读博士与坐牢的惊人相似 -- Old Joke

1.都是因为一时糊涂或一时冲动，亦或是对于名利财富的贪婪欲望，错误的选择了这条道路
2.进来先接受教育
3.所有人都分在不同的：读博叫课题组，监狱叫监区或大队
4.必须参与劳动：读博是脑力的（当然也有体力活），监狱是体力的，报酬当然是极少的，基本都是面前糊口
5.里面的人都只有一个目的：早点出去
6.在里面表现好的才可以早出去，当然是极少数：读博叫提前毕业，监狱叫减刑；表现一般的就只有：读博叫按期毕业，监狱叫刑满释放；表现差的只好：读博的叫延期，监狱叫加刑
7.在里面的日子也有不同，读博的如果能遇上个好导师，坐牢的如果能遇到个好管教，生活可能会好过些。反之就要加倍痛苦了
8.中间会有比较猛的家伙实在熬不住了：读博的就直接退学了，坐牢的就越狱了
9.但大多数人只好在里面挨着了，盼望着那天早点到来
10.出去那天的场面是感人的，都要热泪盈眶，迫不及待的冲出去呼吸外面新鲜的空气
11.可好景不长，出去一段时间才发现，在里面待的时间太久，已经与社会脱节，出来后什么都干不了。
12.很多人重操久业了：读博的去申请博士后，坐牢的继续违法犯罪

Chrome

I downloaded and used Chrome V1.0 last year when its appearance just made the tech headline. It didn't impress me at that time, 'cause it started and ran quite slow. So I removed it on the same day.

Today I saw some one using it, and it looks cool and fine. I decided to give it a try. Now I decide that I am going to give up Firefox (which takes about 30 sec to startup on my slow-to-death Thinkpad), and of course IE (which I let it exist on my PC only because it sticks with Windows and some malicious websites only "suggest" using IE).

Interestingly enough, if you look into the default search engine list, someone must be unhappy. Apparently, Chrome doesn't live, and doesn't bing anything.

Useful tips.

Shortcuts

Create desktop and Start menu shortcuts to web apps such as Gmail - go to Gmail.com and then select Create application shortcuts... from the Page Control menu (in the top-right corner of your browser - it looks like a page with the corner folded over). Now choose where you want to place your shortcut. This works for other Google apps such as Calendar and Documents, and other services such as Windows Live Hotmail.

Private Browsing

Control + Shift + N opens an 'incognito' window - sites you view in this window won't appear in your history and cookies served by sites in this window will be deleted when the window is closed.

You can open a link in an incognito window by right-clicking the link and selecting Open link in incognito window.

Tabs

Alt + Home loads your Google Chrome home page, with thumbnails of your most visited sites shown in the active tabbed window.

Control + T opens a new tab. You can drag tabs around to change their order or drag a tab out of the window into its own window.

Control + Shift + T opens your most recently closed tab. Press the key combination again to open the tab closed before that one. Google Chrome remembers the last 10 tabs you've closed.

Jump to different open tabs using Control + 1, Control + 2,Control + 3, etc.Control + 9takes you to the last tab.

Control + Tab lets you cycle through your open tabs in order. Control + Shift + Tab cycles through your tabs in the opposite order.

Bookmark

Control +B hides the Google Chrome bookmarks bar. Press Control + B to bring it back again.

History

Right-click or hold down the back button and you'll get a drop-down list of sites to go back through. Show Full History, at the bottom of the list, opens a new tab with your full browser history.

Control + H is a faster way to bring up the History page.

You can delete history for chosen days by scrolling to the day you want to delete and clicking Delete history for this day on the right-hand side of the window.

Downloads

Control + J brings up your Downloads page.

To clear an item from your Downloads page, right-click an entry and select Remove.

Search

Press Control + K or Control + E to search from the address bar. Once pressed, you'll see a ? symbol appear in the address bar and you can simply enter your search query and hit Return.

Management

Right-click the top of the browser window and select Task manager to see how much memory different tabs and plug-ins are using. Highlight one and click End process to stop it running.

Shift + Escape is a quicker way to bring up the Google Chrome Task manager.

Monitor the resources used by a web page - right click inside the page, select Inspect element, switch to the Resources tab and reload the web page. You'll see a list of images, scripts and objects loaded from the web page and you can sort them by size or by loading time.

To see what plug-ins are installed, type about:plugins into the address window.

You can also type the following commands into the Google Chrome address window: about:stats, about:network, about:histograms, about:memory, about:cache, about:dns.

Type about:crash to see what a crashed tab looks like.

A three-second diversion: type about:internets. (Only works in Windows XP.)

Edit any web page - right-click a page and select Inspect element. Now edit the HTML source code and hit Return to view the changes.

Trick of $ sign in Excel

It specify an absolute reference to a cell column and/or row, so that when copying a formula the $ column or row will not change dynamically together.

Examples: =A1, =$A1, =$A$1

$A$1 (absolute column and absolute row)
A$1 (relative column and absolute row)
$A1 (absolute column and relative row)
A1 (relative column and relative row)

absolute cell reference: In a formula, the exact address of a cell, regardless of the position of the cell that contains the formula. An absolute cell reference takes the form $A$1.

relative reference: In a formula, the address of a cell based on the relative position of the cell that contains the formula and the cell referred to. If you copy the formula, the reference automatically adjusts. A relative reference takes the form A1.

See this example: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP030640481033.aspx?pid=CH010036991033

TortoiseSVN

Very easy to use, yet powerful tools.
Key features:
Software subversion control -- update changes, commit changes, find difference, merge difference, lock versions, changes tracker.

Free @ http://tortoisesvn.net/

Where is the best gov

As an axiom, most of the government sucks. For one instance, the Aussie gov whom I am dealing with recently.

Consider a gov as a service provider. Then what we are looking for is its product and its cost. That is, the service you can get from the gov, and the tax you pay to it.
Therefore, Aussie gov sucks. The tax is very high (fairly speaking, it is not too high comparing with some Euro countries). The services? Everyone who applies for any residency visa knows that how inefficient it can be for the gov to process your application.
That might because the gov officers are usually fatter. Sometimes, I am just wondering what they are doing in eight hours everyday besides waiting for their salary pay (which is from helpless taxpayers).

Today I am just pissed. I wanted to apply for a learner’s license, used as a photo ID. At RTA, I got every document right; I got full score in the test. Then I asked for what I want. The officer said: we can’t give you, because you can drive on your oversea license. Come on, I know that. I just want a photo ID.
By the way, she is so stupid, constantly checking manual and frequently going asking her supervisor; I would really like a robot to serve me. She looked at my HK license and didn’t recognize as a full license. She looked at my China license and didn’t see the English subscripts under all lines and asked for translation.
Anyway, I am eligible to get one, so they can’t deny my application (and my payment). I finally got one, at a cost of wasting one hour arguing and waiting.

When I went out the RTA, I felt like missing the HK gov. The tax is very low. Recently I got tax repayment from HK gov, which made me very happy that day. The service is extremely efficient. Say, one of my friends was arranged a visa interview in Oct. But he tried to contact the officer; they just let him attend the interview and got the visa in early Sept. The officers are really helpful. They think on behalf of their clients. Unlike the Aussie ones, they just try not to make mistakes (yet another proof of their lack of intelligence), and will not care about what you need even if you pay for it.

关于奥特曼和怪兽的笑话

什么是幸福？
幸福就是猫吃鱼，狗吃肉，奥特曼打小怪兽

幕后英雄
每个受人尊敬的奥特曼背后，都有一群默默挨打的小怪兽

理想
怪兽妈妈问小怪兽，他的理想是什么？
小怪兽说，我的理想是至少打倒一个奥特曼。

(right, a picture added on 23 Sept 2009)

How to Have a 36 Hour Day

Posted on Mar 24th, 2006 by Jon
How many times do you hear someone say "I wish there were more hours in the day" or something along those lines? The fact is that all of us are only given 24 hours. Having said that, how we spend those 24 hours varies radically from person to person. It's become a bit of a cliche by now but the 24 hours we have is the same 24 hours that Thomas Edison and Mother Theresa had and that Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates currently have. As the old song goes "It's in the way that you use it."

But what if we had more than 24 hours in a day?

Not possible? I disagree. While we can never have more than 24 hours of chronological time I think it's very possible to have many more hours of functional time. In fact, I think it's probably possible to get up to 36 hours of functional time in your day if you do a few relatiively simple things. So without further ado, here is my prescription for the 36 hour day.

It's a list of ways to save time that you may or may not have thought of. Implement a few of them and you'll likely open up a couple of hours each day that you didn't previously have . Implement all of of them and you just might find yourself with too much time on your hands. File that under "Good Problem to Have" right? :)

So here are 10 ways that you can radically change your life and free up the time you didn't know that you could.

36 Hour Day Strategy #1: Optimize Your Sleep - Some of us can get by just fine on 3-5 hours a sleep a night (I'm jealous of you!) while others "need" 9+ hours to feel rested. Certainly a good portion of this is genetic and perhaps environmental. Having said that I tihnk that there are ways that all of us can sleep less and at the same time feel more rested. Here are a few suggestions:

Wake up at the same time every morning . I've been trying it for a little while and totally dig it. It's a simple concept. Just set your alarm clock for the same time each morning, wake up when it goes off and then go to bed at night when you feel tired and not before.

Make your room a quiet, dark cave - For too many people the bedroom is a source of activity, light and noise. Do your best to minimize the amount of sound in your bed room (consider buying an air cleaner or white noise generator if you live in noisy apartment building or neighborhood). Take steps to eliminate or reduce the light that comes into your bedroom while you sleep (heavy curtains or dark room material on the windows work well here). And do your darnedest to remove stimulus from your bedroom (e.g., TV, lots of clutter, etc.)

Experiment with polyphasic sleep - Polyphasic sleep is a sleeping pattern that proposes to reduce sleep down to 2-5 hours a day.

Time Savings from Optimizing Your Sleep = Approximately 1.5 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #2: Optimize Your Diet

The human body spends more of its energy on digestion and elimination than anything else . What you put into your body in the form of food and drink will definitely have an impact on your energy levels as well the amount of sleep you'll need. A few years back I was pretty heavy into weightlifting and was eating a ton of calories and lots of protein every day. The result? I need to sleep a *ton* to feel rested. Sometimes 10-11 hours a night (the hard workouts didn't help either).

Now my diet has done a 180 and I'm eating a much better (but far from perfect) mix of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and healthy fats and oils. The difference in energy is dramatic and I sleep a lot less than I previously needed to. My diet still needs improvement but these changes have literally added hours to my days.

I'd recommend a few resources for people looking to save time by improving their diet. The first is Tony Robbins' Living Health course. Tony has more energy that any person I've ever seen and that's a great testament to his health and fitness regimen. He has based a lot of his information on the work of Dr. Robert Young and thus I would recommend Dr. Young's book The pH Miracle as well.

Finally, consider going on a cleanse. I recently went on a four-day cleanse as outlined in the pH Miracle book and I've had a lot more energy in the week and a half since I went off it. The book Juice Fasting and Detoxification also helped me through a pretty intense (both physically and emotionally) four days and I'd recommend that one as well.

Time Savings from Optimizing Your Diet = Approximately 1.5 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #3: Multi Task

OK, this is a given right. If you do two things at the same time you will be able to do more during your day. But isn't multitasking bad? The lady driving down the highway with her cell glued to her ear is probably not the best model for multitasking. The guy you had lunch with yesterday who checked his Blackberry 17 times before they brought the main course out isn't doing anyone any favors with his technology-enabled form of ADD.

But I'd argue that multi-tasking, when done right, is one of the best ways to save time throughout your day. Combining talking on the phone and "brain dead activities" is a great way to multitask. For most people, doing laundry or washing the dishes is an activity that takes no thought. Why not use that time to make a few phone calls and kill two birds with one stone? But remember, checking e-mail or watching TV are not brain dead activities. And nothing is more annoying than having a phone conversation with someone who is not fully present.

Another great way to multi task is to incorporate exercise into your activities. Need to get together with a friend to catch up? Meet them for a jog and get caught up while you knock out your daily workout. I'll often stretch (it's good for you!) while I'm reading or at my computer (I've got one those exercise balls that allows we to stretch while I'm checking e-mail...kinda geeky but it works for me!).

Something else I do is to do a series of exercises created by a gentleman named Pete Egoscue. These exercises are designed to improve flexibility and range of motion and prevent injury. And many of them can be done while reading, on the phone, etc. I'd highly recommend Pete's book Pain Free for anyone interested in these.

There are a ton of ways that you can incorporate exercise into your daily routines without taking any extra time out of your day. It's really a great way to free up your schedule and keep your body in tip-top shape.

Time Savings from Multi Tasking = Approximately 2.0 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #4: Get Organized

You really owe it to yourself to get organized because it will save you both time and stress. There are a number of different ways and strategies for getting organized. One of the best that I've found (and use personally) is David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology. GTD, as it is more commonly referred to, is a system for capturing and managing the things that you need to do and remember. It's remarkably effective in that it gets all of the little things out of your head which frees up your "psychic RAM" for more productive thoughts and results in increased creativity.

David Allen's system isn't the only one out there. A lot of people will use Franklin-Covey, Tony Robbins' life management system or any of a number of other planning systems. I'm not convinced that there's one best system out there but I think it's important for all of us to use some sort of a system so that "Remember to buy toothpaste" isn't consuming even an ounce of our mental energy.

There's a ton of info about GTD online for free and the investment you'll make in learning one of these systems will pay off in spades. Not only will you be more productive but you'll also feel less stressed which will result in more energy and once again will add hours to your days.

Time Savings from Getting Organized = Approximately 1.0 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #5: Improve Your Typing Speed

In this computer age, the keyboard is often our primary form of communication with many people. This is a wild ass guess but I'd say that the average person probably spends about 1-2 hours a day typing. This could be e-mails, IMs, memos, reports, etc . Certainly for some people this number is much higher and for others it is low. So let's just say an average of 1.5 hours per person for now.

Now let's assume that you currently type 40 WPM. If you improved your typing speed to 60 WPM you would save 33% of the time you are currently spending typing. Improve it to 80 WPM and you've now saved 50%. That's probably a half an hour or 45 minutes a day you've saved. Over the course of a year or a decade (not to mention a lifetime) this results in a *huge* savings.

It's amazing that we invest in all of these productivity applications in businesses and yet you have many people who are still hunting and pecking at their keyboard. That's just crazy to me. The faster you type the better you can communicate plain and simple. The keyboard becomes a natural extension of you vs. some impediment to exchanging information and sharing yourself with the world.

I'd highly recommend investing a little time (even just a few minutes a day) in improving your typing. A program that I use for this is TypingMaster and I love it. It's easy to use and can even be configured to track your real-world typing so that it can incorporate words you commonly mis-type into its drills. This is definitely a great way to save time on a daily basis.

Time Savings from Improving Your Typing Speed = Approximately 0.75 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #6: Improve Your Reading Speed

Just as with typing, improving your reading speed can make you more productive and save you tons of time. It also varies a lot but I'll assume that each of us again spends on average between one and two hours a day reading. Whether this is the morning paper, e-mails at works, research for your job or for school or the latest book we all have a need to be continually reading in this day and age.

The fact of the matter is that most of us don't read all that well. We read slow and we often have to read things multiple times to understand what's going on. And in the end that either reduces the amount of stuff we end up reading (if you read slow and have trouble comprehending reading just won't be enjoyable to you) or results in a lot more time invested in reading than necessary.

As with typing there are ways to improve your reading abilities. Here are a few that I've incorporated:

Active Reading - One of the reasons why many of us don't read that well is that we're entirely passive when reading. The brain engages much more when it is active and the best way to encourage this is to make notes while reading. If you're reading a book then mark the hell out of it. Underline passages, jot notes, etc. You'll find that your comprehension will go way up as will your reading speed (even after accounting for the time spent marking up your book). One of the best parts about making notes is that you can return to the material later and review it more quickly and effectively.

EyeQ - Off and on over the last few years I've been using a software application calledEyeQ to improve my reading speed. I think it's the fastest and easiest way for a person increase their ability to rapidly process information. It works by getting you to move your eyes more quickly through material. This results in an increased ability to filter out words that are meaningless (a, an, the, etc.) as well as a reduced reliance onsubvocalization.

Photoreading - I took a class in Photoreading a few years ago and while I'm still not convinced that it's 100% legit any system that claims to increase reading speed to 25,000 words per minute or more is definitely worth checking out. For people who have a ton of reading to do (e.g., graduate students, attorneys, etc.) something like Photoreading could possibly revolutionize their lives and free up tons of time.

Time Savings from Improving Your Reading Speed = Approximately 0.75 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #7: Learn Out Loud

Probably the #1 reason why I started LearnOutLoud.com is that I believe so strongly in the power of audio learning to literally add hours to peoples' lives and provide increased enjoyment of, and fulfillment during, times which have historically been frustrating and unproductive (e.g., the morning commute).

Audio learning is the perfect multi-tasking activity. Most people who know me know that I'm listening to audio books, podcasts, etc. several hours every day. I'll do this whenever I'm driving, while exercising, doing stuff around the apartment, etc. I've been able to crank through an unbelievable number of books in the last year (including unabridged versions of My Life by Bill Clinton and The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman) that I never would have found the time to sit down and read. Likewise, I've been able to virtually "attend" conferences like South by Southwest and the World Economic Forum thanks to the miracle of podcasting.

Thanks to the iPod and other portable MP3 players it's never been easier to learn out loud. One of my favorite things to do is to go for a run with a few podcasts or an audio book queued up. In fact, I recently completed the LA Marathon while simultaneously listening to the first half of John Battelle's book The Search (read more on that here). It was kind of fun to know that I was getting both a workout for my body and for my mind.

We've essentially set up LearnOutLoud as the epicenter for what I truly feel will be an audio learning revolution in upcoming years and decades. People are increasingly pressed for time and the opportunity to listen to the information you need to consume rather than having to read it opens up a lot of doors. It's a great way to stay on top of all the information and trends that affect your world and that's why I'm so excited about it.

Time Savings from Learning Out Loud = Approximately 1.5 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #8: Use Software To Your Advantage

The right software can bring huge time savings to your life. Certainly not all software will save you time. In fact, some applications can actually be huge time sucks. Anyone ever hear of Minesweeper? :) But there are some programs out there that will add minutes to your days and hours to your weeks and months. Here are some that I've stumbled upon:

ActiveWords - ActiveWords is a macro application that allows you to assign hot keys to repetitive tasks. We use this a lot in our business to save time and it could certainly save you time in your personal life as well.

Here's a simple example of how I use it. Let's say that someone is coming by the office for lunch. I want to give them fairly detailed directions via e-mail. One option would be to type up directions each time. That's really a waste as I'm writing the same thing everytime. Another option would be to type up the directions and put them in a text file and then cut and paste them into my e-mail each time I needed them. That does save time but I still have to find the text file on my system each time and do the cut and paste. What ActiveWords allows me to do is to assign a hot key or phrase to my directions. Now all I have to do is type "officedirections" and hit F8 and the directions will automatically be inserted into my e-mail. Cool huh?

There are a ton of ways to use this nifty little application and I feel that I'm just scratching the surface of its usefulness.

Cloudmark Spamblocker (or other anti-spam software) - If you're manually processing and deleting spam you're just wasting your time. The investment in a good spam blocker is well worth it. I've been using Cloudmark's product for several years and I really like it. Almost all my spam gets blocked and rarely does a legitimate message end up in my spam folder.

Another solution is to use GMail (or another web-based app) for your e-mail. These systems end up doing a pretty good job of filtering spam as well. And now a lot of these services have advanced functionality so you can use them and have the e-mails still appear to be coming from your domain (e.g., jon@learnoutloud.com rather than learnoutloud@gmail.com).

Bloglines (or other RSS aggregation software) - I follow 50+ blogs on a number of subjects including technology, new media, audio books, podcasting, U2 and of courseDilbert. There's no way I'd be able to stay on top of all of this stuff without the help
of a piece of software that puts all these blogs in one place and shows me what new updates have been made to each of them. I use Bloglines and I love it. Not only can I read blogs when I'm at the computer but there's even a mobile version of Bloglines so I can read blogs from my Blackberry.

Blogs are increasingly becoming the best way to consume information online and so if you haven't set up an aggregator yet I'd definitely recommend it. There are dozens of aggregators out there and while Bloglines does the trick for me you may want to look at the other apps to find one that works well for you.

Time Savings from Using Software To Your Advantage = Approximately 0.5 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #9: Cut Your TV Time in Half

Depending on what study you look at you'll find that the average person watches something like four hours of TV a day. That boggles my mind. We're incredibly busy and yet we somehow find a way to spend four or more hours a day watching television?!!! Crazy...

Now I'm not one to say that all television is bad or that mindless entertainment is never a good thing. There are definitely some TV shows and there's of course a time and a place for turning the brain off for a bit. I have no beef with that but what disturbs me is when people give huge chunks of their life to an activity that doesn't really provide any meaningful benefit in most cases.

A year and a half ago I turned off my cable service and I haven't missed it at all. I've got a Netflix subscription so I can have a few movies handy for times when I want to watch them. And if there's a big game on (like last night's incredible UCLA win...Go Bruins!) then I can typically find a place to watch it with some friends. What I have noticed is that the activity of sitting down "just to see what's on" has become entirely foreign to me. And I think that's a very good thing.

So I'm not saying you have to go to the extreme and shut your TV off. Just be conscious of what you're watching and why. And see if you can't reduce the amount of time you spend watching TV by 50%. If you currently watch four hours a day you almost assuredly can get by watching two hours a day. I mean there are some good shows on but not that many good shows...

Time Savings from Cutting Your TV Time in Half = Approximately 2.0 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #10: Get Help from Others

The final way to have a 36 Hour Day is to look for opportunities to have other people help you out with stuff. A lot of this definitely depends on factors like what your job is and how much money you have. If you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company you can probably find people to do a lot of stuff for you and will have no probably paying them to do so. But what about the rest of us?

First of all, don't discount people's interest in helping you out for free. Let's say you are moving in a few weeks. Why not ask several friends to help you out? It certainly makes the load a lot easier and saves you time.

Another possibility is trading things you are good at for things you need help with. For instance, let's say you need help with housecleaning. Perhaps you can find someone whose English skills aren't that good and offer to tutor them in English in exchange for help with cleaning. You'll save time and they'll benefit from your help resulting in a win-win for both of you.

There are tons of opportunities like this if you just keep your eyes open for them. Of course asking someone to help you out means being willing to help if you're asked to. But with all this time you're saving this shouldn't be a problem right? :)

P.S. There's another great way to save time when you're researching something or looking for information. There are a number of services online that will help you for free or a nominal charge. For instance, when I have a tech problem I'll often post it toExperts Exchange and I'll usually get back an answer within hours or even minutes. For non-techie questions I'll use a service like Google Answers. There's a small fee associated with getting questions answered but you can set the amount and it's almost always worth it in terms of the amount of time you save by getting someone to help you out with the research.

In addition to services like this there are thousands of message boards on the Internet staffed with volunteers who can help you answer many questions. Back in the day I started one of these message boards at CertTutor.net and it has helped thousands of people get their technology certification questions answered. It's just one of many like it out there in just about every subject you can imagine.

Time Savings from Getting Help from Others = Approximately 0.5 Hours

So as we add these up we find that there's the potential here to say 12 hours of time each day. Wow. Certainly your mileage with vary with the strategies but hopefully you can implement some of them in your daily life. Time is the most precious commodity on the planet and by saving time in some areas you'll have more time for doing the things that are truly the most important to you and for pursuing your goals and following your bliss. And if we all do that...well, I think that will change the world.

Fiddler

It can be used to capture, inspect and mutate all the web browsing behaviors on a machine. Another proof that no total security on the web.

To bypass IE validation
Start/run
Enter “certmgr.msc”
From the Certificates explorer pane, expand “Personal” and click Certificates folder.
Look for the entry “DO_NOT_TRUST_FiddlerRoot” and drag it into the “Trusted Root Certification Authorities” Folder in the pane.

Free download @ http://www.fiddler2.com/

TGIF

在本周的最后一天完成了周一安排下的任务。
傍晚5点半，走出办公室大楼，加入涌入地铁站的人群。
拿出半年未用，红色ipod nano，找到Pachelbel的canon，音量开到最大。
突然心情大好。
想起半年多前，每日疲惫无比地坐大巴回家。觉得现在的生活才更有乐趣。

The recruiting game

Our group is constantly hiring people. I see that almost everyday a guy/girl in business attire sits the programming test for four hours in the small conference room (so called the "fish tank"). But it seems that 95% did not pass through.

It may appears normal until RJ complains that it is quite time-consuming. Under the current economy circumstance plus the graduating season, recruiters are as aggressive as the job-seeker themselves; they will send in anyone who looks to have 5% chance and fingers cross. It turns out to be a waste of time for the employer, the recruiter and the applicant.

Designing good screen tests can save a lot of time and human resource in recruiting.

The unspoken truth about managing geeks

j.ello

September 8, 2009 (Computerworld) I can sum up every article, book and column written by notable management experts about managing IT in two sentences: "Geeks are smart and creative, but they are also egocentric, antisocial, managerially and business-challenged, victim-prone, bullheaded and credit-whoring. To overcome these intractable behavioral deficits you must do X, Y and Z."

X, Y and Z are variable and usually contradictory between one expert and the next, but the patronizing stereotypes remain constant. I'm not entirely sure that is helpful. So, using the familiar brush, allow me to paint a different picture of those IT pros buried somewhere in your organization.

My career has been stippled with a good bit of disaster recovery consulting, which has led me to deal with dozens of organizations on their worst day, when opinions were pretty raw. I've heard all of the above-mentioned stereotypes and far worse, as well as good bit of rage. The worse shape an organization is in, the more you hear the stereotypes thrown around. But my personal experiences working within IT groups have always been quite good, working with IT pros for whom the negative stereotypes just don't seem to apply. I tended to chalk up IT group failures to some bad luck in hiring and the delicate balance of those geek stereotypes.

Recently, though, I have come to realize that perfectly healthy groups with solid, well-adjusted IT pros can and will devolve, slowly and quietly, into the behaviors that give rise to the stereotypes, given the right set of conditions. It turns out that it is the conditions that are stereotypical, and the IT pros tend to react to those conditions in logical ways. To say it a different way, organizations actively elicit these stereotypical negative behaviors.

Understanding why IT pros appear to act the way they do makes working with, among and as one of them the easiest job in the world.

It's all about respect

Few people notice this, but for IT groups respect is the currency of the realm. IT pros do not squander this currency. Those whom they do not believe are worthy of their respect might instead be treated to professional courtesy, a friendly demeanor or the acceptance of authority. Gaining respect is not a matter of being the boss and has nothing to do with being likeable or sociable; whether you talk, eat or smell right; or any measure that isn't directly related to the work. The amount of respect an IT pro pays someone is a measure of how tolerable that person is when it comes to getting things done, including the elegance and practicality of his solutions and suggestions. IT pros always and without fail, quietly self-organize around those who make the work easier, while shunning those who make the work harder, independent of the organizational chart.

This self-ordering behavior occurs naturally in the IT world because it is populated by people skilled in creative analysis and ordered reasoning. Doctors are a close parallel. The stakes may be higher in medicine, but the work in both fields requires a technical expertise that can't be faked and a proficiency that can only be measured by qualified peers. I think every good IT pro on the planet idolizes Dr. House (minus the addictions).

While everyone would like to work for a nice person who is always right, IT pros will prefer a jerk who is always right over a nice person who is always wrong. Wrong creates unnecessary work, impossible situations and major failures. Wrong is evil, and it must be defeated. Capacity for technical reasoning trumps all other professional factors, period.

Foundational (bottom-up) respect is not only the largest single determining factor in the success of an IT team, but the most ignored. I believe you can predict success or failure of an IT group simply by assessing the amount of mutual respect within it.

The elements of the stereotypes

Ego -- Similar to what good doctors do, IT pros figure out that the proper projection of ego engenders trust and reduces apprehension. Because IT pros' education does not emphasize how to deal with people, there are always rough edges. Ego, as it plays out in IT, is an essential confidence combined with a not-so-subtle cynicism. It's not about being right for the sake of being right but being right for the sake of saving a lot of time, effort, money and credibility. IT is a team sport, so being right or wrong impacts other members of the group in non-trivial ways. Unlike in many industries, in IT, colleagues can significantly influence the careers of the entire team. Correctness yields respect, respect builds good teams, and good teams build trust and maintain credibility through a healthy projection of ego. Strong IT groups view correctness as a virtue, and certitude as a delivery method. Meek IT groups, beaten down by inconsistent policies and a lack of structural support, are simply ineffective at driving change and creating efficiencies, getting mowed over by the clients, the management or both at every turn.

The victim mentality -- IT pros are sensitive to logic -- that's what you pay them for. When things don't add up, they are prone to express their opinions on the matter, and the level of response will be proportional to the absurdity of the event. The more things that occur that make no sense, the more cynical IT pros will become. Standard organizational politics often run afoul of this, so IT pros can come to be seen as whiny or as having a victim mentality. Presuming this is a trait that must be disciplined out of them is a huge management mistake. IT pros complain primarily about logic, and primarily to people they respect. If you are dismissive of complaints, fail to recognize an illogical event or behave in deceptive ways, IT pros will likely stop complaining to you. You might mistake this as a behavioral improvement, when it's actually a show of disrespect. It means you are no longer worth talking to, which leads to insubordination.

Insubordination -- This is a tricky one. Good IT pros are not anti-bureaucracy, as many observers think. They are anti-stupidity. The difference is both subjective and subtle. Good IT pros, whether they are expected to or not, have to operate and make decisions with little supervision. So when the rules are loose and logical and supervision is results-oriented, supportive and helpful to the process, IT pros are loyal, open, engaged and downright sociable. Arbitrary or micro-management, illogical decisions, inconsistent policies, the creation of unnecessary work and exclusionary practices will elicit a quiet, subversive, almost vicious attitude from otherwise excellent IT staff. Interestingly, IT groups don't fall apart in this mode. From the outside, nothing looks to be wrong and the work still gets done. But internally, the IT group, or portions of it, may cut themselves off almost entirely from the intended management structure. They may work on big projects or steer the group entirely from the shadows while diverting the attention of supervisors to lesser topics. They believe they are protecting the organization, as well as their own credibility -- and they are often correct.

Credit whoring -- IT pros would prefer to make a good decision than to get credit for it. What will make them seek credit is the danger that a member of the group or management who is dangerous to the process might receive the credit for the work instead. That is insulting. If you've got a lot of credit whores in your IT group, there are bigger problems causing it.

Antisocial behavior -- It's fair to say that there is a large contingent of IT pros who are socially unskilled. However, this doesn't mean those IT pros are antisocial. On the whole, they have plenty to say. If you want to get your IT pros more involved, you should deal with the problems laid out above and then train your other staff how to deal with IT. Users need to be reminded a few things, including:

• IT wants to help me.
• I should keep an open mind.
• IT is not my personal tech adviser, nor is my work computer my personal computer.
• IT people have lives and other interests.

Like anyone else, IT people tend to socialize with people who respect them. They'll stop going to the company picnic if it becomes an occasion for everyone to list all the computer problems they never bothered to mention before.

How we elicit the stereotypes

What executives often fail to recognize is that every decision made that impacts IT is a technical decision. Not just some of the decisions, and not just the details of the decision, but every decision, bar none.

With IT, you cannot separate the technical aspects from the business aspects. They are one and the same, each constrained by the other and both constrained by creativity. Creativity is the most valuable asset of an IT group, and failing to promote it can cost an organization literally millions of dollars.

Most IT pros support an organization that is not involved with IT. The primary task of any IT group is to teach people how to work. That's may sound authoritarian, but it's not. IT's job at the most fundamental level is to build, maintain and improve frameworks within which to accomplish tasks. You may not view a Web server as a framework to accomplish tasks, but it does automate the processes of advertising, sales, informing and entertaining, all of which would otherwise be done in other ways. IT groups literally teach and reteach the world how to work. That's the job.

When you understand the mission of IT, it isn't hard to see why co-workers and supervisors are judged severely according to their abilities to contribute to that process. If someone has to constantly be taught Computers 101 every time a new problem presents itself, he can't contribute in the most fundamental way. It is one thing to deal with that from a co-worker, but quite another if the people who represent IT to the organization at large aren't cognizant of how the technology works, can't communicate it in the manner the IT group needs it communicated, can't maintain consistency, take credit for the work of the group members, etc. This creates a huge morale problem for the group. Executives expect expert advice from the top IT person, but they have no way of knowing when they aren't getting it. Therein lies the problem.

IT pros know when this is happening, and they find that it is impossible to draw attention to it. Once their work is impeded by the problem, they will adopt strategies and behaviors that help circumvent the issue. That is not a sustainable state, but how long it takes to deteriorate can be days, months or even years.

How to fix it

So, if you want to have a really happy, healthy and valuable IT group, I recommend one thing: Take an interest. IT pros work their butts off for people they respect, so you need to give them every reason to afford you some.

You can start with the hiring process. When hiring an IT pro, imagine you're recruiting a doctor. And if you're hiring a CIO, think of employing a chief of medicine. The chief of medicine should have many qualifications, but first and foremost, he should be a practicing doctor. Who decides if a doctor is a doctor? Other doctors! So, if your IT group isn't at the table for the hiring process of their bosses and peers, this already does a disservice to the process.

Favor technical competence and leadership skills. Standard managerial processes are nearly useless in an IT group. As I mentioned, if you've managed to hire well in the lower ranks of your IT group, the staff already know how to manage things. Unlike in many industries, the fight in most IT groups is in how to get things done, not how to avoid work. IT pros will self-organize, disrupt and subvert in the name of accomplishing work. An over-structured, micro-managing, technically deficient runt, no matter how polished, who's thrown into the mix for the sake of management will get a response from the professional IT group that's similar to anyone's response to a five-year-old tugging his pants leg.

What IT pros want in a manager is a technical sounding board and a source of general direction. Leadership and technical competence are qualities to look for in every member of the team. If you need someone to keep track of where projects are, file paperwork, produce reports and do customer relations, hire some assistants for a lot less money.

When it comes to performance checks, yearly reviews are worthless without a 360-degree assessment. Those things take more time than a simple top-down review, but it is time well spent. If you've been paying attention to what I've been telling you about how IT groups behave and organize, then you will see your IT group in a whole different light when you read the group's 360s.

And make sure all your managers are practicing and learning. It is very easy to slip behind the curve in those positions, but just as with doctors, the only way to be relevant is to practice and maintain an expertise. In IT, six months to a year is all that stands between respect and irrelevance.

Finally, executives should have multiple in-points to the IT team. If the IT team is singing out of tune, it is worth investigating the reasons. But you'll never even know if that's the case if the only information you receive is from the CIO. Periodically, bring a few key IT brains to the boardroom to observe the problems of the organization at large, even about things outside of the IT world, if only to make use of their exquisitely refined BS detectors. A good IT pro is trained in how to accomplish work; their skills are not necessarily limited to computing. In fact, the best business decision-makers I know are IT people who aren't even managers.

As I said at the very beginning, it's all about respect. If you can identify and cultivate those individuals and processes that earn genuine respect from IT pros, you'll have a great IT team. Taking an honest interest in helping your IT group help you is probably the smartest business move an organization can make. It also makes for happy, completely non-geek-like geeks.

iPhone in 1999

On the Apple's annual product launch, Steve Jobs talked up the latest iPod Nano, which will be on 5th-generation. Back in 1999, Sony Walkman was the iPod of its day. Interestingly, some market research shows that more walkman sold in Japan than iPod in the past year. How does that possible?

One obvious reason is that music can be played on iPhone. People would rather buy iPhone or walkman instead of iPod, given that iPod is more expensive than walkman and iPod is less powerful than iPhone.

What is the iPhone of its day in 1999? There was none in reality. But I have definitely heard of such design (i.e. a phone with GPS, music player, compass, reader, touchscreen, fast network access, etc) in my college classroom. One of my classmates presented his future phone on a English-training class. That was quite impressive to think of a new kind of phone, when 2G cellphone barely got populated over the world. And ten years later, iPhone 3GS has been a hit for everybody.

From an engineer's perspective, imagine something new is not that hard; the hard part is to make it happen. That's why Apple amazes us.

What you see is NEVER what you get

I am pissed off by M$ outlook. I have spent half an hour fixing a small problem, and now I shall spend 10 minutes to complain about that.

The story is, I need to set up my signature in outlook. But it never appears to be what I want.
First, I copied one from my colleague, and trusted M$. Then I got someone told me,
"The signature needs to be Arial 9 and the disclaimer 7.5 (the disclaimer was the right size initially). There also needs to be a break in between the address and telephone numbers and a break in between the telephone numbers and the disclaimer."

Then I manually went to the setting. Changed the font and the line break. The result was
"Disclaimer text is right – text is still 10. Need to change it to 9"

That's not fun. I went back and set the font to be 9. When I opened up a new message, it was still font 10. I removed the previous one, and created a new signature file, fonts set to 9.... bomb... still appeared to be 10. I asked someone, no one had any idea what's inside the mind of stupid M$ outlook.

While editing, I miss LaTeX.

Plug & Play

Since last millionaire, I have been in touch with computers on a daily basis. Occasionally, I helped people fixing their PCs. Among all influential PC-related technologies, I think P&P is definitely on the top-ranked list.

Recall in the early days, whenever a new piece of hardware is available. One has to at least 1, plug in the hardware; 2, configure the software (i.e., setup the drivers); 3, reboot and test. Each step requires a little professional training. What is more, if you are unlucky, you have to repeat the process several times and become frustrated.

Nowadays, most peripherals are pretty much USB-like, where the self-configuring technology plays an important role. To move a step forward, some of the devices could even skip the plug phase -- turn on its bluetooth, let the OS find it and use it.

Some random thoughts.
1. Is there anything that supports "Remove & Stop"?
2. Last time I was thinking of the term P&P was when I heard some one talking about the term "Hook-up".