Welcome to my virtual space

(updated 2012-05-17) This winter has been exceptionally warm. The ground has been free of snow most of the time. I have been able to ski only twice by now (2012-02-17). The warm days have been surprising, but nothing has surprised more than the scene of…

FreeDNS is a noble endeavor to offer free Domain Name Service. It is free, though users are encouraged to become paid premium members whose fees are used to pay for the hardware and bandwidth used by FreeDNS. Generally speaking, it works quite well. It is probably sufficient for non-critical personal use.

Chengdu -> Beijing (CA1426: 21:15 - 12:05) Beijing -> Newark (CA819: 9:20 - 10:20) Newark -> Boston(CA7419 /UA2045: 12:17 - 13:28 or United 1202: 15:23 - 16:30) 

Auto body rust is preventable and manageable. Wire sheet, then 120 grit sanding tool (sandpaper or sand sponge) to remove rust. Use chemical rust converter(e.g. Loctite Extend Rust Neutralizer) or dissolver to convert or remove rust residues in pits, let it dry 10+ hours. Apply…

It seems to have become a fashion to bash Microsoft in the tech world since Microsoft dominated the desktop OS world. There are two types of Microsoft bashing: 1. from people who have been immersed in Microsoft technologies, and got sick of some matters; 2. from…

Amazon Mechanical Turk is great for crowdsourcing jobs to workforce all over the world. One may think it is ideal for testing software under very diverse conditions (different machines, operating systems, network environment and locations). Unfortunately, it is prohibited to ask workers to install applications.

There is no doubt that Kiva.org is a well managed organization running well managed micro-financing programs. Its 685.903 volunteer lenders, $281M in loans and 99% repayment rate (as of 2012-01-30) speak to it. Its average loan delinquency rate is 1.76%. The average delinquency rate on…

Json is the data language spoken universally. HTTP is the network protocol supported universally. A web service using HTTP and Json is naturally the most interoperable type. Web services and their clients are often strongly bonded - clients must send and receive specific type of data required by their…

My American mom, Sarah Clark, left us to see her Lord on 2012-01-29 at the Sunday church service time. This world lost a truly extraordinary person – loving, caring, kind, charming, bright, forgiving… Mom was an eternal optimist full of youthful spirit. She showed us how to…

I have been a regular user of Wikipedia not long after its inception in 2001, and made my share of contribution in editing and financial support. Wikipedia has become a de facto monopoly of online encyclopedia. No other online encyclopedias are even remotely close to Wikipedia…

It is sad that Aptera shut down on 2011-12-02, less than a month after my previous post on Aptera. The company stated the close of business was due to lack of funding. The company certainly excelled at marketing. Over 5000 people in California sent Aptera refundable…

Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are the three biggest monsters in human history. They killed people in mass via various ways. Among the three, Stalin and Mao naturally share more than them with Hitlter because they were communists. Mao effectively followed Stalin's orders on major issues…

If MVVM pattern is used, a data entry form (e.g. email form) can be generated with a simple statement - EditoForModel (Model). Usually, the format of the output is not exactly what one wishes. Formatting is often necessary. The orthodox way of doing this is…

Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework is supposed to be THE technique for Silverlight analytics, but unfortunately, it appears to be fading away. Even the tutorial videos on its home page are not available anymore, and no one seems to care. There are other services such as…

Ultimate powerhouse tablet - fast, long battery life, HD display, plenty of storage for a tablet.

The corruption of the Chinese totalitarian regime is probably setting records in every aspect. Chinese netizens have given the following awards to 9 corrupted Chinese officials: Quantity Award to Qiyao Xu, Director of Construction of Jiangsu Province, for having 146 mistresses. Quality Award to Zonghai…

Microsoft will most likely remain a giant bureaucracy until a leadership shakeup. However, Microsoft does have many good products many of which are the best in their categories. There have been some good signs for Microsoft recently. Windows Phone seems to be getting tractions. Windows…

WebBrowser control is a very handy tool to display a web page in a Silverlight app. This allows some functions of apps be moved to easily maintained web pages. It is easy to use, but has an odd property IsScriptEnabled. According to MSDN it "Enables…

Tap-hold to show a context menu for the user to make a selection, this is the function of ContextMenu. It is very tempting to use it on smartphones because of the limited space preventing using constantly present menus. There is a caveat in using ContextMenu - it…

Kim is claimed to have died on 2011-12-19 due to fatigue. Since lies are a part of the foundation of regimes such as Kim's, the real time and cause of his death may not be known for a long time. Even his birth is still…