Mapjack

I saw introduction of Mapjack this morning and tried it. Love it!! Google map has the same function to browse the street view, but my complaint is that it is so slow to follow the traffic. It may take me a long time to stroll down Powell street in San Francisco, and the download is quite slow.

Mapjack feels a lot faster. I can even pick and place my location from the lower panel, and adjust my view angle from there. Coverage of San Francisco is very good. Even the residential area my friend lives in is covered. I can even follow the camera to see the shops of Pier 39. Picture quality is very good. But only 3 cities are included in the service now, San Francisco, Sausalito of California, and Chiang Mai of Bangkok. Why Sausalito and Chiang Mai?

Attached is the view of SF bay and Alcatraz from Hyde street at Lombard street. It is one of my favorite views of San Francisco.

Conjunto

I am not sure why I like Conjunto. Their lyrics, from translation, never seem to mean too much. Maybe they all have shiny outfits? Maybe the music style is quite similar to the songs my mom used to listen when she worked. Maybe I like the sound of accordion. Or there could be something else.

WoW server was down for about an hour this evening, so I opened iTune and listened to my music, and it plays Conjunto Primavera's "PERDONAME MI AMOR". Good music. Too bad I cannot understand the lyrics. I tried a search on YouTube and got so many results. Nice to see their actual performance. The 2 below are good too.

Google Site

One complaint I have for Google is that they do not provide storage space for users. Even Yahoo had that long time ago, but I am not sure if it is still available, as I cannot find it now. Sure they have Google Documents (GD), which I praised, but GD is limited to certain file formats only. That means, if I upload a Word document, GD will accept and then transfer to its own format. I can then edit or share from there. But if I upload a jpg file, then it will simply give an error message saying the format is not supported.

It is not easy for me to share other information with friends. Today I might want to share a zip file, or an mp3 I recorded. I'll have to resort to other services. Such service is not hard to find, it just makes me a little bit disappointing that Google is not a one-stop shop.

I read about Google Site today. It looks definitely interesting to me, as you can see from the demo at the bottom of the page. People can share other file format on Google Site. The catch is, this service is restricted to work and school environment. It does not allow me to log in with my gmail account, or yahoo account, or my hotmail account. Need to find another email address, maybe from ISP, or friend who has his own domain name and can spare one email address to me, to play with it.

Starbucks Promotion

Starbucks is running their promotion today for their 10 years anniversary. This morning people could get their free coffee of the day. The line was still there when I went out for lunch. But their coffee of the day is really not very good.

Really McDonald's coffee is better.

Upcoming Announcement

Things have been dragging since early January. That is when we started to wait for the announcement from the general manager, but then it got pushed out and pushed out. This morning, a meeting request from the GM lies in the inbox. The all-hands meeting is scheduled in Friday afternoon, Pacific daylight saving time, which will be Saturday morning for us, too late to return our laptop! Guess we can survive till next Monday then.

Election

It is presidential election day today. The last time I voted was 10+ years ago, and this is only my second time. The main reason is I was registered in Tainan, so did not really wanna spend that 5+ hours on the freeway (traffic is expected so it would take more than 5 hours normally) to go back and vote someone I did not know (I had been away from Tainan long enough).

I changed my registration to Taipei now, so am eligible to vote right in my neighborhood. It feels good. I grabbed my seal, made sure my ID card is in my wallet, took the election note from the bookshelf, and that's all I need. There were not that many people there. Everything was very well marked. There are 2 agendas in this election. One is to elect the president, the other is to vote for 2 referendums. I opted for not voting for referendums, and it was clearly marked 'vote for referendum, this way' and 'no vote for referendum, this way'. No need to explain or anything. Everyone there was very nice and friendly. It only took me 1 minute to make my call in this election.

Starbucks, 7-11 and McDonald's

I am not sure how fast Starbucks is expanding now, but at least they are facing strong competition. They used to make good coffee, and the quality has been very consistent, while McDonald's coffee was very bland and had an unpleasantly bitter aftertaste.

Things have changed.

Starbucks' coffee has been quite weak lately. I still remember some bad experience a while back when they were running promotion. If customers ordered breakfast, they got free upgrade on the coffee from tall to grande. But it tasted very milky. I suspect if they only added milk to make the size larger. McDonald's has been doing a lot of promotion lately for their coffee, and I personally think they have made great improvement. Their regular morning coffee has a strong flavor, and a tangy aftertaste. 2 cups may be too much, but I certainly enjoy one cup on a weekend morning, with bagels and cream cheese, when there are no kids in the playground making noise. With sunshine through the windows, it is certainly a joy to read my morning newspaper.

Starbucks remains strong on the atmosphere and friendly service, however, but how much do you pay for it? I can have a regular coffee and an apple pie at McDonald's for 55NT, but a regular coffee of the day from Starbucks costs me 65NT (not quite sure of it now, but it should be close), but I'm not really crazy for their coffee of the day. What about coffee latte? Expect to see 3 digits if you need a larger size.

Even 7-11 makes good coffee. Surprisingly, their coffee also has more flavor, if not the same, than Starbucks, but of course in most 7-11 stores, you don't get a place to sit down. But if you just order one cup of coffee to go before work, then really there are so many choices out there, and some are really good and economic.

UPS

I ordered this UPS last week, and it was delivered the next day. Pretty amazing efficiency. It looks just like a regular extension cord. Think again. It is surprisingly heavy. In fact when I got the package from the receptionist, I did not know what it was in the box. The first idea was books. Only books can be this heavy, but who would possibly send me books? It weights 13.2 pounds, according to the manual.

I plugged it in right after I got home. As it is quite flat, and occupies lots of space, I was not very happy. My room is so small, anything that requires more floor space is not an excellent idea. Still need to live with it though, as the power is really not that stable here, and unstable voltage might lead to my computer failure. This unstable voltage actually happened again once tonight when all of a sudden the lights in my room went dim for half a second. Who knows what damage it might cause to my computer if I do not have a device to regulate the power?

It is a good thing.

Meebo

I've been using Meebo for instant messaging at work for a while. The good thing about Meebo is that it is web based, which means all I need is a web browser. I do not need to install any Yahoo messenger, or MSN, which I hate, or Goggle talk. If you do not like to apply for a Meebo account for privacy concern, you can simply log in from their homepage, or you can apply for a Meebo account for easier and faster login.

The nice thing about it is that I can log in to MSN, Yahoo messenger, or even Google talk and AIM all at the same time, right within the web browser. I can travel to any place. As long as I can find a computer to use, which has Internet access, I know I will get the environment I am used to to chat. Another nice thing is, its traffic goes through a different port, I guess port 80, instead of what the messengers normally use. It is good for me because my company does not allow employees to install IM software, but then Meebo serves as a loophole. I was told IT can block in completely though.

But for some reason, the connection has been very unstable lately. I could be online for only seconds, then got kicked offline, or be lucky to be on for few minutes, but the connection never lasts more than 10 minutes anymore.

I don't think company has blocked it, because if it does, then there will be no connection at all, but, hey, things happen.

Princess Maker 2

Saw a post today talking about Princess Maker. I was a huge fan of the PM1 and PM2. In the old days when the resolution of computer monitor was only 640x480, and the color could be only 256 colors and when sound card was extremely expensive and not popular at all, this game offered great image and amazing sound.

Glad to find this clip of the PM2 opening on Youtube. The music might not sound good because of imperfect recording, but I happened to have a sound card at that time (yes, got it for game), and the music was really heavenly.

At the end of the opening shows a picture where father points at the sky and the daughter grabs the father, that picture is very very lovely. PM2 is my favorite among the whole series.

"Read More" In Place

"Read More" is now in place, so when my posts are longer, I can place the first paragraph or 2 on the main page, and add a link at the bottom for anyone who wants to read more to click and continue. I am surprised this is not a built-in function in Blogger. Users have to write the hack themselves in their templates, which may also mean that whenever I change my template, the changes I have made will be gone, I"ll have to write it again. Not very good.

Hard to Unplug USB Device

It is always good to have a USB mouse ready, as I never know when my bluetooth mouse will have any issue, and the only viable way to solve it is to connect a USB mouse and try to set it up again.

So this thing happened yesterday, and that's what I did to resolve this issue. A piece of cake. But then another issue popped up. It is so hard to unplug! If you look at the profile of the keyboard, as shown in the photo, it is not hard to understand that Apple designed it so that when your device is plugged in, the USB connector is completely hidden under the keyboard, but even when I do not have fat fingers, it is not easy for me to position my fingers properly to remove it.

Apple should design an extraction tool and give it to the customers for free.

Ayutthaya

Ayutthaya is a small town. Easy travel from Bangkok. Although I was not very happy when the lady at the ticket booth told me the fare was 2xx bahts per person. I guess she knew I was a tourist and tried to sell me the best seats available, thank you very much, but having done enough homework and being cheap, I asked for ticket that is one tenth of the price and got it. No assigned seats, but we managed to find place to sit down. We rent bikes for only 50B each per day, and took the ferry to cross the river. Whenever I take the ferry, I feel I am having a vacation, a feeling beyond description.

The ruin area is not far from the pier. Although tour books recommend travelers to rent motorcycles, I still think bikes are quite enough. Yes, it was hot, but we expected hot weather anyway. We had bought hats from Jatujak park one day earlier and brought enough water, so we were pretty fine.

It is interesting to see those ruins and to imagine what had happened, why the angry soldiers chopped all the Buddha's head and destroyed the city. The photo attached here is probably the best known. It is surrounded by a tree, elevated only a few inches from the ground and still in the upright position. It must have been on the ground after the war, and the tree simply grew around it and protected it. Looking at those Buddha's, I feel sense of calmness.

The bad thing is that we do not think the site is well maintained. There was no designated route for visitors so I saw visitors running around everywhere, the signs were not clear, there were no guards or visitors' center to help people know more about the place and its abundant culture and history. We bought tickets, but had a feeling that no one was watching if people paid. After I returned, I was not surprised to read it from the newspaper that Ayutthaya could be removed from the world heritage.

We chose a Japanese restaurant right across the street from the ruin. It was not busy at all. We got a very nice window seat, with the view of the ruin, but stayed very cool. After that we went to visit some more, but had a feeling of 'see one and see them all'. I guess I was a bit dehydrated, so when we went back to the train station, it was so breezy and cool, I lay down and the bench and actually dozed off.

New Look

So this is the new look of my desk. Some people asked me why I'd prefer a desktop computer to a laptop one. Besides the performance, one of the main reasons is that I think desktop can have a smaller footprint on the desk. It is correct to say that if I don't use the laptop, I can easily remove it from the desk and claim the space, but knowing myself, the laptop computer will sit on my desk forever, like a desktop, with the power cord connected and cluttering my desk.

With this iMac, I can easily stow my keyboard right under the screen. This is definitely easier than putting away a laptop computer, and in most cases, saves more space than a regular LCD monitor.

Well, MM complained that she was reading my 'show-off' post last night. Let's say something negative about it.

• The remote to control Front Row is the same white plastic design as before. It was able to attach to the side of the screen of my new machine by using, I guess, built-in magnet, but now it does not do this trick anymore. Well, the white color on the remote does not match the silver look anymore anyway, but Apple should have thought about it and given a better solution.
• Old machine was dead quiet. This morning when I used the new one, I could hear humming from the machine. Maybe I received another machine that has sub-bar quality?
  
• I left the computer on yesterday when I went to work, but put it into the login screen. Last night when I got home and tried to log back into my account, it did not give me my desktop, instead, the screen showed the same wallpaper from the login screen and a cursor. Not knowing how to force a logout, it was my only choice to power off and turned the power back on.
• The screen really reflects well, as you can tell from the photo. It looks almost hideous.
  

Applause on Time Machine

How do you re-install your Windows? Let me think,

1. Make sure to have all the driver CD if you installed any new hardware myself.
   
   
2. Make sure to copy all you personal data.
   
   
3. It may be necessary to browse through some folders if you know it. For example, the if you store Outlook emails in the hard drive, the default folder is not "My Documents", or any folder under it. It is hidden somewhere, and I cannot tell you where now, sorry.
   
   
4. Make sure you have all the software CD. That may mean to call your friend like the last time you installed it.
   
   
5. Wipe out the system, and re-install the system. Then install all the drivers. If that's a new machine, then this process can be neglected.
   
   
6. Install all the softwares, disk after disk.
   
   
7. Set up the network, and download the upgrade patches.
   
   
8. Download some utility programs if you, like me, like to use some software to facilitate your computer experience.
   
   
9. Customize the programs you want. Sometimes the default setting can be annoying. For example, I like the menu to pop up directly, instead of showing just the functions I use more often, then after I pause the cursor on the menu for few seconds, the whole menu shows up.
   
   
10. Restore all the data to the proper locations in the hard drive.
    

I hate to recall how much it took me before to finish the task, but last night I had a completely new experience.

I received my new iMac, opened up the box, installed the power cable, keyboard and mouse, then turned on the power.

1. An animation ran. It can be found here. When this high quality animation plays full screen on the 20" screen, it feels good.
   
   
2. I was then asked if I had backup with their Time Machine, which I did. I plugged my backup drive in. It was recognized by the system immediately. Few clicks, and it started to restore files from my backup drive.
   
   
3. I had a lot of data, and the estimated time required was 3.5 hours. So I went out for dinner. When I came back, it was nearly done. I'd say it took more like 1.5 hours only.
   
   
4. Everything is back. The system restored all the account information, network setup (I did not have to set up network again!), all my personal files, and the best thing is, all the software that I installed were back! The new computer feels like the one I had before. All the settings are there. Everything came back in 1.5 hours!
   

Then I logged to World of Warcraft. Since all the settings were restored, I joined the private chat channel with friends automatically. Everyone greeted me delightfully, and I told them I've got new computer, and I'm ready to play.

Time machine is probably the most valuable thing to Apple's new operating system. This experience is so amazing. It is so easy to use.

Few more thoughts:

• The new keyboard is softer than the old one, and is easier to type. I love that. The old one is so hard to type. But of course I'll need to wait for few more weeks to actually compliment on the keyboard. But at least the initial impression is positive.
  
  
• The new keyboard has 2 USB 2.0 ports. USB 2.0 means that I not only can attach my mouse to it, but can also attach my external hard drive or thumb drive to it! This is good improvement. I won't have to hunt for the USB socket on the back side of the screen whenever I want to back up my system. Just plug it in to the keyboard!
  
  
• Screen looks brighter, and the color is more vivid. Although I had some doubt if the reflection is bad on the screen, but my computer does not face the window (the actual windows in my bedroom lah), so I am fine with it.
  
  
• Gaming performance is so much better. I just realized World of Warcraft is so beautiful. I used to have to sacrifice resolution or details for peroformance. Good to say good bye to these bad old days.
  

Well, I was not very happy to have to use my annual travel budget for a computer, but on the other side, I am glad that I bought an Apple, not a PC. Like I said, I knew I would be so down if I have to face a PC at home.

Google Documents

This is a screenshot of my itinerary on Google Documents. This was my first attempt to use this online service, and the process and result were very good. It looks like a regular spreadsheet, but it comes with some really nice features:

* I can invite friends to view or edit this spreadsheet. This way I do not have to send out the itinerary, and then friends edit and send back to everyone, and we end up having all different kinds of versions. On Google Documents, there is only one version. Everyone goes to the same place for the same version. No need to send it back and forth. It is easy to keep people synced up.

* Everyone who has access to the same document can actually work on the same document together, remotely. It sounds weird, but MM and I tried that. We could be finding travel information separately and sent links to each other via MSN, but also edited or added travel information to the same itinerary at the same time. Moreover, I was even able to see which cell she was typing in. It was real time experience, very collaborative. I was so impressed.

* I had to print out the itinerary so my family had a printed copy just in case they needed to call me while I was away. One of the export format is PDF, so I could either print to my printer while I was online, or simply exported to PDF file and sent a copy to my family electronically. Quite simple and straightforward.

Jupiter 2002

I am not a pub person. I do not like to stay out after 9 and definitely have low tolerance of smoke and loud music. But Bangkok is famous for its night life, of course we had to see something. We only traveled 3 day together in Bangkok, so could only afford one night to explore. After a few queries, we decided to try Jupiter 2002.

The bar is not far from Papong night market, and is very easy to find. Their waiters all wore purely white outfits with red ties, and look very outstanding in the crowd at night. And the best thing of them is they are not from the same mold. They could be tall, short, old or young, but they all seem to have their style and are very charming. A boy was particularly good. He was young and thin, said good bye to us when we left, but he was not queeny. Cute face with the masculine behavior made him very adorable.

Entrance fee was 250 bahts. A drink came with it. Show started at 10:30 and last for around one hour. Although the place was not spacious, the stage was not big, the dance was very good and had professional choreography. The guys can be shirtless but wearing vests, or wearing pants that they can pop open from the side, their dance was very hot, and it helps to be so close to the stage. Their performance is dazzling.

There was light nudity but not extreme, and definitely no sex show. That was good.

I went to some other shows afterwards. The cost is about the same, but the quality of those places were not good. Tawan was ok, but they now focus too much on drag show that I think they are missing the point. So if one is not interested in the escort service, Jupiter 2002 is really a good place to try at least once.

Tiles

I got a coupon from Starbucks, buy one get one free. MM and I were trying to find a store to sit down after the movie. It was funny to walk in the city of Taipei for miles, but still we did not find any Starbucks, and the one we know was maybe another mile away. Anyhow, we walked by a junior high school, and something stopped both of us, these beautiful tiles.

They are mounted on the wall, dated 2004. We are not sure if weather helps wash out some of color to give the tiles different shades, but they look so beautiful. They look like from some professional artists, and should be covers of fascinating story books.

27 Dresses

The idea is good, a woman who has been maid of honor 27 times, but is still unmarried. She has been in love with her boss the whole time she is employed, but he never knows about it. At the beginning of the story, her sister came back to visit her, and fell in love with the boss. When the couple wants to get married, her sister, of course, asks her to help. As a nice girl, she helps, but still weeps for her love. There are some conflicts in the movie, but there is no good high and low. At the end of the movie when she tells the boss about her crush on him, and he kisses her. You can say it's very comic when they both agree they don't feel anything, so they kiss again, and still don't feel anything, but I think in the real world, when such a thing happens, that means a promising relationship is gonna start. Who cares if it starts with a bad kiss? Things will get better!

A few thoughts:
* The writer can be a bit taller. I know this is stereotype, but in a romantic movie, be handsome and tall. That's why he was not mentioned above.
* The boss might be under the weather when the movie was shot. Maybe a robitussin?
* They use headlines of newspaper to show the names of directors, screenplay, you know, those more important names. Similar to Enchanted. I like it.
* Actress' edgy coworker and her sister are quite good.

Bose Companion 3 Series II

I need to trace the story back to my trip in Bangkok. I tried to get away from the scorching sun one day, and was just walking around the shopping mall, Siam Paragon, to be exact. It is my favorite mall, as it is trendy, stylish, and does have some shops that I enjoy visiting a lot. That day I stopped at the Apple store. Apple had just released its new software, so I was thinking if I could get a better deal in Bangkok. Unfortunately no. Then I was drawn to a demo machine, which played beautiful beautiful music. Not the music was beautiful, but the sound quality was so beautiful. I stopped there for minutes, and picked up the speakers to take a closer look. It was a very tiny pair of Bose MusicMonitor.

The pair was just so tiny and appealing. I was really interested in how much they cost, and I remember there is a Bose store in Siam Paragon (I love that mall this much), and I hurried to the store.

I saw the pair the moment when I entered. The gentleman was very nice and introduced me to all their computer speakers, and played demos for me, one model after another. I was on vacation anyway and had all the time for myself, so I was very patient and took my time doing comparison among different sets of speakers. MusicMonitor and Companion 3 were better. I asked for the pricing, and almost had a heart attack when he told me the price of MusicMonitor. 26 000 bahts, which is 800+ USD. That is ridiculously high for a pair of computer speakers. I smiled and walked out of the store, and told myself to check our local stores in Taipei.

MM did a great job finding the local Bose stores, and we went there together. Sadly, they did not have MusicMonitor yet, but we tried their Companion Series too. Not having the one I like, I still had to admit Companion series sound great too. Although Companion has 3 models, we both thought Companion 3 sounded the best for MP3 music.

Pricing was also high. It is frustrating to know that people in the US only pay 250USD, but we have to pay as much as 400USD, but it is hard to compromise when you have enjoyed better things. We decided to get it anyway. It is luxury expense, but we can still afford it, although that means a tearful good bye to a possible trip to Macao.

Companion 3 is a 2.1 model. Normally I put the sub woofer on the floor, so these 2 tiny speakers do not take up too much space. Now that my computer broke, I placed the sub woofer on the desk, and put an old Christmas bear from 2002 on top as decoration. It actaully looks lovely.

MM was not content and did not stop here though. She proceeds to buy another device, which, according to her, improves the quality even more. She let me use it for few days, but as of now, I still cannot install it properly. The sound still comes out of the computer instead of the speakers. I tried a few times and have given up.

Oriental

Oriental afternoon tea is really something to try at least once for the entire life. The slender and courteous waitress, rich and fragrant tea, delicate cups, delicious dessert, all of them make the trip so worthwhile. There are about 10 kinds of dessert, and the cake on the second layer is my favorite. 10 layers of nuts and cream and everything melt together instantly in the mouth was an unforgettable experience. And the decoration was just pretty. High ceiling, sufficient natural night, elegant windows and chairs. MM was smiling so much that she could barely keep her mouth shut the whole time we were there.

The waitress asked us where we were going next, and recommended us to take their boat if we were going to Saphan Taksin. We did, and realized it is free to take the hotel boat from the pier to the hotels! I love Oriental's boat. So pretty and spacious, and so oriental.

And the hotel itself? MM and I were talking about buying package from the airlines. Some packages includes round trip tickets, of course, and one or two nights at Oriental. That's good enough for us. We were really stunned by the beauty when we entered the hotel. It will be such great experience to live there at least once.

4 Years?

Manager sent a mail requesting personal employment information, like grade level, hiring date, job function, and so forth. February 23rd is my anniversary. Hard to imagine I have worked for this company for 4 years. 4 is not many. Many of my friends and classmates who have never changed jobs all have 10 years of experience with the same company. It is with mixing feeling with know things are changing.

This reminds me of my second anniversary. I was in US for business trip. M took me to a nice French restaurant, which was very close to where I used to live, and which I had passed so many times but never tried. One taste of the goose liver, and you don't blame people for stuffing geese with too much food. And the wine, my first experience with the life of wine. It was completely different when it was open and afterwards. Such experience. Once is enough.

Enchanted

Some movies show all their excitement in their trailer, like Nights at the Museum, and it is disappointing to actually find that out in the movie theater. Some do not show enough, and I hope they do not drive potential moviegoers away simply because of that, and Enchanted is one of them.

One main reason to watch this movie was simply because I needed romantic stories, and the other one, and the driving incentive, was the good review, even though I had watached the trailer and decided this was a bad movie and not worth the money and time, I am glad that I believed friends' comments and now will also recommend to others. Here are some thoughts of the movie.

* It is surprisingly funny. The story begins with animation, and then transits to the real world. Some scenes blend the animation and real world together and do look very nice, for example, the poisonous apple flowing in the liquid and thus going from the animation to the real world is flawless.

* At one point, when the princess looks up at the camera, omg, she has 3 sharp sharp sharp wrinkles on her forehead. Please do something to cover up!

* The wedding gown the princess wears to enter the real world is fluffy and beautiful, but, please, don't let us see the wires inside the gown.

* It's nice to see the princess summon creatures to help her with the cleaning, but there are too many roaches indeed.

* At the end of the movie, when the prince helps the lady put on the shoes, it's obvious that the lady's heels need some extensive skin care.

* I love it when the dragon takes the handsome guy away, and the princess goes to rescue. We are seeing more and more of this.

* The guy has beautiful smile when he dances with the princess, and the camera movement is so Beauty and the Beast.