nonsense, then ask yourself why Google is the number 1 search engine for English users around the globe? It's because it gives you what you want to see, without bothersome advertisements and clutter of silly menus present in Yahoo and the other hateful search engines. If I want to find something, I do not want to see garbage that I'm not looking for period.

I hope this was an informative lesson on how to use blogs and why it is best to have less.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

Skeletons!

The Past
I never mentioned that when I was in the care of my grandparents, there were a couple of times I was beaten or abused to the point I nearly lost my sight and almost died a couple of times. My memories were rather repressed and it was only recently I started reliving those dark times. I suppose that's part of the reason I decided to rebel against the system.

The Present
Thus my outlook on life was heavily influenced by my encounter with death when I was young, I suppose I have nothing much else to fear. I am living life without chains shackled to my soul. This feeling of being free from worldly binds only comes after a close encounter with death I suppose, I could be wrong. If you've faced it and managed to walk away, your only opponent left is yourself. And if you can overcome that, life is truly what you make of it. No fear of making mistakes, no fear to try out new things, life's too short for us to be ruled by fear.

Dreams; Nightmares
I am a rather big softie I suppose when it really comes to life and death. That's how I got into those near fatal beatings in the first place when I was young, I didn't want my younger brothers to suffer the same fate. I did not understand my intentions back then, why I had chose to be singled out. My brother also went through the canings, why not take the other abuse together with me? With the belt buckle, shouting voices and humiliation?

Torture
Being thrown out of the house completely naked after being beaten or caned, and then locked outside by my relatives. Such are the punishments I endured. What's left to be ashamed about when you've been stripped of all your dignity as a human being to wear clothing; after being caned or beaten? There are precious little things that can faze you after that. I feel jaded, like a prisoner of war back in WWII must have felt after a nearly complete torture sequence, physical, mental, physical, mental. And mentally prepared to face death, proud to have divulged nothing to the enemy, but completely drained.

Violence
Is that why I'm so violent? My thoughts still occasionally flit to extreme forms of violence when I am tired and unable to control my thoughts conciously. Or is it my basic nature, to be violent because I'm a male? Do I really want to tear the person apart limb from limb with my bare hands? Should I do it because I can? I am tempered in the flames of a violent nature, but I suppose I'm much better off verbalizing it out into words. Words are eternal, wounds are but a passing phase.

Dark Side
So I've lived my life of passion rather than neutrality, go read the book "Path of Destruction" for an interesting insight into how a person can fall completely to the Dark Side of the Force. I would be a Darth Bane if there was such a thing as the Force. I empathized completely with Bane and would have probably walked in his footsteps if I were put in his shoes. A life of abuse really can warp a person so completely.

But I am stronger for it, if there are others who want to fight for a cause greater than themselves, must first understand themselves. To know if they have the passion that is in line with the cause they want to fight for. And not some whimsical reason that can be blown away like leaves in the wind. Otherwise their false passions will shatter from a single blow of reason and be forced to live a life of denial.

In other news

My laptop died today, it is confirmed that my computer products suffer great overuse and are wearing out many years before their due departure. It's probably the amount of juice I try to squeeze out of them by running applications at levels way out of the league of low budget rigs. I squeeze so much out, it's sometimes a little scary what I've been able to do with so little. 2 desktops and a laptop later, only shows that I need a rig that can withstand the punishments I dole out. Perhaps it's time to really spend some serious cash in getting something strong enough to resist for more than 2 years. I'd probably save more money in the long run.

Testing configurations to last 2 years:

• Quad Core 6600 (probably because of the good price)
• Nvida 9800GT (Considering the 260/280GTX but they are still too pricy)
• 8GB Ram (If I can find a mother board that has enough slots for cheap)
• Liquid Cooling Tower (So far I found one that suits my purpose for less than 200 bucks)
• Decent enough motherboard (For the ram especially important)
• 2 SATA 1TB/500GB HDD on Raid ZERO (Never enough HDD space)
• Decent powerbox 1000/1500w(Able to accept 110v/240v regardless where I'd be)
• A tower carrier

I've already have 2 monitors as well as 4 DVD-RW drives sitting around doing nothing, so I'm not bothering with those purchases. So far my aqquaintances at the shops around Sg have been able to give me a quotation for what I want under 900 bucks. With an operating system I suppose I'd hit 900 plus but still under 1000. Well, I'd probably use any of the Vista 64bit versions otherwise I'd be wasting the ram and the quad core multitasking threadlines. Sigh I need a new rig soon.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才