Reading Time: < 1 minute 1) Confident, independent (not blindly follow other or influenced by others opinion), strong (not easily quit, grit, or perseverance) ; 2) Empathy, humility, know how to wear other people’s shoes and feel other people’s pain (同情心); 3) 不卑不亢（english translation? It seems bullet 1 covers this too. List it here as this is my father taught

Reading Time: 2 minutes Did my first root of Android phone. I had two Android phones before, but I never rooted it. This time I had a need for root to add the Chinese language to a Samsung Galaxy S3. The specific model is T-mobile SGH-T999 (shown in the Download or Recovery mode, but the model number on the

Reading Time: 3 minutes I first learned the “production environment” in 2010, when I worked as contractor for a major railway company. Before that I was mostly in CAD software development and consulting environment the word “production” did not come often. To be precise at Siemens PLM/UGS as developers, we did have access to various production releases and did

Reading Time: 2 minutes A common question for software developer is to be an employee (full time, perm) or be an contractor (W-2, or 1099). Strictly speaking the 1099 is more like a small business, and I have not done it personally. I heard some experienced people did the 1099; I will share if I have that exp. down

Reading Time: 2 minutes I am a soft spoken person. I got to know this word when a recruiter gave me feedback in 2000, when I applied for a consultant position at software company. That’s ok most of the time, except in certain cases we need to be clear: we cannot be vague, and we cannot waiver. Some examples

Reading Time: 2 minutes I decided to switch my wireless carrier again, from H2O wireless to Ting. I stayed with H2O for over a year, mostly satisfied, except recently I started using its per minute data, which seems burn my money quickly. I heard about Ting from friend before, but I forgot to do the referral. 🙁 Anyway I

Reading Time: < 1 minute I used to listen APM: Market Place (NPR) and the Nightly Business Report (PBS => CNBC). I was a business news junkie, and was into stock market. I also listened to a more in-depth podcast: the weathtrack by Consuelo. More recently, I expanded my podcasts a bit, as you can see from below. NPR hidden

Reading Time: < 1 minute Followed this instruction move away from bluehost; and move domain into godaddy. Most instructions are accurate, except one needs to ping pong couple times, started from bluehost first, then at godaddy website, after that I received email from godaddy asking about the transfer, go ahead and use the information in the email to start the

Reading Time: 2 minutes Talking about tests exams and realized I made a big mistake, this happens quite often when I was in middle school. My solution to that was not talk about or think about it after a test. But that did not work for Gaokao. As we had to estimate how we did after the test, then

Reading Time: 2 minutes 十几年前我回国在上海一般就住一个如家或锦江之星，挑一个离地铁比较近的酒店，这样上班办事都比较方便。那时候没有小孩，旅馆主要就是睡个觉，干净清爽就可以了。快进几年，有了两个小孩，住的酒店要求也稍有提高。托酒店信用卡促销的福，攒了些点数或是free nights, 我也升级了住的旅馆。在上海常住的旅馆有，徐家汇的万丽酒店（courtyard Shanghai xujiahui), 她家所在的楼叫西藏大厦，出租车司机如不清楚可提这个名字。另一家是浦东的喜来登福朋酒店（four points by Sheraton, Shanghai pudong, 又叫由由酒店，楼的名字），注意她家旁边有喜来登酒店（Sheraton Shanghai pudong, 5 star vs four points 4 star), 不要搞错。这两家的房间起价大概是800人民币左右。 最近一次有幸住了回陆家嘴的柏悦酒店（park hyatt），这个标价是大概300多美金，我用的是hyatt卡的开卡free nights. 看了下用chase ultimate rewards points 的话是2万点一晚。小孩很喜欢，因为有一些没见过的features. 我的头被淋浴喷头砸了一下。Uncle Major 进大观园。:-) 在美国最近住Hampton inn 比较多。还是觉得Hampton inn 接地气一些。这家Hilton 系列的中档酒店设计简单，实用，且包早餐。一般我这样小兵级别的人出差就住它家。对有小孩的家庭包早餐是一个挺有用的feature. Other hotels have similar feature include Hilton garden inn, holiday inn express and clarion. Last but