spoonfork

If you don't have any savings, that is. I've been jobless for the past seven months, and it has been an interesting pahit-manis experience for me. I am not sure how long I will stay jobless, but heck, if I have the choice, I will just sit down and do nothing. So here's how I prepared myself and survived through these past seven months:

1. Explain your position clearly, especially to your family, on what you are trying to do. In my case, I bought my mom a car, two months before I quit my job. Their concern - how am I going to pay for the car if I don't have a steady income. So I just told them that I will pay for the car, month after month, as I have my ways to find income.
   
   
2. Manage your finance wisely. Best of all, let someone you trust do the money management. I can't trust myself to handle my own income. And, don't keep credit cards.
   
   
3. If you are freelancing, just like I am, insist on 50% prepayment for any freelance work that you do. I've had enough where payments are made way back.
   
   
4. Be disciplined. There are times I used to wake up at 11 a.m. Bad.
   
   
5. Do stimulating stuff. Not interacting with people is the worst thing that you'll experience. There were times when my brain weren't as sharp as it used to be. When you are working on your own, you are only facing your own set of problems. But when you are working in an office environment, you are facing a different set of problems. These make you alert, focused and sharp. But not when you are on your own. So do thing stimulating - get a new hobby, start an Open Source projets, etc.
   
   
6. Volunteer. In community projects, etc. I was involved in HITBSecConf2003. Worth the experience. After all, when you are working full-time, you don't really have the time to volunteer, right?
   
   
7. Patient. Patient is important. And so does mental strength. My spoonlab is not air-conditioned - it is tough to do concentrate amidst the heat and humidity, but whatever it is, muscle through it and you'll survive.

Well, hope that helps. And of course, having people that support you really ease the burden a lot.



Listening to: Junkie XL feat. Gary Numan - Surreal

Just so you know, PPS feed is available at Gathani.

"waaaaaaasssshaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!"

eleh.... tak sakit pon.. tak sakit pon...





Listening to: Eminem - Let's Get Down to Business

I will be speaking at APIIT TPM tomorrow, for the APIIT Open Source Day. The events will include seminars, exhibition and install-fest. There will be Open Source CDs for sale as well, such as Open Office, Fedora, etc etc. Dr. Nah, Imran William Smith (MIMOS), Dr. D, Khairil (Inigo-Tech), Colin "ByteBot" Charles, and Afrezal Tahrin (MIMOS) will be there.



The following are the speakers lists. I will be representing My-Snort, and talking about IDS (Intrusion Detection System).



Introduction and history of FOSS - Nah Soo Hoe

Open Source - Benefits for Developing Economy & Business - Imran William Smith

FOSS in Education - Afrezal

Elegant Solutions to (Seemingly) Complex problems with Unix/OSS. - Kahiril Yusof

FOSS in Infrastructure & Security - Dinesh Nair

Open Source Intrusion Detection System and Demo - Meling Mudin

Open Source Productivity Suite - Colin Charles



For my presentation, I'll be covering Snort, Prelude, Shoki, and several Honeypot systems such as HoneyD, DTK and Sebek.



See you guys there!