Last Week at Science Park

At long last the internship is almost over.  This last week is going to be jam packed with last minute work and things to do.  For one I need to get the website live and uploaded onto the current DNet Solutions website.  It should not be very difficult to do that, the only thing I haven’t had time to test is the speed at which each web page loads.

For the current website, everything loads really slowly, but for this website, I took out a lot of unneeded photos and clunky boxes in favour for a more minimalist approach.  I’ll post another blog in the middle of the week talking more about the website, kind of like a post mortem.  For now here is a picture of the home page:

DNet Homepage Alpha

 

This is what the old Homepage used to look like:

Old DNet HomePage

I am still in the process of changing the header image because I would like to replace that with a slideshow. However I am still waiting on some pictures.

Overall this internship has been very rewarding.  I got to wear a lot of different hats during my time working here and it was my first time both working abroad and in a very small company.  I like how relaxed and homey it feels to work in a small company and most of the people here have known each other for many years.  I used to work in a much larger company where it was a lot more professional but it also felt very fake and it was not the right fit for me.  Working at DNet, I sit 3 seats away from one of the CEO’s and I can approach him whenever I want and we can strike up a conversation about many different things.  Working at SNCL I needed to walk half a floor away, knock on a door and choose my words carefully when I spoke to my boss who was always busy and the air in the room always felt very tense.

At DNet I feel like I can work at my own pace and I have a lot more control and freedom to do my work.  I am very glad that I had the opportunity to take part in an 8 week internship abroad and I would like to come back to Hong Kong in the future to do business.

Week of Web Development and Directing

This week felt relatively slow since  my time was split between finding time to work on working on the website and working with my boss, David, to film video demonstrations.  The video demos are ways to instruct our future clients and overseas partners in exactly how our hardware works so if they are asked questions during sales meetings they are able to answer them.  They also serve as a good tool on learning how to demo the device in those sales meetings.

I was in charge of filming and editing the video.  David wanted to film the video in one smooth take so I could edit it as fast as possible and have a video ready as soon as possible.  He was surprised that I was able to edit it and have the video ready by Thursday since he was heading to China this weekend and I guess it made his meeting with his partners a bit smoother.  This coming week will be a lot shorter while I will be doing the same mix of web development and video editing tasks again.

It will be shorter since myself and most of the Global Edge crew will be going to Boracay, Philippines!  I am pretty excited because its supposed to have one of the best beaches in the world.  I really hope the weather doesn’t ruin it, since I saw that it might be raining for a bit.  But what I am really excited about is the cliff we will be jumping off into the sea.  Its called Ariel’s Point and its about 50 feet high and compared to the 20 feet waterfall in Luk Wu stream here in Hong Kong that we jumped off, its should be really fun!

Aside from that I have sat down for a Skype meeting with one of David’s daughters who is studying marketing in America and she gave me a few tips on what she didn’t like about the old website that I plan on incorporating into the new one sometime this week.

Here is the Video Demo I worked on this week:

Singapore Was Awesome!

Guten Tag!

This past weekend a few of us were able to get Friday off from work and we went to both Malaysia and Singapore!  We visited Kuala Lumpur and went up to the Twin Towers and got an awesome view of the city from a variety of angles.  Singapore was amazing, definitely my new favourite city.  We only had a day and an half in Singapore, but we packed it with a lot of activities.  From riding a Segway on the beach, going on a duck boat tour, a nighttime safari and so much more.

Aside from that I have been put in charge of revamping our current website and making it look alot better than it currently does.  My other job is to make it easy enough to update if you have no experience in web programming.  I have a couple ideas of what I want to do with the website, but I have no clue on how I will implement it for now.  I personally have little to no experience in web programming so this should be an exciting and challenging task.  It works out well since I have to make my own portfolio website later on this year before I enter the job market.

I will likely try to do something using HTML 5 as I have seen some really cool web pages set up using that. I have also been looking into WebGL and JQUERY for special effects and to do things like parallax scrolling and what not.  The more time I spend researching on web development the more I get excited at all the possibilities.  Normally in game programming, when you start its difficult to show people your work easily.  Especially if you are still very new to programming due to all the technicalities involved in making an .exe run on several machines.  However with web pages you can have a website up and running in an hour, a day if you are new to web development.

Week 2!

SALUT!

This was a shorter work week than normal because we had the Monday July 1st as a statutory holiday.  Not only is it Canada day, but it is also the Hong Kong SAR day.  The global edge crew including myself spent the weekend volunteering at the Canada Day celebration by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.  I was pretty busy and I regret not taking enough photos, if I manage to find some that others took I shall post them here.

Aside from that this week has been a bit slower than last week.  On Wednesday I had a chance to visit ASAP Creative & Communication.  They are interested in partnering with DNET Solution to hopefully sell our hardware in Taiwan.  I was glad my boss took me to the meeting so I could see first hand how business was done in Hong Kong.  It turns out that my boss knew the Director for over 20 years.  He was telling me that in Hong Kong relationships are very important, it’s mostly how business is run.  My Boss’s goal was to get the Director to showcase the product to her husband who has a company in Taiwan who would eventually tell his colleagues and through that their business would spread and they would be able to sell the hardware.  Most of the meeting was in Cantonese so I couldn’t gauge anything but their facial expressions and reactions.

The other main task this week is trying to integrate another companies tech with our multimedia panel.  Essentially that tech is an Android based media server that would be the perfect harmony to our companies hardware.  Our main job is to figure out if the tech can either fit in and be integrated into our hardware to offer the full hardware and software experience to the customer.  Otherwise if we can’t integrate it we have to add it on as a package deal when we try and sell our hardware to our clients.  I personally hope that we can integrate it because our current software is pretty primitive and from the demonstration I saw last week, I like their version a lot more.

Mainly because it is developed using the Android 4.2 OS, as a software (game) developer I can see myself trying to convince my boss that games can be developed specifically for that system.

On July 8th, I had the privilege of visiting a press and industry launch of “Tomorrow’s Guestroom” at the Icon Hotel and the Polytech Uni. DNET won the award so myself along with almost everyone in our office went to the press conference to showcase our hardware to both the press and industry.  It was really exciting to meet several people from the hospitality industry and it was a bit awkward since almost everyone there was 2-3 times my age.  It was great to see how fast paced things in Asia are.  I never knew how slow business was in Canada until I came here.  I guess it really helps that China is so close that we don’t have to wait long to hear from manufacturers.  In Canada since the distribution channels are mostly further apart from one another, I guess it slows down business.  It is really amazing that a small company can manufacture hardware and prototype so fast!

 

Thats all for now!