收拾 iTunes

久不久，會有收拾電腦的習慣。以我的極主觀的觀察來說，是一個稀有的習慣。我總好奇為什麼有人電腦的卓面可以放著 911 個 Icon，以 Alphatical order 排著，要找東西總會找不到。

在我而言，平常不過。就像收每月收拾房間，每週收拾工作抬，或每一早收拾床鋪一樣自然。在現今世代，當所有的文件，檔案，賬單，照片，歌曲都電子化的年代。電腦就是一個多層夾萬，把很多東西不知不覺關起來。到有一天要打開的時間，才發現夾萬已經變成了一個失靈的百寶袋，放下了無窮無盡的東西，要找的東西找不到。已經忘記的工具，又會在這個時候跳出來。有來歷想想也想不起來的，也有拿出來再仔細欣賞的。

打開了 iTunes ，沒有按下了平常的 Playlist，卻按下了 Play Count 的 Column，真不知原來有些歌聽了那麼多。

很有趣又是事實。

SQ Online Check-in

I just checked-in my flight to KL. I am flying with Singapore Airlines as usual.

When I was doing the online checkin, there was a new field (Visa Required) displayed on the screen. I was told that I need a Visa.

I had been to KL for many times and I am not aware that I need a Visa to enter KL.

KingFisher and New Airport

Last time when I went to India for hiking, I got two new experiences.

1: Taking KingFisher Airline
2: Using the new international terminal in New Delhi.

Before that, I used to take Jet Airway which I think is the best airline in India. They provide quite good international and domestic flight services when I was working in India. However, while I took the Jet Airway last time to Delhi, it seemed that the service quality was dropped and it drove me to try King Fisher.

King Fisher is a very famous beer in India, like Tiger in Singapore. When they started the airline business 2-3 years back, I already heard that it was even better then Jet. However, I did not have a chance to try.

Eventually it proved I made a correct decision and their service was generally better than Jet who also had fligh to Leh around the same time. Queue managemnet was better, they got more staffs with smiles, you felt you were taken care and more importantly, both our flight and Jet's flight were delayed for 2 hours. We got breakfast at the terminal while Jet did not. Thumb Up!

After arriving Delhi, I went to the international airport. And it becamse a new international airport. The old terminal was still in use few days back. I guessed it was in a transision period and some flights were using old terminal and some of them were using the new one.

My impression was like the combination of KLIA and Sydney airport.

Not so many people over there and there were many shops still under renovation. Air-con did not work very well, the new preimum lounge was not able to provide any good food. However, it improved a lot.

But, what will happen after the full operation? 

Login and Buy

Didn't write here for quite a while and quite some changes for me.

Because of the new job, I need to play around with lot of different apps. Some of them are quite good and some of them are poorly made.

When I play around these apps and trying to buy something there, I face one problem. Why I am asked to register for an account?

Fundamentally, when a merchant is going from offline to online, they are moving their stores to internet. It could be fairly simple. What they need to do is just:

1. Setup a shopping cart - It could be done within an hour.
2. Upload their product catelog - Well... is going to take a while but no better option.
3. Setup an online cashier - it could be also done with an hour.

That's all, and this is just easier than setting up a normal retail store.

Asking a buyer to register an account so that they can purchase anything online is just identical to ask the buyer at the shop to fill a membership form so that they can pay. I am sure that is just a gate to stop a business for a businessman.

I can understand the need of collecting user profiles for further marketing purposes. In the retail world, none of these could be collected anyway and there are still business doing very well.

So why a registration is needed? 

A Tutorial to the manager

A Tutorial to mangers and management.

I always believe that, managers and management is a new job category from 90's. One of the major reasons is there are too many people in this world than ever. There are too many skilled workers and any one with a better communication skill would be excellent - too many options for them. 

A successful manager or successful management, one of the key successful factors, from my point of view, is the number of options. More options you have, better communication skill you have, you can always make a better decision. The manager can implement whatever campaign, policy, rules, COST SAVING or etc because the available options make sure he won't fail. 

But the key is - OPTION. 

Fundamentally, a good manager or management is just to make sure the individual or the team work better - They could do better than what they're supposed. They are supposed to be the worse, they could become worser with good management. They are supposed to be above average, they could be verity good worth good management. However, it is usually extremely difficult to change something from the worse to the best. You can't mind the gold from the trash. It is just impossible to create a miracle from nothing even with the best manager. 

3 games, GD is -3, 3 red cards in 3 games, ranked 17th. If the name of team is Blackpool, I could accept that. And probably the scroll would be 18-2 if we do not have the better keeper.

Wenger, the world has changed, the way in 90's does not work anymore, either you have to change or you have to go. You eliminate the options you have, take away the possible success factors, what will be your plan?

From Windows 7 to Mac

After some works, I am above to transfer most of the data from PC to Mac. In the process, quite some challenges have been resolved, perhaps it is good to write down so that I could remember what I had done earlier...

1. Word / Excel / Powerpoint
   The first major problem is to read the documents! Preview comes with Mac OS Lion is a read only program. Many options are available in Mac, such as iWork, NeoOffice or even Microsoft Office for Mac but all of them would still have certain compatibility issues.
   
   The conclusion is to use the native Windows Word, Excel and Powerpoint and it is the only solution can guarantee 100% compatable....
   
   So, the 2nd day I setup a VMWare Fusion with MS offices...
    
2. Synchronization of Outlook / BlackBerry / HTC Flyer
   The 2nd major problem is the synchronization for the above. A very common answer from my friends is to go cloud (either Google or MobileMe). Personally, I don't like to much private information goes Cloud and I prefer to keep them locally...
   
   Then, the sync program from BlackBerry supports both Mac and PC. However, the sync program from HTC only supports PC (Outlook)! Luckily, because of the Office documents problem above, MS office is there and I just need to migrate the pst folders as what I did previously for my new PC.
   
3. iTune
   iTune is a headache in the begining. I was trying to sync with the iTune in Windows because the HTC Sync only supports Windows. Lot of issues with library path which makes sharing iTune library between Mac and Windows impossible. Then the solution is to use free tool 'Easy Phone Tunes' from Market.
    
4. iPhoto and Picasa
   I was suggested to iPhoto in Mac but it is not really a nice job to re-manage all the Photos again in a new photo manager. From the web, transferring from Picasa Win to Picasa Web may also cause problems. So I have used the Picasa in Windows (VMWare) as of now... Maybe when I have time, I will try to migrate to iPhoto or Picasa in MAc.

After all, I am still happy with the Mac experience till now. Some of the things come with Mac are really nice and I have been looking for these for a while.

1. Native Unix Command
   This is really nice and i dont need to setup the cygwin anymore... SSH is also built-in...
   
2. Virtual Desktop
   The Mission Control is the Virtual Desktop implementation in Mac. Currently, I have setup two desktops such that one for Mac and one for VM... I can also configurate the VM such that it will always start in the Desktop 2.
   
3. Chinese input and Chinese Hand Writing
   Chinese Input (倉頡) is still not yet as good as my Palm CJKOS. However, it is still useable. It comes with a code lookup tool and I can always use the Hand-writing or paste a Chinese charater to look up the code. Not only it just looks up the code for 倉頡, but it also looks up the codes for the other in-use method...
   
4. Time Machine
   Backup feature is something I need to spend time in my PC for long and I don't have a good solution yet. It is either too much of work for a backup or the solution does not backup / restore very well.
   Time Machine is great. It is just automatic and restore is not difficult at all.



5. Dictionary
   Finally there is an OS comes with a nice dictionary ("New Oxford American English". and "New Oxford British English").

Of course, lot of other issues are still pending...

1. Java / Eclipse / BlackBerry / Android SDK
   Apple is using it own development framework. Transferring the workplace from Eclipse BlackBerry SDK to Coca is not straight forward at all...
   
2. Firefox Multitouch gesture
   Firefox, which is my favorite browser in Windows, does not support the Multitouch festure in Lion, waiting for the update.
   
3. Native office application
   NeoOffice.... but also no time to try.
   
4. Finder and Keyboard Shortcut
   I missed the 'Windows' + E to open the Windows Explorer. Mac does not provide the exact same short-cut to open Finder...

書架上無數的書和無數未讀的書

書架上，有無數的書和未讀的書。因為這些的書，我會認為這是我的地方。

看過的書，不敢說得上什得很。未看的書，類形好像來來去去都一樣。
隨便一數，真的有得多書未看 。2011，其中之一的願望是希望將時間用多一點在閱讀。

手上未讀的書，閱讀次序如下：
- 1Q84 Book 3
- 大江大海
- 香港文學小說選上 (50% done)。
- 甘榜
- 香港文學小說選下。

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