ABAH

My beloved father, Norhalim Bin Haji Ibrahim, passed away on September 4, 2008 at 5:45 PM.

"May you shelter in the palm of the Creator's hand, and may the last embrace of the mother welcome you home." Al-Fatihah.

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Job Vacancies at Covalent Technology

Covalent Technology is hiring. Our new projects, God willing, will commence in July and August. QUALIFIED candidates ONLY (Non-Malaysians will NOT be entertained) can apply by sending resume / CV to career@covalent-tech.com. Please clearly state the job position that you're applying.

Business Development Executive (Junior)

Responsibilites:

• To assist in performing and compiling business requirements studies (BRS) of the existing clients - attending meetings and providing follow-ups & feedbacks
• To assist in generating product documentations and help files
• To assist in providing training to the existing clients
• To assist in promoting/marketing of Covalentia, other products and getting new businesses

Requirements:

• Candidate must possess at least a Bachelor's Degree, Post Graduate Diploma or Professional Degree in any field
• Required skill(s): Good public relation, communication, critical thinking
• Preferred skill(s): Knowledge in IT, Software Requirements Study
• Required language(s): English, Bahasa Malaysia
• Passionate, positive, creative and innovative
  
• Able to work independently and interact well with all level of people
• Well organized, self-motivated and results oriented
• At least 1 year(s) of working experience in the related field is required for this position
• Applicants must be willing to work in Klang Valley
• Applicants MUST be Malaysian citizens
• Fresh Graduates / Junior Executives specializing in IT/Computer - Software or equivalent are encouraged to apply
• Full-Time and Contract position available - 6-month to 1-year Contract (3 months probation)

C# Web Programmer (Junior)

Responsibilities:

• To assist in project development using Covalentia (www.covalentia.net)
• To assist in servicing our clients (may be located on-site at clients' places in Klang Valley) and to implement changes in design and coding using Covalentia (www.covalentia.net) and provide technical expertise
• To develop new products using Covalentia (www.covalentia.net)

Requirements:

• Candidate must possess at least a Bachelor's Degree, Post Graduate Diploma or Professional Degree in Engineering (Computer/Telecommunication), Computer Science/Information Technology or equivalent
• Very good knowledge of C# language is a MUST
• Required skill(s): C#, ASP.NET, RDBMS (MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, IBM DB2)
• Preferred skill(s): AJAX, VB.NET, Mono, Linux Platform
  
• Required language(s): English, Bahasa Malaysia
• Passionate, positive, creative and innovative
• At least 1 year(s) of working experience in the related field is required for this position
• Applicants must be willing to work in Klang Valley
• Applicants must be willing to learn and use our platform - Covalentia (www.covalentia.net)
• Applicants MUST be Malaysian citizens
• Fresh Graduates / Junior Executives specializing in IT/Computer - Software or equivalent are encouraged to apply
• Full-Time and Contract position available - 6-month to 1-year Contract (3 months probation)

Short-listed candidates will be called for interviews. Should you have any question, feel free to us at career@covalent-tech.com.

WAR On DAPATism

Today I declare a WAR on DAPAT (www.dapat.com). Three or four months ago, we participated and helped DAPAT to prepare proposals / tender documents for a government project (SMS Gateway & Applications) under MAMPU (www.mampu.gov.my). Then, they won the contract and threw a big party without inviting us. I only knew about this party from one of my advisors. But, we’re cool with it. Then, they excitingly invited us for a meeting to discuss on how they should go about the project – the architecture, implementation, maintenance etc. Well, fine, being a good provider, we provided them with everything. And after all that, finally, they ditched us – telling us (after so many phone calls & SMS went unanswered for two or three days) that the price that we quoted is too expensive. They’re thinking about hiring people and doing it themselves.

If our price were too high (which I do not think so for some 50 customized solutions to be implemented at 50 government agencies), they could at least come back to us and say so, and negotiate. It’s not like the price is fixed for god’s sake. But, no, they are arrogant and they simply forget everything that we’ve done for them. I say, I don’t think they’d manage to successfully complete the tender document without us.

So, I believe that I have the right to declare a war on them, a war on these greedy bastards with UMNO attitudes – seduced us, fucked and impregnated us and then ditched and left us by the road-side. “Hey, you’re good to fuck, but I won’t spend a single cent on you”. Excuse me, even prostitutes get paid. So, next time, I assure you, we’ll act like one. Show us your money before you fuck us. Oh, and please leave the money on the desk immediately after, and not 14 days or 30 days after.

Okay, let’s do the simple math. Let’s say you really want to do it yourself by hiring “more” people. That’s your exact words. Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, you hire 3 programmers – that’s the minimum number you need to finish the job on time. One experienced programmer to lead the team would cost you around RM 6,000 per month. So, plus the EPF etc, let’s just multiply that figure with 125% (25% being the salary burden, claims, medical etc) and you’ll get RM 7,500 per month. The others could be intermediate programmers with 2 to 3-year experience which would cost you around RM 3,000 per month. Again, multiply that figure with 125% and you’ll get RM 3,750 per month per person. So, the cost of two programmers sums up to RM 7,500. Now, the total will be: RM 7,500 + RM 7,500 = RM 15,000 per month. The project duration is 12 months, so we’ll get: RM 15,000 per month x 12 months = RM 180,000.

Bear in mind that this is only a rough estimate. Normally, the cost would be slightly higher, especially if you hire “more” people.

If they come back to us and negotiate for RM 150,000 or so, I would gladly start the development immediately. Oh, I forgot to mention that they have to come up with 50 standard applications (without customizations) by June 24, 2008, which is a month from now.

In any event, I wish them luck and go fuck yourself.

Malaysia Today

Last week I had the opportunity to meet the legendary Raja Petra Kamarudin (aka Pete / RPK) of Malaysia-Today.Net at our office in Phileo Damansara. I was so excited that I forgot to give him my business card. I mean, RPK man! I’m one of his many fans, so addicted to his site that sometime I spent more time reading than doing work. I know so many people out there who’d want to meet this man in person but could only see him from afar when he gave out speeches at talks or political events.

Anyways, the objective of this meeting was to figure out how to enhance the site which clocks a few million hits every day and make some money out of it. We realize that not many people would want to advertise in his site due to his outspokenness and anti-government nature. Fear is a factor. But, my partner, Philip Lee still believes that he could somehow make it work, ie. make some money from advertisements, and he already managed to convince certain people. Well, maybe we can pull this off and my job now is to come up with a mock-up. Let’s just see how it goes eh? ;)

On Covalentia, we have to delay the next release, Version 2.6 due to lack of resources. We’re working on our Enterprise Business Solution (EBS) at the moment and also upgrading TD Aziz Valuation Management System (VMS). But, in any event, we’ll try to do it before the end of May 2008.

Oh, by the way, I’ve moved my blog site to cozta.blogspot.com for a very simple reason: Microsoft’s Spaces.Live.com doesn’t allow Google Adsense and I want to make some money from Google Adsense. So, what the heck. It’s your lost Microsoft ;)

Death Comes To Us All

The person who inspired me is dead. James Oliver Rigney, Jr. (Robert Jordan) left us on September 16, 2007 and I've not been writing since. The Dragon is gone, but life has to go on I suppose. Oh well. To Robert Jordan, "May you shelter in the palm of the Creator's hand, and may the last embrace of the mother welcome you home."

Now, let's get back to business. For the past few months, we, at Covalent Technology, have been struggling to meet deadlines and looking for new contracts:

• PetroProjek - Enterprise Business Solution (EBS)
  This marks our first entry into oil & gas industry. Originally, we played around with Compiere, ADempiere & OpenBravo and decided to customize one these open-source ERP solutions to meet PetroProjek's requirements. However, after 2 months, we realized that they are full of bugs and unreliable, and since we're no Java experts, we've decided to abandon all of them. We don't want to take any risk and run into trouble later in the development or deployment phase. As a result, we'll be using Covalentia instead to develop PetroProjek's Enterprise Business Solution.
  
  
• Covalentia Version 2.6
  Covalentia Version 2.6 is in progress. We've delayed/postponed the release date due to lack of resources. In addition, we're also waiting for the next release of Mono so that Covalentia can be deployed on Windows & Linux platforms easily without having to change so many things. We've scrapped Gaia and fully utilize Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax instead regardless of whatever platform Covalentia will be running on.
  
  
• TD Aziz VMS Upgrade
  TD Aziz has finally agreed to upgrade its Valuation Management System (VMS) that we developed back in 2004/2005 to our latest platform, Covalentia Version 2.6. We're slowly migrating the entire application and targeting everything to be ready by May 2008.
  
  
• MOCCIS & Cagamodal - Enterprise Loan Management System
  This is another work in progress. The solution is ~70% completed and we're waiting for the clients to execute the User Acceptance Test (UAT) before proceeding to the next phase to refine the existing modules and adding reports and financial modules.
  
  
• Asia Move Machine - ProperTrack.com Portal & Support System
  On behalf of our client, we're pleased to announce the release of ProperTrack.com portal. Feel free to visit and use the services provided.
  
  
• InnoFund
  This is going no where. We've completed our part by successfully reaching 3/5 of the milestones, but the government fails to do their part, which is the most important part - to release the rest of money to us so that we can continue developing Covalentia. It's a terrible thing to stop half way. What if I hired more people assuming that the money would come in? Well, luckily I didn't. So, never believe whatever that the government say. They are just unreliable. May be it's time to change the government. They don't deserve free salary.

That's pretty much what I've to say this time around. Later.