Thingyan 2008

Well, nothing much for me to do here, except missing Yangon. This year it is a 5-days festival. Burmese people here would be quite happy to welcome the festival on this weekend, I guess. Actually, even in Yangon, I did not fully celebrate it like others. My dad sometimes brought us in his saloon with glass doors closed and we looked around Yangon.

But, just before I came to Singapore, my family went to Maymyo - my favourite place on earth – during Thingyan festival 2005. It was so cool to travel all the way up there. Along the highway, local people threw water at us (or our car). It was such an exciting experience in my life. I would never forget that journey. Aww.. It has been already 4 years since then…

LTNP (April)

Long time no post. When was my last entry posted??? Hmm… December 16. Almost 4 months already. Well, I am just using Twitter and Tumblr more.

Now, I am working full-time. So, I don’t have much time to write here, plus nothing interesting to talk about these days. Yep, at the end of January, I went back to Yangon (Rangoon of Burma). I stayed there for 1 month + 10 days. I had a great time there. I went to Chaung Tha beach and Maw-La-Myein (Moulmein) with my family. 

I came back to Singapore on March 10. I stayed home for a few days and I started looking for a job. Thank God. I got a job within a couple of days. I thank Chris, Wai Phyo and Pyisoe for this.

Working full-time, I couldn’t even update my Burmese blog very well. But, we’re thinking about purchasing some web space. Hehe. Web hosting for personal usage and some undisclosed project. A project for Burmese people. Hint: It’s a blog. Blog, again!??

I also wanna buy 160GB portable HDD. It is getting cheaper. But, actually, I am not even using my old 40GB Ext HDD. Hmm., I don’t think I’m gonna buy that.

Oh yep! last Monday, I went to SMU to sit for admission Interview. It was an awesome experience. It took us 2 hours to complete the entire interview process. During the interview, I got to understand Fermi Question and its significance. (Classic Fermi Questions)

Actual question that we encountered was:

How many mandarin oranges were sold during Chinese New Year 2008?

Haha… my answer was 65 million. Don’t ask me how I come up with that answer. Anyway, it’s time for bed. Let me stop writing. I hope I update this blog regularly. (Most posts will be personal things, perhaps.) 

That’s all for now. Peace out.

A Crack

Early morning on one weekday in the last week, I got up, grabbed my spectacles and it dropped off! =’( I really like that spectacles. :sob:

A good Sunday

Today was a good Sunday. Supernova, our Final Year Project team, had lunch once at Inle, a Myanmar resturant at Peninsula Plaza, City Hall. And, since then, we decided to try Indonesia food. =)

Supernova : Karen, Chris, Wai Yan, me, Wai Phyo and Pyiso.

Today, we went to The RiceTable restuarant in International Building in downtown. It’s Indonesia Buffet which consists of 14 dishes. (More info on their website.) The food was really really great. I really love almost all dishes except otak. I don’t like it.

After that, we walked along the Orchard Road to make ourselves ready for some drinks. Then, we entered a Coffee Beans shop. Enjoying our hot drinks, we decided to meet up next Saturday to bug-fix our Musikr project in that we could present it in SPInnovex. After awhile, Karen left us.

We walked to Plaza Singapura. Then, we bought some stuffs that we need at Carrefour. And, we came back home.

Internship : Week 1

My supervisor said I became a working adult. =) I must try to get up at around 0700 every weekdays. (That’s the worst thing for an IT student! Sigh… people say ‘not a kid anymore!’) Well, just sit in front of a comp and do what I’m asked to do. Say ‘Hi!’, ‘Hello!’ to everyone we see. Trying to make myself comfortable with the environment and trying to get along well with everyone.

As Chris said, it’s totally and completely different from being in a classroom. And, it’s a new experience. My supervisor keep saying that he wants me to think on my own (everytime I ask him what am I gonna do…).

I must learn alot. I hope I’m always ready.

‘Good Luck!’ to all my friends who are in their internship and all the rest, who are doing FYP.

Thant Z.

FYP done. MTS done.

Back again. After serveral hours of hard work, our Final Year Project has been (gracefully) done. I’m (personally) really satisfied with what we have done(, it ain’t bug-free though). Well, even OSes are not bug-free. They need patches, too. =)

Our system (frontend) is flash-based. It’s a music explorer and player (yeah, a jukebox). Our system consists of three main parts.

Backend Database and Management System

We used ‘mysql’. MS SQL is just too expansive. We used ASP.net (using VB.net) to create backend pages, in conjunction with Atlas framework (AJAX for ASP.net released by MS). AJAX extension is used in order to cater ‘Ajaxy Sensation’ to users (admins of System).
These backend pages features all the necessary functionalities to handle datbase data – that is – Adding, Updating, Deleting, and Querying records for every entity in the ERD.
Entity range from “Artist”, “Album”, “Track” to “Tag”, “Theme”,” Bestseller” and “Advertisement”. =)

Those backend server pages retrieve the data from the database and writes XML files on the server.

XML – middleman

Those XMLs can then be downloaded to client computers with a Control Panel application we’ve written. Those XMLs can then be read by the frontend Flash application which is running on those client computers. Sometimes, some values are just read from the XML documents (e.g. album title and artist name) but sometimes, values are just filepaths to the server (e.g. music files and artwork files). They are, let’s say, “streamed” from the server.

Frontend Flash Music Jukebox

After XMLs are download to the client computer, Flash frontend reads them and searches keywords in them. Yeah, our flash frontend neither will ever connect to the backend nor database directly. Searching is local. But, in order for flash to search the most up-to-date data, backend must write XMLs regularly and client computers must download those XMLs regularly as well. Thus, flash searches the data as if it’s searching mysql database.

No, flash is not running locally always, There are some occassions it tries to connect to the backend database (via aspx pages). For example, whenever user searches a keyword on the flash frontend, the keyword is sent back to the server on the spot. If the keyword exists, its frequency will be increased. Similar functions are available for Album Select Count, Track Play Count, Advertisement Click Count, etc.

Well… I hope I cover the basic working of our Final Year Project. In fact, it has many more features that I do not cover in this post. (I won’t because I ain’t writing a report). =)

Our supervisor seem very satisfied with our good effort. Report has already followed. And, FYP has been accomplished.

Well, how about our event – Myanmar Traditional Show 2007? Yeah, it’s great, too!!

Performances include

• Rakhine(Arakan) Candle Light Dance
• Myanmar Traditional Dance
• Myanmar Traditional Orchestra (with Myanmar percussion instruments)
• Myanmar New Year Festival “Yein” Dance
• “San Daw Chane” Myanmar Male Solo Dance
• “Karen” Ethnic Dance
• All 8 Major Ethnic Couples’ Walk
• Myanmar Sketch
• Myanmar “Anyeint Tha Bin” (Profound Dance Performance+some amusing jokes)
• Myanmar Band

Event ended successfully with applause. I’m elated, again. =D

Final Year Project

Back. These days, we are having sleepless nights (and sleeping days). =) Tight schedule. Many things to do.

• Must finish the product (Musikr Interactive Music Billboard) by coming thursday.
• After that comes final report for the project.
• Dance performance for Myanmar Tradition Show 2007 must all be ready by coming 28. (The event is on 5th of August. 28 is first full-rehearsal.)
• Arrange costume for those performers.

Hope everything just goes fine. Will be back soon. =)

Peace:
mgthantzin

What do we write?

Sometimes, many bloggers may probably find it hard to think of what to write. Nothing comes to our mind. It’s just stuck inside. It does happen to me time to time.

And, if it takes more than a couple of days, I don’t feel so good that I know some of my regular readers would have visited me and as nothing new was seen, they left. Now, I’m facing that ‘problem’. I don’t know how to tackle this. I’m quite free now but my brain is simply blank.

Yeah, it’s true. I’m an IT student. You would suggest that I write technical stuff. That’s what I refrain from. There are many tech blogs out there. And, there are many Burmese (social) bloggers who introduce new tech stuff to their Burmese readers. So, I believe that there are enough blogs for those who like such information.

More, I want to give my readers some unique stuff they would have never seen anywhere else. Authentic, yes! But, it’s neither my promise nor a critique of others’ works. =) I’m not that bad. =)

Well, frankly, sometimes, when I couldn’t find anything suitable to write, like some others, I uploaded some music and let my readers listen to that. I do that because I want my readers to enjoy something new after their several fruitless visits to my site. But, you may criticize me for failing to stick to my original writing trend.

Well, I may be not feeling very well.

A new blog is born every half seconds. I own a few.

My Blogging History

Childhood

I started blogging at Blogger by posting some of my photos I took in Singapore. They were primarily meant for my family and friends in Yangon. And, after some months, I started writing I.T related posts and my daily-life post in WordPress. I kept writing until I realized that my WordPress blog was only read by me.

I thought why? And, I found out these:

• I happened to be trying to make a dent in the universe?? =)
• And, it’s in English.

Frankly thinking, none of my friend ever wanted to read tech thingies (in English) written by me.There are millions of tech blogs there in blogosphere. They would go to one of them to read about what they wanna know. Why would they need me?

Did I say another reason was ‘English’? Yeah, I discussed with Theik and she advised me that my friend (Burmese people) would rather read posts in Burmese. And, what she said made me think of some (successful) Burmese bloggers. I agree. Everyone including me would not hesitate to read posts in Burmese, or simply, Burmese posts.

A Burmese blog

So, I introduced mm.it.lad to you all. Remember? =) I’ve got many visitors. And, I was very happy because it’s so boring or fruitless to keep writing while no one is reading. I’ve had it enough. My friend suggested ‘short and sweet’ style. It really made my blog ‘a place to read’ (when poeple are bored.. may be) Anyhow, I could find a few (Burmese) people across the world in my site stat – from Canada, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, US, UK and..

So, why this blog?

But again, after writing many posts in Myanmar, what I realized is that I was not writing to my liking, but for the readers. I felt happy when some people I didn’t know contacted me and said ‘hi’. Good. I really appreciate it. But, after all, I am writing, writing for others. =) On the other hand, I want to keep my personal existence.

So, I created this blog. I decided to write in English because it’s more open and free. Writing daily stuff in my own language will be quite ridiculous, I guess. And more, I feel like blogging in English.. personally. And, this blog was born.

‘Hi!’ to you all, again!

Yours,

mgthantzin