2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake.

remember this day -- 26-Dec.-2004. tsunamis flooded coastlines between 15 minutes and 10 hours after the 2004 indian ocean earthquake, and killed 80,000 ppls (til 30-Dec-2004).

Another social network for sharing photos

Again, there r so many social networks that make u boring. After months of life in the cyber-social world, many ppls may wonder what practical benefits can they bring. Here, at least, I suggest Flickr to u for photo sharing. I like so much that it is integrated with blogger seamlessly.
Ludicorp's Flickr, which could become a hot site, also has a function: sharing photos. It started with the basic idea: "What if we put live chat together with social networks and enabled people to share media with one another in real time?" Although this is already possible using instant messaging software and groupware sites such as Google Groups and Yahoo Groups, Flickr makes it far easier: the photos you want to share are in a "shoebox" along the bottom of the screen, and you send one by dropping the picture on a buddy's name.
Sharing photos online is likely to become more popular as more people buy digital cameras, and as cameras are built in to most mobile phones. Ludicorp's Eric Costello says the plan is to have photos uploaded automatically: We hope to have "watched folders", so if you drop a photo into a folder it will just show up in your shoebox. Also, we hope to integrate it with other photo sites, such as Ofoto, so you could pull in photos from there, or push photos there so you can have prints made of them."
A system that can be used to share photos can ultimately be adapted to share all sorts of things, and Flickr could obviously go much further. Ludicorp's Vancouver-based founder and president, Stewart Butterfield, says they're trying to build a system that supports relationships that transcend particular applications - instant messaging, email, Orkut etc.
For more information, check out flickr.com or the article introducing the above info.

"KOI" - Japanese Ornamental Carp

"KOI" - Japanese Ornamental Carp
Originally uploaded by li-zhao.

koi (锦鲤; shortened from Japanese nishikigoi) are ornamental domesticated varieties of the common carp Cyprinus carpio.

s'pore develop its own farm model and s'porean visit farm just like visiting park.
last week, we visited singapore farmart. the pic is KOI in the mart, does it beautiful?

如何给BLOGGER加日历功能， a chinese version of how to add calendar in blogger

petersky说华人还有不鸟英文的， 那么用华文说也许可以帮多一些人， 这就是这个华文版的BLOGGER小帖士在这里的原因了.
我们知道BLOGGER不象LIVEJOURNAL什么的限制那么多， 基本可以配置一切可以想到的东西， 可是一个大问题是， BLOGGER竟然没有提供别家都有的日历功能， 其实给BLOGGER加一个日历（BLOGLENDAR)也很简单，我们只要做以下几步（当然首先要感谢一下MING HONG NG还有phil ringnalda， 他们基本把要做的都做了）：
1、下载这个.tar.gz档， 解开共3个文件， 上载到你自己的主页上去。 我们假设你主页URL是http://zzz.com/, 这个三个文件的URL是http://zzz.com/bloglendar.js, http://zzz.com/bloglendar.css, http://zzz.com/bloglendar-main.js
2、 BLOGGER TEMPLATE大家应该都知道了咯，不多介绍，如果不了解， 推荐看一下这里。 好了， 第二步就是在你的TEMPLATE的head里面加入下面几行:
      <script type='text/javascript' charset='<$BlogEncoding$>' src='http://zzz.com/bloglendar.js'>
      </script> <script type='text/javascript' charset='<$BlogEncoding$>' src='http://zzz.com/bloglendar-main.js'>
      </script> <link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='http://zzz.com/bloglendar.css' />
3、第三步也许是最重要的一步了， 先解释一下BLOGGER TEMPLATE的一个小东西
a、 在TEMPLATE里面，大家应该可以找到这个一段（可能有点不同，慢慢找吧）：
      <BlogDateHeader>
       <h2 class="date-header"><$BlogDateHeaderDate$></h2>
      </BlogDateHeader>"
b、好了， 如果你的TEMPLATE有这几句，那么你如果你12月25日有一个POST，在HTML SOURCES里面，这个POST的日期就应该是这个样子：
<h2 class="date-header">december 25, 2004</h2><br/>
BLOGLENDAR所做的呢，就是把BLOGGER页面里上面这句找出来， 然后画一个日历， 然后把12.25给加亮显示出来。 问题是BLOGLENDAR的最早版本作者大概使用的template大概我们的不太一样（其实不是了，呵呵，不过这么比较好理解）， 所以， 我们要做的第三步就是改改自己的TEMPLATE了, 把
<h2 class="date-header"><$BlogDateHeaderDate$></h2>改成<div class='blogDate' title='<$BlogDateHeaderDate$>'></div>就OK了。
4、在你想方日历的地方加入下面这句话：

<span id="bloglendar"><!-- Bloglendar here --></span>

How to read them?

Always forget how to read them (the alphabet of greek letters, math symbols, etc), record here as reference:

α α Α β β Β γ γ Γ δ δ Δ ε ε Ε ζ ζ Ζ η η Η θ θ Θ ι ι Ι κ κ Κ λ λ Λ μ μ Μ ν ν Ν ο ο Ο ξ ξ Ξ π π Π ρ ρ Ρ σ σ Σ ς ς τ τ Τ υ υ Υ χ χ Χ ψ ψ Ψ φ φ Φ ω ω Ω ϑ ϑ ϒ ϒ ϖ ϖ

´ ´ ¸ ¸ ˆ ˆ ¯ ¯ ˜ ˜ ¨ ¨ ∧ ∧ ∠ ∠ ≈ ≈ „ „ • • ∩ ∩ ♣ ♣ ∪ ∪ † † ‡ ‡ ↓ ↓ ♦ ♦ ≡ ≡ € € ∃ ∃ ƒ ƒ ∀ ∀ ⁄ ⁄ ≥ ≥ > > ↔ ↔

&harr; ↔ &hArr; ⇔ &hearts; ♥ &hellip; … &infin; ∞ &int; ∫ &isin; ∈ &larr; ← &le; ≤ &loz; ◊ &laquo; « &ldquo; “ &lsaquo; ‹ &lsquo; ‘ &lt; < &mdash; — &micro; µ &middot; · &minus; − &nabla; ∇ &ndash; – &ne; ≠ &ni; ∋ &oline; ‾ &oplus; ⊕ &or; ∨ &part; ∂ &permil; ‰

KDE will talk to u!!

We know M$ has provided voice synthesis API for years. Many applications are built based on it. Although there r also many such kind of APIs on linux, they r relative difficult to install and config. Now, the good news is KDE will integrate Text-to-Speech (ktts) in its next important version -- KDE 4.
Another good news for linux is openoffice seems will announce its 2.0 soon, with access-like DBMS and better M$ compatible capability.

Tips about shutdowning debian

It's easy to active shutdown option is kde logout menu, just use kdm as login manager and allow shutdown by normal users. Of cz, firstly, normal users must be capable to shutdown. unfortunately, it isn't default setting for debian.
I understand it's stupid for a server administrator to allow normal users to shutdown. But for desktop users, only be allowed to return to gdm or sudo everytime to shutdown is a stupid idea. To allow a normal user to shutdown, follow the following instruction:
Q: How do you give permission to shutdown(8) the machine to regular users?
Without patching the shutdown code to either link it to libpam or check your UID/GID, there are 2 simple ways.
Option 1: SUID ROOT
On debian, a distro which hates setuid root anything, /sbin/shutdown's default permissions are -rwxr-xr-x. If we make it setuid root
$ chmod u+s /sbin/shutdown (giving -rwsr-xr-x)
anyone and everyone can run /sbin/shutdown, and it will run as root. So everyone can shutdown the machine (ouch).
If we only want users from a special group to be able to execute it, we can just make it only executable by the owner and group
$ chmod g-wrx /sbin/shutdown (giving -rwsr-x---)
and then change the group owner to our special group. Debian has an adm group, which seems appropriate. (but we could just create a new shutdown, or wheel group of course).
$ chown root.adm /sbin/shutdown
-rwsr-x--- 1 root adm 16632 2002-05-28 12:27 /sbin/shutdown
So anyone we want to let shutdown the machine, we can just add to the adm group.
$ adduser fred adm
Options 2: sudo
If you use sudo, then
fred ALL=(root) /sbin/shutdown
in your sudoers file would let the user fred run shutdown as root. Without setuid root'ing anything! You can change "fred" for "%adm" or "%shutdown" to indicate a member of that %group.
sudo logs everything and doesn't need you to change any file permissions.
I guess the distro's that do allow anyone to shutdown the machine use setuid root binaries. Not as elegant as sudo, but they both work.
Gav
(ps, based on a conversation with Al)

Wow, blog really in the view of researchers

See, a special issue from Communications of the ACM [ Volume 47 , Issue 12 (December 2004) The Blogospher ]

SPECIAL ISSUE: The blogosphere
	Introduction Andrew Rosenbloom Pages: 30 - 33 Full text available: Html(11 KB),Pdf(56 KB) Additional Information: full citation, abstract, index terms
	Structure and evolution of blogspace Ravi Kumar, Jasmine Novak, Prabhakar Raghavan, Andrew Tomkins Pages: 35 - 39 Full text available: Html(23 KB),Pdf(169 KB) Additional Information: full citation, abstract, references, index terms
	Why we blog Bonnie A. Nardi, Diane J. Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht, Luke Swartz Pages: 41 - 46 Full text available: Html(30 KB),Pdf(135 KB) Additional Information: full citation, abstract, references, index terms
	Semantic blogging and decentralized knowledge management Steve Cayzer Pages: 47 - 52 Full text available: Html(28 KB),Pdf(148 KB) Additional Information: full citation, abstract, references, index terms
	How blogging software reshapes the online community Rebecca Blood Pages: 53 - 55 Full text available: Html(15 KB),Pdf(62 KB) Additional Information: full citation, abstract, references, index terms
	Democracy and filtering Cass R. Sunstein Pages: 57 - 59 Full text available: Html(14 KB),Pdf(56 KB) Additional Information: full citation, abstract, index terms

Feedster New Feature --- customize search results icon about you

What's Feedster? OK. ------
Feedster is a rapidly growing news search engine that provides easy access to relevant and up-to-date information. Mainstream information providers, as well as hundreds of thousands of weblogs, are syndicating their information using a newly popular XML syndication standard called RSS (Really Simple Syndication). By combining professional journalism and individual commentary, Feedster is the first to utilize RSS and weblog content as a new format to enhance traditional news syndication. By filtering millions of specialized and continuously updated data sources...

That's good. Now feedster provides a new features that allow you to customize search results about you. One can claim that a search result is belong to him and then customize the contents returned by feedster: the icon, title, description, etc.
Read More...

Wallop, Hi5 or Orkut

I still remeber when lots of free email services began to appear online, everybody has lots of email accounts they will never check and even remember. Now, when social network services is brought by Google, M$, Hi5, etc., really boring to try them all and discarded some invitation. hehe. OK, anyway, I open a forum to ask/offer invitation from wallop, Gmail, orkut, Hi5, etc. Who are interested plz goto Link, Gmail, Wallop Exchange Place

2004 Phenomenon

You know you're living in 2004 when...
1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.
12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.
13. Every commercial on television! h! ! as a website at the bottom of the screen.
14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.
AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

My Parents' Gold Marriage!!!!!!!!!!

My parents

As a present, a studio taken a set of photos to celebrate my parent's gold marriage. 50 years, it's really a marathon, right? hehe. Enough surprise, found my parents looks just like young people, although my father suffers from five kinds of heart disease and my mother is struggling to get away from threaten of diabetes

My father

mother