About
Hello there. I’m Zit Seng, and this is my homepage cum blog site. This is where I get to rant about my life, my interests, my work and anything under the sun that I fancy.
This site is now largely managed as a WordPress blog. I previously had a hand-coded website (archived here) that was getting pretty outdated. The switchover to WordPress happened in early 2007.. Much of the old content has yet to be copied/migrated into WordPress, so do check out the archive.
Many of the photo snippets appearing in the Asides widget in the side bar (and in the Asides category) are actually taken and posted directly from my N73 phone. It’s quite a cool phone.
Why am I Blogging?
Well, I’ve found that it is an excellent way to keep my homepage alive and updated. It’s also an opportunity for me to practise my writing skills.
It’s quite true how one’s writing can deteriorate over time without continual practice. You don’t forget how to ride a bicycle or swim. But after years of mainly writing Singlish emails, Perl scripts, C programs and HTML web pages… I actually realized writing normal English articles has become more difficult for me. It’s quite a stark contrast from back in the FidoNet BBS era when I was publishing and editing the Singapore BBS Weekly electronic news (on a weekly basis, obviously).
Who am I?
I’m a 36 year old Singaporean Chinese living in, where else, Singapore. I’m married to a lovely wife and we have an adorable baby daughter born to us in April 2007. We also have two cute miniature schnauzers.
My family name is Lai. As a Chinese, my full name is written last name first: Lai Zit Seng.
Where do I Work?
I work at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where I manage network operations, data centre facilities and IT security for the School of Computing. It’s like 3-jobs-in-1, but I get only one salary (unfortunately). We have a small team, but we have a sizable operation, and we take care of everything.
This is, technically, my second job after graduating. My first job was also at NUS, but it was a contract position and it was at a different department, the former Internet Research and Development Unit (IRDU). IRDU, for those interested, was descended from Technet, a unit in NUS that was spun-off to become Pacific Internet, one of the three initial commercial ISPs in Singapore.
Where did I School?
I am a true blue ACS boy. Starting from Anglo-Chinese Primary School, then to Anglo-Chinese School (nowadays there is an Independent suffixed to the name, because there has since been another branch of the secondary school), and finally Anglo-Chinese Junior College. Schooling was fun. Every ACSian has fond memories of their school.
Like all Singaporean guys, I had to take a break to do my National Service. I was posted to Tengah Air Base where I served as a medic. I am still serving my reservist in the same place, although I don’t seem to be wanted as a medic. I now serve as an overpaid security guard. (Incidentally, nevermind what they keep telling you about military secrets… what secret is there if it can be found on Wikipedia?)
Thereafter, I went to study Computer Science at the National University of Singapore (NUS). I continued on to do my Honours (there wasn’t a direct Honours program then) and graduated in 1997. I wasn’t very involved with student activities in NUS. Instead, I found myself doing some part time work with Technet (see above) and Computer Centre.
Photos
I don’t quite yet have a central place to host all my photos. There are some galleries/albums on this site. There are many more in a bunch of random places. I hope to put them all on Share Ovi.
Me Online
My other presences online include:
There’s a whole bunch of others that I don’t care very much about.
