It ain't all about the money

Despite the fact that we are an upstart company, our aims are not mainly about profit. Or rather more precisely, monetary profit, since what I am about to chronicle is about something that will profit the soul.

Following on from one of the meetings mentioned here in one of the previous posts, we had another meeting with the executive director of St. Nicholas' Home for the Visually Impaired, Mr. Ooi. Save for Tommy, this meeting featured an all new cast comprising of me and Ju Ping. The purpose was to discuss the extent of help Sautern can offer to the home.

The meeting was to take place at 3 pm. Since Tommy was involved in an auction earlier on, the plan was for Jupes and me to wait in school until 2.30pm. Unlike the previous meeting, the weather this time was decidedly gloomy, with intermittent rain since morning. Nevertheless, it sufficiently cleared up enough to not disrupt our transit to the meeting place, which was at the home.

Upon reaching our destination, it was apparent though that our arrival was not exactly that eagerly awaited since the secretary had to ring up Mr. Ooi to confirm whether we really had an appointment. That was soon cleared up and we were seated inside Mr. Ooi's office in no time. The other participant to the meeting was one of the managers there.

As the home was a non-profit organisation, it had to rely on generous donations to keep it up and running. Our meeting centred mostly on this. They had a few fund-raising efforts in the pipeline, and some of them were in conjunction with the home's 80th anniversary celebrations. Besides that, we also discussed the matter of the home's website which is currently very 'raw' to quote Mr. Ooi. Please feel free though to check it out.

On the other side of the spectrum, we also spoke about what we have already done, namely the new logo and slogan. Mr. Ooi requested that we send the whole presentation of the logo to him within the next few weeks, to facilitate the integration of the logo into the upcoming campaigns.

Although it did not feel like it, the meeting ended at about 4.45pm. Before we left, we were taken on a tour to the computer facilities of the home. It was certainly eye-opening (no pun intended) to see the visually impaired use the internet like any regular Joe. The most impressive of all was the screen reader software, or rather how the visually impaired made use of it. What sounded like rapid muttering to us, was ably utilised by them to go about their duties.

After leaving, St. Nicholas', we adjourned to a nearby mamak place to satiate our rumbling stomachs, especially Tommy, who has not eaten since this morning. We had a fairly light meal, with a 'Roti Bom' for me, a 'Roti Pisang' for Jupes and normal 'Roti Canai' for Tommy. The side dishes included squid, squid roe and some potatoes. With some time to kill, we spent the next 45 minutes or so reminiscing about old times. All in all, a regular day in the lives of teenage entrepreneurs.

Ambiguous Help

A spanking new laptop!

Tommy's impressive 80GB, Intel Core Duo laptop with 1GB of RAM could easily run circles around his old laptop.

Instead, I watched amusingly as an incredulous Tommy demonstrated to me and Chong Yang how a state of the art laptop can be brought to its knees when it is not showered with the love and care you give to a favourite aunt.

Placing both laptops side-by-side, we saw, without a doubt the old laptop booted up significantly faster than the widescreen successor.

Tommy recounted his tale:

His new laptop had been mistakenly delivered to another Dell customer - and coolly sent Tommy the bill.

Needless to say, hell broke loose, and Dell retrieved the laptop for Tommy.

Unfortunately, Dell failed to restore the laptop to its former factory setting.

There were more than 60 running processes with dubious names.

Evidently, eric (the username displayed) had been a naughty boy. Besides treating the laptop like a mucous ball, sucking every piece of tech dirt; he had been visiting the naughty Internet places too...

And that set the tone last Friday. My task was to kill and reincarnate the love forsaken laptop.

Starting with trying to reinstall Windows XP, I found myself stuck on the Product Key page. Mind you, this being a genuine copy of Windows, I immediately dived into every documentation I could find before Tommy suggested calling, the dreaded tech support.

It was nearly as bad as I thought, with the long pauses between different 'experts', monotonous classical music while on hold, and unreliable Dell people.

Not getting the help I needed from Dell, they subsequently directed me to Microsoft, where after heated clarification I was after the Product Key and not the Activation Code, curtly pointed out it might be stuck under the laptop.

So here's the summary.

I called Dell to get the Windows XP Product Key which was stuck under the laptop, that wasn't pointed out by the young, useless and oblivious Dell staff, but by an enlightened, no-nonsense middle-age lady working at the Activation Code department of Microsoft.

The only bright side, toll free 1-800 numbers.

The entire process required artificial grafting of my cellphone to my ear for half-an-hour.

Even after that ordeal, the Windows installation CD still failed to format the hard drive and remove every trace of its previous life's memories.

Apparently, karma works for technology too.

My resolve to never-ever install Windows on my new PC is strengthened.

Oh yeah, the laptop was a major distraction for the real task of the day: Making sure the database manager we are currently building for Palma Housing remains on the right path. At this resource-strapped period in our company, we can ill afford to waste time building something the client won't want later on.

Whatever needed to be said was said; and whatever that needs to be done, will be done.