furseal’s lair

Community Server! a bit fun October 26, 2006

Days ago I felt like to build a personal blogger so that I can post messages, upload files …etc. without quota limitation and keep it accessible only under intranet. Therefore, I registered to download Community Server (please refer to “http://communityserver.org/Default.aspx”). CS is an ASP .NET based community website builder. It offers all kinds of features you need in a community like blogs, forums and file sharing. A friend of mine has been utilizing this tool to build his personal website, by that he won the prize of MS MVP *amazing* and got a free, unlimited MSDN subscription account . (check it out “http://rextang.net/Default.aspx”) It was not his success that triggers me to use Community Server, but my purpose is to build an in-house, private message board. The killer would be the one that can help me build it up quickly, and with a good-looking.

Well though, that’s not all about what I called it fun. Rob Howard, CEO of Telligent Systems Inc. that has built Communi Server, has sent me a mail. He mentioned about the opportunity to partner with Intervideo Inc.. At the first glance I thought it is merely a marketing ad., it was so close for me to report it as a spam directly. But it’s not, Mr. Howard did notice my registration info (the organization field, I should not fill it out so honestly…) and made a good sales. Because seriously, I start to think about the possibility that the combination of a media playback software and a community website makes profits. It’s a pity that a small, tiny engineer like me cannot make any decision to such kind of enterprise-wide project, but undoubtedly , it’s an interesting experience.

As for any review of Community Server? Well, currently I haven’t finished the configuration. Maybe I’ll write another post for its further introduction. 🙂

Flag, Song and Country October 3, 2006

A couple of days ago, there was a news saying that guys from China tore down our Flag from our athletes at an International Children’s Games in Bangkok.  (http://english.www.gov.tw/TaiwanHeadlines/index.jsp?categid=8&recordid=98708)

Lately we are going to sing some songs at a reception for hundreds oversea Chinese backing Taiwan. One of the songs is composed by professor 蕭泰然, named “台灣翠青.” Its lyrics are simple, saying that the beautiful isle, Taiwan, used to be ruled by foreigners, now a democratic country that owned by Taiwan people.  

I’m never a fanatic patriot and never showed up in any of the political parades either. Maybe it’s because I have no reason to show my passion about this land in such a fierce way. However, I’m deeply moved by the Flag event, and the Song. One is defending our country, the other is re-recognizing ourselves.

There is another concert held on Oct. 9, we’ll sing this song at 8:30 – 9:30. We are told that this concert is going to be broadcast to TV channels. Wish I look great on TV. 🙂

the Great BOINC! September 26, 2006

BOINC stands for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. It’s a quite interesting tool to help you integrate certain popular volunteer grid computing works like SETI@home, Rosetta@home …etc.. Nah.. why is there no RSA@home, SHA1@home 😛

I used to run SETI@home on my laptop at school, but soon I turned it off. Since a laptop is meant to be “mobile,” my laptop stops computing when I carry it with me, which happened frequently. Second, it consumes CPU so much that my laptop keeps faning. You know, that sound is quite annoying, especially when you’re willing to contribute to the mankind at sleep.

Anyway, now I installed BOINC on my desktop at office. With it a user can join multiple grid computing projects at a time. For example, my desktop is calculating einstein@home and Rosetta@home at present. I guess it has better data segmentation or priority control? Because I can hardly feel any lag on my box, even though the CPU utility is 100% all the time. Except for its improvement in process scheduling (just a guess) and the integration of different grid computing projects, it also generates integrated analysis report. Needless to say, they surely reserve the fancy looking graphics that illustrats your calculating results.

For those who are still interested in contributing to researches that requires massive computing, you have my recommendtion to add this handy tool to enjoy your generous offer. 🙂

Is it necessary? September 20, 2006

I saw a couple of news yesterday, and the day before. People who support Bian exercised violence against those who oust him. People in red are hit. Cars in red are hit. Cops and presses are hit. If blood is a must for damocratic revolution, the blood shall belong to those who start the attack. Those folks who attack innocent people shall be condemned and charged. However, is the Red so peaceful and rational whilst Green showing emotional and violent?

The answer is, no, not exactly. In the night of Sep. 15, people in red surrounded the president’s residence. There is a photo studio hanging Bian’s portrait in the front of the store. When the Red saw this, they start to abuse the owner. They yelled “shame on you” at two poor women, and kept knocking on the window. That’s not peace at all, that’s a serious harrasment.

These pictures remind me the Culture Revolution in PRC in 1965 – 1976. It’s a tragedy that people against what they are and where they from. The red guards are autohypnotized to hate those who don’t belong to them with no reason. Doesn’t it look so much like the crowd in Green and Red at this moment?

Although it’s true that our president Bian has no shame, so as the blind-followers who cannot control themselves and assault innocent people. The whole thing is becoming to an in-house terror, especially when there are party members taking chances to grab focus.

IE 7 RC September 20, 2006

Finally there’s something good about Microsoft. I downloaded IE7 and gave it a try yesterday. IE 7 has no GM release yet, but RC. I saw some improvements, though they are mostly copied from firefox.

• Tab – ctrl+t opens a new tab, that’s totally a copy
• Google seasrch – a google search box at the up-right of the main window, totally another copy
• Hidden menu bar – I can’t say it’s a good or bad idea, to me it’s good because I can see more lines of the content without a menu bar. But not to my girl, she is totally lost. Not all users have the knowledge of hotkey “alt,” in the end they just keep menu bar shown on the tool bar. This action nigates the good of original design anyway. Maybe MS guys can put a message that teachs users how to dynamically access the menu bar after the installation.
• Better fonts – This assertion is personal and subjective, but I do feel the change. I like the words shape it presents anyway.

In case there is any of a misunderstanding, I didn’t claim that IE7 is better than any other browsers. Besides, the history taught us that MS’ new products are the best incubators ever for security leaks. My point is, whatever IE7 copies, it’s getting better than itself.