One down ... Four to go

Today I took my very first MCP or Microsoft Certified Professional Exam. It was 70-315 Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. I had been reviewing for a good 3-4 weeks now and felt that I was prepared for the exam. So early last week I called up DBWizards and scheduled an exam for monday. After speaking with the exam coordinator, I was moved to a wednesday morning schedule. No problem I thought, more time to review.

Fast forward to early this morning. Woke up early because an email from Prometric advised that I arrive at the testing center a good 15-30 minutes before the exam to fill out any necessary documents and to pay the fees. So I woke up at 615 and headed straight to the bathroom. To my horror, we were out of water. "Of all the days", I thought to myself. Its a good thing that there were 2 buckets of water at my disposal. They were ice cold, but what the hell. I then dressed up and met my girlfriend at her place so we could go together to Makati. The line to the shuttle was long, unfortunately, there was no shuttles to attend to the lines. After about 10 or 15 minutes, one arrived after the other, calming my nerves. I tried to keep my mind off the exam so that whatever knowledge in my head wouldnt black out when I actually took the exam. Once I arrived at my stop, my girlfriend and I parted ways and I proceeded to the testing center.

Once I arrived at the building, I was greeted by my former officemate who mentioned that he was to also leave his current company soon. Once I entered the testing center, I said that I was there for an exam and the receptionist asked me to take a seat. I was surprised to see another former officemate waiting there. She mentioned that another former officemate of mine was going to take an exam at the same day. When she left, the exam coordinator handed me a form containing all guidelines for taking exams. I read it carefully and signed. I then handed my payment, P 2903.04. That was a lot of cash and I was a little hesitant in paying. I would either get my moneys worth or cry and kick myself in the nuts soon after, depending on the exam result. I asked if I could take in any scratch paper. She asked why. I said that I just wanted to keep a tally of my correct, incorrect and unsure answers. The passing score for the exam, I had heard, was 800 or 80%, so I felt it was important for me to monitor my progress at any given time. She mentioned that a white board was in the workstation for me to use in anyway I feel.

So at exactly 9AM, I was escorted in the testing area and was told to click on start when ready. Now, I cant reveal what exactly were asked in the exam because of the Microsoft NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement), but I can tell you that you need to review, review and then review some more. When the exam was over, I wasnt quite sure about the number of questions I got correct, but I was sure that I got 80% right, I think. TO my surprise and delight, i got 98.1% or 981 exactly. I was so extatic, happy and overjoyed. I felt like crying, and I did. I cant explain why I cried, it was probably because I had started on the steps I needed to take to become an MCAD, then MCSD, then have the grapes to apply for a job in Singapore. "I am an MCP!" I cant believe it until now. It hasnt quite sunk in yet. Maybe when I get that email from Microsoft or when I receive the MCP welcome kit. Either way, im friggin happy out of my mind.

I hope this story inspires people that If you work hard and you persevere, dreams can come true. Peace out!

first day funk

Today was my first day at work at WebWorks in Libis. I woke up reasonably early and headed on my way. Getting a tricycle this morning was no problem, plus I actually sat in the front this time. If I dont sit at the front, the trike usually does a wheely. Hehe. Took a while before an airconditioned bus came along. Now, Im not the type of guy who doesnt like the heat so I dont ride the ordinary buses. Its just that if you get on a bus thats ordinary, the stop closest to Robinsons is near the Ortigas MRT station. Thats quite far from the shuttle. Whereas riding an aircon bus drops me right in front of the shuttles. See, I told you I wasnt maarte! As I was positioning myself for a more comfortable position in the bus, I realized that the spaghetti given to me as baon had stained my white pants! My shirt was tucked in, so I had to tuck it out to save myself from speculations that I could not hold my bladder. Hehe. The shuttle also left as soon as I got in. I did get a call however from my agent asking if I was on the way to work. hehe. I can go to work between 7Am and 10Am, and it was only 915Am. The HR dude thought I wasnt going to show anymore. Hehe.

Once I arrived at the office, the HR dude oriented me on the basics of office life. He told me that I would receive a blue WebWorks shirt that was supposed to be worn on Mondays and Thursdays. He mentioned the shifting schedule and where to get some grub. We then left the meeting room and he proceeded introducing me to all the personnel in the office. After we made the rounds, he pointed me at my desk. I could not help but be pleased. It was a significantly large cubicle with lots of room for stuff. Around this time, my machine was being setup. The specs were also quite impressive: P4 3.0 GHZ, 1GB Ram, 15" monitor, 80GB HD. Woohoo!

After setting up my email account and other network credentials, my project manager and I met for initial project introductions. He explained the project specifications, team members, and my role within the group. I was then asked to install the necessary development applications on my machine and left for lunch.

When I got back, I was asked to review a document detailing the architecture of the project. I would be doing this for quite some time until a fellow teammate was ready to turnover his work to me. Needless to say, It got real boring real quick. I decided to review for my 70-315 exam to keep myself awake, but to no avail. I drifted off for what seemed like 15 minutes. I woke up to the calls of my project manager inviting me to join them for some birthday celebration in the nearby meeting room. I could never say no to free ice cream and cake. I had me some of that and proceeded back to reviewing.

As the day drew to a close, I inquired from my project manager if I could avail of the discount on the certification exams since they were a Microsoft Gold partner. He told me he would look into it. Woohoo! Those exams are not cheap. Without the discount, the would cost me almost 5K a pop! Im crossing my fingers.

Anyway, im on my way home now. its approximately 7:39 PM now. Hope I can still reach the cricket game when i get home.

Peace out!

coding $hit

Next week im going to transfer to my 5th company, webworks os. But this almost didnt happen because of shit that happened when i was trying to be my usual creative self and almost destroyed the same program i created!

It all started with me wanting to create a setup program for the C# class i created. I wanted deployment to be a breeze. I wanted the program to initialize the IISRESET command, copy the files into the designated directory, then run the IISRESET command again. After testing, I decided to launch it and was able to succesfully install it. Confident of my accomplishment, I uninstalled the program again and proceeded testing the application. The initial files were already on the directory so uninstalling didnt really make a difference. When I checked the folder, the files were missing! Good thing I had a backup folder and just restored them. But when I tested, something far worse happened! The code didnt work anymore. It failed on a line of code that worked the first time I tried it before! WAAAAAH! Wha the fuck just happened was my initial reaction. Keeping it to myself to not alert my project manager (who assumed that everything was hunky-dory). I tried fixing it to no avail. I attributed it to some server error and hoped that restarting or shutting down the machine and booting again would fix it. But it didnt! Sweet mother of GOD was my next reaction. I was so fucking scared! What the fuck have I done??? After several hours of grueling testing and investigation, I saw that my uninstall also unregistered the COM object which I was using. FUCKING SHIT! So i registered it and then tested on my make-shift web app. It worked again. Now the next problem was that on the actual scenario where it was supposed to run, the application that would call my DLL and run the appropriate scripts. Well guess fucking what? It didnt! It didnt run SHIT! It didnt even run the simple write to file method i had created. Viewing the event viewer (hey, that rhymes!), I saw that there was a read access error on the config xml file on the main directory. What really fucking bugged me was that there was no problem before! Son-of-a-cocksucking-dickbrain! So i just added the appropriate permissions on the file and everything went back to normal. Well, almost. Now I think my project manager doesnt trust me as much cause I had to let him know what was going on because some bitch wanted me to demo my code. Ill show her my code, hoar cocksucker! He saw the program didnt work, and the bitch was all high and might and shit!

Thankfully, everything is ok now. Hopefully, ill deploy tomorrow to production and use the rest of the day to test the DLL.

Whats the moral of the story? If you think you're need program needs something extra or additional stuff, pull an ass hair and wake up! Its fine just the way it is.

THE END

Its been a year since the last one

Its been a year since my last blog, and it was about valentines day. I wont be as mushy this year.... i think. What I will be talking about is all the stuff thats been going the past year and hopefully make updating this blog a regular thing.

When I last blogged, it was feb, so I was probably at my old company, Fuji Xerox. Believe or not, I'm on to almost 5 jobs in less than 2 years. Yup! no joke. First PCIT in makati for 6 months, then Fuji Xerox, also at makti, for 6 months, Trend Micro in Libis for 8 months, Soluziona in Ortigas for less than a month, then Im starting work at WebWorks next week. Damn, its been a rough year! I know what you're thinking? Why did I leave? Simple, I didnt. End of contract was the reason. Now would I have stayed if not for the end of contract? Probably not either! hahahahahahahaha

My girlfriend and I celebrated being 3 years in love last june 29. That was special. I admit, things get rough between us, and sometimes, things get really rough, but we have something that is really special, and we will have that for the rest of our lives, no matter what may happen in our relationship. I love you baby! I promise i wouldnt (sniffle) get (sniffle) mushy .... :)

Celebrated a birthday as well, i am now 23 years old. Funny, i dont feel 23. Actually i have never felt my age after 16. I think thats normal. I think.

I met a really nice bunch of people at work in Trend Micro. I have never had work friends, and I never thought i would have so much fun with them. They are really are a weird group of freaks! hahahahahaha

Nothing else happened this last year worth mentioning. Im looking ahead towards the near future. Im planning to pursue my Microsoft certification that will hopefully get me a ticket towards Singapore. Hopefully I will be blogging good news on that date.

Thats all for now. I might start another blog site for some random thoughts stuff, but its all in the conception stage. Will post a link if my plans bear fruit.

Peace out and Happy Valentines to everyone!