Posts Tagged ‘technology’

My ideal laptop

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
21 December 2009
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sturdy
long battery life

operates

fast with lots of programs

large screen
loud sound
webcamI nearly

I nearly broke my charger yet again yesterday, when I tripped on the cord at a very bad angle.  It’s got me thinking that I’d really like to just get a new computer rather than consider charger #4.  However, my computer is in pretty good shape and it’s a pity to get rid of it.  At first I was looking at some of those websites that pay you for a used laptop, but then I remembered all my relatives in China who’d love to have a nice and (relatively new) computer like this one!  Sometimes I forget how lucky I am, with access to the latest electronics and the funding to afford the ones I want.  The past two or three cameras I’ve had were all taken back to China after I broke them, fixed up, and given to a relative to use.  Same thing goes for my first laptop.  Seems like I tend to replace my electronics when my clumsy hands break them.

Dell laptop

Maybe I'll go back to my roots with a Dell.

So, though I’m not yet in the market for a new laptop, I do anticipate a new in the next year.  That got me thinking about the qualities that I need in the perfect one…  It would need to be sturdy to stand up to the abuse I put it through, occasionally dropping it, usually holding it precariously, and often stretching it to its limit.  I’d need a long battery life because I tend to use it heavily and if I am ever away from an outlet, I need to still be able to survive!  I’d also want it to operate very well with multiple programs running – I tend to have 10-30 tabs open in my browser at any given point, with some flash programs going, my instant messaging platform, a picture viewer and uploader, music player, and some documents I’m working on.  It needs to multitask like I do!  It also needs to be able to store my huge collection of pictures, videos, music, and documents, as well as support my myriad of programs.

HP Pavilion laptop

Being the brand-loyal kind of person I am, I'll probably opt for another HP.

What else?  I’m a huge fan of large screens and both my laptops have had wide screens.  I need really good speakers because I’d like to be able to hear things from afar and sometimes I think I’m a little hard of hearing.  There’d also need to be a built-in webcam for those days when Panda and I are not together and I need to see him on screen to be at ease.  It should also have a keyboard that can stand up to minor spillage and crumbs so I don’t have to worry replacing that.  And I think that they all come with wi-fi standard now, so that shouldn’t be a problem (but would definitely have to be a feature).  It’s also nice to have a CD-RW and DVD-RW drive, in case I ever need it (which isn’t that often).  Finally, I must have a card-reading slot so I don’t need to worry about cables to get pictures off of my camera.

As for things I haven’t had yet, I’d like bluetooth in this next one.  Not crucial, but a fun feature to have.  I have a remote for controlling media on this one, but I hardly used it, so that’s just a perk if it’s there.  Oh, and I’d like a long battery life without the really bulky battery that sticks out.  I like the angle it puts my keyboard at, but I don’t like how it doesn’t fit well into things.  Plus it’s suuuper heavy, so a lighter computer would be nice.  And that just about sums it up!  I’m sure when I start looking at features now in laptops, I’ll find a few more things I’d like to have.

Carpet charge

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , , ,
10 December 2009
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Last week, the battery in my car key was dying and it chose to give out when I needed to unlock my car to get to a lecture.  Though I could open the car manually, it would set off the car alarm time and time again, which did me no good.  I tried to get in and just start my car, but it didn’t work and the engine wouldn’t react.  I called up Panda to try to figure out a solution and eventually decided to go back to my internship to see if the guys there had suggestions (or could possibly take me to a local shop to buy a battery).

I got a screwdriver to open up the casing and at least see what size the battery was.  One of the guys took it and decided he’d try something radical – he started to rub it vigorously on the carpet!  Trying to work on the static electricity generated to create a charge strong enough for it to work for just one more push, he went on for a few seconds, then quickly replaced the battery.  I pressed a button and the red light lit to indicate it was working, so he and the other intern started to yell at me to run to my car to unlock it.  Nervous and anticipatory, I ran out as fast as I could and cautiously pressed it when I felt close enough for it to work.

Miraculously, I heard the double-beeping that indicated my car was unlocked!  What a genius move!  I was really excited about it, since it was such a great application of the physical sciences!  It’s like when you take a potato to power something and it’s a really cool science experiment because it works and it’s so simple too.  In this day and age of technology, it’s great to see that there are still some less high-tech ways of solving problems.  It took a certain creativity to even consider the idea (which was borne of desperation).  As my tagline says, “because inspiration doesn’t wait,” after all.  Crazy, huh?  🙂

Innovation overkill?

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , ,
06 December 2009
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web 2.0These days I’ve just been bombarded with new sites for every imaginable aspect of web 2.0.  Many are overlapping in services, which makes it hard for me to figure out what I should actually try.  As I found a few days ago, I’m actually quite an early adopter, though I never considered myself that before.  I never realized that all the sites I’ve started to use are so new and foreign to most of my friends.  I have discovered that I’ve been using sites that many of them have never heard of and that most of them don’t have accounts on.  When I share them with friends, the ones I like best I often convey in such a way that they want to join too.  This ranges from Baseloop to Google Wave to Swagbucks.  There are so many choices out there that I don’t know what to use anymore.

facebook logoflickr logopicasa logoLet’s take sharing pictures, for example.  There’s Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, and many more that focus more on printing photos.  Facebook is useful because you can tag your friends and use the existing social network to share your photos.  Flickr is good to share your stuff with the world and make your pictures show up on image searches.  Picasa has a fun face recognition algorithm that allows you to have people pre-tagged whenever you upload new pictures.  Those people are also linked to your Google contacts, so if you already use one of the other Google services (Gmail, Voice, Wave), you can use existing contacts to tag, much like Facebook.  So when you want to share pictures, where do you go?!

google wave logoNow let’s say you want to plan an event.  Facebook comes in as a contender once again, as does Google with its new Wave.  Then there’s the up-and-coming Baseloop fully intended to cater to this need.  For Facebook, the edge in this area is once again the existing network you have on there.  Most of my friends are on there and I can easily invite them (or one of my groups) to an event I create.  Wave’s biggest setback at the moment is the lack of people using it.  I’ve finally got more than 5 people on there, but it’s still a long ways to be able to invite all of my friends to something through Wave.  I do like how you can embed a map of the location, include the weather for that day, and other nifty features that would be useful.  baseloopFinally, Baseloop caters to both events for your friends and more public events.  What I like best about them is they allow you to suggest things to do and they show you a public calendar of events going on in your area.  That way, if you’ve wanted to do something but could never seem to find the people to do it with, you can put it out there for all your friends (and even random people) to see.  Much easier than e-mailing or messaging all my friends just to see if they’re interested in a particular activity.  You can also quickly see what things there might be to do on a Saturday night when you’re bored and want to go have some fun.  But of course, few people are on it now, so when I invite friends, they’d need to set up an account.  So which of these is best for event-planning?

Similar issues arise for just choosing a social network.  There’s Facebook, Baseloop, Plaxo, Brazen Careerist, Ning, MySpace, Hi5…  Then for blogging or micro-blogging there’s WordPress, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, Livejournal, Xanga, Plurk…  Even video posting and interaction has a wide selection with YouTube, Vimeo, Tokbox, Stroome, Nurphy…  Plus search engines, like Google, Yahoo, Bing (ok technically a “decision engine,” but you get the idea), Ask, Swagbucks, Goodsearch…  Let’s not even get into the online shopping sites, mapping and direction sites, online game sites, dating sites, etc.!

Aaaah!  It’s overwhelming and there are still more sites like this popping up ALL THE TIME.  I suppose that’s what happens when it’s relatively easy for people to start online businesses.  You have little startup cost beyond the website itself and whatever you need to do to create and maintain it.  The only physical stuff you really need is computers and computing power.  Beyond that, it’s all your programming skills, creativity, and customer service put to the test.

Expertise

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , ,
03 December 2009
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So many of the things I want to do require me to be an expert in my field first.  But see, the problem is, I’m not an expert in any field!  Unfortunately, what I’m interested in (mostly administrative stuff and management) require little education.  Instead, they require a certain way of thinking and behaving that nearly any intelligent person can be trained for and/or develop over the course of years of experience.  I can’t say that I’m a scientist or engineer who later wants to go the management track.  At least that way my skill sets are more tangible initially and the degree I earn, a bit more meaningful.  Instead, I learned two useful majors that will be good for me in the business area, but I don’t want to pursue either of them the way they’re meant to be.

What I’m good at doesn’t really need technical skills that can only be learned from tertiary education and lots of people can pick it up or be trained for it.  I also have broad enough interests and experience that there’s no “one thing” that I’ve concentrated on.  That means that it’s much more difficult to focus one on aspect of what I enjoy and work to make myself an expert in that field.  It also means I lose out on a lot of job opportunities to people who have had 3-5 years work experience already.  I guess it’s a testament to how people are willing to work entry-level jobs for longer now because there’s nowhere up for them to go.  The rest of my skills aren’t deep enough to make a career out of – like my passion for technology.  I am a self-taught programmer, which means I can get by with HTML and some CSS.  PHP still confuses me and forget about the rest.  I know enough to be tech-savvy, but not enough to work for a highly technical company like many of the start-ups these days!

The good thing is that one of my interests is social media and there’s not yet a degree centered around that, so any experience is more personal than professional.  My networks in the sites that I’m active on are respectably large and enough for people to see that I have put a lot of time and effort into them.  Additionally, I got a chance to explore those interests while in Singapore as I worked on a social media plan for the company there.  Much of it wasn’t ready to be implemented yet, but at least I had the thought process completed and a plan ready to implement.  I’m now getting some social media managing experience at my current internship, so perhaps that’s the way to go.  The problem with that field is that because there is a lower barrier of entry, competition is high!  So many people want to go into this area because it’s something they can do without a college degree or certification or something.

So here I am with a dilemma… which interests do I focus on and develop into a noticeable strength?  Which ones do I maintain as hobbies and leisurely pastimes instead?  I suppose that will be partially determined by the job I can eventually land!  I got a second wave of enthusiasm after looking at some more opportunities and there are a few jobs I’ll be applying for in the coming weeks that I’m really excited about.  I just hope I can get one of them!  I think things will probably slow down this month as people start to mentally check out for the holidays and stop working so hard in the time leading up to the break.  I’m still hopeful to line up something for early next year though.  Fingers crossed!

Windows 7 was my idea

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , , ,
19 November 2009
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windows 7 proMicrosoft has been working really hard to promote their newest operating system with their “Windows 7 was my idea” campaign.  Though I think they’re trying too hard to some extent, I think their efforts are catchy enough to be interesting.  In fact, that phrase really does hit on how many people must feel about the product.  No doubt plenty of people look at the new features and think, “I totally thought of that!”  And indeed, the combined wisdom of Windows users is something not to be overlooked.  Certainly their suggestions were instrumental in the changes made for Windows 7.

I just got Windows 7 installed on my computer last night, thanks to Doc, who trekked out to Panda’s place to help me out.  Opti kindly allowed us to use two of her CD/DVD-Rs so I could boot the new operating system from an external source.  Thank goodness we had two, since the first disc Doc burned didn’t work!  After many hours waiting for my computer to do its thing and process whatever it needed to, I was finally able to boot with my brand new system.  Gotta love that Panda’s an engineer who gets access to a free version of Windows 7 Professional, courtesy UCLA.

window 7 was my ideaNow that I’ve been using it for a couple of hours and have viewed the tutorial videos, I’m getting a good handle on its new features.  One of my favorites is the rotating backgrounds, which makes so much more exciting.  I’ve set my desktop background to change every 10 minutes, just to keep things fresh.  It’s also so much nicer to scroll your mouse over things and get previews popping up before you commit to clicking.  I kind of miss the long task bar buttons that would have the icon and first couple of words for each program you had open, but I’m getting used to remembering what each icon stands for (and I could always revert back to what I’m used to if it gets too confusing).  Another thing is that the quick launch icons are gone and now any of the programs can be “pinned” to your task bar quickly and easily.  They basically took the quick launch and made it the task bar, but also allow you to open up the open windows of a program using the same icon you use to open up the program in the first place.  If that makes any sense.

One of the things I remember hearing about before the release of Windows 7 is the “clicking” into place.  Whenever you drag a window to the left or right side of the screen and your mouse hits the edge of the screen, the window automatically resizes to fit the corresponding half of the screen.  Saves me the work of resizing windows that they take up about half the screen whenever I want to see the contents of two windows at the same time.  I think that’s a key feature that makes everyone exclaim, “I’ve wanted that forever!”  They’re also much better with docking windows to the edges of your screen so you don’t have to approximate anymore.

Check out the cute little hummingbird!

Check out the cute little hummingbird!

The new library feature is something that will take some getting used to, since it’s another way of organizing things.  From what I gather, it will be very useful because it allows you to group folders together without actually moving them into the same parent folder together.  That way, you can access certain files across all of your documents, pictures, or videos and easily search within these libraries that you create and define.  The preset ones are pretty intuitive too: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos.  Sometimes I have videos that are actually in folders within my Pictures folder, so having a Video Library makes it easier to find the videos I’m looking for without having to search all over the place.  Another thing is, I can add an external hard drive folder to the library so that when it’s connected, the library will access the files in my other hard drive as well.  Nice!

Seems like Microsoft is making a nice step towards better usability and functionality.  I don’t believe that the Mac commercial poking fun at Microsoft is true at all.  Sure, there may have been some empty promises in previous operating systems, but I never felt they were that bad.  And even if they were, Windows 7 is truly a huge improvement.  Besides, I don’t respect Apple for making a series of commercials where they just ridicule their competitor.  Whether or not what they say is true, it’s unsportsmanlike to say it at all.  If they are really that great, then they’d be just fine touting their strengths without stomping all over Windows.  Yet another reason why I’m not a Mac person.  But anyway, like I was saying, I think Microsoft’s done well with this new operating system and the corresponding marketing campaign.

Computer, charge my batteries!

laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: , ,
15 November 2009
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usb batteries charging in computer ports

And so my computer does, giving them the juice they need.

pair of rechareable usb batteries

I got these lovely things at Best Buy from the RewardZone. 🙂

When I first heard of rechargeable batteries that can just be plugged into a USB port, I was concerned the the width of the USB port was juuust too big for the AA batteries, but alas, it’s a perfect fit!  I wonder if they designed them to work together like that or if it was just a happy coincidence.

iFiddle

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , , , ,
12 November 2009
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Whoa, I can't believe they've actually branded this!

Whoa, I can't believe they've actually branded this!

About a year and a half ago, when I was living my final year on campus, I had a spectacular roommate who was an amazing musician (among many other things).  I had written a little post-it to myself that I stuck on my desk and one of our friends came in and read it: “I fiddle.”  Somehow, from there, Ms. Mariachi got the impression that there was a new product on the market called an iFiddle (must be her musical background).  The friend and I then proceeded to tell her this story:

Apple is coming out with a new product modeled after a real fiddle, which you can hold just like one, but instead of having strings, it has sensors that recognize when your bow and fingers are on it.  It can then play notes just like you would normally, but the great thing is you can connect your iFiddle to your computer and play background music to accompany your notes, or choose to have them transcribed into a composition as you play!  They’re coming out with a whole line of other instruments you can play with it as well, so you can get really creative with the pieces you compose.  You can also hook it up to your iPod to play back pieces you were working on, or use a song you have on there as the accompaniment for your work.  Then through iTunes, you can edit your compositions and share them as new songs…

We had this whole elaborate story going, both of us building off the other’s inventive descriptions until we got to a point where we just couldn’t contain ourselves anymore.  We burst into hysterical laughter that Mariachi had completely fallen for our ruse, which was neither planned nor rehearsed.  In fact, it was completely spontaneous and neither of us had a clue as to where it was going as we spoke!  That’s the beauty of improv!  And all the better that she believed us through and through, and was excited that such a product was coming out.  Just gotta love the random moments you have with your friends.  I just wish I could remember more of the fabulous details we were able to think up on the fly so that you could truly appreciate our brilliance that night.  😉

Broken and fragile

laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: ,
02 November 2009
1

Not very durable, are they?

At one point it started to sizzle. Not good.

At one point it started to sizzle. Not good.

The metal tip just snapped.

The metal tip just snapped.

I am now on my third charger for the same laptop!  Yikes.

Ultimately (in professional terms)

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , , ,
01 November 2009
0

In the struggle to find a job to even begin a career with, I’ve had quite a lot of time to think of where I want to go in my professional life.  I’ve known for a long time that I want to start my own company (or maybe even many).  In fact, I’m going to say I will start my own company.  I just haven’t quite settled on what it will be yet, though I’ve been thinking eco-consulting for awhile now.  But I’ve realized that that is not what I want to do ultimately.  It’s a milestone that I will cross at some point, however well or poorly it goes.  But ultimately?  I’d like to be an angel investor, making sure the solutions I see in life are executed.

Of course that means that I will need to somehow become super rich first.  When I told Ninja that what I really want is to be really rich, he was like, “Duh, don’t we all?”  When I went on to explain why, however, he understood that I wasn’t making just a shallow comment.  I want to make a difference in this world and there are so many places I can see myself doing that, if only I had the money!  I would really just love to spend my time thinking of solutions to problems I see and then finding the best people to execute them.  I’d set them up with the resources they need and give them whatever guidance necessary to get them on their way.  From there, I’d hope they’d be able to take over and run a profitable and socially-conscious enterprise.  If I could do this, then I’d start a company like Mary Qin, Inc., to be a holding company for all those little niche companies I could create.

I’d go about getting a sensible public transportation system, sharing riding system, or something set up for the Los Angeles area to ease the traffic and pollution problems.  I’d get an electronic receipt system going so we stop wasting paper on receipts that most people are unlikely to look at and most will just lose anyway.  I’d also get that system linked to our credit cards so that whenever we check our bills, we can see the receipt associated with each charge.  No more hunting through piles of paper!  I could finally get a vocational school for athletes going both here and in the UK, so we could cultivate athletes who are ready for all stages of life.  Then I could set up a research think tank where people can submit ideas for researchers to carry out.  I guess Google’s kind of already doing this, but it would be free for people to send in ideas and no guarantee on if their submission is chosen (whereas Google’s is contracted).  Really I’d love to tackle my “hopelist” and parts of my “ideaslist.”

So here’s to getting a job, being extremely profitable, then setting up a foundation or something to implement the solutions I so dearly want to see.

Business sense

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , ,
03 October 2009
0

Just a quick thought for today.

As I mentioned before, I’m waiting for my invitation to Google Wave (yeah, apparently it takes way more than one day to process).  Now I wrote about it naught but two days ago because it’s putting together some great features, but over the past 24 hours, that excitement and interest has dwindled to disappointment.

Here’s the thing: you make a great product, you make it exclusive to up the value and hype, then you need to make it actually useful for people!  The success of Google Wave depends solely on people’s desire and ability to collaborate creatively in many ways in a virtually live sense.  There’s plenty of that out there, but then when you put on the restraints like invite-only access, you’ve got to be careful with how that works.  In this particular case, the very thing creating the hubbub over who has it and who doesn’t is also turning around to hurt Google.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand why the invite-only way of spreading access is a great idea.  It worked well with Gmail, but only because you can use that account to e-mail any other e-mail address.  That way, people who don’t have it could see that you have it (a bit of a status thing at first) and you can still use the functionality on your end to organize messages and whatnot while not getting a disruption in your service.  But imagine if you got a Gmail account back when it was fresh and new and you were only allowed to e-mail other people with Gmail accounts.  It kind of kills the buzz, doesn’t it?  Well, that’s kind of what’s happening with Google Wave right now.

Early adopters were looking forward to trying out all the functions of this new application (or whatever you want to call it).  However, they’re stuck waiting around for days, maybe even weeks, just to be able to share it with their friends.  With all that Google can do, they can’t even create a system of approving invitations within the hour (or at least the day)?  I’m sure they have their reasons, but I don’t know if they can outweigh the loss of momentum between the initial burst of excitement surrounding getting invited and the follow-up burst of excitement when the invitation arrives and an account can be set up.  I imagine it would be like showing up to an exclusive event that you managed to get invited to only to be forced to wait in the lobby for hours.  Once I do get the full access I was looking forward to getting, I’ll be less enthusiastic about it from the impatience that built up during my wait.

To me it’s ironic that they’re handicapping the system by not giving it its lifeblood: connectivity.  I definitely think things are working against them in terms of the viral spread that is possible.  Wave’s growth is stunted by the fact that great, 100,000 people have it to test out now, but a good portion of them don’t really have anyone to use it with!  I know I’ve got some friends who have had it for a few days and don’t really get to use it creatively because all the people they invited still haven’t received the activation link.  Instead they’re sitting around waiting with us as well.  It’s a pity, really.

And though I’ve resolved myself to waiting probably another week before I can really try it out, I still hope that I get my code soon and keep checking my inbox, despite knowing deep down that I more than likely won’t get it in time to test it out before things pick up again and I have less time to spare.  I hope it’ll actually be impressive enough to reignite my interest once I do get started with it.  Otherwise, this whole delayed invitation process really was a bad business move on Google’s part.

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