I’ve never been much of a traveller. Travelling has never been high on my agenda but it has been on my agenda for some time now.

29 March 2013, I got on a jetplane headed up north to China! As I’m already residing in an Asian country, my expectations weren’t high. I always keep anticipation to a low as a way to manage disappointment. I don’t take a negative perspective, I just try not to over-think any given scenario. Does it work? Not really.

Coming off an airplane at Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport for the first time I was greeted by a sudden dip in climate. So far, so good. We spent most of the first two days in Hangzhou guided by a tour guide, Grace. She was wonderful and spoke English well enough.

Hangzhou is a very popular tourism city in China, however, we only encountered less than 5 people who spoke  ANY English (Not even Yes/No, I’m not kidding) which I thought was a little odd but then again, 99.9% of all tourist were actually Chinese tourists from other provinces.

A few years ago, I took an introductory course in Mandarin here in Kuala Lumpur. I knew enough “transactional” sentences to get me by but I was naturally shy at first to try speaking to them but I quickly realized that speaking a little grammatically incorrect sentences was a country mile better than pointing and using hand gestures.

The only setback was that they didn’t get I only spoke very basic Mandarin and would go bullet train on my behind. I then would have to attentively listen for any keywords that I can pickup. I should have paid more attention in class.

It got us by. We got food, bargained for a few deals and even went as far as a joke which stemmed out of a mispronunciation. It was a true confidence booster.

The rest of the article is going to be accompanied by pictures. Forgive me for the quality of the photos. My iPhone 5 camera and my photography skills or lack of it, is probably the worst combination in any situation.

A dragon boat on the West Lake.

The biggest point of attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake which is unbelievably breathtaking. I’ve always been drawn to water and the lake was a serene sight. The water was gentle and fairly calm.

The lake is remarkably maintained. The entire surroundings were clean. The flora found all around the lake was trimmed methodically. There were sufficient public amenities all around which were also well maintained.

A sea of beautiful Tulips

Not too far away from the lake (depending on where you actually are), yet another attraction lies; Prince Bay Park.

The park is full of beautifully grown Tulips and a whole other range of flowers that I’m less accustomed to. I wish I could tell you the names of the flowers but then we’d both learn something new.

Picnic-ing in Prince Bay Park

There are a lot of people out and about having little picnics all over the park.

Night view of the West Lake

The lake at night transforms into something else completely. Full of lights and other kinds of attractions.

An elaborate musical fountain

The other side of the city

One of the best attractions on the West. I truly wish this picture could do it more justice. The entire performance was on the lake itself! This house/boat was only used for a few scenes.

Part of the elaborate performance and light works.

The photos that I took are hardly desirable and are a far cry from the actual scenery.

In the 3 nights that I was in Hangzhou, I learned more than I ever imagined I would. I wouldn’t change a single thing about the entire experience. Simply refreshing.

Yahoo! recently had an internal memo leaked out where CEO Marissa Mayer bans staff from working remotely in order to boost communication and productivity. As is the order of the interwebs, this has raised endless arguments and flame wars on all sorts of sites and forums.

While banning it outright seems a little unfair to the staff with current remote arrangements but the rollout plan is unknown to anyone outside of Yahoo! So why speculate?

This post isn’t about Marissa’s decision but is instead about working remotely.

To brand the decision a bad one outright is a little unfair as motive behind the decision is clear and it makes perfect sense to me.

Many a times, my colleagues and I have had impromptu discussions which led to some of the biggest and best decisions we’ve made collectively as a team. If you have an idea, suggestion or even a question, you could simply walk over to a colleague’s desk and talk it over. Have someone else join in and throw ideas around.

Sure, you can send an IM or an email but has any real productive work come of writing messages back and forth? Probably but not as much, perhaps.

On the flip side of the pillow, I am totally opposed to the idea of long and winding meetings where nothing gets done and all decisions are “kept in view.” Pointless Powerpoint slides with likely inaccurate data that mean nothing from reports compiled three years ago.

I concede the argument that video conferencing has gotten a lot easier and 300% more reliable than what it used to be. Gone are the days where you spent the first 45 minutes of every Skype call with “can-you-hear-me’s” and eventually forgetting what you called about in the first place. Google Hangout is a fantastic browser based alternative which works just as well.

However, it still doesn’t feel as productive as face-to-face conversation but that’s no reason to completely banish working remotely. This does not mean it hasn’t worked for any team. I’m sure a whole bunch of teams would have had successful implementations of working remotely. It requires discipline and dedication.

I can’t speak for everybody out there and I am not. I guess if it works for you, it works for you.

Besides the obvious benefits of working remotely like skipping traffic and saving on office space, working in small doses of isolation could be totally beneficial.  I don’t know about you, but I sometimes prefer not to hear about Rachel’s problems with her boyfriend. Not only do I not care most of the time, it disrupts my thinking workflow.

However, Rachel’s problems could just as well be replaced with other home problems like you forgetting the milk. It might be a little more difficult for married people but at the same time they get to spend more time with their children. Who knows? Married people working remotely probably. I should really stop being sarcastic to myself.

I’ll be honest. When I started our writing this post, I was in total agreement with Marissa’s decision to ban it completely but now I’m not so sure anymore. Again, if it works for you, it works for you.

Working From Home

Just like everybody else, I have a Facebook account, a Twitter page, a LinkedIn profile, an about.me page and every other junk of an excuse for social media. In recent times though, I’ve stopped posting statuses (except for Twitter), uploading pictures, checking-in and what not.

It’s not because I don’t get on most these sites, my reasons are a bit more based on “principals” if I may use that term.

I find that people who are constantly posting are seeking little bits of attention. “Look at how much money I spent”, “look at what I’m eating”, “look at where I am”, “look at how smart I am”, “look at how profound I am” and the list goes on and on. Posts about absolutely nothing but the people themselves and new the ways of how they perceive themselves to be better than everybody else.

It comes off a little pretentious.

Sure, this might sound negative to some and I truly understand. I don’t mean to hate or to pass judgement so I’ve lightly withdrawn myself from most of these networks.

About a week ago, I came across this article on HN: The Rise of False Humility

If ever there was Deja Vu, this article was it. Every single word on that page, was borrowed from my thoughts. I could finally put a name to this phenomenon.

Really, why tell us?

Being a web developer isn’t as easy as usually preceived. True, the available resources are all over the place are pleanty but that’s just it; the available resources are all over the place are pleanty.

How do you determine which Js library to use out the seemingly infitiy “extremly recommended ones?” Which application framework? Language? Db? Template engine? Code control system? Code editor? OS? This is just the tip of the iceberg.

I like memes.

Once you’ve made up your mind, which could be one of the most tedious process of the actual project. Opnions are endless and tempares flare up really quickly on this part of the websphere.

Before we I go on and on about that, I’m going to quickly outline out what this blog is about and what it is not;

This blog is about

1. web development
2. learning web development
3. exploring new technologies
4. quest for best practices and methods
5. mostly, it’s a reference for myself and hopefully anybody that comes across it.
6. finding Zen

This blog is not about

1. determining the “best” web technology (I don’t believe there’s such a thing)
2. the chronicles of a web dev fanboy (Maybe, a little)
3. finding Zen

These are the few things off the top of my head. I’ll hopefuly add on a lot more along the way.