Do you hug with your dog?

Last night, we were on our walk to the local Safeway when we bumped into a couple from our neighborhood. We've seen them in the last few months as they always walk their black lab, like Charlie.

"do you hug with your dog?" the husband asked us as they were going into Safeway.

Huh? Hug with our dog? we're not suppose to? The question was so confusing on so many levels.

"Hug, you said?" I asked him back

"Oh no, hunt with your dog"

Ah! that makes so much more sense now... Of course we do! We always hunt with Charlie in Cupertino!!! (yes, I'm being sarcastic)

Ever since we noticed them around the neighborhood in the last few months, we've given them several nicknames (yes, we do that to lots of neighbors, houses, cars, etc.)

• The couple with the black lab
• The couple who walks all the time
  
• The husband who smokes his big'o cigar while walking
• The couple with the black lab who doesn't like Charlie

Now we can add a new one to the list "Do-you-hug-your-dog couple." Can't wait to see them again...

Google Reader Trends

I just noticed that Google Reader added the "Trends" link. Kudos to the Reader team!
I've been using Reader Trends for months now. But until now, I've always had to manually go to a URL (http://www.google.com/reader/view/?page=trends) in my bookmark to see how I'm reading my 250+ feeds. Yay! One less bookmark.

Here's a screenshot from my Trends. It shows you lots of information; such as which feeds you are reading, what % of feeds you read, when you are reading them (day of week, hour of the day), etc.But my favorite part of the Trends is the "Inactive" feeds list. It shows you feeds that have not been updated recently so you can decide if you want to obsolete them or not.

Jobs at the D conference

I've been waiting for days now to hear Steve at the D5 Conference.

Finally saw a clip of Walt interviewing him from this morning. My favorite line from this video is gotta be "... It’s like offering a glass of ice water to people in hell ..." at the end when Walt mentions iTunes being one of the most ubiquitous pieces of software out there (on Windows)

I kinda wish ATD would post more video from the conference for those of us who aren't there, you agree?

Now onto finding the video of Steve with Bill...

Update:
Yay! "Thanks ATD!" for putting up all the videos from the conference. Here's the 8 minute highlight reel. My favorite line (about 1 min 55 sec into the video below) from Steve has gotta be the "Bill.. Bill.. let me tell the story"

Cornell Alumni event @ Google

Ever since becoming a Cornell alumni in 2000, I've attended several alumni events in the SF Bay Area. They've always been great, thanks to Shannon Murray '94, director of Cornell Silicon Valley (CSV).

Presentation, "The Consumer Takes Control: The Unbundling of Content and Advertising in the Web 2.0 World"
Today, I attended the popular event at Google. Apparently, Shannon said all 200 spots were taken up within a few hours after he sent out the email (on a Sat morning!). Not sure if all these people (including me) wanted the free lunch @ Google or to hear David Fischer (VP of Online Sales & Operation), which BTW was great!

David talked advertising in traditional media vs. the new Internet age (e.g Google's own AdWords) . He compared American Idol with the YouTube phenomenon by using this video which apparently got about the same number of views as Idol when it first surfaced on the Internet.

Man, still cracks me up even though it repeatedly played inside his PowerPoint during the presentation about a dozen times.

Networking
This is probably the 6th time I've visited the Googleplex and it is always interesting to visit that place. Upon arrival, I was sent over to the overflow parking lot where a shuttle was ready to pick several of us up to Bldg 44 where the event took place. The food line was already snaking around the room, but it provided a good opportunity for me to meet new faces. The first person I met there was Al, the only Asian I've ever meet who owes 14 horses on a 5 acre property in Clayton.

I also saw a familiar face and reintroduced myself to professor John Neshiem! One of my favorite profs and the most memorable class I took at Cornell. John is a serial entrepreneur and consults worldwide for various start-ups. Aaron and I immensely enjoyed his "Entrepreneurship for Scientists and Engineers" class (NBA 401 class) and we still talk about it whenever we meet up.

One of the things I enjoy about these events is not necessarily the topic or the speaker (even though they're wonderful!), but the vast network of people you meet. Today, I met Kelly who just graduated last Sat and will be going off to NYC for her first job (good luck!). I met Barry, who is semi-retired and use to work at Applied like I did about a decade ago. Met Kendall, the Stanford postdoc fellow. Doug, who I met at another Cornell dim-sum event few weeks ago. The list goes on and on...

Recruiting?
Present in the room were also a group of Google HR recruiters who were eager to see if "you are ready to make a change..." David even had to work into his speech a bullet point of "You're brilliant and we're always hiring".

The Google staff weren't working as hard as "mdove" below on Bay To Breaker few weekends ago, but they were definitely around and ready to scoop you up if you are interested.

Drop me a line if I saw you at the event. Until the next CU event...

Now a question for you all: would you work for Google or already do?

Google Maps Street View

Google Maps came out with "Street View" today! Pretty nifty (and kinda scary) stuff. Amazon.com tried this few years back, but it was a bust (I think it was called A9).

You can watch the official tutorial video from Google below.

As usual with other Google products, this is very user friendly and easy to use. IMHO, The best part is that you can still send people links to the exact view you are looking at. Check out where I use to work. Of course, even Google can't pass the gate at NASA Ames.

This site is already posting interesting Street Views ppl have found.

Mumbai's Dharavi

I just read the feature article in May 2007 of National Geographics, "Dharavi, Mumbai's Shadow City".

Reading such an article and seeing pictures of other parts of the less fortunate world truly gives you a different perspective on life.

I use to volunteer at homeless shelters/soup kitchens in cities I've stayed at, Lafayette (IN), Ithaca (NY), San Jose (CA). It doesn't matter how often I go, every time when I leave to go home, it's the same overwhelming feeling of how grateful I am with my situation. Small things that bothered me that day, either at home or at work seems to disappear as the stream of less fortunate bodies move in front of you to get the meal...

World is such an unfair place. Make the most of your day today!

small world!

Just had a "wow! small world" experience.

I recently got in touch with Chris after spending a year with him at Cornell back in 2000 while we were both there for the 1 year masters program. He stayed behind for his PhD and eventually moved out to the Bay Area with his startup.

On the other hand, I don't personally know Niniane, but I've been reading her blog for a few years now.

Going through my feeds this evening, I came across the below pic! Woah, they know each other? (Niniane on the left and Chris is in the middle) Small world!

Casio Exilim EX-Z1050 review

I don't usually write product reviews, but I wanted to share about this one in case you happen to be in the market for a digital camera and are thinking of getting the Casio Exilim EX-Z1050.

We've had the Casio Exilim EX-Z3 (my first digital camera) for about 5 years until recently when it stopped focusing. Jean wanted to get me a replacement as my birthday gift this year, so we decided on getting another Exilim since we liked the old one we had and it would mean a shorter learning ramp for both of us. Jean being a creature of habit and doesn't like changes.

When I did my research few months back, the latest Z1050 looked great. Not sure why I would need 10.1 MP, but what the heck! Everything is still great about it, but my only complaint is this... The battery needs to be recharged externally (charger provided)!

Now this doesn't seem like a big deal when we first bought it. We thought, "hmm, that's a great feature, now the charging dock is not as bulky as the old one" But then the reality sets in... One of two things always happen to me:

1. I leave the battery in the camera after downloading all the pics onto the computer (via USB port), and forget to turn off the camera (probably my fault..). Battery drains out completely.
2. I take the battery out and leave it on the external charger. Good idea, right? Nope! Days after when I try to put the battery back into the camera, the camera needs to be reset all over again, starting with date/time setting, timezone, etc.

The morale of the review is that I actually preferred the old dock which was used to both charge and download. We use to just pop the camera onto the dock, download the pics and it would be charged and ready to go next time. Now I have to actually think a bit about what to do...

Charlie sunbathing

Caught Charlie sunbathing in the backyard this week.

New feed via Feedburner

I've been looking to use Feedburner for a while now, but always got distracted. The rumor news yesterday of Google acquiring Feedburner got me off my butt again.

If you are reading this post, you probably (maybe) are using a reader already. If it is convenient, can I kindly ask you to switch to this feed instead? Just click on this link below.
Subscribe in a reader

"a what? a reader?" you asked.

Then this second option might be for you, you can also subscribe to my blog via email as well.

thank you!
gracias!
arigato!
kam ouen!
shukriya!
kamsa hamaida!
謝謝!

dilemma

Hmm... how does one blog (using Blogger) about blogger.com being down?

Blogger was just down @ around 10:20AM PT for maybe 6 to 7 mins. P1! some poor soul must've got paged in Mountain View or somewhere offshore.

Bike To Work Day (a week late)

Last week on May 17 [Thur] was Bike To Work Day. I didn't get a chance to bike to work last week (or for the last 8 month for that matter).

But it's not too late, right? Let's see if all those cycling classes we've been taking @ Apple gym helped.

I biked to work today!

Go Matadors!

My alma mater, Monta Vista, made it to #85 (#7 in CA) on 2007 Newsweek's top 1,200 top U.S. schools.

Update:
My old (no pun intedended =) "old" as in, known-for-long-time) MV friend, Jimmy, informed me that Palo Alto Unified School District apparently refused Newsweek ranking. The official reason was that "they didn't want to expose students to the shallowness, stress and unwanted publicity that comes with the survey."

But here at Cupertino, "April Scott, Monta Vista's principal says parents expect to see the ranking because it's good for their kids and for their home values." Oh yeah, because 95014's real estate is not expensive enough yet...

"Important: Unused Balance in Your iTunes Account"

Interesting how something my close colleague on the team worked on for iTunes resulted in me (and many of us on the team) getting an email this morning.

Just like David Pogue of NYT (my previous blog), I got an email from my own company today. Not as an employee, but as an iTunes customer.

But unlike Mr. Pogue, iTunes wan't telling me that I have "unredeemed iTunes store gift". It was reminding me that I have store credit that I haven't used.

Hmm... I wonder if I leave my store credit on sites like Amazon, would they remind me like Apple would?

Hey, isn't that my cousin?

Another regular Monday morning. Got up... had breakfast... had coffee... read SJ Mercury paper...

"Woah... is that my cousin (and Judy!) on Mercury news?!"

"So which one is she or he?" you asked.

Considering most of my relatives are Asian (so far), you take a guess.

Yup, and what is she doing there? Read this and find out...

Updates:

• AJ's blog
• more pictures

iRack (including blooper)

I saw this few months back and have since gotten several forwards about this. It is still hilarious even though I've probably seen it half a dozen times by now. Still cracks me up!!!

In case you haven't attended any Apple event or seen Steve Jobs, the black turtleneck and the jean is his signature wardrobe. I've actually seen him @ Apple cafe several times in that attire.

I present to you, the "MADtv - iRack" (this one includes few bloopers)

Blogger auto-save

Yay! Blogger now automatically saves drafts like Gmail does. And it added a few more keyboard shortcuts!

• Ctrl-P publishes
• Ctrl-S saves a draft
• Ctrl-D switches from published to draft.
  
• We moved Preview over to Ctrl-Shift-P

must... read... fasterrrrr....

I have been using web based (rss) reader for few years now. Started out with bloglines.com, but eventually jumped ship to using Google Reader.

I just noticed today that I have 200+ feeds now... hmm... i wonder much much info I'm actually absorbing (& retaining) with so much stuff going through my eyes daily.

Must... read.. faster... Or I could simply unsubscribe to some feeds... hmm, what to do???

Update (few hours later...)

"Hmm... I wonder if the unread counter actually works in Google Reader"

I went from... (100+ unread)
to ... yay!

Patience pays

Just read this on Kimmy's blog. Wow, what a great story to make my day.

I really gotta be more patient while driving. As Jean always tell me, one of these days I'm going to accidentally "salute" one of my relatives (or friends) since most live in the 95014 vicinity.

"patience thomas... ooooommmm....."

Hi, I'm Ruby on Rails...

I haven't used Ruby on Rails yet (read lots about it...), but watching these home vidoes might just do the trick!
(Java bashing)

Ad #1 of 4 (vs. Java)


Ad #2 of 4 (vs. PHP)

Hurry Jason and Gregg, we're waiting for part #3 and #4...

Updates:
#3 and #4 are out now

"L" at Vegas!

"L" (the letter)
Pronunciation: a-looo (If you're Chinese, you know how this is pronounced)
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English l, from Old English leixjh;
1 : not to the confused with the more popular Cirque "O" show
2 : the pattern of two people sleeping perpendicularly (connected by the head) after a comfy night on the awesome-way-too-big Bellagio bed!

Yup, Bellagio is da bomb! It was worth the splurge on our first trip together to Vegas. Can the room have more marble?!?!
I think we also got upgraded to a lake-view albeit obstructed one when we checked in late on Friday around midnight
Since Bellagio is right in the center of the Strip, we spent Sat walking down south side and Sunday up the north end. Everyone has seen all the hotel pics, but "theeze is for you" (you know who you are...)
Before seeing KA @ MGM Grand on Sat night, we visited the obligatory buffet there. No, this is not a picture from the serving line, this is actually all the desert we managed to finish about 5 mins after this picture was taken. I paid dearly for it that night (got some kind of 8 hour food poison!) But was back to normal by the time I woke up, whew...

After the food-poison scare from the buffet, we decided on a more healthy (almost) breakfast the next morning at Palio bakery inside Bellagio.
On Sunday, we walked up the North side of the strip. Along the way, stopped by Ceasers, Mirage (where we saw the tiger below, not the white one), Wynn (where we had some yucky strawberry sorbet) and Jean bought the only souvenir (skirt) from a stand outside of Fashion Mall
We finally (painfully) made it back to Bellagio in the evening, just in time for a dip in the pool. Note to ourselves:

• Bring walking shoes (Like Jean's ex-coworker Pilar suggested, but Jean ignored!)
• Visit the pool in the evening, less crowded and water already warmed up by sun all day
  

For dinner, we decided to try "Noodles" downstairs in Bellagio in favor of minimal walking distance from our room.

agadashi tofu for appetizer: $6.50
Chinese beef noodle soup: $17
Singaporean style vermicelli noodle: $17
Not having to walk outside of the hotel even though it will be the most expensive beef noodle soup EVER in our lives: priceless


You can find more pics from our 4 day trip to Vegas all inside my site here

For you bird watchers out there

I'm not a big bird watching fan, but I kinda got hooked on the The Latest Massively Multiplayer Online Game? Birdwatching last week.

The idea is quite simple:

• You register on the site (yes, I know, another login, but you probably do this 6 other times daily already, so it's ok, you won't get an ulcer)
• Go to the "camera" page
• Control the camera along with Mr./Ms. whoever-is-as-bored-as-you and is currently online
• You see a bird? quickly "Take a Snapshot" (daily max of 10 shots)
• Then I don't know the rest... you classify the bird... winner is whoever has the most photos? But who cares... It's fun!

The best part is that the camera is graciously hosted by Craig himself from CL. For those who know what he looks like, look at the latest bald eagle caught on camera this morning!

A moment of silence...

Sob, sob, one of our fishies died this morning.

A moment of silence please...

We recently had to buy a new aquarium as our old 3-gallon tank's pump finally gave in. Upgraded to a slightly larger 5-gallon tank, which by the way, I totally recommend! Along with the tank, we bought 3 more friends back to make it a family of 5.

I guess it's probably the stress of the new tank, this little guy finally caved this morning. According to the back of the Petco receipt, "freshwater returns must be returned within 15 days ...". Let's go test it out!

I got free invites for Joost

I've been a Joost (formerly "Venice Project") tester since the beginning. In case you want an invite token, drop me an email than@thomashan.com.

"What the heck is Joost," you ask? Not that this commercial helps, but it'll give you some idea.

Pogue intrigued by Apple?

David Pogue of the NYT had an interesting article about iTunes gift cards today. He was surprised to get an email from iTunes reminding him to redeem an unused gift card.

As many of you know, this is somewhat related to what I work on at Apple, the iTunes gift cards. So it is quite interesting for me to see the amount of comments (& theories) generated from his post. Theories run the gamet, from "take that George Bush!" to "Apple did ALL that to get publicity?" (BTW, good response back, David!)

Now, let me go and talk to my colleagues over at iTunes who would be thrilled to find out that "it didn't cost them anything to...". Hmm... I wonder how many meetings they were in just to put this feature in.

"Good job!"

Onion News has always been a favorite of mine. Recently, they started with some hilarious video versions of their satire.

Here's a good one to start off your Monday. Now go ahead and tell your colleagues they did a "good job!"

Spidey not so impressive

We watched Spider Man 3 with some friends last night. I enjoyed 1 and 2 a bit even though we're not big comic hero fans, but this latest one was a disappointment. It was awfully slow, and I mean both awful and slooooow...

The only impressive part was the CG for the "sand man", that was some cool stuff! And we also got to watch it at the newest AMC Cupertino Square 16 (formerly named "Vallco" for those who are old enough to remember)

Pidgin, the new fowl

Ever since I've switch to Mac (working at Apple can do that to you) I've been using Adium on OS X. But I still try to keep up with latest with Gaim (gaim.sourceforge.net) which I occasionally use on Fedora Core @ home.

Today, Gaim has officially reached EOL and Pidgin (pronounced like the bird) starts. If you happen to be an early adapter, let me know how it works.

Sad day for GG fans...

While the Bay Area is still celebrating Warriors Cinderella story in the making this morning, we (I mean my wife) woke up this morning to the sad news of Gilmore Girls possibility ending on May 15?!?! Blasphemy!

How are we suppose to pretend we're Luke and Lorelai when we go to open houses, so the agents won't bother us? What is Jean going to watch on Tuesday nights now? My GG's DVD collection has come to an end?

Ah!!! so many unanswered questions...

The gotta-buy-this-house photo

We've seen lots of open houses in the past few years and I've seen even more photos during that time. Here's one that I saw last night at this property. Wow, they ran out of pictures of the house to take?

Go Steve!

Yay for Steve! Now let's see what Greenpeace would say.

Steve once told us that 10 years ago people use to ask how Apple would still survive, now people (including employees) are asking what Apple is doing to be greener.

"Ah and that's a nice change" - Steve

My new blog

I've been wanting to integrate a blog service into my site and retain the same L&F for years now. Finally got around to it recently.

My ex-coworker and good friend BR, had done this as well on his site few years back and told me how simple it was. He was right, kudos to his wife who use to work at Blogger.