The Really Revolutionary Pad You Should Know

No, it's not iPad, but the Always Infinity Sanitary Pad that is really revolutionary.

(OK, for those who don't need to use this kind of product, stop reading now.)

Years ago, Always introduced the "winged" design in their sanitary pad, that was quite a break through. (Anybody still remember the Sylvia Cheng commercial?) It's a small change in the design, but greatly improve the usability. After that, there were many small improvements. The pad became thinner, and the material became more absorbent, but they were just minor changes. But the new Always Infinity is different, the difference is a big WOW.

First of all, you immediately realized, this time, they really hired someone with fluid dynamics degree to design it. It's high tech. While looked not much different from the previous design, the new design directs all the liquid to the bottom of the pad and keeps the top dry. (Turn it and you will be amazed.) It also absorbs things fast, extremely fast. The texture of the top layer material also changed. The plastic like material is replaced by a more environmentally friendly material. It's more paper like and easier on the skin. (I wonder if the same technology may have already been used in making diapers.)

The whole experience makes me wonder. Which technology has more impact on my life? Which pad I am willing to give up, which one I can't live without? And the answer amuses me.

Set up my minotor with mac

Still not fully recovered from the cold but my mac keyboard arrived just in time to cheer me up. Now I finally have all the things for a proper setup. The long mini-display/display cable looks like a joke on my desk*, but other than that I am happy. Now the snow leopard looks really impressive.

*There is a reason my best friend claimed Apple is a cable company. Why you need to buy adapters to connect your mac to other display is still beyond me. They really have a thing for anything that is "mini".

P.S. After trying my monitor for two days, I found my eyes feel more comfortable after viewing it for a long time (compared to viewing on my mac power book). That one really puts a lot of strains on my eyes.

Sore Throat Got Worse

Against my best hope, the sore throat is getting worse. Ironically I lost all the energy to be "angry" with myself but stayed in a kind of calm state. My voice also changed. It now sounds deep and confident, something I wish I could keep when I recover. No more reading today. It's full resting time now.

What to read on a sick day

The stress of my rapid job changing is taking its toll. This morning I woke up with a minor sore throat, by the early afternoon it had progressed into some serious coughing, so I took some medicine and spent the rest of the day recuperating. While I should be laying in bed relaxing, I felt angry with myself. So many things to prepare for my new job, how could I be sick! However, I knew from my aching body that I had better listen to it.

My mind was still clear enough (the drowsy medicine hadn't kicked in yet) for me to do some light reading. I was thinking about reading the last Wallander novel I bought last week but decided a crime novel was too heavy. It suddenly occurred to me that a couple of days ago (when I was playing with the todo list thingy), I put "reading the three Theban plays of Sophocles" on my "bucket list". I had read the first two (Antigone, Oedipus the King) before, maybe it was time to finish the last one. (Don't ask me why reading Greek tragedy felt like a "light reading". Maybe being sick reminded me my own mortality so a Greek tragedy just suited the mood.) It was short so I should be able to handle it. So I picked up "Oedipus at Colonus" and soon checked off the first item on my bucket list. Not bad for a sick day.

Notes from the reading:

The ending is just too Deus Ex Machine. Sophocles wrote this play near the end of his life. His own mortality must be on his mind. Was he secretly identified with the old, aging Oedipus? 

Though Oedipus did kill his father, he tried to defy his fate when he first heard of the prophecy and fled Corinth (by doing so he walked right into it). So in this case, he did exercise his free will. However, when his son Polynices heard about his own fate, he claimed it was destined and chose to obey it even though he had a good chance to change it. Is this difference, the action of consciously fighting against your fate, the difference between a heroic character and a victim (or a plain spoiled son)? 
     

Reading the play 2000 years later (and knowing what would happen to Antigone and others) did make you feel like an Olympian God, even  though you are also mortal.

P.S. my throat still hurt, but fortunately no other symptom developed (knock knock). I hope I will feel better tomorrow.

Two non-Gould Goldbergs

Nowadays whoever records Bach's Goldberg Variations will inevitably be compared to Glenn Gould. Not only Gould's playing "redefined" Goldberg, it dominated the interpretations. Many people who loved Gould's interpretation never listened to another one.  They just couldn't tolerate it.

I happened to be listening the Gould's Goldberg lately (both the 1955 and 1981 versions). After that, I decided to play my other Goldberg CDs and see how they stand the comparison. I haven't finished listening to all of them, but here are the two Goldberg interpretations which stood the "Gould Test".

The first one is an orchestra version. In fact, it's more like an "orchestra" version of Gould's playing. Not only the recording is superb, the different sound colors of instruments actually make this adaptation richer. I have never heard the last variation (variation 30) being played so movingly in any other interpretations.

Then I found I started to listen to Murray Perahia's interpretation differently. His use of pedal, and rubato becomes obvious, but I didn't find them intrusive (some people did). On the contrary, I found his playing very reflective (and more humane).  He was also able to generate some sound effect (by use of pedal) that makes his piano interpretation more orchestra-like. (Gould seemed to be modeling his piano like a harpsichord.) It is a very modern approach.

I don't think I will finish all my other Goldberg soon, but I am happy to report, yes, there are other Goldberg worth listening.     

Set Up My New Monitor

Got my new 24" DELL IPS minitor last Wednesday and finally set it up. The impression? WOW! I had used a few DELL monitors before but this one really blows me away. The color is much more vivid and very much in sync with my laptop (very minor color shift, but it's shifted to a more pleasing warm color). After some contrast/brightness adjustments I found my eyes actually felt quite comfortable. Hopefully that can alleviate some of the pains of watching my mac laptop's display. The ironic thing is, thanks to Apple's proprietary mini display port, I need to wait for the adapter to see how it looks with my Mac. My mac power book has looked more and more like a white elephant.

Moving my TODO list management to the cloud (Continued)

Update on the same topic. I found "Due-Today" had problems sync correctly if a task is "repeated". It will either create a duplicate task, or delete the task without moving it to the next day (I set the conflict resolution to always use server but it still went out of sync). It became too annoying, so I switched to "Ultimate ToDo List" (it has a 14-day free trial).

I found it was modeled more closely to Toodledo so the sync worked smoothly. The UI doesn't look as good as "Due-Today" (to my personal taste) but it's more powerful. Once you learned how to create views you are all set. The only drawback is, now I lost the capability to schedule a task to my Google Calendar directly. (The Calendar plugin from Toodledo to Google Calender didn't do what I want.) But it's something I can live with. Maybe I will just write an email to the developers to request this feature.

Moving my TODO list management to the cloud

After switching to Mac I couldn't use my favorite time management tool any more (they did have a online version but was charging an exorbitant monthly fee), so I started to research its replacement. After tons of downloads and try-outs (you won't believe how many todo software are available on the android market place), I am now settled into the following combination:

1. Sign up a Toodledo service. Toodledo is probably the most popular cloud based todo list service, and it's free. It's very powerful but not so easy to use. You have to play with it for a while to get a feel of the concept. (Make sure you read the "how to use Toodledo with GTD" article in the help section.) Good new is, there are tons of free and cheap mobile applications written to support it and they have much better UI. So once you get familiar with it, you can start to explore its full potential from different devices.

2. Install "Due-Today" on my android phone. It can sync with the Toodledo service so I can update my todo list directly from my phone.  (They are many mobile apps supporting toodledo. I choose "Due-Today" because it allows me to customize the interface and can sync with my Google calender. However, it's not free. Chinchih was using the free version of "ultimate todo list" and was quite happy with it.)

3.  Install Toodledo plugin to my web browser so I can access my todo list or add a task with one click from my computer.

Now I am ready to do the task management from all my gadgets.

P.S. If you just want a simple todo list software on your smart phone, there are tons of free ones. Most of them are very good. I was using "check-it off" and loved it, but it lacked the capability to schedule a task to my Google Calendar (it could sync up with the Google tasks, so you could still see those tasks from your Google Calendar), so I switched to the Toodledo/Due-Today solution. Using the cloud based Toodledo also allows me to access the same todo list whether I use an iPad or an android tablet in the future.

When things didn't work, reboot

I bought a Netgear N750 router. The wireless connection works immediately. However, when I tried to connect my VoIP phone to the LAN port, it failed, no connection. I tried to connect it to my laptop, it still showed no connection. I tried it on every one of the four LAN ports, none of them worked. After tons of googling to no avail, I started to consider the possibility of receiving a defected product. Frustrated, I eventually reboot the router. To my surprise, it then correctly detected the attached device. Sigh, I should have followed the number 1 tech support trick: reboot.  


P.S. I usually outsourced my IT work to my best friend, but since I am now a "mac" person, she refused to be my IT so I couldn't consult her any more.

I was reading Martin Seligman's new book, "Flourish". I had to say it was more a hodgepodge of what's happening in positive psychology than a well thought book. (The real interesting thing in that book is to see the "positive psychology" field was built. It's like building an empire.) Though he had revised the "positive psychology" to be about "well-being" instead of "authentic happiness", this old video pretty much summarizes most of it.

A stroll around my company

Lovely S shape

First mobile posting

Moving to the Cloud

With all those different platforms from the different gadgets I own, I am gradually moving to the cloud. Whenever I am choosing a new software (or replacing an existing one), I am asking myself the following question: can I use it on all these different platforms? For example, I like Microsoft's OneNote, but since my major development platform is shifted to mac and I am using android more and more, I replace it with EverNote* so I can access my notes anywhere on any of my devices.  (The Amazon cloud drive is also a God send.) I think as new gadgets like tablets become more and more popular, cloud based software and services will really take off.

* I am very tempted to get an Asus Eee Slate so I can keep using OneNote and other windows software the way I really want (with a pen on a tablet). Let's see how it compares to the new Asus Eee Transformer.