December 15th, 2009
Finally got around to spend sometime in blogging again and did some upgrades. Now the Wordpress of this site is upgraded to the latest version: 2.8.6. I’ll say I’m quite impressed coming from the really old version (2.0?). The plugin management is significantly improved as is the entire admin console. Upgrading is a relatively painless process since there’s not too much customization in my Wordpress install.
I think for most people choosing the hosted version from Wordpress (or any other blog software) is the way to go. Upgrading happens behind the scene and you always have the latest greatest features and hand-holding. For me it is a choice to learn more about how things work behind the scene – it’s an extension of my day job. So I also upgraded the Google Analytics so that I have a better idea what the 20 people are reading about on my blog.
One thing broke was the Chinese display support. I had to make some changes after some online search and trial:
Using phpMyAdmin, select the database table “wp_post”, select “Structure”, edit “post_content” field. Change Collation to “utf8_unicode_ci” from “latin1_swedish_ci”.
Tags: Chinese support, upgrade, Word Press
Posted in Technology | No Comments »
December 9th, 2009
The blue screen of death is no longer an issue after I caught up with all the system update patches. So far I really enjoyed my experience with Win 7, comparing to the Win XP it replaced and the Snow Leopard upgrade I still regretted. Maybe some of these new features are in Vista also, but I completely skipped the Vista experience like a bad TV show:
- The calculator is much improved. Whoever programmed it finally realized that you don’t have to imitate the real-world calculator just for the sake of it. The designer/engineer at Apple still think that way – and did good job at it I might add;
- The task bar is great, much better than XP, Vista, or even better than OS X Snow Leopard.
- Overall feels pretty fast and stable, even though I’m running it on a 2-year-old laptop (2.2Ghz Core 2, 800MHz FSB, 2GB RAM).
- Nice little touch like the fast switching themes, short-cut key to choose projector connection options.
- 900 other features I haven’t discovered yet.
Small issues:
- Outlook system fonts became smaller than in XP and there’s no way to completely change it. Changing font size globally is still a visually poor experience.
Posted in Technology, Windows 7 | 2 Comments »
December 2nd, 2009
I just got my Windows 7 Ultimate as a holiday gift. Installed on a two-year-old notebook PC yesterday. The installation went very smoothly as I have a clean install. The PC had WinXP and Ubuntu dual-boot. I used GParted to easily removed and resized the Linux partitions. Then I instructed Windows 7 to take over the unpartitioned space.
Win7 rewrote the Linux boot manager (grub) with its own. It boots slightly slower than WinXP even though it is a new install while my WinXP had 2 year worth of junk on it. Win7 named its boot partition C Drive and the first partition D Drive. So if I like it, I can just use the WinXP partition as the data partition for Win7.
All the important drivers such as sound, video, printer, network and wireless worked out of the box. Office suite installed easily. So does Firefox and a few other essentials. Win7 networking worked well. I was able to join my office domain and setup exchange server connections fairly easily.
Today is a rude awakening when I got the first blue screen of death when it booted up in the morning. Still investigating…but I think I’ll be dual-booting WinXP Win7 for a while.
Posted in Technology, Windows 7 | No Comments »
August 23rd, 2009
I’ve been quietly annoyed by Yahoo’s inability to filter out junk mails for months now. Why couldn’t they do as good a job as Gmail? Maybe they should outsource their search to someone else…wait, in fact they did.
Anyway, now I’ve encountered another downside of Yahoo’s horrible junk mail filter. I’ve ordered several books from Apple via iPhoto but never got the confirmation emails. After a few days just before I wanted to order again, I smarted up and checked the Yahoo spam folder. Sure enough, buried down deep in junk mails are the Apple receipts. How could something as popular as Apple online store receipts get recognized as junk email? It blows my mind. Maybe Yahoo should allow me to search the “junk” mail folder so that I can uncover these buried treasure easily. Currently it doesn’t.
Product suggestion to Yahoo email: since your junk mail filter sucks, maybe you should have folders and search/index functions built into the junk mail.
Posted in Technology | No Comments »
May 10th, 2009
Yahoo! mail has been posting this ad on the left side for weeks:
Go to the website, you’ll find it is an auto renewing monthly cell phone service of $9.99/month – in the small prints. But most people who don’t read small prints will be scammed into signing this up by providing their cell phone number in order to read the so called “IQ test results”.
As for the IQ test itself, it is 10 questions of the “who wants to be a millionare” sort, at the “$250 dollar” question range. Again, the small prints tell you that the test has no scientific base whatsoever. Basically, whoever naive enough to sign up for the IQ results by giving away their cell phone number should have their real IQ checked.
Posted in News | No Comments »
April 23rd, 2009
The Gmail preview widget has been broken on Yahoo! page for a few days now. I’m sure it is Google who has caused this in order to wrestle more users to its own iGoogle platform. The spot where Gmail inbox preview is now shows a “coming soon” error message from Yahoo, quite sad.
On the other hand, entrepreneurial people never cease to capitalize on business opportunities on anything. If you search for Gmail module in Yahoo, one of the two things come up is cunningly named “Gmail Inbox”. It is actually someone’s blog.
Posted in Technology | No Comments »
April 12th, 2009
What a great finish of this year’s Masters.
There’s the great charge by Phil and Tiger. Phil’s brilliant front-nine of 30. Phil’s mental errors and misputts at the back-nine that cost him again another chance. Phil and Tiger trading punches at the back nine. Then there’s the 3-man playoff. And Kenny Perry’s costly collapse at the end of regulation and playoff. Kenny deserves to win the way he played. I’m sure most people felt for him. It just shows how great a pressure major championship can put on people in a sport where nerves play such a big part.
But I love seeing Angel Cabrera’s win. He doesn’t come from a “blue-blood” background. He started by caddying for rich people. He is nice and always smiles. He is very casual and plays fast on the course. He used to smoke and said that smoking calms him on the golf course. He quit smoking after he won the US Open in Oakmont in 2007. He grinds out every shot towards the end to survive and win. What a way to win in playoffs – he hit into trees in the 1st playoff hole and saw his second shot bouncing off a tree trunk to go on to survive.
Maybe by winning his second major, he will hire someone to brush up his English and play more often in US. I’d love to see that.
Posted in golf | No Comments »
April 9th, 2009
Really? The new 24inch is 30% larger?
Posted in Technology | No Comments »
April 9th, 2009
Turbo Tax has always been doing a great job of minimizing the pain of filing for tax. But it is a pain nonetheless. And this year Turbo Tax has started more nagging about upgrading to premium version whenever I navigate to the stock/investment section.
In places like California, most people have decent jobs will be subject to the pain and humiliation of AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) again this month.
The outlook isn’t better either. If some of the president’s proposed changes to the tax code go through, tax burden will become even higher in high cost of living areas next year.
Posted in Personal | No Comments »
February 25th, 2009
Tiger woods is back. No more Buick on his bag, but rather the “at&t” and blue globe logo. Will we see future iPhone commercials featuring the world #1 athlete? You betcha.
Posted in Sports | No Comments »