My MSN Msger acc hacked by someone!!!

Recently, I heard one of my colleagues and one of my friends said that I send weird msges to them. As such, I decided to change password just now. Hopefully that hacker will not access my msn acc again. But if he decides to do so, I have no choice and maybe have to delete my acc. I dunno why that fellow wants to use my acc though. He or she has added 100 contacts which is foreign to me, hence i deleted them and block them. While changing my password, I saw a notice on the web that msn messenger is retiring soon and it urges users to update to skype. Dunno how true is that? Whether it affects only overseas users and not local users, I am not so sure. I shall ask my friends to see what they think of this.

So far I have been using my Ipad mini regularly and finds it working rather well without glitches. I am also looking forward to a christmas gathering soon which is also a potluck session. Some of the gathering details are out while some minor details I got to confirm with the organiser again. Hopefully it will be a warm festive session and everyone that goes to the gathering can go home a happier person. As 2013 is fast approaching, I guess everyone has a list of new year resolution ready. Merry Christmas and a happy new year in advance!

Ipad Mini is cool!

2 weeks ago, I bought a 32gb white Ipad mini. It is light and although it does not have retina display or the latest apple processor, it still looks solid enough. It allows me to watch videos, play games and surf the net. But unfortunately, it does not allow me to blog. As such, I have been watching naruto anime, tv serials and movies whenever I am free. Therefore, the frequency of me blogging is less frequent, down from 2 weeks to 3 weeks. The accesories like back cover, screen protector and front cover is definitely not cheap. It adds up to S$100+ for just the 3 of them. So the next IT product that I would buy is likely to be a laptop. But when will I buy it? I don't know but I am on the look out for a durable light weight type. So I am currently keeping my fingers crossed that my current ageing laptop won't breakdown so soon.

Lately, there have been some unhappiness between my department and another department. Last wednesday, we prepared to send 3 big boxes and 1 small box of DNs to another department. But they rejected it and after some discussion by another colleague, they finally accepted it few days ago. Reason for declining the Dns is simple. There is not enough space in the room. Ok and then they also demand that WSOs are to be delivered to them for two weeks and not one week. Their temps even argued with me that they say they received WSOs not in consecutive batches. I don't understand how come I send week by week they also got problem with it. Now increasing to two weeks, won't there be even more problems? I just hope that the next time I send WSOs over, there won't be problems anymore. Anyway, december is fast approaching. I wish everyone can be happy at work and spend time with your loved ones. See ya...

MRT train signal problem?

Last week, I went to work by taking MRT but was almost late during one of the weekdays. For that particular day, the MRT for some weird reason only stops at altenate stations meaning that some passengers who wants to alight at certain stations are denied the right to alight. Lucky for me though, the MRT managed to pull over at my station. Else, I may have to switch to the opposite side MRT to reach my station. I don't know how come this can happen especially during peak hours. This leads to some disgruntled passengers who laments about how poor the SMRT service is recently. I hope this is a one-off incident and not a routine one. Keeping my fingers crossed then. Lately, Ipad mini is released. According to the news, the response is not as good as previous launches. If thats the case, how come I cannot get hold of one during launch day then? Apparently, it is sold out within 3 hours of launch. So I wonder how good a response can be considered good especially it can be sold out so fast in Singapore? Challenger should have stock in more since there is a big demand for Ipad mini. So the next restock should have more Ipad minis for sale ya? It's anyone guess that it should be this way so that more customers can be satisfied. I know online ordering is another option but I rather wait for Challenger to stock in cos there is points to be earned if you are a member there. Hopefully it will not be too long a wait if not I may suddenly decides not to buy Ipad mini anymore.

Renewed Challenger membership

I just renewed my challenger membership on 12 Oct. I wonder if it is a decision which I would not likely regret in future. It seems at the moment that I would regret renewing my membership especially since challenger did not refund my last membership fees which ended late last tear. Unless I utillize it and buy many IT stuffs in the coming year, I may regret renewing even though I had a free 4gb Sony flash drive worth $9.90 upon renewing membership this time round. So if i did not save $50 or more, I may collect a $40 rebate discount which I am not sure whether it is in the form of vouchers or cash. Sounds good isn't it? For a start maybe I will buy the upcoming new ipad. As for laptop, I may buy it later after windows 8 comes out. I also may buy a portable hard drive which I believe it will cost me only $100 or less for a 500gb one. What else shall I buy within the next 2 years to fully utilise my membership? Well, let me think about it whenever I am free.

As for work, I am pretty much doing the same routine things for the past few weeks. And for this month, I successfully submitted my salary claim up to 12Oct in time as for the past two months I submitted the claim late due to unforeseen circumstances. There is also a change in my supervisor soon which I am not sure when will it happens. I also yet to sign a contract and therefore will ask the current supervisor whether I need to sign one contract or not. Better still if dun need so that I can leave soon after finding a job. Hehe. Ok, looking forward to a new week soon and hope everyone of my friends is doing well at the moment. =)

iphone5 rocks!

Do u all know how long i queue for iphone5? It took me a long 3 hours in order for me to get my hands on black 16gb iphone5 on September 22. It is not that long until cannot fit into pocket that type. It is quite cool looking and definitely lighter than my iphone 3GS. Besides that, the images on it look better and sharper. Videos from youtube also took faster to load and applications also load faster. Two days later, I also bought a neon yellow casing with a matt screen protector. As I dunno where to get it cheaper, I just conveniently bought it from a mobile store near my house. I dunno whether my decision to get a 16gb rather than a 32gb is a good one but I reckon since I don't use up that much space for my old iphone, it should be the same case for my new iphone5. So far, it feels good using this new lighter and thinner iphone. So hopefully my experience with the iphone5 will be much better than my iphone3GS for the next 1 to 2 years.

For work wise. my workload this few weeks has been average and manageable. As there won't be double workload for WSO for this upcoming week due to 1st Oct landing on a monday, I probably won't need to work OT for next couple of weeks unless WSO came in late again. But for DN checking wise, I may have to check more DNs in the coming week as the main person in charge of checking DNs have to cover another person's delivery job for a week. Other than that, I dunno will I be tasked to do scanning of documents or magazines or not as I heard there are some outstanding things to scan. If I am needed to scan in the documents, I may then need to work OT. Ok, a new week begins and hopefully everything goes smoothly. =)

iphone 5 looks cool!

It's now a week left to the launch of the highly anticipated iphone5. The specs are rather cool with longer battery life and a lighter body. However, I dunno whether it will fit into my pockets or not as it is now longer. I believe a 16gb black iphone5 should be able to satisfy myself as I did not max out the storage for my iphone3GS. I read about it and understands that the WIFI running speed is better as well as the improved camera specification. Right now though, I am still unsure about the price plans with M1 iphone 2 years contract. I will be happy if it costs me less than $700 with the lowest iphone plan around $41 per month. So until Sept 21 comes, hopefully touchwood nothing bad happens to my iphone3GS cos I may want to sell it after a week or two of using the new iphone 5. =)

My latest quest of finding a perm job in time has failed. The job agency did not get back to me as of today, thus i made a decision and that is to extend my current contract to end likely 6 months later. Well, the good thing is that I will still be considered for a perm job in SPH should there be any vacancy available. The bad thing is I will have to endure having a less than ideal pay for my age. Will my decision to stay on for another half a year prove to be a decent choice? Only I will know probably 5 months from now. Lucky for me, working in SPH is a pleasure working experience. So maybe I can take this chance to brush up my job skills. Meanwhile, I shall submit my timesheet for sept soon which is a little late due to a colleague who is helping me to submit them to HR on MC for past few days. So this recent 2 months I have been receiving delayed salary but lucky that I am a regular saver. :>

Finding a job requires some luck?

Just a week or 2 ago, my ex poly friend has a job lobang for me. But apparently, it is not in sept thus this job opportunity is grabbed by another person. Oh well, had my contract ends earlier, I would have gotten the job. Its a job in the shipping services company that my ex poly friend worked there before. It seems a good job but at that time my supervisor has not told me whether there is a job vacancy for me in SPH, so I hesisitated for a day or two and the job was gone before I can even go for the interview.

Despite this setback, I continued looking for a job in jobstreet website using my iphone 3GS. I applied for one but I think someone has gotten the job as a job agent called to say she will keep a look out for admin related jobs and get back to me once there is a related job available. I hope the agent can contact me soon within this coming week, if not I may consider to stay on for maybe 3 more months? I am sure most of u will agree with me that its better to have a job rather than waiting at home for a job, ya?

Busy in the meantime, Less busy in the future?

2 weeks ago on a thursday, I filed 10 parcels worth of WSO files and bundled 16 of them using the strapping machine. Oh man, that was the busiest day so far for me in recent times. Then this week, because of a contractor late bringing in of his parcel 19/20 WSOs, I basically spent my friday time splitting WSOs into 2 sheets each because of the once a month split week orders and keying date as well as batch no. into 2 spreadsheets. So next week until end of the month, I should be less busy as my workload won't be that much as this week as I spent 3 hours extra this week alone keying details into the spreadsheets.

So besides waiting patiently for the new release of iphone5 this coming Sept/Oct, I also got to see if i can clinch a job in the same department or else I got to start finding a job elsewhere. I am sure some of you may ask me what sort of job am I looking for? Actually, I just need a simple admin job but it can also be a logistics type as I work for one company before in my poly internship time. Some of you may even ask why not I go for further studies? I thought of that before but there is not a course that seems appealing to me so finding a stable job is what I feel better for me at the moment.

What will happen to your old IT gadgets???

Every month, there is always new IT gadgets for consumers like us to purchase. It can range from handphones to printers to laptops. Now how many old IT gadgets we have will depend on how frequent we buy new IT gadgets to replace them. The term 'old IT gadgets' to some may mean 1 year old gadgets, but to many may be referred as 2 years and beyond gadgets. I always wonder what should we do with such old IT gadgets if its spoilt and cannot be resold. Is it possible to sell to karang Guni? Where to 'recycle' them if nobody wants? Some IT gadgets which are 3 years old may not fetch a decent amount of cash, so if its still usable, will you use it until its spoilt then purchase a replacement gadget? Hope some of you people can give me some valuable comments.

Yesterday, I met up with an ex-poly classmate. Both of us laments how time passes so fast. While she is likely to change a new job soon, I am still finding a stable job. Till today, I am still puzzled as to how fast two ex-poly classmates can be engaged out of a sudden. Anyway besides those topics, we had a decent dinner at mos burger and chatted about some other issues as well. After that, we walked into some shops in Tampines One and soon its home sweet home. What a great feeling to be able to spend some time with ex classmate of mine. Don't some of you have this feeling before too?

Is it worth the wait to wait for Iphone 5?

Not long ago, Samsung Galaxy S3 was out in stores. I thought it look nice and its features are pretty good. But so far, the reason I not buying is because none of my friends seem to own it. Till now, I still think about whether to buy this samsung phone or wait until October for Iphone5. From what I heard from news so far, there are some changes in the new design of Iphone 5. To me, I feel it does not make much difference as I am not that type of hardcore apple fans who may spend alot on it and its accessories. If I am to buy samsung phone soon, it maybe because of its 8 megapixel camera and the ability to capture 8 quick consecutive shots. As of now, I stay put with my Iphone 3GS and thinking whether to own a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone will be better than the upcoming Iphone 5 or not.

For the upcoming week, it maybe my busiest week since entering SPH. It is because I will be receiving alot of WSO sheets and will be giving them a number each in the excel spreadsheet. Looks like I will be working OT again but I am used to working OT about twice to 4 times a month. Hopefully nothing unusual happens and I can finish keying the WSOs entry by thursday so that I can do other things on friday.

Cycling is fun?

One of the old pastimes I used to have is cycling. It started off around year 2007 when I am posted to Tampines Fire Station for my national service duties. Then, I bought a bicycle which cost me $230 from a not so familiar ex poly friend who also happens to be serving his duties but as a clerk there. I initially thought that bicycle will suffice enough for my leisure cycling around Tampines. But somehow, I ended up persuaded by him to upgrade my bicycle parts one by one until left the normal front fork part untouched. Hence, my bicycle now costs me around $1000. For the next 1 - 2 years then, me, him and a few of his friends cycled at night to areas like Pasir Ris Park, Changi Village, East Coast Park, Kallang Indoor Stadium or even once to Orchard Road. Sometimes we would cycle to multiple areas in one night. Other times, we chill out at east coast park mac or see aeroplanes at Changi beach. At numerous occasions, I suffered cuts and abrasions to my elbow, knee cap area but we still cycled until the day I ORD in June 2008.

Not long ago, I and a few of my other ex poly friends went to Pasir Ris Park to rent bicycles and ride up to Punggol Park. The view there is quite nice where you can see nice tall trees along the water way. We cycled around the area for a few hours before returning the bicycles back to Pasir Ris Park. Maybe one day I may decide to cycle there with my own bicycle. Who knows when I will do that, maybe I will when I am too bored. Right now, my bicycle is left untouched in my kitchen area. Only once in a year, I will pump air into the tyres of the wheels and clean it with a piece of wet cloth. Now if got friend wants to buy my bicycle for $500 or so, I may hesitate to sell it since I own this bicycle for quite some time. Oh well, afterall cycling can be fun isnt it?

Good thing to buy less IT gadgets in recent years?

In recent few years, I found myself buying less IT gadgets than before despite me having challenger membership. Hence I find that my current IT gadgets are ageing and becoming increasingly needed to be replaced in near future. Certainly, I think more people have come to realised that being dependent on gadgets is not that healthy although there is a need to use gadgets in our modern lives. Not long ago, my 2 year challenger membership ended. I apply for a refund on my membership fees and now I am currently waiting for a reply from challenger. Not sure how they will refund me though. If its vouchers, maybe I will spend it on a portable hard disk as my laptop is quite old and the contents might be lost if I don't save it into another place in near future. Better still if its cash but I doubt challenger will be that kind. In the meantime though, I am waiting for the release of iphone 5. After buying iphone 5, I shall look at various laptops and choose a better one to use for maybe next 3-5 years.

Meanwhile, I find that the WSO printing time kept on delaying from thursday to friday. It is not a good sign as it means that there will be quite a rush each week to file it into a folder each by end of the day. There are only 4 persons doing the WSO filing each week and if one takes half day leave, the other 3 will have to do more filing work. Thankfully, it is not often that there is a person less to do the filing. Sometimes, I hope to have 1 more helper around to do the bundling of the WSO parcels so that the amount of work can be distributed more evenly. But that can't be helped since my department does not seem keen to hire more temps to help out. This therefore results in more work being delayed.

Another Titanic sinks?

Well, a small incident happened at workplace just a few days ago. It just happened without anyone knowing. A long rectangular table fell to the ground to my right with lots of bulky WSO files on the right side of the table. It probably is a case of overloading as I had minimal contact against the table with a pair of long legs. Luckily, noone was hurt during this incident as the files that were sent tumbling down off a side of the table landed on the floor. I am not sure if anything else will happen because a staff took picture of the scene with files all over on the floor. At least now I know that the files cannot be placed too near to the edge of the table with the metal legs seemingly looking not that strong afterall.

The new technology still has not been introduced to check in the attendance of the WSOs. I have been waiting for it for almost a month since the news of the barcode technology filtered through from my colleague to me. When is the trial run going to start, no one knows... I just hope that when it is introduced, scanning it will be a breeze and will reduce the time needed to 'mark' the attendance of the WSOs.

Communicating with colleagues

Communicating with colleagues at workplace can be a challenge at times. If u miscommunicate with them, your relationship with your colleagues will not be good and you will be lonely during lunch breaks. Lucky for me, I communicate with my colleagues reasonably well. But I am not so sure about that for one temp staff who works in another department.

This temp staff acts weirdly as in the way he speaks to us during lunch breaks. He would often interrupt a conversation with out of the blue remarks or sometimes talks about something unexpectedly odd. I don't know whether he himself has realised about his odd comments or not. But he lately has not joined a group of us for lunch. Maybe he is reflecting on why his relationship with colleagues is not so good. I find myself lucky that I do not need to communicate with any unusual colleagues. Only thing that I missed a little is that I have not worked with another temp staff side by side since January as my department do not plan to hire another temp staff. Maybe when I join a new company next time, I may have to work with more colleagues. Hopefully, my relationship with new colleagues by then will be as good as now. =)

Contract extended

After a few days of thinking, I finally decided to extend my contract at SPH for another 6 months at least. The reason is simple. I like working at SPH. Although there are alot of things to do, but at least it is not brain damaging tasks. I think 6 months later, I probably would review my situation again or start to find a better job with a much better pay then. Cos in due time to come, I may find myself needing to support my ageing parents. So I think it is time to move on in due time and find better challenges. As of now, let me relax a little and work comfortably first before I move up a gear or two in time to come.

Well, I just ended a week of heavy duty WSOs to key in. This time round, its shocking to know that there are still a considerable amount of WSOs not in yet. Dunno whether the contractors will be paying a hefty fine for late returns or not. Anyway, its not within my control whether or not to fine them. I can only hope that those people in charge of bringing in WSOs will not be fined alot. Besides busy with WSOs, I have also been busy photocopying DNs for cold storage and cheers. Just completed photocopying cold storage DNs last week, so now still left with a hefty number of Cheers DNs to photocopy. I think it will take me at least 3 weeks to complete as I still need to key in WSOs for most of the time. Hopefully, the new technology will come in sooner rather than later so that it can free up more time for me to do more things.

New technology wont be implemented too soon

Latest news I received is that new technology will be implemented only end of march instead of mid feb. Upon hearing this news, I am a little bit disappointed to learn that it will be delayed. I dont know whats the reason behind this delay, but I am told by my colleague that there is this trend that whenever there is something new, it will always not be introduced so soon. Oh well, I hope I will still be around by end march to experience this new change then.

Apparently, my contract at SPH ends before mid march. I am told recently that I can't be converted to perm due to the limit in perm headcount in circulation department. If you ask me whether I will renew my contract, I actually half want to and half unwilling to commit to another term of new contract. But at the end of the day, my supervisor says it depends on whether the big boss would still want to recruit my services or not. If I am given the nod to continue another term, I might continue as I like the workplace. But I might also not continue as I heard from others that for the same amount of work elsewhere, I will be paid a higher monthly salary. So sooner or later, I will leave this company as I know there is not much prospects in staying for too long. So at most I will be staying for another 6 months since the prospects for my future in this company is not that high afterall. I will update my blog again maybe next week as to whether I will be starting another new contract soon or there is other new developments. Stay tuned... ...

Barcode technology to be used in scanning WSOs

I heard from my colleague that trials of using the barcode scanning technology is starting in 2 weeks time from now. Actually I wish it can start next week when I have double the workload of WSOs to key in. But my colleague claims that its best to start when its not too busy a week so that I will not fumble too much and hinders the process of getting used to the technology. Oh well, i hope everything will be alright when I start using the technology. Hopefully, it can speed up the process of updating the database that WSO sheets has been received. I think I can cope with it as technology stuffs does not unnerve me much. Till then, I will blog about it on how it goes.

As of feb 4, the cupboards have now been shifted outside the small room and my side have been allocated 4 tables for our own use. Now that the room that is enclosed with false walls is empty, I really wonders what the room will be used for next. If it is used to store goods, I won't be surprised since the other places to store goods like freebies or promotional items looks quite full. I just hope that our cupboards will not be moved again as it will hinder the consoling DNs process. The year of dragon has been good for me so far, hopefully it continues to be like this for the rest of the year. Hmmm... Whats next?

New technology to be introduced soon?

My colleague told me that there might be new technology introduced in the near future so that keying in WSOs will become scanning in WSOs. How it works, I am not so sure. Apparently, there is developments in a device to scan the barcode at the top right hand corner of the WSO. Whether or not it is connected to a PC, it is still a mystery. But if this development turns out to be success, it will definitely shave off some time in keeping track of the WSO entries. I doubt it will be ready for use anytime in this year, so no point rejoicing over it now.

In the meantime, I am always busy with WSOs week in week out. Sometimes, there is split week meaning there is double the stack of normal WSO sheets workload. Just imagine, a week of WSO sheets is around 105 batches of 10. Time spent keying in will then be almost double as well. Double workload normally happens once a month at around the start of the month. I particularly not looking forward to this period but no choice have to endure the hassle of keying in excel without any device yet.

Recently, the cupboards where we store all the DNs is now within a small enclosed room. The walls of the room are false man made walls. I wonder whats the use of creating such a small room. Maybe for added security? Or maybe to separate office desks from cupboards? Who knows? But I will be sure to find out more about the room as I am partly worried about the space constraint posed by the small room. Unless there is a table in the room, consoling the DNs will become an issue as space is needed. That's about it, new year new room but hopefully no new problems.