Why isn't Singapore govt giving local developers a chance?

Sent the following letter to Reach Singapore and Today Online in hope that it can make a difference, though I doubt I would even get a proper response...

Dear Reach and Today,

I am writing in review of the blog post "NDP Website an Embarrassment" by Lai Zit Seng.

It is disappointing to learn that the government, in order to save cost, has resorted to letting a third world country to work on something that Singaporeans should be proud of working on. Outsourcing should only be done by private companies but it is a shame that our own public sector has no loyalty to Singaporeans.

It is no wonder that software developers and engineers have pay that do not reflect their value here and are either leaving or not entering into computing related fields. Even our own government is not valuing local IT people and giving its citizens a chance to develop.

Furthermore, the website owners do not even bother to conduct audits and checks to ensure that the website has no potential security and information leak risks. The programming does not adhere to the latest web development standard too. It really does not bode well for Singapore's reputation of having high standards in work.

Hopefully the personnel involved in future public projects does not made such an embarrassment again.

YouTube playlist no longer sortable automatically...

and this is making it very difficult to create or modify a playlist by the number of views or title alphabetically, especially when the playlist contains a large number of videos.

So I am limiting my music video playlist to 30 videos (one for each day of a month) and embedded it in the right panel of this blog.

Feel free to suggest videos to add or remove from the playlist. I want visitors to my blog to enjoy good songs :)

[Update (3 June): The playlist settings now has an option to sort!]

金莎 － 画中仙

我太喜欢这首歌的词曲了！

我怎么舍得看不见
那一张清秀完美的脸
雨点掉落下来 打湿整个屋檐
你淋湿站在我左边
你美的像幅泼墨画中的仙
我靠近递你一张手绢
你突然的笑了 道谢说得腼腆
骤雨停了 你就这样越走越远
青石板的马路边 那离别似空间
勾起我不断对你的思念
倘若雨势再蔓延
能再多看你几眼
现唯借手绢吻你的脸
泪水划过我唇边
笔墨挥洒宣纸砚
刻画出对你无尽的思念
如果还能在雨天遇见
可否能邀画中的仙 赏花儿月圆

你美的像幅泼墨画中的仙
我靠近递你一张手绢
你突然的笑了 道谢说得腼腆
骤雨停了 你就这样越走越远
青石板的马路边 那离别似空间
勾起我不断对你的思念
倘若雨势再蔓延
能再多看你几眼
现唯借手绢吻你的脸
泪水划过我唇边
笔墨挥洒宣纸砚
刻画出对你无尽的思念
如果还能在雨天遇见
可否能邀画中的仙 赏花儿月圆
青石板的马路边 那离别似空间
勾起我不断对你的思念
倘若雨势再蔓延
能再多看你几眼
现唯借手绢吻你的脸
泪水划过我唇边
笔墨挥洒宣纸砚
刻画出对你无尽的思念
如果还能在雨天遇见
可否能邀画中的仙 赏花儿月圆

Amazon.com

Just had a phone interview and a programming Q&A via collabedit with a software development engineer from Amazon this morning. I haven't really been dealing with algorithms and data structures for quite some time as programming nowadays rely a lot more of libraries and googling for best solutions. So I am not pinning much hope on my performance impressing any interviewer. Should I be worried as I may not secure a job if my current carefree freelancing lifestyle doesn't work out?

Anyway, out of curiosity, I decided to check what I had bought on Amazon since I signed up. To my surprise, I managed to buy one and just one item each year for the past seven years, since 2007. Not all the things were bought for myself. Some were on behalf of my brother and one I suspect for a friend but I have no recollection of that item.

For myself, three books and a solid state drive. I love to own physical books and would like to have collect more but due to the lack of space, I am turning to getting ebooks and thinking of whether to buy a Kindle or at least a tablet suitable for reading. Still thinking because I still don't quite like the feeling of not holding a physical book in my hands.