M.Y. Lessons Learnt

Happy New Year and it’s officially 2009 !!

Before we kick start the new projects (if any), let’s have a flashback of the year 2008 … don’t worry, there is no earthquake, Olympics, stock market and presidential election stuff. Just some trees …

As fans of Google Lively, I suppose not much we can do about the shutting down of the service in two days’ time … except, may be taking some screen-shots of my 80days Cafe. Sigh … let’s wish Lively will be live again sometime in year 2009.

Bye, Lively !!

More pictures after the jump.

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There are many people claimed that they are experts in Web 2.0 and e-Government. Seriously, not many of them can really explain the details of the two concepts, let alone how to link the two together … But here is one from Tara Hunt - great presentation and lots of details.

“Government Next”

Enjoy.

“It’s not what we have in our life, but who we have in our life that counts.” - J. M. Laurence

Merry X’mas !!

It’s cold in Chicago, minus 13 degrees celsius. I think the last time I was in the same cold condition was probably 25 years ago, and I hated it. But the Chicago city is a great city … not as crowded as New York, but with equally great hotel, food, museums, parks and shopping. I’m lovin’ it.

Click the image to see more photos from Chicago.

Yesterday, Google released some themes for their Gmail platform … in fact, 30 new themes. Many of them are simply new color schemes but some include beautiful backgrounds. It really spices up my “email world”. I picked the “Mountains” theme as my default Gmail theme for now, but I have to admit the “Terminal” theme is really really cool for old dogs like me. 

It reminds me the good old days back in 1990s when the Pine (Program for Internet News & Email) from University of Washington was my favorite Internet tool.

Try it out !!

Something never imagine before, play Ocarina with your iPhone …

Tap on the globe icon and you will see and hear other Ocarina players throughout the world !!

Can your phone do that ? Yes, we can.

There are non-stop news on TV about the historic U.S. presidential win by Barack Obama. And I am still figuring out how to make my Sony Vaio and the new MacBook work hand-in-hand. After days of evaluation, I decided to buy the VMware Fusion, installed the aged XP, and start all over.

So, while the election offices in U.S.A were counting votes, I was checking the outdated VMware installation guide (even though it was downloaded fresh from their web site), installing, testing, failing, reinstalling, twisting etc. etc. I finally made it work … it feels good … Yes we can. Following is a screen shot of the Windows XP running within the MacBook OSX, via VMware.

I think most, if not all, computer geeks’ dream personal computer is one with an apple logo stamps on it … they may use a Windows PC at work, on the road or at home but in their dream they want to buy an Apple computer. Windows PCs are good machines actually, but they just don’t have the style, personality and cult. 

I am the same as any other geeks except the fact that I bought mine 26 years late. Because somehow, 26 years ago, I bought myself the Commodore 64 insteal of the Apple II / III. Anyway, no matter it’s a Windows PC or Apple MacBook, I still have the same question - why is it so difficult to make these all work together ?

A spaceman came travelling on his ship from afar,
‘Twas light years of time since his mission did start,
And over a city he halted his craft,
And it hung in the sky like a star, just like a star…

He followed a light and came down to a bank,
Where an old man and housewife were yelling to a staff,
A bright light of silver shone round their heads,
And they had the faces of a victim, and they were afraid…

Then the stranger spoke, he said “Do not fear,
I come from a planet a long way from here,
And I bring a message for mankind to hear,”
And suddenly the sweetest music filled the air…

“Sell, sell, sell … stop dreaming … back to work, back to what you’re best at …”