Zero Day by Mark Russinovich

I met Mark at Microsoft and he turned out to be much nicer, more approachable, personable, and helpful than people there had led me to believe.  I asked him for the source code to ZoomIt because I needed to add an enhancement.  He refused to give me his code but added the feature in 10 minutes and gave me a private build!  He was always available to present mentoring advice in the “Software Architects” classes I taught.

When I discovered Mark wrote a techno-thriller fiction novel I put the title on my stack to read.  I just finished reading the book; it was much better than I expected and I have new respect for Mark’s versatility and story-telling.  The technology in his story is, of course, spot-on perfect as I had expected but more importantly, the characters, story-line, and pacing are very-well executed.  Recommended (****).

Stealing Light by Gary Gibson

I finished listening to the audio version of this book during my commute to and from work.  I enjoyed it more than some of the other “space opera” books, though the motivations and “honey trap” technology concept did not make sense to me.  I do intend to get other books by Gibson in this universe and I do recommend the author.  The characters were fun, the suspense and drama were well-written, and the plot was unpredictable.  The space opera tropes of a mysterious, ultra-advanced alien technology and unknowable motivations of space aliens were also well-presented.  And best of all Gibson does not inject as much British arrogance and political utopia as authors like Peter Hamilton. (****)

How to “mash up” Google Maps Street View in your blog

eBay Bellevue Office map and street view mash-ups from Google maps

  # # #

How do you embed Google Maps and Google StreetView panes into your own web log?  It is simple, really.  First, you embed an iFrame into the blog entry. The embedded maps above are inside a very-simple  iFrame defined as:

<iframe style="border-left-width: 0px;   border-right-width: 0px;   border-top-color: #ffffff;   border-bottom-width: 0px;   border-bottom-color: #ffffff;   border-right-color: #ffffff;   border-top-width: 0px;   border-left-color: #ffffff"   height="900"   marginheight="0" 
</iframe>

 

Notice the src of the iFrame’s content is a DropBox URL.   That file contains the “mash-up” JavaSript for Google Maps.  The HTML file for that DropBox URL is:

Of course you can insert Bing maps in a similar fashion:

And, I assume, the blog editing GUI tools probably have methods of inserting maps without resorting to typing the HTML and JavaScript text into a text editor.

Taipei Shanghai Zurich – Frankfurt to Seattle

The flight from Frankfurt to Seattle was bumpy. The food was good.  Movies:

• The Internship (2013): two old sales guys do a Google summer internship, Hollywood style.  Weak, formulaic script, bad cast, predictable, bad story, yuck (**).  Hollywood needs more scripts like “The Social Network.”
• The Way Way Back (2013): awkward, self-conscious kid spends a summer coming of age; worth watching (***)
• Frances Ha (2012): B&W, somewhat older woman follows her passion to become a professional dancer and choreographer.  Interesting, sensitive, well-directed New York story about young people, class struggle, relationships (***).
• I also saw a bunch of TV documentaries and shows (German, US).

Home at last!

Taipei Shanghai Zürich day 11 - homeward bound

Almost all flights out of Zürich are international, but no early check-in is required. Not knowing this convenient fact I was asleep at 8 pm, up at 4:30am, and in a taxi to the airport at 05:00. I had a 2 - hour wait in the Swiss lounge,  sigh. Yogurt and muesli for breakfast. Rain and clouds in Zürich. Sunrise in the air between the cumulus rain clouds and the cirro-stratus clouds above.

Taipei Shanghai Zurich – photo update 1

Out from behind the “Great FireWall” I am now able to connect to blogspot, youtube, google+.

The Evil Search Giant’s (ESG’s) has a wannabe Facebook thingie called Google+.  G+ creates #AutoAwesome photos (panorama, animated gif) from the photos in your Android phone that it steals thoughtfully backs up for you.  Here is one from Shanghai of the fireworks the night I arrived:

And here is another from the Shanghai dinner riverboat cruise Friday night:

I am slowly copying the other #AutoAwesome photos to their dated folders on skydrive where I share photos publicly.

Taipei 1  -  Taipei 2   -  Shanghai Riverboat 1  -  Shanghai Riverboat 2

Shanghai to Zurich  -  Zurich

And I dumped all the videos from my phone (without viewing them) to You-Tub-bee:

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spwBZY4tfZk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PzNfUAAl0E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUTIVuUUvPw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6aj85qqOFU

 

Windows Live Writer sometimes pastes a youtube link as a thumbnail (embedded link) and other times as a naked URI.

Taipei Shanghai Zurich Day 10 – visiting the in-laws

Here is a link of all the photos I took Sunday with my family here in Zurich.  It was spectacular weather and the views of the Alps from Zurihorn were breathtaking!

 

All of my nephews are happy, fun-loving bundles of joy.  I lost a foot race to Livio but got my revenge at the Fooseball table after dinner.

 

Lots more pictures here: http://sdrv.ms/16ZaUwT .  I am hoping Google+ will create panoramas and animated gifs in the #AutoAwesome feature that I can share.  The Evil Search Giant (ESG) is really creepy, “backing up” (stealing) all of the photos from my Android phone.

[Update ] It appears you must log in to Google+ to see the photos it creates with #AutoAwesome.  However it does allow me to download the animated Gif’s and panorama’s it creates so I can manually add them to my collection.

Delete, Delegate, Defer, Do – Getting to zero in-box bounce (zib)

Delete, delegate, defer, do – processing hundreds of messages with one-touch alacrity. Git 'er done!  The joy of zib is worth pounding through the backlog.

Yeah, baby!

Taipei Shanghai Zurich Day 9 – Traveling through Frankfurt to Zurich

Internet here at the Shanghai Pudong airport is spotty and the “great firewall” is blocking VPN to my company network, sigh.  “Offline” tools that need no network are essential when traveling in China.  I am using Windows Live Writer on Windows and blogger on Android.  The new “offline” speech to text feature in Android is not nearly as good as the online version but it is better than keyboarding on a phone.

This morning I had breakfast at the larger first floor restaurant at the Kerry hotel with my manager outside in the sunshine.  The humidity has let up and it is perfect weather.  The Kerry provides a free shuttle bus service to the magnetic levitation (maglev) train. I was the only passenger on the big bus

The shuttle is timed perfectly, so that the train pulls boards a few minutes after you are dropped off at the station.

The maglev train was going 436 Km/hour (about 271 miles per hour) and took

about 10 minutes.  Door to door from the hotel to check-in at the airport was less than 30 minutes.  The lines for customs, emigration, security, and walking between areas was another 15 minutes.  From the hotel to the airplane gate was less than an hour.

 

[ Update: on the way to Frankfurt ]

In-flight Movies:

• “The Guillotines”  (China, 2012): steam punk; Qing Dynasty ninjas with hooked swords, spiked, sword-launched Frisbees, take on the Han revolutionaries and the emperor’s new fire-arms ** (2 out of 5).
• “The Neighbor” (Germany, 2011): suspense drama; Cub journalist David moves to a new town, with a nosy, invasive neighbor; very good Krimi, recommended!  (***)
• “Combustion” (Spain, 2012): Jewel thieves seduce young, wealthy recently-engaged pretty-boy sports-car fan with a beautiful temptress. “Fast & Furious” with over-the-top Spanish machismo, yuck (*)
• “Elementary” (TV Show, 2012): Sherlock Holmes in New York, (**)
• “Mega Structures” (TV Documentary, 2012): Constructing biggest buildings in the world, (***)
• I also watched the first 5 minutes of many films and TV shows that were really puke awful.  I am very thrilled we have no TV at home.

I spent some time coding, trying to snap in to the CES time zone.  That was fun.  Now I am burning down the email backlog.  So far the flight has been less bumpy than the others but the food is not as good.

[update Sunday 10/14/2013 1300 CET]

Frankfurt is cold; the airport is huge, busy, but not as efficient as Dusseldorf.  Went through three separate security checks, walking 1.5 miles, waited for buses on the Tarmac.  The Lufthansa business class lounge was quite awesome with good Internet (skyped home), very good beer (of course!), and decent food.

Transferred to my flight to Zurich with no problems.  Arrived Zurich on-time but the little puddle jumper had no room for my bigger carry-on so I had to check it, causing a 20-minute delay at baggage claim, sigh.

The 4-story shopping complex is a little daunting but I know my way around so I bought a train ticket and arrived at my hotel quickly, safely, efficiently.  I don’t like the neighborhood where my Hotel (and eBay) are located in Zurich, especially on Saturday night late.  I was accosted by one person and had to navigate past drunk, rowdy, young people standing around drinking outside the dance clubs.  My in-laws wanted to get together but it was very late; I was tired, so I crashed.

Taipei Shanghai Zurich Day 8 -- Work

I was able to hit the gym and work out on Thursday morning (China time) before breakfast.

Then it was wall-to-wall meetings all day again; we had a lunch meeting, and team dinner (again).  I was able to bow out of the foot massage after dinner to get time to read and relax. 

The managers here are going to enormous lengths to make us welcome.  They send out for Starbucks, constantly ask about diet restrictions, preferences, shower us in swag and gifts, and are always asking what else they can do.  They send a car to pick us up at the hotel, have the private car drive us to dinner near our hotel every night.