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Sunday, August 29, 2004

Olympic Vollyball

Staying awake deep at night just for watching a brilliant match of Olympic Vollyball Woman between China and Russia. It was really fantastic! While I was thinking China may lose in the end when she was losing the first two round, miracle happened and help the national team emulate Russian and won the championship.
Of course I was writing the project along when watching. The match hence provided me an excuse to work a few more hours. I have completed half of phase 3 and now the cookies are working. Bugs still exist and I will deal with those tomorrow.
4am now, gonna sleep~

Friday, August 27, 2004

Pressure comes again...

Today I have received the updated version of class timetable from CUHK, meaning that I am another day closer to term commence. Everything should go back to normal, I will be as busy as before, and none of a second in my life belongs to me.
I have completed phase 2 of my project and added the search feature, on the contrary to the previous one, this feature should be the easiest one among all. There are three more core features to implement, after integrating all of them and assemble the interface, if the domain name and server are ready, the great day will be right there.

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

First Phase Completed

Out of the five features of my project I have completed one eventually. This should be the hardest one, as it includes setting up the database schema and OJB connections (Well, basically includes all the stuff that is required to get a project foundation running), the following features may be easier to implement, then comes the keypoint -- Interface.
I really hope this project will succeed in the end. Hardly in my life have I completed something integral. Here comes the chance to test my ability and patience.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

One good deed everyday...

Just after Sunday mass this morning I went home as usual, on the way I saw a paralysed man on his electronic wheelchair heading for home in the same way. I used to see him every week as he is a catholic too.
It was raining and the man was in his raincoat, suddenly the sleeve slipped into the wheel of the wheelchair and it lost control, crashed into the fence near the bushes. He was unable to sit back straight in the chair and I ran forward to help him.
Pals, don't hesitate to help others, you should feel lucky being able to help.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

The Apache Struts Web Application Framework

The Apache Struts Web Application Framework

For my non-technical of half-technical friends, this is the technology platform that my projects based on. Somehow it's a good architecture for building application. I am still awaiting to integrate the latest Java Server Faces (JSF) and Macromedia Flex. A big target though, I can learn a lot if I can successfully complete the project.
Development is really fun, but requires a lot of patience, lets hope that I can make it.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Next Step...

After I have completed the technical foundation of my RSS project, I started to ponder how to make the site meaningful and attractive, what are my target audiences, what languages shall I support, and most importantly the overall architecture of the site workflow.
It seems to me that I am tentatively suspending the work of my own portal, or maybe the idea of this RSS sub-project is derived from my portal. Anyway, as there is new technology platform, why not give it a try?

Monday, August 16, 2004

Achieved Something at Last

It's so hard to setup all the stuffs alongway of writing the news reader. After several days nonstop endeavors, I have managed to complete the first phase of trial news reader. In which I can add news topics, add news channels, and based on those channels I can retrieve RSS news and display them selectively. I am planning to add in more features, together with a fine operation framework the program may be really useful to you guys! haha~ Lets see what I can do in the end.

Sunday, August 15, 2004

YES!!!!!!

After efforts of many days eventually I have established the database connection!! It's too good to be true! Though the step by step solution is a little bit rough, I can fine-tune that later. The most important thing is I can continue my work on programming level now~

Sophistication!!

Can't ever imagine how complicated it is to set up a connection between Tomcat and MySQL server, it is the first time I am doing so, and have encountered (and tackled) tonnes of problems in one afternoon, yet stage after stage the error messages are becoming more weird and low-level.
First is simple form bean problem, and then OJB repositories, then database authentication, and database field, then "connectionManager NOT in transaction", and now "can't borrow transaction from ConnectionPool. I tried many methods from web and learnt a lot today, yet the problem overall remains unsolved...

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Hands and Feet Tied Up..

A list of stuffs I wanna buy:
1) A PocketPC
2) A notebook (mainly for wireless LAN)
3) An LCD mon (the current one is too dim)
4) A new harddisk (250GB, for CD images, songs, and ebooks)
5) A new server (for hosting webportal, can be scheduled later)
Not much, all computer stuffs~ haha... I won't hesitate on purchasing computer stuffs, even when all my clothes and shoes are worn. But at this moment (or most of the moments) I can't buy anything -- I have to settle my tuition fee first..

Friday, August 13, 2004

Exhausting~

Nothing special, just because I have to make a lot of terms translation and I dozed off for physical tire.
Many people around me are busier than me, maybe my theshold is lower than theirs such than I feel tired more easily. But my point is how to guarantee success. How can I use time wisely and invest my life into something with highest return? Getting along with terms like ROI (Return on Investment), TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)... I try to apply those into my life, you can't do everything in the list but you can do those with greater importance and potential, that's why I am giving up posts in Taekwondo, sparing time for programming and business thoughts.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Development: Challenging but Fun

Hardly can I imagine I would say that!
A year ago I was really afraid of programming and once I have lost all my confidence due to continuous failure in complicated assignments. I have changed by preference, from a potential programmer to system administrator.
God is really amazing, sometimes you really have no idea why He is guiding you this way. Just believe! He is always guiding you the right way! Programming (or software development) has a better career edge over system and network maintenance. Now I understand God gives me a development job. I am always trying to like whatever I am doing, that's why I am working harder in spare time, digging deeper into open source stuffs and see what can be unleashed. Yes, with no capital at this stage, I am all by myself. Step by step I strongly believe that eventually I can achieve something.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Macromedia - Central

Macromedia - Central
Ya~ nice idea again, but the marketing is not that effective~ or am I too outdated for the trend in US? This project is only at the baby stage with no really appealing features.
Seems that I have to work faster~

Ouch! Too slow!

Right! I have given up playing Doom 3 tonight and continue my work on the portal. I have successfully tried Informa RSS library to implement a news feeder, which can fetch news more easily and can also be applied to blog, which I am planning to.
Unfortunately within my whole picture, there are still a lot of features to be implemented. The current progress is too slow! I can't just let my website being "coming soon...", or in fact nobody is awaiting actually, I can make it step by step~

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Sharpen Your Senses~

The SBC Convergence Zone
Seems that I have enough source to get myself closer pace with the world technology trend. I like to watch webcasts and videos which are quite inspiring and interactive than reading pdf reports and papers, yet reports are still very important for case studies.
Time to get something substantially done. Get professional certifications, then start to pursue opportunities both in career or business. Not until I can be sure the path is correct will I give up my interests.
To me, time is always running out.

Friday, August 06, 2004

Morning !

Another morning again~ my parents are eventually back to Hong Kong, I can have better meals at dinner.
One thing I like blogger is that I can update the blog by simply a button on the Google toolbar, or else it's for sure I won't leave message here so frequently and persistently. So instead of investing blindly into IT everything have to be designed in the right direction. Focus more on the ease of use can lower the acceptance barrier of common audience, perhaps can even break the ice of e-commerce or so, bringing over another generation of technology coverage.
Alas, I have to thank some of my friends being pioneer readers of this blog. I have Au (Yam) who wrote me two pages reply on email, Raymond who gave me much feedback on technical point of view, the "A"s who complains about my vocabularies (haha), and many others who have read with no comments left. I have never publicly announce this blog, people comes due to my ICQ info, thanks for visiting, you guys are my true friends.

Doom3 (con't)

Doom3 is great~ even when I am playing only in medium screen quality, the graphics are still brilliant to me. Being one of the pioneer in the game, I really think I can write a walkthrough for it if I am patient enough. The zombie appears from nowhere that frighten you suddenly when you turn around, and the screaming sound are really terrifying (especially in the cutscene when you first encounter your enemy). The environment makes you feel you are really in Mars (much better than any of the previous games I have ever played), the only weakness is you often needs to stay in dark, and the guns are all not powerful to excite you while you are blowing up those monsters.
I think I still have half a story to go on this. I can't stay with the moving screen too long or else I would have headache.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Doom 3

Doom 3 Final Version Updated Hands-On Impressions - Doom 3 Previews for PC at GameSpot
Just indulged in playing the latest game: DOOM3. You can see how amazing computer graphics are becoming nowadays. Somehow I also appreciate programmers who have to patience to render all these graphics, assembling the trangles and do the texture and lightings. Woo~ but I am not interested in these, I am just interested in playing.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Another Technology

Enterprise Grid Alliance - Home Page
There are so many technologies emerging, how can I distinguish which one have the potential to be lucrative? With good concepts, many technologies die due to lack of marketing. Grid Computing and BT are of beautiful concepts, sharing computing power and network resources, everything will be faster, better utilized, and truly demonstrate the meaning and power of Internet, where computers are united as one. Can you see the big picture?
Well yea, I can see lots of opportunities too. In cyber world, gold mines are everywhere, I recognize a few, but the point is, I don't have a spade for any of them.

Sunday, August 01, 2004

YS Reunion

Last night we have the 3rd Year Anniversary of HKU International Youth Summit 2001, with all the former organizing committee members present. I don't have much friends, they being the best of all. All are high quality people, with high education standards and great exposure to different cultures. And most importantly, they are all devoted to accomplish their task and work together as a whole.
Frandly speaking it wasn't an easy task for a gang of people to stay in contact after three years. We acquainted one another in merely one of the many universities functions, yet till now this group with men from different fields and backgrounds are still as one to share their joy and sorrow, that's where true friendship lies.