Ok, one more fluff web post. (they’re easy to write)
I was looking through my blog stats today, and I found an interesting incoming link from – of all places – MSN Encarta, the somewhat defunct encyclopedia Microsoft took over. The link came specifically from the “incoherence” article, which certainly made me a bit curious:
Sorry for the small picture, but what you see here is the Encarta page with some Windows Live search results thrown in. It’s been a while since I’ve checked, but I’ve moved up the search engine rankings! Turns out, site longevity and outlinking does count for something.
(For the record, searching for “incoherence” yields my site as the first result on Windows Live, fourth on Google, and sixth on Yahoo! behind a freaking incoherence.com domain squatter. No wonder they’re laying people off.)
I found something pretty cool today. Instapaper is a web bookmarking site: save a link onto the site and come back to it later. As an added bonus, it tracks whether a link has been read, and no e-mail is required for registration.
What makes the site worthwhile is its bookmarklet – it’s a bookmark meant to be placed on your toolbar in Firefox (and maybe Internet Explorer too? It’s just Javascript), which acts like a button and performs a fancy web trick to add your current site to Instapaper’s list. Overly long articles discovered at work can now be saved for home reading without synchronizing bookmarks or – ugh – emailing yourself.
The one thing I thought they were missing was the ability to share lists of bookmarks, but then again, it’d intrude on sites like del.icio.us and destroy its wonderful simplicity.
Oh Vegas. With your enticing buffets, topless shows, scandalous gambling, and blinding lights…
It had been a while since we checked out Las Vegas; last time, one Zeon-organized trip took us mid-summer, mid-desert, to a place where free public entertainment compensated for limited college funds. Since I was in between jobs and Sui was on winter break, we figured it was about time for a return trip.
Sadly, when you don’t gamble or go clubbing, Vegas is a lot less interesting. Despite the diverse entertainment, having a jolly time in Vegas ultimately means spending money at the slots, in the bars, or around the malls; we opted to spend cash on shows and food instead. This is a quick account of some of the interesting venues we dropped by, just in case anybody wants to check them out.
And for those more visually-inclined, some pictures of the trip. ()
This post is about two weeks overdue.
The news – kinda old at this point – is that I’m no longer working at Factset Research Systems and have exchanged working for the finance bean-counting man to working for the social network web startup man. I’ve labored at Factset for 3 1/2 years, so while I certainly didn’t approach the decision lightly, the gravity of the entire ordeal did not dawn on me until the last moments of my old job, in between responsibility transferral and fond farewells. I’m only now starting to realize just how much I left behind.
There’s not much more to say about my previous job; any commentary I make now makes nary a difference and would simply be whining at a scenario I’m powerless to affect.
A week.
That’s how long it took to search, ask, walk, and talk around to decide which store would have the privilege of signing me up as an AT&T customer. Even if I had already purchased a phone two months earlier and finally got to unlock its calling capabilities, I consider it time well spent.
Cell phone shopping is an exercise in patience. A mere 3 1/2 years ago, I was praising competitive Asian “authorized” resellers in providing cheaper phones of the overseas variety; I guess Asian drama marathons really do develop sharper business acumen. Sadly, maybe they’ve turned jaded overtime, or maybe it’s simply me wising on to their tactics, but their cell phone selection isn’t that great anymore (it tends to be the carrier’s lock down policies, though) and the prices aren’t that cheap either.
So this time I stuck with an official AT&T store for my phone needs. In addition to a more professional decor and capacity to serve more than one customer, the official store has plenty of phones in stock (Asian stores tend to only have posters or plastic models of good phones, since they receive shipment once a month and only with the light of a blue moon), and at least the store I visited was nice/desperate enough to drop prices and knock off a few initialization charges – more than enough to cover the minuscule savings from the Asian place next door.
