Getting stuck? One of this method can help you.

Problem, like shadow, shall never go away

Let's face it, we can never get away from problems. And we should all have the experience of getting stuck, no matter how hard you try, there doesn't seems to be a progress in finding the resolution.

It's all because of the juice

The "creative juice" is what we need in resolving problem. The juice contains all the "nutrient" we need in solving the problem, these nutrients are what we consume everyday - the things we see, we learn and we listen. These information help us to find the best way to tackle the problem, thus, when we are stuck, it meant the "juices" is unable to circulate.

Cleanse yourself

One of the method which works very well for me is taking a bath, I have "solved" many problems during my bathing time. The sound of the shower, the isolation and the steam, establish a very well environment that I find idea is flowing around me. One of my lately encountering is designing the roadmap for my product. I need to strikes a balance along the product line and to satisfy needs of all kind and some of them is contradictory (e.g. a software solution vs a hardware solution). One night, when I am bathing, I realize that I can simply split the product into two but having one as the subset of the other.

Apart from bathing, dish washing and extensive walking can also help me to better circulate my "creative juices". The repetitive action enables me to get into the state that, idea can again flowing freely.

Zen is null

What I have been sharing is nothing magical, the activities are similar to meditation. Meditate enable us to get into a state that enable our "creative mind" to become dominant. I am no expert in Zen or Buddhism, but to describe this state of mind, I find it is close to the state "null" that we are familiar with. The state of meditation is not either an "empty string" nor "non existent".

It has been realized by a lot of people and nicely explained in various books. One book which I strongly recommend is Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware. It explains all the above with theoretical information.

To summarize the article, I would like to share a quote from Zen master Daisetz Suzuki

"Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking."

Happy Meditation.

Internet booming in China

Came across an annual report about internet development in China today and notice a significant adoption of internet usage in China.

Also, internet access is no longer for people living in big city. The increment in rural area and villages has outgrown those in the bigger city (60.8 vs 35.6%). What's more, most of them are using broadband for internet access (around 90%), and surfing on the mobile phone has a significant gain as well (133%).

I think the explosion can be seen in two fold, one is the general public adoption while the other is the booming of our own internet application. We are now having all kinds of localized web application, which break down the language barrier for the user adoption.

Talking about web application, it is found that about 24% of the web site hosted in China is using PHP, which is the most popular languages among all.

The report is very informative and I am seeing that the internet user in China is now more comfortable in using this media to do things more than web browsing. The penetration of using the internet to do ecommerce might be coming soon.

The iPhone that never sleep

Mobile Blogging from here.

I like my iPhone, the apps and games are wonderful. But I can only realize the true power after subscribing to a data plan.

See the above? I can now blog at anywhere, locate myself at any time and what's more is to get the latest information on the road.

But are we not getting connected enough? Now, other devices, such as the digital camera or portable gaming console, can also gain access to the net.

I wonder when would we feel exhausted in sending update to our friends round the clock.

Before that, I will enjoy the using of my iPhone. :)

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Size Does Matter

HA, don't worry, it's not a SPAM.

What I am talking about is the size of screen estate.

Have a look at these images and you can tell.

I've bought my own Dell 2408WFP lately and the increase in screen estate enable me to open both an IDE and a PDF reader at the same time! It's a joy to work but I am still finding the best way to organize the windows.

Anything tips from your guys?

The Netbook Era

2008 is definitely the era of netbook - low cost but under power laptop, which is good enough for day to day internet surfing and light enough to bring along.

I keep hearing a voice telling me to get one and finally, I could resist this temptation and place my hand on this.



The price of a netbook varies, some could be as costly as a low end notebook but in general, the specification for most of them is more or less the same. As a secondary machine, I prefer to spend less on it, although there are some drawback (which I will talk about it later).

The brand "Hasee" might be unfamiliar to most of you as it is a manufacturer in mainland China. The specification of the machine as follows - 80G HDD, 1G RAM, 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 10.1" LCD (LED Backlit), 130 Megapixel webcam and it all costs me US$346.

It comes with no OS and I am having Ubuntu 8.10 running on it just fine (with most of the drivers available except the webcam), the only draw back is the size of the keyboard. It's small when compared to the others (HP M1000 offers the best keyboard btw) but I couldn't complain for the $$$ I am paying.

It serves very well as a browsing machine but I found that the resolution (1024 x 600) hinders the using of IDE application since some of the menu items cannot be shown properly in this resolution.

Before MBA comes down in price (or given a refresh in hardware specification), I will settle my desire in having a small notebook with the Hasee.