Working offsite

My earlier post mentioned that I had been on an overseas assignment.

There was this week, where I had the luxury of working offsite.

Except, it was no pleasure. It became more like a nightmare.

I had no ability to checkin my work into their subversion repository. I am constantly in the fear of being out-of-sync. On the second day we had a resolution. They would check out the entire repository. I would merge my code. And then send it back to them. I have no idea how the other co-worker working offsite would be doing.

And of course, for communication, we had google group talk. But it felt slow and unresponsive. I could understand. When I was on site, the google talk client could not work. I had to use the browser based gmail. And I would not be notified of new chats unless I switch over to check it.

And for me, communication was a huge problem. Because the requirements were not fix, and comprehensive enough. There were many doubts, and many things to clarify. I felt my productivity go down to a snail. So much so that while waiting for responses... I was really out of tasks to do. I went to read a book I had just borrowed from the library instead.

There was also the timezone problem. Thailand is an hour behind Singapore. And they usually start work at around 930. Which means 1030 for me in Singapore. And they work late. Well not too late nowadays. Around 1900~2000 Bangkok time. And that would be 2000~2100 for me in Singapore.

Which is why, after the second day, I started working from home. No point sticking to the Singapore timezone.

I do envy how 37Signals got their style to work. It did not work for me.

Deleting blog posts

If you are an avid follower of my blog (which I would be eternally grateful), you might have noticed a few blog posts disappearing. Well, notably, the last few that talks about some basic iPhone game development stuff. Not all of them, just the shorter ones.

Why?

Quite simply, I'm indecisive.

Those few entries are actually quite out of place. They felt more like rushed work (they really are I supposed), and they did not contributed much to my identity in my blog.

I am always confused. Should this blog be a technical blog? A personal blog that reflect my belief? My thoughts? Random advices? I always felt drawn from one goal to another. And many times I felt like making it a fully technical one.

Except, truth be told, I do not have the time to make it a purely technical one. And it is definitely pointless if they are not touching on topics that are not commonly covered. If there are too many hit entries on google, it is definitely pointless.

But over the past few months, I did managed to notice the way my blog posts were going.

They definitely reflect my opinions and thoughts more than anything else. A voice in the cyberspace. And isn't that what blog are supposed to be?

Which is what I would be using to benchmark my blog posts against. If it did not feel like an opinion of mine, I would not keep the post. I am going to avoid heavy technical posts too. Those that involves a lot of code. instead they would be more technical design heavy. Or an opinion on some code.

This blog must avoid becoming a mindless coding blog without any emotions in it. That was what I felt lacking in the last few posts. It felt like they were written by robots!

Preparing for Overseas Assignment

I have been on oversea assignment for the past three weeks. I would flying to Bangkok on monday(or wednesday) and be back by Friday. Some general feelings and things I ought to take note of the next time I do this.

Before the trip:

1. When doing your currency exchange, do try to get notes of the smaller denomination. For example there is a highway toll charge of 70 baht, and usually the taxi driver try to overcharge you or pretend to not have change for you at the end of the trip (and thus keeping you whole 500 baht note)

2. Get a stroller. Check in your stuff. They sure are heavy.

3. Avoid overpacking. I have learnt to bring the minimal. Anything extra that one might seriously need, one could buy there. But I have yet reach that point yet.

4. Do the internet checkin. You could choose your seat earlier this way.

5. Choose seats along the passenger way, best if within a row of two/three seaters (by the side). With luck you could get the entire row for your own.

6. If you are not having any checked-in luggage (and even if in some case, you do have), choose those near the exit. Being the first to go through immigration is always good.

7. Be careful of going with those airline that requires you to print out your boarding pass via the internet checkin. Those are a pain when you are in foreign land and unable to find a printer (unless you carry your own portable printer).

8. Consider bringing sunglasses or some eye-cover if you want to sleep on the plane during the day.

At the disembarkation airport:

1. When queuing at the immigration, stick to the edge counters. Sometimes you could be directed to new counters or those for aircrews/whatever to speed up the processing. yay!

2. Do avoid unnecessary chatter with the taxi driver, especially on those that touch on how rich your country is compared to theirs. The driver scored a point to two in sympathy with me for that on the first trip.

At the hotel:

1. Despite the hotel saying the check in time as 2, I had managed to check in as early as 11. and because I was early, they did not have a room for me, and they upgraded my room to a suite. yay!

2. Do check that the room is fully equiped. I was missing a toothbrush when I was going to brush my teeth at night.

3. Hotel usually provide free two bottled water! No need to boil my own!

4. Try to get hotel rooms with free Internet access.

5. Bring a wifi router. Mine had a Internet LAN point. There is no greater luxery than surfing net anywhere in the room.

6. If your laptop battery do not last, consider bringing a power extension cord. Using the laptop on the bed is a win :)

Now that I have experienced the traveller's lifestyle, I realized how much excessive things I own back home. Perhaps it's time I get rid of the books and clothes and even gadgets!