Its time to continue...

Life has been really busy for me and I continued to work hard but then I have been getting a bit lazy. Ever since I have settled down my job, I tried to nudge but with all my busy schedule on my usual sports regime. I started moving away from my blog. I got to know someone as well in April and my time for the personal projects has shortened.

Ever since I went on neglecting my personal work until one fine day I bumped into this video by TechLead. Watching his videos gave me so much inspiration and motivation to continue where I have stopped. I would strongly recommend to anyone who needs inspiration and lives your life to the fullest!

Datetime conversion from Oracle to MSSQL problem in SSIS

One day I had a problem encountering some problem within SSIS using Datetime conversion especially when passing parameters from one flow to another.

One of the problem which intrigues me that this date time issue when I tries to input


It ran fine on my Evaluate Expression but when I ran my SSIS it came out this problem.

Error: The data types "DT_WSTR" and "DT_DATE" are incompatible for binary operator "+". The operand types could not be implicitly cast into compatible types for the operation. To perform this operation, one or both operands need to be explicitly cast with a cast operator.

What I did is to change my length to 50 and my variable to pass in as DateTime and everything ran successful.

The DateTime issue will encounter quite common on dealing with databases especially when you are handling different data sources. My advice will be always pass as DateTime rather than convert into string unless you absolutely have to. (eg. showing on UI)

My Dream Desk Setup for 2018!

Today is Chinese New Year Eve, I decided to tidy up my desk which I usually work most of my personal projects.

My dream desk setup is pretty simple. I want to keep it simple ergonomic and fun to stay long enough for me to enjoy my stuff.

So I bought my ultimate ergonomic desk the moment I move into my new place.

Everything looks great but... I was having some problem with the cable management problem.

Cables are so messy and my vacuum robot has some issue entering this area.

I was afraid that my vacuum robot might tangle the wire one day, I decided to do something about it.

So there are 2 problems here.

- Messy cables lying around.

- The Belkin surge protectors Power Strip that I bought took up that much space.

So I went online bought cable management, cable box, and cables ties to organize the cables.

Here you can see that I use my cable ties to tie up the power strip against the desk so that it won't take up space on the floor which makes it perfect for my vacuum robot to pass through the area.

The cable organizer helps me to make the cable looks less messy

For those remaining long cables will be stored in the cable management box.

Here is the end result.

One of the main reason I got this desk is that I can use it as a standing desk most of the time. It has 4 memory storage so that you do not have to figure out what was your configuration for sitting and standing height.

Beautiful isn't it?

Watch it in action!

Free private Git Repository from Microsoft

You can't get better than this.
Microsoft is now providing unlimited free git hosting.
First 5 users are free with every additional users are $6 per month!

https://www.visualstudio.com/team-services/git/free-private-git-repo/

First Giant Robot show for the first time in History

First ever Giant Robot fight in history! It seems that the Japanese robot looks nicer than the Americans ones. As a robot fan, I would definitely watch it tonight! Reminds me of Pacific Rims and part 2 which will be showing in cinema soon. I am not sure if I would still be alive to see robots which will have super fast actuator like Gundam in future.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer finally out!

The trailer is finally out but it seems that there is a major spoiler that is quite obvious in it. Don't watch if you can, it's only less than 2 months away. btw, Luke finally talks.

Mysterious Life of Developers

That pretty sums up most of the 3 different types of developers. :/ I used to be the one drinking coke. lol.

Practical VFX from GOT

Game of Throne is no doubt one of the best English drama I ever watched. Love, War, and Politics, you name it. How amazing Visual effects aka VFX has become so natural that when you are watching, you cannot differentiate between CGI and real people. It's so impressive that I have to post the video for sharing.



Original Source Here

The human walking notebook.

A 2-time memory world champion, Yanjaa Wintersoul. (What a cool name btw!) Born in Mongolia, and raised in Stockholm, Kenya and Tokyo. She was recently invited by Ikea to face a series of campaigns in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. She will need to study and memorised on every page of the Ikea catalogue book. 

Project Home Automation - Thought process - Part 1

Last year I have been so busy with working and planning for my new home and decided that I should plan on working on home automation. The earliest video which I encounter that triggers me to work on automation was this video.



Back then it was so cool that I have a lot of inspiration and thoughts on this. Somehow, along the way, when I try to think of the thought process, I realised that home automation is are cool but are they practical?

I started out experimenting stuff by doing it manually and see why automation is needed and why some are not. I need to plan carefully to be smart home ready before my renovation completed, I will not expect any wires to run around my house to fit into the automation plan.

There are also a lot of ideas and things I wanted to do and since I am revamping my whole house I should start thinking about these few items for a start.

Fundamental of Automation
There are 3 components that make up the Automation

• Controllers, making an intent to trigger an event
• Sensors, to react on system states
• Actuators, the mechanics that output the result of the finished state

Automation Action
2 basic principles to think about.

• Reactive, when you need to switch on and off something, you need to act on a command so that it sends a signal to the device to act on it effortlessly.
• Proactive or events, scheduled action that will be acted upon automatically and effortlessly.

Lights
The basic needs for every home automation if you cannot even control your lights, you can forget about automation. In smart lighting automation world, there are a few things that you need to plan before committing.

• Should you control your light from the bulbs or should you control from the switch?
• How should you run your wires? Is there different between a normal wiring and automation wiring?
• Did you do any research that what kind of communication to use? Zigbee? Zwave? Wifi?

Fan and Airconditioning
Fans and Aircon are the 2nd most touched on for automation. In the current market, not a lot of these devices are smart. Most of these device's sensors are using infrared devices. A hard one to picked on.

Securities
This one is optional but useful to have it. I only have 2 ideas on it. Planting surveillance camera and door lock. For the camera, I have no idea which will be better for me and I am not going to drill a hold on my door just for this one. I probably will place in my living room pointing towards the main door. As for the door lock, I will check if there are any APIs which I can work on to connect back to my main controller. This will be my roadmap.

Reminder
It will be cool to have this feature but not too annoying, I will probably take note of it and ran some experiment.

Information
It should have weather reports, bus status and probably my stats. So far I think room temperature is a gimmick which I don't think I will put that in my plan.

In my next few posts, I will be explaining the reasons how did I conclude my decisions and my selections for each of the thought process which I have mentioned above.

To end this post, remember this point, Automation is to help you to improve your life quality and not making you lazier.