Server Outage...

in ,
There was a server outage for some hostmonster's servers today caused by a power outage in one of the server rooms for hostmonster. Thousands of websites were effected, including all my sites. The outage went on about 3 hours, and then everything went back to normal. Now I am thinking about switching to a better host or getting my private server, or even running a machine on Amazon's EC2 cloud.

Google's double standard pisses me off. NO POLITCS

in
During the past few days, the biggest news that hit the online world was the news on Google's withdrawing from China mainland.

To me, this is simply a retarded tragedy thanks to the useless politicians. Yes, I think politicians are the MOST useless people

Well, ok, media were also part of this. (e.g. a very biased NY Times article I've seen)

Let's get it straight: Google is a U.S. based commercial company.

By that I think there are certain rules you have to follow no matter where you are: 1. Follow local rules. Does Google obey Patriot Act? I don't really think it's possible for Google to not follow that rule. If Google FBI information all the time (this is just an assumption, but it is highly possible), why shouldn't Google follow the Laws in China?

2.Your goal is to make money, losing a huge market like China is highly unreasonable for the reasons it gave. It is an action made by politicians, not businessmen. Google has suggested that the Chinese hackers were sponsored by the Chinese government. A company that operates in one country would NEVER have the courage to accuse its local government for such crime. It has to be backed up by something, something stronger that supports it. We all know how big the Chinese market is. Even though it only constitutes a small fraction of its revenue, we all know that Google is going into the cellphone market now. Its stupidity could possibly result in the government blocking all the Andorid based phones (btw, Apple and Microsoft must be very happy).

3. All the media attentions.

What is possibly a goal for the U.S. government to make such acts?

1. It doesn't have to pay. Google is paying the price.

2. China and U.S relation has reached a low point in history after Bush's administration.

3. Look at all the media attentions. All the news sites are citing about the censorship fact (ok, let's get straight on this point again, a country needs stability, the government is oppressing different groups of people that wants to make riots by censoring sites such as Twitter, which can possibly make a huge impact on politics. and By the way, who knows if Twitter is not censored by the U.S. government? There's just no media reports about it? Oh wait, maybe it's the same concept as in China?). On the other hand, all the financial sites are talking about how stupid Google is.

But is google a company or is it a humanity organization? I feel your pain, Eric.

I think I've found a bug or rather a storage eating monster

in ,
First of all, happy birthday to myself!

I got a big birthday present today at 0:00 am of my birthday.

What is it? It's a file that is trying to eat all of the remaining storage space on my iPhone!

I found out that it doesn't really matter how much you have left, it will eat them all.

I freak out at the moment when I saw the message on iTunes: "You need an additional 1kb to synch. your iPhone."

[caption id="attachment_160" align="alignnone" width="610" caption="Notice the "Other""][/caption]

The first thing I did was try rebooting the phone, it does solve the problem, but not inherently since it will start eating again.

So what is it that is eating my iPhone?!

A simple unix command came handy here: "find -size +1000000k" while logged in as mobile on mobile terminal or SSH through putty.

"./Library/RYP/logs/rockapp_2010-03-17.log"   size: 5988MB.

What a huge monster!

Hopefully deleting or making an empty file with all permission 444 will help.

[caption id="attachment_161" align="alignnone" width="634" caption="A peek via WinSCP"][/caption]

  • Update 1: Something weird happened, it still reports to me that disk is full after awhile, so now I'm worried that there's something similar to memory leakage or virus going on in my iPhone OS. find commend did not work this time. I tried to remove the log folder.
  • Update 2:  After removing the file, somehow the Media content gets screwed over. At this moment, if you try sync with iTunes, it will/might report not able to read contents and ask you to restore. After doing some research, this issue is fairly easy to solve as well: simply recursively remove the Media folder using: "rm -r /var/mobile/Media" this will make iTunes able to restore your iphone to a backup you've made before. It might take awhile. Also, reboot is required at the end. It works at the end.

    • This is why Flash should not get on mobile too soon

    in
    Today I was watching Saturday Night Live on Hulu.com. And the laptop I was using got a blue screen due to overheating. So I monitored the temperature:

    [caption id="attachment_146" align="alignnone" width="408" caption="GPU: 85 degrees, Both cores of my CPU > 75 on a T9400+Nvidia 9600M"]GPU: 85 degrees, Both cores of my CPU > 75[/caption]

    Normally, this laptop operates with GPU around 60 degrees and CPUs around 50 degrees. When playing low-res videos and local media files. Flash is simply inefficient. I can't imagine the amount of batteries that it will be draining with current algorithms. It will simply kill the battery life.

    Update: The CPU and GPU temperature both reached 90 something degrees, and the laptop rebooted shortly after that.

    A change I made to my screen to increase productivity

    in
    Requirement:

    1. Running Windows 7 and no other dock/software lunching bars. 2. A huge wide-screen monitor. (21"+)

    Steps: 1. Move the taskbar to the right-side and dock your most frequently used softwares there.

    Benefits over on the bottom: 1. The icons are relatively horizontal at your eye sight so you don't have to look down. 2a. More practical viewing spaces for programs/web pages.  --For the non-taskbar space. This is because of the ratio adjustment will just make things look nicer. 2b. For the taskbar itself, the icons seem bigger and nicer and aero boxes appears on the right seem to be nicer/more logical.

    Time to do it: 1. 1 second.

    Middle School Math finds the Perfect Strategy

    in
    So, should I use calculus/linear algebra etc..  to find out what is the best strategy for Google Map powered Monopoly City Streets? Note* this is the perfect way to start the game with the most money, not the most score! (scores are calculated differently) No, its not necessary. Here is my guide for making the most money out of your rent: First let me just list some data that I found out: 1. You start with a certain amount of money, 2. Everyday you get paid by a FIXED constant 1million and your rent. 3. Longer streets' houses makes more money. 4. Shorter streets are less offensive. 5. There is a tax system. 6. The way the rent is calculated : Let's use the basic 50,000 one as example,  its equation of rent is: 50,000*x/1,000,000 where x is the street value. lets call it daily housing fee. (DHF) That is, if you build n houses on this street, your next day rent will be : Rent (x, n) = x*.1+n*DHF Because you want the most money, you wanna use up all your money. and the number of houses that you will build is limited by your street money. That is, f_x(n)=3,000,000-n*500000 Then you can substitute x into the Rent equation, and without taking the derivative, the answer is already obvious by the graph: Link: http://www.edisonwang.com/2mj   (wolfram alpha) approx.  30 houses would be the best. by substitute this back to the f_x(n) equation, we get the optimized x is approx. 1,500,000 Wow, isn't this 50% of your money? Yes, it is. Splitting your money into half half for buying long streets and house. Notice that the 50,000 value house occupies more space than some other buildings, but its def the best thing to build at the start. I will not discuss cheating methods here, but I can say....CHEATING JUST GOT MORE EFFICIENT.

    Good luck and Have fun.

    The new Iphone 3GS

    in
    Yay, new Iphone! New Cheap Iphone!...Nha, it is not cheaper, though it is much better.

    The new generation of iphone offers both software and hardware improvements, some key points are as follows: 0." The iPhone 3GS has a new processor built-in. Apple claims that it is up to two times faster than the previous generation: Launching messages is 2.1 faster, load the NY Times in Safari: 2.9 times faster. It also consumes less, which has an impact on the improved battery life."[Gizmodo] 1. 3M Camera, which is better than most mainstream phones in the U.S market. *still far from the 6-10MP of the Asian market. But with the software improvements that come with it the quality should increase in a noticeable amount 2. Support for 7.2 Mbps 3G standard. None of the current U.S. networks supports it, therefore, personally I think this is a feature for international users since new generations will be out by the time AT&T and such have it supported. 3. New graphic engine: better gaming experience. We will see it eventually beats PSP in handhold gaming.  Well, at least, DSI might have the ability to compete with it. 4. Magnetometer to use with map applications etc.. Use your imaginations to see what the application makers will do with it. I am totally expected to use this in app-games. 5. Increased battery life. Apple say its is 20%-50% better than 3G depending on what you do. Well, personally I believe that will be enough for most people since at least 5hrs(gaming non-stop) should be enough for a day, and then...you just charge it ...lolz 6. Voice control. I think apple held this feature back because of the new shuffle. Yea..it's business that stops techonologies from happening sometimes.

    New Price: $199 with contract for the lowest storage one, goes up by 100 each time you double the storage. AT&T Users: "Gizmodo:

    If you are "a valued AT&T customer," AT&T offers an "early iPhone upgrade with a new 2-yr commitment and an $18 upgrade fee." The price? $399.00 for the 16GB iPhone 3G S and $499.00 for the 32GB iPhone 3G S. It gets worse: For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB).

    Insane. Way to go AT&T."

    For a complete coverage on iPhone 3GS, visit the following links [Gizmodo]:

    iPhone 3GS • iPhone 3GS Complete Feature Guide • iPhone 3G vs. iPhone 3GS Comparison Chart • iPhone 3GS Video Walkthrough (Quick 4-Minute Version) • iPhone 3GS Gets Voice Control