I'm So Busy

Just can't tell how busy I am. My busyness comes half from my routine work and half from house decoration. Let me be clear - buying a house is not an end, and it is just the beginning of another severe ordeal! However, I'm really looking forward to the new house, which is being decorated by two worn-out souls. I just believe all our efforts will finally pay off! Let's walk through these two gloomy months with full energy and passion!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Learned Vocabularies

1. Towards the end of the evening, a group of about 30 protesters were preparing to spend the night in the centre, apparently with the blessing of security guards.

2. In the main hall, meanwhile, a succession of presidents and prime ministers made set-piece speeches.

3. took the dress on approval.

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Billboard Recruitment Ad

What an ingenious way to recruit dream engineers. I have to bow to Google for its all-mighty creativity. Though I know for sure I will never get a chance to work this out, it's still inspiring to see this kind of fresh idea coming out from the IT giant. Thanks Google, you make our lives way better.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

The Veil of BTChina's "Licenseless" Shut Down

It's a mourning day.

BTChina (btchina.net), one of the most famous BT sharing sites, is totally put to death. The rumour that its webmaster has been detained was once spread like wildfire over the internet, though yesterday, the webmaster of BTChina left a very brief message at the webpage to clarify the case.

Not merely BTChina, many other well-known websites sharing  BT seeds are shut down since last week. It is apparently that a campaign of cracking down online piracy has been kicked off by some Chinese central government officers, coordinating another campaign of shutting down pornographic wap sites for mobile phones.

Now, if we read the above story from a new perspective, we can get something very useful out of these cases.

On the surface, the campaigns are aiming at piracy. But the reason of shutting down those websites is not that they don't have copyright license, but that they don't have an administrative license of online dissemination of audio-visual programs issued by the government. Interesting enough?

In a nutshell, we learnt from these stories that proving a website "has no administrative license" in China is far easier than proving the content of that website "has no copyright license"

In this circumstance, the copyright owners' best strategy of fighting piracy may not be filing the case to court, but reporting the authority that the targeted website does not obtain the license of disseminating Audio-Visual programs (or license of disseminating other contents).

These cases, it seems to me, herald a fresh way of fighting privacy.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

A Tough Job Ahead

Well, the decoration battle has just started. It is really a big headache for both me and Zoe. I believe there will be lots of troubles ahead waiting for us. The buying part has come to an end. We have got our dream house for an affordable price and were soon into a debt hole. We will be in an in-debt status for five consecutive years, but that's not something fearful to us. The thing that haunts us the most is the decoration part - getting people to tear down the unwanted walls, finding the suitable decorative bits for our home, keeping an eye on the whole decorating process. There's a hell lot to do. Now we need to juggle a full-time job and home decorating. It's tough. I hope that months later, I would write on my blog something like "we managed to juggle a full-time job and home decorating."

Cross fingers and say amen.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

The Rising of 杯具

It's time for us to look at an old word from a new perspective. The word 杯具(originally meaning cup in Chinese) has recently got a whole new meaning -- tragedy. For example, we now say 我的人生就像茶几，上面摆满了杯具 (My life is an end table, on which there are a lot of tragedies.) Furthermore, 杯具 is not alone, it has a long tail of siblings -- 洗具(喜剧)、餐具(惨剧)、茶具(差距)...etc.

Web language is influencing our life, whether you know it or not. Just brace for the coming web culture wave.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Damned Night

I was on a hunt for website wireframe design soft tonight. After trying some hopefuls - Visio, Axure, Edraw, Firework...etc. - I picked up among them Axure as the finalist. That's when the problem arose. Everything was nice about Axure at first - simple interface, plenty of widget resources, very easy to use - to name just a few, but all these were meaningless when I later found out that it didn't support Chinese input well! That's frustrating to say the least! I "Baidued" for a quite while but still failed to come up with a solution. Of course, I gave up at last. And now I'm downloading yet another soft Smartdraw... What a night!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Different World, Different Life

A few meaningless clicking on a hardworking night led me into the photo album of 曾俏琳 in Kaixin001. I was shocked on the spot. The gal, who was Zoe's classmate years ago, was seen in a villa with nice decorations, a stark contrast to our newly-brought "shabby house." My heart was sunk with depression and my face grew sorta pale. A question popped up quickly on my head "when will I able to offer my family a house as big as hers?" Though the answer didn't emerge, but one thing is crystal clear - being an employee will never achieve that.

I should start something big, at least start planning something big... but before that, I need to accumulate enough knowledge, treasure and human resources. What's a contradiction!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

How to Compare Different Brands Using Search Volume

Do you think it's possible to compare different brands using search volume? Or have you ever thought about it? The answer is a definite yes, and here is how...

First, get into your adwords account and launch a new experimental campaign, in which includes all the brand-related keywords that you are interested. Then run the campaign for a few days. Remember to keep tyour bid high and your daily budget affluent to support the test and eliminate any daily noise. When the test is done, get into your account to view the impression data (never mind the CTR), which will then tell you the truth of the tested brands, by their respective search volumes.

Have you done this type of analysis for your market?  What did you learn?

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Stickman Animation

Stickman animation has been a large part of your childhood pleasure if you were an after-80s'. Remember the well-known stickman series from Xiaoxiao? And now, a more elaborate stickman animation is being widely distributed through the video sharing site. Click here for a full view of the must-see stickman animation.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Watsons Interview

After finishing the Watsons interview today, I walked out with a clear mind of what my weaknesses are. Not professional knowledge, though it is kinda sarcastic to say that my office software skills need to be further improved. Yes, as simple as Powerpoint and Excel, names that you hang over your mouth since ”studenthood“, but most of you don't dare to claim you are good at these softs (though you may claim that in your CVs).  We tend to think little of office softwares and shrug them off at the slightest mention of their names. It's a stereotyped thinking that office suite is for assistant stuff only. We have been wrong and ignorant. People, it's time to work up your office skills if you want an even broader career path ahead of you!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Titleless

No update for ages. Half because my blog is being blocked in China, half because all my passion had died out somehow in an uncertain way. Once a prolific blogger, now a lazy bug sitting in front of computer idling away his time. I've evolved, but sadly, not in the right direction.

It's time to reverse the course and wake up my perseverance to get the ball rolling!

Well, tomorrow is my interview time. Better keep your fingers crossed for me! XD

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Cementer Day

Today I worked as a cementer to whiten walls of my home, which was part of an ambitious plan to beautify our adobe. The job looked easily enough but indeed it required a lot of labor. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was not cut out for being a cementer. All thumbs with the hand-held shovel, I inched through my work with intermittent help of my mom.

Being a bookworm is kinda sad, and I'm even worse, I'm a "techworm" with no practical skills.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Roaming Singer

Traffic is terrible in GZ these days, almost to the point that even a local like me does not know how to get about. Transportation chaos is everywhere, thanks mainly to an ever-increasing number of cars on ragged roads and partly to a government-funded BRT project. I had to wait today half an hour before boarding a home-bound bus. But all these complains were not the point of this blog entry...

On the bus I met a roaming singer, who belted out two out-of-tune songs in exchange for some money that he thought he rightly deserved. I felt pity upon seeing his look, pale and feeble, but I didn't give a cent anyway. (Please don't blame me for my hardened heart.) He collected a few one-yuan notes from passengers when the performance was over and leaned back to a handrail for some rest, with an obviously exhausted look on his already-torn face.

The bus came to a stop before long, and the roaming singer got off. He happened to stand right before an estate agent where dozens of ads were pasted proudly on its shopfront. He stood there still, staring at those flashy ads with a pair of confused eyes. The astronomical numbers on the ads made him all at sea. I was saddened by the scene.

The world has become so tough that a large group of people had been marginalized somehow by our money-talking society. How can we let our hair down and really feel the air living in such a society? You don't need to be a genius to figure out that relax is a luxury in such a competitive environment. For most people, having a shelter is only a daydream.

However, we shouldn't be too pessimistic. It's up to you to decide whether you would walk your life through with a lighthearted or heavyhearted mind.

But one thing is crystal clear, laziness doesn't work here.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Liu Xiang, A Man with A Goal

My heart kept pounding when I finished a documentary of Liu Xiang. In 2008, Liu Xiang, once the record holder of 110 metre hurdles, suffered what would be one of his biggest personal disasters in life. His leg injury broke many Chinese hearts and forced him to quit his first heat in the 2008 Olympic game, which was held in Beijing. People couldn't accept his loss, and many even went on to blame his cowardliness throughout the year. That was a huge pressure on a youth, but our hero was not beaten by the injury. He has been struggling for a full return. With a clear goal and a strong will to hurdle any obstacle ahead, he staged a perfect return in a 2009 track and field match. Liu Xiang was back. And we are sure he will soon shine again on international arenas with an always-advancing will.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

打油诗两首

初秋十月欲赏花，还需翻墙到邻家；闲来把酒煮河蟹，马勒戈壁草泥马。 -- by Joe

阳春三月欲赏花，无须翻墙到邻家；自学带Tor成专家，造福何止你我ta。 -- by Dennis

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Urinal With Fly

Here is something very funny and creative. What your response would be when seeing a fly sitting inside urinal as you are ready to pee? Aim at it?

Take a closer look, the fly is actually part of the urinal. Believe it or not, according to a research, this decorative fly helps reduce nearly 80% of spilling urine as gentlemen like to target it when shooting out.

Great invention... isn't it?

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

What Are Being Blocked?

Luckily found this dashboard which monitors popular English sites that are currently blocked in China. I have not the faintest idea when our government will give the green lights for accessibility.

Here comes the irony. One Chinese official says "policies, projects and reforms that most people oppose should be stopped or suspended."

How about GFW?

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Head-on Conflict

Last night we had a head-on conflict, thanks to my egregious indulgence of Harry Potter ebook series. Things turned worse quicker than I expected when I showed little interest to some activities that I proposed before dinner. Half and hour cold war entailed and we started to talk back fiercely.

But things met a U-turn suddenly when a sobbing face emerged later down the brawl (was someone sobbing? 0_o).

The ending, though, was pretty sweet, it was nothing that deserved a cheer.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. dropped ceiling, drop ceiling, false ceiling, suspended ceiling.

In construction and architecture, a dropped ceiling, also referred to as a drop or suspended ceiling, is used as a secondary ceiling formed to conceal piping, wiring, or ductwork.

2. For years there have been rumours that the mafia was sinking ships with nuclear and other waste on board, as part of a money-making racket.

racket = a business or an occupation.

3. a constitutional(本质的) inability to tell the truth. = 生来爱撒谎的毛病

They are almost constitutionally incapable of casual relationships.

4. That this horrible tragedy happened at all is incomprehensible, but that it happened to her, I think, is infinitely more so. It seems completely senseless.

5. 纨绔子弟(wán kù zǐ dì) = 只知享受，什么事也不能干的富贵人家子弟。

6. 乔迁之喜 = 祝贺升迁或搬家之词。

7. 偏安一隅(yú) = 在残存的一片土地上苟且偷安。

8. Companies are innovating in this area, not least by using a tool that is ancient and free: the weather.

"Not Least" means that you are making an important point, but not the most important.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

People Dislikes Whatever

A poll shows "whatever" is the most disliked word in America, followed awkwardly by a string of contenders "you know", "anyway", "it is what it is", "at the end of the day".

The reason for the hatred of "whatever" is that it connotes a sense of dismissiveness. Buddy, let's drop the word from your conversations from now on, unless you want to display a gallon of indifference.

Also take this idiom down by heart, though kinda out of favor, "six of one, half dozen of the other," 半斤八两 in Chinese.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Long Time No Write!

Long time no write! It had nothing to do with my writing passion, which has never faded away. The culprit was GFW, which made accessing Google Blog and Posterous completely impossible.

I missed a great deal of things "blogwhile" and my pen had been covered with lichens since the GFW took center stage months ago.

When will the window reopen? When blogging will no longer be a thing of pain? Beats me.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Late Night Message from Zoe

Loving message from my darling. Sweet!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Pizza Hut Viral Marketing Video

An innovative combination of a slew of movie clips to create this very impressive Pizza Hut viral marketing video! Check it out here! Beggar description!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Ask Questions, Demand Answers

Today I took some time to review the event of 911 and happened to reach this shocking documentary (with Chinese subtitles). The 80+ mins documentary reveals something behind the 911 tragedy. No, I should say it tells the story from a completely different angle. The beautifully-crafted footage states the Pentagon was hit by missiles, not aircraft; and the twin towers were destroyed by large numbers of bombs preset inside the buildings, not aircrafts. All of these revelations contradicted with what we were seriously told before, by officials.

Who's telling lies? What's the ultimate truth?

Alright, I'll just drop out here and leave the rest to you.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Preparation Work Done

After three hours humdrum banking processes, I came out from banks with a big smile on my face. All the money preparation work has done and what next will be a few mouse clicks before getting a coveted house located next to riverbank.

I've never imagined myself owning a house at the age of 27. Now my whole life will move to the next stage, a stage full of pressure and debt, but I know I will be well alive after this treacherous time. With the help of my soul mate, I'm a man fear nothing.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. 周遭(zhōuzāo) = around; 她对周遭的环境抱着疑惧的态度。

2.  终南捷径(zhōng nán jié jìng) = 指求名利的最近便是门路。也比喻达到目的的便捷途径。= shortcut to success.

3.  沆瀣一气(hàng xiè yī qì) = 比喻臭味相投的人结合在一起。= to act in collusion with. = 狼狈为奸，同流合污。

4. 憷(chù) = 害怕，这孩子憷见生人，憷场。

5. Not suitable/safe for work (NSFW) is Internet slang or shorthand. Typically, the NSFW tag is used in E-mail, movies (such as on Youtube) and on interactive discussion areas (such as internet forums, blogs and community websites) to mark URLs or hyperlinks which may be sexually explicit or include audio containing profanity, helping the reader avoid potentially objectionable content.

6. 言简意赅(gāi) = concise and comprehensive

7. circular file = wastebasket = 废纸篓(lǒu)

8. 孜孜(zī)不倦 = diligently; assiduously; indefatigably; tirelessly; sedulously; with incessant vigor; with unremitting (or unfailing) assiduity;

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

To My Lovely Darling

Dear Zoe,

This is your would-be-fiance Dennis. I want to tell you something in written words.

I know I was stupid, paranoid and immature from time to time, but you backed me up no matter what status I was in.

I especially thank you for your heartfelt acceptance of my zero mathematical ability and my forever getting-lost habit; and your soulful support to some of my shaky decisions along the way.

We smiled upon harmony and cried over differences.

After so many rain and shine, we are still tightly bound.

Now, Zoe, listen, I want to be your perfect man.

This kind of assurance comes only once in a lifetime, and I give it to you today.

Dennis

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Make Your Site Faster

How long does it take to load your entire site? How hard have you been trying to make your pages faster?

It's ripe for a thorough enhancement now.

Google recently launched Page Speed that aimed to enhance web page performance. It's a simple tool bundled with Firebug, a well-known Firefox add-on, and tests a site's web server configuration and front-end code. These tests are based on a set of best practices known to enhance web page performance. Like many his brothers and sisters, it's free. Now, just roll up your sleeves and drive your site into a speedway!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

50 Best Websites 2009

Here at Time magz they have handpicked the best websites in 2009. I personally went through the list and was shocked to find that about half of them were Greek to me. After holding my surprise down I started to check them out one by one.

Among the unacquainted sites, the most impressive one, to me, was Internet Archive. I was sure that I had bumped into this site in the past during my years as a webmaster, but it still amazed me greatly when I tried its travel-back-in-time feature. I especially liked the "Take Me Back" button on its homepage as it kinda felt like you were taken on a time machine and flashed back into digital antiquity. I took some time to review the past of WoWMine.com. Nice work! =)

I'm not going to talk about other on-the-list sites and will let you work out the rest from here...

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

It's Easy to Love, But Not Easy to Relate

To engage in love is easy, but to have or establish a reciprocal relationship is not as easy as pie. Earnest money for the house was placed, but that didn't translate into an eternal ease in any case. There is still a lot need to be discussed and done. Different life styles, habits and interests are all factors that may contribute to an overall argument, or even conflict. How to deal with future difference will be one of the major subjects on our agendas. We should bear in mind, however, no matter how controversial we are today, we will still be tightly bound together tomorrow, because what links us together is not impulse, but true love.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

It's Yeah Time

Yeah! Remember this day! We've pinned down our target and earnest money will be given to housing agents tomorrow. One of the biggest obstacles in life is now half-done. Of course, a lot of paper work is still ahead but I believe the major part is way behind. (Am I too optimistic?) Hope everything unfolds smoothly and quickly as planned. Pazhou(琶洲), we are coming!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Chinese Valentine's Day

Me and Zoe wore couple costume yesterday to celebrate the Chinese Valentine's Day, and a gorgeous meal (Sichuan flavor) was one of the highlights in our celebration of the narrowly-known festival.

Everything went on perfectly though we failed to reach riverbank as we planned, but the biggest defeat yesterday was my attempt of sharing some great Cantonese jokes with my darling. I thought the jokes were laughable but they failed to trigger her smiling vein.

Back home, we took some nice pictures using our newly-acquired camera and I will post them up later.

We ended our day in bed at around 23:00.

Something more memorable happened later at night, but couldn't be shared here. (a little secret between D and Z, but I can assure you it's not something romantic.)

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Absolute Drought

I'm here again, with the same old question in my mind - why I constantly failed to keep my blog active?

This question really baffled me. I blamed, in part, a lack of time for my failure to keep the blog in motion, but I knew that couldn't explain my failure entirely. Something other than time has derailed me from my regular blogging. Was anything inside me missing?

Out of a clear sky, an answer flashed into my mind. The writing passion once kindled inside me was somehow put out. But the next question came naturally - why my passion was dead?

I can't tell, at least for the time being.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. Something about the word hazard

The result depends on mere hazard. = 结果如何全碰运气;
hazard a remark = 斗胆进言;
hazard one’s life = 冒生命危险.

2. 万万不是本人所能望其项背(wàng qí xiàng bèi)。项：颈的后部。望见他的颈项和后背。比喻赶得上。

3. 子曰：人非圣贤，孰能无过？过而不改，是谓过矣。

4. put/set something down to something = to explain something as being caused by something else. I put his bad humor down to his illness. We set your failure down to your emotional upset.

5. Why would Facebook launch a stripped-down version of its website? = 精简的 = trimmed-down

6. Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. In Chinese, it is called 众包.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

R-rated Mcdonalds Ad

It's not easy to transform an oral sex photo into an impressive Mcdonalds advert. I have to admit that this is one of the greatest creativity ever seen. You rock, mop.com!

Posted via web from Dennis & Zoe

Videos That Rocks

Incredible Crystal Ball Art

Bicycle Lift

Posted via web from Dennis & Zoe

Facebook Buy Out Friendfeed

This is an old news.

Facebook is one step ahead of Google this time. After failing to put Twitter into its pocket, Facebook acquired Friendfeed last week in a dramatic buyout. We'll see another "bouts of boxing" bewteen Facebook and Twitter in the upcoming months, and it's still too early to say who will have the last laugh.

But in fact it's kinda meaningless to talk about Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed or even Google Blog right now as all these impressive services are completely inaccessible in China, thanks to a set of preemptive crackdowns ahead of China's 60th anniversary.

Does it make sense to suppress information flow by making everything online inaccessible? Don't make too low an estimate of our collective intelligence. You are beaten, GWF!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Autopost & Photobucket

Two different tips.

First I found the Autopost feature at Posterous was outstanding! It works 100% as it claims - one post, and you're done! I'm really looking forward to an autopost service for Chinese blogsphere, which would, without doubt, save me a huge amount of unnecessary labor.

Secondly, I've been looking for a substitute for Flickr since the image hosting site was unreasonably blocked in China. (God knows how long the blockage would last!) Luckily today I found a stand-in. Photobucket is a great place to store and share your photos and videos. Free and powerful! It should absolutely be one of your(if you were a Chinese) must-use web applications.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. End of Message or EOM signifies the end of a message, often an email. The subject of an e-mail may contain such an acronym to signify that all content is in the subject line so that the message itself does not need to be opened (e.g., "No classes Monday (EOM)").

• EOM = End of Message
• NRN = No Reply Necessary
• RP = Reply Requested

2. In telecommunications and software engineering, scalability is a desirable property of a system, a network, or a process, which indicates its ability to either handle growing amounts of work in a graceful manner or to be readily enlarged.

3. The term Internet meme (pronounced /mi:m/) is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet.

4. sucker punch, rabbit punch = an unexpected punch or blow.

5. 瞠目结舌(chēng mù jié shé) = 瞪着眼睛说不出话来 = to stare dumb-founded.

6. Astroturfing(草根营销) is a term for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behaviour. Hence the reference to AstroTurf (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate fake grassroots support.

7. 铤而走险(tǐng ér zǒu xiǎn) = to up the ante, to risk danger in desperation; to make a reckless move; to be forced to break the law.

8. 窘困(jiǒng) = very poor; hard up; hard pressed.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Housing Agent & Online Marketer

After dealing with a bunch of sinister housing agents and a prolonged overtime, I'm now totally drained. I don't mean to stain anyone but I have to say all the housing agents I met in the past were of utmost badness. They tried to fleece us in any way possible so I've therefore developed an internal dislike of them. How should you guys try to take our money out by using some dishonest approaches? I make money by hardworking, but you make money by "hard-deceiving."

But as an online marketer, I've caught countless overseas customers by various guiles, and now I think it's time to pay back my sin. Be it a housing agent or an online marketer, their goal is the same - to max out their profits by all means.

Midea Creative Ad

This is an ad that you can remember for life. Midea takes advantage of an abnormally-shaped building to promote its product. Very creative!

Midea fun is blowing a building out.

Posted via web from Dennis & Zoe

All I Need is U

The most creative fuck I've ever seen.

Posted via web from Dennis & Zoe

Japan is Rocky

Today I learned from Google news that Japan was struck by a 6.6-magnitude earthquake, one of many remarkable Japan-located tragedies in the year of 2009. As usual, the news was scattered with a string of miseries - traffic halted, houses collapsed, people displaced, injured or even killed.

To tell the truth, my pity was arisen. And the next moment I reconfirmed myself the answer to why Japan had been so aggressive in history. Japan has been trying to protect their nation from being eliminated entirely by mother nature, through countless brutal battles towards other countries. To say Japan would disappear someday overnight is not a scary story and I think the risk is so real that every one in Japan can feel the sting.

Of course, no reason whatsoever could justify Japan to invade other civilizations, as it is highly condemnable to transfer your tragedies to your neighbours.

Personally, I don't want Japan go hell in the short run as it is one of the biggest quality AV producers in the world (or you can ignore the "one of") . And I'm sure a majority of male simply live by its AV products, not to mention a bevy of gals who want to get a sneaky peek at Japanese porns at every possible occasion.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks, and hope that Japan stays fine.

Should High Heels be Banned in Workplace?

This is yet another attempt to revive my writing passion. Apart from the Weekly Knowledge Gains, there has been few original posts these days. My blog was kinda like a board for copy-and-paste only, which was disconcerting to some extent. Further worse, the realization that my English skills were on the wane really scared me off my pants. It's not hard for me to come to a quick conclusion that I should re-sharpen my pen on a fine-grained whetstone ASAP. Based on my recent awareness, I have decided to write something in relation to my daily consumption so as to keep my English at a presentable level.

Here I go. The first piece written with a sole purpose of regenerating my English battery.

It's very interesting to see a bunch of British senior officials debating furiously on how to limit stiletto heels in work place, instead of poring over on bigger stuff like ways to revitalize the already-reeling British economy. The male group claimed that wearing high heels in workplace was inappropriate, and high heels posted a great threat to the health of women's feet.

The proposal was ridiculous no matter how you sliced it. I think it's a personal choice for any woman to choose whether to wear high heels or not in any situation. And the most amusing part was that it was a bunch of male officials who engaged in the proposal, not a single female participant was involved.

One female countered the proposal with this funny line "I can't imagine these officials debating a motion about how tightly men should wear their ties."

It's quite unwise for men to intervene in women's business, and I think the British officials should just let the sleeping dog lie, if they don't want to get themselves in an upcoming battle on sexism.

Another Week Has Gone

I drew this blog title from MJ's widely-known song You Are Not Alone. Every Sun. Zoe is stuck by a sense of unwillingness. After a two-day recess, both me and Zoe have grown to be a bit unwilling to return to work life (a pair of escapist?). Thinking of that easeful life would soon be replaced by hectic life is something that makes us distraught from top to toe. But as what MJ vocalizes in his song - you are not alone, we are indeed not alone among a sea of working poor/slave.

A working revolution is needed, right now, right here.

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. 脍炙人口(kuài zhì rén kǒu) = 脍：切细的肉；炙：烤熟的肉。脍和炙都是人们爱吃的食物。指美味人人爱吃。比喻好的诗文受到人们的称赞和传讼。

2. 山魈(xiāo) = demon in mountain

3. The casting couch is a euphemism for a sociological phenomenon that involves the trading of sexual favors by an aspirant, apprentice employee, or subordinate to a superior, in return for entry into an occupation, or for other career advancement within an organization.

4. pull one's weight - do one's share in a common task; "Bob has never pulled his weight, and we all have to work harder to make up for his laziness."

5.  虚位以待(xū wèi yǐ dài) = 留着位置等待。

6. The lawsuit was completely without merit = 这桩控诉完全是无理取闹。

Usage of Courtesy

If you were a heavy surfer of English site, it would not be rare for you to see pictures on news item with a line courtesy of (someone's name) beside/below them?

The line courtesy of someone in fact indicates that the photo is provided for free by the mentioned person and credit should go completely to that person.

Class over, thank you. =)

158/42 is hatched

The name is final. 158/42 is something on which we decide to put our efforts and energies in the upcoming years. Here I'd like to quote one of my favorite sayings again - it always seems impossible until it is done. Rome was not built in a day, so does a brand. It may take years to nurture, to bear fruit. But so what? The most important point is - we are sure we'll enjoy what you do along the way.

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. 腰间赘肉 = love handles, muffin top, spare tire, midriff bulge, potbelly, paunch.

2. 良莠不齐(liáng yǒu bù qí) = 莠：狗尾草，很象谷子，常混在禾苗中。同义词：鱼龙混杂，反义词：泾渭分明（jīng wèi fēn míng）。

3. 不可企及 = 企：希望；及：达到。没有希望达到。形容远远赶不上。

4. 子虚乌有(zǐ xū wū yǒu)= 子虚：并非真实；乌有：哪有。指假设的、不存在的、不真实的事情。

5. 荒诞不经(huāng dàn bù jīng) = 荒诞：荒唐离奇；不经：不合常理。形容言论荒谬，不合情理。

6. Sheeple is a term of disparagement, in which people are likened to sheep.

It is often used to denote persons who voluntarily acquiesce to a perceived authority, or suggestion without sufficient research to understand fully the scope of the ramifications involved in that decision, and thus undermine their own human individuality or in other cases give up certain rights. The implication of sheeple is that as a collective, people believe whatever they are told, especially if told so by a perceived authority figure believed to be trustworthy, without processing it or doing adequate research to be sure that it is an accurate representation of the real world around them.

7. Working poor is a term used to describe individuals and families who maintain regular employment but remain in relative poverty due to low levels of pay and dependent expenses.

8. At long last = After a lengthy or troublesome wait or delay: At long last the winter was over.

9. 天堑(tiān qiàn) = natural moat = 天然形成的隔断交通的大壕沟

10. 皈依我佛(guī yī) = 身心归向它、依靠它。

Old Word, New Meaning

Literally speaking, when you say 合体, you should be referring to one of these words "unite, combine, amalgamate or incorporate." I did. But my darling Zoe had something extraterritorial in mind. She used the word sexily (凹 + 凸 = 口), maybe she should employ another word to fit the situation, which is 合欢. XD

The First Amateur Movie by Dennis

My Love Will Go On is Dennis' first attempt to make inroads into movie industry. It is a movie dedicated to his love one Zoe. The flick is released on the day of Zoe's trying menstrual flow in efforts to give her a bit of relief, both physically and mentally.

Zoe, hope you like my work. =3

A Trip to IKEA, A Sense of Home

Last Sat. me and Zoe were on a dazzling trip to IKEA. Neither me nor she wanted anything there, the primary goal of the trip was to escort one of her housemates to have a blind date. (sounds exciting? yeah! peeking into other people's romantic life has always been a great thing to do!)

Well, maybe I'd somehow over-expected the experience, the escorting didn't offer me pleasure as I expected. The two newly-met were just hanging around, with the male shooting out professional blah along the way.

At one time, I was shocked by his abundant social and life experiences. And doubt why the gap between us was so tremendous as he was only 2 years older than me. Sense of inferiority welled up at the time of full realization that I was in such a huge lack of life experience.

But all these stuff was not the point.

The biggest gain for me was a feeling of home. Upon entering IKEA, the environment soon raised my longing for a home. (it's home, not house)

The feeling was so real that I was swept off my feet. And I knew that my daring was harboring the same idea. After all, we were designated by destiny to stay together for the rest of our lives. =3

One of The Most Successful Begging Cases in Digital World

How to accumulate fortune in a short span of time except for using some illegal ways? Now I have a new brand-new answer to this question. Ask for money from netizens!

First, it was his 100 yuan per week scheme, and now another stunt by 郁闷昊(Gloomy Hao) was totally beyond my wildest imagination. He simply asked Chinese netizens to donate money to his bank account in an effort to boost domestic consumption. He harvested from his plan a total of 18,198.02 RMB at last.

I'm speechless over the result, and I think it should be recorded in digital history as one of the most successful begging cases in decades.

Happy Birthday to My Blog

Click here to view the first blog entry

Say Goodbye to Kaixin001

What's wrong with me tonight? It seems I'm on a writing spree. Anyway, I decide to follow my nose and write down this piece before hitting the sack.

Here are some of my recent development. A piece of bad news is that a storm of pressure is coming from my job. The good news? The storm has somehow helped me quit Kaixin001 cold turkey.

I've been thinking about deleting my Kaixin001 accounts several times in the past, because I thought Kaixin001 should not have occupied more than 10 minutes of my leisure time on any given day, not to mention to be addictive to it.

I have to admit that I had underestimated the addictive features of social networking site. Being enchanted during my naive interactions with a few simulating web-based games was nothing fun. It was no exaggeration to say that I was totally bogged down by those for-the-birds games. My life, as well as my darling's life, were interrupted rudely. The culprit was the magical stickiness of social networking site. Once in, hardly out.

But man with a strong will can conquer everything. I haven't logged in my account for a long time, and I think this trend will continue indefinitely.

Though I tried the new fishing game on Kaixin001 recently in an effort to keep myself up-to-date, I didn't indulge myself into it again. After checking out the mechanism of the game, which was very similar to Happy Farm in terms of game mechanism, I dumped it with no mercy.

In a nutshell, I'm very happy to the fact that I'd got rid of this social networking site by my strengthened will and won back some otherwise lost hours. And my conclusion after a succession of fierce mental battles with the SNS is - human will is king. Do you agree?

Offline Downloading

I was caught by an ad today when surfing internet. It was from Xunlei which said "畅爽迅雷 离线下载". Curiosity pushed me hard to find out what was behind the so-called offline download mode, and from this page(the landing page of the ad) I found the answer.

After some reading I realized that the offline download mode was as simply as that Xunlei first download what you want on the internet and store the targeted file(s) on its own servers, so later you can retrieve it/them from its storage servers instead of downloading those files from internet sources.

This is really a clear way to bill customers as the potential need for this service is huge. Nice move, and let's see if Xunlei would get some bucks by this creativity.

It Always Seems Impossible Until It Is Done

Words can soothe people, especially when someone is down. I was saddened today by the irritating news that house price was going to keep high for an uncertain period. As usual, the first question entered my mind then was when I could marry the one I really love. Apparently, no answer stored in my mind at this stage. It was not because that I thought I was incapable. In fact, my worry has been driven mainly by a sense of urgency. I didn't quite know from where it came, but I thought many factors contributed to that feeling.

I was in a sour mood when a string of words enter my eyelids "It always seems impossible until it is done." It placated my pain instantly like a panacea for my illness.

I'm not a superman, but I know I will not be the one without a shelter. I'll make it.

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. 忖度他人之心 = cǔn duó = conjecture, ponder, speculate, infer, surmise, contemplate;

2. Three expensive delicacies: 鲍鱼 = abalone, 鱼翅 = shark's fin, 海参 = sea cucumber

3. Higher-level efforts to put a stop to the ingrained drinking habits have met with mixed results.

ingrained = entrenched = deep-seated = firmly established = 根深蒂固的.

4. The company was hemorrhaging capital when it was bought by another firm.

hemorrhage = to lose (something valuable) rapidly and in quantity.

5. 不虚此行(bù xū cǐ xíng) = 没有空跑这一趟，表示某种行动还是有所收获的。= It's been a worthwhile trip.

6. Sexting (a portmanteau of sex and texting) is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between cell phones.

Advanced Google Analytics Usage

Most of the webmasters out there content themselves with the default Google Analytics(GA) setting, but actually the default configuration is no more than the tip of an iceberg.

I'd like to blaze the path and introduce here a few advanced usage. Keep in mind that by sticking to the default setting of anything, you are only going to see the tip of an iceberg.

1. Use _setVar() to define custom segments by using Google Analytics. And here are various solutions to defining custom segments on your site.

2. Use __addOrganic and _addIgnoredOrganic to further strengthen your Google Analytics referral setting.

3. Use _trackPageview() to fine-tune your Google Analytics pageview report.

These are just a few of a full bucket of amazing functions GA has to offer! Webmasters, let's dig deeper!


Terminator Salvation (2009)

Well, let me start off by countering all those spiteful movie reviews for this installment. I don't know why everyone is shouting at it. This movie is fine with me though I'm not a hardcore fan of terminator. The flick is largely watchable and the special effect is cool enough to thrill my bone! I will give it 7 out of 10!

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. But how, pray tell, do you "notice" something that happens when you're asleep?

pray tell = please do tell

2. 非主流 = alternative culture, non-mainstream culture, 90后 = after-90s'

3. Cybersquatting is the practice of registering an internet domain name that is likely to be wanted by another person or organization in the hope that it can be sold to them for a profit

4. 单败赛制 = single-elimination tournament，双败赛制 = double-elimination tournament

5. cut loose

• if a person or organization cuts loose, they separate themselves from another person or organization (usually + from ). She cut loose from her sponsors and decided to try to fund herself instead.

• to behave in a way that is free and relaxed, especially when you are enjoying yourself. After a few glasses of wine everyone just cut loose and started dancing.

6. Boxer Rebellion = 义和团运动

朽木不可雕

I was labelled 朽木, though it was not the first time I was called so. Among a pile of emotions arisen at the time of the word hitting my eardrum, sadness somehow dominated. I couldn't pretend I was fine. And I'm sure no one can. The hard fact was that such a labelling did have a huge impact on my ideology, and I will never do it to my kid(s). At one point, I was saddened and I felt completely helpless. It's piercing. It's devastating.

I'm not psychologically weak in general, at least I don't accept that if you regard me as a weakling in mind.

Also, I'm not a paranoid and do not like to shield myself from criticism. I love criticism and would accept gladly. To me, imperfection rules, because I know I'm not a saint.

I learn from this a new way of treating people - never fire words on impulse as words are sometimes your ammunition to kill people.

My Life

It's kinda ridiculous to write a topic like this, as the "my life" topic is internationally known to be written for the most part by those who have achieved something big in their lives. Though I have magically achieved a "big belly" in recent years, that's never something I'm proud of.

Now at the age of 27, I feel an urgent need to pick up again those treasurable memories from the one-third of my passing life.

I have virtually no memory of my babyhood and my life in kindergarten. Don't ask me why, they are just completely out of my mind.

As a pupil, I was very naughty with average grades in my class. I met my best friend during pupil days and my dad used to escort me back home everyday after school. These are really good old days, except I got punished every now and then by different teachers for various bad acts!

When I grew up later as a student in junior high, I started to become an underachiever. T_T Not because I was not studying hard, but the environment as a whole did not permit the slightest existence of good students. Fighting abounded in my class, and teachers were scared to enter the classroom, not to mention students. I got the worst of it by studying among the biggest band of gangsters!

After graduating from my junior high, I started to reorient myself out of the amiss rails. I remember the days when I worked extremely hard in university library. I lived on English vocabulary indeed. And that's when I met the best intensive reading teacher on earth, who showed me a way to conquer English.

The next few years were kinda dull as I worked for UE, where I met a spiritual leader Eric and a consolidated team, dubbed as ET team.

Then my world transformed somewhat, thanks to the careful nurture of my darling Zoe, who has a dream of turning me from a wordmonger to a wordsmith, someday, somehow, in the coming future.

Late Night Grunt

I want to ensure her a simple but cozy life. That's all. I may not be able to offer you extravagance, but I try very hard to lessen your worry about shelter and food. I may not be mature enough at the time of writing this post, but I push myself to maturate on a daily basis. I'm very weak at math, logic and orientation at present, but I attempt to make up those by diligence.

All in all, I just want to be a good man who can take good care of his soul mate in my limited life. I know it's easily said than done. But I will tough it out.

I hate brawl and misunderstanding and kinda quick-tempered at times. But I'm nice in nature.

Words are nothing in this material world.

But I still want to say,

I will try my best to make our world beautiful.

Weekly Knowledge Gains

Racial profiling is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a "predictable" manner.

Couched their protests in diplomatic language.

couch = fo word in a certain manner; phrase:

Blogs for example, particularly the ones that deal with non-technological and non-scientific subjects, tend to be inaccurate, uninformed and parochial.

parochial = provincial; limited in perspective

For these reasons blogging represents retrogression in the standards of public discourse.

retrogression = the act or process of deteriorating or declining.

Ninety-two percent of the respondents to a Sina.com survey thought that the measure was daft.

daft = foolish; stupid.

Why should their human rights be so inconsequential and worthy of neglect?

inconsequential = lacking importance.

If we allow terrorists to disrupt our lives to that extent we're just playing into their hands.

play into one's hands = to do something that gives someone else an advantage over you, although this was not your intention.

On one hand, they wanted the Uygur mobsters to be "braver" and make "bigger" noises. On the other, they are again feigning innocence to swindle sympathy out of the uninformed overseas public.

feign = to give a false appearance of; to represent falsely; pretend to.

Google Chrome OS vs Windows 7

Google is obviously not resting on its search engine laurels. Months ago when it launched its browser product Chrome, we knew that was just the beginning of Google's boundless ambitions. And here it comes, news from Google says that it is going to work out a new operation system called Google Chrome OS for desktop computers before 2010. It is said that the new OS will be developed with only the basic functions, so you will not see any fancy things out of this newbie. Those who love whimsical stuff will be truly sad this time when all the tawdry will be gone. To computer users, the new OS is just 1-2 years away and means a new blood will soon be injected into this perennially monopolized market, but to Microsoft, it indicates a new and fierce battle for OS market share will soon be launched, by another formidable IT giant Google.

Let's sit back and see who is going to have the last laugh.

Ethinic Conflict in China

I don't know the authenticity of this picture. I hope it is a fake. Quoting from one of the western media "Thousands of Chinese, many wielding sticks, clubs and knives, marched today through Uighur neighborhoods of the northwestern city of Urumqi chanting "blood for blood'' and singing the Chinese national anthem."

I was stunned hard by the news of ethnic clashes in China. Hope all the ethnic and religious battles would come to a complete halt and never be repeated in the scope of world.

My Community is On Fire

Last night when everything seemed running as ordinarily as you could imagine, something terrible broke out with a start. At around 20:00, a cloud of black smoke billowed out from nowhere, and soon nasty odor was pervaded in the air. I scurried out to balcony to see what was going on but saw nothing except a hazy curtain of night.

In the distance, shouts were heard. Though I couldn't get the words clearly, I smelled a rat. It didn't take me too long to realize that there was a fire in our community. Very shortly, fire engine and ambulance were there.

The whole experience was new as me and mom hurried to pack our stuff in case an evacuation was needed.

However, it turned out that the fire was not serious enough to call for an evacuation alarm and the firefighters put out the flame in split-second.

The smog dispersed minutes later and we went back to our ordinary life. Another minutes later, the whole thing was erased from my mind as I sat down in front of my desk reading literature written in ancient Chinese. For what? Because to me the ancient Chinese literature was more horrible than fire!

What's S13?

Thanks to the strictest digital censorship on earth, netizens in China are always on a feverish move to find ways to spoof Chinese censors. S13 is just one of the latest examples showing the intelligence of Chinese Internet users. It is a nice twist to SB, initials of a Chinese phrase that means idiot, designed to avoid online censorship. This is how a new word has been coined by collective intelligence. And no doubt, we will see more of these as collective intelligence is always in action among the online bunch.

The 1st Anniversary

It was our 1st anniversary but since I didn't have a cozy access to internet yesterday so no blog entry was registered. The day went on pretty like any ordinary day - no special arrangement, no festival extravagance. But it was not perfect. The only stain was that we were deceived into a crappy restaurant by an open-air ad and was forced to enjoy a trashy meal. Besides that, we had quite a good night. Filling with happiness and bliss, we spent a couple of romantic hours to review what we had achieved in the past year. From complete strangeness to visible intimateness, we've walked a bitter-and-sweet path for a full year.

Though it's not obvious, we are now down the road leading to the 2nd anniversary, a road strewn thick with felicity and prosperity.

Weekly Knowledge Gains

Entry level opp @comScore for bilingual or trilingual (German, French, English) marcom person, London.

Marcom is short for Marketing Communications. Those who practice advertising, branding, direct marketing, graphic design, marketing, packaging, promotion, publicity, sponsorship, public relations, sales, sales promotion and online marketing are termed marketing communicators, marketing communication managers, or more briefly as marcom managers.

One of my friends asked me about what 人生不如意十常八九 should be in English, I replied, shit (always) happens.

English phrase - more than you can shake a stick at

The modern use of the phrase always exists as part of the extended and fixed phrase "more than you can shake a stick at", meaning an abundance, plenty.

What's zip ties, see the pic below.

Events that challenge our attention. Here challenge = call for.

Silly or wise, terrible or delightful, it is a further helping of experience, an additional joy after dark, another slice of life cut differently for which, it seems to me, we are never sufficiently grateful.

192.168.1.1 is the way to set router. Learned it today from one of Zoe's elder roommates.

Road to Matureness

We sorted out all the messes in a single night. In my last day as a 26, my sky was encroached by pitch darkness; my mind was covered by complete sadness. We were in a fearful storm characterized by grief, dismay and remorse.

It was bitter, but we managed to ride out the storm and came out more united and trusted.

Our binding was consolidated, in an unprecedented scenario that beyond our wildest expectation. But fortunately, the premarital disaster didn't overturn our relationship thanks to two sincere hearts towards each other.

I don't mind whether it's a bumpy road ahead, as long as I will be down the road along with my darling Zoe.

Thanks to Google Crackdown in China, OpenDNS is Now Serving 14b Daily

Google services are completely down in China. Many Chinese netizens are trying to detour the crackdown by using OpenDNS. So here comes a very interesting piece of news on its official blog Now serving: 14 billion requests daily..

My First Blog Post @ Posterous

This is a testing post to see whether the post-by-Gmail function @ Posterous works or not.

Update: Great! Posterous is amazing! The post-by-gmail function works perfectly, and the "import feature" is outstanding no matter how you slice it! Thanks god for this great place to continue my blogging life! Well.... no, all credits should go to the owners of Posterous, who have collectively made the world much much brighter!

Cya GWF. =)

Revive My Writing Hands

My darling Zoe is a wordsmith on Chinese words, though she reiterated on various occasions that her prowess in Chinese was knowingly overrated and flattered by me.

In stark contrast, I was a wordmonger who used Chinese pretentiously and carelessly, and no wonder I was dwafted whenever we were engaged in activities involving Chinese.

However, to make things worst, I've recently noticed that my English supremacy was starting to lose stream. This finding appalled me to half death as I realized my holy grail would soon go into thin air, if the situation keeps worsening.

At this remarkable point when I would soon turn 27, I'd like to make yet another resolution - to revive my writing passion that withered day by day in an inconspicuous way.

I will hold my battleground, at all costs.

cross myself.

Creative Ad by Durex

Very impressive advert!

Mocks to China's Digital Censorship

Click to enlarge

How to Slice Watermelon?

My darling threw me a math question one night. (suited for student in elementary school! )

The question: how to cut watermelon 4 times, leaving 9 pieces and 10 watermelon rinds?

The solution: see the pic below.

Done!

Daily Recap

They want to luxuriate in the experience of a stress-free journey, not rush to a destination.

Impunity = Exemption from punishment, penalty, or harm.

Found a new site Farkie, which is described ambitiously on its site as an ultimate online application for downloading youtube videos, myspace playlists, movies, audio, images, javascript, ajax, objects, applications, flash, links and many other things.

Typify - to serve as a typical example of; embody the essential characteristics of; a painting that typifies the artist's work.

网友成为天涯商业化的桎梏? (zhì gù) = fetters, handcuffs or shackle.

哈喇子 (hā lá・zi) = 涎水 =口水 = saliva

舞文弄墨 ( wǔ wén nòng mò )

What Is Life

Far from my darling, I miss her so much with every minute ticking away. I think now I'm in what they called "menstrual flow," but instead of being uneasy, I feel kinda depressed. I know clearly that my depression came mainly from a sense of self-criticism.

I criticized myself for not living up to some promises.

I criticized myself for not keeping some resolutions up.

I criticized myself for not being truly a man, even at the age of 27.

I criticized myself for not having a cozy home to house my darling.

I criticized myself for not working hard enough to study, especially the math

I criticized myself for induging in some meaningless web games, like Kaixin001.com.

I criticized myself for not being able to recognize the threat ahead.

I criticized myself for not addressing some issues in proper ways.

I criticized myself for knowing only ways to complain but not ways to solve.

I criticized myself.

I confessed.

I repented.

But

I've stopped complaining, criticizing and repenting, once and for all.

With my darling deep in my heart, I'm now a man fearing nothing.

Take a deep breath.

And say,

I come, I conquer.

Weekly Recap

Twitter is back on June 9, after several days's man-made downtime!

The 9 City is planning something big, as today it announced that one of its blockbusters 卓越之剑 would be completely free starting on June 18.

Two type of Chinese street snacks: 粥 = rice congee, 油炸鬼 = fried dough stick, 豆酱 = bean paste.

Great Firewall Version 2.0

China will soon require that all computers sold in the country include software that blocks access to certain "harmful" Web sites, a move that could give the government a powerful new tool in its censorship arsenal. I feel blessed as a Chinese, for our government has planned so well for us. We are blocked from "harmful" materials both online and offline. But do you know how they define "harmful?" Not vulgarity and sex, but political dissent and democracy.

How Film Is Made

Don't blink your eyes. This clip is truly amazing. It shows you how to make a blockbuster, in this case Saving Private Ryan, with limited resources and manpower.

Daily Recap

Zoe sent her CV to Tianya yesterday night, and hope she would land a job there! Let's pray!

嗦泡 = prattle, prate, chew the fat, shoot the breeze. ( Bonus language point: 哆嗦, duō suo = shiver )

得瑟 = 东北方言，意为："过分的炫耀、招摇。"，多含贬义。例句："不就偷我几个何首乌嘛，有什么了不起的，瞧把你得瑟的！"

I gained this formula from one of Zoe's roommates =ROUND(Sheet1!B4/1000,0), which helped me a real lot. Now I believe what Bill Gate once declared: you are using only 5% of the power of our Office softs.

Daily Recap

Done with the reviewing of the Microsft Office toolkit! Learned a great deal from the video tutorials today. Though I have to say I'm still a rookie on it, Office is no longer a dread to me. Important updated: I learned a few Excel tips from Zoe's roommate tonight and felt I was so little in front of Excel. =(

Do you climb the Great Firewall today? This is a question I ask myself every day during these tightened period.

Daily Recap

Inferno on rush hour Chengdu bus killed 25. Here is a true record of the gruesome scene that please view with caution!

Zoe was enchanted by Kaixin001's web-based game Happy Farming, and spent her life on it day and night with her roommates!

knockoff - n. an unauthorized copy or imitation; a thing made to be similar or identical to another thing.

Daily Recap

Zoe somehow learned a new martial art out of nowhere, 葵花点穴手, and exerted all her power on me last night. Though I was played around the whole night, I was very happy to see she laughed her delight at the victory.

NBA Finals kicks off today! Los Angeles Lakers vs Orlando Magic! I'm a fan of Magic, period! (updated: Magic has been brutally beaten by Lakers in game one. )

Gotta review Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint systematically this weekend to further strengthen my office skills.

顾此失彼 - gù cǐ shī bǐ - 顾了这个，丢了那个。形容忙乱或慌张的情景。

The debris of the missing French airliner has yet to be found as of today.

Four prominent C2C shopping sites in China, 淘宝网, 拍拍网, 易趣网, 有阿网.

Why Happy Farm Addictive?

No matter how you slice it, a simple game, known as Happy Farm, which simulates the whole process of running a farm, has quickly taken hold on many SNS(Social Networking Services) sites. Since its debut, the game has effectively absorbed a group of loyal gamers who tirelessly visited and took care of "their farms" on a regular basis. Most of the gamers even paid visits to their virtual farms more frequently than to loo. In fact, to some gaming loyalists, they were engaging in some kind of business instead of simply playing an online Flash game.

I think one feature of the game could help explain the absorption, which I personally call "limited playability". Online games with this feature don't offer you an unlimited satisfaction, instead, your content is accomplished piecemeal. You are not supposed to play the game through at one go but required to come back every so often in order to continue your game play.

I found recently many games had started to tap into this characteristic and had surprisingly scored well. Spending a lot of time at one go on any given game would bore even a hardcore player quickly, however, spending like 5%-10% of your time every day on a game is traditionally defined as fun!

It is not hard to guess that limited playability, a new big idea from the game industry, would soon serve as powerful ammunition to gamers across the globe. Just brace yourself.

Kaixin001 & Kaixin Meets in Court

Something big is going on...

The operator of one of China's most popular social network, Kaixin001.com, has just filed a lawsuit against Oak Pacific Interactive, which started a competing service in Oct. under the domain of Kaixin.com. In the suit, Kaixin001.com has asked Oak Pacific Interactive stop using the Kaixin.com name.

Kaixin001.com is best known for its addictive online games. But the rapid growth of Kaixin001.com posed a direct challenge to Xiaonei.com, which also happens to be owned by Oak Pacific Interactive. When Oak Pacific Interactive launched Kaixin.com, it also adopted a layout and game options that looked akin to Kaixin001.com. The new Kaixin.com soon became popular, perhaps in part because some users thought they were logging onto Kaixin001.com, which accused Kaixin.com of unfair competition.

Now, just sit back and wait a little bit to see where the lawsuit is heading for.

Trade Your Twitter for Real Buck!

Are you still trying to sell domain name? Keep up the date! Now the buzzword is trading Twitter accounts!And just don't be surprised to know that among the first batch of Twitter buyers is CNN, see details here. One on-sale Twitter account "custom_t_shirts" is currently priced at $1,500,000. (there is a Recently Exchanged Names list on the bottom of the site) This is truly amazing! Thanks to Twitter, we see some peripheral services are burgeoning day by day, like the URL shortening service - bit.ly - and now the Twitter account trading platform.

Zemanta Enriches Your Blogging

Zemanta is, in general, a blogging enrichment tool. I tried this firefox addon a few times and thought it was not at its perfect stage right now. It claimed to suggest proper tags, links, photos and related articles on any blog entry but in fact it had repeatedly failed to present me the right photos for my blog piece. Inarguably, the whole idea behind Zemanta was great, saving your time on blogging while enriching your blog content as you type. I hope the author will keep improve on this extension and one day become a powerful widget for bloggers.
But just don't be so ecstatic since for now Zemanta offers little, if any, support to Chinese. We may have to wait a wee bit before a Chinese simulator coming out.

Damn IE and Firefox Incompatibility

No joke! My torturing first-hand experience of IE and Firefox incompatibility.

I put some songs on my blog today, and just didn't want the musics to autostart so I dictated autostart="false" in the script. Things should have been all done, I thought! However, while it worked fine in Internet Explorer, it did not be so in Mozilla Firefox. The default setting for IE is "false" which means the music will not play automatically. But the default setting for Firefox is "true". Hell with them!

A google search revealed thousands of complaints about this incompatibility, but few solutions available.

Countless painful drills into this shit eventually unearthed the treasurable solution - autostart="0".

It REALLY sucks... But at least I know how to disable autostart with Firefox now. Thanks incompatibility!

SkipScreen Firefox Add-on

If you are a Firefox user, you should plug SkipScreen into your browser. What kind of screens do this freebie help you skip? Unexaggeratedly speaking, all the clicking and waiting on sites like RapidShare, Zshare, MegaUpload... and the like will be a thing of the past... Your downloads shall start instantly without any boring countdown from this day forth.

Still not satisfied? Come on man! It's free!

Check Backlink at Your Pleasure

The buzzword now is SEO(Search Engine Optimization), and one of the conventionally believed method out there is called Link Building.

Most of the SEOers start their link building project by doing backlink research. There are plenty of paid services out there helping you map out link portfolio, be it yours or anyone else, but most of them are not on the cheap side.

Below are two handy tools enough to get you started on your backlink research.

If you want to get a picture of your own link portfolio, Google Webmaster Tools is your friend.

If your target is someone else, Yahoo's Site Explorer is definitely a good starting point.

Sometimes the quality-cost trade-off theory doe NOT work in cyberspace. As a marketer, don't forget to make good use of what is available FREE. =)

Real-Life Testimonials

Now customers are way sharper and cannier than years ago. You can no longer fool them by some fake or informal testimonial like before, as they have outgrown all of those tricks.

So it's now time to come to realize that textual testimonial couldn't make it anymore. However, this Pennsylvania-based lawn care company has displayed a juicy real-life testimonial panel in an impressive way. Now close your eyes, and take a few minutes to think of real-life testimonials in your business, and leverage them cordially to fascinate your potential prospects.

Music with Impulsive and Contemplative Buyer

More psychology is going on. I stumbled upon a study related to purchasing impulse while on the job. Though the study was kinda old, published in Nov. 2005, it didn't dampen the significant result of the psychological work, which pointed to people being affected when shopping with the background music on. The study was hosted in a brick-and-mortar store, however, the upshot has meaningful indication for online businesses alike. Background music, according to the 2005 study, enhanced buying impulse of impulsive buyers, but was effectless to contemplative shoppers.

As a webmaster, I will never stop peeking into behaviors of online customers in different age grounps. It's high time to test the music idea. Whether a snatch of slow-tempo pop music will really do the trick, the a/b test system will soon tell!

How to Display (Neatly) HTML/Javascript Source Code on Your Blog

Well, if you are a lazy bug and don't want to spend time on configuring your blogsphere, resort to HTML Encoder to save you the hard labor of encoding. The encoder can help you achieve that in a split second!

But, HTML Encoder is not the protagonist today. We want something advanced, don't we? I assume your answer is a definite YES. So today I'm going to introduce you SyntaxHighlighter, which makes posting code snippets online easier and also have all the codes look pretty and tidy. It's a big helper to developer/coder, if not to an amateurish blogger.

To use SyntaxHighlighter, however, you need to do some configuration first... I'm not going to spend my time further down the road, click HERE for a thorough usage tutorial.

Gmail Lab Feature - Undo Send

Oops, hitting the "Send" button too soon? Give yourself a grace period of a few seconds to cancel sending, then edit your message before sending again.

This is a new feature available in Gmail Labs, a small leap forward, so to speak. I found it functioning very well based on some preliminary tests. Now we are granted the power to virtually "eat words" by undoing rash messages. Nice move!

Available门

Available门事件声明：在本人开心网个人资料里出现的 emotionally unavailable, physically available 字样，纯粹是因身体缺乏营养导致肌肉神经抽搐，被动随意敲击键盘所致，并不意味本人同意、支持、赞成或首肯个中观点。本人过去、现在以及将来都不会接纳文 中所述的哲学。因修改不及时导致触犯的任何法律（包括宪法，民法，刑法，书法，基本法，劳动法，婚姻法，国际法，加减法，输入法，没办法，著作权法，知法犯法，放射疗法，惯用语法，绳之于法，占宇吸星大法，口对口人工呼吸法，及文中涉及或可能涉及以及未涉及之法）纠纷或责任本人全盘负责。并在此说明，绝对不会再有第1.5次发生。

Daily Recap

Learn a new idiom - in a manner of speaking

This is one way to say it, so to speak "She was, in a manner of speaking, not at her best, in fact, she was exhausted and had the flu."

信安易卫士 is Ring's firewall, which he uses to intercept unwanted calls from... bosses. XD

Most of the Chinese social networking sites are in maintenance till 6th June. Do we need to set up an International Maintenance Day? Chinese netizens are conditioned to keep silent at this very moment, but I want to have my voice heard.

Adblock Plus rules! It guarantees me an advertisement-free surfing.

胡椒蓓蓓 is a site with a very good commercial idea. It currently offers customers discounts and coupons for food and haircut in three major Chinese cities, and has gained some popularity among netizens.

Daily Recap

You gotta check this out, a dance group named Diversity, the champion of Britain's Got Talent 2009. Yeah, they are simply amazing!

Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail are being headlessly blocked by China now ahead of 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. See the report from Guardian.

Zoe was crazy about Kaixin001.com and fiddled with her digital house till midnight.

The debris of the missing France jet was found, a grim confirmation of a terrible airline disaster.

Learned a terminology in today's meeting:

Queries-per-second (QPS) is a measure of how much traffic a particular query server is handling at a given time.

Learn a new word - true to form/type

Exactly as expected; following the usual pattern. "True to form, she turned up an hour later than we'd arranged." "True to type, Mary left before the meeting was adjourned."

Daily Recap

Spent a few hours yesterday night to set up Almetl. It's harder to open an online store now than years ago since you have to get through some barriers set by Chinese governments before seeing your website up and running. Is it a sign that China is trying to increasingly regulate Internet? Hope it's not just an empty gesture.

China beat Iran last night by 1 - 0 to end a 14-year embarrassment of no victory over its Asian partner. China national football team has disappointed us in no less than one thousand cases, but from this match we see something different - a team full of passion and aggressiveness.

Car giant General Motors (GM) entered bankruptcy protection yesterday. Hope to see this iconic American company rise again someday in the future with the help of US government.

Learned a new word - mothball

vt. to defer indefinitely; shelve;
 n. a condition of long storage for possible future use.

1. "put the battleship into mothballs."

2. "decided to put the plan into mothballs."
3. "mothball a project."

Quoting president Obama: "I know you've already seen more than your fair share of hard times, I want you to know that what you're doing is making a sacrifice for the next generation - a sacrifice you may not have chose to make, but a sacrifice that you are nevertheless called to make so that your children and all of our children can grow up in an America that still makes things."

Decided to set aside some time to review Google trends, to better understand the new features it offers.

天下网 is currently the largest WAP SNS site in China, boasting over 40 millions users.

若邻网 is the Chinese counterpart of Linkedin.

Completed a research on Chinese WAP SNS sites and the report is now available as one of my Google Docs share files.

Damn it! Google Docs is not able to hold the format of any doc file. Uploaded a doc file to Google Docs today but it returned me a jumbled one.

Microsoft's new search engine - Bing (in Chinese, 必应), which evolved from its predecessor Live Search - has gone online. The launch of Bing is a strong indicator that the next search engine battle is officially on.

OMG, I'd found something new and completely weird! You can actually buy traffic for your 51.com, Xiaonei, QQ or even Sina blog on Taobao! Unbelievable! Am I too outdated on this?