Guangzhou Virus Outbreak – Pneumonia-type

Posted on by
9

According to friends in Guangzhou, unknown virus outbroke in Guangzhou in the previous week. It is widely believed that 200 people have been infected in Guangzhou alone till Feb 10 (two days ago) and more in other areas. The official report said there is only 5 died from the virus.

I don’t know the exact number and I don’t believe anyone has the actual number, but it is very true that the virus has caused wide anxiousity in Guangzhou and in other areas in China. My friends in Guangzhou is planning to leave Guangzhou immediately. White vinegar and medicines have been out of stock in all stores. Even the virus harm is not confirmed, the impact is real. I was planning some visits to Guangzhou but I have to postpone the schedule.

There are some street phones of current Guangzhou.

guangzhou-virus-people.jpg

Guangzhou-Virus-waiting.jpg

Guangzhou-Virus-waiting.jpg

Update

Remove Xupiter.com Toolbar

Posted on by
10

Currently, I found my computer is infected by the annoying Xupiter.com toolbar. This is very annoying.

The symptoms

One day, I suddenly found whever I type a wrong URL, or when the server I want to visit does not respond, the URL is first changed to a strange format, something like

http:///?%20msn.com, where /?%20 is inserted unexpectedly.

Meanwhile, the page of http://www.xupiter.com/search2error2.html is loaded. Sometimes another pop up window with Ad also appears.

This is really annoying!

What is Xupiter.com?

Thanks for PC Hell to give clear explaination of Xupiter.com as below:

What is Xupiter?

Xupiter Toolbar browser plug-in tools that gets installed on your computer through a popup ad or driveby installation that installs many times without your permission. It can also be loaded as an Active X control in Internet Explorer.

Once installed on your computer, Xupiter proceeds to display pop-up and pop-under ads as you surf the net. It also adds the Xupiter Toolbar to your browser, adds links to your favorites, and changes your home page. Xupiter then proceeds to track your browsing habits and report back to a server.

It also listed the way to tell you if you have Xupiter on your computer.

Follow these instructions:

1) Click on Start, Run

2) Type MSCONFIG and press Enter

3) Click on the STARTUP tab

4) Look in the list for the following item

Xupiter Toolbar

5) If this item is in the list. You have Xupiter installed. Uncheck it to temporarily disable the toolbar.

Update: Now the Toolbar has been upgraded. In step 4, you may also see

XupiterStartup2003

XTCfgLoader

It will run C:\Program Files\Xupiter\upiterStartup2003.exe

If you find these, you have Xupiter installed.

Remove it

It does not work if you delete all files under C:\Program Files\Xupiter folder. On one hand, you cannot delete them directly since some of the files are in use, such as XTCfgLoader and XTUpdate.dll. On the other hand, deleting DLLs and Exe rudely are always dangerous and may lead to instable system.

The best way to is to turn it off by uncheck the check box before the two files in MSCONFIG and restart the computer. Xupiter is not removed but it is not annoying any more. If you want to manually remove it in a graceful way, check Doxdesk.com‘s page for more information.

P.S. Dang An ID 9904154 @ 021-62403626

Shanghai Pudong Airport to Suzhou

Posted on by
50

A lot of people are asking me about how to go to Suzhou from Shanghai Pudong International Airport. My previous answer was “Go to Shanghai Railway Station and go by train”.

It is not a perfect solution, since the railway station is always the worst and confusing place in China. By worst, I mean it is crowded with all kinds of people – dirty passengers from various areas mixed with thiefs and bad guys. It is confusing because it is always hard to find the ticket counter and even harder to locate the gate to get aboard of train. This is almost mission impossible for a foreigner.

Today, I realized there is an alternative way. Obviously, this is a pleasant way.

Hong Qiao Airport as transition station

You can take Airport bus No. 1 to Hong Qiao Airport. See more in this blog entry.

Go to Suzhou by bus

Almost on the same stop is the stop for Suzhou. There are one bus leaving for Suzhou every hour from 10:00 to 20:00 (10:00, 11:00, 12:00, …, 20:00)

It SHOULD be a nice trip

Since the buses will take the route via the Shanghai-Nanjing Highway, it should be very fast (about 1 hour) to get to Suzhou.

Resources

p.s. I returned from Luoyang to Shanghai today via MU5382

Update: There is direct bus to Suzhou and Pudong Airport June 12, 2004

See this post for more information: PVG: Buses to Hangzhou, Suzhou.

Updated Latest Bus Information September 22, 2004

Here is the updated information of the bus to nearby cities.

Hangzhou 100 RMB 1030 1200 1330 1530 1730 1930

Qing Tian 青田 192 RMB 1310

Kun Shan (via Hong Qiao Airport) 76RMB 1130 1230 1330 1430 1530 1630 1730 1830 1930

Suzhou (via Hong Qiao Airport) 82RMB 1050 1150 1250 1350 1440 1520 1610 1650 1750 1850

Wuxi (via Hong Qiao Airport) 100 RMB 1120 1220 1320 1420 1520 1620 1720 1820

Zhangjiagang (via Hong Qiao Airport) 110 RMB 1140 1250 1440 1540 1740

Nanjing (via Hong Qiao Airport) 122 RMB 1120 1320 1510 1640 1840

If there is any conflict between this table to other time table, this one should be more accurate since I recorded the time table from the poster of the ticket office at Pudong Airport for my visitors.

DB_File Error When Installing MovableType

Posted on by
36

I got ROSS’s email on DB_File Error this morning.

Hi Jian Shuo,

I have seen your instructions for installing Moveable Type on Windows XP and have come across a problem. I have followed the instructions exactly but when I try and install DB_File, I get the error:

PPM> Install DB_File

Install package ‘DB_File?’ (y/N): Y

Installing package ‘DB_File’…

Error installing package ‘DB_File’: Read a PPD for ‘DB_File’, but it is not inte

nded for this build of Perl (MSWin32-x86-multi-thread)

PPM> QUIT

when I run /mt/mt-check.cgi it tells me

DB_File…

Your server does not have DB_File installed. DB_File is

required if you want to use the Berkeley DB/DB_File backend.

Please consult the installation instructions for help in

installing DB_File.

and when I run /mt/mt-load.cgi it says:

Loading initial data into system…

An error occurred while loading data:

Unsupported driver MT::ObjectDriver::DBM: Can’t locate DB_File.pm in @INC (@INC contains: c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mt\extlib c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mt\lib C:/perl/lib C:/perl/site/lib .) at c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mt\lib/MT/ObjectDriver/DBM.pm line 9.

BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mt\lib/MT/ObjectDriver/DBM.pm line 9.

Compilation failed in require at (eval 3) line 1.

BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at (eval 3) line 1.

I was wondering whether you would be able to try and help me?

many thanks

Ross

(United Kingdom)

It is a frequently asked question. I have described the steps to install MovableType in this blog: MovableType Successfully Installed on Windows XP, but it seems the DB_File is the place where most of the problems happen. This can be seen from the threads listed below. I even met the same problem when I worked with my technical professional on ISP side to move my host to another machine.

At that time, I feel lucky that I have posted the steps on the web, so others like Samuel Wan have posted his solution to the page. I used the resource and steps he listed and successfully solved the problem. I’d like to thank Mr. Wan to share the tips and would like to summarize the steps.

Steps to install DB_File on ActivePerl 5.6.0

If you see this error message when installing DB_File

PPM> Install DB_File

Install package ‘DB_File?’ (y/N): Y

Installing package ‘DB_File’…

Error installing package ‘DB_File’: Read a PPD for ‘DB_File’, but it is not inte

nded for this build of Perl (MSWin32-x86-multi-thread)

It means the default repository of perl modules does not exist – this may be caused by the upgrade of the website or the perl module. You need to manually install the DB_File.

The installation should be successful. Please post after this thread if you find it work or does not work.

Luoyang, Henan Tour

Posted on by
8

Now I am sitting on my bed in the city of Luoyang, and attempting to show you the city where I was born and grew up. I hope this page can also reach the first page of search result of key word Luoyang. The reason I think of writing this article to introduce Luoyang is, I am very disappointed to the existing pages on Internet about this wonderful city.

Sight Seeing

I have seen a Luoyang 3-day tour. It includes Luoyang Museum, White Horse Temple, Longmen Caves, and the Shaolin Monastery. This list should be almost complete for must-sees in Luoyang.

If you ask me to be your guide, I will rank the Longmen Caves to be the most attractive spot of scene. Longmen means Dragon Gate in Chinese. There are more than 5000 caves on the maintain and you will be impressed by the trenedous work paid to create such a wonder.

You can also visit White Horse Temple, which is the first buddish temple in China. However, it is not as famous or large as Shaolin Monastery (temple). You can get there very easy by lots of bus lines.

Luoyang has a long and rich history as the captial of 13 dynasties. Therefore, the Luoyang Musuem is very interesting to visit.

Hotel

The best hotel in Luoyang is Luoyang Penney Plaza (4-star). But do set your expectation lower, since I don’t think it met the standard of a 4-star hotel yet. The building was transformed from a office building. Since the building faced leasing challenges in the year of 1995 (or years around it), it is re-positioned as a 4-star hotel. That is the reason you may think it does not look like a hotel.

The second tier of good hotels are New Friendship Hotel, Friendship Hotel. They are the national guest hotel for leaders. You can have a try.

As I know, most visitors will choose the Penney Hotel. It is among the oldest and best hotels before the Penny Plaza opened. It was a 3-star hotel and was upgrated to 4-star in the year of 2000. Here is a nice introduction.

The the newly built Luoyang Grant Hotel (4-star) is also a good choice. It is new and as the introduction said, a foreign-oriented hotel. Its phone is 86-379-4327408.

Again, set your expection low if you come from big cities like Shanghai, New York and London. The hotels are merely somewhere to stay.

Transportation

If you are rich, or you are just a traveller, the best way to go to Luoyang is by air. There is a small airport in Luoyang. By small, I do mean small. There are only 4 flights available in this airport, connecting Luoyang and Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenzhen.

I do suggest you to fly to Zhenzhou airport first for both facilities and flight availabilities. You can get to Luoyang via Highway in 2 hours. See this blog for my experience to go back from SHanghai to Luoyang via Zhengzhou.

In the city, please go ahead to take taxi. The starting price is 5 RMB. The longest possible distance in the city is 10 – 15 RMB and shouldn’t be higher. So whereever you go, hire a taxi – it is cheap.

Resources

  1. My site of Luoyang
  2. Ctrip’s Luoyang Page
  3. Luoyang airlines

Shanghai – Zhengzhou – Luoyang

Posted on by
1

There seems hard for move between Luoyang and Shanghai. There is only one airline connecting to two cities. According to my friends, it is a small plane with only 18 seats. I am not sure if it is true or not. But this time, I took the plane from Shanghai to Zhengzhou and then take buses. The reason is that the price of the ticket between Shanghai and Zhengzhou is super low. It was around 800 RMB but this time, I got the price of 430 RMB (Shanghai -> Zhengzhou) and 380 RMB (Zhengzhou -> Shanghai). That is almost 70% off.

It takes 1 hour and 15 minutes from Shanghai to Zhengzhou. There is airport bus line just outside the arrival hall. The price is 15 RMB. After about 40 minute, I arrived in the train station.

At the station, I take the bus from Zhengzhou to Luoyang. It is a luxury bus with tea, W.C. and bus attendants. The drive even dressed up with a tie.

After 2 hours and 30 minutes, I finally arrived in Luoyang. The trip is nice. I forgot to mention that it snowed on the way home.

Going Home

Posted on by
1

I will go back to my home at Luoyang from tomorrow for the Spring Festival. I am very excited to be back home. It takes about 2 hours to take plane to Zhengzhou, and there are still 2 hours from the airport to home.

I’d like to say “Happy New Year” to all my families and friends. Your care and love makes my life so beautiful. I’d also like to thank all my readers. Hope you have a wonderful new year!

Server Change Caused Site Problems

Posted on by
Reply

Below is the traffic graph of the previous days on Jan 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 (today)

traffic2003Jan.JPG

I can clearly see the decline of visitors to the site from Jan 24 to Jan 25 and it resumed on Jan 28. Why?

The Service Provider Changed IP Address AND Server

The hosting company changed the IP address AND the server of https://home.wangjianshuo.com. It was originally hosted on a server xx.xx.xx.123, and now the server is changed. This caused the domain name and the server not in synch. I am very interested why there is still some hits to my server during that time (Jan 26 – Jan 27).

Best News Photos of 2003

Posted on by
5

A friend of mine sent me the links to some photos. They called it the Best News Photos of the Year 2003. Yes, they are. The images are beautiful and inspiring. The pictures themselves are better than thousands of words.

Copies used with out explict permission – but news photos and articles are OK to be copied and referenced, I thought. Did I make any legel mistake here?

My Life Begins to be Busy

Posted on by
9

I am very busy recently. It is the first time I can clearly see what I will be doing in every hour for more than one week. My schedule has been filled till 9:00 AM, Jan 30, 2003.

It is amazing to see how Outlook calendar can help me. My life must be completely in a mass without a calender. Actually, I didn’t use calendar or to-do-list before, but now, it is a must and an essential part of my life. Without a calendar, first, I don’t know what to do, second, I will miss meetings and appoints.

This is a normal Monday. I have created a very nice PPT with my own template. I love the style. It is a horizontal large box on the top, with 20% of it are completely filled with pure red (R255,G51,B0, actually). The rest of completely filled with black. The title is in Tahama size 24 in the black box and with white color. I hope I can share the template with you soon.

Tickets for Maglev Tour

Posted on by
13

I am watching TV and just head of the news of the Maglev Train Tour.

Before the Maglev trains are put into production at the end of this year, they offer tour for the train at price of 150 RMB and 300 RMB. However, the tickets are still hard to buy. According to the news, they issue 2000 tickets every day, but the tickets were completely sold out before the Spring Festival on Feb 1, 2003. Individuals cannot book the tickets for the future, since the booking services only apply to large accounts with 20+ tickets a time.

Meanwhile, it is even harder to buy train tickets here in Shanghai. I am not sure if people outside China understand this, people will try to return home no matter where they are in the Spring Festival, just like Christmas in the western countries. The train tickets are very hard to buy since there are too many people want to buy the limited number of tickets. According to the OTV news, the lines for buying tickets has been winding from the ticket counter, to outside the ticketing building, and extended to about 10 blocks away. Most of them came to buy the tickets before 12:00 AM yesterday and has standed in the line for 10 hours during the night — poor people!

It is also interesting to see people in Shanghai begin to tour to Hai Nan and other areas of China during the Spring Festival. Air tickets to Hai Nan have been sold out for Feb 1 to Feb 8.

Fortunately, I have booked my air tickets back to Luoyang one week ago. :-)

Updated Maglev Ticket is Set to Be 75 RMB Oct 21, 2003

Starting from Oct 11, 2003, the Maglev will pickup passengers at Pudong Airport on every Saturday and Sunday. Then it drops them off at Longyang Road Station. The price is 75 RMB. This is not the final price yet, since it will continue to drop after formal business operation.

See more at PVG: Maglev Started Carry Passengers.

More Information:

PVG: Has Maglev Started Operation?

Pudong Airport Maglev in Depth

screen-maglev-schedule.png

Me, a Sleepy Cat

Posted on by
4

Every Sunday or Saturday is a good day for me. They also mean half day for me. I tend to get up as late as 2:00 PM to have a complete rest. It is not unusual this time.

The life in Shanghai is hard. I miss the life in my home town Luoyang, from time to time. People don’t live in such a competitive world like those in the big city of Shanghai. The work does not look so much and the pace of the steps are slow.

Everytime I return to my hometown, I feel completely relaxed. It is good to go out with old friends. Very nice! The Peony Square is always a good place to see people paint the characters using brushes and waters on the stone ground.

At the same time, I always need some time to get used to Shanghai again after I come back. I love to sleep but I cannot. There are too many things to do, the work, the householding, everything. Before I realize, it is about 1:00 AM. The night always passes quickly and the morning call always beeps earlier than I expects.

Anyway, Shanghai means excitement and I love to live here, though sometimes it is a little bit too tough.

Next week, I will go to see the drama www.com. I hope I can share the story later.

Maglev Operates in Shanghai

Posted on by
27

Image Courtesy of Transrapid

A super high-speed transport system with a non-adhesive drive system that is independent of wheel-and-rail frictional forces has been a long-standing dream of railway engineers. Maglev, a combination of superconducting magnets and linear motor technology, realizes super high-speed running, safety, reliability, low environmental impact and minimum maintenance.

Source: Overview of Maglev R&D

The Maglev (magnetic levitation) railway project started 700 days before and on the Dec 31st, 2002, it was launched. This event is covered by lot of medias.

http://www.cjonline.com/stories/011203/bus_railway.shtml

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=32861388

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20021231_1306.html

http://asia.cnn.com/2002/BUSINESS/asia/12/31/china.maglev.biz/

I don’t care about the news part. I just want to write down my observation about the maglev from my personal perspective.

Hard start

The maglev project was started with a lot of doubts and uncertainty. I heard both positive and negtive comments on newspaper about the maglev project two years ago before the project actual started. As always, I am on the side to support the project since it seems so cool!

Fast construction speed

I have to say, the speed is very fast to build the railway. It seems so to me since I frequently take flights in Pudong airport in the last two years. I saw the extension of the railways everyday and it is also very soon between the rail is ready and the first trail train went online.

Price

One of the most frequently asked question is “how much does it take?”. According to major medias in Shanghai, the standard price is 50 RMB single trip. This is reasonable since it takes about 80-100 RMB for the same distance by taxi. By bus, it is 18 RMB, but it takes much longer. It costs about 40 minutes to go by bus but it only takes 8 minutes to take the maglev. After all, the speed of 430 KM/Hour on land is very attractive.

Currently, it opens for tour only. The price is 150 RMB for normal seats and 300 RMB for VIP seat. This is round trip. The train starts from Longyang Rd. Station, speed up to 430 km/hour and arrives at Pudong Airport. After very short break, the train returns without open the door.

Even when it is purely for tour, people still cannot easily get the tickets. According to local newspaper, the tickets of 2 weeks later has been selt out.

Future

Maglev will open to public for business operation at the end of this year. The speed, the fastest speed available on land, will keep attractive for visitors and tourist for a long time. I hope I can have a try later and report my feeling of the high speed to you in my future blog. I did saw the maglev train from outside. I was on the car heading Longyang Rd. Station and saw a maglev training rushing for the opposite direction. It looks really fast. It seems it disappeared from my eyes in 2 seconds.

Updated Maglev Pictures Aug 14, 2003

I took a lot of Maglev train pictures by myself and shared it here. Here are some.

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

Updated Maglev Begin to Pickup Passeger at Airport Oct 21, 2003

Starting from Oct 11, 2003, the Maglev will pickup passengers at Pudong Airport on every Saturday and Sunday. Then it drops them off at Longyang Road Station. The price is 75 RMB.

See more at PVG: Maglev Started Carry Passengers.

More Information:

PVG: Has Maglev Started Operation?

Pudong Airport Maglev in Depth

Tickets for Maglev Tour

screen-maglev-schedule.png

Blogger in China

Posted on by
21

9:21

Blogging is very interesting. The trigger of my blog was the MSN chat invitation sent by Geo, from Russianlegs.com. He asked me about the ban of Google around Sept 3, 2002. “It is interested.” I thought when he “interviewed” me about my oppion for this event. One hour later, I found my comments appeared at the homepage of russianlegs.com.

I have to say, I was really impressed by the speed of this kind of publishing. From the links provided in the home page, I read more about blogger, from many other blogger’s page, including Anders’s. After that, I began to write my first blog on Sept 11, 2002.

Actually, I am not very keen about the idea of blogging. It is a simple idea and not a great idea. But the way to write down something and publish it is interesting. I was doing so in my previous web site under news section, but the publishing tool is FrontPage and I wasn’t able to publish once every 10 days, instead of daily.

After keeping my promise to write everyday for about a quarter, I begin to look back to see the spread of blogging in China. Isaac Mao from cnblog.org has done a great job in categorizing and link to all blogger site in China. I don’t have exact number, but the list should contain about 100 – 300 blogging websites. Most of them are hosted by blogger.com.

Yesterday, on the marriage ceremony of one of my best friends, I was informed that blogger.com was blocked in China too. This is interesting. Actually, this is not a breaking news – it is inevitable.

Google is the place where information gathers. Blogger is the place for minds to gather. I believe they are something similiar.

Hopefully, the blogger will keep rolling.