Author: stlplace

Open source millionaires

Reading Time: 2 minutes

There is a little piece of news in the software industry caught my attention this week. Red Hat, one of the biggest open source solution provider decided to buy JBoss, a not so well known open source middleware (application server) softare developer, for USD 350 million. I read an article on Business week about JBoss’s CEO Marc Fleury and “how he got here” last week. Because I did not find the BW article, I put a similar article on eWeek here, this one is interview. Quote Marc’s word “I have said many times that I want to create a new generation of open-source millionaires.” I think his word is true to a great extent because his company is mainly owned by founders and employees.

Saint Louis Stocks

Zillow

Post author By stlplace
Post date April 8, 2006
No Comments on Zillow

Reading Time: < 1 minute

My friend mentioned this real estate estimate web site to me. We were very excited to see the property value of our St. Louis homes went up sharply in the past month, according to the web site. While we are mature enough to know this is not 100% accurate, it’s good news nonetheless.

Here is a review article from WSJ about zillow. I think it’s a useful tool for individuals who are in the real estate market.

Fun Stocks

Cars

Post author By stlplace
Post date April 2, 2006
1 Comment on Cars

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I was a car junkie a few years ago. By that I mean I can call out the brand and models of most cars on the road; and I visited the dealership and test drive from time to time. Not to mention I spent tons of time on the car web sites, such as edmunds, autotrader, cars. com, etc.

This is all past for me. I am no longer that enthusiatic on cars any more. I felt while luxury cars and SUVs are great, I can live with my current 5 years old middle size sedan. Basically car is a tool to get me from point A to point B: with good fuel efficiency, reliability, and safety. On the other hand, I can fully understand and respect my friends who fall in love with their cars: the style, the color, the feel of “driving machine”. It’s just that I am cheap on my car these days. I will ignore the “Service Engine Soon” light because I think it’s a nusance. I also ignored the windshield wiper noise for half year before fixing them.

Business Saint Louis

Trader Joe’s

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Trader Joe’s is a small grocery store which provides “high quality foods and beverages at honest low prices”. The quoted word is taken from its paper shopping bag (unlike Aldi, its bag is free). Recently Trader Joe’s is growing very fast and I remember reading a magazine article talking about business model and growth.

Seeing is believing. A few days ago, after dinner, I stopped by its newly opened store in Creve Couer. The store is right across street from Dierbergs, one of the largest and oldest grocery stores in St. Louis area. Except I had minor problem locating its entrance, I was very pleased with my shopping experience. There are varities of food, from cheese, bread, fruits, vegetable, meats, to beverages, and beers. The price is close to Schnucks’ (another grocery store in the area, considered as middle range), i.e., it’s cheaper than Diebergs. But the quality is not discounted. Not to mention the service. I like the way they ring the bell (the real bell), the corner tasting table (free coffee, cookies, etc.), and the friendliess of cashier. It’ like a neighbourhood store, as oppose to the big chain store like Wal-mart or Sam’s club. I noticed there are a few neighbourhood drug stores on the Olive street, despite WalGreen’s store ubiquitous apprearnce. I guess the mom-pop stores still have customers and business, otherwise how can they keep open.

Life

Persistence

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Saw the following words from a Doctor’s office today. I believe many people would agree it. But how many of us are actually following it? I think I should also put it on the wall so I won’t forget it.
=======================================

Nothing in the world can take the place of PERSISTENCE.

TALENT will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

GENIUS will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

EDUCATION will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “Press On,” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge — 1932

Software development

C++ Training

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I attended C++ training course at my work place last week. This is good for me because I did not feel well last week ( I got cold and headache): I can stay away from real coding during all these madness.

Seriously, I did not find the C++ course to be any easier than the work. The fun starts with “Pair programming” and “Test driven development (TDD)”. We had many excercises during the class. Basically we need to work in pairs and make sure our little program pass the test. I happened to work with my two coworkers doing the exercises, which I mentioned in my previous post here and here. Although they have been doing development using C (procedural language) most of their career, I was impressed by their helpful insights working on the exercises . Smart developers can learn things quickly and apply the existing knowledge to new things. I think that’s one reason our products are leading the industry and market most of the time.

Besides C++ language features, I found the testing driven development to be useful. Actually I had to fix two problems in my real code. I created those problems when I added new features to the code. The cause of problem one was that I did not run all the test cases. Problem two was not covered by the test cases at all: somebody outside my team found the problem and reported it, to my embarrassment. I did fix the problem (I think) shortly after.

But the most important of all, is I know how to prevent those kinds of incidents in the future.

Fun

March Madness

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I watched quite a bit NCAA men’s basketball this weekend. Although I am not a big basket ball fan, I like to watch college basktet ball (more than NBA) because the college game is more fun. First, the game is shorter (40 minutes total). Second, I can see more team work in play because there are no super stars like Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant. Thirdly, the result is harder to predict, unknown school can upset the favorite in this one-game format. Yesterday Bradley beat Pittsburgh, this is the first time Bradley went to sweet 16 since 1955. Then George Mason came back from double digit deficit, and beat last year’s champion UNC. Also George Town knocked off big school Ohio State. It school named after “George” is rewarded this time.

While I enjoyed all these craziness, I really wished Missouri had a team in the first round (64 teams). I used to take MU (U. of Missouri at Columbia) as my home team because I went to UM – Rolla. But MU disappointed me and a lot fans last two years. Hope I can see them in next year’s NCAA conference.

Saint Louis

Ruth’s Chris Steak House

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Ruth’s Chris Steak House is opening a store in St. Louis (Clayton) on March 20. I happened to see the store sign today when I drove by. While I am not a big fan of steak, I got to know the restaurant because I bought/sold its stock last year. It’s a premium steak house, and I like its business growth prospect. I think I will visit it and taste its famous steak too.

Business China

Taxi driver

Reading Time: < 1 minute

From mitbbs

================================================
出租司机给我上的MBA课

我要从徐家汇赶去机场，于是匆匆结束了一个会议，在美罗大厦前搜索出租车。一辆
大众发现了我，非常专业的、径直的停在我的面前。这一停，于是有了后面的这个让
我深感震撼的故事，象上了一堂生动的MBA案例课。为了忠实于这名出租车司机的原
意，我凭记忆尽量重复他原来的话。

“去哪里……好的，机场。我在徐家汇就喜欢做美罗大厦的生意。这里我只做两个地
方。美罗大厦，均瑶大厦。你知道吗？接到你之前，我在美罗大厦门口兜了两圈，终于
被
我看到你了！从写字楼里出来的，肯定去的不近~~~”

“哦？你很有方法嘛！”我附和了一下。

“做出租车司机，也要用科学的方法。”他说。我一愣，顿时很有些兴趣“什么科学的
方法？”

“要懂得统计。我做过精确的计算。我说给你听啊。我每天开17个小时的车，每小时成
本34.5元……”

“怎么算出来的？”我追问。

Saint Louis

Weather etc.

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Missouri, the show me state where I live, had a pretty wild weather last weekend. We had Tornato (twister) both on Saturday and Sunday. I stayed whole day at home on Sunday, and I never saw so many Tornato warnings on the TV. On Sunday night the weather guy basically told the viewer to stay alert and turn on the TV once a while during sleep. Luckily St. Louis was not hit directly.

This web site also had some problems this afternoon. I believe this was just a technical glitch. Just like weather, computer sometimes is unpredictable. Fortunately this is not a mission critical web site and the glitch won’t cause major damages.

By the way, the weather is pretty nice now after those storms. I sawthe full moon very clearly on the sky tonight.