Alan Tan

The missing "I" in IT (1)

2010-06-10T12:52:00.000-04:00

Various articles have pointed out the diminished importance of CIO in organizations. It should not have been a surprise.

Since the tech bubble in 2000, people should have foreseen this coming, why?
I call it the missing "I" in IT - or as I sometimes say - "IT is about I, before T", or in more avid language, the dog should wag the tail, not the other way around.

Apparently, most CIO focused too much on "T", instead of "I", hence deprecated their own value. (The tail waged the dog)

OK, let's do a quick quiz, in less than 10 words, can you please explain what is "IT"? "Computer and related stuff" is the most common answer, next ? "Computer and related stuff used in doing business" - at least business is mentioned.

However, both answers are in the T before I camp, not the I camp. Computers and related stuff are the technology part of IT that "can be used" in processing information. However, computers can be used to fry an egg in addition to process data. (for those of you who are too young to know, when Intel first released its 80486 CPU, CPU fans were not around yet, and the CPU generated so much hit, there was a video posted people fried an egg on it.)

IT is about information. One of the oldest and still widely used IT innovation is pen and paper. Seriously, it was high tech at the time it was invented, and still very important tool we use this very day - although we don't call it high-tech anymore.

Now, what a low tech pen/paper has anything to do with our discussion of IT? It was an invention to record information. Think about it, what pens do to paper is not to make the paper more valuable in terms of weight, or any other physical measure -- instead, it is making marks that is now called information.

I always advocate people think about computers as pen/paper, because
IT should be about using technology to collect and process information.
Not about how to sharpen your pencil more reliably.

If a CIO's focus is all "I make sure my computers run!" the CIO adds barely any value to a company. Think about it, a company has all the pencils that are sharp all the time, but barely any one literate, when can these pencils do to help the business? Unfortunately sharpening pencils that barely used happens all too often, and it depreciate the value of CIO in the business world.

Running the most reliable gadget that does little to enhance information processing within an Organization is a big trap for many CIOs who lost their prestiges status - they are just a glorified pencil sharpener.

IT should be about efficiency, not technology. Management has always been about information, collect information regarding how things work, process information to understand how things work, analyze information to facilitate decision making, send out information to execute, present information to manage public relationship, etc.

Information is control - the better, more comprehensive information flows within an organization, the better control the leadership has. Of course technology helps here. That is actually the core value of IT - helps information flow with in an organization more effectively, efficiently with all the available technologies.

A classic example is inventory level. Let's say a warehouse retailer, carries 15 days worth of inventory because it does inventory count weekly, it takes 3 days for the vendor to ship the products, and they need 5 days buffer - because they are not sure how fast each item sells.

Now with an inventory management solution, they should no longer need to count inventory every week - each in and out are traced, so they can save 6 days out of 7 days counting cycle. So this inventory system can save 6 out of 15 days inventory for this retailer. If this retailer is large, cutting 40% inventory can mean tens of millions.
Now, how about the POS system that tracks all items sold? That will make 5 day buffer probably no more than 3 days (the order and shipping time).
A forecast system that forecast sales, and inventory level that enables pre-order of short of stock merchant will cut another 5 days off the cycle -- because no buffer needed any more, and orders can be placed early to accommodate shipping time.

So it can maintain 1 day inventory - now this is what now call JIT. It was revolutionary at the time, and was enabled/enhanced by information technologies. The companies invented this architecture knows what is IT. How many CIOs have done anything remotely similar to such innovation?

Next we will talk about

out sourcing

Cloud-enabled Storage - Hype and opportunities in Cloud computing

2010-06-10T12:41:00.000-04:00

Cloud enabled storage - the yet-to-be-born technology that enables a customer to "own" their data yet use computing power on the "Cloud" will be the next big thing.

When SAN and NAS was first introduced, they were considered unnecessary innovation that did nothing but extract money from customer's pocket. However, gradually, they took over the enterprise storage because of their ability to split data storage from data processing (the servers, etc). This prove to be a key capability customers need.

Moving to the next big thing - cloud, how can someone capitalized on it?

One key trap for Cloud computing is the ownership and control of data. For consumers, many are willing (knowingly or not) to trade their ownership of data (i.e. privacy) for free services. So Googles, Yahoos are all offering "the future of computing - Cloud" with minimum resistance.

The story is different in enterprise computing though, given the number of incidents in the past while related to Cloud computing, privacy breach, data leak, there is enough doubt in the enterprise market that the threat of handling core business data to some one one the Cloud is far out weight the benefit -- after all, enterprise rely on data to survive and make money, unlike consumers who are just consuming convenient data services.

So, what is the next big thing? Since we have separated data storage from data processing with SAN, NAS, etc, it is logical that we can keep data storage in house, and consume data process (utility computing was not new idea at all).

Of course the current protocol used to access data will not be sufficient for reverse hosting the data. New protocols and ideas need to be invented.

One probably candidate is in-memory database - which hosts the database in memory, and only need burst network bandwidth to load data initially.

Another approach is let customer run database services in house, and run application services on the Cloud.

On the fly data compression will again be a topic - the data flow through the network pipe between data owner and data processor should be compressed, and encrypted. We know database access are great candidate for data compression because of the sparsity of the data retrieved.

Splitting data storage and data processing is the key for the success of Cloud computing in Enterprise world. This won't be easy, and will not be driven by companies like Google or Facebook which business model is to exploit customer data. New start-ups, or EMC, NetApp may have a chance.

I will be working on an architecture framework that enables secure and efficient data flow between data storage and data processing.

Data Storage <=> Data Processor <=====> Data Access

The new architecture is beyond just data transferring, because the application architecture we are using today are designed based on proximity between data and processor, the remote-access architecture now-a-days are more or less a patch to the data-processor combined model.

The new model need to be built on the assumption that Data Storage can be far away from Data Processor. This assumption is the ultimate enabler for Cloud in enterprise.

If IBM catches this departing train, the day that most people will be using a handful of super fast computers MAY come back.
Well, since the super computers will not store your data, so they are not as scary as last time they appeared.

Of course part of the architecture is to ensure the data processor can not reconstruct data it processes -- better yet -- the processor's partition that used to process one customers data should be isolated and inaccessible by anyone else.

Sounds like an interesting idea, isn't it?

Error during EHP1 install for SAP NetWeaver JAVA

2010-04-07T11:38:00.000-04:00

You may see the following error during READ_PROFILE phase

Error while reading properties from /usr/sap/C11/SYS/profile/DEFAULT.PFL. Variables [/J2EE/DBSystem/DBTypeFo
rSAP, /J2EE/DBSystem/DBName] not found. A possible reason can be that the start release is lower than 6.40 SPS09.

But you are sure you are running NetWeaver 7.0, after all you are installing Enhancement Pack.

You tried to add variable "/J2EE/DBSystem/DBTypeForSAP, /J2EE/DBSystem/DBName" to the DEFAULT.PFL manually, but you still get the error.

You tried to look up these 2 variables in SDN, help, or notes, but found nothing. Don't blame yourself, there is nothing about these variables.

You should add:

j2ee/dbtype = ORA

j2ee/dbname = C11

sure if you use MS SQL, you should add "j2ee/dbtype = mss".

Yeah, as confusing as it is, j2ee/dbtype and j2ee/dbname are the real variables it's looking for. The 2 shown in the error log, are just "superficial" names.

Good luck EHP-ing.

What's really wrong about iPad from Apple?

2010-02-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

It's not a big surprise that iPad disappoints. While thousands of super smart people all trying to guess what handful of super smart people can bring up to the table -- the guess will always be better than the real -- the guessers simply outnumbers the producers.

OK, I'm no designer, Although I own iPhone, iPod touch, iPod, and 4 Macs, I don't think I'll by an iPad.

Why? Not because the screen resolution (which I don't like) or the size.

But because iPad was designed totally wrong. It was designed for Apple shareholders, not Apple customers.

iPad was designed to avoid cannibalize notebook market. It was trimmed down not because technical ability, but was because it needs to leave market for MacBooks. Wrong thinking!!!

The iPad could be revolutionary due to it's interface. It could be the real game changer for the PC industry. It should not find itself in a limited squeezed niche. It should be designed to do everything a notebook can do, but more (the multi-touch interface and new multi-touch apps).

Why be afraid of cannibalizing notebook market? Who's there to lose? It's PC notebooks, they still command over 90% of the market share. Why does one think Apple can only sell this 3rd category to existing Apple customers? If this is a full function computer, but with multi-touch interface, there will be more PC users switch. Now, people have perfect excuse not even give it a try - it's limited, it can't do much....

By "protecting" the notebook category, Apple is not only protecting it's MacBook business, but also protecting the other 90% of notebooks running Windows.

I think Steve Jobs reached such a point that a line of business is more emotional than practical. He started Apple selling computers, and he's having trouble letting the notebook business go. Or Apple share holders want to see "increased income" rather than "replaced" income.

They don't understand, if you have 90% market share to gain, you don't need to how to limit yourself to save others. This time, Steve did not understand either.

iPad, could have change the PC industry if it really delivers a MacBook in the shell of 4 iPhones.

It did not, and it disappointed the world. I don't know if Steve have a chance to re-try.

Putty: Server unexpectedly closed network connection

2009-09-11T17:56:00.000-04:00

When you try to login to a Unix (HP-UX) system, you typed in correct password, but putty tells you "Server unexpectedly closed network connection".
If you configured public key authentication for this account, you see "Authenticating with public key ``key-name`` from agent, and then pop up window tells you "server unexpectedly closed network connection".

If you login as another users, you don't see any log any where (not in /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log, or any other logs).

CAUSE:
The reason of such error is the account is disabled.
If telnet is allowed in your Unix system, try telnet to it and type in the good password, you'll get error message
"Account is disabled - see Account Administrator". But this is not shown if you login using SSH.

Since lots of place forbid telnet, you may not get a chance to try this.

Solution:
Reactivate the account in SAM, SMH (depends on your release).
After you re activate the user id, you should be able to login as usual in both SSH and telnet.

Are those Google ad quick money program SCAM?

2009-06-07T00:54:00.004-04:00

If they looked too good to be true, then they probably are.

(Note this is not a review of any of these programs, nor a comparison of them)

All this is some common sense that I'd like to warn you, before you throw your money down the drain.

Sometimes, I just feel we, ordinary people are too humble and have too much respect to people we don't even know. Not to say this is always wrong, but from time to time, we may need to look at things in a different way.

We read something on the Internet, written by someone we have no idea who they are, and then sincerely wonder, "wow how smart that idea is, why I didn't know it, I can't wait to start that".

Yes, you are right, I'm talking about all those hypes - get hundreds of dollars per day, by typing, clicking - basic computer skills - nothing to sell, to market.

I generally believes in a rule - "there is no easy money".

I know, you may say there are people with brilliant ideas that made money out of the easiest thing they can do. You are right, except, those are really brave, brilliant attempts that resulted in extreme outcomes that you or me can't reproduce. I mean, you won't get rich by doing that again, because such ideas of making money off the easiest things, is only one time cash cow.

So I've been ignoring all those pop-ups, spam emails, etc. As I always know that easy money does not find me.

Some of those spams even bought adwords to promote those Google Money programs.

Some examples:

Google Tactics

Google Cash 3rd edition

Google Profit

Easiest Home Business Ever

Recently, I started to notice some people even begin to use really "smart" tricks trying to sell these make quick-money programs, or should I say SCAM people's money out of people's wallet?

What tricks can be so smart?

first, call others scam and then sells their idea.

This is smart, because by pointing out others as scam, readers will develop this bond with the writer - "this guy saved me from losing money to those cheaters!" and then read on, some reader may think "hey he pointed out similar things are scams, he must telling us the truth." Well, there is actually no direct link between telling a a truth and always telling truth, although people tend to think a liar is always a liar, actually a smart liar does not always lie, so that he can trick people at times he "really need to".

My warnings to the readers, don't believe someone only because he tells you a truth (in this case others are liar)

Second, calling their program "humble". Typically they say this program is not a "get rich over night" program, you will "only" get $5000 - $7000 per month, etc. This is smart too. Because name a huge number is less idea in 2 ways. a) most people tend to believe the higher the return, the less likely the chance, b) higher number tend to gain attention from scam fighters and been revealed as scam.

So name a more "realistic" number both increase their chance of get some one, but also reduce the risk of been caught by a lot of scam fighters.

However, if you put your mind in your brain and think it through, you will notice something fishy - they always link you to some similar site that ask you to pay 1.95$ with your credit card. You know "credit" is something caused a world wide crisis, so, you'd better be careful giving out our credit card info, because once yo give out your credit card info, whether or not they will only charge you "$1.95" is totally up to their "credit".

And, since the money Google pays out is not infinite, the less people sharing the pool, the more each one will get. So why on the earth someone will spend so much energy in "sharing" their success with others with a cost of "only $1.95"? If they really like to share, what does "$1.95" makes (compare to their $5000 - $7000 / month), if they really don't want competition, why they want to share their "secrete" at the cost of "only $1.95"? That dilute their market share.

The only logical explanation is that the "$1.95" is so significant to those people who are trying to sell you this "secrete", the secret themselves, probably will not earn them more than these "$1.95" accumulated.

It's not totally impossible if there is only one person out there doing this. It is definitely a concern when there are hundreds of people out there that are doing the same thing. It is impossible that so many people are all insane at same price point. No, statistics and probability does not believe this will happen.

What is likely the truth?

(Disclaimer, I did not spend my hard earned money in testing all those programs, sorry, for me the risk is 100% and I do not plan to throw my money down the drain like that. Why? because next day, a new scam will pop out and point to the one I proved false as scam, and say "we are different". I do not have infinite resource to pop all the balloons.)

The likely truth is these scam are profiting from those $1.95 and they will send you something virtually valueless.

It is very common that people tries to sell others something that "cheap" enough, so that a lot of people will buy and they'll make money out of it. (Lots of people think I'll lost less than $2 even if this is a scam).

OK, all they need is millions of people think this way.

You know what, the $2 secret is likely "join us and sell these $2 thingies like we do".

If you are here to see someone who has wasted his/her money and proved these programs are scams, you will be disappointed. However, if you really don't want to risk your $1.95 and would like to see the result of other people throw their money down the drain, here is something you may find useful.

Most of those sites has some comment praising their kit, however, you will see you can't post comment at all. So the source of those comment are questionable. I don't mean they are definitely forged, but who ever posted those comment are special -- you and me can't even post, even if we want to praise them.

What is true about Google cash?

Well, it is true that some people made money by using Google AdSense. And Google is giving out money to people who used their website (blog, forum, bbs, etc) to show Google ads.

If you are really good at marketing your website, and you can drive enough traffic to your site, you can make a fortune from Google. This is no secrete, and this does not worth any $1.95 shipping free to learn.

Is there a way to profit from Google AdSense without selling anything? Yes. Actually, there are millions if not billions web pages that are basically useless, and contains nothing but links and Ads. When people search from something, these pages may show up high in the search list, and when people click on them, the useless web page shows the ads, boom, the owner of those sites get profit. (have you every tried to search with "review", "compare", "price" of something? Have you ever wondered, why there are so many pages has very limited (if any) content and still show up? Yeah, that's why.

While I know there are people made money using Google AdSense, I am also sure there is no easy way of doing it (unless you are a marketing genius), you may get some advise in how to make your web pages more popular, however, its not a guarantee you will out do others and make thousands of dollars over night. It by no means can be considered easy, or autopilot (people change, their search term changes too, so you can't always drive same amount of traffic to your sites at the same rate.

Yes, some of the "training" actually tells you to use Google AdWords to buy traffic. This actually MAY be a good idea if you really know what you are doing (don't expect people searching on Google will appreciate though), but for ordinary people, it's just a waste of money. Because it's very hard to make enough money to cover your advertisement cost.

In short, making money off Google is possible, but don't expect you can buy the secrete with $1.95 and profit with little work. It will be a lot of work (not necessarily labor intensive, but ) you got to learn a lot of Google and other search engines way of positioning search results. Their algorithm changes too. It is also irresponsible wasting other people's time just trying to drive traffic to your pages so you can make money.

There are other means you can make money online, but most of them all involves selling something (yes with Internet store front, you don't need to stay up all day to make sales, but that's far from "autopilot" as some described). You can sell some "digital content" without worrying about shipping and handling, (i.e. the $2 secrets). That's the "easiest" you can get.

Honestly, if you really have some content that you believe people may be interested in, market it with all means. Try to benefit from it while people are spending quality time reading your writing. People will actually help you to promote your content if they find it's valuable.

If you don't have much to say, and don't think you can produce any helpful info, don't bother. You probably can use your time to do better things. Your web page won't earn you money like "autopilot" as someone claimed to be. Even if someone made fortune by producing useless page just to trick people to click on their ads, it doesn't mean it always works. And intentionally waste other people's time to earn profit is not ethical.

Thanks for reading, and saving yourself $1.95.

Using your BlackBerry (or other bluetooth phone) as a "remote control" for your PC

2008-06-16T14:55:00.005-04:00

I'm not talking about VNC. Remote desktop is totally irrelevant here.

What I'm going to talk about is something light, just click through your PowerPoint slides, or change to next track in your iTunes' or Windows Media Player.

They use Bluetooth, instead of your air time/air packets. So basically the connection will be "local" - which means you are not depended upon Internet, cell phone connectivity, etc.

I've found several solutions sofar:

Vectir [Free! Well paid version is more powerful] - http://www.vectir.com/

Mobile Witch Remote Control [Free!] - http://www.mobilewitch.com/bluetooth-remote-control.php
Bluetooth Remote Control - http://www.blueshareware.com/bluetooth_remote_control.asp

WMOUSEXP - http://www.clearevo.com/wmousexp/

An application (sounds) very promising is Salling Clicker. However, the Balckberry support is still under consideration by the author, not available yet. http://www.salling.com/Clicker/windows/

Vectir seems the easiest to use from my perspective. However, it is realatively limited. Applications are supported through "plug-in" and so far only 4 applications are supported this way. No 3rd party development plan published. However, you can config mouse mapping and do mouse similation, which I am not a big fan of. Anways, if you only want to control iTunes/Win Media player, try Vectir first. Nice and easy.

Other interesting stuff - use your headset to control powerpoint:
http://www.headsetpresenter.com/

I don't like other hardware solutions given the tradition of hard to upgrade limitation. Saying that, the impatica ShowMate worth mentioning http://www.impatica.com/showmate/.

It's not too expensive and you don't need your Notebook at all. It's a piece of small hardware connects to VGA port of a projector and accepts screen from Blackberry via Bluetooth or USB. A piece of software need to be run on the Blackberry.

Well, I still have trouble buying into it yet, as the flexibility of Blackberry is not yet satisfying my last-minute update of PPT habit.

Crude Oil price and UFO - a conspiracy theory

2008-05-14T14:18:00.001-04:00

UFO? Oh, now I got your attention. No it’s not the UFO you think – Unidentified Flying Object.
It’s Unidentified Financial Organization.

Well, all is saying Oil price has been rising because the emerging market (namely India and China)’s rising demand caused it. Well, the thing is neither India nor China is “new” emerging market, both of them have been “emerging”. Saying in the past 6 years, the whole world gradually realized India and China were emerging is an insult on human kind’s intelligence – at least.

And while US energy consumption is dropping, the Oil price continues to set new record highs. And US is still the biggest consumer of Oil, so the link between demand and supply seems not so convincing here.

One more piece of evidence is OPEC actually claims some of their member is struggling to find buyers of their Oil.

OMG! If the theory of supply and demand relationship determines price holds true, should the price come down, so that people who want to sell, can make a deal?

Common wisdom seems not so wise here J

OK, here is my theory.
With Oil price rising for the past 6 years, it became common knowledge that to swing Oil price up, you adjust supply. You don’t need to stop Oil production altogether, you only need to reduce the output marginally, so that supply is lower than demand.

So when supply and demand are relatively balanced, you only need a small amount of supply reduction, to cause some buyer to pay more to avoid being the one who can’t fill their demand, and given the essential status of Oil, it’s likely that lots of buyers are willing to pay more rather than be left out.

It’s not only a theory, it’s reality too. We know that OPEC actually only output less than 50% (in average about 40%) of world’s Oil production, and adjustment of their output by less than a million dollar barrel a day which is less than 2% of total output of crude oil in the world, they can swing Oil price heavily.

However, this time around, it might not be OPEC who is flirting with record Oil price. There were various studies suggesting Oil over 50$ - 60$ USD means lots of alternative energy sources will economically sound. And my maintaining Oil price around 60$, OPEC can maximize their money inflow, while still keep “alternative” energies at the bay – as soon as those alternatives go into mass production, the cost of those are likely to drop and people may opt for the alternative rather than 60$ Oil.

That means Oil price so high (as the writing it’s over 126USD), it’s actually against OPEC’s long term interest.
OPEC’s complain about some member cannot find buyers of their Oil production is an early indication of the troubles ahead.

Indeed, China – one of the “emerging” country that sighted repeatedly by market participants is the most advance market in terms of Alternative energies like solar power.

Is it possible that OPEC countries cannot resist the temptation of 200$ Oil? Maybe, however you got to realize that lots of the OPEC countries are monarchy or semi-monarchy, and they do care more about their descents than most of the “democratic” countries. Besides, their big money hired economists would have definitely done the calculation for them.

And finally their complain about members can’t find buyers for their Oil, shed a light on why they are not eager to increase production – it’s no use, if at current production level, there are excess supply, increase supply will simply make it worse for all OPEC members, because while price is high, there will be more Oil sitting and waiting for buyer.

So what’s going on here? You may ask. The buyers don’t like it, the sellers’ are hurt from it, and why the price still sits there?

Well, here is where UFO comes in.
There are Unidentified Financial Organizations, who noticed a small supply adjustment can swing the price of Oil significantly – they noticed how Saudi Arabia did that in the past.
They also noticed the demand and supply of Oil is GRADUALLY getting balanced as the steady rise of demand in emerging market is nothing unpredictable.
They figured out, if Saudi can swing the price by adding or reducing a fraction of supply, what can’t WE do that?

Yes UFO does not produce Oil, however, everyone can buy Oil.

UFO with trillions of dollar in their pocket, can stock up Oil by purchasing it. And function as “dummy” demand, drives up Oil price, during the course, they can rolling sell and buy Oil to make money. And because they now function like a counter-Saudi Arabia, they know where the Oil price is going, so they can make lots of money out of it.

Why there are OPEC countries can’t find buyer for their Oil? Because UFO works in future market more than real market, when they gouge the price, they may need to purchase excess future that they don’t really need or can’t sell, they will simply void those excess future they bought and the real Oil producer will stumble to sell the real product cause they cannot simply void the physical barrel of Oil when UFO voids their future contract.

So, who are those UFO? I don’t know. I know they are very wealth, very strong and with lots of money.

It does not look like a government’s deed, because the effects of these actions are beyond borders. And the effects are relatively hard to predict compare to other means governments can exercise.

What sees to be true is they have infiltrated many governments, media and investment houses. There are numberless reports citing “emerging” markets, “resilient” US markets, etc which are all true but were also true when Oil was 26$/bbl.

All in all I don’t think it’s a bad thing fro Oil consumers and hopefully the earth. As Oil price so high, many many alternative energy businesses are lucrative. And much cleaner cars are been adopted in US and Europe at unforeseen pace.

Things like nuclear power are back on to agenda. While we still think nuclear is unsafe, Oil burning pollution and green-house-gas, are killing us anyways, how much worse can nuclear be? At least it does not emit Green-house-gas and only kills us in accidents, rather than gradually kill up non-stop like Oil consumption.

So,
“Dear UFO,
If you happen to see this article, please forgive me. I have no intention to portrait you as a dark force; I actually think you are doing a good thing for all of us.
And no one will believe me anyways so I don’t think this will stop your money making machine.
So please don’t send in your commando to kill me.

Worship you.”

Apple wants to charge existing iPod touch owners $20 for 5 new applications.

2008-01-21T13:30:00.000-05:00

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Apple like many people do.
In fact, I own 4 Macs 4 iPods and bought an iPod touch on Jan 12, 2008 3 days too early to get an iPod touch with the 5 additional new apps pre-loaded. see here

I believe it's an marketing BUG in Apple's operation -- it seems their pricing department misunderstood one single business logic -- which is more important $20 or a loyal customer that have spent dozens of thousands dollars on Apple product over the years -- put it straight, I do have $20 -- I donated more than that to software writers and charities.

I have no problem spend my money on Apple products either, I've spend dozens of thousands of dollars on Apple products.

However, when the apps are free to iPhone and NEW iPod touch users,

PUNISHING CUSTOMERS ADOPT APPLE PRODUCT EARLY IS STUPIDLY GREEDY.

It is even worse than the $200 price drop of the iPhone which resulted a $100 credit for early iPhone buyers -- this $20 charge for apps specifically identified a special group -- namely the iPod touch buyers bought iPod touch before Jan 15th 2008 -- read "hey stupid buyers, since you can $400 on an unfinished product, apparently you are rich, and should pay $20 more now to get your product complete, Oh, for those smart enough not to jump in and give their hard earned money to us early (so that we can sustain the product line) we'll though in the apps as free so that we can attract people that don't buy unfinished products even if it's from Apple -- read those people don't love Apple as much".

Keep doing this Apple, you will get lots of $20 bills and will loss lots of loyal customers that have came back to Apple and purchased again and again.

$20 is a great income for Apple, it is also an easy way to send away customers that could have spend much more on Apple products.

As a hi-tech company you need to keep the early adopters happy. Those are the ones buy your products when they are still in its infancy, so that you can sustain your new products. Bad business practice like charge $20 simply because we bought a product early, is stupid -- even if we give you this $20 this time, do you think we will buy your other more expensive products again?

Wake UP, Apple, you are good, but not that good!

Your pricing department needs some serious business 101 training.

I'm putting all my Apple purchasing (planed spending is over $2000) on hold until Apple provide free update to existing iPod touch owners so that we can upgrade our iPod touch to the level of the new units sold after Jan 15, 2008

BTW, you can sign a petition for this matter if you already owns an iPod touch. there are lots of petitions about this issue, this one has the most signed owners (on Jan 21, more than 10K).

Economy "De-Couple"? Is rest of the world really ignoring US resession and enjoys their growth?

2008-01-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

One rhetoric topic these days is “because the emerging economy, the rest of the world no longer coupled with US economy”, specifically, the rest of the world will not have a recession if US goes in to recession.

If you look at world currency market, it is even more convincing – the USD has been depressed more than 1/3 in the past 4 years.

Is it really true? Well, on one hand because the emerging markets are becoming bigger economies and hence have more resilience to external turbulence (read US recession), so the influence of US economy to other economies are less significant than it use to be.

However, somewhere in the world there is a saying – the thinnest camel is bigger than a horse – which is very true in describing the current situation of US.

The “reduced” influence of US economy is still too significant to be “ignored”.

The truth is in the past 3 to 4 years, it is not a US recession, rather the fear of a US recession drove US dollar down. And the fact that it’s the “fear of recession” instead of a real recession is the cause easily explains the “de-couple” theory.

Because US is not in a recession, US consumers are still spending, so the rest of the world can still sell to US, and that’s why their economy is still growing -- why its not “de-coupling”? -- Because US economy was also growing, despite wide spread fear of a recession. That has been the case for the past 3 years.

Or you can say it was the “fear” de-coupled, not the economy. In China and India where economy expands in double digits, it’s far harder for them to think about recession – in comparison to in the US where economy was growing 2 or 3 percent a year, it is much closer to the magical number “0” – where positive and negative cross.

And recently, when US is really in the recession (at least US business and consumers are spending less), you can see all over the world, the economy starting to choke. Some people out there was surprised and said world economy “re-coupled” – not quite right, it is just this time, the wolf really attacked, unlike previous occasion “wolf is coming” was shouted just for the sake of fear.

I feel some people are driven by fear and hatred more than hope and love. The new order of the world is not that US collapse, it is that other nation rise – it’s not about US getting unimportant, it is about other nation also getting important – it’s not about US is in trouble, it is about other nations are out of trouble.

For the “new order” of economy, I would not expect in the short term that US will be irrelevant – a US recession, will still cause world economy slow down. The change is, now if China goes into recession, the world economy will also slow down, big time!

It’s not that world de-coupled with US, it is other economies are coupled with the world better now.

Oil exporting country dump USD peg .vs. China allow its currency to rise.

2008-01-01T14:59:00.000-05:00

Stop using USD as Oil price currency will be long term bull for USD, although that is unlikely to happen any time soon.

I seldom comment on issues out of IT industry -- you can tell from my other blog posts. Well, let's do something new in the New Year then. (Not really, I majored in ERP which is a hybrid combining IS with business.)

OK, here is what the topic about -- in 2007 about US Dollar. Lots of buzz that crude oil exporters will decouple from the USD and every time this rumor surface, the USD had a big hit – it depreciate in response.
On the other side of the coin, every single US politicians is pushing China to let its' RMB to appreciate significantly. . .

"USD is oil dollar!" if oil exporters abandon selling oil in USD, USD will worth nothing -- at least Iranian president said so.

Wait a minute, that's too straightforward to be true though (if that's really that simple, I guess we don't need PhD in Economy anymore - one of the most daunting topic is now simply understood by everyone). Usually I doubt about things that too obvious -- something too good seldom is true.

Let's have a look at crude oil price -- fundamental only for now, (the speculators and opportunists are the ones who want us believe in "simple rules" so they can predict our reaction and take advantage of us.)

Oil is priced in USD, at beginning of Jan 2002 it was $16.65; at the end of Dec 2007 it was $95.98 -- a 5.8 time rise.

During the same period, EUR/USD rose from 0.86 to 1.4586. So, if you measure Oil in Euro, it only appreciated 3.4 times.

So in the face of rising oil price, America took 5.8 time hit, while because of the freedom Euro zone enjoyed, they only took a hit of 3.4 times. No wonder why Euro economy is much less hit by the recent recession (though some may argue a recession is yet to come in US).

All exporters are greedy (hey nothing wrong about that, if I have a crude oil well in my backyard, do you think I will offer it as charity? It's perfectly humane to be greedy when you have something other people want!) They (with the help of opportunists) see a chance to get more money. Because Oil is valued in USD, so US has to take the biggest hit (I'm not talking about why US gets the biggest hit which everyone has their own speech to make, just the math no politics please). While for all other economy who can fluctuate their currency, can ward off this hit somewhat by allowing USD to depreciate - so that the increase in Oil price is offset a little.

Why Euro zone economy is still robust when its currency nearly doubled in the past 5 years? One thing is in current global economy energy cost is one of the biggest part of all cost, and why Euro appreciated, Oil is measured in USD, so the real cost of energy to Euro zone companies are not as huge as it is for the US companies, and because the appreciated Euro, workers in Euro zone relatively had enjoyed a somewhat more "affordable" life compare to their US counterparts - so they can spend "more". (or in other words, they were hit much less than their US counterparts).

So is it really true that if Oil is no longer valued in USD, USD will collapse? Well in short term it might. Because if that's the case, Oil exporting countries may need to sell some USD, and European companies will no longer need USD to by Oil.
However, that's not the end of the world, why? Cause if you check who has the biggest reserve of USD outside of US? You guessed right, China.

Some people say that USD can maintain its dominancy only because Oil is valued in USD. While it may sound like music to anti-American ears (which means – a lot of people), it stands on shaky ground.

Oil is not exported by US, they don't have control over Oil -- if they did, there would be no Oil crisis in the 70's and it will not reach 100USD in 2008. Yes, they want to control it, (who doesn't?) but they simply can't.

OPEC controls it and like it or not, they decided to price Oil in USD. Why? Because US buys the most of the Oil. And since China's RMB is pegged to USD, the combined volume of Oil sold in USD is much higher than any other currency. So selling Oil in USD, makes Oil exporter's financial book much easier to keep.

So if someone really thinks that it’s US warship in the gulf kept Oil exporters to sell Oil in USD, they are politics obsessed. I found most of this kind of people has a background of living in an arbitrariness or dictatorship – where everything is controlled by the government.
In a free world, there are more than politics in this world. It’s not that the “governments in a free world” are any ethic, it’s just they don’t have the arbitrary power dictatorship enjoyed to implement their will.
However, people with experience living in a dictatorship tend to over estimate the ability of governments (in other words tend to underestimate influence of other forces in a free world).

Now why it’s long term bull for USD if Oil is sold in another currency? We mentioned that because Oil is priced in USD, US actually saw a 5.8 time price rise while Euro zone only see a 3.4 time rise. So Euro is having a much lighter hit than US has. That’s why. If Oil is priced in something else, let’s say something hyper theoretical – OPEC-D. Euro and USD then will each price their currency against this Oil Dollar. And Euro won’t need to depress USD to reduce the Oil price impact.

Of course in short term, lots of countries will sell some USD to buy OPEC-D, but that’ will not be the end of the world -- As long as China do not sell its' USD, USD will be ok. May loss another 10% or 20% but will not collapse.

And at the end of the day, Oil exporters and China have the same reason to peg their currency to USD – they export to US and USD is what their biggest customer (read United States) will give them. So it’s interesting to see that many US politicians WANT Oil exporters to use USD to price Oil (another evidence that US is managed by a bunch of stupid politicians) and on the same time, pushes China to un-peg their currency.
Like it or not, the consequence of China un-peg its currency is far more destructive than Oil priced in Euro.

sapinst hang at "import java dump" stage when installting SAP NetWeaver 7.0

2007-11-01T17:13:00.000-04:00

When installting SAP NetWeaver 7.0 on HP-UX 11.23, the sapinst comes to an halt. A java process "/opt/java1.4/bin/java -classpath /tmp/sapinst_instdir/NW04S/SYSTEMORA/CENTRAL/ASinstall/sharedlib/launcher.jar... uses 100% CPU not not doing anything)

Your JDK is 1.4.2_10

there is a problem in the Java VM 1.4.2_10 that will cause the installation to hang at this stage. It has been reported on Sun Solaris, but not on HP-UX yet. Apparently it affects HP-UX (IA64) too.

So, upgrade to 1.4.2_13 (patch 14,15,16 has know issue with Kerbose authentication). 1.4.2_17 should work too. But don't forget the installation guide tells you Java 5.0 is NOT supported.

OK Good luck.

VMWare player

2007-05-16T10:58:00.001-04:00

It may because of the opensource EMUs like QEMU, VMWare player 2.0 is released as open source software.
To retain some value to its VMWare Workstation, EMC kept VMWare player to be "play" only, you don't have GUI to configure a Virtual Machine.

Ironically, the configuration of the VM (the vmx file) is a plain text file. So you know if you are handy enough, you can do without a GUI. (well, you'd better by their stuff as I own their stock).

For you to get a quick jump start on that, here is a sample vmx configuration file enables most (read: not all) of the features available to VMWare Player 2.0

### sample vmx file ###
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "4"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
memsize = "512"
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "GL_WXP2C623A.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"
floppy0.fileName = "A:"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
usb.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "FALSE"
sound.virtualDev = "es1371"
sound.fileName = "-1"
sound.autodetect = "TRUE"
displayName = "SAP IT Office Image - GL_WXP2C623A"
guestOS = "winxppro"
nvram = "winxppro.nvram"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
floppy0.startConnected = "FALSE"
workingDir = ""
toolScripts.afterResume = "TRUE"
toolScripts.beforeSuspend = "TRUE"
ide0:0.redo = ""
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d 3c e6 4c ee 29 a3-f6 26 00 51 eb 87 50 70"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 3c e6 4c ee 29 a3-f6 26 00 51 eb 87 50 70"
uuid.action = "create"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:87:50:70"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
ide1:0.startConnected = "FALSE"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
annotation = "SAP IT Office Image - GL_WXP2C623A"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "TRUE"

ethernet0.connectionType = "bridged"

checkpoint.vmState = ""

virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
tools.upgrade.policy = "manual"

extendedConfigFile = "winxppro.vmxf"
sharedFolder.option = "alwaysEnabled"
sharedFolder0.present = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.enabled = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.readAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.writeAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.hostPath = "C:\"
sharedFolder0.guestName = "C"
sharedFolder0.expiration = "never"
sharedFolder.maxNum = "1"

Microsoft IntelliMouse for Bluetooth on Mac OS X Tiger

2007-03-28T13:11:00.000-04:00

It has long been talked about: Microsoft IntelliMouse for Bluetooth and Mac OS X.

I can confirm 2 things for you:
1) the IntelliMouse DOES work with Mac OS X. And its dongle works in Mac OS X too. However, since the dongle is Bluetooth 2.0, it only works in Tiger, not Panther. And it's right, you don't need special drivers, Mac recognize it.
2) The dongle does NOT support headset profile. Hardware wise not. While in Windows, the MS driver does not tell you if this is a driver problem or a hardware issue. Mac tells you right a way. "The hardware does NOT support headset profile". So save you some time, don't bother download wincomm etc.

One good thing about Mac is it comes with generic drivers for many devices. Nowadays, most brand-named products are actually OEM of some very generic stuff and you know Microsoft is not a chip maker, so. . .

Yeah, sure enough, once you connect your MS Bluetooth 2.0 dongle for the mouse to Mac OS X Tiger (either intel or PowerPC) it is recognized and started. You can pair the mouse easily.

When you try to add device and choose headset, you will be told the hardware does not support this profile.

So, kudu to the Mac! You can use Microfot IntelliMouse for Bluetooth even though Microsoft says "support Windows ONLY". Yeah! Who trust Microsoft! Well holdon on that statement, Microsoft said the dongle does not support headset, and it is true, it does not!.

Compile WINE on Mac OS X Tiger

2007-02-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

The WINE is more practical than ever on Mac OS after the Apple Inc. shifted to Intel platform.

There was Darwine (maybe I should say IS, but I haven't seen any update from Darwine for over half a year now). Darwine is meant for PowerPC Macs - because the lack of binary compatibility, Darwine needs a PC emulator to run Windows applications on PowerPC Macs. (It still better than running a virtual Windows - you don't need the Windows license to run WINE or Darwine.

Things are much less complex now, thanks to the moving to the Intel CPUs. At the core, a Mac is binary wise compatible with a PC running Windows. All you need to run (most) Windows applications on a Mac OS is WINE.

However, there are not many doc out there telling people how to build WINE on a Mac.
I guess it is TOO easy for the hard-core WINE "drinkers" and there is no need for a step by step doc for building it. However, a lot of Mac user are not as CMDLUI (Command line User Interface) as Linux users, and I figure it may be helpful if we have a (brief) doc helping users to build WINE on Mac OS X.

Let me try to make it easier for you here (Everything is done on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger).

1) you will need X11. Remember that WINE is written for Linux originally, and it use the de facto GUI standard - X11. While Mac OS X comes with X11 (Mac is based on Darwin - a variance of FreeBSD), it is not the default Apple GUI (which is AQUA). You can check if you have X11 by open the Finder, under Applications, Utilities, you an app called X11 sitting there. If you don't see it there, you need to install it by pop in the Mac OS X installation DVD, run the Optional Packages, and select X11 in it.

2)You will need Xcode with X11 SDK. These are the tools you use to compile and build WINE. It is freely available to Mac Users (it is GCC 3.3 and 4.0 at the core). One thing to note though, you need Xcode 2.4.1 or up. The Xcode came on the DVD will give you Syntax error ( unknow structure x86_DEBUG_STATE32) while compiling mach.c.

A good thing about Xcode is it is so easy to use, it nearly make you forget you are "developing" something. Don't be scared if you never wrote any program, it is really simpler than Microsoft Office.

3)You need Freetype 2.05 or up. You can either use a package (Macport/DarwinPort or fint), or you can download the source and build your own. I prefer download and build my own (probably because of my Linux background).

4)You will need Fontforge. Again you can chose to install a package or build it from source. Again, I prefer build from source.

5) You will need to change the PATH before you start ./configure of WINE, or it will not be able to find X11 and freetype. export PATH=/usr/X11/bin:$PATH.

6) now some basic things that Linux guys will laugh at me for writing about it. you now download wine, extract it to a directory, go into that dir and run "./configure"

7) make sure ./configure shows you no error, at the end it tells you now run "make depend && make". do so.

8) if everything returns clean, you should install wine to /usr/local/ by running make install.

9) now you can test your wine by running ./wine notepad.exe (you need to copy the notepad.exe from a real Windows machine).

10) optional but suggested: add "/usr/local/bin" to your PATH.

Upgrading to SAP ECC 6.0 with error in RSUVSAVE phase.

2007-02-08T10:51:00.000-05:00

YOu may see error check log failure "PSUVSAVE\.SID".
The message inidicates the filename is not right (the "\" before the ".") make you think the upgrade assistant (SAPup actually) is looking for a file with "\" in its name.

That's misleading. It is just a Unix escape character that was not removed in the error message.

This actually because the DIR_PUT was not set right (check your DEFAULT.PFL) the upgrade always check for the log files in /usr/sap/put/log dir, but most of the case the default DIR_PUT is the transport dir.

Also, you NEED to bounce your SAP instance for this change. While the UA will go on right after you change the DEFAULT.PFL without recycle the instance, it will give you error like this one later.

So, check your profile as early as you can, and bounce your instance if you need to.

Perl ERROR: Can't call method "mail" on an undefined value at smtp.pl line 10.

2007-02-08T10:46:00.000-05:00

As confusing at it sounds, this means your smtp object has not been sucessfully constructed. I know the error message reads more like a problem with the "mail" method, but it is actually because the SMTP obj was not initialized.

Try this:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Net::SMTP;
$smtp_test = Net::SMTP->new('smtp.mail.com',
Timeout => 30,
Debug => 1,)|| print "ERROR creating SMTP obj: $! \n";
print "SMTP obj created.";

If you see "ERROR createing SMTP obj" then you know the SMTP object is not created correctly.

Some times, this is because the SMTP package was not installed right, some times, it may because the SMTP protocal is blocked, sometimes it means something else is wrong.

QEMU TAP bridge network configuration

2007-01-31T16:45:00.000-05:00

Well, it is interesting to see how many posts out there on the web deals with this topic "configure tun/tap bridge for QEMU". Yet, I have to write one more page about it.

OK, here is why: 1st while most of them are informative, there has been no SINGLE page I read (dozens, if not more) that really helped me to configure the thing easily. 2nd, once I figured it out, it is unbelievable EASY!!! - it's just the lack of documentation make people stump. Last but not least, there are some docs out there are incorrect or misleading. While following their instruction may lead to a working configuration, it will cause you trouble later, or lead you to a wrong route when troubleshoot.

Here is what would have saved my 4 hours:

First and foremost, bridge in this case is really the ISO term of bridge. It is not something specific for QEMU. Actually, the bridge functionality is provided by Linux kernel, not QEMU - some docs on the net may lead you to believe bridge is a QEMU feature (well, QEMU does have this feature - by utilizing Linux feature, instead of providing the functionality itself).

Back to QEMU network 101, there are several ways to configure QEMU network, the default which happens to be the easiest is "-net user" this is a very neat function implemented by QEMU - it creates a virtual router (with virtual DHCP server, virtual DNS, etc) it uses 10.0.2.x address.
Just think about a home high-speed internet router, it gives you NAT addresses to all your computers at home, the router then connects to the WAN (read internet here) and forward traffic back and forth between your computers and the internet. The user mode QEMU does the same thing, QEMU gives your "Virtual computer" a "virtual IP - i.e. 10.0.2.15" and QEMU talks to the real network.
This usually is good enough if you only surf the internet from your virtual computer. However, since not every application work with NAT, (and since most of the home network already use a NAT to share one real internet IP, the virtual computer is behind 2 NATs). You may want some "direct" connection for your virtual computer.

Now, here comes the confusing part. QEMU supports tap device ("-net tap" instead of "-net user"). And its official document says "... you can then configure it as if it was a real ethernet card." But how? if everyone is as familiar with TAP device as the QEMU author, probably I won't need to write this (at least it would have saved me 4 hours if someone has written something like this :-)

TUN/TAP device is "virtual ethernet driver", the official doc of tuntap.txt says: "TUN/TAP provides packet reception and transmission for user space programs. It can be seen as a simple Point-to-Point or Ethernet device, which, instead of receiving packets from physical media, receives them from user space program and instead of sending packets via physical media writes them to the user space program."

So, QEMU runs on the real computer as a program, can write packets to the TAP device. That's cool! QEMU can simply write all the virtual computer generated packets to the TAP device and forward packets to the virtual computer, right? Right! but it is only sufficient if your virtual computer wants to talk to the real computer it runs on ONLY. Because once the packets from the virtual computer reaches the TAP device, how does Linux know where to send the packets? That's not part of the TAP device functionality.

So here comes bridge.
The bridge is (sort of) the most reliable way of connecting your virtual computer to the real network. Unlike some docs on the internet suggested - you do NOT need to configure IP for the TAP device for the bridge to work, no IP forwarding, routing needed! That's why I said "1st, bridge is ISO bridge!" at the beginning. Because packets are forwarded at Ethernet level (layer 2 in terms of ISO standard), bridge does not even care about IP (sort of, you will see why you still need to manipulate your IP a little bit later.

For those who are not familiar with Ethernet bridging (this is not a scientific definition, rather it is an example tries to help people get a feeling of what bridge is): bridge is a device have 2 (or more) NIC (Network Interface Card), one NIC connected to one Ethernet, the other connected to a second Ethernet. The bridge then joins the 2 Ethernet together, to become one. Of course, a bridge can have more than 2 NIC and connects more than 2 networks. The good use of bridge for example is connecting a 1GBps Ethernet with a 10MBps Ethernet. Since you don't want to slow down the GB net with all the 10MB traffic, you keep them separate but connect them with a bridge. So they can talk to each other, but do not bother each other that much.

OK, back to how to bridge QEMU.
You must have already figured out you need to bridge your real NIC with the TAP device QEMU uses (once you start QEMU with -net tap, it creates a TAP device automatically).
One thing you need to know is once you start a bridge, you cannot manipulate your eth0 (or whatever real NIC device in your real Linux) anymore. "The reason?" I head. Well, since bridge is at level 2, (before IP level), it needs to be able to tell where a packet is going (by the MAC address in the packet). If you manipulate the eth0 device, your packet is going out to the real network directly, the bridge will not have access to the packet, hence it breaks the bridge. (think about a DHCP solution on our 1GBps network and 10MBps network. If you request a DHCP IP address on your eth0 - which is on your 1GBps network, your DHCP server has to be on the 1GBps network or it won't be able to get an IP address. In this situation, you will have to have 2 DHCP servers one on 1GBps, one on 10MBps. You will either create 2 segment of dynamic IPs or find a way to synchronize 2 DHCP servers leases).

So, to solve this problem (well, the problem is there only because you use your bridge-your Linux box-as a computer and a bridge; for a hardware bridge, it is transparent on the Ethernet.) you need to connect to the Ethernet though the bridge interface (once you configured it, you will see the bridge interface has the eth0 MAC address). So the bridge (read the Linux kernel bridge module) can then check the content of the packets and send the packets to the right network.

Since the IP layer is layer 3, which means it builds on top of the bridge which runs at layer 2, you will have to start your IP stack on top of the bridge instead of your real NIC (eth0 in most of the case).
Finally here comes the howto:
Be warned, your IP network will have to come down for a little while (for me this was about 5 seconds). This is because you need to start the IP address on the bridge interface later.
First, release your IP address assigned to your real NIC. I also rename my eth0 to reth0 (stands for Real ETH0) and create the bridge with name "eth0". The reason being it is simpler for your other programs (i.e. iptables which may use eth0 as interface name somewhere).
Then you create a bridge, and add 2 NIC (one is the real NIC the other is the TAP device).
You then re-acquire a DHCP lease with the bridge interface (in my case, is called eth0 now - hey I know it is confusing, but it is just a name, right?).
The following is tested on SLES 9, it should work on most of the linux distro with little change (i.e. the dhcp client tool may be different). You also need the bridge package which is not installed by default (at least on SLES 9 it is not)

#!/bin/bash
# 1st, release all DHCP address and remove all IP address associated with the original eth0
/sbin/dhcpcd -k
/sbin/ip addr flush eth0
# then take the interface down so we can rename it
/sbin/ip link set eth0 down
# now rename the original eth0 to reth0 (Real ETH0)
/sbin/nameif -r reth0 eth0
# OK, bring the same interface (with new name though) back up
/sbin/ip link set reth0 up
# 2nd let's create a bridge called eth0 so other programs think they are talking to the same old interface (actually they will talk to the bridge which is a clone of the original eth0 - with name MAC addr)
/sbin/brctl addbr eth0
# then add both origianl eth0 and tap1 device to the bridge
/sbin/brctl addif eth0 tap1
/sbin/brctl addif eth0 reth0
echo "showing bridge mac addresses"
/sbin/brctl showmacs eth0
# 3rd, we need to bring the newly created bridge UP
/sbin/ip link set eth0 up
# 4th, renew the DHCP address if possible
/sbin/dhcpcd -n
/sbin/ip addr show

Please note, there are other ways of connecting your virtual computer to the real network with TAP device: you can configure routing on your real computer (I don't see a reason why I want to do that - if you use NAT, why don't you use the "-net user" instead which is much simpler; if you use real world IP, why don't you use bridge? To configure routing for the TAP, you need to start IP stack on the TAP device and start ip forwarding on the real Linux - unnecessarily complex for my environment).

Another good option is VDE (Virtual Distributed Ethernet). It is a very good solution, in some case, it maybe better than bridge. The best feature is you don't need the brief down time as the bridge solution. I found the description of VDE is much better than bridge and hence I will skip this part.

2007 (I'll start working for SAP)

2006-12-29T22:12:00.000-05:00

I am feeling guilty for my blog :-p
I saw the last post was Jan 1st, 2006, about 1 year ago. Sorry for doing a poor job in updating my blog, although I know not many people are viewing it (Hey, at least this means you are SPECIAL!).

I will start work for SAP Canada Inc. in the new year. (BTW, being too busy is one of the reason for not updating my blog :-). So hopefully I will be able to update this blog more often.

2006 has been a good year for most part of the world. Evidence? It has been a miserable year for George W Bush :-D. I am hoping 2007 will be a better year for everyone - which is impossible - some people simply wish (some) others suffer - Saddam Hussein has just been executed. I agree he should be sentenced to death, but actually killing him is another thing.

Well, sentences him to death is like reaffirm an equation that anyone's life is as valuable as another's - given him/her to be the dictator or ordinary person like you and me. But execute him is killing - a murder or an innocent - it is killing. People will ask, if you don't execute him, why sentences him to death? I say, sentences him to death simply means he did not understand other people's life is as important as his - so now it is his turn to fit in the other shoes. I would like to see Iraqi government stop all his rights - all the rights he took away from his victims. But do not kill - isn't killing make the authority as bad as the executed?. Well, not everyone think killing is a big thing - whatever super nature power they believe in, please forgive them.

The other incident is Gerald Ford just died a couple of days ago. He was criticized for grant Nixon a pardon for Watergate. It was a controversy move too, but at the end, I think that (pardoning Nixon) is a less hazard then executing Saddam - in both incidents, the authority had power to do whatever they did and sparked controversy. But at least Ford did not need to end a life.

Anyways, for the vast majority of us, especially those who spend time reading this, you must be having a good time, and happy new year 2007!

Wish you all the best in the new year.

Alan Tan

Happy New Year 2006

2006-01-01T01:43:00.000-05:00

Hi,
To everyone knows me or does not know me.
Have a very happy 2006.

Someone may have a better year than others, but don't worry, there is always someone suffer more than you do, so, hey after all it is not the end of world anyways.

Light up, be happy don't worry.

1, Jan, 2006

Alan Tan

2005-06-08T17:50:00.000-04:00

Alan Tan interesting blog. Have a look.

I am now work in Siemens

2005-05-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

As some of you may already knew, starting today, I am working for Siemense Business Service Canada.
SBS is among the top 10 out-sourcing companies in the world. SBS provides 7*24 IT services to hundreds of customers around world.

Yes, I am one of those busters eliminating your in house IT jobs now. If you can't bit it, joint it ;-) Well at least, I am not doing off shoring.

As an SAP consultant, I may be busier, and may have less time to update my blog. "Yeah! like I have ever updated my blog."

C U Nestle

2005-04-29T08:30:00.000-04:00

A little bit ... hard to say... but hey, life has to go on...

I've been working for Nestle Canada for about three and half years as SAP Basis Administrator.
All these came to a pause after the biggest SAP project ever in the world moved SAP in Nestle Canada to Brazil. I like Brazil, but I can not speak Portuguese. So tough luck, I either need to change major, or ...

Actually the Globe project in Nestle will significantly benefit those markets still using pen and paper - at the price of the more advanced markets - and me.