Real Life

SEGS, awesome!

2005-11-29T17:46:00.000Z

If you are not a UK/EU graduate who's willing to work in UK, you should have heard about Science and Engineering Graduates Scheme(SEGS). No ideas? Ok, let's take a look at it.

SEGS was launched on 25 October last year which was introduced by Home Office allowing "non-EEA nationals who have graduated from UK higher or further education establishments in certain physical sciences, mathematics and engineering subjects with a 2.2 or higher to remain in the UK for 12 months after their studies in order to pursue a career." The purpose of setting this scheme is to enourage more overseas students to study in UK and contribute to the specific industries such as physical science, engineering and IT research after their graduations. As a result, it may improve UK's high technology competence and solve the problem of skilled worker shortage in associated markets. The scheme brings people like me a wonderful chance to pursue our careers in this country.

Before you apply for SEGS, please make sure that your are qualified. First of all, do check the course list (PDF) on the website to find out whether your course is in it (check the JACS code). If you have taken the combination course with two or three subjects, please follow the instruction mentioned in the same file. In my situation, because I am Msc in Information Technology and Management (JACS code: G500), which was not listed in the course list. I had to ask my university to provide an offcial letter to prove that half of my course is Information Technology (JACS code: G5) in order to match the qaulification (hopefully it will be done in these days).

The application form of the scheme can be downloaded here. It will cost you £335 for applicatioins made by post (decide within around 20-70 days) and £500 for applications made in person (decide within around 24 hours).

If we can pass the SEGS, we are not restricted in any work type in UK for a year. This is one of the best ways for us to work in UK. Is it expensive? No, I don't think so. At least it costs less than applying for extending my visa.

use Google Base to promote yourself

2005-11-17T01:29:00.000Z

Google Base was launched yesterday after thousands of discussions on it. In order to 'sell' myself I created a item in Google Base, you can check it out. Besides Google Base's usages that Google designed for us, there are more ways to play with it. Just open your mind, then you can have fun on it.

Web Design Mistakes of 2005

2005-10-26T23:08:00.000+01:00

No matter you are an experienced web designer or a beginner of web design, Jakob Nielsen's selection of 2005 web design mistakes is worth reading. By reading the article, you may realise most of them are 'old' mistakes that have been there several years such as Font or Flash problems. If you don't want to make the same kind of silly mistakes, just spend a few minutes in reading it.

Monsters Interview Tips For Job Hunters

2005-10-16T20:57:00.000+01:00

Monster.co.uk provides much valuable advice for job hunters besides the job information. In this month’s newsletter a new service called ‘Virtual Interviews’ is delivered to those who prepare for their important interviews. The service covers several industries including Finance, Retail and Internet, etc. It is a very simple application that provides several questions and related optional answers for users to choose. After selecting an answer, the system shows users the analysis of the choice. The Internet sector’s standard answers are listed as below:

What qualities do you think are important to this position?

To have a combination of technical and business knowledge and to be very results-oriented. My past record shows that I have those qualities and more. Because of my business acumen and technical know-how, the teams I have managed accomplished outstanding results, including booking more than $50 million in online revenue.

What experience have you had that qualifies you for this position?

I have experience working with e-commerce companies on the consulting side. I've managed teams and have strong experience with HTML and Java. My communication skills and business acumen are my strengths. I can wear many hats and believe I can bring added value to a team effort.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

My strength is my flexibility. As director of operations at a startup company, I've had to deal with and handle changes and new policies constantly. As far as weaknesses, I really enjoy my work, and sometimes I put in too much time on some projects. But by being aware of my tendency, I have learned to work smarter.

When have you been most motivated?

My first job in a pre-IPO. I had to undergo some rigorous training to understand the product and customer. At the same time, we were actually working with the customer. It required a lot of self-direction and motivation. I thrived on the whole experience -- the discipline, the planning and the deadlines. It was a pressure cooker, but I got through it.

Tell me about yourself and your past experience.

I have eight years of experience working in the IT industry. For the past two years, I have been working as a project manager for a dotcom. I am also PMI certified. My strengths are my client-relationship management skills, and my leadership ability. I'm looking for a team environment where I can join the excitement of building a company.

What are your salary expectations?

I really need more information about the job before we start to discuss salary. I'd like to postpone that discussion until later. Could you tell me what is budgeted for the position?

Do you have any questions? (This is usually asked by the interviewer at the end of the interview.)

Yes, I do. Who are your financial backers? Who are the key competitors? Does the company have a plan for the IPO? What would you say is the best thing about your product/service?

Why did you leave your last position?

I've set some goals for myself and my career, and unfortunately I'm at a standstill in my current situation. I have begun to explore options available before I spend too much time in a job where I can't advance. My goal is to continue to take on new responsibilities and be a key contributor to the success of an online venture.

How would your boss describe you and your work style?

First, she'd say I have a lot of initiative -- I see a big picture and do what has to be done to achieve results. Secondly, that I have business savvy -- I know the business side as well as the technical side. And thirdly, I have a high work ethic -- if I say I'm going to do something, I do it.
[Source: Monster Virtual Interviews]

The test gives us some ideas on how to prepare for the interview questions. Though the answers sound good, it is not recommended to use them directly in our job interviews. It is better to keep the answers as flexible as possible depending on our real situations. Furthermore, making a checklist (or blogs of course) of interview can help us to gain more experience in job interviews and it might be used anytime in our life.

ps: The channel Graduates in Monster is worth accessing for the graduate students.

My first PAID job in Wolverhampton

2005-10-03T22:39:00.000+01:00

Today was really a good day because I started my first paid job in UK. Though the job is quite simple that I just need to compare the data between two systems used in the research of Russells Hall Hospital (in Dudley) and document the potential problems in them, it’s meaningful to me since this was the first time that I’ve got paid from the IT related job. Before this job I’ve worked in a Chinese restaurant (Beijing City) for almost nine months and developed modelling software for the company CERAM without any salary (Msc project). Perhaps the current job is not quite interesting and with low salary, but as my friend Anna said, at least it is something. I hope this is the good start for me to find a satisfied IT job in UK. I would not give up as long as there is a hope existing.

prevent winform resized in C#

2005-08-03T22:32:00.000+01:00

It is very easy to prevent the form to be resized in the winform application of C# .

Firstly, we should set the 'MaximumSize' and 'MinimumSize' properties to the same dimensions as the Size property. Then we can set:

form.MaximizeBox = false;
this.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.FixedDialog;

The FormBorderStyle property can be changed into others according to what appearance we want it to display.

Creating PDF online

2005-07-25T23:50:00.000+01:00

Today I ultamately finished the poster of project - Kiln Modelling, which spent me two days by using CorelDraw to make. For the convenience of being viewed by my supervisor, I wanted to make it as PDF file. After thinking a while I remembered the online service of PDF maker called 'PDF Online' that is bookmarked in my del.icio.us. The website can help us produce PDF file based on several kinds of file format including those we use frequently such as PPT, HTML, PNG, etc. All we need to do is uploading the local file and submiting our email addresses, then the produced PDF will be sent to the email account in 10 minutes. Since it is free, the file size is limited in 2MB. I uploaded one PNG file and got the PDF version in only 1 minute. It's awesome.

The Big Guy Joins Google

2005-07-20T23:42:00.000+01:00

If you ask me to pick out the biggest news of today's, I'll say 'google hires Kai-fu Lee as Vice President, Engineering and President of Google China' without hesitation. The moment I read the news from keso's blog (in Chinese), one of the most famous bloggers in China, I was very happy for Google because that really means a lot to them. Kai-fu Lee is a person I've admired since he was the founder of Microsoft Research China several years ago, not because of his enviable experience but his real care of the student education in China. His personal website http://www.kaifulee.com/ provides his public letters and advice to Chinese university students which are so impressive. I think as a leader of Google's R&D center, he is the best choice. Since he concerns about the Chinese students and China so much that helps him to gain high reputation from the young talents, which may make Google's R&D center much easier to attract talented engineers to join. Hope I have the same honor to work for this amazing company some day.

Visual Studio 2005 Documentation

2005-07-17T23:55:00.000+01:00

I just searched the solution of fixing the position of child form in a MDI form, occasionally finding this website: Visual Studio 2005 Documentation. It's still a beta version and doesn't support Firefox very well cause I can't use the middle button of mouse to roll over the pages. However, I 'd like to save the address for future use.

Interpreter

2005-07-02T02:34:00.000+01:00

I had happy experience being inteprter for CERAM yesterday during the negotiation with Chinese customer. Though the work I did was less than my expectation, the process is fresh to me. The task of translating my mother language - Chinese into English immediatly and remaining the original meaning is not so easy. And I know my performance can be improved if there are more opportunities come.

However, I've learnt something from today's job. To be honest, participating in the real world negotiation is ten times more efficient than a class of MBA course in learning business knowledge. Furthermore, I've got some business ideas by today's meeting that might benefit my career if I would start my own business someday.

Graduate Recruitment Fair in Manchester

2005-06-15T22:50:00.000+01:00

I attended the graduate recruitment fair held in Manchester with my friends today that lasts two days. It is my first time to attend such kind of exhibition in UK, so I regarded it as a good opportunity to promote myself and prepared 20 CVs for it. But after getting the brochure of the fair I found it's obvious that the vacancies related to IT were less than my expectation. Does it mean that IT jobs are not hot right now in UK or north west of UK?

I tried to talk to the representatives of the companies providing the IT jobs. Unsurprisedly the frequent first question of theirs were 'do you got the right of work permit in UK?' Ok, forgive me, I'm an international student studying master course here. How can I get a work permit if there is no company to provide me a chance? The reason I come to the fair is trying to get a job and contribute to you - the company and UK. You say 'No' directly because you don't want to waste time in applying the work permit for the guy no matter whether he/she matches the vacancy or not. Maybe you don't realise that the refusion might cause the loss of a potential talented staff of the company.

I think most Chinese students have the same difficulties as me while applying a job, which are the communication skills and the right of work permit. Although our communication skills can be improved by our practice, the issue of work permit is uncontrollable. We have technical skills, working experience and passion. All we need is a chance to prove ourselves.

However, I won't sit here and keep complaining. I would rather believe the chance doesn't knock my door because I'm not excellent enough. And I need to keep enhancing my professional skills as well as the capability of English.

We never know when luck comes, but we should prepare for the unpredictable chance in every minute.

Ajax age

2005-04-24T01:50:00.000+01:00

The fun of working in IT is that you may see amazing and creative ideas been produced nearly every day. But the premise is that you shouldn't stop gathering information and absorbing new knowledge day by day. This industry is full of new stuff that makes me never feel boring.

Ok, today I want to introduce the new term - ajax. We have talked about DHTML for several years which helps user to interact with web application more easily at the client side. The core of DHTML is DOM(Document Object Model), consists of two key things: one is the global JavaScript objects with useful properties and methods (functions); the other is the hierarchical representation of a web page as element node objects. The DOM has been used for animated web even Flash is widely used today.

As Jesse James Garrett says, ajax is not a new technology. It's an abbreviation of '
Asynchronous JavaScript + XML'. He defines ajax as the combination of several current popular technologies including the following items:

standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;
dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model;
data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;
asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
and JavaScript binding everything together.

Since the word 'ajax' come out, it is spread through the Internet rapidly. Yes, thanks blogosphere again. Now there are some famous web applications using ajax:

Google Maps - a new mapquest killer
Google GMail - the hottest email service recently
A9.com - Amazon's Google wanna-be search engine
Ta-da Lists - a part of the Basecamp, the useful online project management tool

Although there are some alternatives of ajax exist such as Flash, I'm sure it will be used by more companies. Indeed, some people has considered to create the next generation Dynamic HTML based on it. If we can keep our eyes on it, undoubtly, we may get into the train to the new age of web technology.

realted sources:

Sampling Ajax in a CMS
Ajax using XMLHttpRequest and Struts
AJAX Wrapper for .Net (v1.1) Released
Why the term Ajax is useful
XMLHttpRequest & Ajax Working Examples
SOA, AJAX and REST: The Software Industry Devolves into the Fashion Industry
my bookmarks of 'ajax'

Orb helps you establish your own entertainment center

2005-04-10T22:56:00.000+01:00

If you are fans of wireless technology as me, you have to know about this company - Orb Networks and her awesome services. The company incorporating Boingo Wireless provides customers means to access their digital media files storing at their home PCs by using Wi-Fi and P2P(I'm not sure if it is P2P, hearing from a podcast) technologies.

Orb's solution provides spontaneous access to a person's music, live television, videos, photos and other digital content at any time from any device that can connect to the Internet, such as a cell phone, PDA, or notebook, and create their own "personal media portal."

Now the service also supports photo sharing.

I think the personalized storage and storing data intelligently will be a tech trend in the following years. The best way to access your data, of course, is wireless.

Mobile Internet

2005-04-07T22:58:00.000+01:00

In the article Email, Scale-Free Networks, and the Mobile Internet, Rheingold talks about a researcher who claims the usage of Email and SMS in mobile network and the distinction of the two. I agree with him that this industry is going to change. In my opinion, more and more Internet applications will go to mobile. Four years ago, WAP was hot and being proved as a hype. But at that time, the data speed of mobile network was not as fast as today's, the WAP applications were lack and the mobile technology even the market was less mature than today's. Now everything is different, we may use mobile to send picture to Flickr, write mblog by using mobile, search websites on mobile and Skype the wireless people using Internet. Tons of Internet applications are in relation to the mobile and more are coming. That's why I always believe the mobile Internet may take the place of traditional Internet someday. The day is not faraway.

The example in Email, Scale-Free Networks, and the Mobile Internet may discover the potential of using Internet applicatioins on mobile.

... sending an SMS message costs 7 eurocents, and if you send the same message
to 1000 people, the cost multiplies one thousand fold. In the case of e-mail,
one message on a GPRS network is 1 cent, and it does not cost you any more if
the message has a thousand recipients.

No matter how advanced the technology is. What customers usually concern about is 'Is it useful to me?', 'Is it cheaper than other service?'. Once we can give both the answers 'abolutely yes' with confidence, we've got a key to the success of our business.

critical thinking on podcasting

2005-04-05T23:09:00.000+01:00

OK, I have to admit podcasts are everywhere. You can find more and more people talk about it, more and more people think they can make money from it, although some of them question it. I am fond of podcasting that helps me get information quicker. On the other hand, I treat it as the way to improve my English.

Nevertheless, I don't think podcasting will come to mainstream as soon as blog did. The main reason is how you can evaluate a podcast before you listening to it. Blogs are based on texts that we can search the key words to find out the valuable information we need then to read it. But podcasts are based on 'voice'. How can you search in 'voice' or judge the quality of it? Thus, it is hard for people to search useful podcasts and for those who make podcasts to spread his/her works. All we can do is listening to those who are already famous in blogsphere or radio broadcasting.

Maybe the alternative of podcasting will be Vlog, where people can put on their videos instead of texts, such as Microsoft's Channel 9. Today 'Google co-founder Larry Page has announced that the company wants the public to send in its homemade videos', which might boost the expansion of video blog.

Related:
My bookmarks of podcasting

PHP Designer 2005

2005-04-04T01:00:00.000+01:00

Four years ago, when I participated in my first PHP and WAP project I used the phpED, the light IDE for PHP. Today, I found the alternative - PHP Designer 2005, a free php editor. It not only supports PHP but also maintains "many powerful features such as customizable syntax schemes for PHP, HTML, XHTML, CSS, Perl, C#, JavaScript, VB, Java and SQL, test and debug your scripts with the PHP interpreter, integration of the PHP manual, parameter hint",etc. Among all functions of the software, my favourite one is the ToDo manager, which allows you to make notes and progress of each file. It brings convenience in working on a small project such as my assignment of Web Technologies. The install file of the software is only 1.3 Mb. Recommending to use.

Perfect Moment

2005-04-03T02:04:00.000+01:00

Walking along the country road accompanying with her. Her smile is more shining than the sunlight. In this wonderful afternoon, Keele is peaceful while my heart is cheerful. Hope the perfect moment stay forever; hope we can walk till the end of the world; hope I never awake from the dream.

Yahoo!360°VS MSN Space

2005-03-31T22:52:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I've got an inviation of Yahoo! 360° from Jeremy and played with it for 20 minutes then gave up. The new service of Yahoo! is undoubted a great idea that integrates all the tradintional and hottest stuff together including e-mail, blog, photo share and social network, it also allows you to IM with friends who use Yahoo! messenger. Hence, you can build a personal info portal in short time without any IT background. However, I wonder why I should use the service. Now I can chat with my friends by using MSN messenger, email and save contact information by GMAIL, share pictures on flickr, save bookmarks in del.icio.us, write blog here. I used to enjoy these tools in my daily life, how can Yahoo! 360° attract me to switch to it? I don't know, at least by now I've never thought about switching.

I think that's the problem Yahoo! has to face with. Today there are too many applications online for users to choose, some good services own loyal users because of their high performance and word-of-mouth spread. Service integration is good but it should be based on the user base. The key point is the user custom. In other words, if Microsoft delivers the same service to MSN users as Yahoo! does, it can succeed more easily(sounds familiar? yes, MSN Space). The advantage of Yahoo! 360° is its social network concept that MSN space dosen't have. As you know, the social network service is not a new idea, and it may help one website gather users more quickly than ever. But the same problem is too many social network sites out there, which confuse people and loose them ultimately. Unless Yahoo! 360° release some really useful services and follow Jeremy's advice, they must have a long way to go.

If you are interested in trying Yahoo! 360°, drop me a note or leave comments here. I still have 95 invitations.

Getting a job at Google or Microsoft

2005-03-28T23:44:00.000+01:00

In a conversation of my friend Anna, I was asked whether I'd like to work for Microsoft. Of course 'YES'. Although my priority is Google, which is full of innovative and unlimited ideas. Here, Google gives you the 10 reasons to work at Google. Also, on Channle 9 there is a video on the introduction of interview at Microsoft that is worthwhile watching.

Recently, Google has set up an R&D center in Bangalore India and hired many talented developers. Hopefully, someday they will provide the job opportunities in China, which is blank right now. However, if you have enough confidence and ambition, just check out their websites of job openings in other countries: Google and Microsoft.

Related Blogs:
Interviewing at Microsoft
Technical Careers @ Microsoft

Managing my time

2005-03-27T23:10:00.000+01:00

I made a timetable of Easter vacation today. The purpose of doing it is that I'm afraid there will be little things done after one month holiday as what happened in the past. Time management is a big issue for each of us.
The definition of time management in wikipedia is:

Time Management teaches a number of techniques that aim to increase the effectiveness of a person in getting the things done that need to be done. Time management is somewhat of a misnomer as time passes without regard to what we do; the only thing we can manage is ourselves. Hence time management is mostly about self management.
There are a number of tools, techniques and attitudes that can help:

* Todo list
* Goal setting
* Proactiveness
* Priorities
* Win-win opportunities
* Understanding others
* Improving yourself

Also, 43FoldersWiki provides us two basic approaches to manage the time:

Task-based and Outcome-based. Task-Based Time Management is best represented by Getting Things Done (GTD), which helps you organize the tasks you wish to do by priority and venue. Outcome-Based Time Management is best represented by Franklin/Covey and Anthony Robbins OPA/RPM systems. These systems begin with defining overriding goals you wish to accomplish (like buying a new car, for example), and then detemining tasks to support that goal, and ultimately organizing many tasks to ensure that your life achieves the outcomes you desire.

What I have done is divided into 3 steps. Firstly, making a Todo list to list all I have to do in the coming month. Made mark of each one by its important level. This list may be expanded in the future. Secondly, write down the major task of each day by using a pattern of calendar. The task related to the date may be changed depending on my progress. Last, create a timetable of next week. Specify the tasks of every day in the unit of hour. The timetable will be evaluated on next Saturday and a new one will be established on next Sunday. Hopefully, the method can help me avoid wasting time as possibly as I can.

Time Management is not only a technical method. It is about achieving a good habit for our life and lead to success, like the habit of blogging. Besides Time Management, one important issue is Execution, which should be considered in making decision of planning your time.

Further Reading:
Managing Your Time for More Effective Blogging
http://del.icio.us/tag/timemanagement
http://del.icio.us/tag/time_management

gifts for geek

2005-03-26T16:28:00.000Z

To access the ThinkGeek.com, you'll find donzens of impressive gifts for geeks. Hold on, not only for geek but also for mass. Here you may not see any inspiring invention that totally changes your life. But you can find how the smart people use their creativity to make your life enjoyable. For instance, the MousePad for web designer is one of my favorites. The idea is so simple that can be implemented easily. And it is really useful for web desinger.
Most of the stuff in the website are the productions of detailed observation of our lives, which of them make our lives more convinient, others bring us fun. I don't know how about the sales situation of the website. However, the concept of it is quite great. Smart people sell innovative things to smart people. Next time, if you want to choose a present for your friend, why not trying to buy one here.

Customize your google news

2005-03-11T01:02:00.000Z

You have to admit Google always steps faster than most of his competitors (you may say My Yahoo! and My MSN already have the same function. But they need user to register and sign in). Today, the gift he brings us is - customizing Google News. Now we can design our google news page and share with our friends. It provides a structure diagram of your google news page, which allows you to drag and trop the layer freely. At the same time, you can delete the one you are not interested in and add other section on it. The difference between 'Add a standard section' and 'Add a custom section' is that the former asks user to choose the section prepared such as 'World news' or 'UK news', the latter gives user opportunity to type the key words for searching the matching news. Here I try one by typing 'Apprentice Trump' as you can see.

The advantage of customized news page for me is that I can read news of different language in the same page now. For instance, if I'm interested in the entertainment news of HongKong, I can put the HongKone version in the page.

The disadvantage of the function is because Google doesn't ask user to login to use it, the configuration of layout only can be saved in Cookie, which means you can only see the customized page on the computer which you set. Once you delete Cookies in your computer or turn to use another one, you can't get the same page. However, Google allows you to share the customized news with your friends by providing a URL. You can save the URL for further use.

My temporal one is here. Although I don't access google news frequently (Bloglines is still my faviourite), the idea of customizing news are smart and useful for those who don't know RSS and never use it. It will be more brilliant if Google can combine it with Flickr, del.icio.us, or bloglines to help people make a personal information portal. This is another topic that I might talk about later.

online dictionary - answers.com

2005-03-05T13:56:00.000Z

I used to use Dictionary.com as my default online dictionary, but from now on I'll switch to answers.com, not only provides the definition of words but also covers a million topics from reliable encyclopedias, websites. Also the website has two features that attract me. First it's the firefox plug-in. Those who use firefox may appreciate the usability of the function. The other one is the free download software, 1-Click Answers, which 'brings you instant information about any word on your screen'. Nice to use it.

Lesson on MISP -- Risk Management

2005-03-02T21:17:00.000Z

Today, the MISP tutorial is about risk management. What we learn is not limited in managing risk but project management as well. Points are as below:

Be careful not to be too ambitious in a project - don't expand your project scale too much at the begining. Scale is one of the four major factors in software project.
Identify all your options follow path to completion.
Time management - might be the source of major risks. That's why project plan (scheduled time) is quite essencial.
Use PROCESS as the start when you have no idea - it is appropriate for different kinds of the project.
Reassesment plays important role in project management - we need to not only reassess plan but also risk list. At the same time, monitoring is a major operation in project management.
ASK - don't be hesitate asking questions. Remember, don't ask don't get.
Integrate information - try to gather information from different sources and generate ideas by analysing and comparing them.
Plans need to change - because things will go wrong or situation will change. We should chage the plan after reassessment.

Working with smart people

2005-02-24T00:05:00.000Z

Now, there is a project going to do. As a project manager, you have a choice of two groups, each of which includes five people. One group consists of smart people, those of whom are talented but not easy to manage. The other one is composed with less smart people, easy managing but lack of new ideas. What will you choose?

I prefer the former. Two reasons for that. Firstly, I like to see the intelligent spark in a team. New and different ideas are appreciated in a project. Though there might be a risk that most of the time talented people are hard to get along with other smart people and a conflict may be caused. But is that the reason why we should adapt risk management? Secondly, cooperating with smart people(I'd like to use 'cooperate with' instead of 'manage') can stimulate my personal improvement. Because if you want the project successful, you have to be as smart as these people, even smarter than them. In the article How to Manage Smart People, Scott Berkun also mentions it.

However, in real world, usually we have no choice. If unfortunately you are working with some people without passion or opinion, you should have skills to motivate them. That's why project manager must have various skills to lead the project succeeding within different situation.

Lesson on PP - Critical Thinking

2005-02-23T00:12:00.000Z

Actually this is the lesson from Professional Pratice two days ago (2005.2.21). It is the most valuable lesson of this module. In the beginning of the handout, it gives several reason why we need critical thinking:

Because it helps you become a better person.

Because it helps you become a better professional.

Because it will let you do better work on your assignments and projets.

Because it might get you a better job and make you happy and/or rich.

You know, I really like the last reason that may drive me using critical thinking frequently :) In my opinion, critical thinking is the way to distinguish the real problem from others. Innovation comes from critical thinking, invention comes from critical thinking, and fortune comes from critical thinking as well. The efficiency of critical thinking is based on how much information we have. As it is said in the handout, "it is what argumentation is about", so the evidence is quite important for it.

Here are some URL provided in the handout, the first one is recommended.
http://www.austhink.org/critical/
http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/ctac/toc.htm
http://www.criticalthinking.org/

BTW, today is the Chinese Lantern Festival as well as Chinese Valentine's day. Hope those who have lovers be happy on it!

Lesson on MISP - Computer Security

2005-02-16T12:14:00.000Z

Cyber crime is a big issue of company's risk management. To avoid the risk company should think ahead instead of react after disaster happening. Most of the time we know how to fix the problem when the company's server being hacked. However, the key issue is to gather evidence to find out the source of the problem. This is what I learnt from today's MISP (manage information system & project) tutorial.

At the same time, we were recommended to read the book High-tech crime revealed that it will be available in the library soon.

P.S. Today Bruce Schneier wrote a blog entry about 'Unicode URL Hack'. The principle of hacking is very simple. Anyone can use the Unicode character to substitute the letter of normal URL that can direct people to a fake website. At the same time, the URL from the address bar and status link shows normal. People might not know that is a fake one and type their credit card number and password as usual. He cites www.paypal.com as an example:

Here's a demo: it's a Web page that appears to be www.paypal.com but is not PayPal. Everything from the address bar to the hover-over status on the link says www.paypal.com.

It works by substituting a Unicode character for the second "a" in PayPal. That Unicode character happens to look like an English "a," but it's not an "a." The attack works even under SSL.

Here's the source code of the link: http://www.p&#1072;ypal.com/

I tried it by using Firefox and the problem really exists. Secunia gives a solution for the risk:

Don't follow links from untrusted sources.

Manually type the URL in the address bar.

[last modified: 2005-2-16 21:11]

Six suggestions for new application software

2005-02-10T23:50:00.000Z

Dror Eyal gives six suggestions on how to build your competence in the fierce software market:

- SINGLE IDEA: "The best way to succeed in the marketplace is to create software that fulfills a specific need. This may seem like and obvious point at first, but if you cannot explain to the end user what the software does in a single sentence it is probably too complex. Your first task is to ask yourself, 'What does my product do?'"

- COLLABORATE: "create small discrete software that can collaborate seamlessly with the technology that the end users are currently using."

- DISAPPEAR: "Decrease the interruption of the user experience by reducing the user interface to the point where only the essence is showing."

- SIMPLIFY: "Do I have to go through a course to work with your technology? If so, you are already out of the market."

- RELEASE: "Start creating and releasing your software now. Think prototypes, iterative releases and user base. Don't spend your time on writing business plans, designing a webiste and choosing logos."

- COMPLY: "Find the relevant international standard in your marketplace and comply. This will enforce good architecture and keep your product on track when your customers will want it to integrate with their legacy software."

The advice are more valuable for those small companies who make the application software especially based on web technoloy. It's worthwhile reading.

Gmail invitation

2005-02-04T15:09:00.000Z

Yesterday I've got 50 invitations of Gmail from The Gmail Team. For the reason:

Thanks for using Gmail and helping us improve the service. We're ready to expand our test to a few more users, and because you've been a trusted early tester of Gmail, we're looking for your help. Please invite a few more people who you think would like Gmail and could help us make it even better.

Fortunately you see this entry and are interested in Gmail, contact me :)

MSN Web Search Engine is live

2005-02-02T00:30:00.000Z

No surprise, Microsoft finally launched its own MSN web serch engine instead of the Yahoo! it used yesterday. According to eWeek,

Microsoft has reached its first major milestone in Web search with the release of its algorithmic search engine, which will compete against Google and Yahoo.

The company on Tuesday completed its transition away from Yahoo's search results with the introduction of its own search technology on the MSN Search site, MSN executives said. [via: Microsoft Launches Web Search Engine ]

Now I'm not going to use Microsoft search engine cause Google is still my favorite. Anyhow, Microsoft entering the search engine market may stimulate the inovation of the field, which is a good news for us.

Google's video search

2005-01-25T21:30:00.000Z

Today, Google launched a new service - google video. According to the official site of google, the service "enables you to search a growing archive of televised content – everything from sports to dinosaur documentaries to news shows". You can search the tv programs on the Internet though most of them cannot be downloaded from the Internet. At the same time, Yahoo! moved the video search to its home page, which was introduced last year. Is it a signal that the giants plan to step into the market of digital entertainment by providing search ability of multimedia files? Probably.

link: Google and Yahoo Are Extending Search Ability to TV Programs

Hey! These are most respected business leaders on the planet

2004-12-02T13:13:00.000Z

Fast company magazine provides a top 10 list of the most respected business leaders in the world to a survey:

Bill Gates (Microsoft)
Jack Welch (GE)
Carlos Ghosn (Nissan)
Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)
Michael Dell (Dell Computer)
Hiroshi Okuda (Toyota)
Jeff Immelt (GE)
Carly Fiorina (HP)
Steve Jobs (Apple)
Fujio Mitarai (Canon)

For my point of view, the top 3 should be Jack Welch, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. How soon can we see a chinese leader in this list? In 50 years?

Today's China

2004-11-12T23:29:00.000Z

The Guardian delivered a special report of new China from her High-tech industry to cuisine in the past week. I've got the newspaper of Wednesday, all articles can be read on its website. It's worth reading if you are interested in today's China or you want to know what China is from western broadcasting's point of view.

They say sorry

2004-11-11T23:50:00.000Z

The election is over, but not ending.

Some of us — hopefully most of us — are trying to understand and appreciate the effect our recent election will have on you, the citizens of the rest of the world. As our so-called leaders redouble their efforts to screw you over, please remember that some of us — hopefully most of us — are truly, truly sorry. And we'll say we're sorry, even on the behalf of the ones who aren't. [resource: Sorry Everybody]

Creat your own social portfolio

2004-11-06T22:29:00.000Z

WEALINK is a beta service provided by a Chinese company. WEALINK means "We All Link", which is a social network platform there you can update your personal contact information and share it with your friends, build your social capital. Once your friend shares his/her information with you, you can get his/her latest contact information automatically by logging into the website or sending a request by SMS(yes, you can use SMS to search your friends' telephone number in your personal social portfolio if you are in China now). If you want to join the website you have to be invited by the friend who has been a member(the same policy as Orkut and Linkedin).

Relationship is the key to succeeding in China, that's why I think the service may be achievable cause it can help people to save and use contact information conveniently. After all, the service is only a technology, for expanding our social circle we have to do a lot of work outside the Internet.

Anita Roddick's blog

2004-11-02T21:46:00.000Z

Recently I'm working for the essay on analyzing the strategy of the Body Shop, trying to find more information as possibly as I can. Then I found this website of the founder(Anita Roddick) of the Body Shop, it's precisely a weblog! The website was launched in 2001, which is the platform for her to communicate and share imaginations with "like-minded people". It's glad to see that more and more CEOs or "important person" of one company start their blogs that might be good advertising tools for their companies. In this case, though Anita Roddick is no longer the CEO of the Body Shop, her attitudes and opinions towards human rights or environment problems still represent the majority view of the Body Shop because she is regonised as a symbol of the company. At the same time, she may probably get some good ideas from the masses and shorten their distance which can humanize the company. So, I do think that the blog is an excellent tool for a person or her/his company.

BTW, I really like the simile in her recent dispatch - The Conservative Case Against Bush. She said:

...if you thought of the United States as a large company and Bush as the CEO, his incompetence would dwarf any Tyco or Enron; for starters, consider that he has bankrupted the company and alienated its most loyal customers.

Clock went back one hour

2004-10-31T22:34:00.000Z

This morning when I woke up, I found the time showed on my computer is one hour earlier than that on my clock. Then I realised BST(british summer time) ended before dawn of Sunday. People who are not native inhabitants of UK may not understand what BST is and why BST exists. I found the answer on Wikipedia:

British Summer Time (BST) is the daylight saving time in effect in the United Kingdom between the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October each year. BST is the same as Central European Time: one hour in advance of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), UTC+1.

The start and end dates of British Summer Time are somewhat asymmetrical in terms of daylight hours; for example the time of year with a similar amount of daylight to late October is mid-February, well before the start of BST.

The reason for setting BST is that it "intended to 'save' daylight (as opposed to wasting it by, say, sleeping while the sun shines). The official time is adjusted forward during the spring and summer months, so that the active hours of work and school will better match the hours of daylight."

For reducing car accident, Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa) suggested to to keep to British Summer Time (BST) in winter and change to "double summertime" between March and October.

Does ResumeWiki Work?

2004-10-30T01:21:00.000+01:00

Owen introduced a new wiki comunity - ResumeWiki, which allows you to put your own CV on it and let other people like your friends or colleagues to give comments.

ResumeWiki is a great idea, the project flows from Jeremy Wright of Ensight, which let you post your own resume on the community wiki and let other people give you comments or edit on it. [source: Resume Wiki - Collaborate work on your own resume]

What's the apparent difference between Resumewiki and linkedin? From my point of view, as a online resume center or job center, there is no obvious advantage of Resumewiki to compete with linkedin. Instead, only some tips on resume writing are useful for us.

Tacit knowledge & Understanding

2004-10-25T23:39:00.000+01:00

Today I did a short but unsuccessful presentation in my class. The class is about the decision making in business. When learning the decision types we are arranged to give a small presentation as a group. BTW, John Marsh, our tutor is really a good tutor who knows "learning by doing" very well. He gave us wood puzzles to solve some problems and asked us to make conclusions.

Our group's topic of presentation is about the difference of "Tacit Knowledge" and "Understanding". You know, today it's my first time to hear the word "Tacit Knowledge". According to my textbook, "tacit knowledge" is "described by many theorists as being embodied in individuals as informal knowledge, skills and know-how", while "Understanding" is "embedded in individuals as informal knowledge, develops through interpretations of meanings, sense-making, and perhaps most importantly, reflection or self-reflexive practice." These both concept explanation are hard to understand. So, I made a simple example. I drew a circle on the slide of powerpoint, then ask people what was that. Of course some of them said "circle". Yes, it might be "circle". But it's also can be "the sun" or "coin". I tried to explain that "circle" is "tacit knowledge" that what people learned when they were children, "the sun" or "coin" is "Understanding". I'm not sure if it really makes sense but that's the one I could think at that time.

tacit knowledge

Understanding

Reports on the use of online reputation and rating systems in U.S.

2004-10-23T22:57:00.000+01:00

A study from the Pew Internet and American Life project represents that "Twenty-six percent of adult internet users in the U.S. have rated a product, service, or person using an online rating system." Today several activities such as consumption, making friends, even building one's social network by the Internet are popuplar. Trust and reputation are the base of them. So the report of the study is worth reading.

Security Barrier

2004-10-23T00:38:00.000+01:00

I found this "old" article 'Academic Freedom and Security' written by Bruce Schneier on Oct 01,2004 (the National Day of P.R.C :). He pointed out that the new security policy of U.S. government seems to have negative influence on their academic conference as well as the academic performance.

According to a survey by the Association of American Universities, many universities reported a drop of more than 10 percent in foreign student applications from last year. During the 2003 academic year, student visas were down 9 percent. Foreign applications to graduate schools were down 32 percent, according to another study by the Council of Graduate Schools.

When I was in China I heard from my friends that applying for study in U.S. is more difficult than ever before. That's why more and more students in China will pick UK as their first choice for further study. Of course the security of a country is very important. But as Bruce said "The new U.S. immigration rules may affect the few terrorists trying to enter the United States on visas, but they also affect honest people trying to do the same." If U.S. government insists on doing that they will loose many splendid guys who may benefit other countries.

Presentation Skills

2004-10-19T23:37:00.000+01:00

Actually this is my homework of Professional Practice Tutorial in week 4 which asks us to give some recommendations and warnings to anyone giving a presentation. I think most of us have experiences in giving presentation or will do presentation in the future. It's a necessary skill for all of us. I have more experiences of giving presentation in Chinese than in English. But the recommendations belowed are suitable for different languages as I think.

1) Understand your audience. You should have different ways to give the presentation of same topic to different people. For example, you are going to show a new IT product to customers who have no IT background. Avoiding to use the "IT words" in your presentation or tell them how your system runs. You only need to show them what your system can do!
2) Before you give a presentation you should practice and rehearse your speech at home, in front of a mirror or your friends.Try to find out your weakness and correct it.
3) Emphasize the key point of your speech by Powerpoint slides or your appropriate emotion and hand gesture.
4) Don't put too much information on your slides. You can get some ideas from Effective Presentations.
5) Check all facilities you are going to use in the presentation at least 10-15 minutes before you start it. I have been in this embarrassing situation several times that my laptop run out before the presentations.
6) When doing a presentation, don't stand still with head down and reading from a prepared notes.
7) Don't speak too fast and unclear. Sometimes you should pause that can give little time to your audience to think.
8) Allow your audience to ask you questions.But not in your presentation. Let them know at the beginning of your presentation that you will leave time for them.
9) To attract your audience you can use some audio-visual aids. But don't use too much, remember they are only tools that may help you to do better.

Suggest you are going to do a presentation to your manager on a new IT topic about which you need his approval for a course of action. It is recommended that:

1) For persuading your manager you should organize your presentation in a logical progression and show sensible evidence to prove your approval feasible.
2) Cause you are going to talk about a new IT topic. You should prepare handouts of key information for your manager or mail him before your presentation which may prevent him from confusion of your topic.
3) The time of presentation shouldn't over run than expected. Because your manager may be very busy. Remember to notify him the time you plan to spend on presentation before your speech and control your time during the presentation.
4) Don't only show the evidence of how advanced the new IT technology is. Your manager cares about its business prospect. So you must point out the business value and potential of this new technology.

Those are what I think the skills for presentation. Do you have other suggestions?

Finding an IT job in UK

2004-10-18T23:35:00.000+01:00

Some people including my friends and language tutor told me that finding an IT job in UK is "mission impossible", especially for Chinese students and students who are lack of working experiences. Do I believe? YES. But I think opportunities belong to those who have prepared sufficiently. Although there are still ten months before my graduation, it's time to prepare for the future. Later, I'll make a plan of how to get an IT job in UK as possibly as I can. But now I want to show you a website named JobServe that I heard from my friend.

According to the introduction of JobServe itself, it "were the world's first Internet Recruitment Service". The website provides both Candidate and Recruiter services to employees and employers. My first image of this site is that the UI is simple and clear which makes me comfirtable. We can find more than 23,000 IT jobs here. Of course the 'search' function is necessary for us to concentrate on the particular jobs we apply for. What surprises me most is that JobServe provides RSS for its register users. After my registration on the site I input the key word "C#" of jobs , then I saved my searched result and made it into RSS feed(http://www.JobServe.com/MySearch/7203B7B775BA.rss). I put the RSS feed in bloglines. From now on I can get the update info of recruitment conveniently.

No novels in Keele library

2004-10-15T23:46:00.000+01:00

There's a book fair in Keele's student union every Friday where we can buy the second hand books up to 50% off. After today's morning class I went there to find some books related to my subject(IT/business). Unfortunately I saw none of suitable textbooks instead of many novels and books of other subjects. Several novels written by Steven King interested me. But I decieded to borrow them from the Keele library after hesitation of several minutes because I'm afraid I have little time in reading novels. So I searched books on the website of Keele library. Well, it's contrary to my expectations that there are no novel books in the liabrary. It's strange to me cause most universitie libraries in China maintain lots of novels for students leisure life.

I wonder why Keele library doesn't maintain novels? Are other universities in UK has the same policy as Keele? Maybe there are two reasons for that. Firstly, book price is too high in UK that is out of the library's affordable capability. The other reason is the university prefers students involving themselves in studying and researching. So, they only provide books and references for academic use.

Learning Second Language makes you 'smarter'

2004-10-13T23:38:00.000+01:00

Scientists from University College London did a research which demonstrates that learning language can enhance the brain, reported by BBC. At the same time they found that people who learned a second language in their "early" age have more advanced grey matter in their brain than those who learned later.

If their finding is reliable that I hope to learn another foreign language such as French which may make me smarter. Before doing that I have to boost ability of English after all. I'm getting older so it's better to start the task as soon as I can :)

Is the Internet really the fastest-growing and most significant communications revolution in human history?

2004-10-12T23:48:00.000+01:00

That's one of the questions of our assignment of Professional Practice Tutorial. It's not a difficult question but there are different answers for it. You can say "yes" or "no". For me , the answer is "no". Cause before the invention of the Internet, some communications such as writing, printing or telecommunication influenced people's life significantly. But where can I find the appropriate acdemic materials to support my viewpoint? Prove that the Internet is not the fastest-growing one?
God, I have searched on the Internet more than two hours. What a mug!

Google Print Service

2004-10-11T23:52:00.000+01:00

In the first week of the academic year tutors recommended us avoiding using the information from the Internet because most part of it is not reliable. It is appropriate to use references from physical books.That made me upset cause it means I can't make use of the powerful searching capability of Google. To search in the book for one viewpoint will take me more time than using the Internet.

Now the problem seems solved. Google delivers a new service called "Google Print". Its function is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", cause they think "a lot of the world's information isn't yet online",they are going to help people to get it there. So, in the future before discovering a appropriate book for reference we can search on Google to save a lot of time. Cheers!

Be aware of using broadband

2004-10-11T23:31:00.000+01:00

According to The Register, broadband is welcome by business bosses in Britain, and it is predicted that more than 99 per cent of the UK should be able to hook up to ADSL by next summer by BT. Meanwhile, Isaac said that China becomes the leader in DSL broadband subscribers because there are 13 mln Chiness have DSL.

While people use broadband they have to face a crucial problem: security. It is suggested to read the article from BBC 'Top 20 computer threats unveiled' which points out the top 20 threats either in Windows and Linux/Unix.

Web2.0 brings the latest info of Internet business

2004-10-08T23:44:00.000+01:00

Web2.0 Conference was held October 5-7, 2004 in San Francisco. Undoubtedly, social software was the star of this conference. And the huge market of China is being concerned by more and more web's leaders and influencers. The weblog 'The Web 2.0 Weblog' provides the information of the conference especially mp3 files which I prefer to.

Hmmm, it seems that the glorious day of the Internet is coming back!

Related:
Ross Mayfield - 'Revving the Web'
Internet conference recalls days of 'lovefest'

materials for 'Strategy & Business Information'

2004-10-07T23:24:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday I had time to look through the guidebook of module 'Strategy & Business Information', which is going to be taught on next Monday.

The main textbook of this module is 'Strategy in Action: strategic thinking understanding and pratice' written by Gordon Pearson. I borrowed the book from Keele library and found it's worthy being photocopied (yes, books are so expensive in England that I'm not going to buy them) for the future use.

Two general text books are commended: 'The Strategy Process, international edition' and 'Strategy: process, content and context' as well as a webiste www.pearsonstrategy.com where you can find some readings related to strategy.

Also, the website of keele library provides some Electronic information resources for people to access.

Words of Oct 7th, 2004

2004-10-07T22:59:00.000+01:00

transaction value [n]: The subjectively weighted difference between the buyer's reference price and the actual price to be paid.

tactics [n]: Short-term actions undertaken to achieve implementation of a broader strategy.

sticky [adj]:
1 Having the property of adhering or sticking to a surface; adhesive.
2 Covered with an adhesive agent.
3 Warm and humid; muggy: a sticky day.

congestion [n]: The presence of an abnormal amount of fluid in a vessel or organ; especially excessive accumulation of blood, due either to increased afflux or to obstruction of return flow.

authentic [adj]:
1 Conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief: an authentic account by an eyewitness.
2 Having a claimed and verifiable origin or authorship; not counterfeit or copied: an authentic medieval sword.
3 Law. Executed with due process: an authentic deed.

neurotic [adj]:
1 Of, relating to, or affected with a neurosis. No longer in scientific use.
2 [Informal] Overanxious: neurotic about punctuality.

Words of Oct 4th, 2004

2004-10-04T22:50:00.000+01:00

remiss [adj,not before noun]: careless because you did not do something that you ought to have done
[- synonym: negligent
remiss in:
parents who are remiss in their duties
]

dose [n]: the amount of a medicine or a drug that you should take
[
dose of:
Never exceed the recommended dose of painkillers.]

volatile [adj]: a volatile situation is likely to change suddenly and without warning
[the highly volatile stock and bond markets]

chronological [adj]: arranged according to when things happened or were made

skimp [v]: to not spend enough money or time on something, or not use enough of something, so that what you do is unsuccessful or of bad quality

attainment [n,u]: success in achieving something or reaching a particular level
[- synonym: achievement]

retrieval [n]:
1 [technical] the process of getting back information stored on a computer system
2 the act of getting back something you have lost or left somewhere
3 be beyond/past retrieval:
if a situation is beyond retrieval, it has become so bad that it cannot be made right again

Online dictionaries for business

2004-10-04T07:24:00.000+01:00

This term we have three modules about management and business, 'Strategy&Business Information', 'Marketing,Design&Production', 'Finance,Economics&Accounting'. They are all new to me. The problem is that my vocabulary is very narrow especially in business. It forces me to remember new words everyday. So I decide to make a word list and save it in my gmail as well as to blog here.

Two websites that I frequently access to search for the meaning of business words are listed:
Dictionary of Marketing Terms on MarketingPower.com
The washingtonpost.com Business Glossary

Also, I found a good site named Homahelp today, which provides tons of concepts and definitions of business words.

If you know other good resources please share with me.

Words of Oct 3rd,2004

2004-10-03T22:44:00.000+01:00

detached [adj]: not reacting to or becoming involved in something inan emotional way[ - opposite: involved]
sycophant [n]: someone who praises powerful people too much becausethey want to get something from them - used in order to show disapproval
isolate [v]: to separate one person, group, or thing from other people or things
[isolate somebody from somebody:Presley's phenomenal early success isolated him from his friends.
isolate somebody from something:New-born babies must be isolated from possible contamination.]
segment [n]: a part of something that is different from or affected differently from the whole in some way
segmentation [n]: when something divides or is divided into smaller parts
[segmentation of:the segmentation of society]
snail [n]: a small soft creature that moves very slowly and has a hardshell on its back
divisional [adj]: relating to one of the parts into which a large organization, group etc is divided[only before noun]
wholesale [n,u]: the business of selling goods in large quantities at low prices to other businesses, rather than to the general public
retail [n]: the sale of goods in shops to customers, for their own use and not for selling to anyone else
latent [adj]: something that is latent is present but hidden, and may develop or become more noticeable in the future
tangible [adj]: clear enough or definite enough to be easily seen or noticed
[- opposite: intangible]
perceive [v]: to understand or think of something or someone in a particular way
demographic [n,plural]: information about a group such as the people who live in a particular area
[the demographics of a newspaper's readership]
criteria [n,countable usually plural]: a standard that you use to judge something or make a decision about something
cannibalization [n]: The loss of sales in established products experienced by a firm resulting from its own introduction of newproducts that are partial or complete substitutes. That is, the newproduct "steals" some of the sales of the established product.
macro [n]: a set of instructions for a computer, stored and used as a unit
monopoly [n]: 1.(environments definition) A market situation where one firm markets all the goods or services and can influence price.2.(economic definition) The complete control of an economic good forwhich there is no substitute.
distribution [n]: - 1. (economic definition) A study of how factors of production are priced in the market place, i.e., the de-termination ofrents, wages, interest, and profits. 2. (marketing definition) The marketing and carrying of products to consumers. 3. (businessdefinition) The extent of market coverage.

1st entry

2004-10-02T22:00:00.000+01:00

I have to admit that I'm too lazy to begin blogging in English. Though I had a idea to do that before I came to UK, it seemed quite tough to start my first English entry of blog.

Actually, I have one and a half year experience of blogging in Chinese. My Chinese blog is Lifelong Learning (www.blogonme.com), which makes me keep tracking the information of this digital world. I enjoy the experience I'll keep doing that.

Now I study Msc in Information Technology and Management at Keele University which is a suitable place for study. I know if I don't study harder that my UK life will be only one year. That's why I must make rapid progress of the ability of English communication in a short time. Not only surviving the academic year but also having a good life here is my goal.

I plan to blog my study or life in UK on this blog. If you, the nice people, can give me some advice about my mistakes of grammar or vocabulary in English, please don't hesitate to do that. Thank you all!