Sautern Enterprise

Tribute (Part 2)

2008-07-21T14:10:00.002+08:00

While blogging is one of my favourite hobbies, this post and the one before this is one I dread to make. Alas, like taxes and death, both of them (the posts) are kinda inevitable.

Yesterday, Sautern once again had to send off one of its own. This time, it is our most prized assets turn to take a bow. In pouring rain, we sent off Chong Yang to meet his destiny. From now on, there will be no more shop closing, no more slippers flying towards his head, and no more high pressure datelines and last minute server maintaining. Or rather, he will still be expected to do some of those, except that he won't be within reach of any retribution if he doesn't.

As with Jupes jungle paradise, high tech and sterile Singapore will probably be heaven to CY. Hopefully he will not get too enamoured of all the gadgets and fine time to get to know the chicks there.

Regardless, whatever pleasure he may derive from slacking off official business will be (possibly) negated by the stresses of being in a foreign country, so we will let that slide. Anyway, like with Jupes, even though CY is not physically here, his spirit will be forever ingrained in Sautern. In the same vein as WWJPD, WWCYD will probably appear whenever a decision is to be made. Of course, his eccentricity rivals Jupes, so I hope we should be forgiven if WWJPD is only partially applied.

Anyway, I better end this before I get to emotional. Au revoir, my techy friend, till next time.

A Tribute (part 1)

2008-06-26T22:35:00.002+08:00

Sautern lost one of its own today.

Our resident atheist, celibate, treehugger and renaissance man has left us today, physically at least. Jupes in his desire to achieve a higher level of tree hugging and poacher poaching was lifted into the clouds today, hopefully towards the tree hugging paradise that he so yearns for. In spirit though, we all know that he will always be a Sauterneer and have Sautern in his heart. Likewise for us, he will forever live on in our memories.

My last image of him before his amazing journey will always be of him toting his weapon of musical distraction (WMD) aka his violin and bidding Tommy and me farewell. Hopefully, his musical goal of mastering his instrument will not lead to too many sleepless nights for his future companions and consequently lead to his own sleepless nights caused by his expulsion from his lodgings. As for his other inanimate companion, I hope his laptop, whateverlongassedcomplicatednameithas, will be friendly with the broadband connection there, so as not to screw up whatever reputation Sabah has with Linux users. Yes Jupes, I think you will not only take a step for Sautern but also for Linuxkind.

Anyway, what's done is done, and Jupes should safely be at his paradise now. To commemorate him though, I propose we implement WWJPD (what would Ju Ping do). Of course, owing to his extreme views in fields like environmentalism, music, social activism, Holy text discussion, relationships... well just about everything, WWJPD will effectively be inapplicable, by us at least. Darn, which leaves WWJPD only for Sautern affairs. Hmmm, well, I guess that's good enough.

Of course, it might just be about 5 months to the next university break, so our resident enthusiast of obscure interests will not really be gone. In the mean time Jupes, keep those ideas coming. Who knows, the rarefied air there will giving you some sparks of inspiration. Till next time, my friend.

I <3 Green Tea

2008-05-27T12:12:00.003+08:00

I did promise in my last article to begin my articles in the future with a brief description of my favourite music. Well, forget that promise.

I have a great story to tell now. It's about green tea.

Green tea has a long history behind it. And I'm humbly decline to explain any further because I am not a verifiable source of information for tea. All I know is the following:

Green tea is good for you;
Zen Buddhist monks in Japan employ them to stay awake during meditations;
It does not have the side effects of coffee, which incidentally are:

fever, nausea, headaches, and flu-like symptoms if you skip even one cup for one day;
extreme poverty, if one does not have the salary to support Starbucks.

So last Wednesday, me, Flyzzx, and Peter have decidedly abused our friendship with Tommy, and crashed over at his placed to watch the following morning's Champions League match between Chelsea.

Peter is a loyal Red Devil, while Tommy is a pre-Abramovich Chelsea supporter. Flyzzx doesn't watch football.

Me? Everton.

A quick recap:

Peter supports champions, Tommy is a fan of the rich, Flyzzx doesn't care, while I have a preference towards underdogs punching above their weight.

Before the match, me, Flyzzx, and Tommy went over to the Sunrise McDonald's outlet, where for the first time in probably a decade, I bought a meal from McDonald's with my own pocket money.

Me and the big yellow clown have a history. I ate stuff from McDonald's when I was 7 or 8 years old, and threw up.

Basically, the plot of Batman versus the Joker.

Anyway, our first industrial tie up with a college (KDU) would officially begin. And after some discussions during the past fortnight, we decided to arrange an informal meeting with the college candidates who would begin working for us.

It's strange how thing's turn out, don't they? We started our company when we were finished with the SPM in 2005, and now, we would be supervising people at least one year older than us.

Since we have yet to receive confirmation for new projects, Flyzzx proposed a mock project for the college students. Since we trust they will do everything they can to find out which project we have modelled this trial after, I'll keep silent on the name of the project here.

The proposal was well received, and being the social-experiment nut of the bunch, I immediately dropped brash hints to turn the mock project into a cut-throat reality-series style game where the loser would have to vote someone off the island.

Fortunately for the students, Tommy overruled me and arranged a potential split of 70/30 to the winners and losers respectively.

For this mock project, all of us will be judges, but really, only Flyzzx knows best. The winner will be the team that does a better job than the other. As simple as that.

We bade adieu and went over to Peter's place to pick him up.

Back at Champions Leagues central, we still had five to six hours to kill, which I immediately invested in my loyal companion, Enceladus.

Enceladus is the name I've given my Compaq Presario F762AU.

And I have installed Ubuntu Linux on it. Look out for an article on my blog.

As usual, Enceladus refused to connect to Tommy's WiFi's network. Something about WEP really bugs Enceladus.

Meanwhile, Flyzzx began implementing Project Torrential. A very secret project (now a viable business) that will receive no promotion at all except through word-of-mouth.

Here are a few clues, you can probably postulate the answer:

We have a lot of extra server storage and bandwidth;
The server fees are relatively high, making the investment fairly disproportionate;
We found a way to sell the extra storage and bandwidth.

If really want to find out what we are talking about, or if you ;-) know what we are talking about and want in on the action, send me an email at jpchansauterncom (add the @ and the . at the appropriate place).

Using the broadband connection, I eventually obtained a podcast I had wanted to try for quite some time: Podtoid-san.

You can find the latest versions of this podcast on japanator.com.

And so I played it out loud on my laptop's Altec Lansing, much to Peter's annoyance.

“It's very distracting,” he says.

Meanwhile, I was editing Tommy's proposal to request for seed funding for another business project called Cember.com.

It was slow work, and something was anchoring my spirits to the ground.

Thankfully, Flyzzx decided to test my intelligence by giving me this IQ question, heavily embellished by me so you won't misunderstand the question:

In a room on an island on the planet Neptune, a mad scientist invents a machine that ranks computers by performance. Nobody knows why he doesn't just invent a machine that spits out raw numbers to compare the performance of the computers, maybe that's why he is a mad scientist on Neptune. The machine has five arms, with five corresponding one-LED displays that only show the rank of the computers in relation to one another.
In another part of the room, a group of students from MIT have concluded that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle would result in differing performances in the 25 MacBook Airs waiting to be tested by the mad scientist's machine.

The question becomes: What method would you use to employ the least amount of tests to determine the top three performing MacBook Airs?

Suddenly, Tommy interrupted our very important work by suggesting we kill some time at a collegiate party.

Without missing a beat, I assaulted Peter and Flyzzx with orders to go, because they still wanted to breed.

I guess that speaks of my preferences.

Peter agreed, Flyzzx stayed back to configure Torrential. Which was just as well, because for the first time in a very long time, I watched an excellent Japanese animé series in Japanese.

Clannad is not being shown anywhere in Malaysia, so I'd encourage the fansub route. Very soon, you will be asking to import the DVD from Japan.

*** I will now give a brief education on fansubs.

Fansubbers are animé aficionados who write their own subtitles for animé fresh out of Japan, to spread the good word. They employ an honour system, whereby people who have downloaded fansubs (and loved the animé and want to keep it) agree to buy the animé as soon as it's licensed and available for sale in the respective country.

Of course, that's the best case scenario where people actually want to reward good work and not steal it.

Since this is Malaysia, nothing animé related here is confirmed legal, you have no choice but to import them; if you are truly an honourable and trustworthy person.

End of sermon***

In anticipation of a long night, I asked Tommy if he could provide some green tea to last the night, and with that simple request, began the most productive 40 hours of my teenage life.

Just like wine, tea has different grades and quality. The difference may be as apparent as the taste, or in this case, the measurable quality of the tea leaves.

As surprising as it may seem, none of us fell asleep during the match which dragged all the way from 0230 hours to 0600 hours.

I only watched the first half of the match, where two goals were scored by each team; while the rest of the gang watched the second half, the first half of extra time, and the second half of extra time, where no goals were scored.

Thus proving I have some form of circumstantial luck I like to call my bloody Irish luck.

In all sincerity, I wish to thank all 22 men on the field for not scoring any goals while I wasn't watching.

The penalty was a torrid affair – for Peter and Tommy.

All bets were off, and Tommy began shouting football curses aloud. Possibly ripping apart the fabrics of space-time wide enough for Cristiano Ronaldo to miss his penalty kick.

Peter trusted the power of Lucky, Tommy's dog. And as if Lucky were god, caused John Terry to slip and miss during his kick. (What's dog spelt backwards?)

To prove that man and dog are the best of inter-species friends, Anelka missed his kick to send Peter into frenzied one-armed taunting air boxing in front of Tommy's wide-screen television.

Throughout it all, Flyzzx was in a semi-sleep state, utterly unmoved by the proceedings.

All in all, I was just pleased Tommy didn't have to bust out the champagne, a distinct possibility if Chelsea had won.

And then, off to bed, at least, that was the plan.

The lights were off, and everyone went to rest. Only Enceladus was up.

The green tea kicked in.

I felt strangely energetic, and after failing to drown myself in dark dreams after two minutes, got up and checked up on Enceladus.

Not long after that, I moved Enceladus to the modem upstairs to attach an Ethernet wire from the router directly to herm (I can't decide yet whether my laptop is male or female).

For a brief moment, I saw Peter on-line and available for chat. And dismissed it as a technical mystery. After all, he was sound asleep in the house right?

With nothing better to do, I started editing Tommy's business proposal while Enceladus downloaded stuff.

Very soon, sunlight entered the room, and the household began to stir.

I completed the editing, only to find myself facing Mr Ooi who had some things he wanted to add and change to his website.

Hmm... At this point, I have had only half-an-hour's rest in 24 hours.

It wasn't the most stimulating of conversations, but though sleep was lacking, I never felt encumbered by it during the discussion and managed to pull it off with everything (especially my credibility) intact.

“Must be the green tea,” I thought.

And very soon, it was 1000 hours, and I went down to join Flyzzx for some breakfast. Fresh milk, cereal, and ham sandwiches. Arguably the best breakfast I have had in years.

I asked him where Peter was, since I didn't see him anywhere in the house. Flyzzx told me he left after the match, which must have been when I had retreated to the kitchen for some cleaning up.

“I saw Peter on-line,” I said.

“He probably didn't sleep either,” Flyzzx said.

“You didn't sleep too?”, I asked.

“No, I rested for a while, but couldn't sleep,” he answered, “it was your green tea. I have never experienced anything like it before. I even sleep through coffee!”

Thus began an avid discussion on the humble tea leaf that created this astounding scenario.

After breakfast, we went upstairs to do some productive work.

First to cross off the list was a viewing of Clannad Episode 1, which totally blew me away with the extreme and obsessive attention to detail in every scene. The storyline is rather complex... well, you can Google it.

After which we set out to create a complete mock project for the KDU students, which took up all of our time until 1600 hours.

In total, we generated probably three days work within those hours.

And were powered on by green tea.

Seriously, if you have problems concentrating on school-work – green tea.

If you have an examination tomorrow morning and have yet to finish revising – green tea.

If you have a few hours to kill while awaiting your non-green-tea-drinking-CEO to awake from a late late night of football and wish to spend those hours doing productive work instead of sleep – green tea.

By the end of the day, we had delivered the documents to the students, completed the successful Beta test of Torrential, and had even sold three slots for Torrential on that day alone.

I almost felt sorry I had to leave that day, since I was still being powered by a full pot of green tea and was experiencing the mind-altering effects of broadband.

Geek drugs.

Anyway, we ended the day at Pizza Hut where Tommy and his girlfriend treated us to dinner with coupons. Just before the day was done though, Flyzzx asked me another IQ question:

Using an unlimited supply of water and two pails which hold 4 litres and 9 litres respectively, produce 6 litres of water in the most exact fashion possible through the actions of pouring alone.

And after solving that, with some hints from Flyzzx, we reached Bayan Lepas, where he went home, while I awaited the bus.

By the time I got back to Balik Pulau, the effects of green tea had worn off. Significantly.

With a quick explanation of my lack of sleep, I excused myself from dinner, retreated to my room, and slept for 12 hours.

Upon awaking, I solved the 25 MacBook Airs question to officially end what must be the most productive 40 hours in my teenage life.

Talk, talk and more talk

2008-05-12T00:55:00.002+08:00

Much has happened since the last post, for Sautern as a whole and for certain individuals too. For starters, our favourite geek has succeeded in getting the much coveted ASEAN scholarship. His achievement is all the more impressive considering he was the only successful applicant among his party of 3 that was selected to attend the interviews. If you are still not satisfied that this is an impressive feat, do note that the 3 of them were the only ones considered 1337 enough among the top scorers of Chung Ling. So do please give Chong Yang a slap on the back or two, just don't overdo it and flatten him, or we will flatten you.

Moving on to the company. We have been involved in some top secret machinations involving repeated calls on the telephone and having Jupes masquerade as a pseudo-telemarketer. Thankfully though, the success rates we got for this does not happen to real life telemarketers, else more telemarketing companies sprout out. Most of you readers will probably be lost at this point, and I don't blame you. Maybe a slight recap is in order.

To counter the consequences of the impending loss of our Chief Programmer as noted above, we have had to make some unconventional choices. We decided to cast our sights to the vast untapped human resource of, drumroll please, college students. Getting the ball rolling has entailed the abovementioned phone calls. That task naturally fell to Jupes, who could probably talk about controversial issues in front of an unfriendly crowd and not get killed, oh wait, he did do that. If worse comes to worse he can still count on his superlative ability to steer the conversation off topic should things get dicey.

Turns out the few white hairs we sprouted were for naught though, as things went surprisingly well. At least we had no one slam the phone on us. Of course the bonus of getting a few appointments to discuss our proposal was appreciated too. The first meeting will be on a Friday afternoon and the next one will be right next morning. At least we still had 2 days to prepare.

2 days however passed really fast, and before we knew it Tommy, me and Jupes were putting on some last minute preparations at Tommy's place. The trip to the college, Disted by the way, took all of 5 minutes, and the interview took... barely longer, 7 minutes in fact. Yes, I timed it. Don't get the impression that we tanked though, as it was quite positive and a good start. We spent the time explaining and clarifying our idea and the lecturer said that she will discuss with her superiors.

The timing for the next meeting was a bit tight though, but what can you do, blame it on Saturday morning sleepiness. Thanks to some astute driving by Tommy we weren't that late, maybe 1 minute at most ( yea, I checked). Anyway, that's where the fun starts. The college (KDU this time) building was waaaay larger and we were required to go up a few floors and turn into a few corridors and... that's the part where we get lost.

At this point we had 2 options, either go wandering around like idiots or head into one of those creepy rooms they have as resource centre/lecture hall/whatever. Having not seen too many horror movies, we chose the creepy room option. We chose to enter a room marked resource centre to try to get some directions. Lucky for us, the person manning it wasn't a deranged axe murderer and so we were soon on our way.

Once we got our bearings straight and finally arrived at the correct room, we were greeted by 2 lecturers and ushered into a nearby classroom. The discussion took longer than the previous one, and we really went through our proposal thoroughly. Our day didn't end with the discussion though. As luck would have it, the classroom was also occupied by a class of IT students cramming for their upcoming exams. The lecturers allowed us to get straight down to business and pitch our idea to them.

Finally, we were actually seeing some concrete progress. After composing ourselves for a few minutes, we just went ahead and just talked, and talked, and talked. Trust me, we really did have to talk a lot, about our proposal, Sautern, heck Tommy even threw in some Dota for good measure. The class wasn't big, maybe about a dozen or so students, but encouragingly they were responsive and hopefully receptive. Throughout the hour or so spent talking with them (not timed this time, but it's a close estimate), we managed to get most of them to leave their contacts. All in all, quite a fruitful morning's work.

Der Tod und Das Mädchen

2008-04-27T15:32:00.000+08:00

Before anyone gets the wrong impression, I am not learning German.

At least, no yet.

Just a normal update of the company's affairs and "UPDATE: 27th of April 2008" sounds too bland, so I 'll start naming these updates after my favourite classical pieces if there is nothing more to add.

"Der Tod und Das Mädchen" or "Death and the Maiden" in English is a string ensemble piece by the great musical genius, Franz Peter Schubert.

The piece is at once repetitive, sarcastic, cynical, and outright gloomy. Yet, in burst of high-pitched wails, contains screams of accomplishments and glories in life that still fail to soar above the ever present undertones of the shadow of death.

At least, that's how I see it.

Perhaps you have another view of the matter, and would like to give you own account here.

Back to our company though, and the latest prognosis on the curtains and accessories web merchant project seems to have stalled indefinitely, with the company director too busy to review our contract.

The silver lining: We, or rather Flyzzx, has more time to finish the Palma project.

Speaking of Flyzzx, do you know he is one of the few students in Penang who managed to get stright A1's in the STPM for all his papers?

No.

That's understandable, since he doesn't boast of his achievements unless you persist in questioning him like Vic Mackey on an informant.

Last week, Flyzzx went over to Singapore to attend a very special interview:

As a student for NTU.

We wish him all the best and hope he shows those Singaporeans how little appreciation the government and the education system gives him.

In other news, our company website has been delayed again because of design issues.

Design issues = Problematic design decisions that require further re-evaluation and recoding.

Hey! It's the showcase of our company's talents!

Only the best will do.

Until then,

May your snow honey be as golden as the sun.

Uh.. I didn't mean that to sound vulgar.

April Shower Updates

2008-04-08T12:06:00.002+08:00

April Fool has come and gone, and we forgot to continue the fine geek tradition of posting something inane but possibly true, like how we are entering the camel rearing business while producing organic fertiliser from their poop.

What we are now doing is nothing short of revolutionary, we are diverging.

Oh yeah, and a few other deals in consideration, like our first contractual agreement with a potential client. It has been quite a while since we have used contracts. The last time we used them was the spring of 1988, on the first day of April.

Ah... Those were the days. The Berlin Wall had just been demolished, along with the Malaysian judiciary way back then...

Seriously. As a business entity, we want nothing but the fairest of judges, so for anyone reading this, take note that our stand is definitely against judicial corruption by the Executive.

The decision on the contractual agreement will be made known to us on the 14th of April 2008.

Also, Sautern Enterprise has managed to increase the programmers in our ranks by one, replacing the shock departure of Hall, who left without a word.

At least we know now, how women feel when their husbands divorce them through SMS messages.

Actually, make that two women.

Chin Hong has agreed to takeover the stalled Sautern Enterprise website, in which he has been instructed to do his very best to produce something usable by the 16th of April.

Also in the works, differences in opinion within the ranks of the Triumvirate. Do we outsource our projects or do we not?

If we outsource our projects, the outcome would be inconsistent as we would be left out of the quality control process until the coding is delivered. However, we may be able to increase company revenue.

If we don't outsource, we need to find capable programmers who are willing to work on our projects on a contractual basis, which would take more time and effort than the company may have.

We hope you loyal viewers and supporters of the company give your RM0.0001 worth of views on this matter.

The Cake is Real

2008-02-19T17:48:00.003+08:00

It's been a while since we posted anything, so here's a quick rundown of what work we are currently engaged in, and what projects we have finally completed.

Finally completed the bidder profile add-on for R&U Management. Now FusionCore isn't just prettier, it will tell the whole world (if the whole world is represented in a hotel conference room holding the said auction) who won the house.

It's a more refined way of saying: "Aha! Take that you !@#$%^&*! Kiss my @$$! You think you would get the sweetest digs in the world for a bargain today, didn't you! Well you got nothing! NOTHING!"

Ahem.

Sorry, my emotions got the better of me.

Also, we are engaged with Palma Housing once again in the development of an online website which will be unveiled soon. Until then...

Shhhh...

And a third project involves online retailing of a certain household merchandise that begins with a "C".

Any tips for jobs, requests? We will entertain them.

The dawn of a new year

2008-01-02T23:34:00.000+08:00

Ok, the title was a bit misleading, it was actually dusk, but still the first day of the new year nonetheless. We were once again congregated at Tommy's home for another round of waistline expanding. The usual suspects were present, save for Song Han who had to attend to some personal business. We also had the added company of a new key personnel, Yan Sern.

The theme this time was more earthier and relaxed compared to the previous meals. Tommy eschewed long prep time and exotic ingredients by preparing a huge 6kg turkey and some fried finger food. Drinks were strictly non-alcoholic, with Light Coke, orange juice, Milo and Ribenna. All in all, more Robbie Williams than Pavoratti. Even the setting was different, at the lawn instead of the dining area.

The type of food available admittedly makes for boring reading. A turkey's just a giant chicken right? Fortunately for you readers, the giant chicken needs to be carved prior to consumption. Unfortunately for us diners, none of us really know how to carve it up. Cue the very first edition of Turkey Carving Idol, where everyone gets a shot at becoming the next big turkey carving star. (However try this at your own risk, sharp knife and fork needed)

After some anxious moments dodging errant knife strokes, we more or less got the hang of extracting meat from the turkey, because I don't think we can do justice to the word 'carve'. Just when I thought that we could relax after solving the turkey torture, another curve ball was thrown, and before I know it, Tommy came out of the kitchen bearing a birthday cake. Turns out that Chong Yang aka flyzz's birthday was the day before. To be honest, that escaped my mind too amid all the hoopla about New Year's Eve parties.

With our bellies full, it was time to adjourn to the living room for some discussions. Of course for myself, there was also the incentive on a live telecast of an EPL match on Astro. To suit the relaxed mood, the meeting was conducted in an informal way, not that we have formal meetings all the time, just that it was even more informal. The agenda concerned an potential project, the finer details of which I will not disclose, lest I need to track down and terminate persons with unauthorised access to this information. Anyway, the only thing I am cleared to reveal is that the meeting was quite successful, and we managed to outline our plan of action for the upcoming project.

P.S. Happy belated birthday once again to the Flyman, Chong Yang.

The Blog Keeps Ticking

2007-12-19T11:30:00.000+08:00

Mein Kampf! Seize the day!

What? Why are you raising a hammer over your head?

Oh...

Ahem! I mean Carpe Diem! Seize the day! (Or pluck the day, which is a more literal translation of the Latin phrase)

Eat and be merry! For we may die tomorrow!

Dinner at Tommy's house cum workplace once more. This time, with the addition of two more recruits to the growing band of Sauternauts.

Chicken Breasts on Vegetable Strips
It feels like old times, except better. The last time we got together for a night of merry was far too long ago to remember.

There was also the tricky issue known as the STPM which most of the senior members of Sautern Enterprise had to endure.

Not any more! We are free! At least until the middle of next year when university comes along.

Spaghetti with Mushrooms
So who are the new two? Well, since I have yet to obtain consent to use their names in our company documents, this is all I can reveal for now... They are my sister's schoolmates.

The purpose of this recruitment is to increase the resident programmer population.

Unlike other tech companies, we have a dozens of requests, but a dearth of programmers to fulfil them all. With additional training, we hope the two new Sauternauts will be up and typing as soon as possible.

Broiled Beef
Through mutual agreement, we have divided our company into two teams.

Team 1 (me, Tommy, stupeed demon, and ___) will take orders from lead programmer Flyzzx. The most important project to complete being the new version of our property auction suite, FusionCore 2.

Team 2 (the two new recruits) will focus on rebuilding the company's website. This effort will be led by Song Han, who will no doubt be eager to flex his web-design muscles. His work is particularly important because he will be handling the unenviable but vital task of training the new Padawans.

Unfortunately, other projects we have lined up have to be placed in the back burner for now. However, negotiations are being planned so our future clients won't become missed revenue.

Shandy
With a few mighty burps masked by deft hands, we ended the night on a hopeful note.

An unseen bright future lies just beyond the door.

Let's open it!

Dine with Us

2007-04-08T16:36:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, we had dinner. A simple affair of chicken and fish tenderly prepared to juicy perfection by our host, chairman and chief executive of the company, Tommy Ooi, once more at his homily.

It was a great time for some vital catching up since our last meeting earlier in the year, especially with the inherent auspiciousness of the week from the double entendre of Jesus and Guan Ying.

Tommy graciously chauffeured me and Chong Yang to his home shortly before 6pm, which was the designated time to begin the feast. To keep us entertained while the chef of the day finalised the meal, we were treated with Bleach, not to be confused with the common household item used to murder scum.

First, a small tribute to the most valued and cherished employee of the company, our Chief Technology Officer, Chong Yang.

Many fail to understand how much work the average programmer has to put into a project to see it through to the end. The life of a programmer is world's apart from what we know. An esoteric universe filled with jargon featuring four consecutive consonants in a word (HTTP), truncated words rendered unintelligible (a href), and further flows of XML, ASP, HTM, and the like in the great river of cyberspace.

In this realm, the programmer is God, defining the rules, making sure the citizens don't burn the forests that give them nourishment, or cloud the sun with conflicts of code. If you are of religion and happen to be a Luddite, imagine how God made the world, trying to satisfy the craving of man for more than he needs while keeping the flora and fauna in adequate supply while defining the laws of physics, chemistry and biology and you have a glimpse at the frustration and love that goes into the thousands of lines of coding that becomes software, music, language, film, and knowledge.

That is Chong Yang's contribution to us, dedicating heart and soul to the crafting of a new world out of the DNA of computers, for us. The dedication to his craft was best exemplified during the recent Physics Olympiad, where a sudden demand for templates prompted him to attempt the unthinkable - create a template without his trusted software programs!

Not to mention spilling out cash for RM5.00 an hour for an Internet connection that barely functioned, using a computer that wasn't his, and missing a lecture on relativity.

Yes, dinner was excellent. But this post was never meant to highlight our fulfilling dine on solid marble in opulent dressing, but about a single human whom we could never do without.

Chinese New Year aka Time of Feasting

2007-02-26T22:53:00.000+08:00

The past few months for Sautern had been spent quite uneventfully, and perhaps a little too dourly too. So what better cure is there than to have a get-together meal to outline future plans and to discuss current issues.

As always, the dinner will be somewhere off the beaten track, to dine and maybe wine where not many have done before. No prizes for guessing that McDonald's will be out of the question here. Instead, Tommy, being the experienced connoisseur that he is, recommended a German themed place somewhere in Tanjung Bungah. Well, as far as I am concerned, German eateries do not exactly come to mind when Tanjung Bungah is mentioned, so I guess I will have to wait and see.

Crunch time came in a flash and Tommy was already at my place, along with a carload of the rest of us, Jupes, Chong Yang and even Lee Xin. On a tangent, a very ironic and funny remark was made by Jupes the moment I got into the car. He was surprised by the sight of 'a rat the size of a cat' (his own words) scampering across my path as I was approaching. My level of shock was decidedly zero as this was quite common to me, after all I do live in Pulau Tikus, which literally means Rat Island. Anyway, back to the journey to the mysterious restaurant. It really was off the beaten track, or rather it was not situated along the main road.

On first sight, it has a European feel to it, German theme notwithstanding. The restaurant or to be specific, restaurant/bar was quite small, occupying just a single shoplot. Slightly less than half of the internal floorspace was taken up by the bar, and the walls were filled with German memorabilia. The place had a warm feel to it, literally as it was quite smoky, about the only negative for the atmosphere, pun unintended.

In terms of service, we were given our menus quite promptly and the waiters were quite helpful. Not long after, we were joined by Jupes' mum and sis. As for ordering the food, we were probably a little spoiled for choice, and I was at a lost. Of course, dishes with names like 'schadenfreude with broiled schwarzenegger bratwurst with sauerkraut' did not help, or at least that's what they looked like to me. I am a guy whose eyes glaze over from prolonged reading food names with more than 5 words in them. I guess, it's apt that I settled for the mixed grill in the end. As for the rest, I have already mentioned my inaptitude with German food names, so do not expect me to recall what they ordered. I did remember that Jupes ordered something with minced meat in it and his sis ordered something with sausages.

Ordering is one thing, but waiting for the actual food to be served is another though. In this respect, I already downed my Lite Coke before the food came, and I was drinking slowly. The food did come though, eventually. Overall, the food itself was enjoyable, though I feel that some of the meat was slightly overcooked, a sentiment shared by Chong Yang.

Dinner dealt with, we got straight down to business, namely a serious discussion on what the future lies. I have to admit that this has been a bit long in coming, since I guess most of us are not too keen to discuss about the possible end. Unfortunately, we cannot continue keeping our heads in the sand anymore, since Jupes, me and Chong Yang are going to face a major exam later this year and not all of us will remain here next year. We spent quite some time discussing this thorny issue, but in the end, we still have not decided on a really satisfactory solution.

Nevertheless, we proceeded straight to the next item on the agenda. During these past few months, we stumbled upon a new business idea. To the layman, it will probably look like nothing special, but there is a reason why entrepreneurs exist, and that is to enterprise. Since this nascent idea does not have a known precedent, there are many kinks to work out. It is like building up a new software programme from the ground up, and we have to do tons of debugging for it to even look workable on paper. Despite the progress made during this discussion, it will be quite some time yet before Sautern can debut another branch of business.

Serious stuff aside, we adjourned to Tommy's place where Jupes tried to get us hooked on Google Earth. And as we found out, trying to find our own place on planet earth is no mean feat, Sautern will surely attest to that.

Pathfinder

2007-01-18T15:49:00.000+08:00

First post of the year. Has been a while, hasn't it?

The gang was busy throughout the end-of-year holidays last year, shuttling between home and Palma Housing, completing the extremely complex task of upgrading our clients database.

While most organizations would no doubt settle their programming issues with a quick call to any major software vendor, Palma Housing wanted something special.

Something so rare the last time one of its kind was seen was in the late 1980s, and never again.

The property listing database.

This, coupled with the newer Microsoft Access database (whose execution was as welcome as a colonoscopy without pain medication) made the upgrading process as profoundly painful as a knife dripping with dog poo in the arteries.

After a three month struggle, our titanic project was finally completed (inclusive of planning, coding, drinks, and a dead camel).

The most comprehensive property management database software, tailor made to only one client, Palma Housing. We present: Palma* Pathfinder.

Still, the realities of life has caught up. Upper Six is a bus-load of sexually traumatized children.

Lots of homework, projects and people to handle.

Life goes on and on. Like diluted sewage in a flowing river feeding agricultural industries.

*The prefix is exchangeable ;)

Sacrifices for the job, starvation and cold

2006-12-06T16:02:00.000+08:00

Along came a competition for young entrepreneurs, the HSBC Young Entrepeuneur Awards. Since we are young entrepeuneurs it should be right up our alley. And so the wheels are set in motion, in a quest that will hopefully only end next March somewhere in Hong Kong.

Since Sautern has 5 current members, but with Song Han, being the good and very hardworking top scorer that he is, choosing to study during the holidays, it will send 2 teams of 2. Of course this is just to facilitate the rules, as we are one team in anything but name. Perhaps in this case, divide and conquer is the way to go.

There is one minor con to being two teams though. Obviously, we will need to come up with two different ideas. Correction, two good, sensible AND original ideas. Believe me you, it is not as simple as sitting down in Starbucks for two hours and fart out a random business plan.

Thankfully though, Jupes is an environment freak. It was no time at all before the green haze inspired him to an environmentally friendly idea, complete with graphs, charts and numerous figures quoted from NGOs. Basically, things that will make the average Joe glaze his eyes and go into a mind numbing stupor.

As for my team, Tommy did come out with a plan. But after about two weeks of discussion, we were still stuck at the discussion stage. So we did the best thing for this type of writer's block, invade Starbucks for a few hours and generate a very good business plan. Even though we are kind of breaking out of the typical mould for Malaysian youth, we still try to adopt our Malaysian values whenever we can, in this case the Starbucks jaunt was scheduled for yesterday, which is the last day of submittion for the contest.

Being the typical workaholic, Tommy was already SMS-ing me at about 7.30 even though I was still very much in dreamland. After sending a few SMSes of my own in a hazy state, we established 10am as the time of meeting. Location was as planned, the WiFi hazen of Starbucks. Having bought the obligatory cuppa, we sat down to brainstorm. To recap, Tommy actually sent me an idea to flesh out a couple of days earlier, and we were going to send that in. Jupes had other opinions though, and he managed to convince us that it was too simple. A short check on the database of past entries also confirmed that it is also lacking in the originality department.

Unfortunately, that means that we will have to do a complete rewrite. So much for good Malaysian values, as we now only have a few hours to complete the job. With our backs to the wall, we fell back on Tommy's original idea. A few short minutes spent on finetuning it later, Jupes and me were ready to slug it out with the sands of time. This does not mean that the other idea will be abandoned. Due to its simplicity, we might implement it in the future.

When we go about brainstorming, it is usually in a very charged-up atmosphere, since we are very passionate about our ideas. However, we were feeling decidedly frigid after an hour or so in. The reason? We were seated under an air-cond vent, an uncovered one at that. It seemed bad form to move though, so we just stuck it in. How long could it take to write a fewer than 1000word essay right? I mean, Jupes and me regularly crank out blogs that long. Well, we were wrong on all counts. Temporary writer's block seemed to appear every now and then, and that's already with Jupes doing most of the typing.

Anyway, we did manage to complete the essay. Now all that's left is to send in both entries. Amid constant hunger pangs, we sent in Tommy and my effort in first, amid constant hunger pangs. Aside from the really long list of particulars to fill in, it went without a cinch. Jupes entry though, was an entirely different matter. The WiFi seemed to freeze the moment we clicked 'send', and then there was a wait. A long wait. Basically you have three ravenous teenagers staring at a blank webpage on a laptop waiting for it to load. Time just outshone room temperature in the freezing department.

A few frantic clicks on 'refresh' managed to coax the confirmation page to load, along with a collective sigh of relief from us. By then, we have just about hung on for the short escalator ride down to the basement cafetaria. Despite not having our intended foodstalls open, we were just too hungry to care. Equation of the day - food>(starvation + cold)

A Very Meaty World Vegan Day

2006-11-26T18:48:00.000+08:00

A bit of a foreword on this entry, you may read the same day twice from two different perspectives. This is due to a minor misunderstanding on my part regarding the status of my Internet connection. In short, I thought my ISP screwed me again.

However, I now owe said ISP an apology and instead place the blame on the dark, dank, rat infested attic in which two telephone lines in my humble abode snake through. Apparently, the one leading to the kitchen no longer function.

Anyway, here's a recap of yesterday's events.

The 25^th of November company dinner is the second one held by Tommy at his upmarket bungalow. Just like the previous on, our chef of honour was the French cuisine master trained Ooi Chuen Theang, who while Chinese, has been mistaken for a Japanese in Thailand.

The day started with me waiting for my mother and sister to rise from the soft, bacteria and dust-mite infested graves we call beds.

After dropping me off at Tommy's house, they went off to a destination I wasn't interested in. Proceeding to the kitchen, I discovered Tommy and Song Han at work preparing the main course for the night, (correct me if I am mistaken) medium-rare beef. There wasn't much to do after the pieces of halal cattle were placed in a spice infused wok half-filled with water put to boil.

If my memory serves me correct, this step was to tenderise the beef and remove the strong cologne cows usually put on when they headed for their big prom at the abattoir.

Tommy then left us to our own devices to freshen up. There was still some mutton and people to pick up. I know, people are an acquired taste, but you will start enjoying them after your first bite.

Tommy emerged, and we followed his lead in smoothly sidestepping the various pieces of wood and metal lying on the ground. In a jiffy, we picked up Chong Yang before heading to... Oh dear, I can't recall what happened next.

Well, excuse my bout of amnesia and fill in whatever you will to the three missing hours of my life to the moment we had lunch in a dilapidated building serving sumptuous and slightly unhygienic chicken rice.

Ah... Now I remember, we picked up the mutton and various chunks of organic matter and sent them over to Tommy's home before departing for lunch.

We very much wanted Peter join us four for lunch, but he didn't seem too attached to his cellphone. Frustration and Boredom conjoined and Epiphany was born. I decided to 'miss call' Peter a hundred times.

Mischievous antics aside, we finally met up with Peter at Gurney's Starbucks for a long heated meeting about our business proposals for the HSBC Young Entrepreneurs competition. Peter set forth to blast my proposal with the usual “Malaysian mentality”, “Asian mentality” and “World apathy” which made my blood boil. Seriously, I felt the veins in my neck swelling with boiling blood.

After all, if the World doesn't even want to spend good money on safer alternatives to save itself, what more can I do? Then Peter will ask me how I will change them. Then I will answer I can't change them, people have to change themselves. Then he will go back in a circle and lament the utter stupidity of the loopholes in my idea, and receive my emotionally charged response before heading to the bedroom for some – Whoa! Angry sex is something everyone should try out with their spouse.

Fortunately, the people surrounding us prevented the latter part from happening.

The discussion was admittedly, fruitful, and a thorough rewrite of my proposal is in order, particularly after finding out the proposal must not exceed 1000 words, not fewer than 1200 words. Quite certainly, I went overboard.

After terminating the meeting, we were dragged into the mall because we still had some time before the pre-dinner preparation, and partly due to a calling some of us had to answer.

I finally picked up my first (discounted, thanks to Peter's Popular Card) Edgar Allan Poe book.

It got late, so we headed back to Tommy's home. Tommy, the chef of honour, headed right to the kitchen, while the rest of us hovered over his wide-screen laptop like drooling geeks over an undressed Alienware machine.

Occasionally, some of us headed to the kitchen as ambassadorial representatives to help Tommy out with the dishes.

Somewhere around 1830 hours, Peter piggybacked to church. Me and Chong Yang stayed backed to give praise to our own gods, Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb.

Soon, my mother and sister arrived to join us for dinner. They patiently waited while Tommy slaved over the first course, fish and cheese.

The fish was marinated in lemon tinged water, then infused with basil, salt and pepper before it was sent into the oven buried in cheese.

Now drool over the picture of juicy fish topped with hot, melt-in-your-mouth cheese.

I learnt to prepare a unusual appetiser from Tommy as well yesterday. Ever heard of boiled Pepsi with ginger? Health concerns aside, it was rather pleasant.

The fish was served half-an-hour earlier than the agreed time, which meant Peter would miss out on the fish. Fret not for you weren't alone - Tommy graciously skipped this meal too as there wasn't enough fish to feed everyone.

The beef was a different story altogether. Medium-rare, topped with gravy, served with mashed potatoes and vegetables, it was much more filling than the fish. In fact, my sister ate a Chinese teacup size worth of food for breakfast this morning because of the size of the meat served.

Desert consisted of strawberries with tiramisu. A sweet way to end the dinner.

Before nine, it was all over. And the guys sat down for an impromptu lecture on the facts of life from Dr House.

I fiddled around with Tommy's computer, experimenting with various add-ons for Celestia and installing Picasa 2.

My sister took a go at it too and all too soon, it was time to leave.

Me and my family would like to give a heartfelt “Thank You” to you, Ooi Chuen Theang aka Tommy Ooi and your family for the generosity you have shown us. Not many employers would invite their employees over to their bastion of comfort for a wonderful dinner.

Until then,
Live Long Prosper,
May the Force be with You.

Thousand Miles

2006-11-01T19:58:00.000+08:00

In just a blink of an eye, it is almost 9 months since the birth of Sautern
Enterprise. Anyone our age would have doubted the possibility of achieving such a deceptively reachable feat. Yet, along this uncertain journey, we are joined & fundamentally powered by a group of visionaries, determined to achieve what others find impossible in this business environment. I recall the days when Sautern was but a written draft on scrap pieces of paper, done during school ( Whereby I totally support the notion that the education system is definitely ineffective ), which progressed to currently become a profitable business. All this in just 9 months!

The starting of Sautern was to allow youth especially teenagers to challenge & experience the job and business market of the industries that we ventured in, providing opportunities for talented youth to utilize their talents & enhanced it to another level. Therefore we take the utmost pleasure in welcoming any talented individuals to be a part of our team. Other than that, Sautern aims to allow youth to indulge in some luxuries that are offered mostly to the rich. Activities of indulgence are occasionally organized as reward to our team who has put in extraordinary effort despite having to juggle their tertiary education at the same time.

Not many are willing to look on the flip side of the coin, specifically they are reluctant to confront the negative aspects of their business. Yet for us, we regard failure as a chance to learn, much more than what success offers, therefore any negative side of the company shall be discussed openly & frequently. If anyone has noticed, our website is yet to be complete & functional although it has been 9 months. Sautern apologizes for this awkward situation. Initially, Sautern was conceived to be a property kiosk in Malaysia. However, in the process of building the website, we received several projects for " Software Customization" from established property & banking firms. Unfortunately, this was also a double-edged sword, while giving us much needed revenue, it was an overload of work, since as a start-up, we have a lack of manpower. However, the company website will be up by December 2006.

Presently, Sautern will be focusing on its current " Software Customization" projects. Besides that, there will be a management reshuffle in a fortnight to ensure Sautern's clients a better service & positive growth for the company. Details of the shuffle will be revealed after it is announced.

Till then,
Tommy Ooi
Chief Executive Officer

It ain't all about the money

2006-09-29T23:10:00.000+08:00

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

2006-09-03T18:11:00.000+08:00

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.

Calling Chicken

2006-08-23T18:37:00.000+08:00

It was one of those days.

It began atypically after a lousy morning where we were late for the clients stipulated deadline for arrivals; fortunately, he seemed to have forgotten about the dateline given to us.

This was probably because, R & U, as you may recall from our various reports, frequently cancelled and delayed appointments.

Today was the first time they applied a (our) dedicated auction presentation software, FusionCore; so it wasn't really surprising the way R & U's boss was raving about our product to some VIPs.

He then asked us to give a short presentation of our presentation to the VIPs, presumably to impress them.

Chong Yang and I ended up having to adorn R & U uniforms for the duration of the event just for a rebranding exercise they were carrying out.

These guys seem pretty serious about it, splashing out good money they wouldn't cough up for FusionCore a few months ago to a promotional team, who videotaped the entire event.

These were expert cinematographers, lining shorts artistically with the precision of a seamstress sewing a flag.

The auction event began more than two hours after our arrival, therefore (technically), we weren't late.

The important point of the entire exercise was to show the important people how much R & U has progressed from its herbal remedy roots.

The most salient point though, was the auction event itself - two of the three auction houses were using FusionCore.

The third will probably be weeded out by the process of evolution.

After the event, we went out for a typical lunch at a fast food restaurant.

Nothing fancy - it was just a RM 500.00 budgeted lunch at KFC.

Nowhere and Everywhere

2006-08-19T19:02:00.000+08:00

Huge announcement this week!

Sautern Enterprise has successfully closed a deal worth about RM 6000.00 this morning.

R & U (with a herbal treatment centre subsidiary), one of the major players in the property auction industry have finally decided to take the Sautern option: FusionCore.

The courtship of R & U has been a unnecessary prolonged process, with negotiations breaking down during the previous meetings over the pricing of FusionCore.

Things took a dramatic twist however, when some criticisms from important organizations criticized R & U's method of running the business. This sparked a undisclosed spending spree to re-brand themselves.

Consequently, FusionCore became a much demanded item as it will most likely revamp the entire process of auctioning in the near future (think half-a-year).

Although there were a few add-ons to the program, we have already been partially paid for our software, with the rest to be paid upon successfully integrating the software into their company.

With the deal virtually sealed, we carried on to our other client, Palma Housing, to restore their database (a server crash had knocked out and removed a vast amount of valuable property auction reports).

The database was restored within seconds, however, we were then tasked with solving a generated report mystery. Briefly described as a huge amount of wasted paper.

The problem turned out to be a mistaken field entry, which was quickly pointed out.

Our affairs at Palma were finally completed with the issuing of an invoice for FusionCore.

We then sped of to Pizza Hut where we received this interesting receipt:The picture says it all doesn't it?

Our next auction event is on the 23rd of February, 2006, as a result of the sale of FusionCore to
R & U.

Whether you wish to see us run the whole place down, or catch a few deals of your own, come join us at the City Bayview Hotel, 9.30a.m.

Until then,
Be a dear,
Say simply nuclear!

Full steam ahead

2006-08-18T15:07:00.000+08:00

Due to the unfortunate circumstances of Form 6, most of the Sautern team, ok all but one, have been shackled from doing our normal activities for the past week. The reason? The school test of course, and a minor one at that. Nevertheless, that is all in the past now, and clear skies are projected for the next 2 months or so until the next exam rears its ugly head.

Not one to waste time, Tommy scheduled a long overdue meeting immediately after school today. And for good cause too, as the goalposts have shifted during our two-week sabbatical. Things have just gotten a lot complicated and the few projects that were in stasis pending the completion of our exams have just gotten more crucial. Due to the sensitive nature of these projects, I am of course not at liberty to divulge the finer details.

Once again though, we are really looking for capable and enthusiastic web designers and programmers. Those interested can leave a message here.

Between Two Paths

2006-08-04T17:11:00.000+08:00

Tommy is having a hell of a time in college, in a good way. Chong Yang, Peter and I are also having a hell of a time in Form Six, in a hot-coal caressing your cheek way.

While Tommy has flexibility and time with his college schedule, we Sixth Formers are pretty much stuck in a rut, facing our first challenge - the first Sith, um I mean Sixth Form test.

With exams barely two weeks away, and Palma Housing breathing down our necks, we are finding it very hard to choose sides (some of us anyway).

If we prioritize Sautern Enterprise, we are set to not only receive the biggest payday in company history, but to cement our unconfirmed position as the best software solutions company in Penang.

However, if we should forsake this coming test, we risk being grounded by our parents, whom we still live with - whereby we are still bounded by an unwritten contract that stipulates if you do badly in your exams, you will be tortured.

That said, we have decided to pursue the middle path - find additional programmers to temporarily take over Chong Yang's place.

We are prepared to pay a portion of the profits generated from each successful project completed.

Unfortunately, no one seems to have seen our request for additional personnel.

Project t-shirt

2006-07-26T23:17:00.000+08:00

Thanks to our resident computer programmer, and now designer, Chong Yang, we have now managed to finalise the design for our company t-shirt.And guess what, in spite of his expertise with graphic programmes, this design is hand-drawn, talk about being talented.

First, a low down on the design. Being innovative pioneers, our shirt will incorporate ohmegawd-ish features that will blow you away. You will even write home to mum to talk about it. I mean, there's like a freaking MP3 player incorporated into it, and it's so small you won't even notice it. And here's the clincher, it has red collars, what could be better?. All right, I was kidding, there is no MP3 player in case you haven't figured that out. But we did toy with the idea of incorporating a small ____(classified stuff)____ into the design. And the part about the red collar is true. There is also a small detail of the tee that is a little unusual, I mentioned it up there in passing, let's see if any of you caught it.

I would prefer to dispense with all the secrecy but the threat of commercial espionage has forced us to be more cautious. On a more sombre note, we at Sautren would like to extend our condolences to the family of our ex-schoolmate Khoo Seng Kong, who unfortunately lost his life last Saturday. He will be in our prayers (for those who have a religion, anyway), and may his soul rest in peace.

When the Shirts Come Marching On

2006-07-19T18:33:00.000+08:00

Greetings. Here are some new announcements from the good people at Sautern Enterprise.

On Monday, the tech team went over to Palma Housing for a Q & A session regarding the database management software we would be building for them.

As expected, the process was a lot more painful than it should have been, seeing as the database management software, like the auctioning software we first developed for Palma Housing, would soon become another complex software suite with added features such as a billing management software.

This wouldn't be so bad, if we had more programmers on the team; because more work means a better pay, and we are talking a major growth in revenue here Mac.

Speaking of which, here's a list of preferred requirements applicants for the programming job at Sautern should have:

For web programming purposes, applicants should be

Comfortable with PHP and MySql;
Well versed in HTML, XML, Javascript and CSS.

Interactive graphic design is also an integral part of our software development process. As such, applicants must have

Appropriate knowledge of any graphic editing software, e.g., Photoshop, Gimp, CorelDraw;
An understanding of web designing software, e.g., Dreamweaver;
Effortless mastery of Flash animation and action scripts.

Since our major source of income is based on a project-by-project basis, programmers working with the team will be paid based on a negotiated percentage of any profit made.

For a historical example, read up on Alec Guinness on his paycheck for Star Wars, in which he was paid a percentage of the profits (aka the biggest paycheck he ever received in his life).

In a related development, we have decided on a motto for our clothing line, which will be introduced soon to close associates of Sautern.

We are holding on to the motto for now to prevent any stealing of ideas pending our trademark application.

That's all for now. May your days be slightly less hazier.

Priorities

2006-07-14T16:53:00.000+08:00

So here's the latest take on the comings and goings of Sautern Enterprise.

Rarely do you encounter a company with too much business to handle; because that usually means you are making enough profit to bleed money from your nostrils to hire additional staff.

As unlikely as it may sound, that is the very predicament we are currently facing.

Though we have enough projects to generate enough profit to sustain the company for at least (and I mean the very least) 2 years; the dearth of competent and reliable jobseekers matching our needs has left us no choice but to postpone some very lucrative deals.

As such, we have decided to concentrate all our efforts into our clothing designs, which is another business avenue we will be pursuing in our overall empire-making plans.

Okay, allow be to anchor myself back to Earth.

Visitors may have noticed our property kiosk website has not budged since I returned from my National Service training stint. That's because of our heavy workload due to the custom software division of our company - essentially depriving resources to build on the website.

No business, especially a tech business, wants its forefront product to be put on hold. But in this matter, due to our understaffed and overworked situation (not to mention the fact all three triumvirs and the Chief Intelligence Officer are currently pursuing tertiary education), we simply have no choice but to finish projects based on datelines.

To further clarify our company's current situation, we have decided to embark on a few measures; one of which is to place our company blog in a more prominent position while we relegate our main site's preview to a lesser site.

Anyone out there who happens to be skilled in building websites or happen to be very proficient script kiddies are encouraged to contact us.

A list of skills we are currently looking for in future executive staff members will be posted soon.

Until then,
May your trees stay green.

The Amazing Race 53446435: The Hunt for the Funky Cloth

2006-07-12T23:21:00.000+08:00

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned the futility of our search for a suitable material to make our running jerseys. Guess what, Tommy gave me a ring two days ago, apparently he managed to get a contact which might lead to someone who might be able to help us. (If the above sentence seems to be filled with doubt, it is, since I decided to adopt a wait and see attitude just so I don't get disappointed)

The next thing I know, I am prepping for a pseudo road trip through some obscure Penang roads. Ok, we didn't have to exactly prepare anything, but we kind of braced ourselves towards the possibility of getting lost. The nether regions of Penang are that hard to navigate.

There is another thing I need to get round to though, which is the actual designing of the jersey. After cracking my brain and dozens of prayers to God for inspiration, a light bulb flashed in my mind and a brilliant design (to me) just popped into my mind.

After labouring through the night (ok, until 12.30 am), I was eager to show my design to my associates, this morning. The first person I showed it to was Jupes, and let's just say I didn't get rave reviews. I waited until school was over before unleashing my monstrosity on another unsuspecting impromptu reviewer. The initial look on Kenneth's face was good enough to qualify him to appear on one of those slasher flicks. Even though he tried to mask it by offering a 'The colour is too eye-catching' comment, I knew my choice of colour combinations stank.

With the sound of less than glowing reviews ringing in my ear, I went home to prepare for the big Search. Before I knew it, 4 pm rolled by and Tommy and I were making our way to some obscure market in Jelutong, where the shop is located. True to expectations, it took a while and a couple of phone calls before we managed to step into the place. The owner was very helpful and tried her best to answer all our queries. She was kind enough to search for samples, and even let us keep some of them, unlike the previous T-shirt, who was stingier with scraps of fabric than Scrooge with money.

At the end of it, we managed to find a possible fabric for the jersey, and left with a sense that this trip might not be a waste after all.

Extra Time

2006-07-02T17:46:00.000+08:00

Just some fillers until the next major breakthrough.

We have finally generated some income from the first sale of our property auction software: FusionCore.

Our first client, Palma Housing, has bought it for roughly (since I don't have the security clearance to give you the exact number) RM6000.00. This will give them a noticeable edge over their competitors due to the much more elegant presentation of auctions as well as an integrated report generator custom-built for auctioneers.

There are other plug-ins for FusionCore we have also added according to the demands of our clients so that our products may serve them dependably for many years to come.

At the end of Saturday night, the day Germany defeated Argentina, the triumvirs were treated to a lavish and extravagant dinner at the Bella Italia by Mr. Ooi of Palma Housing; where I ordered more food I couldn't pronounced correctly.

The food was a bit too rich for my tastes, having been raised on a diet of simple and cheap family cooked meals.

Tommy though, had a different take on the meal, in which he wagered he could whip up a better lasagna then the highly trained Italian wannabes in the kitchen.

It's not a lot of hot gas. I have eaten what Tommy bakes in his kitchen and it's good. It's damn good. It's bloody-makes you-wish-he-were-cooking-for-you-everyday-good!

Still, isn't that the definition of parents?

We ended the night trying out a few droplets of grappa (Italian alcoholic drink), which came in a small, thimble-like glass.

It wasn't because the restaurant was gratuitously over-charging us; the thing stung the back of your throat like liquid nitrogen on exposed skin.

While me, Chong Yang, and our dinner hosts contented ourselves to a few droplets of the liquid fire; Tommy guzzled it down like a refreshing glass of apple juice.

Kids, don't drink and drive.
,

toasted dine, fruitless find

2006-06-30T23:14:00.000+08:00

After going our seperate ways, Tommy and I decided to re-enact our own version of the Amazing Race. Our first pit-stop of the day, a t-shirt printer based in Jelutong. This guy is a popular source of t-shirts among school societies and clubs, so hopefully he will be of help.

The address given turned out to be the one to a single story house, smack in the middle of a housing estate. The porch area was tacked high with loads of t-shirts and cloth. Unfortunately the quantity of shirts there did not match the number of staff around. The only living human was an Indonesian maid, who promptly informed us that everyone else was at the 'office'. When asked on where exactly is the 'office', she could only give us a sheepish smile and a shrug of the shoulders.

Faced with this road block, we took the only option open to us. We called one of the numbers on the business card, which incidently bore only the name of the company, not even the name of the owner/proprietor/whatever. After speaking to the guy on the other end of the line, we still couldn't get the address of the other 'office'. No matter, since he promised to swing by the house in 10 minutes time. So, for all aspiring entrepreneurs out there, when in doubt, phone.

Having resigned ourselves to waiting outside the gates until the owner arrives, we were pleasantly surprised when the maid ushered us in. The owner kept his word too, and we didn't have to wait long. Right off the bat, we enquired about the availability of polyester as a material for our jersey and singlet, only to be told that they make only t-shirts. There goes item number 1 on our list then. We proceeded to thrash out details about the pricing and material of the t-shirts before leaving for our next stop.

Actually, there was no next stop, since the only other card we have states the address of the company as somewhere in Bukit Mertajam. So again we did the increasingly common next best thing, call. As per standard business procedure, Tommy addressed the other person in English. What followed had us in stitches. The lady obviously wasn't proficient in English, and she was only too eager when Tommy finally offered to use Chinese. But it was probably a no deal though, since the minimum size of an order for this company is too big for us.

The Amazing Race for a T-shirt over, Tommy had to fulfill his other obligations to his college mates. Off we were then to TAR college. After dropping two of them off at the jetty, it was time for me to complete the final part of today's task, checking out whether there were any t-shirt making businesses based in Gurney Plaza. It was ultimately a futile search, and I had to abandon it due to the arctic air-conditioning.

With stomach rumbling and cellphone ringing( from mum), I trudged back home.

Toasted Dine, Over Time

2006-06-30T20:39:00.000+08:00

For the moment, all core members of Sautern Enterprise have to juggle between not only between demanding clients and overly-protective families; with the beginning of the tertiary education season, school work has to be thrown into the pot of caustic soup too.

Which was where I found myself spending the after-hours of a brutal Form 6 session, doing whatever I am suppose to do – odd jobs.

Tommy treated us to a sumptuous lunch at a local medium-high class restaurant – where I finally ordered a meal whose name took longer to comprehend than to eat.

What the bloody hell does “beef schnitzel” mean?

After the meal, which we incidentally used to reaffirm and redefine some company goals, we divided into two teams; Chong Yang and I went over to Palma to fix some nasty software issues, while Tommy and Peter went hunting for tailors who could produce sports-worthy attires.

Which left the unglamorous and rather unappreciated debugging work to us.

It seems there were some residual pools of toxic leaks in a database software created by a freelance member of our team who has recently departed to a place beside the sea.

Its pretty hard trying to communicate with a departed person... Or rather the Creator of the program.

Yes, the programmer of our database software has left us mere mortals to sort out any kinks with the mostly-functionable software. The debugging process is greatly hampered by the lack of access to the source code, which as any self-respecting geek would know, is vital to any software debugging process.

After slogging it out for what seemed like an eternity, only one of the many glaring problems was solved. It's a pity our company doesn't have more capable programmers (which currently number only one) to write these software.

After running overtime reorganizing some data for the employees of Palma Housing, we went into extra time for a important discussion regarding the creation of a website for the said client.

Details will be disclosed in due time.

A long awaited return

2006-06-12T23:51:00.000+08:00

This blog has not been updated for quite some time, and for that I am truly sorry. The intervening period between the last post and this one has been a little unstable in terms of Sautern activities. True, there have been some happenings, but since I wasn't personally present at said happenings, I cannot post on Sautern's behalf.

However, I am glad to say we did have a meeting today, which coincides with the return of our stalwart Ju Ping from National Service, complete with shiny NS belt buckle and shaven head. Unfortunately, he couldn't personally attend the meeting in the school canteen due to a lack of notification, so to speak. In actual fact, Tommy did try to get through to him, but the SMS bounced back. Just another feather in our local telcos' cap of screwing people over.

Today's get together was basically to update Ju Ping on Sautern, but since he couldn't make it, Tommy, Chong Yang and I got on with our discussions anyway. The first agenda was about how to solve some software problems. It's a vague description, I know, but we can't just divulge confidential information without the permission of our clients. Well, that and the fact that I don't know much about the software part of our business.

After that, we had a discussion on our prospective clients, specifically an upcoming meeting to be attended by Chong Yang. Overall, there was an optimistic air. With that being said, we moved on to a more nascent part of Sautern, our clothing line. Yes, you heard that right, a clothing line. We are looking into making a line to appeal to the youth. It still in the planning stage though. Nevertheless, we plan on making a limited run in time for the Penang Bridge Run. It's nothing official of course, just to get our name out there. So if any of you out there who is planning to take part in the run and is interested to wear our stuff, please feel free to send an email or leave a comment here.

The sky may be overcast, but Sautern's future is anything but. If anything, I am feeling positively sanguine. That's it for now. Till next time, have fun and enjoy the World Cup.

The Going Gets Tough

2006-04-27T19:37:00.000+08:00

The afternoon was of typical recent weather, hot and sweltering. After finishing my bath at a quarter to four, I borrowed my dad's long-sleeved formal shirt. Unfortunately I also realized that I was short of a matching pair of trousers, with precious time ticking by, I immediately rushed to my wardrobe and took out a pair of casual trousers, not quite jeans and put them on. I managed to grab my sport shoes while phoning Tommy. He's going to arrive at my house soon.

Well, I planned to meet Tommy in front of the Permata Sports Complex and he arrived just as I strode out of my low-cost apartment. On our way to St. Nicholas Home for the visually impaired, we stopped by Palma Housing's office which is situated above Denise( a wine place) to fetch Chong Yang and another member of our team, which I will call X. I also briefed Tommy about St. Nicholas and our client along the way. After having not seen Chong Yang for quite some time, I noticed there's something near his eye. He said it was a kind of infection or something like that. Originally, we were supposed to head straight for St. Nicholas but X wanted to go home real fast and Tommy had to drop him of. As a result, Chong Yang and I were abandoned at the junction near Penang Chinese Girls' High School (PCGHS), pitiful.

We both then started making our way to St. Nicks. It was a windy yet hot and tiring afternoon. Imagine hot breeze blowing at your face and those fumes from exhaust pipes filled your trachea. Chong Yang and I walked to St. Nick which is not far away, 10 minutes I guess. I phoned Mr. Ooi, our handsome client to announce our arrival. He said he's outside, taking the Bishop from England for a small ride. Ah ha, we saw the sign of St. Nicks already, pretty nice. Well, we got moving to the office of St. Nicks which is quite obvious, the building in front of the gate.
And then, ahhh. I saw a familiar yellow Kenari at the left hand side. It belongs to my friend, Benjamin, who also happens to be Mr. Ooi's son. Wanting to say hi to Benjamin, I went up to his doorstep (his family live son the grounds of St. Nicks). Benjamin turned out to be sleeping, but he was woken up by his mum and I managed to say hi before Chong Yang and I, again proceeded to the main office.

So here we were, at the main office. The expression on Chong Yang's face was like: "What? no air-cond?" and the feeling was mutual. There's only a fan outside of the office. Later, I knocked on the door and an Indian lady ( I guess ) came out and greeted us. After some basic introductions, she let us into the inner office which is much much better because of the coolness of the air-cond inside. I stole a glance at the wall clock, which read 4.50p.m.

We sat on the sofas, while waiting for Tommy to arrive at St. Nicks to join us in the meeting. Unexpectedly, Mr Ooi(the client, not our own Tommy;) came back first, right on time, 5 pm which is our proposed meeting time. Great, now where is Tommy? Nevertheless we would have to continue with the meeting first. After Mr. Ooi bade goodbye to the Bishop who was to fly back to England, we proceeded to Mr. Ooi's room.The design there was rather typical but we loved the sofas. There were very interesting and creative sofas, where there is a round twistable sort of table on the right side. A mini Dell Laptop sat on the desk. Behind the desk there's a window facing the gate. We sat on the sofas. I took the one near the door, Chong Yang beside me and Mr Ooi sat 90 degrees from Chong Yang. Mr Ooi later passed us the letterhead and all other relevant documents. And so, the negotiation was underway. At least until Mr. Ooi's phones decided to ring that is, and he has 2 phones! Gosh, there's a time where both of his phones rang simultaneously. Imagine how he has to answer both of them… and it was during one such instant, that Tommy made his entrance. Okay, the meeting started officially after Tommy's arrival, or we can say after Mr. Ooi's phone call.

We were making good progress. The negotiations went on well and if I daresay so myself, we were quite professional. Tommy made most of the talking and Mr. Ooi proved himself to be quite an adept negotiator. He has an ample knowledge of programming as he's an ex-executive from Dell, if I'm not mistaken. The meeting ended at 6.50 p.m.

After shaking hands with Mr. Ooi, we went out and found that everyone had left the office. The colour of the sky was quite dull and it was drizzling mildly. Tommy kept reminding us about the laptop, don't lose the laptop. Then we headed to Starbucks, Gurney to carry out some discussions. Tommy and I ordered an Apple and whatever Pie or some sort. That pie is just amazing, enriched with fruits' fragrance and raisin's sweetness, it's just perfect! We did some research at Starbucks and then left at 7.30 p.m. where I had to go home as insisted on by my dad.

This was the day which will hopefully bring our company to newer heights, achieve those impossible targets and make insurmountable challenges surmountable. Good job Sautern!

Hot and Cold

2006-04-06T16:49:00.000+08:00

Today was another regular, humid day in Penang, except for the fact that we have another big auction to attend. Personally speaking though, I don't think I had the best of preparations for my first foray into the world of property auctions. For starters, I was kept awake until 4.30 am in the morning by a very important event, namely the UEFA Champions League match between Juventus and Arsenal. To compound my fatigued state, I ended staying up in vain because the team I was rooting for, Juventus, lost. After snatching a few hours sleep, I had to stumble out of bed at 8 am to get ready.

According to Tommy, we were supposed to be at Cititel Hotel, which was the venue of the auction, before 9 am. Tommy duly came by at 5 minutes before 9. Even though I was still bleary eyed, I can see that Chong Yang was already hard at work in the front seat, furiously tapping on the keyboard in an attempt to iron out any perceived errors. In spite of his efforts though, some potentially major problems still managed to manifest, but I will get to that later.

After dropping us off at the Cititel, Tommy had to rush off to entertain a client, leaving me and Chong Yang to figure out the exact place the auction was going to be held. Armed with the knowledge that it is on the third floor, we tentatively navigated the unfamiliar hotel. Thankfully, there were some signs showing the way, and as they say, 'X' marks the spot, which in this case the 'X' happened to be the bustling crowd milling in front of Perdana III hall.

Right from the get go, it was all business. We were ushered into the auction hall, and Chong Yang was confronted with some last minute changes that needed to be done. The poor dude was very nervous, and constantly cursed his bad luck of late. True to his words, the programme did act up and he spent the hour before the start of the auction troubleshooting. Some of those problems he couldn't get rid of though, like some of the property pictures looking like, in his words, ghost houses.

As I mentioned above, the worst was yet to come, one of the bigger problems concerning our the bidding info, proved to be a stubborn customer. With 5 minutes to go, Chong Yang was forced to give up in exasperation. As a fail-safe, we decided to also record the winning bids by hand. Ironically, in spite of all the high tech equipment, we couldn't even get hold of a pen. It was only after some frantic searching that this brush fire was put out.

At right around 10 am, people started to file into the hall, and this was when Tommy chose to make an entrance. Right on time too, I should say, since the auction started soon after. Even though things look to be on the up and up, we were feeling chilly, literally. The hallway and the inside of the hall were like Hawaii and Alaska. The air cond was too cold. How anyone manages to survive in there for an extended period escapes me. After sitting there for about 3 hours, my fingers were numb and I was feeling pins and needles. What I was feeling though, could not compare to what Chong Yang experienced. He didn't have breakfast and he was in the igloo longer, since he had to sort out the report.

The temperature aside, I find the auction quite interesting, even amusing at times. From out prime seats in front of the crowd, we got a good view. There were some beginners to austioneering, but from my untrained eye, most of the people there knew how to bid.I guess I was too influenced by the movies though, and the dramatic last minute bids and phone calls didn't exactly happen. Most of the time bidding was done between a handful of bidders who had registered to bid for that particular property, not the free for all we usually see on the silver screen. In fact, most of the property sold came from sole bidders, who got the property for the reserve price.

The auction ended at about 1 pm, and none too soon too, since I feel I was starting to shiver. Seizing my chance, I quickly ducked into the relatively toasty confines of the hallway, where I tried to regain my body warmth. As I mentioned above Chong Yang wasn't so fortunate, having to spend more time in the freezer coaxing a report out of his programme. In the end, we resorted to manually upload the bidding info, but we did finally turn out a report.

Even though the bidding was over, the auction was not, since the successful bidders were entitled to a lucky draw. Consequently, we had to wait until 2 pm before we were able to grab a bite or a drink, for that matter. Our patience was finally rewarded though, and we were given the all clear to 'makan'.

After freezing for several hours, stepping into the hot midday sun was unpleasant, to say the least. My residual chilliness kept me from melting though. Tommy brought us, along with his aunt to a nearby restaurant, the Green House. It was a small establishment, run by Australian expats under the 'Malaysia, My Second Home' project. Chong Yang and I had fish and wedges, while Tommy selected pasta, and his aunt settled for lasagna. After that Tommy ordered some of the dessert pies for us to sample. All in all, it was a satisfying meal, especially having endured sub-zero temperature without food.

Our job done, it was time to go home, so about 7 hours after leaving my home, I was dropped off.

The Strange Outing

2006-03-20T10:28:00.000+08:00

After a night of celebration (for the launch of Sautern.com.my ) which lasted until dawn, it was no wonder the three of us would want a whole day of rest. Unfortunately, that was not to be as we were required to inspect the auction properties in Kedah & Seberang Prai.

Nevertheless, Ju Ping and our computer mastermind Chong Yang still had an opportunity to sneak in some rest and relaxation, staying back at home to enjoy Jon Steward's Daily Show. I, on the other hand, started my day in the office gathering some information of the properties to be inspected.

After gathering all the information needed, we set off to our first destination - Lunas in Kedah. As usual, taking the ferry was our first option. Lunas was a 45 minute ride from the port, by the time we arrived, it was already lunch time and we treated ourselves to a sumptuous lunch of their renowned Roasted Duck. I was once told that hundreds of roasted duck are sold in Lunas every day and this is achieved only within lunch time! It only makes me wonder if the owner has joined the millionaires club and (sly smile) if I'm able to replicate his success by introducing my own delicacy. ( Who says you cant earn your fortune by being a hawker? ). We ordered a half roasted duck, some tofu, duck eggs & a bowl of salted veggie soup. The duck was oozed with juices as we poked the extraordinaryly thick and tender of meat with our forks. No wonder it is a delicacy.

Trying not to waste anymore precious time as we were unfamiliar with the roads there, we rushed to our first destination at Taman Serai Setia. Ju Ping was wondering why on earth would people want to buy a property area consisting of deserted shophouses and even a coffee shop with no apparent patrons in the vicinity. ( Beats me, as long as the property is sold, our mission is accomplished ).

Then came the problem, getting from our current location to our next destination was a major conundrum ( It was actually the first time I drove there without guidance). Taking out chances and rationalising that I'm can only gain experience from this, we scrambled our way to our next destination, Bukit Mertajam. On our way there, we passed by Permatang Pauh which is the home of two large universities - Polytechnic of something and Mara U. It's unbelievable that taxpayers are paying for these mega infrastructures which bring only limited benefits to most.

On our way there, we unexpectedly noticed that Bandar Perda was near where we were heading. We decided on the spot to take a detour there to view the Condominium Mutiara. The government offices are moving there and with colleges located nearby, it is one of the investments favoured by investors.

Upon reaching the Bukit Mertajam town area, we stopped and received some instructions to Taman Bidara at Machang Bubok. At the Machang Bubok new town, we noted that several of the houses were beautifully designed and the prices seem much cheaper compared to the property prices in Penang Island. Then we went to the old town which was almost deserted to inspect the properties there. Upon finishing the inspection, we rushed back to Penang island as I have an appointment with some clients at E-Gate's Starbucks regarding the sale of a property at Coastal Tower.

The clients, both buyer and seller spoke their mind before coming to an agreement on the terms and price. The deal was closed after 2 hours of negotiation. Later, we took our dinner at Pizza Hut in nearby Tesco before ending our day.

The Pig Out

2006-03-16T23:23:00.000+08:00

Tonight - by Peter
To celebrate the launch of Sautern.com.my, Tommy as our ring leader decided that we go for a buffet dinner. I don't know if all of you think the same way, but when I hear the word 'buffet', 2 words immediately come to mind, 'pig out'. In this case, the restaurant that was to be our victim is an establishment called Fusion (Restaurant), situated right next to Gurney Hotel.

The place was surprisingly empty when we first arrived, with just a few patrons milling about. I would put it down to us being early though, as we arrived just before 7 pm. After making sure the wine was safely chilled (yes, we brought our own wine), we ambled over to the spread for the first round. Typical of most gluttonous youth, we went straight for the red meat and fried food. As I later remarked to Tommy, we should have ate some vegetables and 'milder' food to optimise our eating potential (impressive huh, see how I can talk the business talk after mixing with them).

Anyway, we committed another much more major error in flocking to the food all at once, we left the laptop alone. Fortunately, I guess the crowd there was too well heeled to take an interest in our machine. But it surely makes you wonder, we have some of the supposedly brightest minds around, yet we are absent-minded enough to commit such an amateurish mistake. This will prove to be one of two 'smart people, stupid actions' incidents of the night.

Ok back to the dinner, after wolfing down the first wave with gusto, we took a breather to observe our surroundings, carefully surveying the types of food laid out. The next spread to receive some serious damage was the sushi bar. I think between the five of us, we managed to finish a few chunks of succulent raw fish. I don't know why, but we all seemed to go for the gentler taste of sushi after the initial influx of oily food. A particular favourite of mine was the salmon. I know it's cliched, but it really melts in your mouth. Oh yeah, Ju Ping found out the hard way not to mess with the wasabi. After boldly, proclaiming that he can stuff mouthfuls of wasabi down his throat in his childhood for the fun of it, he was literally made to choke back his words. I am inclined to agree with him about the potency of the wasabi served there. My few dabs of the wasabi was enough to bring a tear to the eye. It was more like tear gas in food form that the mustard paste that it is.

The third wave was definitely the knock out. I can safely say for all of us that most of us were starting to feel the food. Even Lee Xin who was the biggest among us had nearly enough, heck, he was practically the one who ate the least. We took this opportunity to take a short rest. Meanwhile, Tommy took this opportunity to outline our agenda of the night. He talked about a couple of probable IT projects and his targets. Being a newbie in IT, I can only give my opinions from a layman's perspective.

In an effort to soften the blow of the punchy food we took earlier, all of us had tea at one point or another. When it was Ju Ping and my turn to submit to the tea, we had trouble finding any cup or the tea mug. Cue the second 'Smart people, stupid actions' moment of the night. We went a full round around the food island, and we still couldn't locate the cups. Eventually, we did manage to find the troublesome cups, which turned out to be right in front of us.

After being satisfied that we could no longer take in any food, Tommy decided it was time to pour the wine, a 1995 Sauternes (pronounced Sau-turn) specially ordered from France. According to him, the name of the wine means 'liquid gold' and is a dessert wine. Having poured the wine (extra for Chong Yang, and less for Lee Xin), we had a toast to Sautern.com.my and Ju Ping's impending birthday. All in all, the wine was quite good, and we managed to retain clarity of mind, though Ju Ping and Chong Yang were a little red in the cheeks.

We adjourned to Gurney Drive, but not before having settled our bill which amounted to a little less than RM200. To make sure we don't misplace the laptop in our slightly tipsy state, we stowed it in Tommy's car boot. At Gurney Drive, the sea breeze was rather nice though I can't say the same about the smell that came with it. The atmosphere proved to be conducive to small talk and we had a hilarious time recounting back the good ol' days. From dredging up the past, we managed to envision the future. Tommy talked about his plan for some investment (which I don't think I am at liberty to divulge :p).

It was getting late, and it was time to leave. The sea breeze did wonders in helping to clear the wine induced blur I was feeling. After checking to see if the laptop was still safely in the car boot, we went for a final walk around the area before saying 'bon voyage'.

Earlier Today - by Ju Ping
Before eating back my words regarding my proclamation that I have before swallowed a spoonful of wasabi just for the heck of it, me, Tommy, and Chong Yang went out for lunch after another game of basketball much, much earlier in the morning. This time, I wisely avoided playing the game while wearing long pants - which could cause my legs to cramp up.

We didn't venture to the usual coffeeshops though, this time, we decided to go Indian.

While I had pretty low expectations for lunch sites, the dining place was far worse than I expected. This place was on a sidewalk, under the hot sun, without a fan.

READ: SIDEWALK-SUN-NO FAN.

Surprisingly enough, after chowing down one Roti Hong Kong, Roti Taiwan, Roti Jepun, washed down with iced "teh tarik" and "milo ais", we (okay, at least I) forgot about the ovenette (disguised as an umbrella) which was baking us alive.

We then decided to try out more "countries".

Tommy ordered some Roti Mexico and Roti Chicago. What they have to do with the geographical locations they were named after, only the father of the young man manning the stall knows.

Overhearing someone order an extremely politically incorrect cuisine, we decided to purchase an additional bread - Roti Saddam.

The dictator, ahem, I mean bread was quite delicious - juicy and sumptuous.

Overall, rather than stuffing myself with raw fish and pricey wine, I would very much prefer to chow down on some Roti Bush and Roti Osama.

P.S. Tonight's wasabi was the real authentic thing. Not the tube stuff you buy at the supermarket or the cheap overpriced green paste they serve you at Sushi King. This one really blew my nose off - and I hope to experience more explosive condiments like this in the future.

P.P.S. I had a minor flu - it has been cured.

Of Basketballs and Turkey

2006-03-11T16:35:00.000+08:00

I don't suppose anyone expected a blog so early after the lengthy description of a potentially haunted hotel last week. However, this also means our company is getting more active.

Today's entry will be short and sweet, as it should be for something as frivolous as a meeting with Lee Xin regarding advertising for Sautern.com.my in Chung Ling High School's canteen.

Before that meeting at 1030 hours, we - or rather I accompanied - Tommy to a scheduled informal basketball game with some ex-Chung Ling classmates (some of whom will become my classmates once more in Form 6).

The game was absolutely enjoyable. Granted, I didn't even make one shot but hey, we were just having fun. It's not as if a multibillion dollar industry will collapse if your shooting average per game is 0%.

Tommy though, had an absolute scorcher of a game. In one of the sets we played (each set being the first team to reach 20 points or above), he scored 18 points!

Kobe, eat your heart out.

After bidding farewell to our friends, we used five minutes to make our way to Chung Ling's canteen.

Catching Lee Xin while entering the remodeled building (thanks to benevolent donations from the ex-Chung Ling members), we set down and literally gorged ourselves on the unbelievably cheap food while holding our meeting.

If Chung Ling can still sell barley and kopi-O for 30 cents a glass and still make a profit, I fail to understand why the hawker stalls outside (let's not even mention Starbucks) have to raise their prices into eyebrow burning prices.

Anyway, the meeting went rather well with a cursory marketing plan being the agenda of the day.

Here's the advertisement plan with the first three only open to professionals involved with the property business:-

Login Page Banner - RM1500.00;
Site Banner - RM2500.00;
Sidebar Ads - RM20.00;
Free Ads for Donation.

Regarding the free ads, their are free in the sense we provide free space online for their ads, however, to place their ads on the site, they have to sponsor a specific amount to the donation page, 100% of, will be contributed to non-profit organizations we have chosen according to their availability of funds and diversity of help they contribute to the community.

For each viewer who visits this particular page, 1 cent will be deducted from the accounts of each sponsor - so, visit this page for free once a day every day to donate for free!

After our successful meeting with Lee Xin, I accompanied Tommy to Gurney where a property preview was being held.

Nothing impressive about it really except the fact that you can play garden games on the top floor of the building.

Well, nothing much happened really - except Tommy bought two turkey drumsticks, which were deliciously edible.

Till then,
Live Long & Prosper,
May The Force Be With You.

East West East

2006-03-09T12:58:00.000+08:00

In a little over 30 days, our team has now conducted three auctions in tandem with the auctioneers of Palma Housing. Yesterday's assignment, number three, was held at the rather spooky Hotel Berlin, Butterworth.

As usual, I started the day by arriving early at Tommy's house, under false pretences of wanting to be early, I proceeded to watch online uncensored-unedited streams of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Global Edition and some upcoming movie trailers using Tommy's DSL connection.

I also fired off a letter to my WWF Malaysia contact.

Guys, please! Cut me some slack, I am going to have to last THREE MONTHS without television, the Internet, and computers!

After one hour (approximately) of online videos, I shared breakfast with Tommy before we made our way to Palma Housing central.

There, Tommy pointed out a few mistakes in the database Palma sent us while I busied myself writing an e-mail to The Star regarding "unused alternatives" in light of the increase in the cost of energy.

I was pleasantly surprised when my contact in WWF Malaysia replied my mail that very morning. As you (don't) know, we are setting up a special page for the pure purpose of donating to non-profit organizations that are short of funds and resources.

Using the information gleaned from the reply, we immediate arranged a trip that very morning to Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM), who were said to be in need of funds and volunteers.

A few turns later down Solok Emas, we were greeted by a non-descript rather worn down residential building (which, according to Tommy, wasn't bad) with the number nine stuck to the gate pillar.

Grimmauld's Place this wasn't, but it could be with a little imagination. About five paces from the doorway, an enormous bookshelf rising all the way to the ceiling lined with nature references, biology tomes and other stuff stood imposingly and menacingly to our left with multiple duplicates of it further to the left made its presence known.

We stumbled upon one of the employees of SAM to the right of what would be the parlour of a normal home, who led us upstairs to meet the big honcho of the organization.

On the top floor, we carefully probed the honcho without revealing our true motives as Tommy suggested because, if anyone offers cash, you aren't going to say no, right?

To my surprise, we were told SAM wasn't cash strapped at all and weren't even looking for volunteers! We found out that SAM's work was actually to represent and tie together different environmental conservation groups and to press charges against entities that have caused great grievances to Mother Earth.

In other words, they are the Malaysian environmental equivalent of the United Nations. This also means SAM is looking for activists, not volunteers.

Let's say your town area doesn't have a recycling centre, you decide to set one up for the betterment of your community and the environment - you contact Uncle SAM - Uncle SAM will then send reinforcements, strategists, and experts to help you wage war.

This brief detour was terminated and we went around to Chong Yang's house cum shop to pick up the best computer wizard Chung Ling has produced in 5 generations.

The otherwise routine wait for Chong Yang was interrupted by the largest chicken I have ever seen in my life.

It was HUGE! Even world wise Tommy conceded it was the biggest chicken he had ever seen anywhere.

Here's an idea how big it actually is: One of its drumsticks would be as large if not larger than a regular chicken breast in KFC; Chong Yang's family cat is afraid of it; the monster chicken hunts human children for pleasure.

Anyway, we soon found ourselves on a ferry sailing to Butterworth through surprisingly clean waters. The last times we made our way to Butterworth (both times on a Friday), the water was muddy brown; yesterday, it was bluish green!

It makes you wonder what shipping companies do on Friday.

Butterworth is a strange city.

The place is on the mainland yet, doesn't have half the number of trees lining the roads to provide shade. The roads are also rather confusing as one wrong turn is the difference between Kulim and (Hotel) Berlin.

To park in Butterworth, you must also purchase parking tickets, which unlike the island, allows you to park anywhere in Butterworth. The downside, it works like a prepaid card, you must buy them in advance.

Hotel Berlin's design harkens back to the America's of the 1960's. Its outward appearance lent it an aura of a cheap motel, yet, once you stepped in through its modern motion detecting sliding doors, you were greeted with the redolent wafting of a hospital reception area.

Even the reception desks and counters reminded me of Lam Wah Ee. The toilets were situated at the end of a short maze of passageways after crossing the threshold of an imposing hardwood door. With each step, I felt more and more like a character in Silent Hill (with Chong Yang making disturbing comparisons with every step we took) instead of a run down cheap motel.

The two doors marked with BAHAYA messages and an unmarked door at the opposite end of the maze leading to the toilets didn't exactly helped to relieve us of the image of a haunted hotel.

In the hotel's conference room, an aroma highly reminiscent of a drug filled sterile clinic greeted us through two hardwood glass installed doors that wouldn't be out of place in an operating room.

In fact, the table upon which we were given to set up our stuff was covered with a smooth cloth seemingly lifted out of an episode of ER.

And to add to the spook factor, the lighting was exactly the kind you see in hospitals and the larger table big enough for a surgical procedure was accompanied by a smaller table lined with the above said operating cloth which, as we all know, is used by surgeons to place their beloved scalpels.

Who would have thought a place like this existed in Butterworth! I am definitely NOT looking forward to a revisit to this creepy institution for the homeless WITHOUT a camera or a video recorder!

As would be expected in a strange setting like this, the bidding was also somewhat surreal, with exactly one bidder each for ten out of about 45 properties on offer. That means no bidding, just buying, which wasn't much fun.

The event ended without incident. But as we were about to leave, all the lights went out and luminescent gas clouds suddenly invaded the conference room, maiming and suffocating everyone above the age of 20.

Yeah, you got me there.

It was a boring finish so I added that last part. Next time we do an auction at Hotel Berlin, I hope everyone dresses the part - if you know what I mean.

The day ended with us sailing back towards the sunset illuminated Penang island ala romantic movie, where I spent the night watching Seekers, Charmed and A Haunting on NTV7 and Discovery Channel respectively. So I got my supernatural thrills after all.

P.S. After some deliberations, punch-ups, altercations, threats, blackmail, curses, executions, abductions, and a killer chicken, the Triumvirate has decided to use catchier titles for our blog.

Entry Five

2006-03-06T22:03:00.000+08:00

Sautern, I am glad to say, is composed of some very talented youths. I am however probably the exception to this. I am the newest recruit and this is my first post on behalf of this nascent venture, and I am to be Ju Ping's temp when he's off to fulfil his obligation as a Malaysian.

As Ju Ping blogged about in the previous post, I was a part of last week's meeting in Gurney. Today however, the guys decided to conduct our meeting in a traditional coffee shop in Balik Pulau (owing to the fact that Chong Yang and Ju Ping live around that region, making it more convenient). The place was certainly a 180 from the swanky confines of Starbucks (and no WiFi too), nevertheless what it lacks in style and packaging, it more than makes up in charm and quaintness. We literally went over mountain and dale to get to Balik Pulau, and as Tommy commented, we will probably go through more strange routes in the future to accomplish our goals. I figure this figuratively describes what we are trying to accomplish here.

Since we had no WiFi access there, our discussions were basically updates on Sautern (they were mostly filling me in). Possible and imagined problems were also brought to the table and thrashed out. Tommy also gave us some examples of some scenarios and we managed to extract some ideas about what not to do. Some suggestions about the website were worked out with Chong Yang.

The business end over, we went over to Ju Ping's house for a short visit. First appearances doesn't do his abode justice. Upon closer inspection, it revealed a few experiment Ju Ping is working on. Seems like our friend here is quite the mad scientist qith plants. He also showed us his staff collection and gave us a staff twirling demonstration that sent us scrambling for cover. As if a staff is not intimidating enough, he even has a big bad dog, and a black one at that. Ok, it wasn't bad, just big and black, and surprisingly approachable.

As I said though, it was a short visit, and pretty soon Tommy was ferrying me and Chong Yang all the way to the other side of the island in the trusty Myvi (the guy doesn't even mind the oil price increase). My day with the founders of Sautern officially ended with me being dropped off at my place.

Entry Four

2006-03-02T17:59:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, the 28th of February was a historic day, especially for us. Then again, it was a historic day only because of us come to think of it.

Our final task of the two assignments we have taken on was finally completed yesterday, and the 28th was memorable in a lot of ways.

Unlike last week's assignment where our team handled the entire auction event for 3 different property auction houses, it was every man for himself yesterday. Each of the auctioneers had their own methodology of doing things - politely speaking.

Truthfully (as I prefer), it was nothing short of an opportunity to rub it into our client's rival auctioneers gangrenous wounds that our presentation software was classier, cleaner, and (with the airy pretentious voice of a Victorian era courtesan) incomparably sophisticated compared to theirs.

While they are stuck with static, inflexible and ugly PowerPoint slides, which meant the entire auction would depend on the auctioneer's charisma; we showed that the auctioneer need not even be human with FusionCore - as we could easily display the bidding price for the audience and even proclaim the winner's bidding number on screen.

Yes, I concede that is a less than usual anecdote.

Yesterday was a thorough and complete victory for us. Not only did we not so quietly indicated our superiority to the opposition, I finally managed to do an air guitar scene in front of two people - one of them whom I didn't notice until Chong Yang told me I had frightened away one of the early bidders. Ah, The joy of youth.

Before the event was over, the three of us left Dewan Sri Pinang (as our turn was over) and made our way to Palma Housing to print out the auction report for them.

The laptop was hooked up to its charger (this would come to haunt us later) followed by the menial task of report printing using an ancient HP LaserJet printer. After handing over the report to our client, we were pretty much done for the day - except we had two other important activities yesterday; namely two-directional interview with Peter Chong, and last minute shopping for yesterday night's celebration dinner.

As Tommy was attempting to secure a deal with a potential client, we had to postpone Peter's interview by half an hour.

Since me and Chong Yang had time to kill, he opened the source code of FusionCore for some further improvements - namely, picture resizing.

Somehow, I got dragged away into Tommy's car and found myself (for a while) in full control of is car. Until that is - he realised I had never driven an automatic vehicle before.

Yes, it sounds as ridiculous as a worm preferring parched sand over brown earth; but in defence of myself, I have become very much accustomed to clutch control.

So there I stood watching, outside Palma Housing's security-enabled glass door, as Tommy conducted a masterful display of perfect harmony between man and machine - reversing the MyVi between the Honda and the wall.

Joined by Chong Yang, we picked up Peter and conducted the interview at Starbucks - because of the free WiFi.

A lot of stuffed was discussed, and basically, here's what you might see in the coming months:
- Peter substituting me as Sautern's blog updater and English columnist;
- Peter become Sautern's Chief Marketing Officer;
- Peter finally becoming a millionaire.

We dropped Peter of at Batu Kawan Stadium at about five yesterday. He explained he was there to give moral support to his younger brother who was running in the 4 x 400 Relay.

After saying our goodbyes, we made a u-turn back to Gurney because there were still a few hours before dinner for us to spend.

The Apple Center was one of a few places we did what I presumed to be window-shopping. There, I finally had my first real iMac experience - and as they say - there is no turning back.

I solemnly swear I will never use Windows again in any future computer I might purchase.

Wading through shops selling mobile phones, card games, figurines, and such, the triumvirs finally settled down at MPH - which was where we spent the remaining hour before dinnertime.

There, Chong Yang as always, looked through thick programming manuals, Tommy browse through the business and self-help section, while I salivated over The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that was retailing for only RM 59.00. This would be expensive under normal circumstances - but seeing as it was being sold at RM 159.00 a few months ago.

After the literature sojourn, we continued our hunt for the elusive mozzarella cheese block.

The signs weren't good however, when we found our cheese, but passed a line of patrons lining up in front of one of three hole-in-the-walls. The other two were out of service.

Seeing as we had ran out of funds for our cheese and a last minute addition of Campbell's Mushroom Soup, we reluctantly climbed back into the car, zipped through traffic, and withdrew cash directly from Maybank, before the now ingrained trip back to the cheese section of Gurney.

Dinner at Tommy's.

Skipping all the trivial parts, the three of us basically made aromatic spiced-up oven cooked lamb chops and hot and appetizing pasta filled mushroom endowed lasagne in a kitchen measuring one metre at its widest.

But it was cool.

Hey, how many of you out there have actually attempted to prepare a RM 500.00 five-star dinner out there?
We also found out that Tommy once worked in a French restaurant under a genuine French chef - who incidentally, once prepared cuisines for presidents and prime ministers.

Dinner ended with 10-year-old red wine (which was too bitter for this ones taste) and a glass of fresh milk.

After dinner, a minor problem threatened to foul up our night.

Apparently, we managed to somehow leave behind our laptops battery charger at Palma Housing - thus explaining the great regret above.

However, I have since been notified earlier on the 2nd of March that the charger was right there on the table where Chong Yang had set up the laptop for some last minute work.

Must be that darn red wine.

NOTE: Due to technical issues (for further details, check out this coming week's edition of A Stray World) publication of this entry was postponed by 24 hours. Any complaints or deaths as a result of the tardiness of this entry is sincerely regretted.

Minor Update: Sautern's main site is online.

Third Entry

2006-02-25T16:39:00.000+08:00

Welcome one, welcome all! Sautern Enterprise has successfully completed its first assignment for at a property auctioning event this morning!

What are we doing now to celebrate our success? Well, Tommy and Chong Yang are asleep right now while I am updating this blog.

The reason for their impromptu siesta is due to the little known fact by anyone outside of the triumvirate that both of them only slept for two hours yesterday (technically it was 0600 hours today) trying to weed out all the bugs and complete our company's auctioning presentation program. Yup, both of them stayed up all through the morning while I enjoyed a good 6 hour rest... How unfair is that?

Seriously, I really do feel like I contribute the least of all out of the triumvirs.

Which is why I am updating this blog today, I suppose.

Anyway this was how I started the day:

I woke up at six and made my way to the company headquarters - Tommy's home. By coincidence, his mom was sending his sister to school so I walked right through the opening vacated by the gate. Unfortunately, the inner sanctum of the fortress was locked, so I stood there by the door giving embarrassing looks to Mrs Ooi and Miss Ooi until the latter summoned the maid to open the door.

I made my way to the hall outside Tommy's room and proceeded to alert him of my presence - by phone. What I said was: "Hello Tommy, I am at your door."

He however thought I was at the door outside his home, not his room - which he explained later.

After some time, we decided it was time to awaken Chong Yang too, fifteen minutes before our assignment begins at 9 a.m.

Here's the lowdown on what happened.

As soon as we got there, Chong Yang proceeded to weed out more bugs using the laptop. Attached the sound system the hotel staff kindly provided, and assigned our posts of the day.

Acquiring the Native American name:
The-One-Who Did-Not-Join-The-Other-Two-In-Working-All-Night-Long,

I self appointed myself to the post of soundman while the other two manned the laptop, hence, the auctioning program.

There I spent all morning, balancing out the background music with the auctioneer's microphone... Occasionally walking close to the auctioneer to remind him to state the bidder number as our program requires a bidder number to display the sold message - as the auctioneer requested.

After the long-drawn event, we printed a few hundred reports that were to be given to the auctioneers and bankers. We then tucked into a sumptuous lunch paid for by Mrs Ooi at a not so nearby restaurant.

Before you know it - Presto! We are back at headquarters.

All in all, it was a good day for us as nobody in Penang had ever used a dedicated auctioning software before. Naturally, we hope the Malaysian kiasu attitude among other auctioneers will surface soon...

UPDATE: I wish to apologize for leaving out the name of the hotel we went to, which was Cititel Hotel. Any misunderstanding as a result of this lapse in concentration is deeply regretted.

Entry Two

2006-02-22T17:51:00.000+08:00

So this is what it feels like to have your own start-up company. The dreams, visions as well as the uncertainties all mixed into a great cornucopia called doing business. If our school results are anything to go by, we certainly have the greatest chance of success because we are the classic businessmen (at least, two of us). I hate physics, additional mathematics and chemistry (failure rate exceeding success rate) while the other two guys of the triumvirate aren't as keen as I am to make a fool of myself.

Nevertheless, I can only say it is an honour nearly unparalleled in my universe that Tommy Ooi (founding member, marketing man) would choose me, eccentric and extreme atheist, Ju Ping (Jon Stewart wannabe) as his business partner. Together with the very gifted Chong Yang (computer wizard, highest possible level in geek speak), complete a troika of one of possibly seven business partnerships in the world where a smooth-talking egocentric but generous and charitable realtor contacts the only known atheist in Chung Ling who grows bonsais as a hobby and wishes to retire poor who in turn calls up quite possibly the most gifted computer wizard Chung Ling has seen in five generations with a reputation (not without good reason) for creating the most elegant programs and websites anyone has ever seen or expected from a high school graduate.

For those who just wish to ignore the human aspect of the company and get to the fuddle duddle business we do, start reading from paragraph four.

First and foremost, we are an advertising company for property dealers. Our online presence is at Sautern.com.my which we hope to develop into the number one property kiosk in Malaysia. In other words, we hope Sautern becomes synonymous with buying your dream home.

Our secondary business is selling a property auctioning program that also doubles as a simplistic property database manager.

Our tertiary business is website publishing and software customising.

However, to reach even the first goal, we had to register our company first. The reason is any company wishing to use the .com.my suffix has to be a Malaysian registered company first. This is where I take you on a trip across the Penang Bridge to Butterworth with fellow triumvir Tommy. And please, I beg of you, try to use your imagination to visualise the trip instead of requesting a video or podcast of my journey.

The day started with me waiting outside the Hotel Equatorial. I was feeling especially tired... after watching the Torino Winter Games till early morning the night before, I guess anyone would.

Tommy picked me up and we made our way to the jetty, where we took a free trip across the channel on a ferry. Yes, you read that right! A free trip from Penang Island to Butterworth. It turns out they only charge for the trip from Butterworth to Penang.

Using a few clues given to us by our respective acquaintances, namely: we should make our way to the Registrar of Business; it is near the EPF building; and we should see it immediately after the ferry docks; we made our way to the largest building in sight after leaving the Butterworth side dock.

As soon as we got there, imagine, if you can, the extreme shock we felt when we saw the Registrar of Business everyone was referring to was a conservatively dressed lady sitting behind a creaky old wooden desk that was plastered with words like “Company Registration” and the like right on the sidewalk of the building.

It turns out they were referring to agents (which were very abundant in Butterworth).

For a starting fee of only RM 130.00, she promised to help register our company. Naturally, we declined her generous offer, and asked for directions to the Registrar of Business. Luckily for us, she wasn’t one of those vindictive types who turn into Mr. Hyde when they lose potential clients and gave us directions to the building. So, thank you lady on the sidewalk..

Throughout Butterworth, we observed that the road was quite unforgiving. One wrong turn, and you would find yourself in Kuala Lumpur, or Kulim. To prevent this potentially disastrous event, we asked for directions from everyone we met.

They include: Guy behind the counter in Shell; Girl behind counter in McDonalds; and my driving instructor.

Say what? Your driving instructor!

Yup, somehow, my diving instructor who lecture me on the Undang-undang, was on holiday on that very day, had returned home, and was on the sidewalk of a shoplot was available for inquiries regarding the roads of Butterworth while I was there to register a business and had took a wrong turn.

Please, can anyone calculate the possibility of that happening on that very day?

Anyway, we got the directions and made our way to the EPF building; where we saw to our amusement, special agents, peppering the pavements around the said building. Yup, we saw Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Ignoring them altogether, we made our way into the building where we took several detours before finding the right level – Level 6.

There, we met a vivacious young woman who helped us through the registration process. As if this weren’t strange enough, she turned out to be an agent. Whether it was our boyish innocence or our charm (I highly doubt it), she guided us through the entire process.

Here’s the précis of the process:

Choose a company name;
After approval, fill in the A Form;
There, we swore (after paying RM 10.00);
After that, we had lunch (beef turned out to be cheaper than chicken);
Then we passed in the form for approval and paid RM 70.00;
We then received a receipt and promptly went home.

Hopefully, we will become the proud owners of Sautern Enterprise sometime this week.

For now,

Live Long & Prosper,

May the Force be with You.

First Entry

2006-02-19T17:01:00.000+08:00

Just to show we are on the map. Expect further updates.