Category: Technology

Getting Real

Once in a while, there is a new technology, new program language, new company or new development methodology that rocks the computer / Internet industry. 37signals.com is one of them. They are a company, a technology and a belief.

They develop ground-breaking websites, using new techniques / technologies, from a new point of view. And they wrote a book to evangelise their ideas … it’s called Getting Real. The best part of it is you can read the book online for free as well. Of course, I got the physical book (bought in lulu.com, which worth another blogpost) as I like to read a book, from a book …

There are many good ideas in the book and I think all developers in the world shall read this chapter. Some excerpts here:

If you can’t fit everything in within the time and budget allotted then don’t expand the time and budget. Instead, pull back the scope. … Launching something great that’s a little smaller in scope than planned is better than launching something mediocre and full of holes because you had to hit some magical time, budget, and scope window.

Don’t miss it !!

Goodbye, Father of Fortran

Other than my mother tongue and English, Fortran (Formula Translation) was the third “language” I learnt; and it’s a computer language. A language that changed the world of computing.

It was released back in 1957 by the IBM team led by the Father of Fortran, John W. Backus. He died on Saturday at his home.

Good God it was long time ago … I will miss all the punch card days. Thank you John Backus, may you rest in peace.

From Mii to You

The Nintendo Wii is so popular nowadays that business books and magazines start studying the “Wii phenomena” … like how Nintendo devise its Blue Ocean Strategy, for example:

  • How Wii create uncontested market space,
  • How Wii make the competitor (read PS3) irrelevant, and
  • How Wii create and capture new demand
  • Etc. etc.

But I think one that clearly indicates its popularity is the fact that Mii pictures (you need to create a “Mii” before you play the Wii Sport game) are everywhere, it’s used wildly as blog pictures and forum avatars. In fact, you can create one with a Flash tool, even you don’t have a Wii. Try it.

Site Revamp with Amazon aStore

Really tied of keep updating my other site, 80days.com, with travel content. So I decided to change it to a shopping site with all sorts of travel related goods. Surprisingly, it just took me an hour for a four-pages, three-categories eShopping site. What can I say ? Amazon.com is still king of eCommerce sites with a good business model.

The Wait is Finally Over

Work, work and more work … what a boring weekend ?! There are couple of things that cheer me up though. First, after months of waiting, the Samsung BlackJack is finally shipping here in the city and we should be able to buy it before end of the month. Two things come to my mind immediately, how can I protect the phone properly and how can I use my Shure headphone with it ?

So I surfed to my favorite PDA / Mobile phone jacket manufacturer … Vajacases.com … ah, there is a good one. Done deal … and now for the headphone adapter since Samsung uses a non-standard headphone plug for their phone. Couple of searches and I found this headphone adapter in eBay. It comes with microphone as well. Not bad, not bad.