Back to School

Back to school means go to class, listen to teacher, doing homework, take the quiz or test. This time I'm back to school to learn Ruby on Rails and reinforce my knowledge in Software as A Service for free. My school here is not a normal, traditional school but an online school. I work full-time to keep a roof over my head so I prefer to study part-time at my own leisure. Spending more money to get advance degree is not my goal at this time.

The online course Software Engineering for Software as a Service taught by UC Berkeley professors Armando Fox and David Patterson. Every evening and weekend, I watched the video lectures and read the Kindle version of text book "Engineering Long-Lasting Software: An Agile Approach Using SaaS and Cloud Computing". I also did homework and submitted to grade. It was fun but not easy.

I'm really enjoy this class. I'm appreciate the professors and others made this free online course available to more than sixty thousands students. Prior to this class, I'm also follow iPad and iPhone Application Development (HD) by Stanford professor Paul Hegart in iTunes. With the current technology, we can have the best education for free. Gaining a knowledge is more important than the degree or certificate. I love to learn.

We the People on WhiteHouse.gov

I'm usually never sign any online petition due to security and privacy reasons. I don't trust any petition on the internet at all. This time, I signed up with We the People on WhiteHouse.gov.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/

Please note the domain name WhiteHouse.GOV and the key or lock pad on the address bar when using the secured protocol (HTTPS). It authenticated the official government web site. To protect my privacy, I just stated my name and state.

Signed up with We the People on WhiteHouse.gov web site did not mean I supported all Obama policies. I support the United States constitution and our government. It means I trust our government. I believe our elected officials listen to us.

2012 New Year Resolution

A few years ago, I learned the phrase "It's complicated" from Facebook. I love these words. Life is not simple. Some problems may not be easily to solve. It's complicated.

When your computer had a problem or ran too slow, buying a new computer was not a simple solution. You need to find out where the problem is, why the problem exists and how to fix it. When you ran a report, it took long time to return the result. To make it faster, you can not simply add more memory, or change to a faster CPU. It's complicated. You need to spend time to review your code, review your SQL, and monitor performance. You need to think before you act. You cannot simply solve the issue today by leaving more issues for tomorrow.

Now, as I am getting older, I tell myself: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Beginning this year, I will try to keep everything in my life and my work as simple as I can. Keep it short.

My New Toy

My new toy is a 13-inch MacBook Pro. It took me a lot of time to think over which Mac (Mac Mini, MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, or 15-inch MacBook Pro) would be my next working computer. I needed a new computer with a bigger hard drive, longer battery life, and support Intel Virtual Technology. I also needed to familiarize myself with Mac OS X as more people are using Mac OS and iOS. I would have preferred a 15-inch MacBook Pro but I did not want to overspend on a Mac product. Yes, Apple products are high quality but they are too expensive.

My first impression with my MacBook Pro: I can utilize second band 5GHz wireless network (801.11a / 801.11n). Next, it just had only one or two updates, which took a few minutes to install after I initialized the new computer. My Dell Windows 7 took an hour to update. After a system update, I installed Adobe Flash, Java Development Kit SE, LibreOffice, Android SDK, and Eclipse IDE, and Virtual Box. Last, after learning how to use the Multi-Touch track pad, I really like it.

How about the boot time? It is fast but it still cannot beat Ubuntu 11.10 running on a slower CPU, Intel Pentium Dual-Core 2.3GHz.

SQL in the City

Last Friday, I attended "SQL in the City," a free SQL training workshop held in Los Angeles, California. Unlike other free workshops or conferences that mostly about sales marketing, this workshop had a lot of useful technical sessions presented by well known gurus in SQL community. Just few days before the event, I changed my mind. I thought that I will not go since two hours driving to Los Angeles was an inconvenience.

At the event, the speaker asked us about whether we were developers, DBA, or both. I thought I was a developer; that is what I have done my whole career. Actually, I was both when I working for a small company: Developer and DBA. There were many DBA sessions I attended more than Developer sessions since they are my interesting issues.

On the way home, I was so happy that I did not skip this great event. I appreciated Red Gate provided me and others a chance to learn new things and refresh our knowledge.

America the Beautiful

Lyrics by Katherine Lee Bates
music composed by Samuel A. Ward

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.

America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.



A Little Bit of History....
The lyrics to this beautiful song were written by Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929), a professor of English literature at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, after an inspiring trip to the top of Pikes Peak, Colorado in 1893. Her poem, America the Beautiful first appeared in print in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal, on July 4, 1895. Ms. Bates revised the lyrics in 1904 and again in 1913. In addition to those changes in the words, it is notable that the poem was not always sung to the tune presented on this website ("Materna," composed by Samuel A. Ward in 1882, nearly a decade before the poem was written). In fact, for two years after it was written it was sung to just about any popular or folk tune that would fit with the lyrics, with "Auld Lang Syne" being the most notable of those. The words were not published together with "Materna" until 1910, and even after that time, the tune to be used was challenged to some degree. For example, in 1926 the National Federation of Music Clubs held a contest to put the poem to new, reportedly "less somber," music, but no other entry was determined to be more acceptable. Before her death in 1929, Ms. Bates never indicated publicly which music she liked best, but it now appears likely that America the Beautiful will forever be associated with "Materna."

Linux turned 20 on Aug. 25

The first Linux distro I played around was Red Hat Linux 5.2 in 1999.

After that, I backed to Windows for both professional development and personal desktop application usage. Before that I developed a FoxBase+ application on SCO/Unix in 1990 for a year. I tried again with another distro in 2002, I guessed. Still not a right time, back to Windows. Today, I'm using Ubuntu Linux on daily basic. I'm still using Microsoft Windows for software development (ASP 3.0, ASP.NET, C#, Microsoft SQL 2008, IIS 7, TFS) at work. Anything else, Linux. Android development: Linux. Web develop using PHP, Python, MySQL: Linux. Desktop word processing: Linux. Web browsing: Linux. Listen to music on computer: Linux.