Microsoft Live Writer

This is a test blog for Microsoft Live Writer.

Just one thing leads to another. I was chatting with few friends on backup space on the Internet. He mentioned one, and I countered Microsoft’s Skydrive. The recent announcement of Microsoft’s online Office really impressed me, and they provide 25G of space! Compared with Google, which only gives 1G of space, Microsoft is so so generous.

Then someone talked about using the space Microsoft provides for backup space. There is some add-ons available to do that. That just made me so curious. So I found Microsoft Live Sync, and then Photo Gallery, and now I even have Live Writer on my computer.

Live Writer is a blog software. It just downloads my settings from Blogger. Well, I don’t know if it’s going to change any of my original settings or not. I’ll publish this one and then check.

It seems to me that most of the settings have been downloaded. I can add label to this post, set a publish date, preview, etc. However, some personal setting is lost. When the post is longer, I like to have a shorter preview on the homepage, and the provide a link for further reading. This is manually done, and I guess Live Writer is not smart enough to pick up everything.

A Bientot, Calgary

Tomorrow at the time when I'm typing now, I'll be in the vehicle heading for the airport.

A friend just came back to Taiwan from a 5-day vacation. He said that it was too short, that he could have stayed at the beach for one more week. I was about to say 6 weeks here turns out to be short as well, and I wish it could be just as long as time could be. It's interesting to see how things here are so different now, compared with December. Now the days are so long. The sky is bright at 5am, till after 10:30pm. Everything is so green and grows like crazy. It was so dark at 5pm in December, and the evening is so dark and long that it was almost unbearable.

So things have come to an end here. It's time to resume my life. Maybe there will be a new chapter here, and maybe not. But until then, a bientot, Calgary.

Attached photo is THE downtown view of Calgary for me.

Fort Macleod

This is the first trip out of town for a long long while, and should also be the last. Destination: Fort Macleod.

Fort Macleod is in southern Alberta. Fort Calgary was founded as a mid point between Edmonton and Fort Macleod. There is a lot of interesting history regarding North West Mounted Police, which became current Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Indians, and the negotiations between First Nations and Canada. Lots of artifacts there as well.

This structure is of much interest to me, and shows how the house in the prairie was built. Trees were scarce in the prairie, so people used to cut out grass and stack them as the main building material, including roof. That's why there is grass growing on top of the roof in the attached photo. It does not sound like a very reliable structure, as when it rains and the soil is soaked with water, it could be very muddy in the structure. I'm not sure how wind affects it, as I'm sure the weather could be windy and rainy. I guess people would live in constant fear of losing their belongings in the prairie.

Chicken Pasta Salad

Not sure why pasta salad came to my mind. I just had to have something else for a change. In fact I've done pretty good in this trip. I've been here for 3 weeks (with another 3 to go), and only been to Chinese restaurant once. In fact, that trip turned out to be just mediocre. There was nothing fantastic about the food. Rice rice and mushu port. I can even do it if I have proper equipment. For some reason, I can cook eggs for breakfast with the electric stove, but Chinese food? No, no way. I need gas stove.

So I don't think I'll go back there. 30 CND is good for lots of grocery anyway. I also do not plan to make any Chinese food here. Maybe something else would be nice. I guess that's when I thought about pasta salad.

I tried to search online for recipe, but all the recipes I found require strange (for me) ingredients. I know they could be just some dry spices available in the grocery stores, but I really did not plan to spend 20 CND just to get ingredients to make a bowl of pasta salad, and know that the ingredients may have to sit in the cupboard for years before they will be used again.

So when Ed said he has a simple recipe that they really enjoy. I asked him to send it to me right away. I love it at the first sight of the ingredient list, because they are all so simple, and I use them pretty much on a daily basis. I followed the recipe quite well, and here it is (direct copy and paste from email):

------------------------------------------------
12 oz package of tricolor spiral pasta
1.5 cups mayonnaise
1 cup grated Parmensan cheese
.5 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 cooked chicken breasts, skinned, bonned and cut into bite size chunks
1 cup chopped tomato
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
.25 cup coarsely choppen onion ( we use the blue onions they are milder and prettier)

In a larg pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta to desired doneness; drain, let cool and set aside.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the mayo, parmasan cheese, milk and salt. Add pasta and toss to blend.
Mix the remaining ingredents , chill for several hours before serving. Easy
------------------------------------------------

I cooked the whole package of pasta, 375 grams, or around 13 oz. Cooked pasta expanded so much that I could not mix all at one time, so I divided it into 2 batches. The attached photo is from the first batch. A bit more mayo in it, but the flavor from mayo is still not offensive. I used Kraft Miracle Whip to replace mayo, and it is not very strong in flavor anyway. For the second batch, I used 2/3 of required mayo, and the salad tasted like heaven.

Chicken adds a very nice texture to the salad. I really enjoyed it. I did not use bell pepper, as it is harder to digest, however, I may wanna add some celery or avocado next time, for more color and more flavor.

I made them for lunch one day, and we finished all of the pasta salad the next day for supper. That's how great this recipe is.

Shrek Forever After

I really like Shrek. When the first movie came out, everything was amazing. They chose an fat ugly ogre to be hero to save the princes, and the princess chose to be ogre (or is it the second or the third movie?). Eddie Murphy did an excellent job to voice for the donkey. So when Shrek 4 came out, I thought it is a must see. But it is disappointing.

I guess you just can do the same tricks a few times. After that, no matter how good you are, it's just the same old same old. Donkey is still donkey. There is no new trick to Eddie's voice. Puss is still puss. His big eyes do not do anything to me anymore. They were not the main characters, but stood out and added so much to the movie, but what's new now?

True love's kiss is probably an interesting idea. Fiona's kiss is supposed to be the key to remove the magical contract, but since Shrek's birth date has been taken away, and thus practically does not exist, so Fiona does not recognize him, and does not love him, so her kiss is not true love's kiss. This is not hard to understand, so is still kind of cheap. We all have watched too many movies regarding time traveling, and know exactly how things may change if we break the continualty of time.

Graphics is good, but I watched the 2D version. Well, 5-dollar movie night on Tuesday vs close to 20 dollars for IMAX, there is an easy winner for me. I suppose the scene when true love's kiss is completed, and the whole disappears, that scene must be great and beautiful in 3D IMAX, but other than that, there is nothing new about the story, music, and everything. Please do not make another sequel.

Google TV

So now Google wants us to search on TV. My question is, how can Google make watching TV a more enjoyable experience?

Do I need a wireless keyboard to search every time I turn on the TV? Do I need to scroll up and down using the arrow keys on the keyboard? Or do I need some other pointing device, either wii remote or wireless mouse, to click on the video of my choice? With my limited imagination, I simply can't foresee I would like the way it works, unless it can be easier to than flip my laptop open, or wake up my imac and search from there.

In fact, search, in my opinion, is a very personal thing. Of course, I can search anything I want, and click on anything that I'd like to try. Sometimes I find myself searching on youtube for a long time, just to find the best video from a list of results with the best video and audio quality. But if I have a family and kids, do I still want to turn on the TV, and search for several minutes to find the program that we all like to watch for maybe just a few minutes? Yes, there is a lot of content on the internet, but what is the likelihood of finding something that we enjoy watching for hours? Are the contents really ready for search?

From the video released by Google, if we cannot find anything to watch from the current cable, we can search. However, can we find anything to watch on the internet, or we just spend hours searching and clicking, thinking there is a whole lot out there but we are simply wasting our valuable time?

Contents is still the most important.

TiVo is a gem. I only briefly used it at my friends' place, and was so in love with it. Not sure how much they have progressed after so many years, but I still do not see anything from US to replace Tivo's simple but powerful functions. Even Apple store is not good replacement. It sounds crazy for me when almost everyone has cable, and has to spend more to purchase each episode and download from Apple store.

Yes, download. Nowadays I hate to have to download anything. I thought we are talking about cloud computing. Everything is supposed to be in the cloud. Everyone is supposed to be connected to the internet. Why do I need to download?

Maybe it's time to really look at the progress in China. I am not sure if I talked about pps before, but for me, it is still the solution.

Attached is the screen shot of pps, with Supernatural shown in the program list. All the contents is there, named with season and episode. I do not have to browse through too much information, nor do I have to search endlessly. It's like a TV. I turn on and go to the place I need. There is no need to download. I click on play and the program starts to play in 15 seconds. All the contents is there, so there is no need to set up any machine for download, and thus easier to use than Tivo.

I'm sure there is a lot of legal issues with the programs on pps, but the program is so fabulous. Google should really think out of the box. Don't indulge with its own search engine.

Chat Online

I've added a new widget on the left column of my blog. Sometimes I use meebo to log on to my various instant messengers, and if I'm on meebo, this widget shows I'm online. Please edit name at the bottom of the widget if you'd like to chat, so I know how to address you. I'm pretty sure a cookie or something will be stored in your computer, so you only have to change the nickname once.









What's going to happen on my part is that, once you are on my blog and I'm on meebo, the nickname that shows in the chat widget shows in my meebo account, as shown in the second screen shot. I hope that does not make you uncomfortable. Of course if I'm not online while you are on my blog, no evidence of your visit will be stored anywhere.

Added on May 21, 2010: Offline message is ok on this widget. It is quite convenient little tool.