Time and tide wait for no man.

It’s almost mid August now, and in Singapore there are 2 public holidays. This translates to shorter working month, approximately 18 working days by the assumption of 4 X 5 working days.

Once a while, I will do a review mentally of the things I have achieved, stuffs pending and plans outstanding. I foresee that in coming months, I will be more busier than before.

Achieved

• Found an Android partner by chance to work together. Rough details are agreed verbally for future opportunities.
• Invested and helped my friend to start his crypto currency exchange in Singapore; Tokenize
• Rearranged and minor improvements to BooksAvenue website.
• Did up a very simple and crude Android app for my own understanding and learning. (pls don’t laugh at me. Lol)

Pending

• Android app for book swaps
• Little junior is coming (December 2018)
• At least 1 book review per month.
• At least 1 blog entry per week.
• To enhance my trading strategies and breaking my own record.
• Improve my own stretching for higher kicks.

Outstanding

• Personal fitness
• Settle baby cot, stroller and pram.
• If possible, fly up to meet Android partner in person.
• Push my scenic photos I took over the years and compiled on this site
• Oh yes, source for a good and cheap gym too

Kinda glad that I have this little space to pen my thoughts. BooksAvenue started from a small book sales, to ebooks download, to the current book swap and book reviews.

In case you are wondering, our book forum is at BooksAvenue.boards.net

Stay tuned, more to come.

The search for an Android developer for a bookswapping app is not easy. After all, we have bills to pay and time is money.

Now that being said, I also realised I have been paying quite a fair bit to ensure this project continue to survive and exist.

I have some thoughts on the need of a mobile for book swaps.

1. Already, I have started an online forum for users to swap books: BooksAvenue.boards.net
2. Will users still be keen to swap physical books?
3. If I pay to build the mobile app for book swapping, how can I recover this cost? (Never mind the profits if any)

Certainly, it is not wise to pay for the mobile app. But, I am ready to share the revenue generated from the app itself. It is only fair to share.

Nonetheless, I think it will be good to have the mobile app ready. More is better than less in this case.

The search for a partner continues…

When I was very young, I aspire to run a company. A company founded by me, providing a product or render services to the masses. I dreamt that my company will be important and great. A company whose product is of great excellence, something that everyone needs and cannot live by without.

Fast forward to the present reality, BooksAvenue is very far from it. Very very far indeed. I have great yet simple ideas and concepts. I can run the show and have been doing it for some time already.

Yet, I myself is utterly insufficient. As the saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to be great, go together.”

I need like-minded people to come together, fresh blood means fresh ideas and renewed energy to generate activities. Hence I have been trying to recruit volunteers.

Certainly I am ok if I do not get it through at the first thousand attempts. Even if it will not be successful at all if it’s really beyond my abilities. But there are 2 things I will not stand for or tolerate in life:

1. Failure to try due to laziness
2. Irresponsible people

Failed attempts are admirable. It shows courage and tenacity. I tried many times and I failed many times. I can successfully say that I can die without regrets.

People who are irresponsible on the other hand, are obstacles and hindrances to other’s attempt at success. Either they are flicker minded, or they just trying their luck. Regardless so, I dare say such candidates will not be successful at all.

Projects are meant to be executed, dreams to be realised. One should always forging ahead, moving forward. Make it happen and do it, but never try to do it.

I welcome all to come forth and join me to create and move this project together. I hope for more sincere candidates who will be more responsive and active to contribute.

Please apply if you are keen and keen only. Thank you for not wanting my time, as I did not waste yours from the start.

Candiate 8

Applied, answered but no reply yet. Perhaps I’m too impatient?

Candiate 3

Applied and I am not able to reply. I have emailed 2 times but to no avail.

Technology has disrupted many sectors, many industries. Even with a small not-for profit company like BooksAvenue, it forces changes to our current settings.

Change is always for the better. And it has to be, if not it makes no sense for it to happen. Can anyone imagine backward progress? How elevators are avoided but staircases are chosen instead? Other than health and fitness reasons, what are logical reasons are there?

On the same note, in some examples of backward progress such as invention of Concorde but there is zero supersonic passenger plans today. And vaccines. Diseases are eradicated but we have managed to bring them back. For research and documentation purposes I think.

In my previous post, I mentioned I’m working with android developer. The intended app is to help readers to swap books at ease. Preferably, some location based estimation for a rank of choices for a more efficient exchange too.

Now that the rudimentary yet paramount function has been addressed, the economic costs have to be addressed as well. Very unlikely to charge users for each book swap. Rather, no one is willing to pay for it.

The best solution to address this is to be handled by mobile advertising. This will monetise the web traffic, and fray some of the costs, hosting expenses and whatnots. Plus the best part is keeping the entire service free of charge to end users.

Development of android app is of no easy task. As much as I am engineer by training, I tried to learn and pick up basic Java coding. Even if I can come up with a basic app, I’m afraid that the user interface may result in a bad user experience, which sort of defeat the main purpose.

Not to mention, the costs are meant to kept to the minimum. Hence there was an ad to look for Android developer volunteers. This will be more efficient and effective, in theory.

So far there are some responses from SG and Malaysia. It’s a good start and I’m still waiting for replies and progress.

It is also of this reason a new Blog section is started to connect to more people to help bring BooksAvenue forward. Will continue to update and document the progress.