What a great way to start the month of November with a fresh week of training. I can’t really remember when was the last time I went for a week long training. The closest I went to was attending the Oracle Demand Generation Training at Sunway Hotel last September. As you’ve guessed it, lately I’ve been exposing myself a lot to Oracle. The way I see Oracle is that if MySQL open source database is a normal compact car where everybody can buy, Oracle database is a luxury car where only people with a lot of resources can afford to buy. The function is generally the same, it gets you to point A to point B but the features, performance and the experience are entirely different.

It doesn’t really matter which product is the best or not, it is a matter of preferences. If I can afford to buy a BMW, I would definitely owned one. Unfortunately, I can only afford a basic car at the moment but I can still dream of a BMW nevertheless. Back to my Oracle training of course. The training was held at Oracle’s HQ up in Level 38, Menara Citibank Kuala Lumpur. Check out their front desk:

I can only wish I am working with a huge corporation such as Oracle. It must be really tough trying to score a job there, don’t you think?

Anyway, my trainer is a guy name Sachin, I am guessing he’s from India from his thick Indian accent. Prior to this training, I have no idea what SOA or the longer version Service Oriented Architecture means. Even after reading Wikipedia, I still couldn’t picture what SOA is all about. My trainer tried to give some clue on what SOA is all about but all I see is a bunch application pool represented by jargon linking with each other. I must give credit to Sachin although his presentation was a bit bored, he’s quite a tech nerd when it comes to hands-on training which came in late in the afternoon since the Oracle JDeveloper installation file was almost 1GB and had to be copied manually from person to person. The requirement was 3GB of RAM for the training laptop just for the VMWare containing the SOA suite to run while I only have 1GB of RAM. Lucky there was an alternative.

The training class became more livelier when the hands-on approach began. With Nescafe coffee served, it was very enjoyable to crunch the tutorials given. Right up until my developed SOA scripts got corrupted and could not be deployed apart from the wireless networking changed setting. The journey continues tomorrow morning.

Right after I took my CIDB Green Card course, I took the LRT Train from Chan Sow Lin straight to PWTC. It was unfortunate for me since I went there alone. Anyway, pictures tell you a thousand words:

Entrance of Youth09 @ PWTC

Look..Juliana Evans!

8TV Booth

The Youth09 Gig Place

Satria Neo Club

Collage Art @ Youth09

Graffiti Art @ Youth09

Stuff Taken @ Youth09 in my new Safety Helmet

Last but not least, I’ve taken a video shot of a pole dancing show during my visit there. I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t have a strong arm and feet:

This entry is 6 months behind what I was supposed to blog. Anyway, I just need to get it off my draft page and publish it on my blog. I don’t know why I am so lazy to blog these days but I’ll give it my best to clear off all of my pending writings. Here it goes.

CIDB or the Construction Industry Development Board requires any personnel who is or will be working in any consctruction site to have a green card. This is to ensure every personnel is covered, sort of like an insurance or license to be in any construction site. My company has a major project in one construction site installing network cables and IT equipment. Although I only went there like one or two time only, I still need to be covered. So last January 2009, my HR department sent me to get my own green card just in case if I were needed to be sent to any construction site I supposed.

The class was done on a Saturday. This is where the place is located:

The Akademi Binaan Malaysia

The place is next to the LRT Star Station Chan Sow Lin station. So if you don’t want to drive there, just take the LRT. If you drive there, the parking is free. No sweat.

The Green Card Program

My class speaker

The speaker was fun to listen to. I wasn’t bored throughout his entire presentation. He was interactive with all of his audiences although I am guessing half of the class didn’t really understand his Malay languange (only 5 or 6 people in the class were Malaysian, the rest are all Indians, Viatnamese, Nepal or Indonesian). I really like what he is presenting. The most interesting part is when he includes his past experiences being a safety inspector.

CIDB Guideline Mini Booklet

This book was given complimentary of CIDB. It’s a nice booklet, less text and more illustration. During the end of the class, I received the construction helmet which is now being displayed on top of my closet collecting dusts. BTW, it is an offence leaving your construction helmet in your car.

That’s all for today. Will write again soon.

I just finished my period of participating in a marketing research program for a few audio devices related to MP3. The marketing research was conducted by Acorn Marketing Research. I’ve heard of other marketing research company such as Frost & Sullivan, AC Neilson, Synovate (Tried to get a part time job there but failed) but I never heard of Acorn before. As I can recall, I participated in 2 marketing research one for a new kind of cereal (Just got a free gift though) and the other is for I guess it was a Pringle vs Mister Potato (I was picked from the street and they didn’t reveal the product name. I was paid RM15 after that).

About three weeks ago, I was contacted by someone who knew LV and therefore decided to try out the marketing research program. At first, I had to go into a screening call to make sure that I was the right candidate. The interview lasted more then half an hour and after answering all the questions, the appointment was set the next week and I find myself to their office located in Bukit Damansara. I knew that I was getting paid (a generous one too) so it doesn’t worry me to pay those expensive fuel and parking fees to go there.

I was told to bring over my MP3 player and my casual earphones or headphones. I really don’t owned one since I just use my Sony Ericsson W810i to listen to MP3 so I borrowed my brother’s 3 years old MP3 Player and told the interviewer that I use 2 devices for different occasions.

My Sony Ericsson W810i and MSI Mega Stick 1

After almost an hour of interview and filling up a few answering sheets form, I was shown 4 audio devices from different manufacturer and asked for my opinion on what I think of it. After all that is done, the interviewer gave me 5 set of products for me to try out for 2 weeks and report my finding in the forms provided. Here’s what I took home (plus got paid as well):

Test Products That I Was Given

How the test was done is during the first week, I had to select one product to be tested for the whole day. After one day, I need to fill up the report sheets given and then I had to pick another one the day after. Once every product have been tested and reports were filled up, I had to choose the one that I like the most and try it out for one week before giving the final verdict. It’s that simple.

The first product on my first day that I had chose was:

MOTOROKR S9 Bluetooh Stereo Headphones

It was no surprise that I went for this one first. It’s wireless, the futuristic look and most of all, Bluetooth. My only Bluetooth enabled product is my Sony Ericsson W810i, my Compaq Presario V3751AU and my Sony Ericsson Bluetooth headset HBH-GV435. The product also came paired with this transmitter which is supposed to work with my MP3 stick:

Sony Bluetooth Portable Stereo Transmitter

My only problem was this:

Sony US AC Power Adaptor

The adaptor had a AC120V where here in Malaysia we use AC240V. I had to wait for the step down transformer before I can charge the Bluetooth transmitter. Surprisingly, you can buy a small step down transmitter at Low Yatt plaza for only RM22. Unfortunately, my Sony Ericsson couldn’t transmit MP3 songs for listening. Since my laptop has Bluetooth, I attached the MOTOROKR S9 with my Compaq V3751AU and enjoyed my MP3 songs while waiting for the step down transformer to arrive. I was also told that none of these products are available in the local market yet which is why they were testing it first.

The sound quality of the MOTOROKR S9 was very good but the comfort wasn’t so good because the strap head gives pressure to the side of my head. Furthermore, since I wear glasses, it somehow got in the way of my frames making it more uncomfortable. It might be suitable for active person who loves the gym. Upon wearing it, I find it hard to wear because I had to wear it from the back of the head. Overall, although I like the wireless mobility, I wouldn’t buy it because it’s not comfortable.

My second day, this was the product that I choose to try:

Creative EP-570 Stereo Music Earphones

I had a bad experience using earclip earphones before. It was really uncomfortable. As expected, it was still uncomfortable for me even though the product had some cushioning and the clip is customizable. The sound quality is okay and the ease of storage is there. Still, I don’t think I’ll wear this because I find it uncomfortable and hard to wear since I had to touch my ear just to make sure the clip is secured.

My third day, I wear this one:

Sony Comfortable Soft Hanger MDR J20SP

Now this product is really comfortable. The rubber hanger is soft and flexible. The sound quality is very good yet my main issue is the cord just too short. Attaching it to my mobile MP3 player stick, it’s really handy but because of the short cord, I can’t put it in my pant’s side pocket. The verdict, I don’t think I’ll buy this product.

My fourth day, I wore this:

Creative Stereo Headphones HQ1400

I’ve told the research interviewer that I would really prefer this headphone over all of the rest because I like the comfort and the sound insulation the design of the headphones. For a bulky design, the headphone is surprisingly light probably because of the light material used. After trying out for a day, I find the sound insulation is acceptable, the bass and treble is awesome and I can wear this for hours without a problem. I chose this product as my favourite one.

Two weeks past and it’s time to give back all the loaned products and submit over the filled up feedback form. I took a picture of the entire products before returning back the stuff:

The interviewer interviewed me for the last time to get more feedbacks from me and to my surprise, he told me that I can take home the product of my choice. I couldn’t believe it so I asked him several time if he was kidding me. At first, I was thinking of taking the Motorola MOTOROKR S9 back home because I knew it would cost me more than RM400++ if I were to buy one. Then again, I don’t really think I’ll use the S9 so often and that would be ashamed. I finally took home the Creative Stereo Headphones HQ1400 and not regretting of not taking the S9.

LV had a more interesting product to test. She brought home 5 mono Bluetooth mono headsets to try out.

She finally taken home this Bluetooth headset:

lip II mini Bluetooth Headset chosen by Laadvamore

The reason for this was because she find that for those girls who wears ‘tudung’, this is the most suitable one. I saw this product sold at a ‘pasar malam’ nearby my house for RM120. I guess she made a good choice by getting this one complimentary of the product test research activity on top of the remaining complimentary ‘ang-pow’.

This was actually my 3rd market research participation and certainly the most rewarding one. I would certainly participate in another product market research if given such opportunity.