stlplace

Side bar enhancements

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Added a few more links: notablly, the google maps mania talks about the fun “mash ups” around google map; and HUST blog, HUST stands for Huazhong University and Science and Technology (my undergraduate school). Interestingly enough, I saw some of the bloggers on HUST blog also worked for my current employer (UGS).

“Add to My Yahoo” button: I personally found it to be useful tool so I don’t need to type in individual blog sites to see if there is anything new. My Yahoo page will just do that for me (not perfect yet). I found another trick customize the “recent news” section of “My portfolio”, you can “edit” which news source you want to pick. Yahoo seems doing a good job on the User Interface.

I also changed the links to static. They are sorted in ascending order by name.

Saint Louis

St. Louis 2006

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Although it won’t be as big as Beijing 2008, St. Louis 2006 US Figure Skating Championship will be a treat for the local skating fans. Last Thursday I got to know we will have this event from Jan 7 to 15. So I started looking for a ticket for the Ladies Free Skate. I watched Michelle Kuan and Sasha Cohen on the TV many times. I believe there will not be many oppertunities to see them compete at the same stage because of Michelle’s age. Although being a Chinese I should wish Michelle to win out but I liked Sasha’s technical skills too. Those two super stars do not get along very well. Also I heard from NPR yesterday Emily Hughes, who is Sara Hughes’ younger sister, will also participate. Sara beated Michelle and won the gold medal at last Olympic Game. A Seattle newspaper put title “American beat Michelle” for that event. Because Michelle is Chinese American, you know how the article angered the Chinese American community at that time. Later the newspaper apologized for its mistake.

I finally bought the ticket on ticketmaster (online) after done some research. I looked at Craigslist and eBay and there are not many. Maybe you can save a small handling fee buying at the Local Schnucks (ticketmaster) counter. I am not sure.

Update: just read from news that Michelle is hurt and may not be able to make the appearance at St. Louis. Let’s hope she will have a quick recovery. Otherwise I will still be happy to see Sasha Cohen — I think she is the best female skater technically.

Microsoft Xbox 360 strategy

Post author By stlplace
Post date December 18, 2005
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This morning I went to 3 local Best Buy stores. I knew my chance of getting a Xbox 360 would be as same as winning a lottery. But I went anyway because I was already awake at 7:15 AM. There was a little flurry but I made it to the Best Buy Bridgeton location at 7:58 AM. There was already a line there. And I noticed the chairs (people camped outside the store overnight) were already empty — later on I saw those people waited in the check out lanes with their new Xbox inside the store. Interestingly enough, the Best Buy greeting guys in the front door handed out 15% off coupons for those missed the Xbox. Smart sales pitch.

I spent a minute or two before heading off to the Chestfield Best Buy store. At Bridgeton I saw a girl (or lady) asked the customer rep if there is any more shipments before X’mas. Obviously she needed this as a gift.

When I got to Chestfield, people were picking up their Xbox, tents (I saw at least two tents) and taking off. I gave up my unrealitic hope and went to Mcdonald for breakfast. After that I went to Best Buy at Ellisville and tried out the Xbox demo my first time.

I talked the Xbox shortages problem with my friends who are game lovers (I am not). Originally I thought it was Microsoft’s fluke. But they made me realized it’s a Microsoft’s strategy. I agree. By releasing the Xbox in limited quantity, with all the free media coverage (include my blog), they gained more excitment about the product. And people like me who are not Xbox gamers are also aware of this and may be converted to gamers through all this frenzy, e.e., I tried their demo this morning.

This is a really smart business strategy. But could it back fire especially for those where are real gamers? Unlikely. The thing is there are not too many alternatives. The new PS3 is one year away, and the Xbox 360 has great graphics in my view.

Bill made his day again in this X’mas. Now if he could also make the “blue screen” go away (recently my Windows XP laptop died twice with blue screen, very annoying).

Software development

Indian food and software developers

Post author By stlplace
Post date December 16, 2005
No Comments on Indian food and software developers

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Working in the software development these days also means working with people all over the world. Most notablly, Indian software engineers. I have great respect with my Indian colleagues. I know some of them from my graduate school. But I have to admit I don’t like Indian food. I have been to Indian restaurants in St. Louis several times with my coworkers but I did not really enjoyed it. But this does not means I can stay away from it. Like today.

This week we had food festival at my work place. The idea is everyone bring his/her own favorite dish and share it. I am not a good cooker and I am lazy so I did not participate. During lunch time I felt a strong smell dispersed from a cubicle nearby. Initially I thought it was some American food but later on I realized it’s Indian food (curry, spicy, etc). I had to leave from work early because I just can not stand it. But I think many American coworkers enjoyed it. Now I remember yesterday one of my coworkers asked if I liked Indian food. No wonder he was looking forward to it!

This reminded me of something related. Some of my Chinese friends complained it’s hard to understand Indian English but most American have no problem with it. One time I posed this question to my fellow American graduate student. He told me he would pay more attention when he listened to Indian students but there is no problem in understanding.

Another point I want to make (and I think we Chinese need to learn) is our Indian coworkers know how to market themselves. The food festival is a perfect example. While there are quite some Indian fans among Americans, not everyone likes Indian food (take myself as an example). But they prepared and marketed the food with enthusiasm. That’s what counts. Attitude, not the substance (taste, smell).

Now I wish I would not be at lazy. Maybe next year I will bring some crab rangoon or fried rice.

Software development

Chasing the bug

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As software developer finding and fixing the bugs (defects in software) is just a way of life. I have been debugging (find the cause) a tough problem lately. During debugging sometimes I wished I would have another job. But when I solved a real problem, the satisfaction can not be easily described by words. I bet a lot of people in software developement have similar experience. I want to share some of the general steps I take during debugging.

Reproduce the problem
A lot people ignore it or treat it too lightly. But this is the first step. Make sure the problem appears consistently under the user-described situations; and the symptom is exactly as the user reported. Otherwise you will try to solve the problem “you see”, not “the user sees”. Maybe you will be lucky enough to “see” the same problem as “the user see”. But more likely you will be will be solving another problem, or a related problem. And the next day (week, month), the user will come back and shout at your boss: how come the problem you claimed “fixed” still exisits? You know how embarassing you will be at that time.

Simplify
After “reproduce the probelm”, the next step is to simply. By “simply” I mean the real problem is ususally complicated, and it will take a lot time to run through debugger. The goal here is to simply the problem as much as possible. For example: delete unrelated parts from the raw data. You should be very careful in doing this too. Because you could eliminate the problem area in doing this, i.e., the problem will be gone if you don’t simplify properly.

Find the cause
Here comes the real run. After all the analysis, time to jump into the code. It’s why we progrmmers are paid for, right? But it is also the most difficult part. I am still puzzled by the problem I mentioned at the beginning. Hopefully by stepping through the code, talk about the algorithm with the guru in your team, even ask a second pair of eyes to take look, we can nail the problem.

Fix or ask appropriate party to fix
Then comes the politics part. I have to admit this is not my specialty. Luckily if the mistake is made by yourself, and you know how to fix. Life is good. But a lot of times the mistake could be made by somebody else, maybe some code written by another team member, or even a piece of software created by 3rd party. In these cases, you need to demonstrate the problem to responsible parties, bugging (asking) the people for a quick fix. Meanwhile your sales team or customer are already screaming.

Workaround
Luckily, sometimes you can find a workaround the customer like. That provide cushion time for you or your team to work out a fix.

Saint Louis

St. Louis

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St. Louis gmap

Site Info

Links category

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The link ends with * means you can not get access to it inside China, thanks to the GFW. Note all my links are non-political.

blogroll: individual blogs;

Kunwei is a good blog about things in Singapore and China, written by a “Haigui”.u

WangJianshuo is a blog mostly about Shanghai, written by Wang Jian Shuo. He is busy now as he just got a new baby (June 2007).

China: listed some budget hotels in China, gsuo is a good map (shanghai);

Finance: some finance and stock blogs or bbs;

links: misc. links;

Shanghai: stuff about Shanghai.

Comments and Email are welcome.

Saint Louis

Ice Skating

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I went to ice skating at Creve Coeur Ice Arena today. This is my second time skating on the real ice and this year’s first. Last year I did it at Forest Park. As I said in my another article I did more roller blade skating in recent years. But ice is more fun I think. It’s more diffcult to control the move on the ice because of the lack of friction. But it’s OK for me as a hobby. I used to watch a lot of figure skating (Michel Kuan, Sasha Cohen and Irina Slutskaya) on the TV, now I am happy I could move on the ice too, although much more awkward than those super stars. I saw some teenage girls doing spins and jumps and I admire them. I hope when I have kids they will be interested in this sport and do those amazing things.

Saint Louis

Giovanni’s on the hill

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Went to the Giovanni’s on the hill last night, with a friend from Shanghai. This is the second time I visited the restraunts on the hill, and I almost got lost on Kingshighway. We arrived at the Giovanni’s a bit late because of other errands. My first impression is it’s a fairly formal restraunt, from the dress of waiters and guests. And the pictures on the wall (Bush I and II, Clinton, Reagon, etc). We also saw two limos parked nearby. Apparently there was a big party going on. The service and the food was not as great as we thought. We had lamb and lobster respectively. Maybe their pasta will be better? My friend has been to some more expensive restraunts in D.C. and Europe and told me the services there are very good. The price for an entree is from $ 25 to 35.

The wait time is none because we arrive after 9:45 PM. Better than the Favazza’s, another Italian restraunt on the hill I visited couple years ago.

Here is a link of Italian restaurants from AOL.

Saint Louis

More pictures…

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I added more pictures at my gallery. They are taken at some of my 2005 trips: Grand Canyon, Jiu Zhai Gou (and Shen Xian Chi), and Yosemite. There are also a few pictures I took on an afternoon trip along Missisipi River (near Alton, IL).

I will also add some “Christmas lights” pictures at St. Louis soon.