Goodbye, My First Love.

Dear,

Goodbye. It is inevitable. I have started to accept the reality. I believe.

It is so painful. Non-stop crying for 5 hours made me feel like shit. All kinds of happening between us during these 3 years came into my mind.

And yes. It was the first time that I got drunk that night. And first time that I smoked.

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! Argh!!!! How can this shit happen?? You are already part of my life, do you know that??

But I will be fine. It may take weeks, months or even years, but I believe the sorrow will be buried one day.

Regards,
Idiot John

Tough tough tough!! Fun fun fun!! Heehah~~~

3 UniEvents

2 Flagship Programs

1 External Conquest

Nationwide Expansion

A Majestic Re-Branding Exercise

A Life-Changing Opportunity

And A Big Big Elite Pirate Fleet!!

Never, Never, Never Ever Give Up!!!

Glad and thrilled to see the starting point of my short-to-mid term plan coming into action. AdVenture Pre-Startup Phase, Apprentice Recruitment Drive, Apprentice Teamwork Movie Nite and Apprentice Team Formation Nite have made me realize that all things are possible and indeed lie within my reach if I plan beautifully and execute the plan forcefully. Of course, I'm lucky to have many great team members surrounding me.

Hey UG, thanks so much for the extent of effort that you have put into our common cause.
Hey Bobo, thanks for your patience and passion.
Hey Dear, thanks for putting up with my tight schedule.
Hey Dad & Mum, thanks for supporting me to pursue my dreams.
Hey All Passers-by in my life, thanks for being part of my life.

Well, enough for gratitude. But all these 'thanks' are what actually get me up early and sleep very late these days. I will never, never, never ever give up!!!!

It's time to move on and come back to my work on hand =P

Exciting life ahead!

Feeling excited over some new sparks in life:

1. Robust learning opportunities in attachment with Christopher Lee & Co. (Their allowance is fascinating as well! Hooray!)
Bonus: Cool firm, brilliant boss, nice colleagues, and most importantly a damn youthful culture!

2. Ho Chi Minh, my next destination in next April =)

3. 2nd anniversary with Ping is coming up next!

4. New KL home, new environment, new housemates ^ ^

5. A good buddy during high school years got married recently. Owing to his wedding dinner, got to meet some old school friends! Had a great fun with them =D

6. My July-August battle plan is going to kick off soon after the end of my attachment. Energy starts to climb over my whole body and soul... HeeHah!!!

7. Managed to maintain my 2nd Upper Class target while handling my entrepreneurial ventures and getting closer to Ping from day to day... Awesome!! (My project paper will possibly be published and kept in our law library, hehe)

8. At the end of the 3rd year, feel lucky to have a great buddy at faculty and another big-sized bro in dorm (my roommate). No more, no less :P

9. Thanks to great teammates, able to squeeze into the national final of CIMA challenge. Hohoho

10. Have a supportive family behind me! =)

11. Having founded a medium-sized sales-based event, a mega campus-wide event targeting at Klang Valley crowd and a vibrant student entrepreneurship organization funded by my own firm within these 2 years, I start to feel that it's perhaps the best time to do what I really I want to do in the coming 2 months. It's NOW or NEVER.

The power of "Inception"

Having mentioned with my friends (including my girlfriend) about the powerful messages conveyed by 'Inception' (the latest work of Leonardo DiCaprio) these few days, I think that it is worthwhile for me to record my thoughts in this blog. At least this can be the music that awakens me from a seemingly inescapable Dreamland some point in future, no matter how fallaciously beautiful it is.

After the classical 'Dark Knight', Christopher Nolan has another chance to showcase his talent in sending powerful messages to the audience in 'Inception'. In 'Dark Knight' Nolan explores the definition of Evil to a very great extent, to which Batman ends up a Dark Knight, who understands fully the real meaning of Evil after a tough lesson. Nolan tried to tell us one simple fact: Extreme Evil has no reason for its existence. It simply exists. And that is the most horrible part of Evil itself. So, how about 'Inception'?

Idea. Extracting an idea from someone's subconscious mind in dream can be as simple as crushing a peanut for Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the movie. But doing the reverse- implanting an idea in some other's mind is a near-impossible task. It is true, in the sense that stealing someone's dream by discouraging him is easy, but implanting an idea to make him better is a much harder task.

Then here comes the next message. After an idea, no matter how hard it is, is indeed implanted in someone's mind, it can spread easily like virus. Indeed, when a person understands an idea and he believes in it, that is going change his life for sure, regardless of the degree of change. The idea would spread throughout his mind, empowering him to act based on the idea. That is the power of idea.

Another phenomenon brilliantly brought in by Nolan is that, one of the ways to make a person wake up from an artificial dream built by Cobb's specialist team is to make the person fall down suddenly in the dream. I prefer to label it as the 'Sudden Downfall Effect'. That's true in real life as well. There is no other method which is better than a sudden downfall, to awaken somebody from the world of fallacy that he has been living in all the while. A sudden downfall is the greatest enemy to numbness in life. A nightmare in life turns out to be good in this sense. And I think, all of us need that kind of downfall, once in a while.

The most surprising scene comes at the end of the movie, in which Cobb spins the top on the table to see if this is real or another dream. It is still spinning though seemingly about to topple before the screen goes black. I shouted. Then I got the point.

This is just a movie. The whole plot is merely an artificial dream. Brilliant.

10 Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs

Running a one-person business is a creative, flexible and challenging way to become your own boss and chart your own future. It is about creating a life, as it is about making a living. It takes courage, determination and foresight to decide to become an entrepreneur. From the relatively safe cocoon of the corporate world, where paychecks arrive regularly, you will be venturing into the unchartered territories of business.


Is there a way to determine whether you can be a successful entrepreneur, or you are better off to work for somebody else? Alas, there is no formula for success. However, most successful entrepreneurs share these ten characteristics. Check if you possess any one of them:



1. Think success. To attain the kind of success that you want, you need to dream big. Every success story starts with big dreams. You need to have big dreams for yourself - which you want to be somebody rich, famous or fulfilled. You need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. But it doesn't stop in dreaming alone. You should actively visualize success in your mind that you can almost feel it, touch it or it is within your reach. Play this image back at every opportunity. What does it feel to triple your current income? How will your life change? What will your business look like if you achieved the million-dollar mark?
Successful entrepreneurs possess an attitude of openness and faith that you can have what you want if you can simply envision it as the first step on the path of action to acquiring it. Management gurus have taught us the power of visualization - seeing yourself in your mind as having accomplished your dreams. If you want to be a successful writer, envision yourself signing books for a throng of people who have lined up to have your autograph. If you want to be rich, picture yourself in luxurious surroundings holding a fat bank account. And the process of envisioning success for you should be a constant activity! You need to think that you are successful (or will be one) every single waking hour. A personal development coach shared me her secret to help her continuously visualize her goals for the moment: when climbing stairs, recite your goal with every step you take. So if you want more money, say "I will have money" in every step of the stairs. This technique will reinforce your goal and keep it fresh in your consciousness.


2. Be passionate with what you do. You start a business to change any or all part of your life. To attain this change, you need to develop or uncover an intense, personal passion to change the way things are and to live life to the fullest. Success comes easily if you love what you do. Why? Because we are more relentless in our pursuit of goals about things that we love. If you hate your job right now, do you think you will ever be successful at it? Not in a million years! You may plod along, even become competent at the tasks, but you will never be a great success at it. You will achieve peak performance and do what you have to do to succeed only if you are doing something that interests you or something that you care about. Entrepreneurs who succeed do not mind the fact that they are putting in 15 or 18 hours a day to their business because they absolutely love what they do. Success in business is all about patience and hard work, which can only be attained if you are passionate and crazy with your tasks and activities.


3. Focus on your strengths. Let's face it; you cannot be everything to everybody. Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses. To be effective, you need to identify your strengths and concentrate on it. You will become more successful if you are able to channel your efforts to areas that you do best. In business, for example, if you know you have good marketing instincts, then harness this strength and make full use of it. Seek help or assistance in areas that you may be poor at, such as accounting or bookkeeping. To transform your weakness to strength, consider taking hands-on learning or formal training.


4. Never consider the possibility of failure. Ayn Rand, in her novel The Fountainhead, wrote, "It is not in the nature of man - nor of any living entity, to start out by giving up." As an entrepreneur, you need to fully believe in your goals, and that you can do it. Think that what you are doing will contribute to the betterment of your environment and your personal self. You should have a strong faith in your idea, your capabilities and yourself. You must believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have the ability to recognize and fulfill them. The more you can develop faith in your ability to achieve your goals, the more rapidly you can attain it. However, your confidence should be balanced with calculated risks that you need to take to achieve greater rewards. Successful entrepreneurs are those who analyze and minimize risk in the pursuit of profit. As they always say, "no guts, no glory."


5. Plan accordingly. You have a vision, and you have enough faith in yourself to believe that you can achieve your vision. But do you know how to get to your vision? To achieve your vision, you need to have concrete goals that will provide the stepping-stone towards your ultimate vision. Put your goals in writing; not doing so just makes them as intangible fantasies. You need to plan each day in such a way that your every action contributes to the attainment of your vision. Do you foresee yourself as the next Martha Stewart of hand-made home furnishings? Perhaps today, you need to see an artist to help you conceptualize the new line of hand-made linens that you hope to launch. Intense goal orientation is the characteristic of every successful entrepreneur. They have a vision, and they know how to get there. Your ability to set goals and make plans for your accomplishment is the skill required to succeed. Plan, plan and plan - because without which failure is guaranteed.


6. Work hard! Every successful entrepreneur works hard, hard and hard. No one achieves success just by sitting and staring at the wall every single day. Brian Tracy puts it out this way, "You work eight hours per day for survival; everything over eight hours per day is for success." Ask any successful businessperson and they will tell you immediately that they had to work more than 60 hours per week at the start of their businesses. Be prepared to say goodbye to after-office drinks every day, or a regular weekend get-away trip. If you are in a start-up phase, you will have to breathe, eat and drink your business until it can stand on its own. Working hard will be easy if you have a vision, clear goals, and are passionate with what you do.


7. Constantly Look for Ways to Network. In business, you are judged by the company you keep - from your management team, board of directors, and strategic partners. Businesses always need assistance, more so small businesses. Maybe the lady you met in a trade association meeting can help you secure funding, or the gentleman at a conference can provide you with management advise. It is important to form alliances with people who can help you, and whom you can help in return. To succeed in business, you need to possess good networking skills and always be alert to opportunities to expand your contacts.


8. Willingness to Learn. You do not need to be a MBA degree holder or PhD graduate to succeed in your own business. In fact, there are a lot of entrepreneurs who did not even finish secondary education. Studies show that most self-made millionaires have average intelligence. Nonetheless, these people reached their full potentials achieved their financial and personal goals in business because they are willing to learn. To succeed, you must be willing to ask questions, remain curious, interested and open to new knowledge. This willingness to learn becomes more crucial given the rapid changes in technologies and ways of doing business.


9. Persevere and have faith. No one said that the road to success is easy. Despite your good intentions and hard work, sometimes you will fail. Some successful entrepreneurs suffered setbacks and resounding defeats, even bankruptcy, yet managed to quickly stand up to make it big in their fields. Your courage to persist in the face of adversity and ability to bounce back after a temporary disappointment will assure your success. You must learn to pick yourself up and start all over again. Your persistence is the measure of the belief in yourself. Remember, if you persevere, nothing can stop you.


10. Discipline yourself. Thomas Huxley once said, "Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you like it or not." Self-discipline is the key to success. The strength of will to force yourself to pay the price of success - doing what others don't like to do, going the extra mile, fighting and winning the lonely battle with yourself.


*this article is quoted from http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol19/secrets.htm

Apple Passes Microsoft as No. 1 in Tech

SAN FRANCISCO — Wall Street has called the end of an era and the beginning of the next one: The most important technology product no longer sits on your desk but rather fits in your hand.

The moment came Wednesday whenApple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.

This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history for Apple, which had been given up for dead only a decade earlier, and its co-founder and visionary chief executive,Steven P. Jobs. The rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds an important cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.

Microsoft, with its Windows and Office software franchises, has dominated the relationship most people had with their computers for almost two decades, and that was reflected in its stock market capitalization. But the click-clack of the keyboard has ceded ground to the swipe of a finger across a smartphone’s touch screen.

And Apple is in the right place at the right time. Although it still sells computers, twice as much revenue is coming from hand-held devices and music. Over all, the technology industry sold about 172 million smartphones last year, compared with 306 million PCs, but smartphone sales grew at a pace five times faster.

Microsoft depends more on maintaining the status quo, while Apple is in a constant battle to one-up itself and create something new, said Peter A. Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook. “Apple is a bet on technology,” he said. “And Apple beating Microsoft is a very significant thing.”

As of Wednesday, Wall Street valued Apple at $222.12 billion and Microsoft at $219.18 billion. The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $278.64 billion.

The companies have comparable revenue, with Microsoft at $58.4 billion and Apple at $42.9 billion. But in their most recent fiscal years, Apple had net income of $5.7 billion, while Microsoft earned $14.6 billion.

Microsoft has more cash and short-term investments, $39.7 billion, to Apple’s $23.1 billion, which makes the value assigned by the market to Apple, essentially a bet on its future prospects, all the more remarkable.

Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, shrugged off the shift Thursday morning. "No technology company on the planet is more profitable than we are," he said in New Delhi, where he had come to tout Microsoft’s cloud computing plans.

"On any given day, the stock market is a voting machine,’’ he said, and only ‘‘in the long run is it a weighing machine."

Apple declined to comment.

Apple’s climb to the top of the heap cements the reputation of Mr. Jobs, who once operated in the shadow of Microsoft’s co-founder, Bill Gates.

“It is the single most important turnaround that I have seen in Silicon Valley,” said Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist who has invested in some of the most successful technology companies.

While Apple is at the top of its game, it faces a new and powerful rival in Google, which is battling Apple in mobile devices with its Android operating system, and mobile advertising.

Google, with a market cap of $151.43 billion, also appeared to leap ahead of Apple in a new potentially important area, Internet-connected televisions. And Google is steering consumers toward yet a new model of computing in which Internet applications, rather than iPhone or desktop applications, rule.

“The battle has shifted from Microsoft against Apple to Apple against Google,” said Tim Bajarin, a technology analyst who has been following Apple since 1981. “Apple has a significant lead. But Google is going to be a powerful competitor.”

Apple and Microsoft initiated the personal computing revolution in the late 1970s, but Microsoft quickly outflanked Apple and grew to be one of the most profitable businesses ever created.

A little more than a decade ago, Apple, which had pushed out Mr. Jobs in 1985, was widely believed to be on the path to extinction.

Michael S. Dell, the founder and chief executive of Dell computer, went so far as to suggest that Apple should shut down and return any money to shareholders. (The computer maker is now worth about a tenth of Apple.) Around the same time, Microsoft’s chief technology officer called Apple “already dead.”

But with the return of Mr. Jobs to Apple in 1996 — and an investment by Microsoft of $150 million — the company began a slow path to recovery. Apple’s rebirth began in earnest with the introduction of the iPod music players, and Mr. Jobs began to gain a reputation for anticipating what consumers want. The company elbowed aside Sony and came to dominate the music distribution business with the iTunes online music store.

It later upstaged Nokia, the dominant brand in mobile phones, by introducing the iPhone in 2007. And this year, Mr. Jobs shook things up again, with the introduction of the iPad, a tablet computer that has the potential to create a new category of computers and once again reshape the way people interact with their devices.

Mr. Jobs helped create “the best desktop computer, the best portable music device, the best smartphone and also now the best tablet,” said Steve Perlman, a serial entrepreneur who was an executive at both Apple and Microsoft and is now the chief executive of OnLive, an online gaming company.

As Apple grew increasingly nimble and innovative, Microsoft has struggled to build desirable updates to its main products and to create large new businesses in areas like game consoles, music players, phones and Internet search. Microsoft, which is a component stock of the Dow Jones industrial average, has lost half its value since 2000.

Mr. Ballmer said Thursday that while Microsoft has “some very good competitors,” the company is a very good competitor itself. Yet Mr. Ballmer seemed to concede that Microsoft needs improvement in some areas.

“Windows phone – boom! We have to deliver devices with our partners this Christmas,” he said. Feedback so far has been good, he said, but the company still has “a lot of work to do.”

Still, Microsoft is a hugely powerful and profitable company in the tech world. Its Windows software runs 9 out of every 10 computers, while more than 500 million people use its Office software to perform their daily tasks, like writing letters or sending e-mail messages. These two franchises account for the bulk of Microsoft’s annual revenue.

But Apple has the momentum. “Steve saw way early on, and way before Microsoft, that hardware and software needed to be married into something that did not require effort from the user,” said Scott G. McNealy, the co-founder and longtime chief executive of SunMicrosystems.

“Apple’s products are shrink-wrapped and ready to go.”

Heather Timmons in New Delhi contributed reporting.

(link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/technology/27apple.html)