Hiu Lui Ng

See the story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/nyregion/13detain.html

This guy is an illegal immigrant with a house and a family (wife and children) in New York. He wasted years of his life in immigration prison and eventually died of cancer in the prison. He is not a criminal, why cannot CIS treat him at least like a criminal? Allow bail-out/probation while the case is pending, and allow out-patient service if this guy is complaining.

700 Billion bailout rejected for the best

In my opinion that rejection of 700 billion bailout is for the best. It it better to wait for 3 months and let the new leadership decide on matters like this. Instead of let someone who only have 100 days in their mind to lead this effort, I'd rather someone who is looking at least 4 years or even 8 years ahead to do it.

Remember the pardons and commutations signed on final day in office by the former president Bill Clinton? It is very hard to imagine that you can get any responsible long term plan from person who is gonna leave office in a little more than 100 days.

In sports, it is so much easier to use illegal drugs which can give you an edge for a few hours or even a few days. Which in long term, can put you in worse shape. This bailout may be just something like that. It will make some one looks good in the next 100 days, but who cares what happens afterwards? If the economy is going down mid year 2009, it may even make the current leadership look good. Isn't it?

The pitch:

Because the government would be purchasing troubled assets and selling them once the market recovers, it is likely that many of the assets would go up in value over time. Ultimately, we expect that much - if not all - of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back.

The questions:

1. Who is going to benefit from this without out all the ifs and expects?
2. Who is going to pay for this? The government or more like the people?
3. If I lost my car, and I don't have insurance. Will US government buy the right of my car, and hoping that one day my car maybe found, and the tax dollars "may" be paid back?
4. And there is also the question whether a leadership that rushes to a war looking for "WMD" based on misinformation is capable to get it right this time?
   

Fix a Sony Trinitron TV for 75 cents

Even one week after the TV is fixed, I still cannot believe that I did it: fixed my TV for 75 cents. Of course, I have to do it myself.

My TV experienced a sudden death this summer. It was working perfectly. Then one day, it is just dead. Does not respond to anything, and there are no lights blinking.

After 6 months, and feeling the urge to watch some TV programs over the holiday season, I decided to try to replace the fuse and see if it works. So, I opened the back-cover, and found a fuse right behind the point where the power cord enters the box. I found the fuse is indeed blown. According to the markings on the fuse, it is 6.3A, 250V, slow-blow type. I went to RadioShack, where the sales person found a replacement within 30 seconds. Yes! Just like that, he squinted at the fuse I brought in, and walk right to a drawer to extract a package. It's a package of 4 fuses costing $2.99. I went home and put one new fuse (75¢) into the fuse holder, and you know the rest of the story.

Warning:
Residual charges in the TV can cause serious injury to you.
Static charge on your body can also cause serious injury to your TV.
A blown fuse can be caused by fault in the TV's circuit. In which case, installing a new fuse can cause additional damages.
If the new fuse blows shortly after installation. Stop! And find a professional to look at your TV (if you think it is worth the effort and $$$$).
This article does not in anyway suggest you should open the back-cover of a TV by yourself.

More for those who are interested:
The fuse listed on RadioShack's website:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102764&cp=&sr=1&origkw=slow+blow+fuse&kw=slow+blow+fuse&parentPage=search

The original fuse is a "BUSS GCD", "T6.3AL250V", 5×20 mm, slow-blow, glass fuse (see the picture below).

Millionaire Wannabes

Want to be a millionaire?

Here are a few web sites or blogs that I find useful:

Yahoo Finance: http://finance.yahoo.com
This is the absolute number 1 site for finance 101, and stock research. I learned the basics of 401K, stock trade, bond, ... all from its "Education" section. And, I read finance news, check stock prices on this web site every day. When Google finance was first out a year or two ago, I was attracted to that web site for a few weeks mostly for its flashy charts and auto-fill text boxes. But Yahoo provides more solid finance data, powerful stock screening tools, convenient export functions and plenty of educational material. Now that Yahoo finance also has flash based chart, I never look at Google finance again.

Personal Finance Blog: http://pfblog.com
On his journey to a millionaire by the age of 40, the writer decided to share some of his financial secrets with the whole world. You can see detailed monthly, and annual net-worth break-down (sometimes down to single stocks he owns). Also there are real-life experiences with many financial products, tax strategy for people working in foreign country, tips for For-Sale-By-Owner (FSBO), and more. These are all first hand experience, not like the usual articles by the so-caller experts who has never done FSBO or work outside of US. This blog is simply fabulous. The first time I found this blog, I spent a whole week-end (48 hours) to read each and every post he's written, and took several action items the following week.

Millionaires in the Making: http://millionaires.blogs.cnnmoney.com/
A blog written by David Ellis, a CNN staff writer. Are you a millionaire in the making? If you answer yes, the writer might want to hear your story and post it on the blog.
Want to be a millionaire? Middle class? In your 30s or 40s? Has kids? Then you might feel related to the stories posted on this blog.

Moving from Yahoo! Photos to Picasa

"Heard the News? Yahoo! Photos will be closing this fall...". This is the headline on Yahoo! Photos. Yahoo provided a few alternatives such as Flickr, Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, Snapfish and Photobucket. After some investigation, I decided to used Picasa from Google instead. Below are pros and cons I found about Picasa.

Pros:
1. Direct support for blogger, you can blog about a picture and view pictures in blog posts directly in Picasa Web Album;
2. Picasa, a 5MB installation is a fantastic free photo editing and organizing software for amateurs like myself;
3. "Hello" photo sharing service;
4. Support image formats: JPG, PNG, GIF, PSD, TIF, RAW ...;
5. Support video formats: AVI, ...;
5. Web album allow setup of Public and Private albums;

Cons:
1. Available only to Windows 2000 and above (Linux version is available in Google Labs);
2. Web album does not seems to support download of original pictures (original files can be transferred using P2P);

Fun web sites related to google

http://elgoog.rb-hosting.de You will feel dizzy looking at this web site, because it is a "mirror" of google.

http://gwigle.varten.net Fun games about google. I am stopped at level 1.d.

http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_1.html Useful tips on using google. The linked article is especially useful. Using these operators you can type your search on google homepage without entering the "Advanced Search" page.

Buy T-Bill from Treasury Direct

This article is about how to buy United States Treasury Bill online directly with individual account.

To park extra cash, what is better than a high-yield CD? If you have more than $1000 to save and if you live in a state with high income tax rate (like California) , look no further. With 5.2% current rate and state tax exemption, T-Bill is the answer.

TreasuryDirect http://treasurydirect.gov/
TreasuryDirect is direct channel for US Savings Bonds investors. It just take 10 minutes to setup an account online. The web site seems reasonably secure with features like virtual keyboard, and HTTPS communication. Earlier last year, the site would list your whole social security number on the pages, later it started to show only a few digits, which is good for security. This tells you that someone care about security is behind this web site.

Once you setup bank account information, purchasing is extremely easy. Just select security type, and total amount on the home page, then click "Buy Now" and confirm your order.

Here is a bullet list of important features of TreasuryDirect:
- Considered to be THE most secure investment, backed by the full faith and credit of the US Treasury;
- Minimum unit of investment for T-Bill: $1000;
- Exempt from state tax, still subject to federal tax;
- Pruchase limits:
* Savings Bonds: max $30,000 of each type--EE or I bonds, per person per year;
* Bills, Notes and TIPS: up to $5 million of each type.
- $25 annual fee is charged for account with balance greater than $100,000;

The only problem: there is absolutely no official paper record. Which make me a little nervous.

UPDATE
September 30, 2008:
In the event of recent financial meltdown and all the other bad news surrounding the stock market, T-Bill becomes very desirable. People are rushing for this safe-haven. Even I see a surge of viewer-ships of this post (5 times of average page views to be exact).

But be warned that you are going to pay a premium to buy T-Bill now. As of September 30, 2008, interested rate has dropped to around 1% APR. Some of the short term bills event dropped to 0.05% briefly.

While it is a remote possibility that US government may default, it looks less and less remote in the recent years. Look at how congress keep raising the Federal Debt Limit to protect the "full faith and credit". You know how remote it is!

Microsoft Still Think George Bush a Miserable Failure

GOOGLE finally updated their algorithm. If you search for "Miserable Failures", it no longer return the president's bio as top result. But, Microsoft's Search Engine insists that he is still the top candidate for "Miserable Failures".

New Search Engine, same "Miserable Failure"

In the eve of new Microsoft search engine's debut. I tried the term "Miserable Failure" on GOOGLE, YAHOO and MSN. They all still return Mr. Bush's Bio as #1 match. A new twist is that AMAZON managed to get shown on the MSN search's sponsored list for this search.

This just shows how uniform the world's major search engines are, and how easy it is to fool them all.

Google Click Fraud Case

In recent news, plaintiffs are expecting more settlement from the click fraud case against Google. I really doubt there is much merit of getting much more.

Would an Ad agent expect a refund if TV watcher switches channels when their Ad is on, or when a newspaper reader skips their Ads while scanning for stories? Still they are paying based on the media’s number of viewers and target audiences. Same story here, most of the plaintiffs know the existence of click fraud but they also know they will still make a profit factoring in the cost and set their bidding price accordingly. They really should not expect much more refund from Google except those few who can prove their case is much higher than industry average.

On the other hand, I am not sure if anybody audited Google’s books. Google is dismissing AdSense sponsors for fraud, and refuse to pay them, and revoke their account sometimes. Meanwhile, they are charging their customers for clicks. If the numbers do not really match on both sides, Google’s credential will be serious questioned.

How about this: If you watch Soprano, but skip the Ads during the break, you will be slapped a penalty from Cable company. Have fun!

Google Page Creator

Finally, I get an email from GOOGLE announcing that my account for Google Page Creator has been enabled. You can find my pages here: http://huguogang.googlepages.com/.

Currently, there is not much content there. But, if you use Gmail, I highly recommend you have a look at this page: Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts. There is a .pdf file on the page that you can print out as a quick reference for the keyboard shortcuts. Another better cheat sheet can be found here: http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~kanmy/gmail/gmailKeys.html. You only need to print the first page, and it contains some undocumented shortcuts.

French Want a Bite of Apple

A recent bill proposed in French pending final approval is targeting companies like Apple and Sony. See the news here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4833010.stm. They basically require open DRM technology to allow competitions in both music player devices and download services.

That actually raised a big question I have had for a long time. Why is Microsoft gets a slap in the hand when they are trying to bundle IE with Windows, while Apple can enjoy bundling MAC, iPod, iTunes together to make huge profits. My theory goes like this: due to their close tie to the entertainment industry, they are able to negotiate a deal with big music companies with favorable terms. Then they use this advantage to force consumer to buy iPod, because you just cannot get anything else that can play the downloaded music. And, of course they provide iTunes for free, bundled with QuickTime player free download so that you won’t want to buy other music or movie player software.

YES is my vote, if I were to vote for the bill.

Update I found this insightful article from Wired: How France is Saving Civilization

Update An editorial on San Francisco Chronicle: Don't Dare Copy This