Hello there. I’m Lai Zit Seng. I am the owner, and sole writer, of this blog, ZitSeng.com. I write mostly about technology, occasionally on lifestyle, Singapore, and other random topics from time to time.
This website is largely managed as a WordPress blog. I previously had a hand-coded website that was getting pretty pretty hard to keep updated. The switchover to WordPress happened in early 2007. Much of the old content did not get migrated over, as they were very obsolete.
My first name is Zit Seng, family name is Lai, for those unfamiliar with how Chinese names work.
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 and motivation for me to hone my writing skills.
I was quite shocked to realise that my writing skills had been deteriorating after graduating from university. It must be the lack of 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 realised that 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) without feeling very lost for words.
Where do I Work?
I work at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where I manage all IT infrastructure in the School of Computing. I am responsible for everything from designing, managing, and operating data centres, network, storage, and servers, as well as overseeing IT security operations, and several other technical work areas. I lead a team of engineers and technicians, and together we take care of a sizeable outfit. I also support a variety of research activities, provide expert consultation, and guest lecture for some academic courses. My official job title is “Principal IT Architect”.
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. (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 had hoped to put them all on Share Ovi, but now I’m not very sure about that.
Me Online
My other presences online include:
There’s a whole bunch of others that I don’t care very much about.