“And he talked about the importance of having companies to make products, and that there were very few people who drove the world—and he wanted to be one of those people that was driving the world, and not just one of the millions and millions of people who kinda don’t matter.”

I bought a pro account on Flickr

I just realized my account is now over 200 photos and I’m not going to stop uploading, thus a pro account is obviously needed.

About 1 and 1/2 month ago, I received xx USD from gettyimage for my stock photo sales, and now that amount of money is going to fund this pro account for a few years, or even more if it keeps selling (You can find my photos here).

My flickr account.

Hello Vietnam

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Beautiful song.

I’m back from the super awesome trip.

Now the real work begins, here.

the smartest people seem to have the least appreciation for themselves. That isn’t just in this field. It’s like that in all fields. The best people most often are the most self critical. Musicians, actors, writers, programmers, CEOs. Part of what makes these people the greatest is the fear that they’re not. The fear that they are defrauding everyone and they’ve merely lucked into their situation and any day, someone is going to discover it and call them out on it. So they work hard to stay ahead.

source

Very true, indeed. Won’t never forget that “yay we (kinda) made it” feeling.

Ye`

This isn’t the first time, but it feels just like the first time.

I think I’m addicted to this feeling.

Ah, a new post

It’s been a while since I really put down some thoughts here. So this is what happened with my life recently:

1. Pica Browser for Facebook. I started this together with this guy in Dec 2010. The app hit top 50 of US iTunes App Store in a few days, beyond my wildest imagination. To be honest, I did think about making it to the top, but I never expect anything like this. I’m blown away. It’s quite something now, but we want MORE. I can’t say anything right now but there’s a plan somewhere to make this bigger. And it will be bigger.

2. I’m taking a software engineering class. This class is damn heavy that I spent 1 week at the computer to work on a single assignment. Even though I have some experiences with iPad programming, I do suffer a lot. My prof and my mates keep saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, I don’t believe this. What doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger, it shows you your new limit instead.

3. I get to know people with achievement in their early life. It makes me wonder what the heck did I do in my previous years. I spent years at this university and I did not achieve what they did. Am I really that bad or are they really smart? Either way, it sucks. But then I remember this quote “You can’t have it all”, and there’s a fact that I’m just 21, I do have plenty of time before I hit 30. It’s not too late I guess.

4. I bought a Magic Trackpad. It’s awesome. After trying my friend’s Macbook Air for a few times, I could not resist buying this thing.

5. Europe ticket booked. I’ll be there from 4-31 May if I can get the visa. I’m damn lazy to fill in all the form for visas again, it’s so troublesome =(. Anw I know it would be an AWESOME trip.

On travel

I don’t like museums.
I don’t like arts galleries.
I don’t like shopping centers.
I don’t like theme parks.

I like streets.
I like coffee shops.
I like fields.
I like beautiful scenes.

Thank you

Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it’s the moments that take your breath away.

Ở đời

Làm trai phải đầu đội trời, chân đạp đất, nuôi mộng bá chủ thiên hạ, mang vinh quang về cho bản thân và gia đình.

Phàm là người mà lười biếng không chịu suy nghĩ, mãi không thể nào lớn lên được.

Phải nhanh chóng công danh sự nghiệp để còn yên bề gia thất thôi.

Cố lên.

On people

In this fucking world, almost everyone looks down on you when you are nobody. It’s always “I’m the smartest. You are dumb”.

You work for small company? I pity you.

You work for big MNC? Fuck you idiot ladder climbing, you never reach the top.

You start your company? Even better, fuck you loser who can’t find a job.

Get over it. Be somebody and fuck them back.

Do it right

I look at many thing I’m using right now, they are not perfect, there are a lot of room for improvement.

I understand it’s hard to get something right the first time you do it, that’s why the late comer in any market does have a chance to win.

I believe it’s very important to get thing right before you release it, I also believe in agile development and fixing thing along the way. Agile does not mean low quality product btw.

It’s simple as that, do it right.

Real-world

SF street

A street in San Francisco *that day is rather cloudy, the sky is beautiful the other days*

It’s been 2 months since my last entry lol, I’m getting lazy.

Quick update, I just get back from US *just is like 10 days already*, meet tons of awesome people, visited my dear friends, saw new things. That’s probably everything I would ask for a trip anywhere :-P. On a side note, I love SF, every bit of it, I’ll be back soon =).

Back to the title, since I was a kid I had this question about every product I use, how people come from thinking about it to making something that can sell.

Now I’m 20 and doing my undergrad, hoping to build something people might want to buy. I want to see people use my product, at a large scale. Nothing beats the feeling when a happy customer send you a compliment. More importantly, I truly want to inspire someone who uses it to develop the passion of building something else.

“It’s a long way & I don’t have much time” – I keep reminding myself this everyday.

On focus

Everyone has the same amount of time everyday, no less, no more. Some people are super productive and some are just average (there’s a saying that the top programmers are 10 times more productive than their average peers). Why there’s such a huge different?

You may think it’s important to decide what to do with your time, but I realized what really matters is what NOT to do given that amount of time. Just force yourself not to do unnecessary things and you’ll find yourself much more productive than before. There’re just so many distractions that kill your concentration without you knowing it. To name a few: thinking about the person you like, facebook, email, im, handphone, twitter. In fact, if there’s a way to track the amount of time you spend on those things everyday, you would be amazed how much time did you waste.

Well, we all argue that those things are, in fact, important. The truth is, they’re not that important. Try to remember the last time an email requires you to reply instantly, how many updates from your friends on facebook and twitter are important to you.

Just cut all the craps and you’ll find plenty of time to do other useful things, not to mention more works get done when you’re focus. I don’t know about you, but I love the feeling of working 3-4 hours straight and feel like nothing. Bad news is I rarely get to that kind of focus :-(, still trying to achieve these things.

Remarkable

I bet most of you don’t want to be “good enough” in your life. It’s ideal if everyone could be remarkable in one or another way.

To me, it’s to make a different in some people’s life, the more the better. To my friend, it’s to do something which matters to many others. I guess we both want to change people’s life to some extent.

So what does remarkable means to you? I’d love to hear =).

Before you answer that question, watch this video, I think this is cool:

A(nother) blog

As the title of this blog: A(nother) Jason Dinh’s blog. I used to have a blog on Y! 360, Facebook notes, a private blog. All were abandoned after a while ‘cuz of various reasons. I usually blog to note things for myself, rarely to share them with other people.

This is different. I’ll mainly write ’bout things I want to share with others (maybe nobody cares anw lol). Mind you that I won’t update this very often ‘cuz I don’t have much to share :-P.