Some nice songs

A long-time-no-see friend sent me a link of a nice song, which led me to this site which provides a collection of more nice songs :-)

To all my friends: I know sometimes when I am too stressed with my work load, I will be very down and this might cause you a bad time dealing with me :-P I am sorry about that and really appreciate you guys being there. Thank you. - from a sometimes-not-so-friendly friend ;-)

For those who are in hunt for a job!!! Must read!!!

Oh... I absolutely know that I should be doing work now. But this article would certainly help those looking for jobs, this would include many of my friends and juniors. So, let's find out how to answer interview questions properly. I don't know if this works in Japan, too, but I think it would at least impress the interviewers in a good way :-)

10 types of programmers you’ll encounter in the field

Ya, I totally agree that working at work is more productive than surfing the Internet, but I can't ignore this article. Again, only for programmers, don't say I didn't warn you. Emm... I think I fit in the following types:

• The Evangelist
• The Code Cowboy
  

Eating makes you full faster than not eating...

Found a funny article which claims that working at work improves productivity. This must have been conducted by some frustrated managers who see their employees walking or talking around each day in the office not doing what they are supposed to do. Of course I totally agree with it. Perhaps working is 100% more productive than doing research like this, too. :-P

Mama Stands Up for Her Fun with the Kid

The copyrights war begins, again. From this piece of news from ABC News, a mother got a take-down notice from YouTube for her post of below home-made video, featuring her toddler dancing to the music in the background. Can you actually tell what is playing on the background? At least I don't.



This brave mother has fought back with a lawsuit against Universal, who has sent the take-down notice. From the mother, after the incident,

"I'm constantly thinking about what's going on in the background, what's on the TV, what's on the CD player, the characters on my kids' clothes, the characters on the toys that they are playing with,'' she said.

"I'm cognizant of what's going on at every step, instead of focusing on my kids, which is where my attention should be."

Are you a right brainer or a left one?

A friend sent me this link yesterday. I think it is quite fun so here you are.

The Right Brain vs Left Brain

You can find out you are on which side of the camps through a simple experiment. Well, whichever side you are on, I think both are good.... (Now what will happen if both brains perform equivalently well...)

Those who couldn't wait

Took this photo on the way back from a station not-so-near-by. Some of the leaves are starting to turn red. That means autumn is just around the corner. Weather in autumn can be strange. Hot and sunny in day time, cold and windy at night. So you will have to watch out what you wear. Ha... I don't really know what to write about this photo. But anyway, the photo is not original, which is too dark because I didn't adjust the camera to the right settings. I cut out part of it and made it brighter. Sorry about that.

OK. I am going to take a shower now and go to bed (^^) Somebody might be disappointed seeing this post about nothing. Just like I told you, it is nothing important. Haha. Good night.

China Trip Photo Album

Hi, I have added some photos taken during my week-long trip to China on Facebook. Take a look. (^^) And below is a short clip of a panda.

Search and Win some prizes!

Yeah, that's right. Now you can test your fortune by doing searches online with this new search engine called wabbadabba (Why are the names so hard to remember nowadays?). According to their FAQs, they are trying to give back something to the people who are helping them make money. The search results are provided by Yahoo (I wonder why not Google), so those of you who are Yahoo supporters might like it since it gives you a sense of thrill :-P

By the way, I am supposed to be sleeping now since I have an early flight to catch tomorrow. I successfully got into sleep two hours earlier, but woke up feeling some pain in the stomach, thanks to the KFC and ice cream mix I had for dinner :-P But I am OK so don't worry :-)

By the way, recently found an alternative to VMware Server. Let me introduce to you VirtualBox! While both of them are available free of charge for personal use, VirtualBox has an open source edition, too with cut-down functionalities. I tried installing FreeBSD on it and found the results quite satisfying, except for some troubles in the network setup.

OK, I think it is time for me to get back to bed. See you when I am back :-)

Experience some frustrations if your life is too wonderful :-D

Windows RG (Really Good Edition) Online

Have some frustrations!

Well, I think only those who have used earlier versions of Windows will get the sense of humor in this little flash animation. Later versions of Windows which are based on the NT architecture have suffered less of these problems (for example, the notorious BSOD - Blue Screen Of Death).

Well I think this flash game helps recall some good-old-day memories, doesn't it? :-)

It has been a month :P

Ok guys, I am still here alive. Just hasn't been in a mood to post anything :P But that doesn't mean that I do have a mood to post now. So I would like to make this a short post, too.

It seems that many people nowadays are cyberslacking during work time through the Internet. Whether this is beneficial or inefficient depends much on individuals. But I think it is important to hit a balance in between.

On another article, interviewers now like to ask spontaneous questions which don't have a definite answer. Well, I like this style of questions though. So there is nothing to prepare for :P

Have a nice nice day.

Programming might be fun as LEGO!

MIT's Lifelong Kindergarten research group (what a cheerful name ^^) has introduced Scratch, a programming tool used to teach kids how to program. Of course it would be fun for adults, too. Give it a visit and be amazed what the kids are making :-)

Have a nice day scratching (^^)

Microsoft in China

Found an interesting (but a bit lengthy) article about Microsoft's business in China here.

As I once commented in an older post, Microsoft gains a lot of its market share from software piracy. Seem that even Mr. Gates agreed with me.

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," Gates says.

I thought I was young but apparently I am not

Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead

I got online since 1997 when I got a 14.4 kbps modem from my sister's friend. I just realised that it has already been 10 years! Wow! How could this be? I thought e-mail was still the simplest technology to keep in touch with people, while SNS was so complicated. But apparently young people think the other way.

In SNS, you have to log in and click around to check what your friends are doing, sometimes it gets so irritating having to check different networks for different people. It reminds me of the time when ICQ was still alive ("What is ICQ? Uncle", some teens might ask :P Give yourself an education here) and Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger were still infants, people tended to use different IMs and you had to keep different clients running at the same time (believe me, you wouldn't like doing this on a Pentium 166 MMX with a mere 48MB RAM).

Luckily, someone came up with all-in-one clients which can communicate with all major IMs and that did help a bit. I did not benefit from that since I have settled down with MSN messenger for a long time.

What is next? A multi-site-compliant SNS, or SNS-for-SNS in short? I am really looking forward to it. :^D

SeedPod Music beta - listen to music while you surf

SeedPod Music beta.

Take this as a search engine specialized in finding music on the web. You can listen to the songs on the site and no download is needed. Enjoy! :-D

Random posts

Have been cleaning up my mail box and read about some interesting news that I would like to share.

First, now you can buy books by chapters, said the people at O'Reilly. Those who know me well know that I like to buy books, now maybe this will save me some money :-) Let's see what else can we split into small pieces and sell. "Give me the sleeve of that shirt." :-P

Then, there is a survey on looking for the next generation search engine after Google. Personally I like the idea of KoolTorch, which focuses on the user interface instead of search results. However, I think they should work a little more on their search results, too.

I think an angel sings like this :-)

She is 6 years old, and her voice is just fantastic :-D

More Free Photos for Public Use :-D

The title says it all.

You can find free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use at Morguefile.com. I am happy to have more materials for making pretty web sites.

Read the FAQs and related terms of use if you are concerned about the rights to use the photos.

Sorry, this is just for programmers :-P

To find out which type of programmer you are.

>>> Programmer Personality Test <<<

This is my result:

Your programmer personality type is:

DLSC

You're a Doer.
You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.

You like coding at a Low level.
You're from the old school of programming and believe that you should have an intimate relationship with the computer. You don't mind juggling registers around and spending hours getting a 5% performance increase in an algorithm.

You work best in a Solo situation.
The best way to program is by yourself. There's no communication problems, you know every part of the code allowing you to write the best programs possible.

You are a Conservative programmer.
The less code you write, the less chance there is of it containing a bug. You write short and to the point code that gets the job done efficiently.

Enjoy!

For all the web designers

For those who have to create a website for someone, the most exciting part might be to present the websites with the coolest design! But, for many, this is also the biggest headache. Personally, I always start with some good designs created by others. (Although recently I would prefer to use some CMS systems and simply apply a theme to it :P)

So where do you find those inspiring designs? Here comes a complete list of web design galleries, created by Web Design Blog.

Hope this comes in handy :)

お弁当のブルーズ

朝10時台の新幹線で東京に行くとしたら、最初から冷たいコンビニのお弁当を買って、12時に食べるか。。。。それとも。。。最初は温かくておいしそうに見えるお弁当を買って。。。冷めていくのを覚悟しながらそのおいしさが保つこと期待するのは。。。自由だ～！～！～！～！

お弁当 is freedom... お弁当 is freedom.... お弁当 is freedom... お弁当 is freedom....

でもな。。。期待のあまりにめっちゃくっちゃまずいときもあるんで。。。そのときは自己責任でお願いします。。。

by 新幹線でまずいお弁当を食べているコーイ（T T)

皆さんそういう経験はありませんか。＾＾

SuTree - free video how-to lessons

Now, here is something like YouTube with more useful contents (^ ^) While YouTube is a fine place to kill your time(sometimes over-killed :P), the clips over there are mostly for entertaining purposes. What if you would like to find some video lessons that are more useful for your daily life?

I was looking for more ways to tie a tie yesterday. I didn't look hard enough so all I ended up with was some pictures with text instructions. If I have found SuTree then I would not have to struggle over those mysterious moves shown in the pictures(they certainly look like the Kung-fu figures carved into the wall of Shao Lin Temple :P).

So, here you are, hope you find some useful videos for yourself (^ ^)
http://www.sutree.com/

「要らないプライドを捨てなさい。」

Throw away your unnecessary pride.

A few years ago, a friend told me that. I don't think that she still remembers that but I do. I kind of agree with her, though.

Pride, while keeps you motivated and feel good about yourself, might hurt you in some situations. Sometimes you don't even realize that it is your pride which hurts you more than any other reasons you struggled to think of.

Following is the list of common unnecessary pride:

• You don't ask questions because you think you know more, or you think you can find out the answers yourself.
• You get upset and angry when you found out that others are doing better than you do, instead of trying to improve yourself.
• You think the world should treat you better because you are just so good. (But you can't really tell how good :P)

More to add but I can't think of them now. Would you please help me out? :)

GOM Player - The Ultimate Solution

I finally found the almighty video player. Come welcome GOM Player! It just plays! Everything from WMV to RMVB! Including XviD, DivX, FLV1, AC3, OGG, MP4, H263 and the list goes on. Quick! Dump your current media players and get this one (^ ^)

Btw, I have been sick these two days... (-_-)

This explains a lot!

Official: Powerpoint bad for brains

The title says it all. (^~^)

Blogs by CEO

企業家ブログ
http://www.kigyoukablog.jp/

企業家たちのブログ集。
これを読んだらなかなか面白かったのでメモしときます。

それではおやすみなさい。

Read faster, can you?

Many of my friends read, be it novels, technical documents, research papers, whatever. The 6 tips mentioned in this article, "Double Your Reading Rate" by Scott H. Young might help you to improve your reading skills. Here I jot down the points for my own reference, please refer to his article for more detailed explanation on each point.

1. Remember, Reading is Not Linear
2. Stop Subvocalizing
3. Practice Reading
4. Use a Pointer
5. Eliminate Distractions
6. Find Your Motivation

I especially like the idea of "Stop Subvocalizing".

Does distance really make hearts grow fonder?

I doubt it.

Father of Fortran, John Backus dies

Although I have never used Fortran before, I heard quite a lot about it from my friends in the engineering fields. Fortran, short for Formula Translation, is a programming language invented in 1950s, but still widely used in today's modern computing world. It is also the first high-level programming language ever created.

Prior to Fortran, computers had to be meticulously "hand-coded" -- programmed in the raw strings of digits that triggered actions inside the machine. [Technology, CNN.com]

The creator of Fortran, John Backus, who also invented Backus-Naur Form(BNF), died at the age of 82. BNF is a way of formally describing the syntax/grammar of computer languages. These two inventions have a great impact of today's IT world.

It is sad to know a great person like that has left us (_ _ )

Rest in Peace.

Microsoft exec said...

If You're Going To Steal Software, Steal From Us

According to this article from InformationWeek, this is how Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes thinks about software piracy. I kind of agree with him. Without software piracy, Microsoft wouldn't have their large market share that they are having today in poorer countries. Once the users got accustomed to their products, it would be much easier to sell their products later on when the users get richer and want less troubles(pirated software comes with legal copies of viruses, worms sometimes :P).

Yeah, steal from them, since there is nothing to steal from the open source world.

So, what is software piracy really bad for? The open source world! With cheap commercial products being available at a price of a lunch, no one(except those with a conscience) would even care to use the open source products which might come at the same price. So, who is the actual victim of software piracy? I will leave the answer to you.

I couldn't believe I saw snow in March!

Yeah, it is still snowing outside.

I am in my room now. Came back to home quite "early" today after having some chit-chat and poker games with my friends in Gusto(a restaurant), on the way back we saw snow falling from the sky! How amazing! Come on this is already March. It hasn't snowed in March since I came to Japan 6 years ago(or at least I haven't seen it before). The weather is strange this year... Hope that the real spring comes on time and we can see the Sakura bloom soon.

Ok, I've gotta go.

To those who joined the poker games, Otsukaresama and Have a good rest :-)

MIT course material went public

If you are in the technology world, you must have heard of MIT, the world famous academic institute of technology. Now they are kind enough to publish the materials they use in all their courses online. Feel free to browse around and discover what you might have missed in your own studies :-)

Video of the fastest car in the world

Somebody might wonder that I should be working around this time and shouldn't have the time to write in blog. Well, I was having my lunch when I saw this clip and I am still having my lunch when I am writing this post :P

Although I am not much into cars but some of my friends are. Just want to share with them this video of the fastest car in the world running at its highest speed. Even the camera didn't manage to catch it properly. Enjoy.

Wow! Wow! Wow! This is just so cool!

Come on you have to read this! This is just so amazing!

New Technique Stores Data in Bacteria

Artificial DNA with encoded information can be added to the genome of common bacteria, thus preserving the data... According to researchers, up to 100 bits of data can be attached to each organism. Scientists successfully encoded and attached the phrase "e=mc2 1905" to the DNA of bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacteria.

I wonder if your antivirus software would accidentally kills them? (^ ^)

Save the world while you chat!!!

Hi everybody, now(or later) you can tell your boss that you are helping the world when s/he complains that you chat too much!



* This currently only works in the US.

It is pretty difficult to explain what it is about, so I will leave it for you to find out. This post just serves as a reminder for myself if I happen to forget the URL :P

Tata.

A long-awaited Chinese New Year

Since I came to Japan 6 years ago in 2001, I have been spending Chinese New Year in Japan sitting for exams almost every year. This year I finally had a chance to go back to my hometown to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family. Everything is so nostalgic, the firecrackers, the angpows, the food, the people. Although I haven't made it to finish my report before I went back to Malaysia on 10th Feb, thus having to spend the first week doing report at home, I am very contended with this short trip.

After spending the first week doing report, I met up with someone I had wanted to get close to but had never been too close before. We went to shop, went to Old Town(a new cafe chain store in Malaysia), went to a movie, went to karaoke and spent almost everyday together the week after the 1st day of CNY. I even sent her off to work early in the morning. Honestly, I haven't been so energetic for a very long time.

Then, we spent a really sweet night on the beach. Soft music flowing from her mobile phone through the air along with the soothing sea breeze. And the sky was so full of stars(alright, not the whole sky but part of it). The atmosphere was just so perfect! We talked about many things, her life, my life, and the probabilities in the future.

However, time seemed to pass faster when you enjoy it. Soon I had to come back to Japan to continue what I had left off. Well, among the holidays that I spent in Malaysia, this is definitely the one that I will never forget.

Stack Overflow: How to make the stack bigger?

Hi, fellas!

It has been a long time since I have posted something really technical. So here I am again.

We have been asked to implement a quicksort-based selection algorithm and another one based on random sampling to compare them to each other in one of the lectures. But wait. I am not going to tell about these algorithms. What I want to say here is more general, more system related.

Ok, by looking at the algorithms, everyone can tell that the quicksort-based method, because of its simplicity, runs faster in a usual case when the target array size is small. So, in order to be able to say that "the random sampling based method performs better when the size of the data set is large", I have to make sure the sample size is large. And here the problem begins!!!

When you run a program, the operating system puts your program into the RAM. At the same time, it also allocates some spaces for the consumption by the program, in case it needs it. There are two types of allocated memory, stack and heap. I don't really remember but I think that the stack is used for function calls and variables, whereas the heap is used when you allocate memory dynamically by calling malloc().

Stack overflow occurs when your program needs more memory than allocated to it. In my case, I need a lot of space to make sure the data set is large enough to see the difference between the algorithms, so the default stack size allocated by MinGW gcc is not enough for me. I later found out also that stack size allocated to a program is handled by the operating system it is run on, so there is no sure way to turn around this problem. Luckily I came upon this file. It provides exactly what I wanted. I link to it here in case I will need it again some day, and maybe you would find it useful, too.

It is kind of late now so I have got to go.

Good night.

Hi, isn't this a nice desktop?

Wow, I haven't made a post for almost a month... Not that I didn't want to but I have been busy configuring my new desktop computer :P Now you must have guessed that I have finally got a mac but you are wrong :P After much thought I stayed with PC for one more round. Why? Although the entry level for a mac is not that expensive, but when you think that you can get much better specs with a PC, you will give it a second thought.

However, after I have watched the presentation about the new APIs and technologies of the new Mac OS X, Leopard, at WWDC 2006 for developers (you can download it via iTunes for free if you are a ADC member, free registration :D), I really think that the coming Vista is going to lose some share :P

Ok, now let's have a look at my new desktop PC, which has the following specs:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Memory: PC6400 1GB x 2
Motherboard: ASUS P5B-V
Graphics: Intel G965 Express on-board
OS: Windows XP MCE

Well, these are about all that you need to know :) Now please look at some pictures :D

From the front

From a different angle

Desktop: Skinned with Flyakite OS X

Desktop: Yahoo! Widgets

Running Kubuntu on VMware Player

Running Kubuntu on VMware Player: Login Screen

Running Kubuntu on VMware Player: Kubuntu Desktop

Virtual Desktop Manager that comes with Microsoft PowerToys

I will try to make some tutorials on how to make your Windows desktop look that way when I find the time. Since it is not exactly that hard, maybe you can just google the keywords yourself and get yourself up and running :P

Till then.

Suki - SUper K Iconizer - Release 1.0

First of all, Happy new year!!!

It is so fast that 2007 is here. Let's hope that this will be a better year for all of us.

And the first good thing in year 2007!!! Suki - SUper K Iconizer - is released!!!



Suki - SUper K Iconizer - is a small tool that helps you convert any supported image files(*.jpg, *.png, *.bmp, etc.) into icon resource files(*.ico) which you can use as favicon in your website or as shortcut icons in MS Windows platform. Besides converting existing files, it also lets you capture part of your screenshot and convert them into an icon.

You can download it from my static website here.

See you again! (^ ^)