Sunny Wu's Blog http://sunnywu.net ABC posterous.com Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:37:45 -0700 Thoughts from Apple Sydney Store Opening Night http://sunnywu.net/2008/06/19/apple-sydney-store-opening-night-experience http://sunnywu.net/2008/06/19/apple-sydney-store-opening-night-experience

1. Treating customers like superstars - certainly one of the ingredients of the successful Apple Retail Strategy?

Media_httpfarm4static_bsunz

The actual action (I was receiving the free T-Shirt box during the clip) :

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_smfmNOCPhA

2. Genius Bar - full of geniuses

Media_httpfarm4static_abjug

Apparently they may do Apple II Mac Portable (corrected by KenC) support, too... more here...
Media_httpfarm4static_bsiad

3. Always do the best for the customer

I saw this from the "Grand Opening Visitor's Guide" brochure:
Apple is committed to assisting our customers with special needs. If you plan to attend any of our events and will require a sign-language interpreter or other assistance, please let us know as far in advance as possible. We do our best, but require adequate notice to provide the resources you need.
I'm not sure if any other computer retailers would offer such service publicly? +1 for Apple Retail.

4. Worrying sign for Sydney CBD Apple retailers?

With One-to-One, Personal Training, free workshop classes, free wifi, tons of demo units on the floor, plenty of salesman and "geniuses" to help and most importantly, the Apple's clean image and reputation of trust, it's pretty hard to see how the Apple retailers can retain their customers. However, I'm all for competition to improve the general services and price advantages...

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:43:26 -0700 WTF - Apple II in Apple Sydney Store Opening Night http://sunnywu.net/2008/06/19/wtf-from-apple-sydney-store-opening-night http://sunnywu.net/2008/06/19/wtf-from-apple-sydney-store-opening-night

Fair dinkum, I just saw a guy bringing in his antique Apple II Mac Portable (corrected by OS11) to ask for technical support in the Genius Bar?

Media_httpfarm4static_detaa

I do not major in History of Apple Evolution but I think it's an Apple II Mac Portable?

Media_httpfarm4static_exqrp

Let's start a Caption competition (no prize!). Here's my crappy attempt:

Guy in blue shirt: "I'm pretty sure the manual says it comes with lifetime warranty."

Genius: "(I hope not..) Could I entice you to purchase a slightly more powerful iMac downstairs? It's about the same size - BUT with a 20" LCD screen!"

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:55:17 -0700 Amazon Web Services Start-up Challenge http://sunnywu.net/2007/09/14/amazon-web-services-start-up-challenge http://sunnywu.net/2007/09/14/amazon-web-services-start-up-challenge If you have a startup idea and you believe that you can build it on top of Amazon Web Services infrastructure, then maybe you should take a look at this new competition. $50k cash + $50k AWS credits for top winner and $5k AWS credits for four second-place winners. Great way to bootstrap! Two Amazon Web Services which are most famous at the moment are probably Amazon S3 for data storage and Amazon Ec2 for "in-the-cloud" computing. While the latter may not be as robust as the former service, with the competitive pricing structure and on-the-fly and on-demand scalability and , I certainly believe they are feasible options for startuppers to consider and deploy their applications on. From the terms & conditions page here, it seems that you won't lose any copyrights or patents or ownership of your startup if you apply to the challenge. Here are a couple of examples of AWS usage by startups like Smugmug and Pownce. Too bad only US residents are eligible though, otherwise I may have a couple of ideas or two that can be applicable... p.s. This is probably the first post of this blog that's related to startup :)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:32:45 -0700 Bourne Ultimatum Quick Review + Geeky Observation http://sunnywu.net/2007/09/12/bourne-ultimatum-quick-review-geeky-observation http://sunnywu.net/2007/09/12/bourne-ultimatum-quick-review-geeky-observation It was "cheapskate" Tuesday and after a day of writing and writing in work, I went with a couple of friends and get the cheap $9 tickets to watch Bourne Ultimatum in Greater Union in CBD. Personally I am a fan of the whole Bourne series - not exactly for the action details (after all, I am from Hong Kong and we have seen the best Kung-fu action stuff back in the 80s/90s), but rather the suspense and the twist of the super-secret CIA operations. The latest and the supposedly-final-episode of the series, Bourne Ultimatum, is I think the best of the whole series. I would not go into the plots, but I can say that during the movie there were a lot of twists and "a-ha" moments. Especially the way the story was continued from Bourne Supremacy to Bourne Ultimatum is very smart and neat. The plot and more descriptions of the movie is at Wikipedia and trivia and goofs are on IMDB. There are the usual Kung-Fu actions, explosions, trademarked car chasing scenes and last but not least, the bystanders getting affected by the car crashes, explosions, stolen properties, fire-shots caused by all the CIA and Bourne actions. There is a mystery to me - how does Bourne get all the money needed to survive and travel around the world? Anyway, I give this movie is definitely a 90%+ rating, and hope that there will be new movies in the whole Bourne franchise. I strongly recommend you to watch Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy first to enjoy the finale of this trilogy. From a geek point of view, the whole Bourne series do not dig into the technologies in details. Although the FBI or CIA in the movie uses the state of the art technologies to tap into phones, track wirelessly through GPS/satellite, Bourne himself usually just goes into an Internet cafe and search for info and that's about it in terms of computer interaction. These are some real-world brands and technologies I noticed: Google - Bourne uses Google to search Google Maps - The CIA uses similar maps - or most likely since they are derived from Keyhole Inc HP monitors - Seems like they are the standard CIA equipments... MMS for communicating with "assets" or assassins to assign tasks, e.g. who to kill. Motorola - Everyone, good or bad, uses Motorola mobile phones apparently. Bourne got a nice Motorola Razr prepaid phone for one of the rather short-lived acquaintance. I don't remember I saw any blackberry though? IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad - The agent Julia Stiles is playing seems to take a Thinkpad out of her bag? It's an industrial hazard that I took notice anything technological when watching movie...

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Sun, 26 Aug 2007 07:36:38 -0700 Philosophical Computing Chinese Style http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/26/philosophical-computing-chinese-style http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/26/philosophical-computing-chinese-style Confucius style to be exact...
Media_httpsunwufilesw_xfjia

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Sat, 25 Aug 2007 15:39:12 -0700 10 Things I learnt from my first month of blogging http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/26/10-things-i-learnt-from-my-first-month-of-blogging http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/26/10-things-i-learnt-from-my-first-month-of-blogging These are some lessons I have learnt, including some services I have found to recommend bloggers to sign up for their benefits. Actually the title should be "from my first consistent month of blogging", considering that I tried to blog previously but failed to persist after a couple of posts. But anyway, I have persisted. 1. Ego checking with positive results I mean ego checking as in searching for my name on the Internet. If you type "Sunny Wu" on US Google, this site, usually comes up as the second result. The first result, is Sunnywu.com, which is not owned by me. Too bad that this site is currently hosted in US servers, therefore if you use Australian Google, this site is listed lower down the result list. On the other hand, if you search on Yahoo, whether it's US or Australian, this site usually is listed as the first result. With MSN Live search, this site is somewhere down fourth or fifth on the result list. Overall, I have tried to make myself easier to be found on the Internet, for better or worse... 2. Being thick-skin pays off After the release of the new iMac and reading a post on 37Signals, I have made a new post regarding a potential new colour for this new iMac here. After that I have made a comment back on the 37Signals post and also submit my blog entry to TUAW and they post it. In total I have more than 900 views, during those two days as a result. The page view total may sound low, but for me it is pretty big, considering that I usually only get ~10-20 page views a day in average. The lesson here is that, as long as you think you have a blog entry worthwhile to share, be a thick skin and tell them, aka hard-sell it. 3. Search Engine can always take people to your blog ... somehow I signed up Wordpress.com Stats plugin, which shows the queries people redirected to my site through search engine queries. These are some queries which show my blog entries as first-page results:
  • "google apps addressbook api"
  • "google apps contact manager"
  • "google reader external program"
Before blogging, I always thought that this is like finding a needle in a haystack. Or maybe I should have more faith in The Long Tail. :) 4. Lots of ways to earn money - But can you? During this month, I have made myself learn how to earn money on the Internet. I have signed-up in Google Adsense, AuctionAds, Amazon Affiliate,Commission Junction. They are some sites which almost anyone can qualify. There are a lot of ways to make money, but I am still learning how the whole eco-system works. To learn more, I recommend visiting Problogger, John Chow Dot Com, Shoemoney and Dosh Dosh. 5. Statistic is fun It is pretty interesting to see figures on the how/who/where/what/etc of my blog's visitors. I recommend signing up these services for learning more about your blog:
  • Google Analytics(lots and lots of info, a must-have!)
  • Feedburner (finds out who subscribes your blog's RSS feed)
  • Performancing Metrics (good for small blog with few visitors)
  • Crazy Egg (good for seeing how people focus/click on your blog's front page)
  • Wordpress.com Stats Plugin (for Wordpress only, but the best thing is that its stats excludes the blog administrator visits - more accurate and useful when your visitor count is low)
6. Bandwidth is irrelevant I have used around 350MB of bandwidth, out of the available 100GB of bandwidth... 7. Writing is easy, but the plumbing is not... Writing is fairly easy to me (for things I want to say anyway). The problem is that it's annoying to format your blog entry, like section titles, list, uploading and resizing images, etc. Also, providing references (i.e. add links to sites you mention) is mundane work, too. The default Wordpress editor feature is quite minimal, I can do more with features like more formatting options or more convenient Flash/Javascript embodiment (e.g. for Youtube video). I am still out looking for good Wordpress plugins which can help me to spend less time on "plumbing" but more in writing. 8. My post seems too long If you read this sentence, thanks for staying with me for so long in this post. It is too easy to write and I tend to over-stretch my word limits - after all, I do not tend to read long posts on others' blogs. I need to trim down, or another way is maybe adding page breaks or formatting the blog post entry to increase the readability. This is a great guide that I think I will try. 9. Get A friend to motivate/hassle you to blog It is fairly easy to drop off blogging. it will be great to have some friends to subscribe your blog and ask them nicely to remind you to blog, whenever you have dropped off. I dropped off for 10 days during the past month, but my friend reminded me. Thanks mate! 10. What you said - Please share your advice Maybe you could tell what you think I should improve for my blog, e.g. topics, site design, writing style...etc. Just leave a comment below and it will be greatly appreciated!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:45:45 -0700 Locationbar2 Firefox Addon Quick Review - Great for Phishing Detection http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/23/locationbar2-firefox-plugin-quick-review-great-for-phishing-detection http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/23/locationbar2-firefox-plugin-quick-review-great-for-phishing-detection I have been using Mozilla Firefox for a few years already. One of the best feature which Firefox excels in is that it allow developers to create "add-on", a small software that add new features, and this leads to innovation in Firefox customization such that a lot of great useful add-ons are improving the Firefox Internet browsing experience. Locationbar2 is one of them. It provides multiple useful features: Increase the location bar readability Using an example below, normally, an address is shown like this:
Media_httpsunwufilesw_tvwgp
With Locationbar2, it is improved to this:
Media_httpsunwufilesw_sibyi
Basically, the website's domain name is shown more obviously, with the grayed out subdomain and spaces to separate with the rest of the address. It also hides out the protocol name (like http, https). However, this will not affect you from copying the address - once you put your mouse pointer on top of the address bar, you will be presented the address in the usual format. Easier phishing detection Phishing is a Internet scam that basically misdirect people to give out confidential information to "fake" websites. I will use the following example to highlight how Locationbar2 can help users to detect fake website. I got this email today "from" Westpac" which wants me to login to its website to confirm some info:
Media_httpsunwufilesw_igdhl
If I click the "Click here" link, it opens a seemingly innocent looking banking login web page:
Media_httpsunwufilesw_mpcrq
But if you notice the address bar:
Media_httpsunwufilesw_nxrga
It clearly shows that the domain name of this website is "form2700.com", not the typical "westpac.com.au". It uses "online.westpac.com.au" as a sub-domain name which pre-pends the real-fake domain name. Without Locationbar2, it can easily mislead a user by the word westpac and also the not-so-obvious "form2700.com" website, like:
Media_httpsunwufilesw_nqhif
That's why this is an excellent feature for phishing detection. Mouse-click to select the whole address Go to File Menu->Tools->Addons->Locationbar2 Preferences, and tick the "Click selects all" box, whenever you click your (left) mouse button on the address bar, the address will be automatically selected and you can do a quick "Ctrl-C" or choose "Copy" from the Edit menu to copy the address to wherever you want, e.g. to your Email client or Word document. I find this option very convenient for address copying. Conclusion I would recommend anyone to try this out, especially for the casual computer users, who may need to be more aware in terms of verifying the web pages they are directed is whether legitimate or not. Also, there are other customizable settings which can be used to improve the address formatting that any users can manipulate to their liking. You can download this plug-in here. If you have not had Firefox installed, you can get it below, accompanying with Google Toolbar, for the ease of use of various Google Services: Disclaimer: I will get referral commission if you download and install Firefox on your computer if you download Firefox through the link above. Just a referral experiment to see if anyone will find this entry useful enough to get Firefox :)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:55:57 -0700 Flash Player with H.264 Codec Support http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/21/flash-player-with-h264-codec-support http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/21/flash-player-with-h264-codec-support Adobe has upped the ante in the competition between Silverlight and Flash - it will catch up in quality of video streaming by offering a beta version of Flash player that supports H.264 codec - the same one used in iPod and iTunes video today (or tomorrow, depending which timezone you are). The news are available here and here. Tinic Uro, a Flash engineer from Adobe, has provided more insights on what various codecs and standards the new Flash player will support. Finally, we have a user-friendly way to watch near DVD (I would not be greedy and ask for Hi-Definition) quality online streaming videos. Actually, this comes at the right time when I previously made a point on how unsatisfactory Flash video currently is when showing action-packed clips. Also, it will be interesting that Youtube, which already has converted user-uploaded videos to H.264 format for Apple TV, can probably make them available online to all Internet users through this updated Flash player version later the year. The adoption of standard H.264 codec will be a good thing from both user and content/video producers points of views, in terms of ease of video access and video production delivery. One concern I have is that, with higher video quality/resolution support coming soon, it will be unavoidable to see subtitle-style in-show advertisement, similar to what most TV shows have these days, which is not really feasible with the current supported lower resolution of Flash video. Embrace more ads!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Sat, 18 Aug 2007 16:51:27 -0700 Bargain of the week - Dell Desktop + 27″ LCD for $1865 http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/19/bargain-of-the-week-dell-desktop-27-lcd-for-1865 http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/19/bargain-of-the-week-dell-desktop-27-lcd-for-1865 This has nothing to do with startup but this deal can be a bargain for a startup developer, or anyone who is looking for a new desktop and a LARGE 27" LCD at a bargain price. Currently, the Dell 27" LCD is selling at $1799 alone. However, I have found a deal found through buckscoop, you can get an extra desktop computer for only $66 more! Be careful though, this deal may finish by Thurday night! To get this deal (modified from the buckscoop source):
  1. Click here or go to Dell and enter E-Value code Q240822V-web in the E-Value code box
  2. Look down the configuration listing for the monitor section and upgrade from the 22"TFT to the 27" Ultrasharp for $973.50 more
  3. Now go to checkout at $2072.40
  4. Here we will enter the 10% discount code of 39131CC55486 to reduce the total by $188.40
  5. Total price payable inc delivery is now $1865.16
If you buy it for your business/company, don't forget you can claim your GST back too and push the total down to $1695.60. You can read the reviews of the Dell 27" 2707WFP LCD here and here. While the desktop will not run the latest PC games well, it is an alright business desktop for typical word-processing and web browsing tasks - probably good enough for some lightweight web application development too. It has the following highlights:
  • Pentium E2160 1.8Ghz (relax, it is actually a basic version of Core 2 Duo branded as Pentium, not a Pentium 4 running at 1.8Ghz, the speed itself is okay for its price, see a review here)
  • 2GB Memory
  • Windows Vista Business (not your usual crippled Vista Home Basic version, see the comparison here), offers great backup feature for safeguarding your valuable data!
  • 250GB hard disk storage
  • DVD Burner
You may notice that I provided a different E-value code than the one written from the top of the buckscoop message thread. The reason is that you can get more value - better CPU and 1GB extra of memory for basically ~$12 more. I have prepared the perfect excuse for you to get a massive 27" LCD - you can increase your productivity, see a study by an Apple consultant study here and here. Time to upgrade your 17" LCD NOW! Personally, I have made more than a few purchases from Dell in the past few years and I found the products satisfactory, be it laptops, desktops or LCDs. Also, there is this Total Satisfaction Policy offered by Dell that lets you return the products within 15 days and get full refund (minus delivery cost). But read the fine prints though. Disclaimer: No, I don't earn any commission if you indeed make the purchase...

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:15:00 -0700 Product (Red) + U2 ipods => Brushed Metal iMac Product (red)? http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/09/product-red-u2-ipods-brushed-metal-imac-product-red http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/09/product-red-u2-ipods-brushed-metal-imac-product-red
Media_httpsunwufilesw_fqxgt
I was reading on 37Signals on how iPods influenced the design of iMac. Actually, I would think the U2 iPod, with the black and red colour combination and iPod nano Product (Red)'s aluminium casing, together can potentially produce a cool looking iMac Product (red) edition? To be honest, between this imaginery product and the current new iMac, I would prefer this red hot colour! What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comment :) p.s. iWork 08 is available as free 30-day trial download here. p.s.s. Is there something I can use instead of Photoshop for simple colour filling on Mac?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:54:57 -0700 (PhD) Life in a Photo http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/08/phd-life-in-a-photo http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/08/phd-life-in-a-photo
Media_httpsunwufilesw_cbbgb
How low does a coil spring need to go before it bounces sky high? Pic from here

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:43:57 -0700 Connect a Windows Vista client to a password-protected Windows XP Shared Folder http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/08/connect-a-windows-vista-client-to-a-password-protected-windows-xp-shared-folder http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/08/connect-a-windows-vista-client-to-a-password-protected-windows-xp-shared-folder I was installing Windows Vista Business version on my Macbook to test-run Vista through Bootcamp. I tried to get it to connect to a password-protected shared folder on another Windows XP desktop. So I followed what I always did in the same situation when I was using a Windows XP desktop:
  1. Go to Windows Explorer
  2. Type the path to the shared folder on the server machine (e.g. \\xp\abc) on the address bar
  3. It should prompt for my username and password to access this password-protected folder.
  4. Connected and you can browse the files.
But in Vista, I just could not find a way to see the username & password prompt. I got this:
Media_httpsunwufilesw_hdkjo
So I tried to dig around for the solution on the Internet and the best I could figure out is to run this command in a command window(press Windows Key+R and then type "cmd" and press Enter): net use Z: \\xpmachine \abc2 * /USER:joe /Persistent:YES Assuming "xpmachine" is the Windows XP computer name, the shared folder is called "abc" and the usename to access this shared folder is "joe". Press Enter and it will prompt you for the password and after you enter it then you can access the shared folder on "Z:" drive (and you can change it to "V:" or other unused letters). The "/Persistent:YES" option is used so that next time you log into your Vista desktop, "Z:" will still be mapped to the "abc" shared folder but when you try to access it in Windows Explorer, this time will give you the nice password prompt, just like in Windows XP:
Media_httpsunwufilesw_ekarb
You can read more on the "net use" command by running "net help use" in the command window.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:48:11 -0700 Flickr Video - A Killer Feature to fight the established competitors http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/07/flickr-video-a-killer-feature-to-fight-the-established-competitors http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/07/flickr-video-a-killer-feature-to-fight-the-established-competitors I was reading about the imminent arrival of the Flickr Video and trying to think of a killer feature I would hope Flickr would provide to create a stronghold in online video sharing hosting. On Pronet Advertising, there was a post discussing concerns regarding to the late arrival of Flickr Video and competing in the crowded online video sharing market among the established competitors like (sucking in breath): Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, Google Video, Veoh, Dailymotion, Yahoo Video, Metacafe ... I give up, just read the huge list here on Mashable. So what is an edge that Flickr can create to get ahead of these fierce competition? Brand and implement a killer feature - Better Video Quality. Flickr has always been the first word people think of in online photo sharing. It's probably the first photo sharing website that "got it right" in the social part of the "Web 2.0". Therefore, the brand itself is still bright and get attractive the current community to share more user-generated materials, in this case video. And this leads to the next point - better video quality. I always have the opinion that Flickr has high quality of photos, be it due to the skills of photographers, the quality of the cameras, or the combination of both. Some are showcased on this site Flickrville. And if you look around, nearly all current online sharing sites use Flash and in turn the H.263 codec. For slow moving pictures like lip-sync-ing, it's adequate. But if you have some dancing videos like "Chale Jaise - Main Hoon Na" (one of my favourite - not that I understand a word of the lyrics): [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NayYxeRXj7Q] Can you see dancing in there? Imagine showcasing these qualities of videos with FlickrVille-featured photos like this one - they don't match well do they? I am not certain which video codec is feasible for large-scale video streamings, maybe H.264? But in the end, I hope Flickr will host high-quality video sharing to introduce more professional-class video producers to make online video browsing in Flickr to match the same pleasant browsing experience people have enjoyed for past few years in Flickr Photos.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:50:17 -0700 Google Reader Tweak - Open Links in Background http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/02/google-reader-tweak-open-links-in-background http://sunnywu.net/2007/08/02/google-reader-tweak-open-links-in-background Google Reader is a web application that I use everyday to read my RSS feeds. I like to use keyboard shortcuts to navigate around the feeds instead of using a mouse - when you have a long river flow of RSS feed items, pressing a key is easier than scrolling on the mouse continuously. On Google Reader, you can press character "v" to open the feed item link. By default, if it's opened in a new tab, it will change the focus to the newly opened tab. I found that annoying because usually, I prefer to open all new links while going through the feed and then go through the opened links as a bunch. I looked around on the net and found a partial solution on Lifehacker that suggested to change the tab opening setting to force it opening in background through "about:config". But this changes the behaviour of tab opening globally inside Firefox, e.g. if an external program like Thunderbird open a new tab for a new link in Firefox, it will be loaded in background. So I created a Greasemonkey script so that when you press 'v' in Google Reader, the link will be opened in background. To install it:
  1. Install Greasemonkey addon
  2. Restart Firefox
  3. Click here to install the script.
If you have any feedback, just leave a comment here.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:23:54 -0700 Startup Trend & Knowledge Focused Search - startupper.info http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/31/startup-trend-knowledge-focused-search-startupperinfo http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/31/startup-trend-knowledge-focused-search-startupperinfo I am a keen follower on the IT startups. I like to read about them and have some critical thoughts as a hobby. On my RSS feed reader, I have subscribed many startup news blogs such as Techcrunch, Mashable, Gigaom, Ycombinator News , Startupping forum and many others too long to list. After subscribing to so many of these feeds, sometimes it's pretty hard to search back a discussion or news thread regarding a particular startup from a while back. I found that using the general Google search engine is not an ideal solution, since it also shows search results which are not from the startup-focused websites I have read from. Therefore I have created a startup-focused search engine powered by Google Custom Search. I have exported my RSS feed list from Google Reader and added the relevant feeds' mother blogs into this customized search engine. Other than the websites I have listed above, I have also added a lot of other blogs focusing on startup news, but also personal blogs which (potential) entrepreneurs would mostly be very interested in. Some examples are: Personal blogs Startup blogs Venture Capital blogs And a lot more of others sites were added - at the moment 82 and counting... I have also created a few "labels" such as "News", "Venture capitals", "Forums for startuppers" and "Reviews" which can be used to refine your searches towards your desired knowledge areas on the search result page. Certainly this search engine is still a work in progress. If you have any suggestions or feedback for me to tweak this search engine better for you, feel free to leave a comment under this blog post. So, give it a try here :)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:15:21 -0700 Google Apps’ Massive Achilles’ heel - Missing Contacts Synchronization http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/29/google-apps-massive-achilles-heel-missing-contacts-synchronization http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/29/google-apps-massive-achilles-heel-missing-contacts-synchronization How can Google Apps attract more small businesses and enterprises to come on board without a management feature for the most fundamental asset in communication? What is the most important thing on my mobile phone? Sim card? No, Address Book. What is the most important thing in my Gmail account other than the emails? Email addresses on my Contact List. Now how can I keep my mobile phone's Address Book and my Gmail contact list consistently and merge into a unified and consistent address book? I can't. Hang on, you would say I could synchronize my phone's address book onto Microsoft Outlook and then export a csv file onto Gmail, or vice versa in reverse, right? No. I can't. It's too hard. I'm too lazy to. Do you always meet a bunch of people in one go and exchange addresses every once in a while only in life? If you look around, there were people attempting to achieve the holy grail of Contact Synchronization here, here and here with Gmail but they all ultimately cannot get around the missing synchronization feature and could not have the same ending as the Da Vinci's Code. Mobile phone and sim card are replaceable. Emails can be deleted (remember the good old 4MB Hotmail storage limits?). But without your contacts, you cant call, can't email and can't even drive to a friend's place (not everyone is on Facebook you know...) Google Apps, which is my daily "Web OS" tool that manage my domain emails (thru Gmail), calendars and documents, do not provide Contacts Synchronization even for PAID accounts. No matter what positive message the slogan on its front page is being sent across, the lack of proper contact synchronization capability is the massive Achilles' heels of such service to even attract small businesses. At the age where we can have gigabytes of email storage, access to our emails from anywhere around the world through an Internet browser, the death of Desktop RSS feed readers and the raising popularity of online feed readers, it is quite disappointing that we still need to rely on a desktop application (Outlook or Address Book on Mac) for contact management mediator. Actually, if you look around, Windows Live Mail and Yahoo Mail is in a similar state in terms of the continuous disregard of critical user data - Contacts. Missing Benefits for Google Considering the importance of contextual advertising in the search engine market and also the reliance of personalization techniques in order to produce more informative ads, geographical and relationship information such as job title, physical addresses and phone numbers (area code) can be very useful data to improve the advertisement's relevance and quality to the users. Hence making people upload their contacts easily should be as important as the easiness of mail thread reading, friendly AJAX-enabled user interface and generous initial email storage which all made Gmail so appealing when it was rolled out back in 2004. Message Please Google/Yahoo/Microsoft, give us a Contact Synchronization API, especially Google Apps. Let us have our own Web 2.0 Address Book. What do you think? Do you have similar need as well? If so, please leave a message in the comments so I can be certain that I'm not the only mad person that would appreciate such a feature.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:54:27 -0700 Sony. Experience More - Sydney Exhibition event http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/27/sony-experience-more-exhibition-event http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/27/sony-experience-more-exhibition-event I was given a free ticket by a friend to go to the "Sony. Experience More" at the Sydney Convention Centre in Darling Harbour - basically a marketing event showcasing the cutting edge electronic products by Sony. The following are a few impressions I made. 1. OLED TV
Media_httpfarm2static_ibxdw
There were probably a thousand products on the floor but this was THE ITEM. At first I thought these were laptop elevating stands (?!) but when I saw the very crispy and sharp image quality it was playing I was instantly impressed, yet the thinness was much less than maybe 0.5cm. It is probably still in R&D and not yet for production such that they had ropes around these precious cuties. I am looking forward to the day it is ready for laptop and later big screen TV. 2. FREE FREE FREE Free cap. Free T-shirt. Free sweets (see below). Free drinks. Free finger food. The most important of all, free photo printing with these:
Media_httpfarm2static_ehhfq
I have to say the picture output quality is quite good. Mental note: be more prepared next time when similar events are on - bring a memory card full of photos for "Product Quality Evaluation Process"... 3. Where is the "Play" in Playstation PS3? There were about half a dozen PS3 units that I noticed. They let people play a couple of action-style PS3 games. However on the floor they use other units to demonstrate the ability of showing High-Definition Blue-ray movies, or reviewing photos and an interesting feature - pause the HD video and prints a (partial) screenshot straight to the photo printer. I wonder, "Play" does not certainly imply "Games" as certain as in the past. 4. Where the bloody hell are you, PSP? It is normal that there is no PS2 in sight, however I only saw ONE TURNED-OFF PSP sitting next to a PS3 and no others. I am amazed that Sony did not bother to show off the primer portable gaming platform to the consumers. 5. Sticky Sweets
Media_httpfarm2static_dcfmh
Sony has hired these "sticky" people to make small bags of sweets that marked with the words of "Sony" or "FULL HD" on each lolly. They actually setup a stand to make it during the show and the marketing gimmick is that their stand was surrounded by 20 Sony HD video cameras which everyone can try out the recording quality of these equipments. The lollies tasted very good. Most often than not, their stand was the most crowding of all on the floor. 6. Booth Babes You think I mean this. No, there was none like that. The best I could find was this:
Media_httpfarm2static_fiyij
Overall It was a good visit, as a geek and a graduate student, to have FREE entry to play around with gadgets.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:59:58 -0700 OLPC, US$100 Laptop - consumer market killer? http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/25/olpc-us100-laptop-consumer-market-killer http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/25/olpc-us100-laptop-consumer-market-killer
OLPC is a great initiatives for producing US$100 laptops for the education of the children in third world countries. Lately, there are words about it to be made available for consumer market at US$350 or US$525. Considering the mass (as in producing in millions) manufacturing cost is reportedly at US$175. Maybe the 100%+ markup sounds a bit expensive. Anyway, if they can keep the price really at US$350, I think it can potentially fill a consumer market segment and make an impact in the rest of the word. Why? Cost Let's dive into the bottom line. For people, like my parents who just do web browsing and typing a few Word documents, If they are looking for a simple, light-weight portable computing access, how much will it cost? For a Palm Folio, a lightweight smartphone companion running a customized Linux at ~<1kg, is priced at US$499. For a Dell M1210, a full Windows-powered laptop at ~2kg, starts at ~US$1000. OLPC, at ~1.5kg light, clearly has a price advantage in the portable computing market segment where you pay much more $$$ for a lot less weight. Desktop-like Web Browsing Experience From the OLPC wiki, OLPC is running a browser that shares the same core of Firefox and is capable of running Adobe Flash and Java. These are all key web browsing enabling technologies and with the rising popularity of web applications, consumers will not miss a bit by running OLPC. What's in it for me? It looks like a perfect laptop for casual web browsing on sofa, most importantly, bed during a chilling winter night (oh, and bathroom too). Of course the fact that it is a great initiative, basing on open source software and a lot of attractive features that I haven't mentioned here, certainly create interest. Personally, I would hope that the price could be a bit cheaper like US$200-250 and then it can make a negative impact to my wallet and, of course, a positive impact to the consumer world.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:56:53 -0700 First Post of the year http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/25/first-post-of-the-year http://sunnywu.net/2007/07/25/first-post-of-the-year Actually rather the first post of the new Australian financial year. I have been trying to blog for a number of times but every time I am not persistent enough and given up very shortly after starting. But as I am distancing myself from being young (aka getting OLDER), it seems that I always cannot remember a lot of my thoughts from the past. So this time, unlike other times, I set my goal as to document some thoughts on everything and make them as my analytical exercises. And in future, who knows, I can read and been impressed by some good stuff that I think I could not have written, or laugh at my stupid grammatical mistakes. It does not sound like a bad thing either way?! So this time I will make a difference and keep this blog alive for ... one month?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu Wed, 06 Dec 2006 17:23:55 -0800 Mea Culpa I bought it - Australian Nintendo Wii - Top 10 Observations & Thoughts http://sunnywu.net/2006/12/07/mea-culpa-i-bought-it-australian-nintendo-wii-top-10-observations-thoughts http://sunnywu.net/2006/12/07/mea-culpa-i-bought-it-australian-nintendo-wii-top-10-observations-thoughts Joining the Midnight Launch - Bought Wii without pre-ordering After chatting to a friend online, I was pretty bored and went to local Moore Park Supacentre to take a look and see what's the fuss of the midnight launch of Nintendo Wii. I did not pre-order a Wii but then I'm hooked by the games and the system itself so I thought I maybe lucky to get one without pre-ordering it. I went there and waited on the queue outside the EB Games shop. I waited for about probably 20 minutes and the reason it took so long was because the shop manager wanted to process all the customers who had pre-ordered first and I and another bloke was the last to get the Wii. I forked out AU$396 on credit card (hurray for interest free period!! account payable in 40 days ...) and out I went. I did not get any accessories and extra games because I think I may be able to get them cheaper at Target or BigW later. But I do get a Wii VIP card from EB Games and supposedly EB will have promotion every month or two or so. The current special deal is $20 off Tony Hawks skateboarding - which is not my cup of tea. The salesman was trying to get me to pay $60 for a 2 year extra warranty offered by EB Games. I asked, "Does it cover the TV damage if my Wiimote flys off my hand and breaks it?". "No. lol" was the answer. Guess I don't need it then. Here Wii go
Media_httpstaticflick_acvku
Media_httpstaticflick_ogaol
Top 10 Not-so-obvious Observations
  1. The game disc itself does not seem readable by normal DVD-ROM drive (on my Macbook at least).
  2. Wireless connection onto the Internet is straight forward to setup. As a true Microsoft Windows user, the first thing I do before playing Wii Sports was to do a System Update thru the Internet connection. It takes around 15 minutes to complete (not sure how much the download was...)
  3. Browsing the Wii Shop Channel (to buy classic games) is a tad slow, from clicking a link to the link being loaded completely takes 3-5 seconds. Maybe everyone else just bought the Wii has been overloading the server.
  4. You can HANG your Wii - when I was typing this blog, the Wii Shop Channel was hanging for more than 10 minutes to try connecting to the channel and it seems like to get out of this hanging state is to reset the Wii - ouch.
  5. The news and forecast channel is not working yet - needed to wait for the service to be activated.
  6. Wiimote does not need any calibration and magically it just works. IT seems to do calibration when you are trying to click on the first button on the screen.
  7. The Wiimote, for my configuration at least, is only good for a range of 3 metres, which is pretty short.
  8. In Wii Sports, there is a "Wii Fitness" mode which lets you undertake challenges by playing the sports included (such as finishing a spare in ten-pin bowling). After a set of exercises, it gives you a score, Wii Fitness Age, this is the age after my first go:
    Media_httpstaticflick_ggjvq
    I have never felt so old in my life until now....
  9. I am tired after two hours of playing of the Wii Sports. I can already justify my buying decision - FITNESS. Please, create a Kinetic port for Wii!
  10. There is this frequent warning in Wii Sports: "Make sure there are no people or objects around you that you might bump into while playing". Pretty hard to do when playing 4-player tennis I would think...
Top 5 Thoughts
  1. Must start looking for cheap Gamecube accessories (controllers) and games such as Mario Party from ebay.
  2. Must look for cheap deals on rechargable AA batteries and charger in electronics store - I have a feeling that the battery on Wiimote won't last long.
  3. While we are all in the Ashes Series mode, I am looking forward to Ricky Ponting International Cricket 2007 and see what kind of cricket game they can make out of Wii. If they can fit a baseball game in Wii Sports, it cant be hard to make one for cricket.
  4. Will there be a ultimate work out game for Wii, using a Dance Dance Resolution dance mat, Eyetoy-variant camera and Wiimote+nunchuck? Considering that all three can be used on the PC I am looking forward to any potential homebrew game using all of these input-methods.
  5. Play around the Wiimote with PC/Mac sometime.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/10D0hdq6s4p Sunny Wu swu Sunny Wu