... To assemble a Dell! That's what I've just learned from this article: "...PC assembly time down to less than four minutes..."
Incredible!
Even more amazing is that 30 seconds were wasted every time they put those annoying Intel and Microsoft stickers on the computer!
Maybe we could save $100 off the price if they don't have to do that :P
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Monday, August 29, 2005
The market of MP3 player is just as bad as the NL West
... where every team commits one blunder after another!
First, Rio is gone due to lack of QC and marketing. (They made it official last week.)
Second, Apple settled the lawsuit over its poor battery.
Now Creative is shipping worm with its player!
Is it that hard to make a decent player? I wonder.
First, Rio is gone due to lack of QC and marketing. (They made it official last week.)
Second, Apple settled the lawsuit over its poor battery.
Now Creative is shipping worm with its player!
Is it that hard to make a decent player? I wonder.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Good bye UGL
UGL = Undergraduate Library, at University of Texas, my alma mater. This is one of the places in Austin where lots of my fond memories are associated with. (Yes, I met pretty gals there >:)
The university is moving the books out and converting it to a student center this Fall. It will be a place for students to hang out and study.
Well, actually that's what we used to do over there anyway (minus the study part :P) The books were useful to kill time when waiting for the "target" to leave.
I've never knew why it's called undergraduate library 'coz most libraries let undergrad in but I just found out that's not the case in the 50s. Interesting!
The university is moving the books out and converting it to a student center this Fall. It will be a place for students to hang out and study.
Well, actually that's what we used to do over there anyway (minus the study part :P) The books were useful to kill time when waiting for the "target" to leave.
I've never knew why it's called undergraduate library 'coz most libraries let undergrad in but I just found out that's not the case in the 50s. Interesting!
Monday, August 01, 2005
Microsoft makes baseball exciting
Aren't they? Here is their patent.
Well, kidding aside, it's not that bad. I guess MLB.com is actually using it now. I'm a subscriber of MLB.TV which streams video of complete or highlights of baseball games. Before I learned of this patent, I thought they must have hired a bunch of low-paid kids to cut (i.e. edit) these video. And I have been wondering how boring that job must be :P Looks like it's more automated than I thought.
Well, kidding aside, it's not that bad. I guess MLB.com is actually using it now. I'm a subscriber of MLB.TV which streams video of complete or highlights of baseball games. Before I learned of this patent, I thought they must have hired a bunch of low-paid kids to cut (i.e. edit) these video. And I have been wondering how boring that job must be :P Looks like it's more automated than I thought.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Good bye Rio (the MP3 player pioneer)
See "Death bells ring for Rio as they are cut up and sold to SigmaTel"
It's sad 'coz I still believe among all competitors of Apple iPod, Rio Karma has the best features, design and UI, in fact, even better than iPod. This is based on my experience of owning one for 2 weeks (returned for battery life issue)
So, once again it proves that it takes more a good feature set to win in the consumer electronics business. You'd need marketing, marketing, marketing (yes, it's so important that I have to repeat it again and again), quality control and customer service as well. This is reinforced by my recent good (surprise!) experience with getting my iPod fixed (the headphone jack has bad connectivity) at an Apple store (BTW, there was no service dept at Apple store. Apple named it "Genius Bar." The name is a bit too arrogant and exaggerated but that's Steve's call, not mine. The service rep was actually a very helpful gentleman. He looked at my iPod and found that the remote control was the culprit. He simply swapped it with a new one.)
If fixing my Rio was this easy, I would have kept it and won't even consider iPod! Apple opening all these retail stores over the country turned out wasn't such a bad move.
It's sad 'coz I still believe among all competitors of Apple iPod, Rio Karma has the best features, design and UI, in fact, even better than iPod. This is based on my experience of owning one for 2 weeks (returned for battery life issue)
So, once again it proves that it takes more a good feature set to win in the consumer electronics business. You'd need marketing, marketing, marketing (yes, it's so important that I have to repeat it again and again), quality control and customer service as well. This is reinforced by my recent good (surprise!) experience with getting my iPod fixed (the headphone jack has bad connectivity) at an Apple store (BTW, there was no service dept at Apple store. Apple named it "Genius Bar." The name is a bit too arrogant and exaggerated but that's Steve's call, not mine. The service rep was actually a very helpful gentleman. He looked at my iPod and found that the remote control was the culprit. He simply swapped it with a new one.)
If fixing my Rio was this easy, I would have kept it and won't even consider iPod! Apple opening all these retail stores over the country turned out wasn't such a bad move.
Monday, July 25, 2005
RIP Jean Charles de Menezes
Mr. de Menezes was shot and killed by London police as a bombing suspect last week but London police later on admitted he was innocent.
You probably recall his killing made front page news. However, the fact that he was innocent didn't. It wasn't even appear as headline on http://news.yahoo.com/ !
This is very sad 'coz not only his life was lost for nothing but also his innocence was complete ignored.
Forget about justice but where is the conscience of the media now?
You probably recall his killing made front page news. However, the fact that he was innocent didn't. It wasn't even appear as headline on http://news.yahoo.com/ !
This is very sad 'coz not only his life was lost for nothing but also his innocence was complete ignored.
Forget about justice but where is the conscience of the media now?
Monday, July 11, 2005
Hawk attacked Dove
So you think this is an analogy of what happens in politics today.
Well, symbolism turned reality. it actually happened in Hong Kong yesterday!
The result? Both dead. (Cause of death: bone fracture. Suspected both collided into a building during the chase.)
Politicians out there should learn something from this.
Well, symbolism turned reality. it actually happened in Hong Kong yesterday!
The result? Both dead. (Cause of death: bone fracture. Suspected both collided into a building during the chase.)
Politicians out there should learn something from this.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Good advice? Bad advice?
Dunno how accurate this is but according to Apple Daily (a Chinese newspaper from Hong Kong, no link) Professor Paul Chu, president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, appeared in a young student IT challenge award ceremony as guest of honor. He said he's happy to see that today's kids are so fluent in computer skills and they will have a bright future working in the IT industry.
Well, I'm not sure if he really meant what he said. Following the current offshoring trend, when these kids are old enough to work, IT jobs would have been offshored from China to other countries with even cheaper labors! This reminds me of Bill Gates encouraging young people in US to study computer science. (See my take in a previous comment) They either need a reality check or stop BS-ing!
(BTW, the winner is a 6th grader. She made her own e-card using Flash and built website that educate people about giant panda as an endangered specie. Good for her!)
Well, I'm not sure if he really meant what he said. Following the current offshoring trend, when these kids are old enough to work, IT jobs would have been offshored from China to other countries with even cheaper labors! This reminds me of Bill Gates encouraging young people in US to study computer science. (See my take in a previous comment) They either need a reality check or stop BS-ing!
(BTW, the winner is a 6th grader. She made her own e-card using Flash and built website that educate people about giant panda as an endangered specie. Good for her!)
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Finally, American government is playing catch up
... on totalitarian policies.
If you've listened to any communist propaganda, you probably are familiar with their claim of a superior society. Eventually all other countries will follow their practice. Well, it looks like they're not all wrong:
U.S. House of representatives has approved constitutional amendment to outlaw American flag burning.
This immediately reminds me of two pro-democracy activists, Ng Kwok-hung and Lau San-ching, being fined for burning the Chinese national flag 2 years ago in China-ruled Hong Kong.
Maybe someday our first amendment will be amended to a point that criticism of the government like this will be deemed unpatriotic and thus criminal. So I'd better say it before it's too late.
If you've listened to any communist propaganda, you probably are familiar with their claim of a superior society. Eventually all other countries will follow their practice. Well, it looks like they're not all wrong:
U.S. House of representatives has approved constitutional amendment to outlaw American flag burning.
This immediately reminds me of two pro-democracy activists, Ng Kwok-hung and Lau San-ching, being fined for burning the Chinese national flag 2 years ago in China-ruled Hong Kong.
Maybe someday our first amendment will be amended to a point that criticism of the government like this will be deemed unpatriotic and thus criminal. So I'd better say it before it's too late.
MLB.TV Full Screen on Mac
...... previously not possible but I've found this solution (Credit to poster ess@Macforumz)
"You can trick Safari into playing the game in full screen using Windows Media Player.
To to this, you need to remove the Windows Media Player Plug-In from the internet plugins folder (it's located in HD-Library-Internet PlugIns-Windows Media Plugin).
After you do this, Safari will ask you if you want to us the WMP application (rather than the web based plugin for WMP) when watching a MLB.TV stream."
Then you could tell Windows Media Player to play it full screen. Problem solved!
OK. I should remove one strike against Mac.
"You can trick Safari into playing the game in full screen using Windows Media Player.
To to this, you need to remove the Windows Media Player Plug-In from the internet plugins folder (it's located in HD-Library-Internet PlugIns-Windows Media Plugin).
After you do this, Safari will ask you if you want to us the WMP application (rather than the web based plugin for WMP) when watching a MLB.TV stream."
Then you could tell Windows Media Player to play it full screen. Problem solved!
OK. I should remove one strike against Mac.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Fight Censorship
Here is a follow-up to the article below: Adopt a Chinese Blog is a program to help Chinese bloggers by hosting their blog oversea to avoid being banned.
Well, those bloggers may still run into trouble back home as all traffic is being monitored over there.
I hope someday such program will become unnecessary.
Well, those bloggers may still run into trouble back home as all traffic is being monitored over there.
I hope someday such program will become unnecessary.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
You should give credit to M$
... for criticizing themselves! See Microsoft bans 'democracy' for China web users on MSN Money. The company claimed that law required them to do so but the article pointed out no such law exists!
Well, in a country where journalist long time loyal to the ruling party could be detained for "spying", it doesn't matter what law exists.
Why should this be on the news anyway? It's capitalism at work, my friend! Apparently companies couldn't be wrong when they do things in the interest of their shareholders, no matter how immoral those are.
To Chinese bloggers: let's learn something smart from spammers: d3mocracy would do the trick.
Well, in a country where journalist long time loyal to the ruling party could be detained for "spying", it doesn't matter what law exists.
Why should this be on the news anyway? It's capitalism at work, my friend! Apparently companies couldn't be wrong when they do things in the interest of their shareholders, no matter how immoral those are.
To Chinese bloggers: let's learn something smart from spammers: d3mocracy would do the trick.
Go SBUX Go!
What could be a better place to have the presense of this great company than the great palace?
Yes, it's the (not-so) Forbidden city in Beijing.
Yes, it's the (not-so) Forbidden city in Beijing.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
#1 Clueless Web hosting company
1&1 internet Inc call themselves "World's No.1 Web Host." I dunno what that means, but judging by the fact that they ban their customer's traffic for serving BitTorrent of their customer's own work, I think it probably means they're No.1 in the computer illiterate department.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
PDA Nostalgia
This was a topic on my mind while I wasn't able to fall asleep during my vacation last week (as you could see I haven't blogged for a while since I was without internet access)
The chains of thought begun with my wondering about what the new Palm LifeDrive PDA would be like when it releases on 5/18. Then I trace back all PDA I've ever owned: Zire 72, Handspring Visor Prism (the first palm with color screen), Casio Cassiopeia E-110 (the 2nd gen i.e. first usable gen of PDA from Microsoft running Win CE. Also my first PDA, broken after a jam packed elevator ride)
Then I trace back to the 1st PDA in my family: my dad was a true pioneer gadgeteer himself. He bought a Casio Databank more than 15 years ago. He was still using it even though one of the key has stopped responding! Of course I got him a replacement: a brand new Sharp Organizer (with builtin English-Spanish dictionary!)
Then I trace back to the era (early 80s) when handhelds are closer cousins to calculators than organizers. They were called pocket computers and have a small but loyal followings. I could still remember computer magazine in HK having a few columns dedicated to pocket computers and published source code (mostly BASIC, some assembly) for all those primitive games that used character symbols to denote the border of a race track, obstacles in outer space, and monsters... etc. You really need a lot of imagination to enjoy those games! I'd say the graphics on GameBoy and PSP are taking away the capacity of imagination from this generation of kids! I always fancied something like Casio PB-700(which I consider the best from Casio. Casio's FX series also have a few gems) or Sharp PC-1500(Casio's major rival) but I ended up only able to convince my dad to get me a Casio FX-5200P, which has the rare combination of a look of conventional calculator and yet programmable in BASIC!
Then I still couldn't fall asleep so I switched to other more boring topics...
And what a coincidence as I come across this great history of PDA article thru Engadget today! Ernst Mulder's Calculator Collection is another great resource.
The chains of thought begun with my wondering about what the new Palm LifeDrive PDA would be like when it releases on 5/18. Then I trace back all PDA I've ever owned: Zire 72, Handspring Visor Prism (the first palm with color screen), Casio Cassiopeia E-110 (the 2nd gen i.e. first usable gen of PDA from Microsoft running Win CE. Also my first PDA, broken after a jam packed elevator ride)
Then I trace back to the 1st PDA in my family: my dad was a true pioneer gadgeteer himself. He bought a Casio Databank more than 15 years ago. He was still using it even though one of the key has stopped responding! Of course I got him a replacement: a brand new Sharp Organizer (with builtin English-Spanish dictionary!)
Then I trace back to the era (early 80s) when handhelds are closer cousins to calculators than organizers. They were called pocket computers and have a small but loyal followings. I could still remember computer magazine in HK having a few columns dedicated to pocket computers and published source code (mostly BASIC, some assembly) for all those primitive games that used character symbols to denote the border of a race track, obstacles in outer space, and monsters... etc. You really need a lot of imagination to enjoy those games! I'd say the graphics on GameBoy and PSP are taking away the capacity of imagination from this generation of kids! I always fancied something like Casio PB-700(which I consider the best from Casio. Casio's FX series also have a few gems) or Sharp PC-1500(Casio's major rival) but I ended up only able to convince my dad to get me a Casio FX-5200P, which has the rare combination of a look of conventional calculator and yet programmable in BASIC!
Then I still couldn't fall asleep so I switched to other more boring topics...
And what a coincidence as I come across this great history of PDA article thru Engadget today! Ernst Mulder's Calculator Collection is another great resource.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Legal invalidity? (or illegal validity)
A bunch of lawyers are going to debate the validity of the theory of evolution.
This is just totally ridiculous and could only happen in the ultraconservative Jesusland. How could you let lawyer decide whether a science theory is right or wrong? Next thing you know, Newton's laws are outlawed too: your car does not move because of force exerted on it. It moves because you love god and god loves you and made it move!
Well, they are the people who voted for President Bush. Enuff said.
This is just totally ridiculous and could only happen in the ultraconservative Jesusland. How could you let lawyer decide whether a science theory is right or wrong? Next thing you know, Newton's laws are outlawed too: your car does not move because of force exerted on it. It moves because you love god and god loves you and made it move!
Well, they are the people who voted for President Bush. Enuff said.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
King for a day
Maybe just for one day, but I'm on top of my fantasy baseball league, finally!
[Update: it's 2 days in a row already! But I suspect my bro is going to break my streak soon!]
Is Adsense going to make me rich?
Well, it depends on whether enough people are clicking the ads on my music blog.
Hey my friend, you know what to do :D
Hey my friend, you know what to do :D
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
I wish this book sells
The book in question is "iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business," written by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon, and published by John Wiley & Sons, publisher of many technology books.
Why? According to various news sources, John Wiley & Sons said Apple Computer has removed all its books from Apple stores in retaliation for this upcoming biography.
If you still think Apple is the angelic company (as opposed to the evil M$), think again. I'm surprised so few gadget/tech blogs cover this story.
I have a conspiracy theory though: Mr. Jobs is actually more forgiving than you think. He just wants more buzz around this book so that it will sell!
What do you think? >:)
Why? According to various news sources, John Wiley & Sons said Apple Computer has removed all its books from Apple stores in retaliation for this upcoming biography.
If you still think Apple is the angelic company (as opposed to the evil M$), think again. I'm surprised so few gadget/tech blogs cover this story.
I have a conspiracy theory though: Mr. Jobs is actually more forgiving than you think. He just wants more buzz around this book so that it will sell!
What do you think? >:)
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