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三月二十號的週末, 因為朋友到Mexico City去度蜜月, 叫我一齊去玩, 心想如果現在不去, 可能不知道甚麼時候才會去, 所以就去了. 雖然只是玩了一個週末, 但是可以到外面透透氣也是挺好的. 只可惜回來以後的星期一, 多年來我一直擔心會發生的事情, 終於發生了, 因為我至愛的祖母走了... 我到了美國之後, 我的家就幾乎只有我跟她, 所以我的心情是跟我同輩的表兄姊不一樣的. 當然她的兒女的傷心不會比我少, 也幸好大家都從外地趕過來. 畢竟有一點突然, 一大堆人在一起, 事情比較容易接受吧, 所以現在好多了.
同事送來的安慰卡裡, 有一位在上面寫了這一句: "A loved one dies only if you forget them! Memories of your grandmother will live on." 親愛的祖母, 主懷安息.

我的新玩具(My New Toy)

I finally took the plunge and bought myself a netbook. Just thought it will be good for traveling since my Sony laptop is really old and it's awfully slow. So time for a new one!
I got a Dell Mini 9 because I've used many Dell desktops and laptops and have always liked their products. The only thing I don't like about the mini 9 is the keyboard, but it's understandable why the keyboard has to be so cramped given the size of the netbook itself. I also bought the external DVD drive from Dell. The first time I plugged it in, the device can't be recognized. After doing some research, it seems like most people are having issues with the USB cable that is included in the package, so I switched to another USB cable and voila! Works like a charm now. The original spec of my mini 9 is 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 1GB RAM, with 8GB SSD. I did a little upgrading and changed it to 2GB RAM and 32GB SSD. Changing the RAM and SSD is super easy on the Mini 9, and it literally takes only 1 minute.



After upgrading, I then put Windows 7 beta on it. I downloaded the file on the internet, then googled and found instructions on how to create a bootdisk from a USB drive (although the left USB port somehow didn't work so I had to use the right USB port to boot). The installation process was not too painful. I forgot how long it took... the whole thing took an hr maybe. Most of the drivers were installed automatically. There are a few unknown devices shown under Device Manager. I followed the instructions of other mini users and reinstalled the JMicron driver, Synaptics Touchpad driver, and the Battery Meter/Wireless Switch (install from Mini 12 Vista version) from the Dell support website and the "unknown devices" went away. The only problem left now is to get the webcam working since the driver seems to have installed correctly but the software would not install the last time I tried. Windows 7 will definitely take me a while to get used to since I've never used Vista before, but seems like so far so good.

P.S. I downloaded the Google Pinyin method so I can type Chinese using Pinyin (Windows 7 comes with ChangJie, Quick, Phonetic methods, etc. but I don't know any of those).

Salt Cod Brandade! Yum!

This week and next week is DineLA Restaurant Week. Lots of famous restaurants are offering prix-fixe lunches and dinners at great prices. I went to Vertical last night and had one of the best dishes I had in a while (okay, besides that foie gras I had the other day at La Cachette-not part of the prix-fixe but I ordered it anyway). It's an appetizer called Salt Cod Brandade. Never had this dish before, so I didn't know what to expect, but me and my friend were very pleasantly surprised by it. It was not overly salty, and it blends perfectly with the crunchy bread. Soooo good! Google "Salt Cod Brandade" for recipes!

Not a good day to drive to SF

Very elaborate wine flask from the ancient times

11232008037, originally uploaded by pigann.

With Christmas motif! Picture taken from Getty Villa last Sunday.

Fire!

Not the Tea fire, not the Sayre fire, and not the Freeway Complex fire, but there was actually a fire in Alhambra tonite which is a few blocks away from where I live. The fire started before 11pm, and shortly after 11, my building's fire alarm went off because the smoke blew this way. The alarm didn't stop till 30 mins later, plus there were helicopters circling above and sirens all over. My ears!

Story from San Gabriel Valley Tribune: http://www.sgvtribune.com/ci_11017376

Only in Japan

LOL! WTF! (You can skip the first minute and 20 secs... it's quite long...)

Vote for DonorsChoose

Worse than going to work

Back from conference in Las Vegas... so tired!


Green Valley Ranch Resort


Hoover Dam

Nokia Mail for Exchange vs. Emoze

I've been wanting to get work mail on my cellphone for quite a while since I don't have a crackberry and I don't want to carry my laptop with me all the time just for checking emails. If the iphone can do it, there must be a way for a N95 to do it, right? RIGHT? (nothing against people with iphones but I'm a little anti-Apple) So a few days ago, I finally sat my lazy ass down and figured out how to do it. In the process of researching on the internet, I pretty much narrowed my choices down to Nokia's Mail for Exchange (MfE) app and Emoze since they are both free, and since some articles have mentioned that SEVEN uses a lot of RAM. I was trying to find a comparison of the apps but didn't find anything till just now: Check this article

I'll try to test each of the 2 apps I have in mind for a few days and decide which one I want to keep. For the record, I am using a N95-3 on T-mobile (ya... EDGE), accessing Exchange mail through OWA (Outlook Web Access). Sorry I don't know which version of Exchange server we have.

What They Do
Both of these apps will push your Exchange mail, contacts, calendar, tasks, etc. right to your cell phone. Emoze can also be configured to other personal mail accounts such as Google or Yahoo, however you can only configure 1 account, so I am using it for Exchange. MfE, as spelled out in the name, is strictly for Exchange. You can tell the apps which folders to sync and when to sync. Both apps are FREE!

What You Need
You will need an unlimited data plan since it is constantly syncing your mail. MfE obviously only works with Nokia phones and only on the E series and certain N series phones right now, but will be available for all Nokia Symbian S60 devices in the future. Emoze can work with different devices that have the supported OS.

Mail for Exchange
What I like

• Sync will occur as long as profile is set up. No need to have separate app open
• Fast sync
• Can open attachments as long as your phone supports the file type for the attachment

What I don't like

• Cannot sync subfolders
• Cannot go to mailbox directly from MfE app
• There's no way to turn off the syncing other than changing the sync schedule in your profile to other dates or set it to manual sync
  

Emoze
What I like

• Can sync subfolders under the Inbox, but they will all appear in the same "emoze mailbox"
• Can truncate emails, and fetch truncated portion if necessary

What I don't like

• Need to have Emoze app open to sync
• Can only sync email from the last day
• Starting up and syncing took very long, and actually didn't always work for me
• Can only open attachments under 100k in the free version

I'll do some more testing in the next few days but right now it feels like MfE works better for me.

Bitching of the Day

I took my car to Glendale Infiniti for service today. This is the loaner car that they gave me. I'm not a clean freak at all and I have only one word to say... GROSS!
Click on the pic to enlarge if you feel like it...

"Who Killed Chandra Levy?" series

I came across this Washington Post series "Who Killed Chandra Levy?" a while back and finally finished reading it recently. This series talks about some details of the Chandra Levy case that was not known before and it is an interesting read. I remember hearing about this case a few years back, but I don't recall all the media frenzy that was mentioned... I think I was in HK that summer and missed it, so I didn't know she went to USC. We would have graduated from the same graduation ceremony if she was alive! There are cold cases that eventually get solved down the line as new evidence comes up. I surely hope this is one of them.

The Washington Post "Who Killed Chandra Levy?" Series

Pics from hotel room (yeah you can tell I'm bored)

Bay view



Pool view

Pool view at night

Where's my food??!!!!

I'm in San Diego now for a conference starting tomorrow, and I'm staying at the Manchester Grand Hyatt... well, all I can say is I'm not impressed. TV remote didn't work. Called housekeeping and it took them almost an hour to bring me another one. The bathroom is ok clean but there is only 1 bar of soap in there... ok... so if I use that for shower, what am I supposed to wash my hands with??? The room is fairly small (and apparently it's already an upgrade), and I waited 1.5 hrs for room service! I just ordered a pizza, an apple tart, and a glass of wine. What took them so long? When the food finally came, they gave me a complimentary bottle of Evian because of the wait... Quoi?? From a 4-5 star hotel, I would expect my whole meal on the house (esp. when they said on the phone that it would not take more than 30 mins when I placed the order on the phone!)

Nice thing is I was able to see fireworks from the room. This sure is a big plus, if not, I would be steaming by now!

Some more songs I like (國語)