Being back...

Being back to the normal life, that means have a meeting with supervisor (with something new) every other week, doing 13-15 hours of part-time job every week, going to World Cafe every Friday evening (was a wonderful dancing evening yesterday, really wonderful!!!), taking care of the being-learned-by-being-practiced eBay activities, playing badminton and football weekly as well. What a busy life, but it's a pleasure!!!

Had a 2-hour badminton session this afternoon - a good chance to test the new racket. It was fine. Believe that will improve skills quickly.

Planned to write a bit in the evening but didn't really do that. And didn't check my sister's email for her as well, too bad.

My PersonalDNA - Khá chính xác

You are an Inventor

· Your imagination, self-reliance, openness to new things, and appreciation for utility combine to make you an INVENTOR.

· You have the confidence to make your visions into reality, and you are willing to consider many alternatives to get that done.

· The full spectrum of possibilities in the world intrigues you—you're not limited by pre-conceived notions of how things should be.

· Problem-solving is a specialty of yours, owing to your persistence, curiosity, and understanding of how things work.

· Your vision allows you to identify what's missing from a given situation, and your creativity allows you to fill in the gaps.

· Your awareness of how things function gives you the ability to come up with new uses for common objects.

· It is more interesting for you to pursue excitement than it is to get caught up in a routine.

· Although understanding details is not difficult for you, you specialize in seeing the bigger picture and don't get caught up in specifics.

· You tend to more proactive than reactive—you don't just wait for things to come to you.

· You're not afraid to let your emotions guide you, and you're generally considerate of others' feelings as well.

· Never one to be found in chic boutiques or trendy clothing stores, you take an extremely practical approach to getting dressed.

· The control you feel over your life is empowering to you-- you believe in your abilities and acknowledge your shortcomings. Explanations of the world that focus on destiny or fate don't really interest you. You take responsibility for what goes wrong in your life, and also for what goes well.

If you want to be different:

· Try applying your creativity to more artistic arenas, and letting your imagination take less practical forms.

You are Faithful

· Your trust in others, respect for tradition, and caring nature make you FAITHFUL.

· Maintaining a few intimate relationships is more important to you than knowing a lot of people, and you share a lot with your close friends.

· Those who have managed to get close to you value your camaraderie, and they know that they can trust you with anything; you're a good listener.

· While you can usually see several sides of an argument, you often have a strong opinion as to which side is correct—the order of things is usually clear to you.

· Your perspective on the world is based on careful observation, and you know a lot about how people feel in—and react to—many situations.

· Your exploration of others' feelings has led you to believe that although people generally act appropriately, having clear social rules is very important to a functional society.

· Time alone for reflection is important to you—you are introspective and aware of your own feelings.

· Faithful is as faithful does—you expect those with whom you are close to be loyal to you, and you take betrayal of your trust very seriously.

If you want to be different:

· Some of the alternate perspectives that you understand may have more value than you give them credit for—keep in mind that right and wrong aren't always so clear-cut.

· While you are able to reap the benefits of your time alone, and may see interacting with a lot of people as more tiring than exciting, remember that there is a lot to be learned from experiencing things and not just reflecting on them.

Glossary of Traits

This chart shows thirteen personality traits. Each bar indicates the percentage of test takers who entered a lower value for that trait than you did. For example, if Confidence is at 80, that means that 80% of people entered lower values for confidence questions than you did. Based on a sample of 30,000 users. Click here to learn more about the traits.

30 Apps to Run your Business By

This is copied from http://theappleblog.com/2007/08/21/30-apps-to-run-your-business-by/

I’ve been a Mac user for many years now and a business owner for just as many. I’ve needed apps for everything from invoicing and time tracking to contact and money management. I’ve used literally hundreds of applications over the past few years and know how frustrating it can be to find something that works for you.

So to help with that I’ve compiled a list of some applications I’ve used over the years including the ones I think are the best. There are certainly more applications out there that aren’t listed here so if you’ve used something that has worked well, definitely let me know about it.

Time Tracking & Invoicing

On The Job - If simple time tracking an invoicing is all you need, On The Job is the app for you. It purposefully has less features than some of the competition and that is something it definitely has going for it. It’s my app of choice for time tracking.

Studiometry - Full-featured time tracking, invoice, and client management. This is really one of the most solid applications for any client-based business. The $190 price tag is seriously worth it if you need all of the features it has.

Billings - Billings is a newer player in the full-featured time tracking and invoicing market but they’ve made a solid splash. Billings doesn’t have quite as many features as Studiometry but the features it does have are the core ones you’d be using regularly anyways. It’s $59 price tag also makes it significantly more affordable than Studiometry.

QuickBooks - While QuickBooks does not have any real time tracking abilities, it does have a fairly stout invoicing system that can be very convenient if you use QuickBooks to manage your business finances.

Web alternatives:
Blinksale - I use this for all my invoicing needs. Straightforward invoicing at its best. Prices starting from $12/month (not including the limited free plan).

Harvest - Solid time tracking (OS X Widget included). Prices starting from $9/month (not including the limited free plan).

Money Managment

QuickBooks - The industry standard for business finance management. The Mac version of QuicKBooks is frequently chastised for its clunky interface compared to its Windows counterpart but in all honesty I’ve yet to have any real gripes. This app is a core part of running my business. Pricing for this is $200.

Cha-Ching - Arguably one of the best looking applications on the Mac, Cha-Ching has somehow managed to make a boring financial application hip and fun. Class OS X features like smart folders and iSight integration make this a fairly easy application to learn and use. This one will cost you $40.

iFinance - Fairly simple interface. At $15 it’s one of the cheapest solutions available.

iBank - Pretty full-featured with things like report and chart creation and budget tracking. It’s $50 for one license with a 30-day money back guarantee.

Money 2 - Jumsoft’s Money has recently seen a major upgrade to Money 2. The new feature set in Money 2 really is extremely solid though some may find the extra features as a little overkill (ie. a built in web browser). For the number of features it offers, the $40 price tag is steal.

Web alternatives:
DimeWise - Super cheap ($5 a month).

Wesabe - Includes a helpful community for tips and suggestions.

Communication

Mail - This pretty much goes without saying. I know some people prefer other mail applications but Apple’s own Mail.app really is the best mail application I’ve ever used. This app is included with OS X.

Skype - Despite the recent outage, Skype is still one of my favorite tools for phone communication. With bookoodles of add-ons from personal phone numbers to voicemail and more, Skype has raised the bar and become a viable solution for many small business owners.

Adium - Whether you think chatting is productive or not, it’s great for hitting up co-workers or clients for quick questions. This one is free in every way possible.

Web alternatives:
Mailroom - Mailroom is a fairly niche mail application in that it’s mainly built for customer support teams. Pricing starts at $9 (not counting the limited free plan).

Campfire - Perfect for group chats with co-workers and clients with features such as file attachments and chat logging. Pricing starts at $12/month. There is a free plan that would work fine for smaller groups.

Project Management

Daylite Productivity Suite - An incredibly full-featured project management application, Daylite is one of the most useful applications on the Mac today. The full suite includes some killer features such a Mail integration, shared calendars, contact management, and more. A 1-user license costs $189.

OmniPlan - One of the newer Omni Group applications, OmniPlan makes heavy use of Gantt charts to help schedule out any project you have. The full version costs $150.

Web alternatives:
Basecamp - 37signals’ flagship product, Basecamp has become the standard for project management in many offices (especially small/home businesses). I keep Basecamp open almost the entire day to help manage things. Pricing starts at $12/month.

Contact Management

Address Book - Some people prefer simplicity (myself included). I prefer Address Book to keep up with all my contacts and it has served me great over the years. It is included for free with OS X.

Daylite - In addition to being a great project management app (as mentioned above), Daylite also does a killer job of managing contacts. I’ve used it to manage everything from new client leads to team members on a project. A 1-user license costs $189.

SOHO Organizer - SOHO Organizer is a bit less business focused than Daylite. In addition to helping you organize contacts, it also helps lets you attach everything under the sun to those contacts as well as group them together however you wish. This one will cost you $100.

Redlien Account Executive - Redlien is almost exclusively for people who are in sales. With features such as email logging and opportunity management, I can’t imagine this not helping you increase your sales to other people. Cost is $130 for a new license or $90 to upgrade from a competing applications (such as Daylite).

Web alternatives:
Highrise - The newest application from the 37signals crew, Highrise is contact management in the usual 37signals style. Simple, straightforward, no feature-bloat. It has just the tools you need to customize it to your workflow. Prices start at $12/month. There is a limited free version as well.

Miscellaneous Tools

Yep - Yep (formally known as Kip, and covered here) is an application for organizing your documents. I use it religiously to digitize and organize paper receipts and other documents so I can keep a paper-free work environment as much as possible. The $34 price tag is well worth it.

VMware Fusion - Prior to VMware Fusion’s release, I was Parallels guy. But since Fusion came out I’ve exclusively moved to it. Doing so much frontend development, I keep it open almost all day to do browser testing on Windows browsers. Right now you can get it for $60 (after a $20 mail-in rebate).

OmniGraffle - Whether you need to build a simple wireframe for a new web project or create a flow chart for any type of information, OmniGraffle is really the best option for you on your Mac. Pricing starts at $80 for the standard version.

MailTemplate - If you have a lot of email that frequently requires the same response (such as customer service emails), I highly suggest you check out MailTemplate. You create custom mail templates for either new mail or replies that will ultimately save you tons of time on responding to certain types of email. MailTemplate costs around $15.

Macware sites collection

http://www.codez4mac.com/forum
http://www.mac-bb.org
http://www.macserialjunkies.co.uk
http://rapidmac.blogspot.com
http://www.wally.in/indexen.asp
http://www.macfile.org
http://macity.uuuuuudot.com/
http://share.nigmae.net/category/mac/
http://www.loadmac.da.cx
http://www.mac-hacker.net/
http://www.nilland.com/
http://www.moderngfx.com
http://mac.the-underdogs.info/
http://macdownloadz.blogspot.com/
http://maxintosh.netsons.org/wp/

Find things on Rapidshare

This is copied from http://simple-tricks.blogspot.com/2007/07/find-files-on-rapidshare-easily.html

All of us know of Rapidshare.It is a filesharing site which alows users to upload and download fies.I have heard many guys complain that it is difficult to find Files on Rapidshare.They tell that they could get rapidshare files only from some forums.But you can get rapidshare files without going through forums.This can be done easily by some google powered search sites.They use complex google operators to make your search easy.They will find out the files easily for you

Here are some of the best sites for searching files on Rapidshare

Filez
RapidFox
RapidShared
ShareMiner
HellaFiles
FilesBot
RapidOSearch
RapidSearchEngine
RapidshareLink
OneClickFiles
SearchShared
EatPaperRapidshare
FileSearcher
MegaDownload
RapidshareURL

I am sure that these pretty search engines will do their job!!!

Some deadly mistakes of the movie "Harry Potter and the order of phoenix"

1. While in The Burrow during Christmas, Sirius called You-Know-Who Voldermort many times but that made no reactions from other people.
2. Only those who had seen death like Harry and Luna could see thestral but while riding thestrals from Hoggwarts to London, Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Nevil seemed all saw the creatures. They should have expressed some emotion when riding something that they couldn't see.
3. The girl who told Umbridges about the Requesting Room WAS a friend of Cho Chang but not not Cho herself. Even if the director would like adjust that to suit the fact that Harry would change to Ginny next part, that was absolutely unsuitable since Cho was described as a good girl and she had just experienced some sweet moment with Harry => There's no point making her the traitor. I do hate that point of the movie.

Otherwise, the movie is good.

Rate: 7.5/10

Saying Vietnamese names

If you were to ask me to write down my full name, I would write as "Nguyen Thanh Binh". But if you were trying to call me "Nguyen" (this could be very hard for you to pronoun). I'd not understand that you were talking to me. That's because in Vietnam, we write family names first, first names last and we now don't call people by their family names but most often their first names. This blog will help you understand our name structures and thus, call us the way we understand :-D.

A Vietnamese name usually consists of 3 parts: Family name, middle name and first name - in their writing order. For example, my family name is "Nguyen", middle name is "Thanh" and first name is "Binh", then my full name is written as "Nguyen Thanh Binh".

In Vietnam, in most cases (more than 95%), we call people only by their first names (the last written part). In some formal cases (more than 4%), when calling actors, actresses, artists, reporters, etc, we call them by their middle names plus their first names. That is, if I were a, say, a reporter, people would call me "Thanh Binh". In very formal cases (less than 1%), politicians are usually called by their full names. So, if I were the president of the country, others would call me "president Nguyen Thanh Binh". Remember that first names are always at the last positions.

The above is the most general rule. However, you should be aware of situations when a name does not consists of 3 parts but 2 (middle name omitted) or 4 (double family names or double first names) or even 5 (double family names together with double first names). In cases of 2 part names, the general rule still applies with the exception that actors, actresses, painters, etc are called by their full name (family names + first names). In cases of 4-or-more-part names, general rule applies normally, noticing that you should be able to recognise if the family names and/or first names are doubled.

Some examples of names with 2 parts are: Tran Luc (a film director), Nguyen Son (a general), Hoang Van (a musician).

Examples of 4 or more part names could be: Le-Dang Viet Nam (double family name), Hoang-Le Bao-Tram (double family name and double first name, no middle name), Nguyen Thi Thu-Hang (double first name),... I could not find a 5-part names at the moment but if you see one, it's most possible that it has a double family name, a middle name and a double first name. Usually, people in the South of Vietnam have more lengthy names.

Lastly, Vietnamese is monotongue, i.e. a word produces exactly ONE sound no matter how long it is. This could make you a bit difficult to say names like "Nguyen", "Huyen", "Luong", "Truyen", etc but I'm sure with a bit of practice and help from your Vietnamese friend, you'll say them acceptably.

Cheers,

Binh