Hello World!

First post of this e-journal/weblog, which is also my first blog dedicated to my technical pursuits (the earlier blogs were about football and dating, ramblings about the meaning of life, etc).

I am Alvin, born and based in Singapore but presently in Mumbai for my 2nd stint with the Flexcube Retail development group at Goregaon. I graduated from NUS School of Computing in May 2007, and since then have been working for Oracle Financial Software Services (previously known as i-flex solutions).

At NUS, I majored in Computer Science, but feel that I'd wasted my four years there. Everything I learnt at NUS, I could have learnt better by reading Wikipedia and technical articles online. Given that I'm the geeky-loner type, my time at NUS was overall a pretty sad experience, although I did meet the lovely woman who is now my wife. I also gained a strong base in core Java programming, which helps in my present job.

But knowing core Java is not enough. Upon graduation, I still did not know what is a Java Bean. I had no inkling of the importance of messaging in software systems. I had no idea what virtualization means. I'd never encountered the concept of stored procedures. I thought that service-oriented architecture had something to do with Burger King's restaurant layout.

Now, after spending almost 2 years in the field, I know (slightly) better. This blog shall attempt to record the following:

1. all the things I've learnt and am still learning with regard to technology
2. my experiences and challenges with regard to my day job
   
3. my attempt to become proficient at web programming
4. my thoughts on Linux and open-source technology

Hopefully this blog will be helpful to all the other newbies out there, and will draw comments from experienced tech gurus that I can learn from. And hopefully I will be able to sufficiently populate this blog such that, in the event of memory or system failure, all my technical knowledge can be recovered hence.