June 18, 2009

Waahhh.....I skipped the blog for almost 4-5 months and back just to tell my day today. Today is one of the most memorable days in my first internship experience. The most satisfying as well pressurizing day. I started out quite nice in the morning. Tried to go earlier. Got a friend to chat with in bus. Arrived in Yio Chu Kang MRT just in time to poo in the MRT's toilet there (which then made me came late to work). Caught 70 just in time. Had quite a smooth noon. Thinking about going back earlier to research and decide on the macbook pro choices. But just when everything was about to end nicely, I clicked my mouse twice to slip into the worst case scenario in my job i.e. DROPPING DATABASE. Yeah, just a two-step two-fingers gesture and that would end you up in a biggest disaster ever in database-related job. I dropped 'master_outbound' database. One database only but from the name there we can deduce already that it is quite an enormous database. Easy to come, easy to go. The old proverb simply does not match with my experience. A two-step dropping process ended up in tedious and complicated recovering procedure. First I had to copy a similar database (new_outbound_delivery) and renamed it to 'master_outbound' (takes about 15 mins.) then I had to add two columns there (char_wtperunit and tonnage) which takes about 5-10 mins. Then I had my friend re populate both columns and re-check the data for duplicates and discrepancies. Next I had my other colleague to pull out a number of files from FTP which would be used to add the missing data to the database. After all data was populated, the quality assurance process came (done by the same colleague who pull out the files from FTP). The whole process took the 5 of us to leave office at around 9.30pm. Yeah the 5 of us. I was quite happy that my friends in fact were so tolerant that they were willing to stay late to help me to repopulate the database. I guess trouble has its own good side i.e. it strengthen the bond between us employees(?).  I went home by taxi. Very happy bcoz my supervisor said that the taxi will be compensated by company. In taxi I felt the most satisfaction mood I've ever had in my internship. Taxi fare was not as expensive as I thought it would be. I expected 15++ while it ended up as 12.60.

Feb 20 2009, Friday

I simply woke late n missed work...

Thursday, 5 February 2009

Hurray!! managed to finish most of the First Attempt Successful Rate report!!

Tuesday, 3 February 2009

Today as usual I continue my RubyonRails...

I found out that charts and graphs are not that easy to make. Although I have almost all the resources I need, it turns out I still struggled with it.

To cut the long story short, I finally found and solved the graph problem. I solved the Daily part of the program. Now what left is just copying and finalising for others. Looking forward for UAT!!!

Monday, 2 February 2009

Wew....luckily this Monday is not Monday Blues for me. I managed to finish the 'trend' series of the assignment. Daily to DailyTrend was a jump. DailyTrend to WeeklyTrend was another jump. WeeklyTrend to MonthlyTrend and QuarterlyTrend was a simple hop. Finally at least I managed to finish the table. Next thing is the line and pie chart. I am less worried for these two charts since I found a great documentation on amchart.com website about the chart. It was more interesting to play around with the chart rather than playing around with displaying the data using ruby. (Actually, had I not found the amchart.com documentation, the charts were another nightmare for me!!)

My supervisor finally returned to work this morning. Little late as usual. He seems to be cheerful since he greeted everybody at the cubicles.

After the charts? Play on graphic design and user interface!!

Friday, 30 January 2009

It is really a big day for me!!! Won't forget this 30 January 2009. This is the first time I found a way to solve my First Attempt Successful Rate assignment! It's about DN_Number man, DN_Number!! 

I was so confused (uber-confused if I must say) because I could not find what was wrong with my program yet I kept getting errors. I wished for Jimmy's help today but then he did not come to office!

9-12pm. 3 hours of confusion. After a break and lunch at Ang Mo Kio, I returned to office...be confused for an hour and finally found a solution!! I inspect the array of daily_figures to know what is contained inside each arrays. I would be very happy if my Safari hanged due to overwhelming data in the array...hahaha.

The rest of the day I just kept on programming and finish the 'daily' part of the assignment. Gotta home sooner for EE3001 meeting. Continue the rest on next monday. GO!

6th day, Monday, 19 January

Ahhh....today I did not get a sleep and stayed up till morning then cao to my office. Today I was just continuing what I've been doing...not much to say I think.

Friday the 16th

Aaaa....finally, this is the first day I was assigned to my first task. It is about creating a tool for web application. I was given one week deadline and I hope they could extend this deadline since getting used to the terms used, to the application and websites, plus that I have to edit everything....it is pretty daunting for me to be honest. I believe once I have passed this hard period I will enjoy the rest of my internship.

4th day, 15th January

Aaaargghhh...this shud have been my payday!!...had I started earlier that is. Since I started in the midst of January, my salary for Jan n Feb will be combined and paid on 15th of February. Woo...still one month to go! Jia you! Ganbatte! Fighting!

Anyway, I learnt the Ruby programming language itself today. Now at least I got some understanding about Ruby. I was afraid at first since I thought that Ruby is a new programming language and it requires a new ways of programming and such complicated stuffs. It turned out that Ruby is just like another programming language. It can be done in any text editor program. And just like another programming language, it is all about syntax and algorithm. What's special about Ruby is that, it is a higher level of language. Meaning that it is closer to human language thus is not so complicated as C or ASM.....well, hopefully.

Just like my previous days, I get tired m drowzee easily at work since Im not used to 9 hrs of working. I often fell asleep in front of the computers. I also went to toilet to take a quick nap...hahahaha. Apple Computer has quite good restroom. White, Clean, Good fragrant. Perfect for 'rest'!


Tomorrow I'm gonna experience Friday at Apple!!

3rd day, 14th January

Wednesday...still the same thing. Still learning the Ruby on Rails program. By the end of the day, I managed to grasp it roughly. At least I managed to build an application by following the tutorials.

And remember people!! Rails 1.0 and Rails 2.0 are NOT the same!! Please find the respective tutorials for both...don't assume Rails 1.0 tutes can be applied in Rails 2.0 and vice versa.

And I realised...It is Rails I am learning, not Ruby. Not entirely at least...

2nd day, 13th January

Second day! Ah...toned down the formality in my dress. Shirt jeans and sneakers are good enuff.

Came to office, straight to my macbook pro and do my ruby. The whole day was simply spent for progressing and debugging in creating my own web development stuff. Learnt some new stuffs in here. For example, how to build website. All we know about websites are just HTML, CSS, Java. It turned out that there is something deeper than all of those esp. in corporate level.

To create ur own website, first u have to create a web server. Quite a number of utilities can be used but apache is the most common and earliest web server. Once u created ur own web server, u can add html pages. Finally after u have a decent website, u can publish it in the internet. That's the most simplest thing I can tell, there's a lot more details tho. In corporate level where u have to deal with server, clients, databases, products, and such, a database system is needed. MySQL, SQlite3 just to name a few. This database is managed by a certain programming language, namely PHP and ASP for the database and SQL for scripting. I used Ruby on Rails though because this set of language and framework are what suit Mac system the most. Framework is like...the whole set of directory where ur websites usually caches for pages and images.

Knowing all this stuff really stir me up. I hold a big interest about this kind of stuff. Sadly for a first-timer like me, getting to know all these things are not easy. I have to google and wiki every new term to get a grasp of what's going on.

The rest of the day is just like that...like your usual day of work. Routine. Working is about routine...yeah...

First day, 12th January

Aahhhh....first day of internship. Dressed up formally and neatly. Ready to face my bosses, supervisors, and colleagues.

It turned out that I dun have to be that formal. So...it was not shameful, it's just inappropriate and not environmentally-cozy.

The path to my work area was shown by the pretty HR =p. -i thought she were an old lady-

Arrived at my area! Met my supervisors and colleagues. I was given my own corner and my own (borrowed) Macbook Pro and the cute sleek mighty mouse!!!! Oh, how I would thank God for this since I really long for that older ver. of macbook pro and I got it like free (!) though it was just until my IA ends. I could barely hold my grin when I got the set...haha.

My supervisor is a Malaysian, my colleagues are mostly either singaporean or chinese. One guy is japanese...middle-aged. My lao ban is indian...middle-aged too and quite nice. My big big lao ban, Peter...havent met him yet. Couldn't get so friendly with the singlish-chinese speaking people - which unfortunately make up the most of the team. Thus so far...it is not so fun.

Intro-ed to mac interface, getting used to it. Then came ruby on rails, mysql, apache, and all those database scripting stuffs. Total blur seriously. I dunno what to do when I was told to set up my own apache web server. What I thought must be downloaded and installed from somekind of package turned out to be command-prompt based program. Everything is launched and initiated from Mac's command prompt which I recently knew as Terminal.

Finally since I everything also blur, most of the apps were installed by my supervisor. It made me feel really ashamed since I was like spoonfed - which is a bad thing in working class.

Day ended! Soooo tired. Explored one more way home with my colleague which is an NUS dude. It turned out to be longer though...