After getting a 1-TB desktop hard drive a few weeks ago, I finally found the time to move my old stuffs from a portable 160GB hard drive to it. During the process, I found this old photo taken in October 2003 in my very first “office” when I just started BeansBox. This is also my first PowerBook, nicknamed “TiBook” at that time as it’s made of Titanium.

Look closely to the icons on my dock and desktop, it amazes me how much has changed over the last 6 years – to Mac OS X, to my work and to myself in general. For instance, I don’t use Photoshop, Suitcase, Palm Desktop or Microsoft Office anymore.

My first Mac was a “snowy white” iBook G3, then after this TiBook retired, I got another two Aluminum PowerBooks (one was renamed as MacBook Pro) as my main work machine. In between I also bought a white MacBook and a Mac mini.

A fellow works at a steel mill for most of his life. One day, he’s laid off because a new machine comes in to replace him.

2 months later, he gets a frantic call from his old boss. “Bill, I need your help, the machine is broken and we can’t figure out what’s wrong with it – the whole plant is at a standstill!”

So Bill goes over to the plant, walks around checking a few things and then finally pulls out a piece of chalk. He goes over and marks 3 parts – a switch, a gasket and a small servo. “Replace these parts and you’ll be fine” he says.

The plant manager is ecstatic, and replaces the parts. Sure enough, the plant is operational again.

A week later, the plant manager gets Bills invoice. $50,050.05!

Agast, the manager phones up Bill and says “What is this! All you did was walk around and make 3 marks! Explain this invoice to me.”

Bill replies “The .05 is the cost of the chalk. The $50 was my time for coming down here”

“And the remaining $50k?!”

“The $50k is the 40 years of experience it took for me to put the marks in the exact right spot and solve your million dollar problem.”

Bill got paid.

In 1999, the term “blog” was still not yet a known one but it was exactly what my personal website was like: I treated it like an online diary, posting one piece of little story on a frequent basis, documenting my daily life and archiving by month/year, all done in plain old-school table-based HTML.

This is a capture of the WHOIS record showing the start date of this domain:

I wasn’t able to find any screen shot of my website circa-1999 (who would keep files for 10 years?), so here’s a screen shot of the archived version in 2001:

Here you can view all old versions archived between 2001 and 2008.

Recently I am just too lazy to blog. I got a few new gadgets (MacBook Pro 13″, New iPhone 3GS and Nike+ …) and Facebook has gradually replaced as my main communication tool with friends and family, you know sometimes I just don’t have THAT much to write about. As a “blogger” of 10 years, I feel quite strongly about the impact of social networks like Facebook (previously Friendster). I should write more about that later. Now it’s time to celebrate: by renewing the domain for another 10 years.

Then I installed the OS X 10.5.7 update and the MBP started breaking down! It crashed a few times a day, the screen wouldn’t turn off after sleep, spotlight was unresponsive and it was clearly overheating the whole time. I googled extensively for a solution but to no avail. Even Jeffrey Zeldman was suffering from it. Bummer!

My buddy Bill got the same model but hasn’t got any issue after the update. Convinced that it was clearly a software issue, I was reluctant to do anything about it. I don’t know why, maybe I just need an excuse to buy a new Mac. Could it be a conspiracy as suggested by one of these commenters?

It wasn’t an impulsive purchase for my standard. I spent two days considering all options. In the end I got the cheapest 13-inch MacBook Pro. That could well mean a downgrade in a sense as I was using a 15-inch. I placed the order on Apple Online Store on Thursday night, and the new Mac arrived on Monday morning! There wasn’t much time for me to change my mind.

I upgraded the memory from 2GB to 4GB for HK$560 because I could not afford the max. 8GB – priced at HK$7,800 now!!! I also decided to hold off the hard drive upgrade until SSD drives become affordable per the advice I received on Facebook. But a smaller hard drive (160GB vs. 250GB) means I had to get rid of some data. I didn’t use the built-in OS X Migration Assistant this time and managed to leave behind all old, unused files accumulated from 2003, by selecting manually what to migrate over.

This new 13-inch MBP is much more portable than my old 15-inch although it only weighs one pound less (4.5lb vs. 5.5lb). The long (7-hour) battery life is a godsend, I no longer need to carry a power adapter while going out for consecutive meetings.

I thought I wouldn’t like the glossy screen but I was wrong. It doesn’t tire my eyes at all (maybe I am just ecstatic), and the unibody case also feels more solid than the old aluminum one. Overall I am very happy with this new Mac and fell in love with iPhoto ‘09. You know how much I like tagging photos …

Other gadgets that I couldn’t resist from buying while shopping for a new sleeve in Wanchai computer mall:

Logitech Pure-Fi Mobile

Altec Lansing Orbit M Speaker

Nike Vapor 3-Way Sport Headphones

Logitech Comfort Lapdesk

The WWDC’09 keynote live stream is finally available (via iTunes) today. I was too tired to stay up last night to follow it on Macrumors, and not very keen to watch the stream without Steve Jobs as the presenter. Among all the product announcements, these are my favourites (in order):

• Mac OS X Snow Leopard – not every OS can be better (faster, stabler and smaller) than its previous version. Ask Windows Vista users. And it only asks for US$29 for upgrade! The sale for Finger may not be that good with the new Innovative Chinese character input feature though.
• MacBook Air prices dropped – HK$11,688 (education price: HK$10,888) only. This price is a cheat! Can you name any other ultrathin laptop that cheap (and look half good)? I’m tempted.
• iPhone 3.0 Software Update – MobileMe Find My iPhone, Remote Wipe and Internet Tethering have always been the features I need most.

Since I still have one year contract left with Three HK with my current 16GB iPhone 3G purchased last July, it doesn’t make sense for me to upgrade to the new iPhone 3GS and extend the contract further, luckily there are still plenty of new features to enjoy with the iPhone 3.0 software update! I also can’t wait to get Snow Leopard in September!

Photo by hammer51012

When it comes to making the decision about choosing a life partner, no one wants to make a mistake. Yet, with a divorce rate of close to 50 percent, it appears that many are making serious mistakes in their approach to finding Mr./Ms. Right!

If you ask most couples who are engaged why they’re getting married, they’ll say: “We’re in love.”

I believe this is the #1 mistake people make when they date. Choosing a life partner should never be based on love. Though this may sound not politically correct, there’s a profound truth here. Love is not the basis for getting married. Rather, love is the result of a good marriage. When the other ingredients are right, then the love will come.

Let me say it again: You can’t build a lifetime relationship on love alone. You need a lot more. Here are five questions you must ask yourself if you’re serious about finding and keeping a life partner.

QUESTION #1

Do we share a common life purpose?

Why is this so important? Let me put it this way: If you’re married for 20 or 30 years, that’s a long time to live with someone. What do you plan to do with each other all that time? Travel, eat and jog together? You need to share something deeper and more meaningful. You need a common life purpose.

Two things can happen in a marriage. You can grow together, or you can grow apart. 50 percent of the people out there are growing apart. To make a marriage work, you need to know what you want out of life – bottom line – and marry someone who wants the same thing.

QUESTION #2

Do I feel safe expressing my feelings and thoughts with this person?

This question goes to the core of the quality of your relationship. Feeling safe means you can communicate openly with this person. The basis of having good communication is trust – i.e. trust that I won’t get “punished” or hurt for expressing my honest thoughts and feelings.

A colleague of mine defines an abusive person as someone with whom you feel afraid to express your thoughts and feelings.

Be honest with yourself on this one. Make sure you feel emotionally safe with the person you plan to marry.

QUESTION #3

Is he/she a mensch?

A mensch is someone who is a refined and sensitive person. How can you test? Here are some suggestions. Do they work on personal growth on a regular basis? Are they serious about improving themselves?

A teacher of mine defines a good person as “someone who is always striving to be good and do the right thing.”

So ask about your significant other: What do they do with their time? Is this person materialistic? Usually a materialistic person is not someone whose top priority is character refinement. There are essentially two types of people in the world: People who are dedicated to personal growth and people who are dedicated to seeking comfort. Someone whose goal in life is to be comfortable will put personal comfort ahead of doing the right thing. You need to know that before walking down the aisle.

QUESTION #4

How does he/she treat other people?

The one most important thing that makes any relationship work is the ability to give. By giving, we mean the ability to give another person pleasure. Ask: Is this someone who enjoys giving pleasure to others or are they wrapped up in themselves and self-absorbed?

To measure this, think about the following: How do they treat people whom they do not have to be nice to, such as a waiter, bus boy, taxi driver, etc. How do they treat parents and siblings? Do they have gratitude and appreciation? If they don’t have gratitude for the people who have given them everything, you cannot expect that they’ll have gratitude for you – who can’t do nearly as much for them!

Do they gossip and speak badly about others? Someone who gossips cannot be someone who loves others. You can be sure that someone who treats others poorly, will eventually treat you poorly as well.

QUESTION #5

Is there anything I’m hoping to change about this person after we’re married?

Too many people make the mistake of marrying someone with the intention of trying to “improve” them after they’re married. As a colleague of mine puts it, “You can probably expect someone to change after marriage … for the worse!”

If you cannot fully accept this person the way they are now, then you are not ready to marry them.

In conclusion, dating doesn’t have to be difficult and treacherous. The key is to try leading a little more with your head and less with your heart. It pays to be as objective as possible when you are dating, to be sure to ask questions that will help you get to the key issues. Falling in love is a great feeling, but when you wake up with a ring on your finger, you don’t want to find yourself in trouble because you didn’t do your homework.

– Written by Rabbi Dov Heller, M.A.

Unfortunately, so far I haven’t found anyone that pass all five. Question #1 seems the hardest in my case.

Today, the 17th of May, 2009, is a very special day to me. Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi, the two tennis greats that I grew up idolizing, are now playing on the Centre Court of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, home of the prestigious Wimbledon Championships to celebrate its accomplishment of building a fully retractable and weatherproof roof.

At the same very moment, the two soon-to-be tennis legends current world number one Rafael Nadal and number two Roger Federer are seeing each other off at the Finals of the Tennis Masters Madrid!

As you would expect, I am busy switching between two channels, following the official blog, twitter, and writing this blog all at the same time!

I miss Graf and Agassi dearly. I never had a chance to see them play live. The closest opportunity came in 1999, when I visited Wimbledon but it so happened that there wasn’t much rain delay in that year so they didn’t have to schedule any match on the “middle Sunday”. That was the only day I could go there (and I got a free pass!), sadly I had to leave for Scotland to visit my sister the next day. In the same year, Graf retired from professional tennis.

Although the couple had played in many exhibition matches afterwards for charity, none of those matches was shown on TV in Hong Kong. So today’s matches are truly special to me, they bring back all my old memories and I feel like I have traveled 10 years back to 1999 to see them and that really made up the loss in my heart.

10. You are getting impatient with those 2-hour dinners and ask for the bill many times but the waiters keep ignoring you and the customers waiting outside.

9. Cars are dirty, beat-up and parked (or double-parked) every where on and off the side walks, with less than 3 inches of distance between them.

8. Cigarette smoking is allowed in restaurants and parents have no problem smoking at their babies and children.

7. You wonder what the hell is cover charge in your bill, on top of a 12% service charge.

6. A cup of cappuccino (€2) is cheaper than a glass of coke (€4), and you hear the American tourist at the next table complaining how absurd that is.

5. 60-year-old are not allowed to sit on the “priority seating” for elderly on the bus as they are reserved for age 70 or above. But you notice that 70% of the passengers are over 80.

4. Men are either slim, handsome, well-groomed or all of the above.

3. If you wear high-heels you will be taller than most of the men.

2. Caucasian women in their 30s wear Hello Kitty clothing and carry Hello Kitty trendy bags.

1. There are 20 ways to flush a toilet.

Just wandering around the city for a few hours after lunch, the map from the hotel is pretty much useless, so I just don’t use the map anymore. I kept walking, walking and walking, when I was exhausted, I stopped to grab a coffee.

I tried to find The “Bridge of Sighs” (Ponte dei Sospiri) without success, just didn’t bother to look it up – somehow I enjoyed this mode – no itinerary, no check-point and no time limit.

I took a nap near the shore at Zattere, overlooking Chiesa del Redentore on Isola della Guidecca across the sea. It was terribly relaxing.

After another short nap in the hotel, I went out for dinner at 9 p.m. and landed at a nearby restaurant. It was, as usual, over-priced but I was convinced that I couldn’t get any better deal unless I settled for a quick cafe with cold sandwiches.

At the end of my meal I met a lovely couple from Liverpool, UK, across the table. We had a very nice chat, I promised to show them around when they visit HK. I am sure they’d be blown away by our food, shopping outlets and competitive prices.

To sum up my stay in Venice: I am quite disappointed. The place is gorgeous but too touristy. Places are packed, everything is over-priced and the service isn’t one of the best. The quality of hotel and food, as compared to Rome and Florence, is below par. I wish I had stayed longer in Florence and took a tour to Cinque Terre instead. I nearly went into a Chinese restaurant here today, for I miss Chinese food so much, I guess I’d take a break from pasta and pizza for at least 6 months after I go back.

Taking a 4.5 hour train tomorrow back to Rome to catch my flight. See you all back in Hong Kong!

Didn’t sleep very well last night, I really miss the hotel in Florence. By the time I got up it’s too late for breakfast. I met a local Italian and a Korean tourist on the train last day, and the Italian recommended a restaurant called “Ae Oche” with some good pizzas at affordable prices. So I went there for lunch today. The pizza cost €7.5, not that cheap but the size is double of what I can finish.

Then I took the water bus and went to Murano, an island North of Venice, as recommended by the guidebook. I visited a glass factory and wandered around the place. It was full of shops selling all kinds of glass products, I am not too much of a shopper so I just found a cafe to chill out. I wrote another four postcards to send to friends and I wonder how long it would take them to arrive in Canada, USA and Hong Kong.

Shortly afterwards I went to another island – Burano – which is famous for their lace products and colorful houses. Glad to be away from the crowds in Venice and I took a lot of photos here. After I saw those taken by others on Flickr, I am embarrassed to put up those of mine.

Tired and restless, I gave up locating the restaurants that I wanted to go to. The Google Map for Venice is not accurate and I keep getting lost every day here. So I just picked one near Rialto bridge, it was a set menu for €20. The risotto was good, but not the fried seafood. Maybe it’s a “specialty” here, but I really don’t like fried food, especially for seafood. The quality of the seafood is not great either, I guess you won’t get anything decent here below €40 per head. Coffee, on the other hand, is affordable and of high quality in almost every cafe and restaurant, so I took my time to enjoy a cup after the meal and spent almost an hour reading my book.