Tag Archives: google

2nd anniversary of Kuala Lumpur GTUG

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For the past 2 years, being in GTUG has been an amazing journey for me. More importantly, it has been amazing to meet the people that I’ve met, helped (hopefully), inspired (hopefully), and have come across along the way.

My main highlight was my first trip to Google I/O this year. I wish I could write a longer post about this experience, but I’m leading a triple agent life = product manager by day, freelancer/startuper/advisor/mentor/lover by night, evangelist by the weekends with GTUG & Codeandroid; I’m just too tired to write a comprehensive one.

But I do like to share some things I learned from being the 1st GTUG in Southeast Asia to one of the most active in Southeast Asia. The only concern I have: is how long can I last? Anyhow, here’s what I’ve learned so far…

  1. Never depend on Google on everything you want to do for your GTUG. Be it for sponsorship, speakers or what not. They can and will help you the best as they can. But they can’t do everything or be everywhere. The best thing I’ve learned was to be independent. Help comes. Just not in the way & how you wanted it to be. This is when you need to innovate ;)
  2. Always and always make the people/developers in your GTUG community (or other kinds of developer groups) feel special. They are your most important asset in growing the gospel that you are carrying as a GTUG organizer. They are the coolest people you would have ever known! They are to me!
  3. Be relentless and persistent in what you’re trying to achieve & grow. My goal was (and still is!) to create a healthy & striving developer ecosystem in my country. I think I’ve done enough with trainings, free workshops, free meetups, free advise, free ideas and healthy criticism to stir up the community. Be a firestarter.
  4. Last thing I learned: don’t depend on Google for everything. Depend on the people in your community, depend on yourself. Things will get better.

To finish things up, thank you to Christine Songco, Stephanie Liu, Vinoaj Vijeyakumar, Jason Costa (Xoogler), Hanson Toh, Wesley Chun, Timothy Jordan, Daniels Lee, Bob Aman, Pamela Fox (Xoogler), David McLaughlin, Ikai Lan, Sajith, Derek Callow and other Googlers for the support. I really appreciate it. Very much. Please drop by KL!

Thank you to Krish (Singapore GTUG), Ohm (Bangkok GTUG), Azaman (Brunei GTUG), Agus (Indonesia GTUG) and other GTUG organizers in Southeast Asia for making a big effort to stir things up in this region. Thank you to other GTUG organizers for all of the funny things you say in mailing list. Nonetheless, the effort you guys have made to making GTUG the most awesome community organization in the world is indispensable.

As for celebrations, I kind of celebrated our 2nd year anniversary with an impromptu Google App Engine 24 hours hackathon in June with Ikai Lan from Developer Relations team. It was real fun! But that belongs to another post.

Read about the hackathon from Ikai’s blog!

Last but not least, thank you developers for changing my life :)

Cheers!

My personal report card for 2010

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Finally, Google DevFest is coming to Kuala Lumpur! Happening on the 16th of July 2010, DevFest is set to rock your socks with technical sessions conducted by engineers from Mountain View, California. The objective here is to engage Malaysian developers with the latest best practices & techniques from the visiting Googlers. Come and join in the fun! You can register yourself here.

OK, what’s all this report card shit? Trying to be cool?

Not intentionally. It’s more like a personal note of what has been achieved so far. Disasters and small wins, those are my achievements. I’m kinda weird, in a sense where I measure myself by everything I do. I’m not entirely an angel.

So here goes…

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Google Maps now in Malaysia!

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Google Maps Malayia

Google Maps is now available in Malaysia. I know it’s been there for a long time, but this time, it’s a localized version built for Malaysia. Google Maps Malaysia is now accessible at http://maps.google.com.my. And it’s official. The cool thing is, my sister gave birth to a healthy baby girl this morning & today is also my sisters birthday. What a nice day to remember.

Even my birthday falls on Google’s debut in Wall Street. What a coincidence.

Santa dropped me a Christmas gift from Google

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Well, it’s like 8 months ahead of Christmas, so of course the title doesn’t make any sense! Haha :)

From left: Participation certificate, the "GOLDEN PRIZE" and a QR code T-shirt

Thank you to Shannon Madison, the one who “fought” high & low to deliver the prizes to us here. Thanks for the “upgrade” dear!

Thank you to Jason Costa & his DevFest team, who made the initial contact with South East Asian developers. You guys inspired me to advocate the Google juice! Thank you to e27 who brought the KL developers over to Singapore for the 1st event!

Thank you to Marvin Lee, who partnered with me for the 1st OpenSocial hackathon for BarCamp KL recently. And congratulations to him too! And congratulations to the other winners from Thailand, Singapore, Phillipines & Vietnam. Hope to meetup with you guys soon!

South East Asia OpenSocial contest

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Here are the winners. And I’ve received 2nd place! That’s super awesome. I didn’t expect to win anything, but I won’t deny I kept my fingers crossed when I submitted my application just to add some luck. It’s an awesome feeling being able to win something cool. At times, I wish I can celebrate this.

Congratulations to Marvin Lee, which I think has made a cool application for the opinionated. Dude, I’d like to meet up with you someday.

Thanks Google & the S.E.A crew. You guys are super duper cool.

5 things I learned from OpenSocial hackathon

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Aside from learning about OpenSocial, I observed a few good real life examples that can be taken as an example for Malaysia’s corporate/creative workplace.

Junk food is important. It’s fuel for the brains. – The pantry at Google.sg office is stocked up just like a tiny sundry shop where I lived. Having a pantry with a high complex mix and balance of (brain) power food & junk food will keep any developer happy! It’s a happy pantry!

Never be afraid of your idea, no matter how silly you think it may be. – Ideas make the world go around. Ideas hatched every second, everywhere around the world. The best way to find out if your idea makes the cut is to share it with like minded individuals or just throw it out to the wild general public & react to their responses. People say to think outside the box. I believe there is no such thing as a box.

Never to be afraid to share. – People might steal your ideas, copy your thoughts, but hey, doesn’t that what makes the world a little bit interesting? Most would think “my idea is original. no one must know about it.” That’s the way of the old school. We are the new school.

Hire developers/staff who are naughty. If they are pranksters, they have a better chance to get things done. – Humor, laughter. The best medicine. This is a requirement in any organisation. You need at least one prankster that can come out with the silliest (funniest) prank or activity in your office. It keeps your environment fee alive.

Always surround yourself with great, good, fun people. – Anti social is good, to a certain extend. Being around like minded individuals stimulates you in ways you couldn’t even imagine.

And it’s done. For now. OpenSocial stuff-a-thon.

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Google Singapore OpenSocial hackathon has come to an end. But fear not, the next hackathon is coming soon, closer than you think!

To Vinoaj, Andrew, Duong (I hope I spelled your name right) & Chandra, you guys are awesome. There’s nothing better than having a good time with you guys, hacking & stuffing stuff, and also thank you for having me & the rest of the attendees over to your humble abode and thank you to Google for supporting us developers at this side of the world.

Just don’t stop doing this. It’s important. It’s fun!

I had a pinch of Google

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Now, I’m writing & sitting on a red (my favourite color) relax couch with matching footstool in Google’s Singapore office. I have to say, the first thing I fell in love when I set my foot in the office, it’s their marvelous work spaces and environment. I can imagine myself running around the office screaming “Hellalujah!”, praying for some kindness (and improvements) for my current workspace.

I’ll be blogging (semi) live from The Goog. The Goog. Sounds like a really good title for a cult movie about The Goog(le). Watch this page for (lazy) updates.

1:30PM

Still waiting for the show to start. There’s roughly about 12 10 developers that has arrived. And it seems that I’m the only developer from KL. Met Justin Lee from e27, Budy from Indonesia. etc.

2:00PM

Vinoaj kicks off the hackathon with a kickstart session. He briefly (re)introduces the crowd to OpenSocial & its usage. In a note, 51.com contributes the largest amount of OpenSocial users from Asia, but they recently boycotting OpenSocial with several other socnets from China.

2:30PM

Vinoaj jumps around to give a glimpse of what we will be building (hacking) here today using the iGoogle sandbox.

2:50PM

Bjorn Lee (e27) arrives.

3:00PM

Vinoaj speaks about Shindig. Props to @ropu for his DevFest presentation on Shindig.

3:15pM

I’m getting sleeeeepy. Hardly slept last night. A good adventure this morning searching (and walking) for a hotel/motel.

3.20PM

Vinoaj wrapping first presentation. Now he is talking about “Socializing Apps”.

Pure social apps. Socialized apps.

3:30PM

Vinoaj wraps. Now it’s time for Widgeo.us. Whoops. e27 briefs everyone what they do. My comment: they actually bring students out from their “coconut shell”.

4:30PM

Brainstorming session. Good ideas surfaced.

5:00PM

Hacking starts. Now, who wants to team up with me? Isk isk…

6:30PM

Vinoaj orders dinner. PIZZA!

6:50PM

I’m pretty worked up on my OpenSocial idea. Will continue posting updates when dinner arrives! Hehehe.

9:00PM

All good things must come to an end. Thank you guys. Thank you Google. I’m tired and sleepy after a sleepless night & an early morning search for cheap hotels (I refused to stay at Hotel 81). I’ll write more about this, after I sleep.