Keep Walking (2/2)

During past five years, I changed my job four times. Each time when I decided to leave a company, I told myself "I don't want to work here, I deserve more better!" Thus I always looked forward a better job, which was paid a higher salary, less working time and close to my house. But it is not truth, because there is always a better one can be chose.  In that period I lose myself in an infinite loop until I lose my job finally.

Sometimes I miss my second job, which is to develop software utilities about 3D display panels and touch panels in a TFT-LCD manufacture. Why I missed it? It seems gave less salary than other companies, however it offered a nice place for a R&D engineer to attempt new ideas leading industry. Not only I learned a lot of knowledge about LCD/LED but also earned respect and higher salary than average there.

A process of producing TFT-LCD 

(Photo from http://www.auo.com/?sn=47&lang=zh-TW)

I got a higher paid in my third job but I'm not sure it really I want. One year later, I quit it and decided to slow my step and to think about my life. I went to German and left in Berlin for three months. It was my first time to leave my home place so far and so long.

Through Madeline China, Middle-Asia and East-European, after an eighteen hour flight I arrived German. To go to German is my dream as I was a child. It's so hard to describe how thrilled I could be here. I found a language institute at Berlin to study Germany. Everyday all that I did was to study Germany and be a good tourist. Some people said "simple is best" and I think it is truth. I put my annoyance down and enjoyed being alone.

A snapshot of a Turkey supermarket near my house

Near U-Bahn Schönleinstraße where I left. In the last month in German, March - 2012, I often walked along the river Spree from Kottbußer Brüke to Potsdamer Platz after my Germany course. I've always been impressed with this way. In early spring of Berlin, you can see there are many trees stand on the riverside, and most of them are already green. In a sunny afternoon, some people will sit on the riverbank have a picnic or read books, some people take their children play in the river park, and some people in restaurants are eating, drinking and talking. Can you image the river, the tree and the people?  How this scene is beautiful!

Early spring in Berlin

"Why? Why am I here?" as I was walking on the road, I thought this question. Several months ago, I had a good life: a high paid job and a family, everything looked like good. Suddenly, I lose my family and then lose my job. It was a bad time for me than ever before, but I am still brave to chase my dream. That's me, that's why I went to German.

Even in a bad situation, what I'll never do is doing nothing or self-pity. Further more, I have a determination to make the circumstance be favorable to me. In these months I relearned how to make new friends, how to communicate with other persons, how to plan my daily life, how to do a thing rightly and to think about what is the truth of my life. Until now, when I restart my life in Taiwan the above things are very useful to me. I having a new job and I'm very enjoy the challenge come with it. Besides, I think I'm a very luck guy because there is a nice pretty girl who really love me.

There is an advice from a cartoon named "South Park", said by Kyle Broflovski, "Look, dude. Things around here have changed. Sometimes, the only way to keep going is to make a left turn". I think it is right.

Kyle Broflovski

(Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Broflovski)

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O.T.

Keep Walking (1/2)

I'm a software engineer, my profession is developing software which is based on a operation system (OS) such as Windows, Linux or Android. But now, a new challenge comes to me: driver porting.

My company is a IC module supplier, these modules can drive Bluetooth and WiFi to work correctly. Most of our customers come from OEM or ODM, which produces automotive software systems. These systems can play music, video, and some of them can do navigation and so on.

Bluetooth comes with the raising of smart phones that have a great growth.Today,  people often connect their smart phone to a automotive software system for playing music and holding a hand-free phone. However, acoustic echo cancellation (AEC)is the potential technical issue when people want to use a hand-free phone in a car.

What is AEC? AEC is a process to cancel echo caused by far-end signal on a telephone call. For example, when a person uses a hand-free phone in a car, speakers of a car will play the voice of far-end user. At the same time, normally, a microphone in the car would receive the sound from speakers. Thus, the far-end users would heard their own voice. In this case, an AEC is needed in a automotive software system to remove echo.

A view of AEC
(Photo from http://lakeofsoft.com)

As you know, we are a Bluetooth IC-module provider, obviously our AEC solution is included with our Bluetooth module. This solution we called a "hardware solution". A hardware solution is efficient and easily porting, but the disadvantages are expensive and hard modification. For market reasons, in recent years we begin to provide solutions implemented with software (i.e. a software solution). One of them is development based on Android, and it is my job.

After one half year hard working, several projects start using software solution based on Android. For some reasons, my boss might want to give me more training, then last month he assigned me to join driver porting team.

So, what is driver porting and why it is a new challenge for me? The purpose of driver porting is to deploy a device driver in different operation systems and make it work. Further more, even using the same O.S., different system architectures need different driver configurations. For example, you need different driver installed on your MS Windows and Apple Mac. We can say driver porting is the first class that a module supplier want to sell their products to any customers.

An automotive software application

(from http://www.bluetooth.com/)

However, driver porting is a work that are more close to hardware but far away developing a system middle-ware. A engineer wants to do this work well who need to read data sheet and to check many hardware specifications. That's really my shorts. But... so what? I'm very glad to accept this assignment! :)

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O.T.