我的初恋 - 海珊 - Part II

珊 not only a pretty girl, she is friendly, helpful and very smart, all this have make her a very popular girl in our school. For me, because I am bit shy that time (Remember, my face full of pimples that time) I am just admired her secretly, observed her from a distance, and jealous by myself when she start talking a bit friendly to other guys.

Our second magical moments happen three weeks later..

"Everyone, do finish up your essay, and submit to my desk by today", our Chinese language teacher remind us, before she end the class.

Everyone has finished their essay, and rushing for lunch. Except 珊..still working hard to finish her essay.

"Still have a lot to write?", I ask.

"Yep", she answer quietly.

"Ubi Khoo, hurry up, we all waiting for u, hungry lah!!!!", my friends urging me to go to cafeteria for our lunch..

"Ok, Ok, coming", me walking unwillingly toward my friends.

While at the cafeteria, I start getting very concern about her, as we only have one hour lunch break. I am worried that she might don't able to take her lunch before our afternoon class start.

So I excuse myself, order some light foods and drink, and quickly rush back (is more like running 100 meter in 10 seconds) to our classroom, and found out that 珊 still working very hard on her essay.

I walk quietly toward her, slowly and nervously hand over the foods and drink to her, and say "Err....this is for u.."

She first stare the food and drink, and then she looks into my eye, smile and say "Thanks, we share share the food, ok!", Bingo!..

Then ..the magic just happen..

She slowly raise her hand, to tidy up my shirt, and comb my hair a bit..
"Next time, u don't have to run, ok."

Wow, I am just stun, like forever, and no idea what to do next..she just smile away.

From that moment, I know I am in love with her, and she soft of "confirm" that I am her Boyfriend.

However, we only start holding each other hand about two weeks later.

------- To be continue --------

我的初恋 - 海珊

Do u on and off miss your puppy love? And when u do, do u smile of those happy moments u both share or those little secret only and u and her know? Do u occasionally still hope that one day, u could meet up with her again, even after many many years u have lost contact with her?

Well, I do. Her name is 海珊 (i.e Coral), and here is our story.

1989, I am 17, face full of pimples, am study at Seremban Chong Hua High School. 海珊 joined our class (Form 5 Science Class-B) after long holiday break.

"Class, we have a new student join us today, her name is 海珊, and previously she is from..", our teacher introduce her, while I still half awake, and half asleep.

"Ubi (my nick name, i.e Potato), wake up! got Leng Lui (pretty girl) joining our class..", my friend Thong try to awake me...

"huh....Where?"

"Hi everyone, my name is 海珊, glad to joining this class..."

Wow, such a lovely and cute cute voice, fully awake now,Oh my god! she is indeed a pretty girl and till now, I still remember her first smile. When she smile to every one of us, I feels that our class room is brighter, warmer, and fresher, as there is a little Sun, shining through from her head. I swear I didn't exaggerate any of this. this is what I truely feels then, maybe this is love at first sight?

"珊, u could sit beside Khoo..", did I hear that correctly? my teacher just ask her to sit beside me..wow..thanks teacher, muak muak.. thanks very much. I promise I will not sleep again in your class.

"Hi, 珊 here, nice to meet you.",

"Hi, my name is Khoo.. ", When I am about to start my usual James Bond style introduction, i.e Khoo, James Khoo.. ..

"And we all call him Ubi", Thong interrupted, stupid Thong, spoil my image..

She chuckle a bit, and give her right hand toward me.. I just sit that, admiring her smile, and no idea what to do next, till Thong smack my head. "Yoi!, Stupid, she wants to shake your hand..gentleman a little lah"..

"Oh, Oh, sorry, nice to meet you!", nervously give my left hand toward her, and about to shake her hand, ops! found out given wrong hand, quickly change to my right hand instead, and she is doing the same... and then, our first magical moment just happen..

We looks into each other..
Eye to Eye.
Then time just stop.
The whole class room just have me and her,
And, we shake hand, smile, and laugh at each other.
And this is how we first meet.

To be continue..

A new start

The rain finally stop, I open up my window, the air is so fresh, sunlight shinning through my eye, warm, and full of energy.

After weeks living in the dark, the Ram is about to embark a new journey.
Is the world ready for the Ram?

1,2,3 Go!

The Nasty JPA "Unknown abstract schema type" error

I been trying to debug the following error for days, and it drive me nuts!

The problem: JPA refuse to compile one of my NamedQuery, and throws the following error:

Error compiling the query [UserVO.findByUserName: SELECT u FROM UserVO u WHERE u.name = :name]. Unknown abstract schema type [UserVO]

After numerous Google search, I conclude that JPA will throw "Unknown abstract schema type" when JPA fail locate your entity class". Most often, this type error occurs when:

• Developer have put down database table name instead of Entity Class name in the JPA query. eg. if we have a EntityClass UserVO which map to table name users, the query "SELECT u from users u" will throw the above exception.

• When running JPA in standalone, or not JavaEE container(such as Tomcat 5/6), they forgot to explicit list all entities class in the persistence.xml, thus JPA fail to locate the entities when compile the query.
  

None of above apply to my case, I have explicit listed all my entities class in the persistence.xml
and I am sure my JPA query is valid. I have tested my code with different JPA implementations, but always resulted the same error..

Here my UserVO class

@Entity(name = "users")
@NamedQuery(name = "UserVO.findByUserName",
       query = "SELECT u FROM UserVO u WHERE u.name = :name")
public class UserVO extends implements Serializable {

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}

If I remove the NamedQuery, my JPA able to work as expected, i.e I am able to insert, delete, and update UserVO object.
Now, to all my smart reader, can u spot what's wrong in my code? Scroll down for answer.

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Answer: The culprit is the Entity annotation, I explicit name the UserVO entity as users, which JPA have no problem to map the UserVO to users database table, but have problem to compile the JPA Query, because it can't find the UserVO entity in the JPA context, as the suppose UserVO entity have rename to users entity by me, got it, or confuse..

To resolve this, just add a @Table annotation with the table name, as shown code below:

@Entity
@Table(name = "users")
@NamedQuery(name = "UserVO.findByUserName",
       query = "SELECT u FROM UserVO u WHERE u.name = :name")
public class UserVO extends implements Serializable {

             |
             |
}

Cheers, Happy New Year!!!!

My New Tattoo

Finally, I did it..

It's not as pain as I have imagined, just the waiting process of my tattoo artist to prepare my tattoo logo, placing the tattoo outline on my arm, prepare color, install new needle, change the music player to his favorite Music CD, and start "needle" me is killing me... Haha

Here's the video of the process, warning, a bit violent





Know what my mom say, when she saw my new Tattoo?

"Wow, gangster ah, u.....!"

My 2009's Resolution

1. Get a Tattoo on my left arm, prefer an Aries Ram, which truly represent my character.
2. Back pack to Tibet at somewhere around Aug-Sept, 2009, anyone wants to join me.
3. To deliver some of my cool mobile service ideas, which I think going to "Wow the market"
4. To "reactivate" one of my open source project, "Java batch process management console", time to contribute back open source community
5. Donate one Cow to one of Family via World Vision and adopt one more children.
6. Finally, find my Ms Right....

Miss, u have Banana?

Last Saturday, I went to MCA Speed dating program (forced by my mom,as I am 36, and I suppose to get marry next year), which they suppose to pair up 100 guys with another 100 girls, I know, crazy, right? Anyway, the first ice-breaking game at the event,s each of us needs to draw ourself a favorite fruit, and find another partner who draw the same fruit.

Guess what I draw?

A Banana, and this is question I keep on asking to 100 girls at that night, "Miss, u have Banana?"

None of girls draw banana? why...I thot Banana is such a healthy fruit, and make people happy and smile...

Banana, anyone?

Photo Sharing- Malacca day trip

Special thanks to a lovely Malacca Girl, Louise, who spend the whole afternoon to bring me around Malacca town, purchase ticket for me to the famous Malacca River cruise, and take me to sample Malacca food, Satay Celuk, and the famous "Steam Squid and Spanish with special source" . Thanks Louise..

Will update my journey in my next post

Beat me! Climing 10th floor of stairs in 1:48

Hi hi

This blog is special dedicated to Marcel (my close friend in USA), who claim he can climb 10th floor of stairs in 30 seconds, sure or not?

I could only do it at best in 1 minute and 47 seconds, while carrying my notebook, as shown in Video below:



So Marcel, please prove that u could do it better

In fact, Why don't we open up this challenges to all people around the world. Post a video of u climbing 10th floor of stairs, carrying a notebook bag (About 3kg) to youtube, tag it with "Climbing10FloorChallenge", and post ur Video URL in the comments. At the end of Jan 2009, the best record holder will have personal gift from me and Marcel..

Let's the game begin!

[Tips] tired of Windows Spam and Virus?

Then listen to me, please try "Ubuntu 8.10!, the right OS!"
Once u download, and install, follow this guide to make ur desktop sexy, here are some screen shots of my current desktop, very sexy and very productive..

Running on Awn launcher bar and Conky that display
weather, CPU stat, and my gmail status.

I have up to 4 virtual desktops to work with.

The sexy task switcher..

Rotate the desktop cube, just to impress Windows user.
btw, the background image is the pic I take from KL Lookout point.
if u interest, u can download the pic from http://flickr.com/photos/jameskhoo


and finally, because Ubuntu 8.10 comes with VirtualBox, u can install
Windows Vista, and surprising, it run very smooth on top of Ubuntu.

If u still not convince, do check out this Video

Haha, enjoy!

Moving on

I been through a very bad relationship recently, where I fall down and hurt myself badly.

I needs to move on from now..

KL Lookout points

Been living in KL for pass 10+ years, never know there is this place call "KL Lookout Points" for people to chit chat, "minum kopi", and enjoy the beauty of KL at night. Don't ask me how to go there, I depends my "Human GPS" (i.e my friend) to direct me there.

I think is some where in between Ampang and Cheras, over a small hills call "Hulut Langat". Warning : The place is "too romantic" for young children, have encounter at least three hot hot kiss action while walking toward the tower, obviously u don't wants ur Son ask u "Mom, why they putting tounge into each other mouth?" Haha...

Hope u like it.

My big big Secret..

My friends, I am going to reveal one of my big big secret, please promise me not to tell anyone, u swear? It happen two weeks ago, when I meet this lovely girl name Wendy…

Ha ha ha ha, obviously this is not a post about my love affairs (and btw I don’t have any love affairs) but this is more about my dreams. I am writing this post to tell the universal law of attraction and my readers what I want to achieve in my career in 3-5 years time. According to the book "The Secret", to make one's dream comes true, we just need to ask for it, visualize our needs, write it down in detail somewhere and feel it. One day, what you have request/dream will come true ……

So, here is my “Secret”.

Date: 2011/2012
Venue: KL Hilton Hotel, Lobby

Wendy, from The Edge Magazine : "Hi James, thanks for your valuable time to do this interview."

Me: "It’s my pleasure."

Wendy: "First of all, could u share with our readers how u end up in ur current job, i.e Google Creative Director for Asian region."

Me: “I have always wanted to work with Google, so 4-5 years ago, I decided to apply for a technical job position at Google. However, given that I am already 35 years old that time, and working as a boring software development manager but not as talented (in terms of technical) as most of Google staff, and does not hold any working permit for US/India/China (where Google R&D centre is based), my chance of Google granting me an interview 4-5 years ago is very,very, very slim, :-(

So, instead of going via the normal route of applying a job at Google (i.e upload my resume to Google jobs portal and throwing my CV into giant black hole), I have to try another route.

I am very creative person, I also have ideas to make life easy, and some of my crazy ideas are very “Google” when I discuss some of my Google idea with my friends, and most of them agree that idea will work. So I decided to post my ideas to Google at my blog, and hope that Google HR will one day notice my creativity and call me for an interview. After posting about 10-15 ideas, I finally got call from Google HR for an interview, and after couple of more interviews and tests, I ended up with my current job position.”

Wendy: “Wow, that’s a unique way getting a company’s attention. So tell me, what is the job scope for Creative Director, i.e what do you need to do and deliver.”

Me: “Well, as Creative director for Google, I have to invent and deliver three-four ideas (i.e new Google services) to Google per year, The 2 -3 ideas must be profitable, and rest of ideas are platforms to improve community lifestyle, like free education for poor people, making our earth greener, reduce the gap of digital divine and etc.

My daily work involves discussing ideas to product and user groups, do a quick POC of my idea with my team, perform market survey about the idea, and finally work closely with product development group to implement the idea”

Wendy: “Oh, that’s a very fun and exciting job, so Khoo, tell me, where u get ur creative juice for all these great ideas.”

Me: “Hmmm, good question, and I don’t think I have answer for that, new idea will strike me out of no where, while driving, while watching movie, at the beach and even day dreaming. Hm..ok,, seriously, if I really have to put a answer on this question, I believed most of my creativities are from my observation. I like to do a lot of research, try out new things, observe people, and always aware of happenings around me.

Let me give u an example, the idea of “SMS Protect Me” came about after I read a news report that the rate of Malaysia women Malaysia being hit, raped, even murdered is increasing each year, and the sad part is most of victims are just doing day to day activities like taking a cab back home, jogging, shopping, waiting for someone to pick them up, and etc. So while driving to work, I am thinking is there any way to prevent this or reduce the crime rate, and out of sudden, my friend SMS me to go for breakfast. This is how the idea strike me.”

Wendy: “Cool, so James, or shall I address u as Mr Coolboy, out of so many ideas u invented, do u have one idea u very proud off?”

Me: “Hm, another good question. Well, if I have to pick one, I will pick "Google earth points", as I am very concern about our environment, and I wants our children have better place to live tomorrow. I am glad that the launch of Google earth points are very well receive by many parties, a recent study shows that, since launch of Google earth points, Google and other partners have help reduce global carbon emission by a total of 3-4%. Thanks to all the loving and caring Google users.

Oh, oh speaking of Google earth points, let’s me reveal this great marketing plan to u, thanks to Toyota. Starting next month, for anyone who purchase new Toyota 5 star green energy efficient car, Toyota will automatically granted purchaser for total 10 million Google earth points, 10 million Google earth points will entitled user to redeem latest Android Phone with 1 year unlimited voice, video calls, and unlimited usage of premium Google service for a year, Isn’t that exciting?”

Wendy: “This is a very good news, do tell us more”

Me: “Sure, wait till next month, at our press conference. Ha ha”

Wendy: “…

Stay tune for part two.

[Google Idea] gLove.google.com

Wow, it's been a long time since I post "Google Please hire me" series, well, for fans that follow this series (ahem..as if I got many fans that read my blog, Haha), so sorry for the delay

Anyway, my 6th idea to Google is a Mobile match maker application for lonely hearts. The application utilizing Mobile Phone with 3G and GPS service, such as Google Android phone. Although there are many variance of mobile match making application out there, there are many cool features of my application. Here how the application should work:

• First of all, user needs to register themselves via Google love matching website (i.e glove.google.com), entering their personal's detail such as name, age, birthday, astrology sign, preferences, language, hobbies, and etc.


• User can also choose to upload their picture, and enter criteria of their preferred partner (race, age range, hobbies, and etc)


• Once register, user proceed to download the mobile match making application from the web site.


• Once the application is activated, and sign on, user is presented a real time love chart, shown below:
  

• Heart shapes represent love match found from user existing location. The three circles here help user to visualize on how far/near between each love match and the user. For example, inner circle means the love match is about 250 meter between user and potential love match, middle circle is about 500 meter and distance on outer circle is about 1 KM.

• Color of love shapes shows match compatibility, red color > 90%, green color > 80%, and yellow >70%
  

• User could click on any love shape to view more information about the love match, as shown in picture below.
  
  
• If user like the love match found, user could opted to:
  
• Get more info about the user.
• Send a short message to the user
• Invite user to play online love quiz, where system will ask both the user and the potential partner a series of love/compatibilities questions (like top ten prefer movies, top ten place to spend romantic holiday) and at the end, present both parties each other answer.
• Play "find me if u can", where system present both parties hints (about 30 steps NW from XYZ Shopping center) to find each other.

The application/portal will be designed as open platform which enable third party developer to develop interesting "plugins" (can be free of charge for user, or needs to purchase with credit) to enhance the mobile application.

To further increase the chance for each other to fall in love, following are some examples of such third party app.
- An app that study how compatible they are base on their birthday and astrology sign.
- A app that study user's circle of friend, and provide a social graph (with interesting graphic) how they are related to each other. For example, if Mr A match with Ms D, the app could show A knows B from Primary School, B is friend of C, and C working together with D at company XYZ.


Please note that, to find a closer match, user do needs to informs the server where is he/she, so that the server is able to find one's soul mate that is located near to his/her current location. If the application detected that there is no GPS Signal, it will use following channels to find user's location, example:

a) Mobile Cell tower - Use of mobile cell tower to find user's location.
b) Wifi access points.
c) Base on the trail of the movement (GPS) of the person until he goes indoor.
d) if all above fail, the app will ask user's to enter his/her location (e.g Sungai Wang, Mid Valley) and find closer match..

On top of that, We partner with other big shopping centers to further promote this mobile application, i.e special discount is given for "Love is in the air" user, each shopping mall could have a giant display on their info desk, or main entrance showing real time info how many "Love is in the air" user is in their shopping center, each with interesting statistics, for example-

- There are total of 10 5-stars most wanted bachelor in this building, and 15 5-stars single lady in the building.
- There are total 10 pair of people are 90% match with each other, are u one of them? quickly find your match now, and claim (together with your potential partner) your free movie tickets in next 30 minutes here..

I believe with the right marketing and development, this will be killer application.
So, that's it, what do u think? do share me your thoughts on the comments page, stay tune for my next idea.

PS: As always, if anyone find these ideas interesting and wants to further build up those ideas, do drop me an email.

Cheers

One World One Dream

Please edit email subject line before u send email

Please change your email subject before replying a email

I feel annoy when receiving a reply email, where the email content are not related with the email subject. People are just “lazy” to compose new email, and fill in address field with new email subject, they simply wanted hit reply button, where the address is pre-filled, even if the content is not related to the subject. Here's what happen to me today.

My recruitment agents call: "Hi, James, have u review the Java Developer CV I send to u yesterday?"

Me: "I didn't receive any email on regards Java Developer CV oh"

Agent: "Did lah, I send it yesterday about 3:30pm, could u check ur email again"

Me: "Hm, let me check, I did receive one email with the subject of 'Free for lunch?' from u.."

Agent: "That's the email..that's a CV attached".

Me: "Then why don't u change the email subject to 'new Java Developer CV to review' to me before u sending email back to me?"

Agent: "Err......"