the blog
I thought of a software that I loved very much last decade. It was designed for Windows 95. Yes, Windows 95, the classic and obsolete Windows OS. I finally figured out its name, Icon Corral.
I googled it. To my surprise, I found it! Here is the link.
It is used to put any window title on taskbar to the system tray when it is minized. Pretty simple. Such feature will be soon be included by the upgrade of OS, just like thousands of other features.
When you feel it’s enough repeating same errors at the same place, you will try to learn from those lessons, trying to figure some rules to follow, which enable you to avoid those mistake from happening again. That’s how “Best Practice” comes. There are so many books about them. For some experienced programmers, they try not to make those mistakes even for once. But there are still some who would argue with you. When you try to convince them not to hard code, they say they can finish the job faster. It’s hard to make your case since they do finish the job in less time.
So I think we should have some sort of course or workshop. We deliberately arrange some scenarios in which programmers would violate those best practice. And let them go through the pain themselves. That might help them understand the importance of best practice, converting the reading experience into a personal one.
The last project I worked on got a lot of cache penetratraion on the first online day. All this happened again, though I was not in first line of development this time. Well, we just shouldn’t expect a perfect opening without any downtime, not if we have not spent enough resource to ensure the system quality, from the availability, performance and functionality view.
It’s highly temptating to be slack on test and fulfill more functionality. We try only one or two path, making some optimistic assumtions. If everything is OK, we assume the test is finished. And we rarely do rehearsal on disaster recovery. When disaster does happen, the measure we applied before would just don’t work.
And there is the simplicity problem. We are so easy to get ourself to a complicated architecture, only because we think it is totally under our control at the time, while it’s not after the complixity builds up and some emergency happens.
Book extract: Mobile Application Context:
Extract from book – “Mobile Design and Development”:
• Don’t trust any report, fact, or figure that is more than a year or two old. It is most likely wrong. For example, the majority of assumptions about mobile development pre-iPhone are no longer applicable.
• Perform contextual inquiries, not focus groups. Go to your users and ask them questions in person, in their context, not yours. They often have a lot to say; listen and keep an open mind.
• Record everything. Nothing makes your case like your users’ own words. They have a funny way of reducing company politics and focusing back on the user.
• Don’t forget to innovate. Try new things, be bold, and don’t be afraid to fail.
• The best strategy succeeds even if it fails. Have a contingency plan. If your plan fails to meet expectations, how can you reuse what you’ve learned or done on something else?
I’ve brought many stuffs, which were rarely used, in my recent tour to Hawaii. I should consider leaving them at home on my next trip.
1. Cellphone Car Rack
Used: Never
I planned to use it to hold my Nexus One for navigation while I was driving. It turned out my preinstalled GPS software didn’t work. And my main navigation tool was my iPad, which displayed an offline Google map with directions to navigate. And it was being hold in Ida’s hands all the time. The rack is only useful when I am driving alone.
2. Telescope
Used： Never
It was not Yellowstone. There were not so many wild lifes, I meant mammals, in Hawaii, which requires a telescope to get a good observation. I never bothered to take it out from my backpack in my tour.
3. Digital Camera Charger
I’m not a big fan of photography. It turned out that I had only taken less than 300 pictures, which only consumed one battery bar. With two fully-charged batteries, I don’t need to bring the charger next time.
4. Wireless Mouse
Used: Once
If I’d sticked to my iPad all the time, I didn’t need that mouse at all.
5. Waterproof Plastic Bags
Used: Never
I brought two of those bags, one for cellphone and the other for digital camera. They’ve never got wet.
6. Network Cable Roll
Used: Never
I brought a cable with a device that can automatically roll back the cable. It’s never been used. All the guest room had provied cables.
I know what Netflex is, but not Hulu. But I can guess it’s another online video service, and also US-only. When I was asked by my friend how Netflix is going to make profit on such low monthly fee, which is $7.99, I don’t know. It must have something to do with the user volume.
I used to install Netflix on my iPad. But it had no much usage, since I’m located in China. If there is such service in China, will I pay for it? Not likely.
Firstly, pirate version is still very easy to access through emule. Though legal copies are more and more affordable, but without a certain inconvenience to get pirate ones, we still won’t choose them.
Secondly, there are no good shows worth our monthly fee. We watch American sitcoms most of the time. And they are not supposed to appear on Chinese market. Due to regulation and censorship reasons, they are not legal in the first place.
And for me, I simply don’t have an acceptable broadband Internet connection. VOD is as far as buying another apartment, which simply will not happen.
Both of them are luxuries to me. I’ve heard of them hundreds of times, from Leo’s talk show as well as many tweets. But they are still far away from my laptop screen.
I did try to enable the Google Instant Search. I used a proxy, located in Las Vegas, changed my locale settting to en_US, and changed all those setting trying to tell Google I was in America. But the google was very smart, the regional setting awlays bounced back when I did some more clicks. The worse part was, the Instant Search will be disabled automatically when it detects my connection speed is too slow. Well, it can’t be fast when I’m using a cheap proxy.
The new twitter.com UI simply doesn’t show up yet. One of my colleagues got it today. How unfair it is! He is an inactive user, with only less than 10 followers, And his tweets are all private!
There are usually some shopping sprees occured after I get a new electronic gadget.
After I bought the Nexus One, I’d bought two batteries with travel charger, one key ring that can be used as flash disk and charging cable, two android apps from the Market and a waterproof bag used in swimming.
After I bought the iPad, I’d bought two cases(the former one really sucked, so…), two Apple Store Gift Cards ($15 & $25) which enabled me to have bought 4 apps until now.
And I’ve bought some ebooks, which didn’t count– I’d buy them anyway.
When the Japanese, in the movie Inception, said he had bought that airline, the whole theater was filled with laughter. A word came into my mind, Carbonite.
Carbonite is an online data backup service, which I’ve been using for a few months. I hadn’t done much background check of it before I uploaded my personal data. I’m still comfortable with that now. Come on, I never record my bank account pin on my computer. And I’m no celebrity, whose privacy is valuable to paparazis.
The most important thing is, that is an American company. FBI cannot read my files at will like those Chinese secret police do in China. They at least need permission from court. And even they can do that, I don’t mind…
But what if someday Carbonite is bought by a company controlled by Beijing? Would Carbonite issue a warning or something, telling us the new risk we are facing? I doubt that.
