Erwin’s Blog

Quoted from http://visualcpp.net/index.php?qID=16

• Using initialization list you can init non-static class members before constructor is called.

• Order of class members initialization is the same as the order of their declaration. Order of members in initialisation list has no effect.

• Prefer initialization list for assignment in the class constructor.

• Never declare class members as a public. Use member functions to access members, that gives more flexibility, more control. Less headache.

• If member function does not change class members, declare it as a const.

• Using the inheritance do not forget about virtual destructor.

• You can use static variable inside of function call. It will be initialized once (with your init value or with zero(s) by default) the function is called first time and the line of code of that value initalization is reached. For class variable a constructor will be called at this point. The value will not be reassigned each time the function is being called.

• There is no guaranteed order of initialization of global variables.

• Using std::map template be aware: doing a lookup with [] operator is not safe. If the key does not exist, a new entry for the key will be created with a mapped value by default for mapped type. No exception will be thrown. Use find() instead to handle such a case properly.

Big Dinner with Fried Rice

Fish for lunch, Kangkung for Dinner…

Something new in the lunch menu… Fried Tilapia (fresh water) fish…

Here goes my lunch box menu…

First Dish: Crab sticks (again?)

Second Dish: French Fries

Third Dish: Fried Sausage

Fourth Dish: Stir-fried cucumber with Egg

That is all for today’s lunch box!

Just a short blog…

Have a look at one of my simple dinner menu.

First dish: Brocolli with Carrot & Tomatoes.

Second dish: Fried Egg, Prawns and Crab Sticks.

Side dish: Prawn crackers and French Fries.

Note: Looks delicious? Honestly, they don’t taste as good as they look. ;-p

Any comments are welcomed. More dinner menu and/or lunch box menu may be available in the near future (depending on how well the dishes looks :-D)

STORIES - The Mouse Trap (Adapted from "A Slice of Life")

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it." The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers." The mouse turned to the cow and said "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose." So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house - like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral; the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. The next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember - when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage and help one another.

http://www.zodiacal.com/acro.mv

So much is said in my name analysis with regards to love… Yet, my other half, where are you??

Besides that, guess what is said about me in the analysis is pretty true.

NAME ANALYSIS FOR: Erwin Liong

Erwin:

:

Liong:

You are fair-minded sometimes to the point of being opinionated. You have a strong need to be loved and appreciated. You need to learn to give and receive love for love’s sake. You have a need to be assured of affection. You have a great deal of loyalty to those you love. You have much inner strength. You must learn to give ‘wise’ service and not be a martyr. You are a hard worker when you make up your mind to do a job.

You have a need to communicate and express yourself. You are inclined to over intellectualize, and hate to be misquoted. You enjoy a challenge. You can take thought-directed actions. You have high aspirations and a cheery disposition. You are relatively demonstrative in your affections. You enjoy being stroked verbally and physically. You can handle details well. You have a methodical mind.

In life, there are always two sides to a coin. Head or tail, it all depends on your preference. Why am I bragging about this nonsense? The reason will lies with this blog posting.

This article one is an excerpt from Channel NewsAsia dated 30th March 2006. To summarise it, it mainly outlines the new Rockwell Automation manufacturing plant in May in Singapore. So, what about it?, you may ask. My answer will be, most likely, I will be joining the projected 400 workforce coming July. In the article, it just merely mentions that the amount invested is substantial. Sure it is, newcomers will be sent to US for a year training. Wouldnt this be a very good deal?? Read on the other side of the coin in article two.

The other side of the coin would be the two-year bond period I would have to serve after enjoying all those 1 year of honeymoon period in US. Well, this shouldnt be that bad after all. Lets just hope for better tomorrow. The second minus point would be what is underlined in the second article. With the expansion in Singapore, there will be a cutoff in Cleaveland, US. Meanwhile, my training will be based in Cleaveland. I am just hoping that there will not be any discontentment towards the newcomers. Again, lets pray for the better tomorrow. Above all, I am just hoping that my negotiation of contract will work out well and work out soon. Rockwell Automation’s HR department, please….

Article One:

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 30 March 2006 1640 hrs

Rockwell Automation sets up world HQ in Singapore
By Johnson Choo, Channel NewsAsia

Rockwell Automation has made Singapore the world headquarters for part of its global operations that focus on certain product range and services.

The Rockwell Automation Asia Pacific Business Center will begin operations in May this year and will eventually employ more than 400 staff.

The company is hoping that the move will help boost earnings from its operations outside of North America.

Rockwell Automation, one of the world’s leading automation solutions providers, is an S$8.1 billion US-listed company.

While it does not reveal the amount it is investing in the Singapore centre, Rockwell says it is substantial.

Rockwell is targeting to boost earnings from its operations outside of North America from the current 40 percent to half by 2009.

Its Senior Vice President for Automation Control and Information Group, Steve Eisenbrown, said: "There’re significant differences in what our customers want from our products and our capabilities in different parts of the world. If we don’t have people developing products local to our customers, it doesn’t land in product functionality. You can’t just visit and capture it. We have to be living daily with our customers’ needs, and that starts with the engineering and research side to ensure that we’re building that into our product for the future."

But it’s not just a simple case of transferring staff from its North American operations to the new world headquarters in Singapore.

Rockwell Automation’s Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific Business Center, David Johnson, said: "Many of the people will come from Singapore in both the engineering profession as well as some of the non-technical, and part of the reason we’re doing that is that the region represents great talent prospects and we found excellent prospects in the university settings, the polytechnics as well as the other companies in the region. It’s a big part of our strategy and I think it’s going to pay off handsomely."

Rockwell has similar but smaller business centres set up in South Korea, Shanghai and India that cater to specific local industries.

The Economic Development Board says that with Rockwell Automation joining a host of other manufacturers like Honeywell and Omron, it will definitely add to Singapore’s standing as a controls and automation hub in Asia Pacific. - CNA/ir

Article Two:

Rockwell makes push in Asia

Company opens business center in Singapore

By JOHN SCHMID
jschmid@journalsentinel.com

Posted: March 30, 2006

Rockwell Automation Inc., a globally active factory automation company, announced plans to double its sales across Asia within three years, as it opened the doors to an Asia-Pacific Business Center in Singapore on Thursday.

Asian sales in 2005 for the Milwaukee company were $483 million, or about 10% of the Rockwell group’s total. Rockwell wants Asia to account for 20% of worldwide revenue by 2009, spokesman Matthew Gonring said.

The move belongs to Rockwell’s ambitions to draw more than half its yearly sales from outside North America within the next three years, from 40% now, Gonring said.

The company’s long-standing corporate center in Hong Kong is to remain its official Asian executive headquarters. But the center in Singapore is to become the main Asian locus for research and development, engineering, support and marketing.

Rockwell selected Singapore in part because it has an established American-style legal system that protects copyrights and intellectual property, Gonring said. That gave Singapore an advantage over Hong Kong, which shifted from British control to the mainland Chinese Communist government in 1997.

China is known for its flagrant disregard of Western patents and trademarks.

Singapore also has an educated work force and a business-friendly government, the company said.

The center will employ about 400, the company said.

In an account from Singapore of the ceremonial opening of the center, Bloomberg News quoted a Rockwell official as saying that the Singapore office might lead to job cuts at Rockwell operations in Milwaukee and Cleveland.

Gonring, who spoke in a telephone interview from Milwaukee, called the quote misleading.

"That’s not fair," he said.

Gonring noted that the economies of Asia are among the fastest-growing in the world.

"It’s not about taking jobs from one place to another; it’s about growth in Asia," he said.