The potential of cloud computing

I have been PHP programmers since 2007, however, it was just 2 years later that the computing technology is evolving again. This time is what they called cloud computing. 

I was told by Sun Microsystems that they are now contributing cloud computing technology to the users. What is cloud computing? It is a new term appearings in this year. I do read about it in the IT sessions of newspaper a few months ago. 

There was something came up in my mind that "is it okay to use this new technology in bioinformatics?" That ideas sounds interesting and I started to look for literatures. It is surprisingly yes, there are people start noticing the potential of cloud computing in the bioinformatics field. What is amazing me is that they said if PHP and MySQL is the famous web scripting language and database in 2008, then the next round of it will be the technology in cloud computing!

Cloud computing, the concept is to make all the services done in desktop or laptop to go "online", that means, we all can use the softwares as web services without installing it into our computer. What we need is just input and output to upload and download. This idea is good when it comes to biologist that lacks of computer sciences knowledges (especially linux based tools in bioinformatics). 

Cloud computing surely will be a good direction to be explored in bioinformatics, I have proudly inserted it into my list of studying during free time. It makes me excited and scare when the list is keep on increased in length but the free time is limited. There is much more to learn in my field, I guess.

Today, I have received an email from MGRC, Malaysian Genome Research Center, that they have chinese version of their website! How nice it is. This shows the importance of chinese in bioinformatics, which has much developments in China. As a chinese, I am very happy to know the news. It is an advantage to learn chinese since some of the research in China are novel and advanced. This will soon increase the market of MGRC in China perhaps. 

Learning is a long life task, no one should stop from learning each day. However, the road to be a master is far more than just learning plainly... because what we learn is previous exprience of our ancestors, we should be improved and get the ability to create new knowledge, that is what makes a difference to an expert and a master. 

匠与宗师的区别就是，一个在用，一个却去创！

Cooking and programming...

When I was in the second year in UKM, I learnt how to cook from my mom. That was an unexpected consequence that it help me a lot to build up my programming sense in my future study.

I was taking web programming that time, it is really headache when deal with javascript and css. Those are scripting languages that I used to learn in my early age at 15. But I do like HTML, and I am really the type of programmers that don`t have talent on designing, that is why CSS is really hard to me.

However, when I was taught on how to cook, chinese dishes, I somehow found the connection between programming and cooking... FTSM courses suddenly becomes fun to me and I do, like programming very much since then.

When cooking, there are various of things to consider.. I have to prepare the ingredients from major materials to supplements. I have to washed them carefully, cut them in pieces sometimes , it just like defining the valuables in C++, have to setup each datatype, what is integer, what is character and strings... haha... the ingredients are all programs inputs!

The steps in cooking, some have to fry, steam, rinse.. each of them requires different degree of fire level.. it is analogous to programming when we have selection, loop, and condition... IF the meat is yellow enough, THEN off fire... haha... I used to create my own programming codes during cooking...It is really fun!

Let`s go back to web programming, I don`t have the talent to design... that is what I know since I was young... webpage layouts is really not the place for me to perform well, but after I learn how to cook, I have to arrange the dishes, decorate it a bit... that makes me pay attention to web layout. It makes me feel that I do can`t escape from preparing good layout for my programs output... haha... imagine dishes which is not in nice shape, who would dare to eat it even it was told it is delicious... That took me a week time in my semester break to study CSS... It is worth to do it, cause it really help a lot in beautify my webpages... hehe.

Cooking requires me to tidy the utensils and supplements nicely. I have to know where the salts and sugars is, so that during the cooking, can have it easily. It gives me the chance to practice database knowledge here... I relates each materials and try to query it like SELECT meat, vege, tomato, sugar, pepper FROM kitchen, cupboard, recipe WHERE cupboard.supply_id=recipe.id... practicing SQL combination in kitchen...

Speaking about cooking rice and porridge, it is the matter of fuzziness in dealing with water and paddy...hehe, practicing FUZZY for AI during rice cooking... That doesn`t count for the control of fire during cooking too...

Integrating study with life is one of my secret in my study philosophy... Everyone can do that.. It is the CORRECT ways to applied our knowledge...

If you creative enough, you can makes all the skills you learnt in bioinformatics being applied in any works or task in future.

My own comments after 3 years in UKM,
Don`t waste your money and time in university, start figure it out your own way to applied all those knowledge. I think that will be more meaningful that chasing pointers...

Life to 30 - Intro

Life 2 30...

I am going to finish my undergraduate study soon... perhaps another 140 days or 3.5 months.

Life in university was really tough, but challenging. I am glad I have acheived something that I hope for before I leave the U.

3 years was not a very long time, but do have many things happened that make me change a lot. I had learnt from the past and from there, I developed my own strength, my own philosophy towards life. Right in front of me, is my new journey. Another 3 years or maybe longer.

This time is even far away than my loving home. I am going to take much more tougher challenges, something that I am not sure whether I have prepared for it or not. Somehow I know that life is not going to stop for me, I have to move on.

I open up this blog to keep tracks of my journey towards the age of 30 with the goal to be the best bioinformatician in Malaysia!