T.G.I.F

Saturday! I have a friend whose name is Paul. He travels to 50+ countries in the last 20 years. When I met him, he was a financial consultant contracted with my company. He sits in the cubicle besides me.

He taught me a new word: T.G.I.F. – “Thank God. It’s Friday!”. This should be a very famous term in U.S., but it was my first time to know the word. Very interesting. It is at that time that I know the full name of the famous “Friday” Restaurant is “TGI Friday”

I love Friday. I especially love the night of Friday and the morning of Saturday. The causual nights and sunny mornings are the best time for me to relax and really enjoy my life.

Xujiahui – Night

11:13

We had a long dinner in the Grand Gateway. It is a nice restaurant on the 5th floor of the building featuring mushroom. Very nice place to go.

At night, Xujiahui is a great place to be. I love the buildings along Huahai Road and the architectures of the Band area, but from the food perspective, Xujiahui is uncomparable. There are so many restaurants and bars in this area, which I never realized before. I tried to find somewhere to eat in the other amazing areas, then I find it is harder than in Xujiahui. – very good place!

Update:

Picture of Xujiahui at night.

My Google PageRank Increases to PR5

When I started my website one year ago, I only have www.wangjianshuo.com and some very simple page. I don’t remember the PR value of that site since I didn’t know about this magic word.

Later, I found it is ranked PR4. I love this number very much since most of the sites are PR3 or PR4. Some of them are very large sites.

These days, I found the PR for both of my Personal site and blog site reach PR5.

This is very encouraging news

Why? Since I get listed higher in the result of Google search engine. Sometimes I don’t know why, but my sites are among the top 10 for certain keyword. Sometimes, it even appears as No. 1 site.

Interesting results

Net send spam” – it returns my blog entry of “Net Send” – Yet Another Type of Spam as the top result record – sometimes as the second one.

Pu Dong Airport” – the first three entries comes from my site.

Hai Nan” – also brings a lot of visitors.

It is interesting.

Why this will happen

I believe it is due to two factors:

  1. My friends are linking to me. Raymond, Christina, cnblog.org and Patrick‘s site helped to increase my PageRank. Thanks. I will link back in a special section.
  2. Two sites interlinking each other. I didn’t realized it before but I found home.wangjianshuo.com provides 80+ links to www.wangjianshuo.com and receives 100+ links from it. This may also cause the upgrade of PageRank for both sites.

More on PageRank

Google’s got a secret all want to know

Updated Find out PageRank of your site December 29, 2003

The easiest way is to download Google Toolbar. After you install the toolbar, visit your website and your PageRank will be displayed as a small green bar on the toolbar. Move your mouse over the small green bar (marked as PageRank) and the numeric value (0-10) will be displayed as tool tip.

May God Bless Us

Note: All sites linked in this entry are Chinese sites

I helped caca to add photos to her article. Click here to view.

Meanwhile, I reviewed some hot discussions on Lin’s article Daocheng – To my husband. Millions of people read this article and thousands of them commented on this article in different forums. Here are some sample lists.

Replies on Hinomad. Three pages.

Replies on Free2go. More than 10 pages.

Replies on Finet. One page.

Replies on Netease. One page.

Replies on Sina.com. One page.

May God bless Lin.

May God bless everyone.

See also

My Wireless Dream

I am a very keen fan of wireless stuff since I was very young.

Radio

At the age of 10, I was very interested in power-less radio. It is actually the combination of some diodes, long antenna, and a high resistance ear-phone. After piles of circuit diagrams and some prototype, I failed at last for lack of tools and component. But the dream is so sweat and lasting.

Remote Controller

I am interested in remote controller too. I tried to create some remote controller when I have the resource – to control a car or a boat, or even model plane is a wonderful idea. Everything seems magic when I was young.

After we bought a new TV set, the most amazing feature is the IR-remote controller. It is the best toy I had at that time. This seems silly now but for me, I enjoyed the feeling of wireless control very much.

Walkie, Talkie

The week before last week, I bought a set of Walkie-talkie in Seattle. This is the toy I have dreamed when I was a child. Actually, I don’t need it that much now, but I still buy it since I didn’t have money to get one when I was young. This is the end of my dream.

Wireless network

I didn’t plan for a wireless home network before I went to Seattle. The reason I didn’t plan is, the prices for an Access Point and Wireless card are too expensive in China. After I arrive in Seattle, I was impressed by the wireless network on Microsoft campus. The ports on the wall are useless. Everyone are receiving and sending email during the meeting on their laptop computer. When the meeting is over, the meeting minutes is already delivered to everyone’s inbox.

At the same time, I found there is a new model of Wireless Notebook Adaptor – NW-520. It only sells at price of $60 in Microsoft company store. I got one and brought it back. I didn’t got the Microsoft Base Station (NW-500) since it is out of stock.

Begin to setup my home WLAN

I am going to setup the experimental home WLAN tomorrow. I have borrowed an AP from my friend Qing. It didn’t work today. I will try to find out the reason tomorrow. Hopefully, I can create my blog of tomorrow via wireless connection.

Photo credit: Microsoft Coporation

Old Friends Get-Togather

Yesterday, lots of my friends gathered together in Shanghai. We have been friends since our primary school ages and have been together for more than 15 years. Imagine it! 15 years’s friendship.

Those who attended the get-together include:

Jingpingf

Xuchenh

Lijiex

Xings

Wenfengf

Chenw

Jian Shuo Wang

(Per Raymond’s suggestion, I am using only the first name plus the initial letter of the last name to mention anyone I am not 100% whether they’d like to be mentioned in real name throughout my blog)

Install Perl on Windows XP

I extracted this part from my previous article MovableType Successfully Installed on Windows XP. From my log file, I found lots of my visitors came to my site with search keyword “Install Pearl on Windows XP“.

Install Perl on Windows XP

  1. Download ActivePerl for Windows XP from ActiveState. At the time I downloaed, the version was ActivePerl 5.6.1 build 633.
  2. After registering my user information, I choosed WIndows MSI package, which is 8.31M in size.
  3. It took me about 2 minutes and 51 seconds to download – thanks to the broadband provider – China Great Wall Broadband Corp[Chinese site]. I haven’t dreamed of downloading files larger than 5M in 10 minutes before.
  4. Install the MSI package. There is no any problem during the installation. I accepted all the defaul settings expect changing the default location from c:\Perl to c:\Program Files\Perl. I believe it is always good to follow the Windows convension instead of seeking for a place in root directory of C:\. This makes the disk hard to manage. Update: I am changing my mind recently. “C:\Program Files” folder is special in terms of Read-only settings and security permissions. Moving programs from their original location to this folder may bring unneccessary trouble if the program has never been tested in this environment.

Configure IIS for Perl and perl script with .CGI extension to work

  • I know it is wired for more green hand to have CGI run on Windows computer. At this time, if anyone access https://home.wangjianshuo.com/mt/mt.cgi, it will prompt to download the file instead of see the result. I configured IIS to recognize .CGI extension just as it recognize .ASP or .SHTML.
  • In Inetmgr.exe, right click MT folder and select Properties. Click Create button in Application Settings area on Directory tab. Click OK to close the dialog box. Now we have created a seperate application.
  • Right click on Web Site node in Inetmgr.exe (the parent note of Default Web Site).
  • Click Add and enter the same parsing program (C:\program files\perl\bin\perl.exe “%s” %s for my case) and enter .cgi to Extension text box. Click OK. Note: The above changes can ONLY be changed on website level, not on applicaiton level, otherwise, the OK button will always be gray in the “Add/Edit Application Mapping” dialog box.
  • Click Configure and check the program to parse .pl files. It is C:\program files\perl\bin\perl.exe “%s” %s for my server.

More resources:

A Car in Shanghai

I have been considering to buy a car in Shanghai for some time, but till now, I believe this is still not feasible.

I enjoys the cars in north Amerian but cannot bear the boring life there. In Shanghai, I love the life but I still want to have a car. It is a problem though since

  1. It is impossible for me to ride a car to work due to the heavy traffic.
  2. The car is too expensive – it is about 120,000 – 200,000 RMB for normal cars and cost more for better one.
  3. The car ID is way too expensive. It costs about 20,000 RMB for the car ID alone.
  4. It is too expensive for parking and oil.

20 more tunnels in Shanghai

Today, I read this piece of news:

Shanghai set to build 20 expressway tunnels by 2010 – NOV 23, 2002

Shanghai is set to have 20 expressway tunnels snaking under the city’s Huangpu River by the year 2010, making it the world leader in the number of underwater tunnels.

It is just amazing. The road infrustracture improves a lot but it is still a bottle neck for Shanghai. I hope the tunnels and more roads will change the situation so I can have a car soon.

Unusual Day

It is not a usual day for me today.

The day starts exactly as previous days:

Step 1: Gett up and rush into the restroom.

Step 2: Wash the face and brush the teeth using the shortest time possible. It usually takes only 5 minutes.

Step 3: Grab my laptop and rush into the elevator

Step 4: Struggle to get into the over-crowded metro train. It is always hard to get in.

Step 5: Waiting in the long line for the elevator and look at the watch frequently

Step 6: Thank God again for not being late…

After get to the office, I found there are some new opportunities and I need to really think hard to determine what is my response. Change in life is always an exciting but risky element, especially the change will cause deep impact. I admit I am person who likes stable and unchanged situation. I’d like to describe it later when there is some result but at least, thinking about change, facing the change, or even looking for change is good katalyst in life.

Flighting back for NET SEND SPAM

I talked about NET SEND SPAM and methods to stop it later. Now it is the time to fight back.

Who sent the spam?

“What is the IP address of the spammer?” You probably eager to know. Well. It is not easy. It is almost impossible to get the IP address of the sender. If you are very technical and want to know more about the details, please read this article first.

Install a firewall

A better way than shutting down the Messenger service is to install a firewall. By install a firewall, you gain the follow benifit.

  1. You eliminate NET SEND SPAM and other kind of attack and virus.
  2. You log the IP address of all attackers so you can take actions to fight back.

There are handful of great personal firewall software available. If you are using Windows XP, you already have a firewall installed. It is called Windows Internet Connection Firewall (a.k.a. ICF). You only need to follow these steps to enabled it.

To enable or disable Internet Connection Firewall

  1. Open Network Connections (Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double–click Network Connections.)
  2. Click the Dial–up, LAN or High–Speed Internet connection that you want to protect, and then, under Network Tasks, click Change settings of this connection.
  3. On the Advanced tab, under Internet Connection Firewall, select one of the following:
    • To enable Internet Connection Firewall (ICF), select

      the Protect my computer and network by limiting or preventing access to

      this computer from the Internet check box.

    • To disable Internet Connection Firewall, clear the Protect my computer and network by limiting or preventing access to this computer from the Internet check box. This disables the firewall, your computer and network are then vulnerable to intrusions.

Source: Use the Internet Connection Firewall to Secure Your Small Network

Enable Firewall logging

This is a good article on how to enable firewall logging. After you enable the logging, you keep the record of all attack to your server.

Analysis the report

On of the easy way is to utilize myNetWatchMan. Follow the steps to register and download an agent. The agent will check the log file on your computer and send the attack information to the server. After aggregating all the report from many agents (about 5000+ currently), it will send abuse compliane to the network owner, thus prevent futher spam.

You can also check for yourselves. Here is an sample from my personal firewall log:

2002-11-08 21:38:25 DROP UDP 195.252.113.35 211.161.107.5 1026 137 78 - - - - - - -

If you find a lot DROP lines from a source while it indicates port is UDP 137, it seems like a spam.

Use this command in Command line (replace the IP address with the IP you saw in your log file

NBTSTAT -a 195.252.113.35

You will get return like this:

Local Area Connection:

Node IpAddress: [157.60.112.235] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

Name Type Status

===========================================

SPAM-01 <00> UNIQUE Registered

SPAM <00> GROUP Registered

SPAM-01 <20> UNIQUE Registered

SPAM <1E> GROUP Registered

MAC Address = 00-10-A4-BB-E2-C3

Note the last line: it is the MAC address of the spammer. MAC address is the serial number of a Network Interface card. It is burnt into the chip and cannot be changed. Unfortunately, there is no reliable way to narrow down to certain geographic location from IP address. But by know the MAC address, it is very solid evidence that the package is sent out from the computer of the MAC address owner.

We need more

The topic of NET SEND SPAM never stops. I will fine tune this article and replace some general concept to some resources and steps. I believe we need to unite to fight back to NET SEND SPAM.

Shanghai Taxi Driver’s Life Tougher

11:03

After 7:00 PM, I took taxi home. This is a very very early time for me to go home. Typically, I will stay in office till 10:00 PM everyday. Since I just returned from the long trip, I think it is a good idea to get off work earlier and go back home to rest.

I took a yellow Qiangshen Taxi at Xujiahui. There are so many people rushing back home. Since it is the communication hub, 10+ bus stops stand there, side by side. Busy buses and interlacing each other and push hard to get their ways.

I managed to get the taxi and told him where I live. He give a very quick left turn from the right-most lane to the left lane, crossing the three lanes in the middle. Other bus are beeping and the drivers are yelling, but my driver seems very happy that he has made them angry.

Two minutes later, I began to chat with this driver.

Me: How do you do recently?

Driver: Bad. There is no business today.

M: Don’t worry. It will be better

D: It has became worse in the recent year.

M: Why? More and more people are taking taxi recently. About half of my friends taking taxi back home after work everyday

D: It is true. But…

M: But what?

D: Three years ago, there are less taxi. Most importantly, if they take taxi, they pay average of 30-40 RMB. But now, I can get only 10-15 RMB per customer.

M: Why?

D: There is only one sub way line and when people want to go across the city, like from Xuhui to Yangpu, they will take taxi. However, after the line #2 and the light-rail line #3 were completed, people like to take them for long way. They take taxi only when they get off at a metro station and take the bus home.

M: This is exactly what my friends are doing.

D: But the time for a 10 RMB customer and for a customer pays 30 RMB are almost the same. So my income is lowered.

I don’t know whether it is good trends or not. When the life in the city is more and more convinient, the life for taxi driver is worse – if what he said is true.

See also

Two Tall Buildings Outside my Window

Grand Gateway to become taller

With two 54-storey office buildings to set up in each side of the Grand Gateway,the symbol shopping mall in Xujiahui after two years,the commercial center of Xujiahui area will be upgraded into a business trade circle,the Jiefang Daily reported today.

This building will stand outside the window of my office. It will also be seen from the the north rooms of my new house.

This is Shanghai

Shanghai has been hot in media. It is a amazing place now. Just give you some numbers about the construction.

  • 105 metro stations is under construction in the same time.
  • The recent metro line under connection(EXtension of line #3) intersects with 7
  • other metro lines under the ground.
  • 20 years ago, there is no way to cross the Huang Pu river, but now there is already
  • 4 bridges and one turnel.
  • Currently, the fifth bridge is almost complete and three more turnal is under construction.

However, it is still far behind

Although the trends are very positive in Shanghai, it still has a very long way to go in terms of the software of the city. By software, I mean something beyond infrustructure. It may be services, people’s manner, or people’s mind… Check this article. I hate to say this, but part of what he described is true, regarding the smoke and the manners.

Art? Art!

I don’t like art – actually, I like art but cannot understand it. I am always puzzled when I am left before a painting or anything that is created by an artist. That is bad.

But it seems changed. Tonight I took some very good photos that give me the feeling that it is a piece of artwork. Why? Since it gives me the same feeling as others – I cannot understand, but looks like artistic.

Take a look at this, what it is?

I name it “Red! Red! Red!”

Another one:

Don’t call it “Blue! Blue! Bule!”. I need a name for this one. Do you have any suggestions?

This should definitively called as DNA.

What is this then?

I actually using the digital camera and set the shuttle speed to about 8 second. Thus I capture the lights in the dark that I can never see with our own eyes. They are beautiful, aren’t they? The last picture is taken using the Neg. Art function, which reverse the color.

Also on today

  • Raymond invited to be an co-writer for his Tiger Cafe. It is a pleasant surprise. I accepted the invition quickly.

Is English Skill That Important

Recently, an exteremly hot discussion on whether English skills is that important on Sina.com.cn is brought to my attention. The original title is “Does English skills determine your fate?” The title sounds astonishing, doesn’t it?

It seems from the result of the vote, more people (50% vs 20%) agree with statement. While on the discussion board (Chinese site), most of participations complained about English’s aggression to Chinese’s territory.

I am also confused

I am also confused about this for a very long time. English has been successfully deployed to many countries as an international language. I write in English everyday and sometimes speak English. I see so many people struggling to learn and improve English – including me. Yes. I am very confused about what English really means to everyone.

Do we need mandarin, or Pu Tong Hua?

Let’s take a look of the mandarin in China. Lots of my friends and I grew up in Luoyang and can only speak mandarin. We has lost the ability to speak the Hennan dialect, which has existed and been inherited for more than 1000 years. Mandarin is a great threat to the local language. It is good on the other hand, that no matter where I travel in China, there is no language difficulties – it is the official and most popular language.

Surprisingly, I visited Tibetan area last month. The guide there can also speak fluent mandarin. This helped me a lot. However, I cannot communicate with the groom. This was quite bad. Many reports complain that the government is stealing the Tibet from the Tibet people by stealing their language. It can be true in some terms. It is not a matter of the government is stealing or not, it is just a matter of fact.

Not only my home or Tibet, every city, every town and every village is facing the same problem. Maybe only Beijing and some Northeast province can survive. So my question is, should I insist to speak the local dialect?

However, I also have friends who cannot speak mandarin. When they visit me in Shanghai, he cannot be understood by people there. This has brought him a lot of trouble. It is difficult for him to find a job or to find new friends – the reason is simple, nobody will learn his language just to understand him.

Key learning

From my experience and my friend’s, I learnt that a language is mainly for communication proposes. Sometimes there are major languages that are widely accepted, and the broad acceptance make it easier for people to communicate, it is beneficial to learn it.

How about English

When English is concerned, it is hard. Since the government enforces the adoption of mandarin and it is within the same country, people won’t push back that much. However, if this adoption span across the border of countries, it will hurt the feeling of the people. It is reported that the people and government of France is working every hard to push back the aggression of English to their language.

No English, then what?

Today, I spent my whole day meeting with the representatives from all over the world. We have people come from Europe (UK, France, Finland, Norway, German, etc… ), from Middle East (Israel…), from Africa, Latin America, from Asia (China, India, Korea, Japan….). Of cause, there is lot of people from U.S.

The days session is conducted in English. I am surprised to find the English skills of European countries are very good, so does India. People from Asia tend to perform poorly in presentations. It is sad. This reminded me of the story of my friends. Just like that he cannot communicate with other people in China, we cannot easily communicate with others in the world. Yes. This is sad.

Meanwhile, it is very interesting that when I have meeting with people from Korea and Japan. It is a tough meeting. It is 100% percent sure that we need to speak English. Although I can only understand 30% of what the Japanese says and 70% of what Korean says, it is good enough since I can understand about 0% if they speak their native language.

It turns out when people using different languages meets, they need to find a common language that everyone can speak. English has been in place already. There is no doubt about it.

Certainly, we are not that comfortable to learn, imitate and speak the language that people in other countries are using, we have too learn something. English is the most practical one. My brother once studied the Interlingua (or the International Language) but he abundant at last. Interlingua successfully solves the problem that it does not force anyone to speak the language of the other – it is very equal ?everyone need to learn something that is completely new. But not so many people want to learn. It is a joke now, let alone it is still not fair since it looks like something between English and Spanish.

Not everyone needs English

For my friends and for my groom, if they don’t need to travel, it is definitely unnecessary to learn mandarin. For anyone who don’t need to go outside the country or meet with others come into the country, they don’t need to learn English either. However, without English skills, one does limits the scope he can reach and will lose so many opportunities.

I am still confused, but it is clear that English is important for me

My Most Serious Jet Lag Ever

I am sufering from the most serious jet lag I have ever experienced. I didn’t sleep well on the plane. As you you can, I was so concentrated to take the pictures of the ocean and the island.

I am feeling very tired and sleepy every afternoon. Now after staying here for two days,, the most tired time range moves from afternoon to morning – this indicates my body clock is trying to fit the new schedule and the jet lags becomes better.

The other symptom is anorexia. I am not in the mood to eat any food around the clock. When it combines with the Amerian-style food, it becomes worse – the food here is meat fried with meat.

It is a good sign that I felt hungry tonight. It was raining outside with lightning. I called PizzaHut to deliver the Pizza for us. I did struggle a lot to locate the nearest PizzaHut store. Finally, I had my dinner at around 10:00 PM local time.

I also spent about 10 minutes to create a page on Places to Visit on Microsoft Campus. Take a look at the tour I had on campus.

Autumn in Seattle

I am living in the Homestead Village, the self service inn just beside the

Microsoft campus. It is only one road away (NE 28th St) from building 27. The

house above is seen from the window of my room. It should be the 4th building of

Homestead.

This is the building 26, where Windows Media team now stays. I saw the two big

disks hanging on the window. They are the release signing disk for Windows 2000

Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server. I remember they were hanging in the

lobby of the building before. It is also another most memorable I saw on campus.

It is mid-Nov and the leafs on the maple trees has completely turned burning

red. The campus looks fantastic with all the trees.

Some of the leafs has become light yellow. Look at the leafs. The color are so

pure and I really enjoy the scene there.

The temperature rises a little bit recently. The maple leafs – some are and some

are not – falling to the grass land. The greenish windows are the building 8.

There is nothing to eat and with the serious jet lag, I cannot eat anything. So

I only bought a piece of fried chicken at $5.99 and some orange juice. Bad

lunch, I have to say. It is interesting to see different people treat the same

food differently. The Americans like this kind of food?

Every time I bring a laptop with me, the incompatible plug specification is a

big problem. It is not a problem of voltage. Most laptop converters accept 100 –

240V. I have to go everywhere to find a converter that convert the China plug to

US power outlet. I was wandering near Seals with the shopping cart. Finally, my

conclusions are:

  • Hard to find anything without a car – the online website is a good choice
  • I need to take into account of this and it will safe a lot of time.

Posed before the Windows WHQFest 2002 banner in building 26. I love the printed,

colorful, and simple communication methods like banners, posters, and t-shirt

very much.

Stay tuned

I have a lot of photos and interesting stories about the trip. But I am badly

lack of time to write it down. Will get more stuff later. Thanks for your

attention.

Flying over the Pacific

I saw more and more island about 2 hours after the plan took off in Shanghai

I thought "It should be a good place to travel when I have time. It may be

cheap. :-)"

Later, when we went more and more closer, I saw buildings, ports, and

highways. "Why are there so modem architectures on these island? It

is already far from the mainland."

Finally, I realized these island are not normal island in the East China sea.

They have their names – Japan.

One ANA plane was flying below ours, above the land of Japan.

At about 5:00 PM local time, we saw the famous Fuji Mountain.

I call this pictures "Fuji at my fingertips"

The night came and I can see the reddish clouds at the horizon.

Then quickly, the morning comes.

It is cold outside and there are ice on the plane window. Actually, it is about

-58 degree C outside.

Finally, I saw the land of the continental America. It is cloudy there. This is

because the time I took this picture is at morning. Later, the clouds

disappeared and California became Sunny California.

We waited in the long time of custom gate in San Francisco for about 30 minutes. It

was so long

that we almost missed our next flight to Seattle.

We caught the shuttle at the last minute. The door closed and the plane took off

3 minutes after I sit down.

I enjoyed the Starbucks on the plane – well, Seattle is the hometown for

Starbucks. It is also the birthplace for Boeing and Costco.

Clouds after clouds out side the window.

At last, I arrived in Seattle. My brother picked me up at the airport and we

drove on I-90 from Sea-Tac airport to Redmond.

Thank god! I finally arrived in Homestead and had a wonderful sleep there.