Author: stlplace

Categories
Life Technology

Undo

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I think “Undo” is one of the best features we have in many desktop applications. I am not going to get into details of individual applications, but I used quite a bit of “Undo” in Visual Studio editor, Word, and more recently “System restore” on my Windows XP box. There are two reasons we need “Undo”, first we as human beings make mistakes all the time; secondly the application or system also makes mistakes from time to time. Real world is not perfect. By the same token in softare development world we usually use version control, i.e., we check in working code to repository every day (or a few days) so that we can roll back if we find the latest (and the greatest code) is not working.

Unfortunately in the real life there are no magic “Undo” buttons. For instances, if we get angry at people we know (I know I have been treated unfairly), the recepients can remember the incident for a long time. Human beings are not computers, the bad memory on human mind (or heart) are not easy to erase. It’s not that human beings are not forgiving (I know I am very forgiving :-), but forgiving does not mean forgetting. On the other hand, I think we can get smart on things, because we are smart than computers. Now that we know there is no magic “Undo” button, let’s think about it before demage is being done.

Categories
Business Technology

Google Web 2.0 and User Experience

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Google is making buzz again this week, with its spreadsheet. I don’t want to talk too much about it because they already got plenty of media coverage. What impressed me most is not the technology itself, but its marketing tactic. Google says it’s only open to limited beta testers, and here is the link . I think a lot of people signed up because of curiosity. This is very similar to its Gmail invitation only sign up. I still remember a while ago my friend called me and asked if I need a Gmail account, because at that time one person can only send 10 invitations (now it’s 100).

Gmail is certainlly very convenient. Its “group same topic mail together” feature works very well for group discussion. Note group is another good feature from Google. Sometimes when I got stuck with a problem, I searched it and found discussions closely related to my problem. Bingo. Another Google product I like is Google Map (now called Google Local), I used it for driving directions; and I could even see the tennis court in my community. There are lot of mashup of Google map, one famous example is housingmaps . This brings up a very hot topic these days: Web 2.0. According to wikipedia, web 2.0 generally refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online. In contrast to the first generation, Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages.

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Categories
Stocks

StockInsight blog migrated

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I used to keep a stockInsight blog at blogspot. I have not written too much on that blog lately, partly because I was busy on other things, not up to date with the stock market; partly because it’s hosted in blogspot, which means another web site to log in. Anyway I decided to migrate all the 80 posts from blog spot to my own web site and this is the new link.

By the way, with wordPress 2.0, the migration process is relatively painless.

Now, time to write some real insightful posts.

Categories
Fun Life

Lose as a team

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I started watching Detriot Pistons when they beat the Lakers in 2004 NBA finals. I liked the players and their coach Larry Brown. At that time Detroit team was good but no one was selected as NBA all star (this year 4 of them, Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, Rich Hamilton and Chauncy Billups, were selected). Besides a good coach, overall skills of the players, they won the championship because they play as a team. Nobody is super star; everyone listened to the coach and play for one goal.

Not any more. Did you noticed Ben Wallace publicly criticized the current coach Flip Sanders, and Rashsheed Wallace did not want to listen to the coach in the time out and did not even clap the hand with the coach. Even the soft-spoken Tashaun Prince second guessed coach’s substitution arrangement. Fortunately Chauncy Billups, their team leader, did the right thing: he said he still believed in coach.

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Categories
Stocks

Quicken

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I heard about Quicken (the personal finance software) long time ago. Last fall I decided giving it a try because I felt it’s harder to manage my bills and payments manually. My goal is to view all my banking, credit card activies, phone/utilities/home loan bills, and pay them in one place: Quicken. If possible, I would like to manage my investment, asset/liability, tax too.

Nine months later, my original goal was not quite accomplished. I still go to individual sites for the activities and bills, set a reminder in my Yahoo calendar before the bills due, and pay them when Yahoo send me the reminder. Pretty much manual process. Besides I am too cheap to pay Quicken for the “online bill pay”, and I was a bit slow to learn “Quicken”, another reason is I can not get away from old way of doing things, which obviously worked.

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Categories
Technology

Wi-Fied finally

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I mean the wireless Internet for my laptop at home. My laptop does come with Intel (R) Pro/wireless Lan 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter but it losts the connection with my D-link wireless router very frequently. Initially I thought it’s the problem with my Internet provider. But after I changed from DSL to cable for Internet, the problem persists. Finally I decided to invest some money, I ordered this D-link AirPlus DWL-G650 card Thursday night from buy.com; and I received it today (that was fast). After installation and restart, I am able to write this post on my lap while sitting on the couch. No more cables.

Categories
Life

Mark Cuban

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I am not a big fan of Mark Cuban, the owner of Dallas Mavericks, and a successful business man. But I liked what he said about “investing” in his blog.

In this changing world, it’s hard to predict whether the stock market will crash tomorrow, it’s hard to know whether we will have the same job next year, and we don’t know whether the gas will go to $5 or $2. But we can do one thing: consistenly improve ourselves.

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Let me repeat myself one more time on another topic. The best investment you can always make is in yourself. If you want to secure your financial future, invest in your own knowledge. 29 dollars for a book is going to be a better investment than 29 dollars in commission to a brokerage 99 out of a 100 times. Being the best at something you love to do, is going to bring rewards, financial and otherwise that will far exceed what any stock or bond can offer you.
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Categories
Software development Windows

Left hand mouse and UNIX

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I started to use left hand for mouse last week because my right hand did not feel well: being a programmer, I had too many mouse clicks for my job. One of my coworker hurt his right hand permanently so I decided to be more careful. Initially I felt it a bit awkward but I am doing OK now (this is the second week).

The real job is much tough. I had to do lots of work on UNIX. Don’t get me wrong. I am a fan of UNIX and I think I have decent skills on UNIX. It’s just in the past few years I almost used Windows exclusively. Now I felt a bit wield coming back. As I read “Joel on Software” recently I agree with Joel said: Windows is designed for everyday user; UNIX is for the programmer. The mind set of two systems are so different and I need to adjust. Different compilers on different UNIX systems, different debuggers, and different problems: compile error, run time error(bad results or crash). I think that may be one of the reasons that UNIX is losing market share in applications (in addition to higher hardware cost compared to Intel). I don’t know how the new generation programmers are taught in school. Are they using MS Visual Studio IDE for C++ class or gcc/gdb on Linux? The latter is much harder to use and debug; it’s all command line. Years ago I heard there is this thing called “KDevelop” Linux C++ IDE but I have not used it. Personally I do believe it’s important for programmers to know both IDE and command line, because IDE is not always available.

Categories
Fun

My car could not start

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Monday morning, 8:45 AM, when I turned the car key, it barely clicked and could not start. I was not panick but I started wondering what to do: call my neighbour to give me a jump because my car is stuck in between theirs, not a good idea, it’s too early and I barely know them; call AAA but it will take a while; work at home? It’s OK but I really want to have the freedom of the car.

I opened the hood, started looking at the battery, the negative side was fine, how about the positive side under the cover? All kinds of green stuff. Ha ha, I found the root cause. I had this problem before. Last time (long long time ago) the mechanic showed me how to clean it. I got the toolbox, and used to screw driver to clean up the battery connection. After that, when I turned the key again, it worked! I was able to rock and roll again.

This is not a hard problem. I was able to figure it out because I had similar experience before. I believe many car problems are not that hard if we can learn step by step. Last time I tightened the bumper using a washer. I paid $0.16 for the materials. Initially I was asking the car shop people but they seemed don’t care (to do this small job), so I did it by myself.

Categories
Fun

Steve Nash

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I started to watch Steve Nash when he was playing for Dallas Maverick a few years ago. I guess I watched Dallas because of Wang Zhizhi. Recently Steve Nash got the MVP award and his team, Phoenix Suns, beat LA lakers and entered second round of Western conference. It was fun to watch Steve and Kobe face to face, shouted at each other on the court; and for me it was more fulfilling to see Steve won because I like him better. Unlike Kobe, Steve looks just like an ordinary person. I heard he lets his girl friend decide his hair style. On the court, he is the leader. When other guys are cold, he makes the shots; when other guys are hot, he makes them better. From physical condition, he definitely can not match with most guys in the NBA. He also has some back injuries which prevents him to sit down during break. But all these did not stop him doing the amazing things.

Will the Sun rise to the top? I don’t know. But I hope they will.