stlplace

Left hand mouse and UNIX

Reading Time: < 1 minute

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.

Fun

My car could not start

Reading Time: < 1 minute

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.

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.

Fun Technology

Lost in translation

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I was looking for some information on “Multithread programming” lately and I happened to find the Chinese version of the book “Practical UNIX programming” by Kay A. Robbins and Steven Robbins. Since my friend brought it from China, it has been sitting on my desk. I was glad I could find some use finally.

But it did not work out. I found it’s difficult to read a translated technology book, because my computer knowledge is larged acquired in past 8.5 years in the States (through English), not to mention the loss of semantics when the book was translated from English to Chinese.

I am not trying to criticize the translation work done by my wonderful Chinese colleagues. I have done technical translation work from time to time, and found it’s always a challenging task if I want to make it real good. The thing is sometimes we just can not translate things from one language into another: no corresponding words, background information, etc.

Saint Louis

For a better St. Louis

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I read the following article “Success is an ‘us’ thing, SLU president says” from St. Louis Post Dispatch a week ago. The President of St. Louis University talked about problems and hopes of St. Louis community. I have been in this city (oh, more accurately county) for more than 5 years, and have witnessed some of the problems he mentioned. For example, there are many small municipalities in St. Louis county. While there is tradition in it (such as the Kirkwood & Webster Grove rivalry), I think it also means inefficiency in governance, public services, and development planning. As a region, St. Louis has lost many corporations headquarters in recent years. Inerestingly enough, it appears the Chinese immigrants population is bucking the trend. Maybe it’s a sign of revitalization?

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The region’s fiefdoms, polarization and overall “myopic attitude” are holding St. Louis back from greatness, the Rev. Lawrence Biondi told an auditorium full of community leaders and friends Wednesday.

The crowd was on hand to honor Biondi as the 2005 Citizen of the Year.

“The future success of our St. Louis region is not a Republican versus Democrat thing,” said Biondi, who is president of St. Louis University. “It is not a city versus county thing. It is not a black versus white thing. It is an us thing. All of us – you and me – together.”

Business

Reality check

Reading Time: 2 minutes

One big news in the business world last week: Microsoft missed its earning estimate for this quarter and guided down its earnings for next quarter and next year. It caused the Microsoft stock (MSFT) to drop more than 10% on Friday. It was the largest drop in one trading day in 5 years. I did not own MSFT stocks. But I was expecting MSFT go up from its trading range in past 3 years (24 to 28) because its upcoming new products: Windows Vista and new Office suite. This news kind caught me in surprise. I have similar feeling for Intel and Dell because every time when Microsoft releases new OS, it will spur the upgrade of PCs.

Obviously I was wrong. The convention wisdom does not work any more in today’s business environment. The competetion is intense in the new areas of growth for Microsoft: online services, game, media, etc. Nowadays even Microsoft is talking about sacking. This reminds me the GE “20, 70, 10” rule which invented by Jack Welch. Basically GE will get rid of bottom 10% of its work force every year. A lot companies followed the suit, but some did not get the soul of this rule. In the talk given by Jack a few weeks ago at Washing U. at St. Louis, Jack explained why: at GE the managers are honest (or direct) to its employees, they will point out what the employee needs to improve constantly. If the employee did not improve performance as recomended by his/her manager, he/she already knows about the situation and will not be surprised if told to let go. He pointed out in some companies the managers are too nice, they would say “everything is good” until hard time comes, in which case they have to lay off lots of people. The sad thing is in that case, those employees are already in their 40s and 50s and it’s hard for them to get new jobs.

Fun

NBA playoffs

Reading Time: 2 minutes

This week is the National Turn off TV week, but I did not participate as usual. I spent some time watching the NBA playoffs. Although I am not a big fan of NBA and those super stars, and I always think we should only watch the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter. Because in a close game, that’s when the result gets decided; in a not-so-close game (one team beats another easily), it’s no fun to watch anyway.

But I think I saw something new in those last 5 minutes in past 2 games: the Sacremento vs. San Antonio game, and LA Laker vs. Phoenix game. San Antonio pulled up an unbelievable win because Barry made a 3 point shot in the last second of regular time and Manu Ginoboli is unstoppable in the overtime. Sacremento’s star player Mike Bibby could not match that. For the Lakers, as usual Kobe is their star in the crunch time. And he did very well.

Business Fun

Filling the soul

Reading Time: < 1 minute

What’s the common characters among book, coffee and music? Besides you can have them all in Borders or Barnes&Nobles. They all can fill your soul. One would wonder while that’s true for book and music, how can the coffee fill our souls? Well, that’s what I heard from Howard Schultz on today’s “60 minutes”. Mr. Schultz is the founder of Star Bucks, which has 11,000 stores in 33 countries, and is opening 5 stores everyday.

Schultz says, “One of our colleagues coined a phrase a long time ago and said, ‘We’re not in the business of filling bellies. We’re in the business of filling souls.'”

Saint Louis

Borders

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I have not been to the Borders for a few months. This evening when I visited the Borders at Creve Coeur, I was glad to see, Gene Operle, a local musician, was getting ready to perform. I remembered I listened to his Country songs a year ago, also at Borders (can not remember whether it was at Sunset Hills or Creve Coeur). When I heard the “Rhythm of the rain”, “Sometimes we touch”, and “Rockie Mountain High”, all the familar songs I used to listen in college, I felt like seeing old friends again. Gene is going to perform on May 13 at Sunset Hills, I will try to be there and enjoy it again.

Here is a map of the Borders store.

There are other public (free) performance at Borders. I attended Mark Biehl’s musical performance last year and it was also good.

Business Stocks

Haigui MBA

Reading Time: 2 minutes

MBA is a hot topic for many overseas Chinese students and professionals: for the money or the dream. I have thought about doing this from time to time, but I am still at ground zero due to reasons such as: lack of the money and time; not sure about the purpose of the MBA; don’t want to follow the crowd; etc.

I read the following article from a well known overseas Chinese web site. And thought it is a good one. Maybe some day I will go for a MBA if I could find a compelling reason to do so. Here is the link of the article. Note I don’t necessarily agree everything the author says.