Tech of the day: ex-Facebook exec replaced departed MySpace CEO

I don't have the experience of being a top dog and then slowly overtaken by another up and comer (I went out on top! :P) but I could imagine it gotta hurt. Think IBM->Microsoft. Or more recently, Yahoo->Google. Add another from the tech world: MySpace->Facebook. I still remember when MySpace was king, many commenters think Facebook only appeals to the college crowd and being too elitist. When MySpace fell behind Facebook in US, people still said MySpace was the worldwide leader. Well, MySpace has lost that crown too. Perhaps it's time to play the game my son likes: "Follow the leader" Or better yet, hire someone who used to work for the leader/competitor! Is this desperation act? I won't call it that 'coz MySpace is still THE place for bands to promote themselves. On the other hand, it is hard to reverse a trend in the tech world. Just ask Yahoo.

Tech of the day: Fate of a cloud pioneer

Before I talk about this pioneer, I gotta admit I hate the term "cloud." It has become yet another hype like "Web 2.0." Running Web application and storing data on the internet are nothing new. Case in point: GeoCities was started 15 years ago. And that's what they did (well, they are more well-known for offering free website hosting.) Ironically, it will be shutdown later this year even though the hype of cloud is higher than ever.

Recommended by a friend, I started using GeoCities one year after it was launched, i.e., 1995, because I need to migrate my old web page hosted by my grad school's computer science department (they were not going to host my page much longer after I graduated!) Like most people of that generation, that's where I honed my HTML skills! One thing unique about GeoCities was that it organized web pages into "neighborhoods." Users could choose the neighborhood that represents the contents or reflects the personalities. I still remember my neighborhood was "Broadway!"

The memory associated with GeoCities was not all great though: after hosting my personal web site for 7+ years, it was lost all of a sudden and Yahoo couldn't bring it back. Not a big loss for me 'coz I left it outdated anyway. I had "outgrown" static web pages and spent most of my energy on 00zine.com those days.

Still, it is really sad to see it go. With such a brand name and large number of users, I just don't understand why Yahoo couldn't make a ton of money out of it. In fact, this is just one of many cases where Yahoo was unable to take advantage of its vast user base (those uses Yahoo mail, My Yahoo, Yahoo Answers......)

Musicians of the day: American Idol, classical edition

That's basically what the KDFC Classical Star Search is about. They are cutting down to 3 finalists in the 2 groups (adult and youth) Check out the videos of the 10 semifinalists in each group. All are so impressive that I have no idea who to vote for!

每週一噏：千人諾諾，不如一士諤諤

本文標題的意思，相信大家不難理解，諷刺的是，令筆者想到這標題的人和事，竟與之完全相反！所講的當然是上週提過的港大學生會長陳一諤為當權者六四暴行開脫，或者應說：一諤大言炎炎，不敵千人投票罷免！

平心而論，今次陳一諤成為眾矢之的，坊間的報導其實算不上客觀，不信的話且看看此博客轉載陳全部發言，不難發現傳媒的確有斷章取義之嫌，不過陳偏袒政府也是無庸置疑。

發生這件事亦非全無正面影響，首先，此事激發起一向政治冷感甚至對學生會也極冷淡的港大生不再沉默，而六四事件發生於二十年前，被淡忘也是無可避免，更遑論深入探討，這次風波倒令大家激辯一番，真相越辯越明，陳如果一心想偏幫政府恐怕是越幫越忙，難怪有人質疑陳並非官方欽點的打手！

[按：舊零零誌的冷飯已炒得七七八八，留下一些待將來適當時候再翻炒！取而代之的是每週一噏，靈感當然是來自不喜歡鬥噏的香港特首煲呔曾！]

Topic of the day: Arnold and the new Terminator

We might see Arnold "the Governator" Schwarzenegger in the next Terminator movie! He is not going to act in it. Instead, the movie studio will make a digital model of him and use that in the movie! Isn't that cool?

Terminator II is still my all-time favourite Sci-Fi movie (probably tied with the Matrix) However, when I watched it in the movie theater for the first time, I actually fell asleep! I think I watched it during Summer break. I forgot if it was because I had a jet lag or I stayed up all the night the night before (or both!) Those were the good 'ol days.

Book of the day: A Romance on Three Legs

Does the title remind you of "The Romance of the Three Kingdom"? Well, it's a complete different topic. See sub-title: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano

You might wonder how interesting a book could be if it is all about a particular piano. I am with you since I quit reading a somewhat similar book ("A Devil to Play," in which the author covered his personal experiences learning French horn, interspersed with history of the instrument. It would have made a good blog post but I think he drags on too much about the former. And his writing styles, which tends to jump around a lot, did not help.)

I have skimmed through this book at the bookstore and found it really interesting. The first chapter is your typical musician (Glenn Gould's) biography: what kind of genius and how weird he was. It gets more interesting starting the 2nd chapter, which is about the blind piano tuner Charles Verne Edquist, who worked with Gould on his "Perfect Piano." This piano was actually one that has been owned by the Eaton Department store in Toronto for a long time and played by many. Eaton was about to return it to Steinway and exchange for another one! I definitely want to find out more.

Game of the day: the 6th Ing Cup has a new winner!

The 24 year old Choi Cheol-han has defeated the former champ Lee Chang-ho in Game 4, coming back from losing the first game in the best-of-5 series. Ing Cup is the highest paid Go competition in the world (winner takes home US$400k)

Another interesting fact is that the losers of the past 2 tournaments (2000, 2004) all become winners next time. Is this an indication that Lee Chang-ho will win again in 2012 (after winning it in 2000)? On the other hand, there has not been a repeating winner in the short history of this tournament. Oh well, it will all make the 2012 Ing Cup even more interesting!

Tech of the day: no demand if Apple does not make it

The title pretty much sums up whatever Apple has to say when asked about new products on the market. I still remember Steve Jobs said that people didn't want to watch video on their portable player when everybody else is making such player except Apple. Of course he sang a different tune when Apple released the video iPod.

Apple's Tim Cook claimed that Apple is not going to make a netbook because iPhone and iPod Touch do a better job. Typical arrogance from Apple. And it just doesn't make much sense to me! Can you watch flash video on an iPhone/iPod Touch? No! Can you type at full speed on them? No! Watching streaming video and blogging are 2 of my top activities and I can't do them on my iPhone. There are some reasons that netbooks are selling like hotcakes. I gotta admit these days I leave my notebook at home while carrying the iPhone all the time but I am knowingly making a sacrifice.

Topic of the day: Susan Boyle, Oracle and the beauty of the web

The hottest topic in showbiz right now gotta be the Susan Boyle phenomenon while the hottest topic in tech biz is Oracle buying Sun. What do they have in common? Read on!

If you pay any attention to the news, you would know that Susan Boyle was a participant in a British talent contest. A YouTube video of her singing got amazingly popular (over 12 million hits!) You could read about people singing her praises almost every where! And not surprisingly, there are backlashes: tons of comments about her being overrated could also be found (and I am in this camp. For those who think it's her true talent (without good look) that leads her to her current success, I hate to burst the bubble: the brilliant one here is the producer of the show, who is so masterful at manipulating the audiences! She may have a nice voice, but it can't be THAT great.)

The beauty of the web is that you could find comments from every different angle. The same can be said about Oracle buying Sun too: I have read a lot of positive ("good fit") comments thinking as well as negative ones ("what are they thinking?") IMO, the most ridiculous one said Oracle wanted to be like Apple. Gimme a break! Surely Apple dominates the digital music market but they have a big mountain to climb in the computing market! I think Oracle is doing better than that already.

Well, this is the web and everyone is entitled to his/her opinion!

Tech of the day: Arch Linux full update trouble (Part II)

Remember I forced installation of Xorg in my last post? Turns out this new version (1.6) of Xorg is causing more trouble!

My X windows, which uses vboxvideo driver (from VirtualBox Guest Addition, aka GA), refused to start (from /var/log/Xorg.0.log):
(EE) module ABI major version (4) doesn't match the server's version (5)

This time the solution is a bit harder to find (under the responses to this post) but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense: we need driver files that is compatible with verison 1.6 of Xorg. One source that include them gotta be the Guest Addition installer! Indeed, here is the command to tell the installer just dump the files to a target directory without installing:
sh VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run --noexec --target [directory name]

The target directory will contain vboxvideo_drv_16.so and vboxmouse_drv_16.so

Simply replace /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vboxvideo_drv.so and /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/vboxmouse_drv.so with the above. The driver versions won't mismatch anymore where X starts!

Tech of the day: VirtualBox shared folder

I run Linux on my XP box as a guest OS using VirtualBox and prefer to use the guest more than the host (XP.) Still, sometimes I need to move files between the guest and the host and VirtualBox's shared folder feature comes in handy. Here are the steps to set this up:
0) create the shared folder on your host (or skip this to use an existing one.)
Also create a mount point (a unix dir that will be mapped to the above) on the guest.
1) Choose the Shared Folder option from the Devices menu on your VirtualBox. Use the folder from (0) as "Folder Path" and enter a "Folder Name" you like.
2) install VirtualBox guest addition by:
- Choose the option from the Devices manual on your VirtualBox, which makes the guest addition installer available as a CD
- mount /media/cd (to mount the CD rom)
- cd /media/cd
- sh
- shutdown -r 0 (reboot)
3) mount -t vboxsf [the folder name from (1)] [the mount point from (0)]

Note: for some reason mount gives me "Protocol error" after I used it for sometime (I've performed a full-update, i.e., pacman -Syu, and move the files to a new PC in the mean time) The solution was to performed all of the above steps again.

Tech of the day: Arch Linux full update trouble

One thing I like about Arch is that it uses rolling release, i.e., components within the OS are updated and released continously, instead of having a fixed release like Ubuntu (BTW, I think Ubuntu drops support way too soon. Feisty was released on 19 April 2007 and support was ended on 19 October 2008! Now I have a completely unupdateable installation sitting on my workstation waiting to rot.)

And it could be done with 1 command: pacman -Syu

However, I tried updating just now and ran into this:
error: could not prepare transaction
error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files)
xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri.so exists in filesystem
xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so exists in filesystem
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

The solution (courtesy of this Arch Linux forum post) is so simple:
pacman -Sf xorg-server

Then run pacman -Syu again.

每週冷飯: History Repeats Itself

摘自2002年:

筆者是一個超級金庸迷﹐不停地重覆閱讀金庸所有作品是我的「癖好」﹐最近又輪到第N次(N>10)重讀「鹿鼎記」這本筆者心目中金庸最出色的作品-- 皆因他成功地把實在的歷史和虛構的創作世界融成一體。不過每次重讀「鹿鼎記」﹐其中有些片段總是令筆者「慘不忍讀」﹐惻隱之心油然而生﹐最甚者莫過於吳之榮興起《明史》文字獄這一段。

可能對不少朋友而言﹐韋小寶的風流搞笑故事遠遠比《明史》文字獄一案印象深刻得多(某些所謂改編自「鹿鼎記」的電視劇索性把這一段完全省略﹐認真不知所謂。這些編劇難道以為自己的創作本事比金庸更高嗎﹖) 據筆者在網上查閱清朝歷史﹐《明史》一案真有其事﹕話說康熙年間小人吳之榮窮途末路之際﹐發現由富商莊家公子編輯的《明書輯略》多處用了前明的年號，於是到京師向權傾朝野的大臣鰲拜告狀﹐謀求升官發財。
『鰲拜以軍功而封公爵、做大官，向來歧視漢官和讀書人，掌握大權後便想辦几件大案，鎮懾人心，不但使漢人不敢興反叛之念，也令朝中敵黨不敢有甚麼異動，當即派出欽差，赴浙江查究。這一來，莊家全家固然逮入京中……在明史上列名的文學之士，無一不鋃鐺入獄。』
『最慘的是，所有雕版的刻工、印書的列工、裝釘的釘工，以及書賈、書鋪的主人、賣書的店員、買書的讀者，查明後盡皆處斬。據史書記載，其時蘇州滸墅關有一個李尚白，喜讀史書，聽說蘇州閶門書坊中有一部新刊的明史，內容很好，派一個工役去買。工役到時，書店主人外出，那工役便在在書鋪隔壁一家朱姓的老者家中坐著等候，等到店主回來，將書買回。李尚白讀了几卷，也不以為意。 過了几個月，案子發作，一直查究到各處販書買書之人。其時李尚白在北京公干，以購逆書之罪，在北京立即斬決。書店主人和奉命買書的工役斬首。連那隔壁姓朱老者也牽累，說他既知那人來購逆書，何以不即舉報，還讓他在家中閑坐？本應斬首，姑念年愈七十，免死，和妻子充軍邊遠之處。 』(節錄自金庸小說原文)

今日重讀這一段﹐感受尤其深刻﹗不知各位有否如筆者一樣立刻想起香港特區基本法第二十三條中的煽動叛亂及隱匿叛國罪﹖這些封建時代的不合理惡法竟然會在廿一世紀自詡文明先進的香港特區政府出現﹐又怎能不叫筆者慨嘆一句﹕"History repeats itself!"

不幸的是，此等惡法可能越來越有市場！
且看看兩則近期新聞：藝人成龍指香港及台灣太自由，所以變得很亂 ，認為「中國人是需要管的」。
較早前又有在港讀大學的內地生為當權者六四暴行開脫，居然有網民附和，指當年學生和市民參與六四乃係叛國及顛覆政府。
對於以上言論，已故偉大領導人鄧小平有一名句，我可以贈他們，那就是：「胡說八道」！

Topic of the day: Secession of Texas?

You might think this Russian Professor Igor Panarin was crazy when he talked about "The Texas Republic" (see my earlier post) Think again! Breaking news: Texas governor Rick Perry suggested that Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to leave the union.

And if you are still not convinced, this idea does have its supporters (check out these comments) You might be surprised how much Texans are proud of their state. I'm not 'coz I used to live there.

Well, maybe next time Houston Astros (or Texas Rangers) play in the world series, it will indeed be a World series! (We haven't had one for a long time, after Toronto Blue Jays won it all in 92 & 93) Or maybe not (according to this, Texas does not have the right to secede.)

Tech of the day: Pidgin and Yahoo IM

What is not to like about Yahoo's Instant Messaging? The client! (a.k.a. Yahoo Messenger)

I use Pidgin, an open-source universal IM client, instead. In fact, I carry a Portable Pidgin on my thumb drive all the time!

However, it stopped working since a few days ago. Here is the solution (courtesy of the Ubuntu forum): Modify your Account setting in Pidgin, choose the Advanced tab and change the Pager Server to 66.163.181.173.

Topic of the day: YouTube Orchestra

Most people would agree one could find the worst in music on YouTube. Even people who could barely sing and make sound out of their instruments post their crap on it (including yours truly!)

However, no one could deny among all these crap there are still quite a few gems. I bet one of your friends must have sent you some links to some virtuosic performances that completely blows you away.

Apparently people in the music biz agree and utilize YouTube to discover talents. A YouTube Orchestra is formed by musicians who posted on YouTube and auditioned for a spot on the orchestra. And they just performed at the prestigous Carnegie Hall!

So, that's my motivation to put more craps on YouTube!

Topic of the day: race and political correctness

A famous Hong Kong columnist/talk show host got into trouble when he made a joke that involves Flipino recently (ironically, the column is named "Politically Incorrect"!) Well, he might feel better if he knows a Texas Representative, Betty Brown, has also made a politically incorrect comment regarding Asian and had to apologize: she suggested Asians living in US to change their names to more "Western sounding" ones so that it is easier for the voter registration office to process them.

For any person who has any familiarity with Asian culture, s/he will of course know that a lot of Asians are very proud of their heritage, of which their names are an integral part. However, I am gonna cut Brown some slacks, considering she is from a town in Texas where the closest metropolitan area (Dallas) is 1.5 hour of driving away. She probably hardly knows any Asian, let alone their culture. Of course, ignorance is not a permit for being naive. Let's just hope that she has learned her lesson and stop being a joke herself.

Tech of the day: What if AOL...

Once upon a time, AOL has its own proprietary software that allows its subscriber to access its own content, a "walled garden" if you will. And that's before the time Websites and web browsers became popular! AOL was hugely successful back then.

And of course today's AOL is nothing like that. It is no longer a walled garden. Anyone could visit AOL.com, which is just like any other internet portal (Yahoo, MSN, you name it) In fact, I couldn't tell what is special about AOL today. And according to an AOL old-timer, who supposed to have written this, this is exactly AOL's problem. He suggested AOL would have been better off if it has kept its walled garden. I am not sure if his strategy would work but I'm surprised to learn that AOL's client software still has 28.6 million users!

Star of the day: Nick Swisher

How did Swisher qualify as star of the day? First of all, he played in the game of the day (according to this Yahoo blog) Second, he pitched a scoreless inning and strucked out 1 batter but most importantly, he is an outfielder/first baseman!

I have been following Swisher's career since he started with Oakland Athletics and then traded to Chicago White Sox, both are teams that I root for! Glad to see that he did something that will guarantee him being mentioned in future trivia quizzes.

每週冷飯: 強權鎮壓公理的時代

摘自2002年11月1號:

筆者一向有一個天真的想法﹕就是隨著時代大輪轉動﹐人類會越來越文明--尊重生命價值以及人性自由。翻看歷史﹐自十八世紀啟蒙運動(The Enlightenment)以來﹐人類日漸重視個人的存在價值﹐崇尚自由民主的意識萌芽﹐尋求從封建時代被君主或宗教盲目支配中解放出來。

不幸的是﹐筆者的想法實在太一廂情願﹔事實上人類社會正在走回頭路﹗以往世界大戰前惡勢力抬頭的先兆都已出現﹕獨斷獨行的政府力圖擺脫人民監察﹐以籠統的民族主義掛帥﹐把所謂國家利益淩駕於人類基本權利之上﹔更嚴重者藉此侵略別國﹐危害世界和平。亦有宗教狂熱份子走火入魔﹐以聖戰為名亂施暴力﹐草菅人命。恐佈活動有如野草燒不盡﹐春風吹又生。

這些現象實在不容忽視。支持國家民族（以至宗教）驟耳聽來似乎是理直氣壯，但具體行為不能違反自由﹑和平等大原則，否則不論政府還是恐佈分子都是橫蠻無理。

愛自由﹑和平及公義的群眾力量不容小窺，例如當年印度聖雄甘地堅持以非武力的公民抗命方式成功爭取獨立﹐美國總統尼克遜因被傳媒揭發水門事件而下台﹔說明真理只有越辯越明﹐而真相越禁越禁不住。極權政府﹑極端分子應好好反省﹕任何高壓或暴力的行為最終只有失敗﹐開放的對話或談判才是解決問題的方法。

以下是出自曾為和平作出努力的神父Martin Niemoller 關於納粹黨的名句﹕
"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't
a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a
Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up
for me."

活在這個動蕩的時代﹐我們還可以沉默下去嗎﹖

後記﹕我們學識淵博的保安局長(這希望不是國家機密)指民間某些反對香港政府基本法二十三條立法諮詢文件的意見太情緒化﹐不值得深入研究云云﹐令筆者想起 George Orwell名著《動物農莊》(Animal Farm)中的一句話'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'此話葉太以前曾經引用來批評傳媒﹐何其諷刺﹗

該文出版後不久保安局長葉太亦因二十三條立法為政府"食死貓"下台﹐六年後(2008)捲土重來﹐竟成為監察政府的尊貴議員﹗最近批評入境處優待權貴亦毫不手軟。只是有中央作後台的葉太是否小駡大幫忙，還是未知之數。

更令筆者灰心的是以支持國家及宗教為藉口的惡勢力好像變本加厲：由內地到港成為大學生會長的竟然全無血性地為政府開脫血腥鎮壓的罪行，宗教團體在加州亦成功推動通過剝奪同性戀人士結婚權利的法案。筆者還是這一句：不能沉默下去!