TV shows have been amazingly good these days. With shows like Boston Legal, Prison Break and Project Runway, I wonder who needs to go to the cinema.

I have been a fan of Project Runway from its first season, and the third season has just started last night.

What I like about Project Runway is, it shows a very humane side of fashion industry, which I think very applicable to all other industries including web development and design. And for one simple reason also, Heidi Klum is HOT.

Last night’s first episode of the third season is very interesting, I thought there are some lessons that we all can learn from this show, as I am writing this, I am reminding myself too:

What you don’t learn in school, does not stop you.
Many of the participants did not study in a fashion-design school, yet the love for fashion-design has made them rise above thousands of applicants for the runway show. Laura Bennet is an architect and mother of five, Allison Kelly is a snowboarding instructor, and Angela Keslar is an organic farmer.

My client once asked me where did I learn my design skills from, afterall I was trained as a business analyst in school.

Be creative with constraints and you can create good stuff out of simple things.
The designers were asked to rip off the materials that they can find from their apartment, from bed cover, curtain, to lamp cover. With such simple materials, they can still create great pieces such as the one shown in the picture above. After the show, I felt like ripping off our curtain and pillow case and make a good dress for my wife, but too bad I am not into sewing.

For every web development/design project, we usually have constraints, be it technical, colour, or time constraints, and the list goes on. But what makes a good developer/designer stands out from the rest is the ability to deliver good results out of these constraints. Many can deliver good results, not many can do that with great constraints.

Know your tools well.
One of the reasons why Stacey Estrella was voted out last night was because his dress was not complete. She faced some problems operating her sewing machine, so she ended up with hand sewing. Her concept was good, but her execution was weak.

As a web developer/designer, we too have to know our tools well to stand out from the rest. If you are a web developer, be good at XHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP/Ruby/Java/.Net/Phyton (whatever language you are using).

Time is always very limited.
The designers were only given half a day to make their clothes, and the next half a day to do some alteration to fit their model. And even with such a short time, all the designers completed their pieces within the time limit.

Time management is the essence, even if you have great idea, make sure that the idea can be executed within the time constraint. We all face this problem, don’t we? One way to work around this is to keep things simple and focus on the main needs of your clients.

Dont’ be over confident. Even if you are good, you can be wrong sometimes.
All of the participants are great designers. But Jeffery thought his design is the best, a very confident chap, he looked down on others’ designs. He designed a very intricate dress and a jacket, but the judge thought they were too complicated and the jacket hides the the beauty of the dress. He was one of the last two standing to be voted out last night.

Over-confidence blinds us from our weaknesses and our mistakes.

“Make it work!”

- Tim Gun, The designers’ guide

After downloaded the latest version of Hibernate, Spring and Acegi Security, configuring the long list of XML configurations, just about to start working on the next enhancement for BookJetty; I decided to make a U-turn to re-code BookJetty from scratch again using Ruby On Rails (RoR).

I know it is crazy, and it sounds like a lot more work at first thought, but my developer instinct assured me, with RoR, I’ll be able to save a lot more time in the future. Besides, I’ll be able to learn more about RoR, so what the heck.

Strange, somehow, I get more excited.

A bookmark design done recently for Indonesian Professional Association (IPA) speech club. The speech club is modelled after Toastermasters club, except that it is less formal and more fun.

The bookmarks are given as awards to encourage best speakers voted on each session. The design aims to represent the characteristics of the club: vibrant and fun. Other design considerations: white background to save on printing cost, different colour vector graphic shades for different categories. Simple and minimalist again work.

IPA is a non-profit organisation that fosters networking among Indonesian professionals in Singapore. Other than speech club, it has other clubs under its umbrella, ranges from Dance Club, Golf Club, Mandarin Club and recently Yoga Club. It also organises seminars on various topics.

Do check it out if you are an Indonesian, a professional, and living in Singapore; IPA helps to bring home closer to us.

I usually have a long list of books that I want to read, although I know I won’t have the time to read all of them. Trying to be smart, I categorise them into different categories, such as technical, photography, design, fiction, and etc. And to avoid the tendency to read only certain type of books, I also logged the books I have read. You know, it is important to be well-rounded (kiasu). =)

Currently I am maintaining the list in an excel sheet, and I find it pretty cumbersome to maintain. Whenever I plan to read a new book, I need to refer to the list and re-search BookJetty to check the loan status in the library. I thought if BookJetty can be enhanced to support this feature, it is going to be useful.

Basically users should be able to add books to their account as either ‘Wanted’, ‘Reading’, or ‘Read’, and they also should be able to tag books based on whatever names that they like.

From there, we can derive some interesting lists such as most wanted books, what are the popular books currently read or had been read. And we should be able to link a book to other users who had bookmark this book.

With the membership feature, in the future, BookJetty can be extended to support other features, such as book reviews, groups, and group dicussion threads similar to what Flickr has. Meanwhile for the upcoming enhancement, I will be focussing on just the membership and bookmarking features.

I have just completed the design for these enhancements, and this is how the new BookJetty will look like.

I had a wonderful meeting at E27 last week, it was interesting to get to know the other startup founders such as Uzyn and MingYou. And it is comforting to know that there is a common trait out of the four startups presenting that day, i.e. the three of us started alone.

Uzyn developed Ping.sg himself, still a student and freelancing between lessons. MingYou started BlurbMe.com alone, was an investment banker, hired programmers to build his site. And Pluit as you know is a one-man show.

To start a business is hard, and to do it alone just make it so much harder. There are just so many things to do; other than the real work, you still have to do sales, close deals, do marketing, administrative tasks, and have to keep learning to stay ahead.

So not only you got to discipline yourself, you also have to find creative ways each day to be more effective and efficient. For myself, simple thing like meeting client at 5:00 pm and near my place helps. It saves me a lot of time, and it does not interrupt my productive working hours. Having two monitors with at least one that can support 1600 x 1200 resolutions will speed up your work, and trust me you will never want to use one monitor again after that.

But the good news about starting alone is, although it seems like you are alone, you are not. If you are on the right track, there will be people around you to help you whether you realize it or not, your friends, ex-colleagues, people that you never met, even angels.

Things will move, words will spread, deals will come, and you will get to your destination one day, if not closer. For those who have been supporting fellow startups, including myself, and you know it if it is you, I just wanna say, may God bless you.

And last, this is one way how the word spreads, MingYou needs a good PHP developer to bring Blurbme.com even further, if you think are one, do contact him here.

Can’t resist not to participate in Designer Wallpaper, started by John Hicks.

It is hard to define definitive guidelines.

Coming back from Cameron Highland, after a hectic month completing two projects, and meeting interesting people at E27, I just love my job more and more. Not because I am doing a totally different stuff right now, but I think I am begining to know the difference between what I want and I what I need more clearly.

Last time, I did what I needed, I needed a job, I needed experience, and I needed money, so I worked hard and I learned as much as I could, and I did what I was told, I was employed, and I was lost. Then I started to explore what I really wanted.

I wanted to freeze beautiful moments in life, so I bought my first DSLR camera; and I signed up for beginning photography course. I had always wanted to travel alone, travel light, travel long, longer than 2 weeks, so I packed my bag, and travelled to Borneo, for the first time, alone, my longest holidays, 21 days in a row.

I found programming alone is too boring, I had always wanted to explore the creative side of me, so I started Pluit Solutions doing not only web development, but also web design.

I know that money is important and but a fulfiling life is more important than money; thus doing what I want on top of what I need makes the difference.

Just like the two kids that I snapped from my last trip to Cameron Highland, I chose to be like the first kid on the left, happy and passionate.

When you are happy and passionate, you get the best out of you.

There is a common proverb that says ‘Work hard, play hard’. I have been working hard, so I am gonna play hard also.

Taking a break from work this weekend, bringing my wife to Cameron Highland for a short break, go hiking and visit farms, get some fresh air, catch up a bit with my reading, and hopefully coming back recharged.

Afterall, we work to enjoy life, not live to work.

The startup wave is getting warm here. Thanks to Entrepreneur 27 Singapore for helping to foster entrepreneurship among the young, especialy for those under 27.

I was invited by Justin Lee to say a few words about BookJetty.com on their upcoming event, E27 3.0: Startup Republic (hm… I know that I’m slightly overage, but rest assured I am still 18 at heart, we all are, aren’t we?). Anyway thank you Justin. There will be other speakers from ping.sg, blurbme.com and Woolert as well.

If you are free, do drop by for this rare event. I bet it will be fun. Say hi ya, shake some hands ar, ask questions, get to know some new friends there.

Seats are limited, so reserve fast, click here or image for more information on reservation details. For those who are coming, will c ya there.

I’m not sure about you, but I always listen to music when I work. It creates the mood.

If you and I alike, can’t afford to buy songs that last you a week without repeating “Superman” for at least 20 times (additional 1 more time if you watch Paul Twohill last night on TV), listening to radio is one option, it’s free anyway. :)

But when things get serious, and you need to crack your head for your one-million project, you wouldn’t want to listen to DJ’s jokes, song dedication messages, or some ads about big sales in town. I love DJ’s jokes btw, Daniel Ong is my favourite, but not when doing really serious stuff.

The alternative will be Pandora (I love this name). If you have not heard of it, it is okay, that is the reason why I am writing about this anyway. It was released some months back, and it has been indespensable for me.

Using Pandora is like playing your own radio station, you start creating a new station by entering an artist name or a song title (the one that you love). Then using a smart algorithm, it will play songs similar in tune, rythm, and groove with the artist/song title that you have just entered.

You can even vote if you like or hate the songs suggested, and it will remember, and the algorithm gets smarter I presume, coz I just fall in love with the station each day. And some unheard artists with songs of your taste may also pop up. Smart! Isn’t it?

If you have not tried it, go and check it out, start creating your own radio stations, the way you love it. And big thanks PANDORA!!