Franci 的个人资料Lapsus Digitae照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
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2008/3/9 Six more months......and my baby will be here. :-) The doctors claim it's gonna be a boy, even though it seems to it's a bit early to know. 2008/2/28 When MySpace robots go mad...Today I decided to help MySpace become a better place on the web (I am still not sure what on Earth possessed me to even try
 ). So I forwarded them a spam email I've gotten. Five minute later I get an automated response... with instructions on how to upload videos to MySpace.I guess complaints should be sent in video nowadays. Would you trust your identity to a spammer?Have you heard of LifeLock? You know - the company whose CEO is not afraid to post his social security everywhere? No? Don't worry, you will very soon. Because apparently they've started employing spammers to promote their services.
Would you trust your identity to a spammer? I know I wouldn't. 2008/1/24 Intentional rules abuse is never okEvery once in a while everybody sends an email to a mailing list that abuses the rules of that mailing lists. Mistakes happen, people point you to the rules and you move on. And then there's the occasional email whose subject starts with 'Alias abuse'. Apparently the author is sufficiently aware of the rules, but is somehow expecting to be exonerated just because she told us she's breaking them. I wonder if by that same logic I call 911 and tell the police that I am going at 100mph down the I-5, would the judge dismiss my ticket? 2008/1/1 Happy New Year!The old 2007 is over and done with. I hope it was a good year to all of you and I wish you all an even better new 2008! 2007/10/8 Color me impressedWow. Today I got my second gadget in less than a month that I am actually impressed with. :-)
The first one I bought about four weeks ago. It's an 802.11n wireless router from TrendNet. Supposedly, the wireless routers should be one piece of consumer electronics you setup once and forget for the rest of your life. Or at least untill the new 802.11whatever draft is published. However, I've gone through five different routers so far and the only one (vefore the TrendNet that is) that actually worked like that was an old 802.11b SMC model. The rest of the bunch, including one Belkin, one D-Link and one Netgear (I don't know why I never got to buyng a Linksys) all suffered from various bugs and problems, like drops of the wireless connection, duying if being pinged from outside (yep, simple ping would kill one of my routers), DHCP failures and so on.
But I digress. Back to the TrendNet. The first think I liked about it - it has big glowing label that says "Wireless Router". Anyone who ever asked their wife to go to the closet and restart the router, knows why this is important. :-) The second thing I liked was the setup. I mean, how often do you stumble upon a networking hardware your wife could setup? All it took to start the TrendNet was couple of clicks. It figured out all the things it needed on its own. It was up, humming and running in less than 10 minutes. Of course, the simple setup doesn't include advanced networking setup like opening ports, setting a machine in the DMZ, turning on the wireless security and so on. Which leads me to the third thing I like about it - the software. This is the most and the best configurable router I've ever owned ever. It allows controliing almost anything you would want through a simple and understandable interface; you can go as crazy as you want with your configuration. I even got a second one and built wireless bridge; sadly, for some reason the Media Center streaming had terrible performance problems, so I returned the second one back. Oh well, some day I'll find cheap wi-fi 802.11n bridge. Meanwhile, I am happy with my new router that worked for more than a month without a hickup and having to be touched.
The second amazing gadget (the one I got today :-)) is Logitech Harmony for Xbox 360. Honestly, I don't know why I didn't get one until now. I guess spending $150-200 on a remote control always seemed a bit excessive. However, the prices on the lower Harmony models dropped down lately, or maybe I just got fed with juggling four different remotes, so I finally decided to spend some green on one. In any case, I am happy I did. The setup for this remote was very quick and easy. The software does everything by asking you simple questions like "Which remote you use to control the volume" and the most technical question I got was about the model of my devices (along with suggestions where to find it). I still don't know if my wife would like the new remote; but knowing how long it took her to learn the seven buttons on three different remotes to switch from TV to DVD previously, I guess she would love Harmony's Activities that allow doing this with press of a single button.
I wonder if this shows a trend in the consumer electronics or if these two are just an exception. However, I hope that the next gadget I buy would be as simple and intuitive to setup and use as these two. We'll see. :-) 2007/8/10 A drive in the sky...Windows Live Folders is now Windows Live SkyDrive. It also has a new URL - http://skydrive.live.com, and there's also a Spaces module you can add to your space. 2007/6/11 Yahoo!, can I have my mail back?Please? It was working just half an hour ago and now it wants me to change my browser security settings.
Meanwhile, while you figure out how to fix it, I'll go check my hotmail and Gmail accounts. And maybe write couple of emails from there. Safari on WindowsApple just announced they are releasing Safari for Windows. A lot of people seem to be rather indifferent about that move. Dave Winer for example goes to say:
If you take into account Zipf's law, even if they succeed into surpassing Opera and moving to the third place as market share (and they might even be there for all I know and care), there doesn't seem to be much benefit for Apple or much incentive for web app developers to target Safari on par with IE and FF. That is, until you remember that iPhone will use Safari as its rendering engine. And that Steve Jobs announced today that Apple doesn't have an SDK for iPhone, but rather would enable iPhone's capabilities for web apps. Then that move makes perfect sense. Safari on Windows is all about building a development platform for third party developers to create iPhone applications. All they need is something to provide iPhone like capabilities on the PC, like for example iChat. Update: On the other hand, seems like Dave was right about something:
According to Slashdot, David Maynor already knows the answer. :-) To agent or not to agent...I don't know if that particular study can be applied to the whole US or not. And I have not sold any houses yet, so I can't think about it from seller's perspective. However, I couldn't helper but ponder over this particular quote from the buyer's perspective:
So, if I were to buy my house from somebody that sells through an agent, I'd pay 27 percent higher price? Does that mean that if I were to buy my house with the help of an agent, I would buy it for 27 percent less? No? Yeah, I didn't think so.
What's even worse is when you decide to shop without an agent and you hit a seller with an agent. At that point the greedy bastard (the agent, not the seller) would try to get the full 6% commission and won't even discuss lowering the asking price with 3%, since there's only one agent.
So, what I am missing? What can an agent do for me as buyer to justify $15K on a $500K house? 2007/6/8 Security? What security?Today I got an invitaion from an old friend of mine to join Tagged (.com). (No link love - you'll find out why below)
Well, I decided to go and sign up. Not that I am too big on all the social sites rage; but I figured out if she's there, it can't be that bad. :-) Thus, I find myself on the sign up page, where there's the usual information requested - DoB, name, email, zip code, SSN, bank account (wait, no - the last two were on another site...) and password. Nothing too scary. So I fill everything out diligently and get to the password field, where I type the usual passowrd I use for sites like this. Click OK and...
Wait, I am back to the same page. Something's wrong; there's a balloon next to the password field. Guess what it says: "It's gotta be 6 characters. FYI - it's also cAsE sEnSiTiVe" Cute, very cute. nice touch that one with the case sensitive example. But mine's already like that. And then it strikes me - 6 characters. No more, no less.
I mean - what the f***?! Whoever wrote that piece of code should be... Well, I'll let his bosses decide what to do with that programmer-wanna-be.
In any case, I am scared to see that this is actually a trend lately. That's not the first site or program that puts upper limit on the password length. Another example is ICQ 6.0, where the password limit is 8 characters. Which happened to be two characters shorter than my wife's password. She was not able to log on to ICQ until I figured out that the limit is applied only when you type in the text box, but not when you paste in it. How's that for stupid?
Oh well... 2007/4/10 Steven Hawking at SeattleLast night I went to a Steven Hawking talk. Here's a (very low-quality) picture. 2007/3/22 LocalCooling.com - fight global warming from your desktopLocalCooling.com is one of the coolest ideas I've found lately. (Yes, the pun is intended. :-)) They have a nice application you can install on your computer to see the power consumption and to tweak some settings to lower it.
Hey, it might not look like much; but every little bit helps. Check out the stats about the cumulative effect of the people that already use it. 2007/3/1 Frustration level: infinityThere are days (today for example) when I have to deal with the arrogance of somebody telling a buckload of bullshit and treating others like idiots, just because they've dared to question an obviously moronic decision made in the product he works on.
I hate it when usability is trumped by egos and politics.
2007/2/24 "Water" - Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan YankoulovA friend of mine sent me a great video from an exceptional Bulgarian duo - Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov. I am very impressed by the way they blend traditional Bulgarian folk motives with techno rhythm. Now I have to call some of my friends back in Bulgaria and get me a copy of their music. hopefully they have published a record.
I've also posted the video on my home page, so you can see for yourself what I am talking about. 2007/1/22 Google Maps for Taxi DriversApparently Google has new product - Google Maps for Taxi Drivers. Check the directions below:
Here's a screenshot. Check the directions on the left. :-)
2007/1/20 Some photos from TokyoI finally got to posting the pictures. :-) Here's what Ginza looks like at night. You can see the rest in the Tokyo - December 2006 album. 2006/12/26 "Tokyo In a Week" in blogs near you...We just came back from a one week of vacation in Tokyo. It was an awesome vacation; we took lot of pictures (about 900, probably about 50% out of them of decent quality
 ) and we had a great time.Unfortunately, we came back the day after the big storm in the Puget Sound. We didn't have power at our house; thanks god the water heater and the fireplaces work on natural gas. At least we had some warmth and were able to take a shower after the flight. However, I still need to download the pictures to my laptop and find the time to write down my notes.
I'll be posting more in the next few days. 2006/12/18 Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?Here's an old article from 1982 about the diamonds market and love: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198202/diamond
Hey, "A Diamond Is Forever", right? As in "You'll never be able to sell it without a huge loss, so don't even bother to try". |
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