Categories
Software development

Set up SVN (Subversion) on local machine (Windows)

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I need to do some development work on Windows, using Visual Studio. I like to have a simple source code control system, in recent years I have used CVS, Subversion and git (on Mac). I did a google search on Subversion and found some instructions regarding setting up Subversion.

Setting up Subversion on Windows

and this one

Installing and Configuring SVNServe and TortoiseSVN on Windows

Download/install the SVN server and starting the windows service was relatively straightforward. So as the Tortoise SVN client. Couple things keep in mind:

1) Some sites requires registration or install additional software, I chose sites that does not require registration.

2) I found sometimes I can not open up svn://localhost successfully, in the same command prompt window where I start the SVN service. After I close the command prompt and tried again, it worked. The commands I used are:

set SVN_EDITOR=c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe
svn mkdir svn://localhost/myproject

Categories
Fun

18 rules on iPhone

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From a Massachusetts mother to her 13 old son.

NPR Talk of the Nation has a discussion on this today.

Very much applicable to myself (though not a teenager).

So in summary, no TV, limited iPhone, happy parenting 🙂

Categories
Fun

Funny things about Yoyo

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Hair cut

Mommy just cut Yoyo’s hair.

Mommy: wo yao kan kan wo de cheng guo. In english: I would like to see my fruits (results).

Yoyo: cheng guo ke yi chi ma? (Can I eat the results 🙂

Reading

Also, these days she just likes to be teacher, “reading” books to us. Sometimes she insists we sit on the carpet (that’s how it’s done ins her school).

Laptop

Seeing both my wife and myself are using laptop on bed, she got her VTech laptop and laughed at us 🙂

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Career Life

2012 Year in Review

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I took this cue from Kurby Turner, the independent Mac/iOS developer, as I think it might be helpful to reflect a year’s work, life, effort, etc. As the old Chinese saying goes “Ji Wang Kai Lai” (learn from past, and look forward to the future).

New job: Software Development
Today is my one year anniversary at my new employer. Looking back, from the initial ramp up to more comfortable work on my own pace, and then deliver the first iOS (iPad) app to the field, back end work, report work and support. I feel good about my effort and the support I got from my coworkers. Sometimes my wife will ask me “why it took so long for you to complete a project”? Because it’s not trivial to do it.

I also wrote a few blog posts on iOS app development, and the back end (.Net) web service. I plan to do the same as times goes. Generally speaking, now I have more confidence doing customized app development, full life cycle, and from front to back end (all tiers).

Family
Our daughter goes to the Hope Montessori Infant Toddler Community at Creve Coeur (off Manson road, near Olive Blvd). We are truly blessed with the teachers and staffs at the Hope family (I consider them as family, both adults and children, because sometimes they are better than family 🙂 . Serenity (Yoyo) learned English and all kinds of things there, which laid a good foundation for her future. For us, we learned parenting lessons there. Sometimes I wonder how much quality time I spent there, from afternoon pickup, to field trip, to social (work-day, Fettuccine, Montessori and Vino, the FMV movie). We watched the FMV movie with great fun, my wife and my friends (couple) did not attend the FMV event, and really enjoyed the movie after I showed them.

Trips
We did one family vacation, and I had 2 business trips in year 2012. We went to Orange Beach, Alabama in the Memorial Day weekend, with Chinese friends. We drove there. It’s funny Yoyo would not go to bathroom on the road, she wants to use bathroom in the hotel or condo (destination). For the business trip, I visited 2 mines in West Virginia, the 2 hours I spent in underground mine is both interesting and a bit unsettling. That’s the first time I visited mines (both surface and underground). In November I visited Las Vegas, stayed in Palazzo (Venetian), which I stayed 3 years ago when I attended AU (Autodesk University, the developer/user conference) in 2009.

Personal Finance
As I wrote this post, I found I made both good moves and bad moves on this topic. I did well in 401k accounts (because I did nothing). But not in the Scottrade brokerage and IRA accounts (because I tried to do too much). Overall I still did ok, because majority of my assets are in 401k (both existing accounts and new account).

Today (01-03-2012) as I listened to Charlie Ellis on the Consuelo WealthTrack podcast, I can not agree more on one comment from Charlie: we all strive to be above average in school or at work. In investing being average is actually not too bad. I understand what meant: 80% of mutual funds perform below average (the index), hedge fund and individual investors are not doing better. So in other words, being average is actually in the top 20% 🙂

Continue reading “2012 Year in Review”
Categories
Fun

Let Serenity Surrender with Dignity

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Same applies to Ruixian (my wife). Note for Ruixian I need to respect her authority as well (sometimes she lost patience when discipline our daughter).

Saw this from Saturday’s Kindermusik class, Serenity was a bit hyper that day (due to chocolate lollipop?). When the teacher asked the kids to put the sand blocks back, Serenity did not follow the instructions (she usually does follow instructions well). So the teacher asked “Serenity, could you put the sand blocks back”? Youyou hesitated for a few seconds, and walked toward the teacher. I was a bit relieved.

Another fun story from the Montessori teacher, on Friday, when the teacher read a story about a truck got stuck, Serenity suggested unload some of the lumbers, which surprised the teachers a bit (in a good way). That morning was also her first dental appointment, her routine was a bit off, and she played with food (run around) when they set up for the lunch. Of course she was disciplined. Serenity was a bit shocked (as I speculated) because she thought that teacher was the “nicer” one (more easy going).

Categories
Uncategorized

Simplify, simplify, simplify

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Our daughter has been a bit fussy lately in school (daycare/toddler program). In talking to the teacher, we agreed “too late to go to bed” is probably one reason. So we started to adjust our schedule, trying to put her to bed at around 8:30 to 9 PM. In the past, it could be 10 or 10:30 PM, due to my wife’s evening work load and my laziness. A lot of times I was just doing net surfing while our daughter was watching Netflix, or play her own toys (books).

I gave it more thought after reading our teacher’s article on the TV thing (see Hope Academy toddler home page, titled “How TV watching harms young children”). One comment kinda resonate with me is why the baby diaper needs to have some sort of cartoon figure on it. We are increasingly living in a commercial, multi-tasking, run-run-run type of society, sometimes without our own noticing. This of course has effect on young kids, and on us. From my personal perspective, I had an iPhone 4 from 2 years ago, and I have been addicted to facebook, twitter, and other apps since. I decided to unload a few apps (CNBC, LinkedIn and facebook) after re-reading the TV watching article. Let’s see how it goes.

Categories
kids

The most important thing in parenting

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is the “not give up” attitude. I learned a few things from Dave’s yearly breakfast seminar, last year was Dave talking about the Montessori “explore” approach, this year was about digital media by Dr. Sucre (a parent of Hope Montessori student). The topic is related to the “no TV watching” as shown in the Hope Infant Toddler web page (written by my daughter’s teacher). To be honest I have not read all the materials and have not followed all these good advice strictly, but I was trying my best for the most part 🙂

This reminds me of couple things: I remember Woody Allen once said 80% of the work is to show up. I also recall the CIO of the company I work for recently said: show the customers you care (IT is very customer focused in my company).

Yesterday in the parenting work day, our daughter started crying for some reason, which is a big embarrassment for my wife, she has a thin skin by the way. They wanted to go home. So we started driving while I was hoping they can change their mind. On a red light we saw a friend’s car, I know they are coming to the event as their son is in the same class as my daughter. So I tried to drive back. Things turn out ok eventually.

 

Categories
Fun

Montessori Dad

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My daughter has been to the Montessori Toddler program (Hope Academy in Creve Coeur) for over a year, and I think I am becoming a Montessori dad. This is a bit abstract, but I like to list a few examples about the school and teachers, and show why they are great.

This is the first US pre-school I have first hand experience. I never went to pre-school when I was young, I was raised primarily by my grandmas. There was an old saying “it takes a village to raise a child”. Hope Montessori was pretty much organized this way. We increasingly live in a consumerism society, but that I mean we run around for work and material things, and lose family time and equally important, quite time for reflection and time with friends. Hope has a few interesting activities each semester to bring kids, teachers and parents together. In the fall there is the parent work day. Today is the second parent work day we attended, while I had to admit I didn’t contribute much building the wooden slide. Our daughter did have fun painting the climber. Last year we helped out in the kitchen.

There are 4 fields trips each year: farm field trip in fall, magic house in winter, botanical garden in spring, and a state park trip in summer. Dave (the director) always makes sure the food are good in those field trips. Now when I think about it, the activity fits the season very well 🙂

Now a few words about the teachers. The most important thing is they love/care the kids very much. I am 100% sure my baby is in good hands when I drop her off in the morning. We also learned some parenting lessons from the teachers, tell the truth (be honest) to the kids, encourage her use the words, and recently, how to deal the emotion problem with the kid. One interesting thing is the teacher told my daughter we all have moms and we all miss mom (when my daughter cries for mom during nap time). Kinda cute, isn’t it?

Categories
iPhone app

Some tips when creating WCF web service for iPad consumption

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Continuation of previous post.

1) WCF get does not like “NULL” column in the query results

2) // note the “id” should match in declaration and method

Continue reading “Some tips when creating WCF web service for iPad consumption”
Categories
Fun

Some thoughts on work, election, and faith

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I changed my job this Jan. I started working for a coal company as mobile app developer. Coal and mobile app (iPhone, iPad) do usually go together in the same sentence, I think. As coal is described as “dirty” in the media, especially by the environmentalists, the “green” people both in and outside government (think Al Gore, president Obama and his EPA commissioner Lisa Jackson). On the other hand, Apple the forerunner of smartphone, tablet revolution is famous for its environment friendly too, just recently they announced initiatives to replace coal powered datacenter by natural gas (they are like tube and box like, think those as natural gas modules). Those are developed by Silicon Valley based start-ups.

Back to topic, for me the rationale of working for coal company goes like this. I am a pragmatist (a pragmatic programmer 🙂 Coal is not the cleanest energy source and not renewable source. But before this year, Coal made up more than 40% if the US power generation (this year the number dropped to lower 30s). So, if one person really wants to make a stand on the issue (instead of just talking like the former vice president does, he got a huge mansion and uses a lot of electricity), the person can simple use 1/3 less of the electricity. That means, uses less light, AC, heat,…in her/his daily life. I am trying to be energy conscious on my life but won’t go as far as cut 1/3 of usage. At the same time, working for a coal company (5 minutes commute time), will help me be a part of the solution (less gasoline for commute for sure). I will be a stake holder in coal mining, as I recently learned, coal mining uses a lot of energy too (diesels, electricity etc.)

I have worked for my new employer for about 9 months, and so far I like what I see. Most recently I went on 2 mines, and met some down-to-earth miners. Since I went to Rolla (the former Missouri School of Mines, miner), now I became a real miner.

Presidential election will play a part in the coal industry too, as the current administration is very coal-unfriendly. I think green (renewable) energy is fine, but the traditional energy source (oil, gas, coal) got to be a part of the solution.

Last but not least, I have 2 scene kinda imprinted in my mind during the mine visit: when I eat the lunch comfortably in the office, I recall the miners eat their lunch in the tunnel. The devotion during lunch time from a few surface miners. In the HQ we sometimes lost touch of the toughness of the front line work. Now I do. At the same time, the company continues to do good things around the community, in all the locations. Here in HQ, we have the united way campaign. In a sense, we are all in one community.