I Envy Their Smiles

Right before the door of an elevator was opening, a wave of loud laugh inside the elevator chamber approached to my ears. Then I saw two hotel janitors were walking out, carrying cleaning cart with room supplies, still with huge smiles on their faces, though they lowered their volume having realized a dressed-up solemn guest awaiting right outside of the elevator.

My first impression was in regard of the discipline of hotel staffs as I chose this inexpensive lodging place. A moment later just as I was stepping in the elevator I noticed their unrestrained smile still on their faces through the half-closed door, my second thought then came cross my mind as what the priceless smiles... ...

Traveling down to San Diego for a customer meeting, as always I prepared presentation late night and was still bearing the pressure of how to advocate my solution in the meeting. Comparing with the simple life of the two janitors, I may have a lot that they have ever dreamed of, however, what I missed is such kind of unrestrained smiles on my own face. I couldn't help envying their simple life and dropping whatever on my shoulder willingly in this plain early morning!

为政

子曰：

道之以政，齐之以刑，民免而无耻。
道之以德，齐之以礼，有耻且格。

知之，好之，乐之

知之不如好之；好之不如乐之。

Bow Down to Yourself

Practicing Yoga, we know we would surrender ourselves and let everything go. To make peace to others, one should be able to make peace to himself first without forcing himself to gain nor worrying about himself being lost. So bow down to your internal downward dog pose.

When Brand-Name Quality Meets Low Price

I did some searches on Sony LCD TV and was surprised that most it's LCD TV products appeared consistently cheaper than Samsung's. I would applaud for Samsung's recent branding achievement with its new thin LED screen which allures a colorful hummingbird in their TV commercial. However when Sony price goes under Samsung's, my decision on buying a TV becomes a no-brainer.

So I had just ordered a SONY KDL40V4100, at an absurd tag $775 (in total)!

First Golf

I did my first golf, 9-hole at Sherrill Park Golf Course, scored 64 (+28). Should reconsider choosing it to be a future hobby :-)

卖国英雄, 爱国贼

从历史的角度以及人类价值观的演进来看，卖国必有其美好的情理，爱国也有其丑陋的缘由。

2008 Layoff in Texas

We still should be feeling thankful as living in Texas. According to the Fortune Magazine, more than half of all the new jobs created in the U.S. in 2008 were in Texas! The sorry state California did just opposite with the highest income tax and the largest population loss.

Installing MAC OS X on a PC (dual boot)

Install Mac OS X to Dell M1330 (dual boot)

1. Preparation

- burn iATKOS v5i (OS X 10.5.5) ISO DVD
- Boot with Vista DVD
- Go to repair, then command console, issue DISKPART
- Delete all partitions in hard disk (WARNING: ALL DATA LOST)
- create two partitions on disk0 (149GB)
    1) for Vista: 100GB with default type
    2) for OS X: the rest (49GB) with ID=af (late, OS X installation will recognize this partition)

2. Install Windows Vista

3. Install iATKOS v5i
Refer to Installing Mac OS X on a PC (single boot).

4. After the two OS's are installed, reboot PC and Darwin Bootloader will appear. Type F8, then select the OS to boot.

Installing MAC OS X on a PC (single boot)

Install Mac OS X to Dell M1330 (clean install)

1. Preparation

- iATKOS v5i (OS X 10.5.5) ISO DVD
- Delete all partitions in hard disk

2. Install iATKOS v5i

- insert the DVD
- boot computer from DVD
- Darwin bootloader starts, hit F8 when counting, and type -v then hit enter to continue
- OS X loading from DVD. Once loaded, hit ..> button at the bottom right
- Once top manu bar appears, Utilities --> Disk Utility
- select the disk (on left side), select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name it as "Leopard". A new partition under the disk is created
- still select the disk, click partition, resize the Leopard partition to 50GB and apply
- exit Disk Utility
- continue, will find the Leopard (50.12GB) disk appears. Select it. Continue
- Now, DO NOT just INSTALL. Click customize,
Besides the default checked options, just check these following additional options from Customize Install

Bootloader: PC EFI V9
Decrypters: AppleDecrypt
SMBIOS drivers: SMBIOS-EFI Air
ACPI: x86
Drivers: VGA drive: X3100,
Intel AHCI SATA
then done with customize
- install (skip DVD disk check). it will take about 20 minutes.
- Once complete, remove DVD. restart to boot on hard disk (it may ask for turn off PC, so do it)

3. Start Leopard

- Once booting with with hard disk (the first Leopard boot up), it takes very long time (watching the HDD LED is still flashing, though the screen may turn to black). Be patient for at least 30-40min
- Leopard is finally up and running, for the first configuration

4. Keyboard and Mouse recognization

- the m1330 keyboard and mouse pad should be recognized (with ACPI; x86). If not, plug in a USB keyboard and UBS mouse. they should be recognized.
- follow the step until "How Do You Connect?" window, answer not connect to the internet
- Fill in bogus info for registration fields
- Create account by using user (eqian) and my internet password

5. Problems remained:
- Power on booting very slow (could be 30min)

Windows vs. Mac - A Fair Perspective

I am working on getting a Leopard running in a PC. Here is what I had learned: It is easy for Apple to claim a MAC OS works perfectly for a one kind of MAC; However it is not that easy for Microsoft to claim the Windows works perfectly for all kinds of PCs.

Two full weekends have been spent for just bringing the very basic OS X functions working on my Dell. No sound, no networking, some keys on the keyboard do not even work :-)

But why I insisted on doing it? After a few difficult tries, it caused me very obsessed. I could just simply go out to grab a MAC Mini for only 600 bucks. Yes, call me crazy.

It’s just an experiment, to me. No one in world so far can claim everything on PC working under Mac OS X. The reason is so obvious. It’s very simple and easy for Apple to makes sure OS X working just for a Mac, the one kind. Microsoft, however, has to make sure Windows to be able to support millions of different PCs (even home-made ones) with so vast array of different devices (keyboards, mice, video cards, sound cards, NICs, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, …).

So such dirty adaptation work have to fall into all OS X hackers’ shoulders. It reminds me the early days when I was installing a Linux on a PC back in early 90's time.

The Leopard is Running on my Dell Laptop

Finally, the Leopard is running on my Dell laptop!

That’s so called a Hackintosh.

Success vs. Happiness

Success is to get what you wanted;
Happiness is to want what you've got.

Raise yourself up, then view the world under

"不以物喜，不以己悲。居庙堂之高则忧其民，处江湖之远则忧其君。是进亦忧，退亦忧，然则何时而乐耶？其必曰，先天下人之忧而忧，后天下人之乐而乐乎！"

To Fellow Eggheads … …

To recall what we have talked about during the party gathering last night.

Wish all of us the best, whether

working for your own or for company,
leading or supporting,
investing or gambling,
wanting more PCs or loving MAC,
watching the wealth channel or willing to cover Hawaii group trip,
enjoying or being enjoyed,
making baby or emptying nest, 
Republican or Democrat,
in Dallas or in California… …

Nortel is on sales

As we speculated earlier, the application delivery product (former Alteon) piece were sold to Redware on 4/1.

Now today, Nokia Siemens made official to bid the large piece of NT including LTE:

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7bFC797B96-4E88-4E9B-8CE0-0C285C8E8064%7d&siteid=yhoof2

The rest part in Enterprise business are under Avaya and Siemens Enterprise Communications' eyes.

So the question remains that what is the core left after these series of divesture?

iPhone Gold Rush

Will mobile phone application development make many programmers rich? Then think twice.

Thought of doing it... however the iPhone SDK requires me to buy a Mac, plus other hurdles as lack of good app ideas, Apple will rip off another 30% of revenue sharing, converting to Objective-C from my C# dialect. :-)

Actually the biggest hurdle is that my wolfish employer sucks up all my spare time!!!

That's why I need an entrepreneur boot camp this Saturday with you eggheads.

Scotia Waterous – A Brief Assessment

Scotiabank overall
- 69000 employees

Structure

• 4 major groups: Domestic Banking, International Banking, Scotia Capital and e-Banking
• Scotia Capital:
• Scotia Mcleod (Canadian i-Banking),
• Scotia Mocatta (metals trading),
• Scotia Waterous (the well-regarded M&A division that operates exclusively within the oil & gas industry)

Relative hierarchy

Scotiabank ==> Scotia Capita ==>Scotia Waterous

Remark:

Scotia Waterous is a very focused team with most directors come from petroleum industry as engineering experts.

They are well regarded mostly because of their focus and specialty.

They are doing business but with their strong technical domain knowledge. However, you as a pure financial/business background might find little difficult to fit in to this close circle, unless you would like to grasp their knowledge and daily language.

Citi Group – A Brief Assessment

Recent job cut

• April 2007 Citigroup eliminated 17,000 jobs, or about 5% of its workforce
• Jan 2008, it announced another 5% cut.
• Nov 2008, the subprime crisis hit Citigroup with full force, despite its receipt of $25 billion in federal TARP bailout money, and on November 17, 2008 Citigroup announced plans for about 52,000 new job cuts.

Market Performance

• $300B market value in 2006 down 15 times to $21B in 2008

Federal Assistance

• $25B federal TARP bailout money
• $20 direct investment to the company by Federal
• $306B in loans and securities from Federal

Structure - four major divisions:

Global Consumer Group, Global Wealth Management,Citi Institutional Clients Group (newly created in 2007), and Global Cards

• Global Consumer Group: Citi Cards, CitiFinancial and Citibank
• Global Wealth Management: Citi Private Bank, Citi Smith Barney, Citi Investment Research
• Citi Institutional Clients Group: Citi Markets and Banking, Citi Alternative Investments
• Global Cards: all Citi credit cards

Relative hierarchy

Citigroup
         ==> Institutional Clients Group
                   ==> Global Banking
                            ==> Investment Banking

https://icg.citi.com/global_banking/invest_banking.jsp

http://www.oncampus.citi.com/careers/north_america/institutional_clients_group/investment_banking.aspx

or you could be end up with this hierarchy

Citigroup
         ==> Institutional Clients Group
                   ==> Global Markets
                            ==> Global Commodities
                                     ==> Oil & Oil Products

https://icg.citi.com/global_markets/product_solutions/commodities/index.jsp

https://icg.citi.com/global_markets/product_solutions/commodities/oil_products.jsp

Are Private Colleges Worth Your Money?

Are private college worth the money?

The answer is a big NO, according to the future earning power of the graduates (what else matters more than the ROI of your education investment?). Note that UT Austin ranked #3 and A&M ranked #2 in the ranking of "The Best Colleges for Making Money".

This is a very interesting ranking, which reconciles what I have been thinking and learned in these years on college selection.

It’s good to see two Texan schools made at the top of the list. This once more reflects on the similar matter what we have tried to justify ourselves for staying in Dallas with the relatively more effective savings, as a living place section thought process.

Another point that I would like to share with you is that selecting a career-focused major is far more important than taking the glory of a school name. Don’t get me wrong, I should qualify further that no one would reject any prestigious glory if it is financially justified. By saying that, I won’t want to pay just for any glory. Thus the key point here is: “glory on other’s name” vs. “gain belongs to your own”.

Taking my daughter’s case just as an example, I think she is maximizing her ability to gain much more from what her school in average could offer to students. I would like to share with you a status update I just learned recently about her job exploring strategy. She has gained so far among only a dozen of students in her school who had got a full hit-rate set of interviews from all investment banking firms they applied to so far. Given the current economic situation, gaining interviews with I-banks such as UBS, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Citi Groups, Scotia Waterous, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Greenhill, etc. apparently is not a easy task for students this year. Due to the financial crisis impacting much more in the Northeastern area, many Ivy school students had to turn to the South in order to get higher chance for an interview. Needless to say, we are very proud of her.

Just taking this direction as a talking point (not extremely), I start considering more and more that a school is just a playground, it is crucial and really depends on how individual students perform after having entered. So being admitted by a better school is just a formality. In that case, the teacher-to-student ratio, for instance, is just a formality, which will very unlikely affect most of self-motivated students. On the other hand, a student who can stand out of a vast student sea in a school with very low T-to-S ratio would convincingly prove that she or he could perform very well in their career in the future. What matters is the real life in a real world. And obviously, for the same argument, she or he could definitely perform very well if she or he would have been admitted in an ivy school.