Archive for August, 2007
The Vista VirtualStore
Since I will be traveling for the foreseeable future, I’ve recently transitioned my main machine to my new laptop: an Asus G1S.
One of the first things I normally do with a new system (2nd time for me because of this) is copy over all my news feeds. I use the awesome, free feed reader GreatNews. After installing the latest version and then copying over my existing feed database (GreatNews.ini and newsfeed.db), GN refused to recognize the updated files. Thinking this was a problem with GN didn’t solve the problem for me.
After digging around my backup files, I finally noticed what the problem was. Because Vista uses the universally-hated UAC, by default your admin account does not have permissions to write to the “C:\Program Files” folder. So what Vista does is shadow the folder to your “C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files” folder.
So looking up this folder under profile, I indeed found my INI and DB file in here with the out-of-the-box default file. After replacing these files with my backed up INI and DB file, GN is now able to load up all my existing feeds and settings.
The Failure of WGA and Vista
I’ve made it clear that I hate Vista in the past and the latest incident does not surprise me of all the blunders coming from up north lately. In this InfoWorld report, someone at Microsoft uploaded a bad patch onto the Windows Update servers, which in turn all Windows machines automatically downloaded and installed. Because of my recent move, my current main machine is now an Asus G1S which I recently bought that came with Vista preloaded. While I could have easily reformatted and reinstalled to XP or even Linux, I decided not to since the machine seemed to be working pretty well and I had other things I had to worry about. I even went as far as thinking Vista is finally usable now since I haven’t had any crashes while using the new laptop.
Unfortunately for me last week, I was hit with the WGA bug and Vista in turn reported that my copy was pirated. Having just bought the laptop which came with Vista pre-installed, of course that wasn’t the case. Windows refused to let me access my machine nor my files and the only thing I could do was enter in a “valid” product key or use Internet Explorer to browse the net for more information. At first I thought my machine had failed for some reason due to bad Asus software so I was desperately looking for hints at the Asus website. Only now did I find out this was Microsoft’s fault (should have known). Normally when this happens to me, I bust out my repair toolkit to try to fix the problem or at least backup my files. But unforunately for me since I’m currently traveling, I didn’t have access to all my system repair utilities. In the end, I gave up and reformatted and reinstalled the entire machine using the Asus system restore CD’s.
As a result of the system restore, I lost some blog posts that I was writing and some screenshots. Luckily I didn’t lose too much since the laptop was still pretty new. As a paying Microsoft consumer, we should not have to deal with this. As many people have preached, DRM such as WGA only makes it harder for legitimate users. Those who want to pirate stuff will always have a way. GG Microsoft.
On another note, having worked at a company that works closely with Microsoft, I know about all the hoops and red tape that are in place to prevent such things from happening. I’m surprised that Microsoft calls this an employee blunder and I think they’re just trying to find a scapegoat so the company overall doesn’t look bad to the public. I’m starting to think that all the stories of all the smart people leaving Microsoft for other companies are true.
Coke and Chips
Here’s my first Coke in weeks since I left for Taiwan.
Coke here tastes mostly the same as it does in the States. Maybe a little less sweet, but that might just be my taste buds not used to Coke anymore?
Unlike the soda/coffee drinking American culture, people here in Taiwan prefer to drink tea. Ever since I got here, I’ve had only different types of tea or water. This cannot be more obvious than taking a look at these vending machines that I snapped a picture of:
Notice out of 3 machines, there’s only a single Pepsi can.
So why am I drinking a soda now? I couldn’t stand it anymore. I need something that fizzles in my mouth. 
As for the chips, I just picked some random chips from the store to try out. They had plenty of American brand chips (ie. Cheetos, Doritos, …), but I wanted to try something different.
American Brands in Taiwan
It’s interesting to see how American brands are translated into different cultures. In this case, I’ll be talking about Chinese in Taiwan. In a nutshell, not much changes, and that’s what they love.
Romano’s Macaroni Grill: I don’t see this restaurant often in the states so I was really surprised to see one here.
Chili’s: This one I’m more familiar with and was surprised to see it right next to Macaroni Grill.
Nike: This one is about to be opened. I actually walked by the store more recently and they were advertising Kobe Bryant will be coming for the opening day.
Gucci & Channel: In the same area as the 2 previous restaurants, these two have store fronts directly on the street.
The Body Shop: Pretty much the same as the shops in America. Notice all the other Chinese stores.
Starbucks: Just like in the states, the outside of each Starbucks is very different. Although Starbucks in Taiwan isn’t on every street corner as it is in the states, it is one of the more common stores I see around.
Blockbuster: Sorry about the blurry night picture, but here it is. Just like in America, Blockbuster rents movies. The posters on the window are all American movies. I haven’t went inside yet so I’m not sure if they rent any Asian movies.
Sony Style: Although not a common shop in the states (I only know of one in the Metreon in San Francisco), here’s one in the shopping mall next to Taipei 101 (currently the tallest building in the world).
That’s it for now. More brands and pictures next time. 
Losing a day
Finally I’m on my trip of a lifetime. After a few weeks of preparation from leaving my job to moving my stuff, I finally got on the plane and flew out to my first destination: Taiwan.
My flight was a Malaysia Airlines 1:45am direct flight to Taipei. I arrived around 11:30pm at the airport for my flight. The first thing I noticed once at the airport was how many people there were at this time of night and the number of flights still leaving. I guess all the Asia flights leave around this time too.
The whole flight took a little over 12 hours. In order to help us adjust to the time difference, the plane followed a schedule similar to the destination. So a few hours into the flight, we were served dinner, then about 8 hours of nap time, then followed by breakfast right before arriving at the destination.
While the airline food was OK, what I was really impressed was the in-flight entertainment system Malaysia Air had. Essentially it was an on-demand entertainment system made by Select On Demand that had on-demand movies, TV shows, music, games, and flight status. Really cool! I’ve actually seen this system in a hotel before, so it was awesome to see it being used elsewhere as well. During my flight, I got to watch Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3 all in the latest movies selection. The games selection was quite poor with a bunch of cell-phone-type puzzle games. In-flight status was great because I can quickly see where the flight is currently at. About the worst part of my experience with this system was the remote was still sticky with gunk from the previous flight. I can only imagine how much germs are on that thing.
Well that’s about it for my flight. And yes, I did lose a day on my flight. I left on Friday morning at 1:45am in LA and arrived on Saturday morning 5:45am in Taipei. Now I can literally say “where has the time gone?”
San Francisco/Bay Area Traffic Tips
Posted by eric in Miscellaneous on August 16th, 2007
Now that I’ve moved out of the Bay Area, I thought I’d make a contribution to everyone living there by revealing my traffic tips.
I-80 Eastbound
From the bay bridge all the way to University Ave in Berkeley is always jammed. If you can take the carpool lane, take it. Otherwise you’ll just have to stick with it. You can try taking Frontage Rd to the west of the freeway, but that is not recommended during rush hour as everyone who commutes knows about that road.
Once I-80 splits with I-580, you should be able to drive normal speed until you reach Cutting Blvd. Since the freeway now has a few up hill bumps, for some reason everyone slows down here. The freeway is typically jammed from here all the way past the Freeway 4 juncture.
I-80 Westbound
From the Carquienez Bridge, up to the 80/580 merger point is usually smooth sailing unless there’s an accident. However from the merger point to the bay bridge, is where hell starts. This is where traffic starts every work day around 3:00 pm up until around 7:30 pm. Usually you won’t find any accidents. Instead the traffic is caused by the traffic of the 80/880 San Francisco traffic. You may hear this part of the freeway called “The Maze”.
If you continue into San Francisco, expect the downtown area to be always jammed. For some reason there’s always construction going on as well so expect certain exits to be closed off. Once you get out of the downtown area, then it’s usually OK.
I-880 Southbound/Northbound
During traffic hours, you’ll find the point where 980/880 meet is where traffic starts, and typically ends around High Street. Then everything slows down once again when you reach the Coliseum up to the the 238 freeway area. After that it’s mostly OK with brief periods of slow downs when you reach one of the bridges. Once you get down to the Milpitas area, then expect the traffic to slow down once again for people wanting to get on the 237.
I-580 Eastbound
This free is mostly free from traffic except around the Maze area. The San Rafael bridge area up to the 580/80 junction is mostly traffic free unless for the rare accident. From there to the bay bridge, expect things to slow down as always (usually even weekends). Past the maze, it’s typically smooth sailing. Occasionally there’s traffic once you past I-680, but that’s usually only during traffic hours.
I-580 Westbound
This is similar to I-580 Eastbound where the majority is traffic free except during traffic hours around the Maze area. Refer to the I-80 Eastbound details.
I-238
If you happen to be on 580 and want to get on the 880, you’ll have to take the very short I-238. Why this is even an interstate freeway is beyond me, but that’s what it’s called. Going west towards 880 is a nightmare with there always being a ton of cars. The right lane is the only lane that goes onto 880 south, with the left lane going 880 north. For some reason, everyone always wants to go south so the right lane is always jammed with the left lane mostly free. As you might expect, lots of people take advantage of this and take the left lane in hopes of cutting someone off on the right lane. Expect this if you’re driving on the right lane.
Well these are some of my observations of the freeways that I frequently travel on. General tips (which may or may not apply to other cities) I’ve learned are:
- When the traffic comes to a halt, the right side lanes are usually faster than the left hand. Just be careful of people coming on and off the freeway.
- Constantly changing lanes is usually more risky than it’s worth. Just stay in a single lane and don’t worry about it.
- While driving a truck for my move, I realized that driving slowly is actually better than always trying to match the fast traffic. Let the idiots who drive fast go on their way while you stay in your own world. The only thing with driving slow is make sure you stick to the right lanes and let the fast drivers pass on the left side. There’s nothing worse than having some idiot tailgate you with a foot clearance because he wants to pass you.
- Use a GPS. If you don’t have one, go buy one now! Most people think a GPS is only useful when you go to an unknown area. While that is true, I’ve found a GPS is quite useful for daily use too. For example, a GPS can tell you how much time is left on your trip (estimate of course), tell you your elevation, and some can even track your trip which you can then export to another program for further analysis (ie. Google Earth).
The Night Before
What do you do when it’s the night before you leave everything that you know of to fly to the other side of the world?
Hm, well for me, it’s continuing to back up my data from my computers to bring with me on a portable drive. It’s continuing to review all the papers/receipts and making sure I didn’t forget anything. It’s continuing to worry about my existing accounts, whether I forgot to cancel something, whether my investments will be OK. It’s thinking about who I’ll be leaving behind and who I haven’t contacted yet. Then of course there’s worrying whether I’ll actually fly tomorrow since there’s a typhoon going over my destination in the next few days.
That’s what I worry about the night before traveling.
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BlizzCon ‘07 Day 1
So after picking up my badge from the previous day, today is the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Of course if you’re even slightly interested at anything Blizzard, you would have already heard about the next WoW expansion (Wrath of the Lich King) already.
Instead of giving a full blow-by-blow of the day (other sites like WoW Insider does a better job at this than I can), here’s how my day turned out.
11:10 am
Arrived at the convention center. Yes I’m a lazy bum. There was also traffic on the way to the convention center.
Right as I was stepping into the main convention area, I see a bunch of people leaving. I guess I just missed the opening ceremony. 
Instead there’s just a sea of empty seats.
11:30 am
Using my experience from Tech Ed, I decided to buy my souvenirs early instead of waiting. However, this is what I found:
This line was so long, it puts Disneyland lines (which by the way is just a few blocks away) to shame! They should have seriously put a “60 minutes from this point” sign. Now someone correct my understanding: I paid to get into a promotional convention, to wait in line for an hour and half, to give them more of my money? Hm… something doesn’t add up. In any case, here’s what I was able to get:
Just a couple of T-shirts and some posters.
1:00 pm
I’m very close to the counter now
But the next demo is about to start and the topic is WotLK!
1:15 pm
Finally got my stuff and watching the WotLK demo now. As an avid WoW player, you would think this announcement would be really exciting. However, I have quite the opposite reaction. Once they announced the “new” features in the next expansion, I felt the urge to quit. The thought of another 10 levels, does not feel appealing. Haven’t they learned from the mistakes of what happened from raising level caps from 60 to 70 in BC? Everything in the “old world” becomes deserted.
And the announcement of the new hero class: Death Knight. Sure that sounds exciting, but in order to “unlock” the new class, you’ll have to do yet another series of quests. Just sounds too painful rather than fun.
2:00 pm
After the end of the WotLK demo, I decided to go check out the booths the sponsors had setup. I’m still not sure how PayPal fits with Blizzard but they’re a sponsor so they also had a booth. I think everyone was also wondering the same thing as there was nothing (and no one) there besides a few laptops showing some pages on PayPal’s site and a “win a segway” contest.
Intel’s booth was really cool. They had a trailer jam packed with computers and plasma screens showing off their computers playing WoW. WoW isn’t exactly an intensive game though, but oh well, they’re at a Blizzard convention.
Next, I went to check out some of the play locations. Both the Starcraft II and WoW: WotLK play locations were jam packed with a huge line waiting to get in. Oh well, guess I’ll go try playing them tomorrow.
Finally the last location of the convention center was the contest area. This where they were showing Warcraft III/Starcraft and WoW Arena 2v2 matches.
3:30 pm
Decided to call it a day. Since I hadn’t eaten lunch yet, I figure I’ll leave early to get some food and attempt to beat the LA traffic.
Looking around the convention floor, I realized Blizzard is really a design company. All the awesome art everywhere just looks stunning. As a technology company, they’re really not cutting edge as some other gaming companies out there. I believe this is why Blizzard games are so successful and why WoW is so successful compared to other MMORPG’s: it’s not about the technology, but it’s about giving the gamer the full experience through art and story.
Well that’s it for Day 1 of my Blizzcon experience. For tomorrow, I’ll need to:
- Try out Starcraft 2
- Try out WoW: WotLK
- Learn how to play WoW: TCG
BlizzCon ‘07 Day 0
Since I don’t have a job anymore, I get to attend Blizzcon this year. If you don’t know what Blizzcon is, it’s a convention where everything of Blizzard Entertainment is shown.
So back to Blizzcon. After driving over 8 hours going from San Francisco to LA, I finally got to the Anaheim Convention Center to pick up my badge. As if the drive wasn’t bad enough, they closed down the parking lot so we had to find parking elsewhere. The badge wasn’t anything special and was a let down compared to the badges I’ve seen from Tech Ed. Oh well, at least there are lots of cool looking posters to gawk at before tomorrow.
Though the badge was a let down, the Blizzard bag of goodies is definitely much better than the magazines and spam they stuff in the Tech Ed backpacks.
So what’s there to expect from this year’s Blizzcon? Besides the obvious Starcraft II, supposedly Blizzard will be announcing a new game that so far hasn’t been announced. Rumor has it it will be the next World of Warcraft expansion: Wrath of the Lich King. Other people say it could be Diablo 3. Blizzard has mentioned many times that they will be expanding the Diablo world with another game. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that there’s so many Diablo-related promotional material around the convention center. 
Well that’s it for day 0. Day 1 starts Friday 8/3 at 10:00 am!