Author: Michael Yung

Michael possessed over 30 years of experience in Information Technology with focuses on complex application development, database technologies and IT strategy. He also spent the last 20 years in Internet technology, eCommerce development / operations, web usability, computer security and Public Key Infrastructure technologies.

#39

August is a month of Olympic and you probably heard / watched enough stories about this already, so I will not bother you with a long email of the Olympic game details – but what about an ancient Greek myth about Achilles ?

According to Greek mythology (and the story of Troy), Achilles was the son of Thetis and Peleus, the bravest hero in the Trojan war. However, even for such a hero, he got a weak point and it’s called the Achilles’ Heel. (For the brief story of “Achilles’ Heel”, check out here … http://www.wordexplorations.info/Achilles-heel-story.html) The point I want to make in this month’s blog is – what are the team’s Achilles’ Heels ? And what are your Achilles’ Heels ?

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I am sure most of you enjoy traveling around the world and most of you (including me) don’t know why our city is a travel hotspot in the world (I think it is the top travel destination other than Bangkok).

May be we all tired of everything around us, or may be we just don’t care. But do you know there are really many fans in the world that loves our city and our movies, to death ? They even organized tours to here just to visit the movie filming locations …

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/features/hk_trip.htm
http://www.lovehkfilm.com/features/kozo_in_hk_chall_1.htm

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Talk about travel, I spent a week in Hokkaido couple of weeks ago and of course, one of the destinations was the Music Box Factory. If you’ve been there before, you have to admire the Japanese that they can make such small stuff to such a big business. However, couple of non-Japanese Asian (Chinese and Korean) did a great computer music box offline and on the Internet … it is really a great piece of art.

www.playmusicbox.com
(You see, our creativity is one of our Achilles’ Heels)

In the trip, I also finished a book by Dan Brown (who wrote the famous book Da Vinci Code) – Digital Fortress. It is a book about Murders, Spies, Killers, Internet and Public Key Encryption. So if you want to know more about how the ESD technology was used behind a thrilling fiction, check it out.

In addition, if you like to improve your presentation skill, try Speak like Churchill, Stand like Lincoln – it is a superb book.

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Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re probably right. – Henry Ford

#38

In case you want to take a break to do some personal projects, here are my favorite ones – http://www.mini-itx.com/projects.asp. In that web site, you can find how other people turn something unimaginable to a personal computer. After all, logic will get you from A to B – imagination will take you anywhere.

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Or if you are planning to travel around … but don’t have time to do it. What about do it visually … http://ww4.tiki.ne.jp/~mmurakami/setoy/map.html

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It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction. – Pablo Picasso

#37

“Which piano should I buy if I want to play like Mozart? “

The above is one of the quotes I heard in one music instrument shop. Kinda funny, I thought. You know, even if you bought the best and most expensive piano in the market, you still could not play like Mozart. You need some talents but of course, the truth is you need a lot of hard work.

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Everybody is talking about Mainland China is our future, so what can you do about it ? Learning Putonghua or at least learn some Mainland China phrases, I suppose. So one of the best (and biggest) sites to visit is http://www.fane.cn/ (Fan E is “translation”). Within this site you will find a lot of translation of various English terms as well as a huge Translation market portal in China. Very useful and impressive.

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“There are three things that are important at Starbucks. Customer Relationships is the first and the other two don’t matter.” Linda Thompson, Director – Starbuck resource center

#36

Webby Award (the only award that matters, from my p.o.v. …) announced their results this month. Again, check out the winners, they are really brilliant web sites – http://www.webbyawards.com/main/webby_awards/nominees.html.

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Not sure you know about this site or not. I visit this site once in a while to have some good ideas (in design and Photoshop) or just a laugh …

http://www.Worth1000.com

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“I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious” – Albert Einstein

#35

According to the net, 35th anniversary is “Coral” anniversary. So I suppose to celebrate the publishing of this 35th weblog, I shall go back to the Great Barrier Reef again.

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We are no longer designing a new banner, a new web page, a new program, or a new process. We are designing a BUSINESS. It’s our focus and our goal.