Then this website knows everything about me! facebook account, twitter account, etc…!!! And it’s automatically linked, no further authentication whatsoever is needed. A Gmail account opens every door online! And what’s more is that when I checked “Twit this” there is a pop up window asking me if I was the owner of xxxxxx twitter account. I have two choices: either say “Yes, I am” and then directly go twit the article WITHOUT any further authentication; or say “No, I own a different one”. In my case the twitter account Google suggests is indeed the one owned by me.

However, if it’s not mine, can I just say “Yes” anyway and use it? I keep wondering…

I have to admit it’s very easy to use. I enjoy very much the seamless connection between all these applications. From usability point of view it’s the way it should be. As an interaction designer I praise this feature! I always hated multiple login to just do one simple thing. Especially every website sort of having their own criterion for user names and passwords. Most of the time I don’t remember my user name (often because the user name I want is already taken)

However, I just couldn’t help feeling creepy knowing that somewhere in some system(s) stores all the information about me! And the key to all the information is my Gmail account. That’s all you need to get to know everything about a person! Probably not just my name, birthday, recent 5 addresses, the top 100 most browed websites, my bank, the top 100 most contacted person, all my emails, etc. but also my behavior patterns, such as what is the peak hour for me to browse news? When and where do I usually do online shopping? How often do I check my email? How often do I take a vacation? Do I prefer city trip or beach holiday? etc.

If that doesn’t scare anybody what will?

a better memory management

Lately I am quite annoyed by the unexpected seemingly random APPCRASH of Flash Player. I think most of the times the APPCRASH I encountered caused by poor memory management. Of course it could very well caused by improper coding. Here is a website to test http://flashcrash.dempsky.org/. (Try it with Firefox if possible) It crashes earlier versions of Flash Player, but not Flash Player 10.1.

As to the memory problem, it’s pretty obvious. Just open a swf file via a standalone Flash Player and check the Task Manager…

The memory comparison between Flash Player 10.0x and Flash Player 10.1

I have a large swf file that contains many classes, loads lots of external files at launching, a good testing subject.

When using Flash Player 10.02 to launch the swf file, it eats up around 250 MB to begin with. Eventually it creeps up to 267MB and then crash…

When using Flash Player 10.1 however, the swf file “only” costs 112 MB at the beginning. And it stabilized at around 160 MB after hours. As a consequence, the Flash Player no long crashes (for now)

112 MB = 44.8% * 250

Big improvement, right?

A very simple installer would fix the problem

It’s usually a hell to explain to my clients that they suppose to follow a tutorial to play the file I made for them. It’s ridiculous! It has become a liability issue for me.

First of all,

Standalone Flash Player and Flash Player plug-in for browsers is not the same thing!

You might have just update the Flash Player Plug-in for your browser. But it’s not the one that can play standalone flash format files (flash projects, AIR applications, FLEX applications, loose swf files and Flash Video, flv files). You need a standalone Flash Player! It’s a standalone application.

B.t.w. not distinguishing the name for Flash Player Plug-in and standalone Flash Player is the opposite of user-friendly. They are both called “Flash Player” which causes many unnecessary confusion in my opinion.

Here is the link for downloading the standalone Flash Players
http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

Manually set the swf files to use the latest version

The whatever version of flashplayer_*.exe you’ve got is the Flash Player itself. It’s not a installer! So, there is no way for the operation system or swf files to know that there is a new Flash Player around.

You need to tell all the flash related files to use the new version of Flash Player

Right click a swf file –> Open with… –> Choose default program… –> locate the flashplayer_*.exe file manually and do not forget to check “Always use the selected program…”

Now you are finally all set.

I haven’t drawn for years. Couldn’t help trying out using mouse, the Sketch tool  and the Painbrush tool

It’s really fun.

The original:

Content-Aware Fill step 1: Select the object you want to “delete”

Use whatever method you’d like to roughly select an object.  

Content-Aware Fill step 2: Fill with Content-Aware option on

Here is where the magic happens: Select from menu “Edit –> Fill…”

Content-Aware Fill result:

I admit the result is not perfect. But it’s certainly much better than I could add myself in hours. And now Photoshop calculates the probable background for me in just a second. Since I don’t really know what’s actually behind that tulip I accept the result.

Fine tune with Healing Brush:

After using Healing brush (175, 0% hardness) at two spots, the result is much more natural. If you’ve not seen the original photo you’ll be quite convinced. (it still looks bit strange which is due to the fact that our eyes tell us that “There should be a tulip” based on the formation of the other tulips.)

Ok, now Let’s take a look at a even more amazing feature: Puppet Warp

Now I want to “cut out” the tulip that I’ve removed and “bend” the tulip to the right as if it grows such way.

Puppet Warp step 1: “Cut out” the object to manipulate

This time select the contour of the tulip very carefully to make sure no background is selected. Copy and paste the selected object to a new layer.

Puppet Warp step 2: Apply puppet warp to the cut out object

With the layer of the object selected go to menu “Edit –> Puppet Warp”

Puppet Warp step 3: Add anchor points to the warped object

Clicking anywhere on the mash leads to an anchor point. The yellow dots with a black dot is the current selected anchor point. You can select multiple anchor points by holding the Shift key.

Puppet Warp result:

When you have the warped “puppet” and a few anchor points you can manipulate the object to whatever shape you want. The charm of this feature is that it really mimics the nature. The movement is natural, organic and logical. In one word, it’s AMAZING.

if (“@attribute” in node) {…}

It’s not just so simple as adding:

obj.doubleClickedEnabled = true;

The actual problem is that often in an (interactive) object there are many other (interactive) objects. And a MouseEvent works like that: The target of the MouseEvent is the one that the mouse is directly hovering. So it’s often happened that the target of the MouseEvent is a Child of (a Child of a Child…) the object you want the MouseEvent to target. If all the children in the object does not have any interaction, one very handy line could make life much easier:

obj.mouseChildren = false;

However, if an object (that contains interactive children which also needs to listen to MouseEvents) needs to listen to Double Click event that’s where things get uglier. You cannot use mouseChildren = false because that will prevent all child objects from listening to any MouseEvents.

And If the child that the mouse is hovering is not enabled for double click, the MouseEvent.DOUBLE_CLICK would never be registered. Hence, the end of the action chain.

So, in order for the parent object to get the MouseEvent.DOUBLE_CLICK event, all visible child objects have to be double click enabled.

So if MouseEvent.DOUBLE_CLICK doesn’t work, first check if all the child objects are enabled for double click.

A board member of PC manufacturer Lenovo has said that Apple has missed the opportunity to explore the Chinese market. He blamed Steve Jobs.

Chuanzhi Liu 柳传志 said during an interview: “We are very lucky that Jobs shows no interest in China. If Apple pay as much attention to the Chinese users as we do we are in trouble.”

iPhone entered the Chinese market as early as October 2009. China Unicom as the only company that is allowed to sale iPhone in China published the sales figure in December 2009. As few as 100,000 iPhone were sold in comparison to 144 million users in the world. Chinese users are only 0.07% of the total users.

Although Apple and China Unicom is still in negotiation China Unicom so far is the only official sales channel of iPhone in China. The price of iPhone is from $730 to $1,020 which is way beyond that of iPhone in black market or some smart copies.

Limited to WAPI (Wired Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure) iPhone that is sold in China cannot have Wi-Fi feature. As a consequence iPhone must shut Wi-Fi to get permission to get into Chinese market. However, after the WAPI becomes more lenient, any device that has WAPI is allowed to have Wi-Fi feature.

Lenovo launched its new LePhone smart phone, the first smart phone from Lenovo. According to Mr. Liu, Lenovo’s products are designed specifically for the Chinese users; it’s definitely as competitive as iPhone.

Mr Liu also said: “It’s very realistic. iPhone has more than 100,000 content providers; we have only more than 1,000. However, our users feel that our applications are more usable.” Representatives of Apple have not responded to that statement yet.

As a listed company (00992.HK), Lenovo lately turned from loss to profit.

The title is: “Are rules supposed to be expected in China? What’s your experience?”

It’s very interesting on itself because we tend to forget from time to time that rules are not originally a big part of Chinese culture.

Let’s use Chinese painting as an example. Back in the 18th century, Chinese painting was considered worthless because it lack of layers, the wrong lighting, the fainted color, etc. most importantly, the unfaithful perspectives. It’s true that Chinese painting might appear to unfaithfully illustrate the real world. That’s because Chinese painting usually have multiple vanishing points rather than a single one. So, in a sense Chinese painting is more faithful to our perception of something or somewhere at that moment (because when we look at a scene our eyes moves which causes multiple vanishing points). It is something we must adopt the 4th dimension (time) to understand.

I have many years experiences working in R&D environment. I sometimes impressed my co-workers with my ability to accept chaotic and seemingly hopelessly messy situation and I was able to pull it up to disentangle the mess. Thanks to my Chinese background! I don’t have to see rules lie neatly in front of me. I sense/find the rules in the way I understand the situation.

I start to understand how different Chinese culture is to other cultures more from Geert Hofstede™ Cultural Dimensions. Measure a culture in five dimensions.

The 4th dimension is called: “Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)”

I think without a doubt, Chinese culture has a low score in Uncertainty Avoidance Index. Because Chinese culture, in nature, is very uncertainty accepting. Chinese people could worship Confucius, Buddha and Laojun (a Taoism God) at the same time. Which would seem to be really bizarre to any western people. Chinese people have long accepted that there are more than one Truth; many Truth/believes could co-exist. So it’s understandable that Chinese people are generally not so motivated to pursue one single Truth.

A funny anecdote. Once during dinner after a few rounds of drinks, one of my uncles suddenly said:

The only thing written on the newspaper that is true is the date.

And everybody around just looked at him for a while and nodded. What he actually meant is that the news you see today might be rewritten or given a completely different conclusion tomorrow. Whatever opinions that are expressed strongly today might be completely different in the future. Which reminds me what Heraclitus said:

You can never step into the same river twice