I have transferred all my blog posts to a new site, i.e. TagEdge.com. I really think you should read my blog at Tag Edge because that’s where the updates lives.
Thank you for your tremendous support so far.
Update: Please subscribe the feed of my new site TagEdge at http://tagedge.com/feed/
I bought a few domain names. I have been sitting on it without any idea what to do with them for quite some time. Yesterday I finally want to use one of them. I always told myself, someday I will run a blog with my own domain name, not any sub-domain with blogspot, WordPress, TypePad, or SquareSpace.com. But I know someday never come, a lot of good ideas failed before even getting started. I had to do it now before I change my mind again. So my first step was to export my blog in XML format to my PC. I was a fan of Internet Explorer (IE)7, unfortunately, I couldn’t export my blog by using IE7, while there’s no problem when I did it with Firefox2.
Again! You really won’t believe how annoy I feel about IE7 today. I was using it to sign-up a Web hosting package but when I reach the check-out stage, IE7 keep on displaying, i.e. “Please wait while we processing your order.” I attempted for six times, just can’t get it through. I have to close the window every time and recheck-out it again, and again. I even called the Web hosting company in the U.S. and asked one of the representatives whether their servers having problem at that particular time. I know I am very rude upon asking this kind of question. I am. Finally, I made up my mind to use Firefox 2. For the very first time my Web hosting package order was completed by using this browser.
Furthermore, this is my very first time I stumbled upon the extremely usefulness of Firefox 2.
As I observed some of the famous Web sites in China, there are a tendency of using number in their domain names. Some notable sites in China, e.g. China’s first search engine, i.e. 3721.com; a famous China social networking site, i.e. 51.com, and my favorite sites in China that are hao123.net or 163.com, they all have number in their domain names.
I wonder this is due to the cultural or language (pronoun) localization? Or do these site owners tend to believe using numbering technique in their sites, their sites would get a better ranking in China’s search engine such as Baidu.com or Qihoo.com?
In my previous post, I mentioned that I was going to attend the Windows Vista Preview. However, when I arrived there, surprisingly there are not much people attended the Technical Preview as I expected. As I attended one of the sessions entitled, “Vista and AMD”, there are fewer than 100 people at that seminar room.
During the Technical Preview, few issues did surprised me:
1) One of the speaker stated that the Vista version will require at least 1G of RAM in order to support the Aero interface, a lot of people knew that. However, he elaborated this particular 1G of RAM must be in 1 piece, there are not in any case like this, 4 pieces of 256MB (4 X 256 RAM). In my case, my PC came with 2 pieces of Kingston 256 RAM, it would not work well if I buy another two (2) 256 RAM and stick these addition RAMs into my PC to make it 1G of RAM in total.
2) BitLocker’s recovery mode is really look cool. But this feature will only available in Vista Ultimate version.
3) There are far too many different versions of Vista when it officially launch to the market, i.e. Vista Basic, Vista Business, Vista Ultimate, Vista Enterprise. For Office 2007, they are available in eight (8) versions when I looked at its leaflet. For a lot of people out there, I wonder they all know how to differentiate the Office 2007 suite, i.e. Office Standard 2007, Basic 2007, Professional 2007, Professional Plus 2007, Home and Student 2007, Ultimate 2007, Small Business 2007, and lastly Enterprise 2007 when they purchase it from the retail store?
4) Vista looked too many security advancements. On personal, i just want to have a reliable operating system, and enabled me to run some applications. But with Vista, I need to switch from “Standard User” to “Administrator” each time when I want to install a new program. I could imagine it would really annoying in this kind of situation.
5) I believed Microsoft have already made this Vista “looked” very powerful. When I looked at the Demo on the screen, there is a myth that Vista was so secure it might be possible to run this operating system without any anti-virus program installed.
6) The tagging feature is really cool when I first saw it from the Demo, but frankly is there a need to have the tagging (categorization) feature in Vista? If one want to tag a picture, he/she can install a third-party software and run it. Is this strongly implied that Microsoft want to develop an operating system that could cater to all the users’ needs and wants?
7) Windows Vista cannot be considered as a upgrade version of Windows XP, both of them look differently in terms of performance and features. Thus, it’s no longer an operating system that we familiar with.
Bottom Line: No doubt Windows Vista is powerful, but I urge all the potential buyers to have a second-look preview before they upgrade their Windows XP to Vista.
I am going to attend a sneak preview of Windows Vista in Asia South, i.e. Kuala Lumpur this afternoon. Most of my close IT friends were not fascinated about this new Windows operating system (OS), asked them whether they’re planning to upgrade their Windows OS to Vista yesterday evening, it sounds like they are more concern about the compatibility issues of the programs.
I read on the Web that for Microsoft to release Vista out the door was an enormous milestone for them. But with enterprises in general cautious about compatibility issues, and buzz already shifting to Web-based applications and service-based software, Vista may fall short of the mark set by its predecessors Windows 95 and XP.
I agreed.
I just read an interesting article on the Web, entitled,”To Blog or Not to Blog: Report from the Front.” This article starts off by talking about a rising blogosphere:
About 57 million American adults — or 39% of Internet users — read individually authored web logs, or “blogs,” according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which does surveys to track Internet use. About 12 million American adults, or 8% of Internet users, keep a blog. They do so for a number of reasons — to share professional or personal ideas and opinions, crack jokes, air political views, or comment on current events.
Meanwhile, I also found the section of the different views on blogging commented by several Wharton’s faculty staff particularly interesting:
It’s a bunch of people writing their opinions, and those people have no credibility. The information content is very low. Established media outlets, such as newspapers and magazines, have standards and fact checkers to help guarantee accuracy,…but “anybody can print a blog and say, ‘Hey, I’m an expert. Let me tell you about this.’
However, there are many such blogs to choose from, so I find it difficult to distinguish between genuinely useful ones and those merely exchanging or relating social experiences.
I urge you to read this article because it does provide food for thought on blogging.
Well. I received a call from my friend just a moment ago. He decided to host his site with Media Temple (MT). In fact, I told him a lot of good stuff that offered by MT. Although I have to mention that US$20 per month is quite pricey, but their support is great, as according to my friend. He even received call from MT after he signing up for its Web hosting program, due to his card decline 
. As an Asian, it is important that the customer service is superior as the Web hosting provider is not being located in Asia. I do not know what happen inside a Web hosting company. Perhaps I do not need to know, but if you choose a Web hosting company, you definitely will be pleased if someone there will call you whenever there’s a problem arise.
In this information age, I strongly believed the golden rule in conducting business is still the same as the old days, i.e. the quality of customer service is still very important!!!
Update: I moved my blog to host at Media Temple’s Grid Service.
According to Netcraft, there are more than 100 million sites on the Internet right now. I believed the number is still growing everyday because it is very easy to create a Web site nowadays. With less than $10 you can get a domain name, and cheap Web hosting plans (some are as low as $7 per month), one can start create and maintain a Web presence. I’m now also think of getting a domain name and host my blog at a Web hosting company. On the other hand, with so many sites now, it’s becoming harder for a particular new site to create the visitors’ loyalty and good Google page ranking. Thus, I’m wondering how people can search my blog by simply type in kenny, or IT or blog type of keywords.
It has been five years since Windows XP was released on the market. Now Microsoft has set the date for their newest release Windows Vista, i.e. November 30th 2006 for corporate customers and January 30th 2007 for the public. However, I’m not excited for Windows Vista nor planning for an upgrade. Major reason is: A friend of mine in fact has experienced several difficulties in installing Windows Vista Beta. And my advice here is before considering a switch to Windows Vista, check for the compatibility. Moreover, I’m really surprise inside the Microsoft’s Vista End User License Agreement (EULA). There are some limitations we should aware to if we planned for an upgrade or buy. On the other hand, I wonder how this licensing restrictions will affect the sales of Windows Vista. After reading thoroughly the following article entitled, “29.8% of XP users may move to Linux over Vista,” I’m starting to understand why a lot of people thinking of a switch to Ubuntu, a Linux operating system.
For me, if I am seriously doing to switch from Windows to Ubuntu, I will definitely try a dual boot system first…that allows me to run Windows and Ubuntu next to each other on my PC. However, I know I’m not the type of people to go that far and conclude that Windows operating system is not good at this moment.
In these couple of days, I have read several articles on the successfully launched of the new Firefox 2 browser. Many of those congratulated the record of over 2 million downloads in a day that made by Mozilla. Every Firefox fans now saying Firefox is gaining the market share at the expense of Internet Explorer (IE). However, here I’d like to say that the popularity of this browser might be attributed to its affiliate programs, or the advertisements, or the geeks out there that favor open-source softwares.
I’m not intend to talk how great the new features of Firefox 2 when compared to Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), or Opera. There are a lot of articles focused on this topic now. I think it’s also not fair for those who love to use IE7 or Opera browser. Furthermore, I’m a strong believer in the human nature of consumer behavior, if a person like to browse with IE from day one, he/she will hardly change this habit. This goes the same for Firefox or Opera users as well. For most of my friends that ventured in IT field, they were all using IE browser. No doubt they all know how good, or user-friendly Firefox is.
In this coming few years, it’s not surprise that there will be a lot of articles trying to coin IE7 vs Firefox as a new browser war on the Web.
