Han's Blog

Greyhound to launch UK operations

2009-08-19T20:31:00.002Z

Greyhound is to launch UK operations running coaches between London Victoria and Portsmouth and Southampton. What's more attractive is that single fares start from just 1 pound.

Greyhound UK

The Great American Bubble Machine

2009-06-26T23:31:00.003Z

A summary of Goldman Sachs' role in every major financial bubble of this century:
The Great American Bubble Machine

From causing the 1930 great depression, to fueling the 1999 dot com bubble, to the 21-century housing bubble, to the 2008 oil bubble, to the 2009 bailout handout, to a predicted bubble in carbon trading...

Google's new communications and collaborations tool - Google Wave

2009-05-31T17:18:00.003Z

Google will launch a new communications and collaborations tool to compete with Microsoft: Google Wave

Check it out. It looks really cool compared with traditional email and messaging systems.

Microsoft's new decision engine - Bing

2009-05-31T17:16:00.002Z

Microsoft will soon launch a new decision engine to compete with Google: Bing

Check out the preview. It looks really cool compared with traditional search engines.

The Fed's New Balance Sheet

2009-03-30T15:05:00.002Z

The Fed's New Balance Sheet

Excellent analysis of the fed's balance sheet since the financial crisis, and concerns it raises.

"I would suggest first that the new Fed balance sheet represents a fundamental transformation of the role of the central bank."

"A second concern I have with the new Fed balance sheet is that it has seriously compromised the independence of the central bank."

"My third concern is that the new Fed balance sheet has handicapped the Fed's ability to fulfill its primary mission, which I see as promoting a stable and predictable low rate of inflation."

"I recommend instead that the Fed should be buying Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities in the current situation. Tim Iacono says that's like the Mafia buying 'protection' from itself. But my point is that TIPS represent an asset that would gain in value at a time the Fed needs to sell them, meaning that the logistical ability of the Fed to drain reserves quickly in such circumstances is without question."

Why Bother With Bonds?

2009-03-30T15:04:00.002Z

Why Bother With Bonds?

"In a footnote, Rob gets off a great shot, pointing out that the 5% risk premium
seen in a lot of sales pitches is at best unreliable and is probably little
more than an urban legend of the finance community."

"My point in exploring this extended stock market history is to demonstrate that the widely accepted notion of a reliable 5% equity risk premium is a myth."

Google App Engine

2009-01-14T00:08:00.003Z

Google App Engine - Deploy your own CGI-enabled website with ease (and for free). No need to learn Ruby-on-Rails; no need to buy a domain name; no need to rent a server of your own; no need to backup and version control of your website -- because it's all done by Google. Yays! Google delivers again!

http://code.google.com/appengine/
http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/whatisgoogleappengine.html
http://code.google.com/appengine/downloads.html

(For serving static content only, could use Google Pages
http://pages.google.com/
This creates static homepages like http://*.googlepages.com/
This is being transitioned to Google Sites
http://sites.google.com/
But it's not quite the same...)

Modern Money Mechanics (M0, M1, M2, M3 and the Money Multiplier)

2009-01-13T23:42:00.003Z

Modern Money Mechanics
Money Supply

Higher Power Money, Quantitative Easing, and what instruments the Federal Reserve can use to control the money supply in the system.

Essentially, the Treasury account, currency notes and coins, and securities the Fed purchases are notional money that cannot be leveraged (multiplied upon). Other money can be multiplied on by the banks, thanks to the fractional reserve system. Providing liquidity means injecting multiply-able money into the money system, in exchange for securities that can be used to sterilize liquidity in the future (traditionally Treasury bills, but now also commercial paper and other securities).

Fed article predicting Fed actions in deflation era

Steve Jobs MacWorld keynote speeches 1998-2008

2009-01-04T17:31:00.000Z

Steve Jobs MacWorld keynote speeches 1998-2008

Life in the UK Test

2008-09-25T02:31:00.002Z

Official website
Free materials
Free Q&A sets
Free mock test online

Life in the UK Test:Free Question Database

The Most Turbulent Financial Week for 80 Years

2008-09-19T22:00:00.000Z

Here is a very good article from the Telegraph that sums it all up:

Lehman collapse kicks off week that turned the world of finance on its head

Imitation To Innovation: AMD's Best CPUs

2008-09-02T21:01:00.002Z

TomsHardware article

Imitation To Innovation: AMD's Best CPUs
AMD Clones Intel (1982)
Am286: Manufactured Under License, But Faster (1983)
Am386: A 40-MHz 386 (1991)
Am486: The Last Clone (1993, 1995)
The K5: AMD's Very Own Processor (1996)
The K6: AMD Extends Its Range (1997-1999)
K7/Athlon: A Killer (1999)
AMD Improves the Athlon: Thunderbird, XP, and more (2000-2003)
Duron and Sempron: AMD's Celerons (2000, 2004)
The K8: AMD Moves To 64 Bits (2003-2006)
Athlon 64 X2: AMD's Dual-Core (2005-2006)
The Phenom: K10 and Quad-Core (2007-2008)
The Future Lies With Phenom (2008-)

8 Alternative Search Engines that compete with Google

2008-08-26T21:31:00.002Z

8 Alternative Search Engines that compete with Google

1. Clusty
the best alternative to Google, clusters results to help you drill down the relevant category
2. Wikia
can customise search results but not very reliable
3. Mahalo
only has manual entries for simple queries
4. Quintura
keyword search makes it easy to drill down but poor design and results
5. Powerset
extremely good for NLP searches but only supports Wikipedia articles now
6. KartOO
the interface is practically impossible to navigate
7. Cuil
confusing design and poor results for complex queries
8. Trexy
concept of follow other's search trail on same topic is interesting but site design is terrible

Clusty’s breadth of options and relevance make it the best alternative search engine.

Some Really Cool Gadgets for 2008

2008-08-20T22:17:00.002Z

Some Really Cool Gadgets for 2008
Navman S90i
Asus Eee PC
Virtual Laser Keyboard
80 GB Apple iPod
JBL On Stage iPod Dock
Boom Box iPod Dock
MP3 Sun Glasses
Kensington FX 300 Portable Speakers
Panasonic CF-U1 Toughbook
Fujifilm Finepix F100fd
Keychain Camera
Sony-Ericsson Bluetooth Watch
MPEG4 Watch
MP3 Pen
LaCie Little Disk
Yelpie Safe
Solar-Powered Laptop Bag
OneSeg KFE Digital TV
Sigmatek PDX-4200 Portable DVD/DivX Player
Fans for the Beach

13 Years of Nvidia Graphics Cards

2008-08-20T21:45:00.002Z

13 Years of Nvidia Graphics Cards
Nvidia NV1 -- 1995
Nvidia NV3 (Riva 128/128ZX) -- 1997, 1998
Nvidia NV4 (Riva TNT) -- 1998
Nvidia NV5 (Riva TNT2, TNT2 Ultra) -- 1999
Nvidia NV10 (GeForce 256) -- 1999, 2000
Nvidia NV15 (GeForce 2 GTS) -- 2000
Nvidia NV11 (GeForce 2 MX) -- 2000
Nvidia NV20 (GeForce 3) -- 2001
Nvidia NV17 (GeForce 4 MX 440) -- 2002
Nvidia NV2A (Xbox) -- 2001
Nvidia NV25 (GeForce 4 Ti 4600) -- 2002
Nvidia NV30 (GeForce FX 5800) -- 2003
Nvidia NV3x (FX 5200, 5600, 5700, 5900) -- 2003
Nvidia NV40 and NV45 (GeForce 6800 Ultra) -- 2004, 2005
Nvidia NV43 and NV44 (GeForce 6600 GT and GeForce 6200) -- 2004
Nvidia G70 and G71 (GeForce 7800 GTX and 7900 GTX) -- 2005, 2006
Nvidia G72 and G73 (GeForce 7300 GS and 7600 GT) -- 2006
Nvidia G80 and G92 (GeForce 8800 GTX and 9800 GTX) -- 2006, 2008
Nvidia G84, G86 and G94 (GeForce 8600 GT, GeForce 8400 GS and 9600 GT) -- 2007, 2008
Nvidia G80 improvement (GeForce GTX 280 and 260) -- 2008

HeFan 盒饭 Chinese Food Delivery Service

2008-08-06T19:35:00.000Z

HeFan 盒饭 Chinese Food Delivery Service near Canary Wharf

Intel's 15 Most Unforgettable x86 CPUs

2008-08-04T21:04:00.001Z

TomsHardware article

Intel's 15 Most Unforgettable x86 CPUs
01) 8086: The First PC processor (1979)
02) 80286: 16 MB Of Memory, But Still 16 Bits (1982)
03) 386: 32-Bit and Cache Memory (1985)
04) The 486: An FPU And Multipliers Too (1989)
05) Intel Pentium: A Bothersome Bug (1993, 1997)
06) Pentium Pro: The First To Handle Over 4 GB Of Memory (1995)
07) Pentium II and III: Brothers (1997, 1998, 1999)
08) Celeron and Xeon: Intel Aims At The High/Low End (1998)
09) The Pentium III Hits 1 GHz (1999)
10) The Pentium 4: A Lot Of Noise Over Very Little (2000, 2001, 2004)
11) Pentium M: Laptops Flex Their Muscles (2003, 2004)
12) Pentium 4 Gets 64-bit And Another Core (2005)
13) The First Mobile Dual-Core (2006)
14) Today's Hotness: The Core 2 Duo (2006)
15) The Future: Nehalem, Atom, Etc. (2008)

DOS CMD Variable Editing

2008-07-12T11:34:00.003Z

http://www.ss64.com/ntsyntax/varsearch.html

Can replace value of a variable at quote time.
E.g. if variable "mypath" is "C:\Temp\Test",
and I quote it using "%mypath:\=\\%",
then it comes out as "C:\\Temp\\Test".

Google Releases Protocol Buffer Serialisation Framework

2008-07-09T21:02:00.002Z

Today Google released their Protocol Buffer serialisation framework into open source. There is a blog about it, and here is the news item comparing it to XML.

The docs are here.

It looks pretty cool, and easy to use. It will encode to little endian on the wire, with very compact and optimised encoding, including 128 *varint* and zig-zag encoding (which encodes and decodes with just 3 bitwise operations). Backwards compatibility is handled as well (so long as we only extend the message field ID and not reuse previous ones). So far there are only 3 language bindings: C++, Java, and Python. Unfortunately there is no C# mapping yet.

This serialisation framework is optimised for speed and efficiency, and versioning/compatibility. The language binding from spec (.proto) files saves the need for writing hand-coded serialisation code for every class in your library, or for classes in different languages in your system needing to communicate with each other.

Details of the encoding is here.

The language guides are here, and the API reference is here.

There are also some tutorials, including a C++ tutorial.

Google C++ coding guidelines

2008-07-01T19:41:00.000Z

Google C++ coding guidelines

Some House/Property Buying Search Results

2008-06-22T19:55:00.005Z

New Developments on Foxton's website:
E.g.
South London Listing
Water Gardens in Canada Water
East London Listing
Merchants Quarter in Bow

Living in London specialises the Canada Water / Surrey Quays area.

On RightMove saved down some properties both for rent and for sale around Canada Water area, all within a quarter mile of the Canada Water tube station and also close to the Surrey Quays tube station and the Surrey Quays shopping centre. Tesco is in the shopping centre.

PrimeLocation also seems to have a very good coverage of the Canada Water area, as well as the Water Gardens development.

NetHousePrices is a very useful website for finding out sold house prices (not asking prices), neighbourhood crime rates, local amenities, etc.
E.g. this link shows all the sold prices for Water Gardens in the past 6 months (post code SE16 6RN).

Nestoria - very good property search site that shows a lot of information about the surrounding area, as well as very good maps.

Cheap Hotels

2008-06-20T23:12:00.001Z

A good master search site:
http://hotel.backpackers.com.tw/

Some of the cheap hotel sites:
http://www.booking.com/
http://www.hotelclub.com/
http://www.hotel.info/
http://www.hotels.com/
http://www.octopustravel.com/

Google Shell

2008-06-03T21:13:00.002Z

Google Shell
A very cool text-mode shell-like webpage for searching Google, Google Images, Google News, Google Blog, Google Feed, Google Video, Google Site Search, Google Maps, Wikipedia, Google Translation, RSS feed, etc. All looks like a very neat command line console window.

BTW, Google Finance has just today announced that they now have LIVE non-delayed NASDAQ feed for free.

(Really) Stunning Pictures and Photos

2008-05-22T19:39:00.001Z

50 brilliant photos and stunning pictures
35 Fantastic HDR Pictures

Mortgage (Buy) vs Rent Calculator

2008-05-20T19:16:00.001Z

Can I Afford It
Mortgage or Rent

Interesting graph showing net worth and debt over time

Best flight fares & Predicting flight fares from historical data

2008-05-20T19:10:00.003Z

FareCast
FareCompare
Kayak US

Best fares search and prediction and historical data.
- Only available for US flights
- Certain cities and dates

For the UK, use Kayak UK
or Amadeus

(though historical data of best prices don't seem to take into account preferences of flights, e.g. whether it's direct flight, and departure times, etc. So should probably be best used to predict peakness/season rather than best prices I can get with my requirements.)

A few very very useful links

2008-05-17T16:50:00.004Z

VBSI - Voice of Britain's Skilled Immigrants
Campaign against Home Office immigration rules. Updated with latest progress and moves.

TheVisaCompany
Visa agency for handling tourist visas to all countries, with good service and very reasonable prices. Initial consultation is free!

IrolisRemovals
Professional removal company for the London area.
View prices here

香港價格網
Compare all electronics prices in HK

PropertySnake - the source of reduced house prices across the UK

2008-04-20T15:12:00.003Z

PropertySnake - lists house price history and percentage price drops (unfortunately doesn't all list estate agent information)

Related:
NetHousePrices - lists all transacted house prices in each region and post code

Some cool Windows hacks

2008-04-14T22:28:00.003Z

1. Tron - kernel driver DLL hider

2. Locreate - executable unpacking with dynamic loader

Locreate: An Anagram for Relocate

Locreate is actually using the documented behaviour of the dynamic loader of the executable to perform the unpacking operation.

The dynamic loader feature that is abused to achieve this is the relocation feature.

Essentially the binary on-disk is modified so that when loaded into memory and relocated, it will be the original. To do this:
1) Must be an exe and set /fixed:no during compilation.
2) Must set preferred base address to an invalid address (0x80000000 on 32 bit without /3GB, or SharedUserData which is always 0x7ffe0000).
3) Expected base address is 0x10000 on Windows because this is an executable so is the first to be loaded into the address space.
4) Go through the original binary code, and for some locations subtract the difference above, and add a relocation fixup descriptor. More complicated methods can generate multiple fixup descriptors per address, or even work on individual bytes in the 4-byte aligned block, or even use fixups on other later fixup descriptors.

The KBW European bank analysis spreadsheet

2008-04-07T19:47:00.000Z

FT article
Spreadsheet here

Write to your local MP or Lord

2008-03-30T19:01:00.007Z

TheyWorkForYou - Find out information about your local MP or to contact them (more about what issues they deal with in a link below)
PublicWhip - Find out how any MP or Lord votes
WriteToThem - Contact your MPs or Lords

When shall I contact MP
More about House of Lords
WriteToThem FAQ

Write to Poplar MP - Jim Fitzpatrick MP
More about Poplar MP Jim Fitzpatrick
Write to a Lord

MP search on Parliament website
All MPs on Parliament website
MP's responsibilities on Parliament website
Aristotle from Guardian - MP database

Your MP will be able to help you with such areas as:
- Tax problems involving HM Revenue & Customs (but not such areas as the council tax, which is paid to your local authority).
- Problems dealt with by the Department of Health such as hospitals and the National Health Service, if you are in England. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are responsible for health matters in Scotland and Wales respectively.
- Problems dealt with by the Department of Work and Pensions such as benefits, pensions and national insurance (but not problems with the social services department of your local authority).
- Problems dealt with by the Home Office such as immigration.
- In England, matters such as school closures and grants which are dealt with by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (but not day to day problems involving schools which are run by their governors and your local education authority). In Scotland and Wales the devolved Parliament and Assembly respectively are responsible for education matters.

Your MP is not there to help you in private disputes with other individuals or with companies who have sold you faulty goods, nor, for example, to interfere with decisions made by courts.

How to disable Windows Update

2008-03-21T03:14:00.002Z

this article

Basically, two ways:
1) Either use gpedit.msc, User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar -> Remove links and access to Windows Update
2) Or regedit
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
NoWindowsUpdate:DWORD=1
No need to reboot.

Brilliant House Price Index Webpage

2008-03-07T20:39:00.003Z

http://www.mouseprice.net/

It lists all the properties in the UK (used for house price index). Also lists renting prices, past selling prices, valuation prices, and estate agents. It also functions as a search site for property buying or renting. Registered users can post comments and corrections on each property.

Ox - An Object-Oriented Matrix Language

2008-03-04T22:02:00.000Z

http://www.doornik.com/ox/

Language tutorial:
http://www.doornik.com/ox/oxtutlan.html

Functions summary:
http://www.doornik.com/ox/oxsumry.html

Tenancy Deposit Scheme

2008-02-21T22:44:00.001Z

Government scheme to deal with tenancy deposit issues:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TenancyDeposit/DG_066380

SEC Filings & Forms (EDGAR)

2008-02-20T20:35:00.001Z

SEC Filings & Forms (EDGAR) for all company filings (registration statements, periodic reports, and other forms)
http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml

1.8 Million US Court Rulings Now Online

2008-02-20T20:34:00.000Z

News:
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/08/carl-malamud-ta.html

Court Rulings:
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/

Microsoft Office binary file formats

2008-02-19T20:10:00.001Z

Official docs:
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx

Some information & advice:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html

Windows Update offline helpers

2008-02-12T20:17:00.000Z

ctupdates
http://www.heise.de/ct/projekte/offlineupdate

Project Dakota
http://www.theatticnetwork.net/dakota.php

Free Annual Credit Report

2008-01-28T22:05:00.000Z

Free annual credit report from www.annualcreditreport.co.uk

Credit Reference Agencies:
1) Experian
2) Equifax
3) Callcredit
All are required by law to give you a statutory credit report on paper for £2.

CINT C/C++ Interpreter

2008-01-24T20:09:00.000Z

CINT C/C++ Interpreter

Some House Buying Websites

2007-12-12T20:35:00.000Z

Advice for both buyers and sellers
WelcomeHome
TheAdvisory

Some property portals
RightMove
FindAProperty
WelcomeHome

Good guide of conveyancing specialists (conveyancers)
TheAdvisory

Online Chinese Inputting System

2007-12-07T20:58:00.000Z

InputKing

Supports all kinds of common Chinese inputting methods.

Excel 2007 Floating Point Display Bug Paper

2007-11-08T19:20:00.000Z

Paper

Time Magazine Top Inventions of 2007

2007-11-07T20:57:00.000Z

Top Inventions of 2007

Discover Magazine - The Sister of Discovery Channel

2007-10-27T22:48:00.000Z

Discover Magazine

Buy Your Spectacles/Glasses Online for Cheaper

2007-10-27T22:31:00.000Z

Under Opticians Act 1989, the optometrist is required by law to give you a copy of the prescription after the eye test, and you don't need to get the spectacles at the same shop.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1989/ukpga_19890044_en_5

A few online shops from where you can get cheaper spectacles (in order of preference):
NuGlasses (08458336373 accepts ACCOR vouchers)
GlassesDirect (08456882020 accepts ACCOR vouchers)
SpeckyFourEyes (08448202020 accepts ACCOR vouchers)
WebSpecsDirect (08450706930 does not mention vouchers)
GlassesOnSpec (08712003720 does not accept vouchers)

Find Out All About Your State Benefit Entitlements

2007-10-26T17:38:00.001Z

Entitled To

Unlimited WiFi Broadband

2007-10-05T19:16:00.000Z

This is offered by The Cloud.

Of interest are:
Cloud Unlimited -- 9.99 per month for any number of devices or 6.99 per month for one device
Cloud for iPod touch -- 3.99 per month for one iPod touch

Buy Cheap PC (Custom-Built)

2007-10-01T18:14:00.000Z

Buy custom-built PC cheaply with all the components you choose:
PCSpecialist

They do pretty cheap custom-built warranted PCs, shipped in carefully prepared shipping crates. You cannot choose the brand of the components, but for the price it's still pretty good.

If you don't mind building yourself, and want to get just the brand of component you want (e.g. Seagate hard drive, Antec dual ball bearing case fan, etc.), then you should try eBuyer.

Property (Estate Agent) Advertisement Websites

2007-09-02T22:00:00.001Z

RightMove
HomesAndProperty
ZoomF
FindAProperty
HotProperty
London Guide Residential
PrimeLocation
PropertyFinder
PropertyMatters
RightMove
PropertyBroker
Homes & Property
ThinkProperty
London Property Watch

The Rat and Mouse - Property News in London

Also this brilliant website that has info on every property in the UK (used for house price index):
MousePrice

Insurance, Utility, Credit Cards -- All Money Related

2007-08-30T19:37:00.000Z

MoneySupermarket
uSwitch
Confused

Hong Kong Broadband ISPs

2007-08-10T23:07:00.000Z

Hong Kong Broadband Network
All using Fibre Optics, providing from 10Mbps to 1000Mbps service. Also offers broadband TV, broadband phone and other attractive services.
Promotion offers free LCD monitor or Nokia 6300 phone, etc:
Promotion
Also has a Wiki page here.

PCCW
PCCW is a big ISP, offering broadband and broadband TV.
Broadband is offered from NetVigator
Their promotional price is very standard among HK ISPs. If you don't need the offer items, then the standard "3M Single User Plan" looks quite good:
Promotion

HGC
HGC is backed by Hutchison. They have some promotions:
Promotion1 and Promotion2

i-Cable
Offering broadband through cable, together with TV services.
Price is not cheap, because equipment and portal usage has extra charges.

Pacific Internet
This is a small ISP, but it looks quite decent. Broadband price is here.

Finally, the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association has a list of registered members:
HKISPA members
But it doesn't seem to list HKBN.

Insurances: Travel, Home, Motor, Life

2007-08-10T22:11:00.000Z

TravelInsuranceAndGo
DirectLine
Elephant
Norwich Union

Presentation with Graphics

2007-06-25T20:24:00.001Z

Junk Charts - a blog site about graphics presentation failures (junk art)

NumberPix
Picture of Numbers - a blog site about techniques for improving data graphics

Some good articles:
Wacky Wheel of Wedges
False Advertising
Ditch the Tables, NYT

ComTrace - Tracing COM Calls

2007-06-24T12:20:00.001Z

ComTrace

Other useful tools from blunck.se
ieHTTPHeaders
comTrace
developer Playground
runAsLimitedUser
chainHook library

Wiki Choice Wizard

2007-06-13T19:58:00.000Z

Wiki Choice Wizard

PSP Homebrew Open-Edition Links & Tutorials

2007-06-12T23:44:00.001Z

Binaries for Homebrew
http://www.psp-hacks.com/category/35
http://www.psp-hacks.com/category/36
http://www.psp-hacks.com/category/55

Tutorials
http://www.psp-vault.com/module-pnForum-viewtopic-topic-6538-start-0.psp
http://blog.pixnet.net/avatar30523/category/324154

Engrish - Really Funny English Translations

2007-05-25T19:50:00.000Z

Engrish
Chinglish

Starcraft & Broodwar Artificial Intelligence (AI) Mods

2007-05-09T21:01:00.000Z

Broodwar AI Project
Broodwar AI Tools & References
Broodwar Scripting Tutorial

Oracle (and SQL, Excel, Linux) Functions

2007-05-09T12:39:00.000Z

TechnoTheNet

SS64.com - Command line reference for Windows, Bash, Oracle, and SQL Server

2007-05-09T10:44:00.000Z

SS64.com - Command line reference for Windows, Bash, Oracle, and SQL Server

Social Networking Websites

2007-04-13T21:24:00.000Z

Facebook
LinkedIn

Tech Anodyne - Forget Cygwin and VMware, run CoLinux

2007-04-10T22:14:00.000Z

Tech Anodyne: Forget Cygwin and VMware, run coLinux

From the Blog:
I don’t know what rock I’ve been hiding under for the past two years but I had not heard of Cooperative Linux until a few weeks ago. Cooperative Linux is a recompilation of the Linux kernel as a Windows executable. All of the native posix commands get remapped to the Windows kernel. And it’s fast. It’s unbelievably fast. Once the kernel is running, it can run native Linux binaries. In other words, you can boot your Debian/Gentoo/*buntu/etc. distribution while in Windows without any binary recompilation a la VMWare or Virtual PC.

The 50 Best Tech Products of All Time

2007-04-03T12:39:00.000Z

PCWorld Article

The list is:
01. Netscape Navigator (1994)
02. Apple II (1977)
03. TiVo HDR110 (1999)
04. Napster (1999)
05. Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS (1983)
06. Apple iPod (2001)
07. Hayes Smartmodem (1981)
08. Motorola StarTAC (1996)
09. WordPerfect 5.1 (1989)
10. Tetris (1985)
11. Adobe Photoshop 3.0 (1994)
12. IBM ThinkPad 700C (1992)
13. Atari VCS/2600 (1977)
14. Apple Macintosh Plus (1986)
15. RIM BlackBerry 857 (2000)
16. 3dfx Voodoo3 (1999)
17. Canon Digital Elph S100 (2000)
18. Palm Pilot 1000 (1996)
19. id Software Doom (1993)
20. Microsoft Windows 95 (1995)
21. Apple iTunes 4 (2003)
22. Nintendo Game Boy (1989)
23. Iomega Zip Drive (1994)
24. Spybot Search & Destroy (2000)
25. Compaq Deskpro 386 (1986)
26. CompuServe (1982)
27. Blizzard World of Warcraft (2004)
28. Aldus PageMaker (1985)
29. HP LaserJet 4L (1993)
30. Apple Mac OS X (2001)
31. Nintendo Entertainment System (1985)
32. Eudora (1988)
33. Sony Handycam DCR-VX1000 (1995)
34. Apple Airport Base Station (1999)
35. Brøderbund The Print Shop (1984)
36. McAfee VirusScan (1990)
37. Commodore Amiga 1000 (1985)
38. ChipSoft TurboTax (1985)
39. Mirabilis ICQ (1996)
40. Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 (1992)
41. Apple HyperCard (1987)
42. Epson MX-80 (1980)
43. Central Point Software PC Tools (1985)
44. Canon EOS Digital Rebel (2003)
45. Red Hat Linux (1994)
46. Adaptec Easy CD Creator (1996)
47. PC-Talk (1982)
48. Sony Mavica MVC-FD5 (1997)
49. Microsoft Excel (1985)
50. Northgate OmniKey Ultra (1987)

Credit Card Authorization Process

2007-04-02T10:51:00.000Z

Credit Card Authorisation Process
Credit Card Authorisation Considerations

Call International Numbers in the UK

2007-03-24T23:21:00.000Z

Best Comparison Website

General local & national access numbers:
08700360404
08452442442
08452449449

0.5p/min (landlines China, France, etc)
08442009595
08442001515

1p/min:
08448618585
08448615757
08448612525
08448613030
08448610610
08448616262
08448612929
08448617575
08448612121
08448613838

France mobile
10p/min:
08719999090
9p/min:
08713560000
8p/min:
08715516565
08715514242
7p/min:
08717724040

Use these companies to find out Phone-to-Phone rates:
Comparison list: http://niftylist.co.uk/calls/
1) http://www.telesavers.co.uk/accessnumbers.php
2) http://www.telediscount.co.uk/accessnumbers.php
3) http://www.telestunt.co.uk/accessnumbers.php
4) http://www.dialwise.co.uk/index2.php
5) http://www.dialaround.co.uk/rates.php
6) http://www.discountdial.co.uk/rates.php
7) http://bestminutes.co.uk/index2.php
8) http://www.cheapestcalls.co.uk/index2.php
9) http://www.0844calls.co.uk/rates.php
10) http://www.phonecheap.co.uk/rates.php
11) http://www.ratebuster.co.uk/pages/cheap-call-rates.asp

Use these companies to find out PC-to-Phone rates:
1) http://www.skype.com/
2) http://www.voipcheap.com/en/rates.html
3) http://www.freecall.com/en/rates.html
4) http://www.voipbusterpro.com/en/rates.html
5) http://www.voipdiscount.com/en/rates.html
6) http://www.voipstunt.com/en/rates.html
7) http://www.voipbuster.com/en/rates.html
8) http://www.internetcalls.com/en/rates.html
9) http://www.poivy.com/en/rates.html
10) http://www.webcalldirect.com/en/rates.html
11) http://www.sparvoip.de/de/rates.html
12) http://www.netappel.fr/fr/rates.html
13) http://www.sipdiscount.com/en/rates.html
14) http://www.lowratevoip.com/en/rates.html

Worst Company In America from Consumerist

2007-03-23T10:07:00.000Z

Worst Company in America
Worst Company In America 2007: The Final Big Board

20 must-have Firefox extensions

2007-03-12T18:36:00.000Z

20 must-have Firefox extensions

Tools for taming the Web
01. StumbleUpon
02. Gmail Manager & Yahoo Mail Notifier
03. Greasemonkey

Visual improvements
04. Firefox Showcase
05. Cooliris Previews
06. Colorful Tabs & ChromaTabs

Matters of convenience
07. Google Browser Sync & Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
08. Session Manager
09. All-in-One Gestures
10. IE Tab
11. Download Statusbar
12. Download Sort
13. Nuke Anything Enhanced

Information gatherers
14. Forecastfox
15. Answers

Web Developer Essentials
16. FireFTP
17. Firebug
18. Web Developer
19. MeasureIt
20. ColorZilla

In particular, for the powerful Greasemonkey, check out userscripts.org for a script repository. If you want to write your own scripts, try diveintogreasemonkey.org or pick up Mark Pilgrim's Greasemonkey Hacks from O'Reilly Media.

MoneySavingExpert

2007-03-08T12:27:00.000Z

MoneySavingExpert
Money-saving tips on everything.

Programming Language Popularity Comparison

2007-03-07T12:30:00.000Z

TIOBE Programming Community Index for March 2007
Pay comparison on ITJobsWatch

The English-to-American Dictionary

2007-03-07T12:25:00.000Z

A list of frequently used English words that are different from American English.
The English-to-American Dictionary
The full dictionary
Words in everyday speech

Indian Restaurants around Canary Wharf

2007-03-06T18:34:00.000Z

In order of preference:
The Tale of India
Bengal Classic
DockMasters

Salary Review/Info Websites

2007-03-06T17:26:00.000Z

PayScale.com - User inputs
Salary.com - HR inputs
PayScroll.com - Web job listing inputs

NYTimes Article

IMified: Familiar Productivity with Instant Messaging

2007-02-28T20:16:00.000Z

http://www.imified.com/
IMified: Familiar Productivity with Instant Messaging

WHAT IS IMIFIED?
Imified is an instant messenger buddy that works across all major IM networks and offers access to a growing number of web applications, as well as productivity tools like notes, reminders, and todo's. Imified helps you get things done faster.

Basically you issue commands to it by IM, and it shows results to you by IM. Can be configured with gadgets like notes, reminders, todos, and external services like Google Calendar, BaseCamp, Blogger, etc.

Pay As You Drive Insurance

2007-02-28T11:39:00.000Z

Pay As You Drive Insurance from Norwich Union

"Pay As You Drive"™ insurance* is a revolutionary new type of car insurance tailored especially for you, that's based on when you drive, where you drive and how often.

We use the latest GPS (Global Positioning System) technology to help calculate your monthly premium. You pay for the time you time you spend behind the wheel plus a fixed monthly fee that just covers the basics.

Not only this, but you could take advantage of free satellite navigation and speed camera detection for 30 days, in addition to round the clock support via your in-car Assistance Button that gives you 24 hour access to help immediately, anytime, should you find you ever need it.

SIW - System Information for Windows

2007-02-25T22:51:00.000Z

SIW - System Information for Windows - Everything you want to know about your computer

SIW Homepage

SIW (System Information for Windows) performs computer configuration analysis and diagnostics. It gives detailed information about your computer properties and settings, detailed specs for:

• Software: Operating System, Installed Software and Hotfixes, Processes, Services, Users, Open Files, System Uptime, Installed Codecs, Licenses.
• Hardware: Motherboard, Sensors, BIOS, CPU, chipset, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP Devices, Memory, Video Card, Monitor, Disk Drives, CD/DVD Devices, SCSI Devices, S.M.A.R.T., Ports, Printers.
• Network: Network Cards, Network Shares, currently active Network Connections, Open Ports.
• Tools: Password Recovery, Reveal passwords hidden behind asterisks, Product Keys and Serial Numbers (CD Key), MAC Address Changer, Shutdown / Restart.
• Real-time monitors: CPU, Memory, Page File usage and Network Traffic.

SIW can create a report file (CSV, HTML, TXT or XML), and is able to run in batch mode (for PC Auditing and Inventory).

SIW is a standalone utility that does not require installation - one less installed program on your PC as well the fact that you can run the program directly from a USB flash drive (Portable Freeware).

TV & Video Search Engines

2007-02-25T21:45:00.000Z

Blinkx
OpenV

Interview WuXin on OpenV

XKCD - A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language

2007-02-09T20:25:00.000Z

XKCD - A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language

VC80 Runtime DLL Hell

2007-02-09T13:49:00.000Z

VC80 Runtime DLL Hell
It's mostly about the side-by-side feature and the effect of the manifest file or resource on the determination of the location of the VC80 runtime. But I agree it is a bit messy.

Conway's Game of Life in one line of APL

2007-02-05T16:38:00.001Z

Conway's Game of Life in one line of APL

Next Generation Source Code Search

2007-02-05T16:20:00.000Z

AllTheCode
It searches code in context, rather than on its own, and returns more relevant results.

Other code search engines:
Google CodeSearch
Krugle

All About C++

2007-02-05T15:11:00.000Z

Hugo's Blog 1
Hugo's Blog 2

金庸小说年代排序

2007-02-03T17:26:00.001Z

金庸小说年代排序
一.春秋时期
1.《越女剑》：公元前五世纪前叶
二.北宋后期
2.《天龙八部》：公元1094年前后
三.南宋中后期
3.《射雕英雄传》：公元1206年-1227年（郭母怀胎到铁木真逝世）
4.《神雕侠侣》：公元1239年-1260年（杨过出场到蒙哥归天）
四.元朝末期
5.《倚天屠龙记》：公元1337年-1360年（张三丰90岁到张无忌22岁）
五.明朝
6.《笑傲江湖》：估计是明朝中期
因为有武当派，而且书中官职是明朝的，并且书上插图中的男人都没有辫子，还有在《鹿鼎记》中澄观老师侄曾想到“前朝有一位令狐冲大侠，以无招胜有招”，那自然是明朝了
7.《侠客行》：明朝
因为有武当派，并且书中好象没有什么民族矛盾，而且书上插图中的男人都没有辫子
8.《碧血剑》：公元1634年-1644年（袁承志从10岁到20岁）
六.清朝
9.《鹿鼎记》：公元1670年-1689年
鳌拜死的时候史书上记载为1670年，韦小宝签订《尼布楚条约》后归隐，那是1689年
10.《书剑恩仇录》：公元1756年前后
因为《飞狐外传》中赵半山曾对小胡斐说过福康安在十年前被红花会抓住过
11.《飞狐外传》：公元1766年-1770年
由《雪山飞狐》推算，从胡斐13岁到17岁
12.《雪山飞狐》：公元1780年3月15日（阴历）
书上开头就写了“这是乾隆四十五年叁月十五”
13.《鸳鸯刀》：清朝
书上倒数第二段写道“满清皇帝听说这双刀之中，有一个能无敌於天下的大秘密”，自然是清朝了
14.《连城诀》：清朝
这个没什么大道理，因为书上插图中的男人都有辫子，这可是金庸授权的，而且从官职、地名上也可以看出是清朝
15.《白马啸西风》：清朝
原因和前面的一样，书上插图中的男人有辫子

UK Price Comparison Websites

2007-02-02T10:45:00.000Z

A Good Summary

PriceRunner
PriceChecker
CompareStorePrices
Kelkoo
DealTime
Dooyoo
OnlinePriceGuide
PriceGuideUK
PCIndex
EasyValue
PriceWatch
PriceComparison
USwitch
Ciao
DealClick

Personalised Webpages and Desktops

2007-02-01T22:46:00.000Z

Personalised webpages:
Netvibes
My Yahoo
PageFlakes
My MSN
My Google

Personalised desktop:
Apple MacOS X Dashboard
Microsoft Vista Sidebar

C++ Object Memory Layout

2007-02-01T17:19:00.000Z

C++ Object Memory Layout in the presence of Virtual and/or (Multiple) Inheritance:
C++ ABI Summary
C++ Vtable Example
C++'s Virtual modifier
The Old New Thing on Adjustor Thunks
The Old New Thing on COM Object Layout
MSDN on Adjustor Thunks

The use of 'virtual' inheritance might change the binary layout of an object completely. In particular, the virtual base class may be moved to the end of the object layout rather than staying at the beginning of the object. Hence, DO NOT USE 'Virtual Inheritance' ON BINARY COMPATIBLE INTERFACES!

Boost Libraries

2007-01-31T18:15:00.000Z

Boost Libraries
Boost Asynchronous IO (incl. Proactor)

Official Windows Vista Wallpapers

2007-01-31T16:48:00.001Z

Official Windows Vista Wallpapers

C++ Direct Initialisation vs Copy Initialisation

2007-01-31T14:05:00.000Z

The difference between Direct Initialisation and Copy Initialisation in C++

The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines

2007-01-30T00:51:00.001Z

The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines

"Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) Charles S. Knight has compiled a list of the top 100 alternative search engines. The list includes Artificial Intelligence systems, Clustering engines, Recommendation Search engines, Metasearch, and many more hidden gems of search. People use four main search engines for 99.99% of their searches: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com (in that order). But Knight has discovered, via his work as an SEO, that in the other .01% lies a vast multitude of the most innovative and creative search engines around."

The various aspects explored:
1) The Search Homepage
Simply Google
2) Artificial Intelligence
ChaCha
3) Clustering Engines
KartOO
Quintura
4) Recommendation Search Engines
What To Rent
Live Plasma
5) Metasearch Engines
Dogpile
Zuula
PlanetSearch
GoshMe
6) Other Alt Search Engines
TheFind
Like
Mobot
Slifter
Speegle Bot

Stress-testing and review of the Verizon G'zOne

2007-01-29T16:06:00.000Z

The Review
"If you want a phone designed for tough, extreme, dirty, wet or dangerous conditions, I strongly recommend the Verizon G'zOne."

Ubuntu Studio - A MultiMedia Creation derivative of Ubuntu

2007-01-22T10:41:00.000Z

Ubuntu Studio

The Old New Thing

2007-01-22T10:31:00.001Z

Raymond Chen's Blog on MSDN

The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less

2007-01-22T09:16:00.000Z

Google Seminar Video on Psychology of Choice

Joke on Choices

TVCells Online TV & Movie & Videos

2007-01-20T19:31:00.000Z

TVCells

Visual C++ Exception Handling Instrumentation

2007-01-19T18:59:00.000Z

DDJ's Article on VC's EH

Credit Rating & Credit Reference Agency (UK)

2007-01-18T22:55:00.000Z

Credit Rating & Credit Reference Agency (UK)
http://www.experian.co.uk
http://www.equifax.co.uk
http://www.creditexpert.co.uk
http://www.callcredit.co.uk

FAQs
http://www.faqs.org/docs/consumer/credit.html
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs6-crdt.htm

HMCS Money Claim Online

2007-01-18T21:17:00.000Z

HMCS Money Claim Online

Allows County Court Claims to be issued online for money claims for fixed sums up to GBP 100,000 by individuals and organisations.

Her Majesty's Courts Service homepage
HMCS Online Services

Citizens Advice Bureau

2007-01-18T18:58:00.000Z

AdviceGuide Website
CAB Homepage

Benefits, Employment, Tax, Debt
Family, Health, Housing, Education
Communications, Consumer Affairs, Travel
Discrimination, Civil Rights, Immigration, Legal System