Dec 3, 2008

HttpUnit - web page testing

Two weeks ago my professor gave us an assignment about testing web applications.
It is well-known fact that testing web pages is very hard by its characteristics.

One tool that professor suggested is HttpUnit:
http://httpunit.sourceforge.net/doc/cookbook.html

It is not so much surprising in the sense of technology. However, it had very interesting interface to test web pages. Most of web page testing tools mocks the behaviors of web browser. Some of them actually records tester's clicking.

One way I have come up with is using cURL to retrieve a web page and find out certain text messages by Regular-expression. By its nature web pages contains very flexible format, so that it should be check by powerful text message checker such as Regular-exp.

One of the approach of HttpUnit is parsing the HTML page into DOM tree, and returns some of parts that are interested to testers. The syntax gave me the impression that it seems like JavaScript syntax.


However, we still have difficulty of web page testing. HttpUnit requires that the target web pages had to be deploied on web server, which takes fairly long time. I don't think we can skip the deploying part for testing. We need to test the very last result, which should be resulted by a web container. For this problem, we may need a light-weight web application server inside of IDEs.

Flight searching system on J2EE

I just have finished one of my project for this semester. It was SWE642, "Software Engineering for WWW". The class was mainly about J2EE, which I hadn't know much.

The class asked us to develop a flight reservation system. It gave me a big chance to catch up modern web programming technologies:
  • Spring Framework.
  • Hibernate persistence framework with Hyper Sonic database.
  • Log4j log library.
  • ANT building system.
  • AXIS2
  • Google Map 2
  • Tomcat, of course.
You can download it and deploy it on your local computer, if you are familiar with SVN and Tomcat:
http://code.google.com/p/weneedourownproject

I'm proud of myself, and I have learned a lot about Spring Framework. It was nice especially for JUnit testing. It gave me unit testing and integration testing environment.
However, I don't think I will have any more chance to touch web programming technology, because I wouldn't develop web application, unfortunately.

Nov 7, 2008

Maximum compression.

One of my best interest is file archiving.
I actually spent lots of time thinking and implementing compression algorithm.
Today I encountered a good web page:
Maximum Compression : http://www.maximumcompression.com

It showed me which one is good compression software.
And it stroke me there are two good compression software which I haven't heard at all.
I know "winzip," "gzip," and "bzip2."
But the web page showed me PAQ8 is best in the sense of size.
"What is PAQ8???"
It was newly developed archiving software. And it has GPL license, which is totally free.
It does not seem anybody can use yet. It is still changing fast.

One of interesting point is we can choose how much memory we will use for archiving, from 35MB to 1.7G.
The more memory you use, the smaller file you can get.
I love to see its algorithm when I can afford.

Nov 4, 2008

Google is getting suck.

Once google was famous for simple user interface.
It is still true in some part.
But now most of web pages getting sucks.

One of the big problems is it gets complex.
Since they have many many good programmers, they may want to add many many functions on pages.
But now it harms user interface.

Let's see the Google search first.This main page is still good while other web searching engine has an complex page.
But the searching result page is wasting space at the end of the page.When have they changed that? I though the famous link buttons, "Goooooooooogle" was at the end of the page. But now they added 3 lines with meaningless vertical gaps.

Gmail also get sucks.
Today I was surprised that the top most line becomes double lines in this way:
The problem came by the new red text, "New! A bunch of stuff."
Why is it not a single noun but several words?
I though once I click it, it will disappear, but it didn't.
Actually the other Google services tends to have a longer and complex top most line.
I don't know what is "My notebooks," I don't want to know it, I don't want to use it, and I don't want to keep it there. "Web history" is also same. I have never used it, and I have no interest for "History."
Why do they make user interface worse?

Google Reader is also sucks.
Most of Google services does not use "Frame" style, which is forbidden tag in HTML.
But Google reader has fixed frames.If I scroll down the web page, then the top most links should go out of the screen. But it doesn't.
I hardly use "searching" in RSS reader. Why do I need to keep it there all the time.
Because of them, I cannot use my screen for reading articles.

I believe Google need more competitors.

Faster fox - an add-on for fire fox

I want to introduce a great add-on for fire fox.
It is FasterFox: http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/
It makes your Firefox faster.One of the great functions is "Prefetching."
After you install the add-on, fasterfox will pre-load every possible links while you read the web page.
The meaning of the word, "Prefetching," is ambiguous.
FasterFox explains the meaning in its setting dialog:
Utilizes idle bandwidth to silently download and cache links in the background so they may be ready for immediate display by the time you click them.
Actually it is dangerous in some cases, because the prefetching presses every links in order to get the next pages. Some of links might be "delete something" or "purchase something." Therefore fasterfox has limited policy for the prefetching.
You can find more information here:
http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/faq.html#Can_prefetching_mess_things_up

This add-on increased not only quantitative speed, but also qualitative feeling. I strongly recommend you.

Oct 28, 2008

NuSMV

Today I have installed NuSMV, which is one of the SMV model checker.

SMV, Simbol Model Verification, is a famous Model checking way.

Professor. Ammann gave students an assignment which I have to grade next week.
The assignment was about SMV which I don't have enough knowledge.

I have heard SMV can represent finite automata.
It is very interesting that somebody made a tool that we can use freely.
There are several SMV checkers and NuSMV is one of them: Cadence SMV, VCEGAR.

For a backup, I refer professor's example here:
-- SMV Specification for simple EW,NS intersection
-- Paul Ammann

MODULE main
VAR
EW : direction; NS : direction;

EWGreen : process ToGreen(EW, NS);
NSGreen : process ToGreen(NS, EW);

EWYellow : process ToYellow(EW);
NSYellow : process ToYellow(NS);

EWRed : process ToRed(EW);
NSRed : process ToRed(NS);

--ASSIGN

-- (EW, NS) check for P1
SPEC
AG((EW.light = red | NS.light = red))
SPEC
AG((NS.light = green ) -> AX (EW.light = red))

-- spec for test generation
--SPEC
-- AG((NS.light = green ) -> (AG !(NS.light = red)))


MODULE direction
VAR
light : {red, yellow, green};
ASSIGN
init(light) := red;

MODULE ToGreen(dir1, cdir1)

ASSIGN
next(dir1.light) :=
case
(dir1.light = red) & (cdir1.light = red) : green;
1 : dir1.light;
esac;

MODULE ToYellow(dir1)

ASSIGN
next(dir1.light) :=
case
(dir1.light = green) : yellow;
1 : dir1.light;
esac;

MODULE ToRed(dir1)

ASSIGN
next(dir1.light) :=
case
(dir1.light = yellow) : red;
1 : dir1.light;
esac;
This seems complex, but it will be very powerful if we can have formal specification using these kind of Model Checking.

Oct 9, 2008

Adeona - LoJack for laptop

BB told me a interesting free software: Adeona.
http://adeona.cs.washington.eduThis program is for the case that your laptop is stolen.
This software periodically run on background, gather network information and give you some hints where your laptop is.

The website recommend you do *not* try to catch the thief by yourself even when you find out where it is.

One interesting thing is the software can take a picture of the thief when your computer is MacBook series, which has a camera at top of the LCD.

The logic was simple, so that I made similar one by myself.Using my shell program will get some network information and picture file onto your email box every half hour; you may be able to use some "filters" for the spam-like emails.In order to use this, you need to set your email address on the script file, "email", and install two software: iSightCapture, mutt.
I don't know which way is easiest way to install mutt, but I used "Mac Port".

You can add a schedule onto your "crontab" like this:
0,30 * * * * /Users/wrice/Applications/sendPicture.sh
Enjoy your safer environment.

Oct 8, 2008

Game Maker 7

I haven't heard about this before today.
There is a game making tool called "Game Maker."
The recent version is 7 now.
It is free to download.You can see 100 games that are made by the tool in you tube.
100 Game Maker games in 10 minutes.

The movie clip inspires me a lot of new ideas for game design.
And it is also surprising that a game tool is that much flexible.

Oct 2, 2008

The tendency of the profit ratio to fall

One of Korean economy professor, SungJin Jung, claimed that the profit ratio in America industry has tendency of the ratio of profit to fall, which is one of the famous Marx's theory.
In his article he was using America government data, which is open data to public.

The diagram he was using is here:The data is from one of the government web site: http://www.bea.gov
Non- financial corporate sector ratio = National Income and Product Accounts, Table 1.14. line 24(net operating surplus)-line 26 (business current transfer payment) / Fixed Asset Table, Table 4.1. line 28(non-financial)

Considering the non-financial corporate sector ratio as profit ratio, the point of this article is that the diagram indicates the profit ratio has tendency to fall.

I wanted to get the diagram by myself, so I made it; this means everybody can draw the diagram.
There is two reason why the diagrams are different.
One is that the web site revised the data after the article is written. The other reason is that I included two more years: 2006, and 2007. And the government web site doesn't have data before 1930.
You can see the Trend line is declining.

I, however, found one interesting point.
Two of them averaging the data by 5 years.
But if I just use raw data, which is year by year, then I get different diagram here:
If you click the diagram above, you can see bigger one.
The new line looks like *flat*, not declining.
The reason is the new diagram is wider.
If I make it narrow, then you can see the same declining line like this:
In brief, although different analysis way shows different diagram, it is definitely not increasing. It is opposite result from the opinions of some of famous leftists who claims that the falling tendency problem is overcame.

In addition, even though we can say it is declining, it does not look significant.

Sep 30, 2008

Stupid MS office searching.

Mac has good User Interface for searching services.And MS Office also has similar one.But it works poorly.
Hmmmm Stupid MS...

Sep 26, 2008

Democracy in China

I like to summarize one of the articles written by noza park, who is a professor in Oslo public University in Norge.

One of my students who are interested in the movement in Tibet asked me "Do you think China will have democracy when they arrive at a certain level of economy?"
I answered that:
The example of Singapore shows that the relationship between the level of economy and democracy is not always related.
Even when economy grow up fast with a lot of investment, democracy is impossible unless middle class support workers, so called "union for democracy."
Unlike Korea Singapore didn't have that kind of cooperation, and Democracy remained as a dream of a few scholars.
Let's see the middle class in China.
Can we expect they will support workers?
The answer is certainly no unless world depression stops their growth.
"Why do you not believe that China can be democratic"
This is a typical question from Norge students.
When I ask "what do you think", then most of them mention "Economics level" or "Regime difference for the different regions."
I, of course, think they are the part of the truth, but it is not able to explain all.
Now China shows GDP is about 3 thousand dollars per person.
This is almost like the level of Korea in mid 1980.
At the time in Korea the popular topics for young people were "Resigning dictator", or "Democracy."
In contrast the popular topic in China now is "Raising up China (中華堀起)."

*PS:
10,170,000,000,000 / 1,321,851,888 = 7,694 dollars / person
(* Notice the difference of years for each.)

Sep 23, 2008

Contradiction of Neoliberalism

This is brief summary of this page:
Capitalism is going down, and it is the time to think about next.
http://www.leejeonghwan.com/media/archives/001225.html
This is an interview article with one of Korean economy professors.

The first crisis started from 1873 to 1895.
Since productivity increases dramatically, the profit ratio decreased fast.
So that many of factories stopped, and it results in depression.
At the time, big monopolized capital appears and it recovered profit ratio.

The second crisis started from 1930.
The giant monopolized capitals also could not avoid the dilemma that high productivity decreases profit ratio.
This time states are involved to save the reproductivity of labors by public services and social security.
It is called Keynesian or national monopolizing capitalism.
Market could survive, because it replied on States.

Now the solution for the third crisis was the Neoliberalism.
The Keynesian brought profit to monopolized capitals, but it failed to increase actual productivity.
In order to overcome the limit Neoliberalism chosen to abolish the functionalities of State, which was supporting the market.
It is self-contradiction.
Neoliberalism tries to abolish States, but it also have to rely on the States.

It is dilemma that market abolishes States.
State does not let market die.
Depression can be overcame by the way that giant capitals die out and preparing new circumstance.
State involves in the situation and tries to alleviate the contradiction so that it slows down, and prolongs the period of depression.
All the cost come from Tax, and the burden goes to everybody.
It is clear that the reason why the world economics doesn't go to critical depression is because States work.

Sep 22, 2008

Windows 7

Puhahaha...
Microsoft is making new version of Windows, called Windows7.
I can guess how much they have failed by Windows Vista.
I think Vista failed at the competing with its competitor, which is Windows XP.

Why did Vista fail?
One of the reasons I guess is that it requires too much high performance hardware.

I don't have much information for Windows7. But I hope this version get faster than Vista, which is hardly expectable.

Sep 18, 2008

First They Came - Martin Niemoller

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
This is Korean version.
그들이 처음 왔을때 / 마르틴 니묄러.

나치는 우선 공산당을 숙청했다. 나는 공산당원이 아니었으므로 침묵했다.
그 다음엔 노동조합원을 숙청했다. 나는 노동조합원이 아니므로 침묵했다.
그 다음엔 유태인을 숙청했다, 나는 유태인이 아니었으므로 침묵했다.
그 다음엔 나에게 왔다. 그 순간에 이르자, 나서줄 사람이 아무도 남지 않았다.
This is Germany version, I believe:
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
Although just small group of people suffer, it is related with my life. Don't forget.

The difference between LIBERAL and CONSERVATIVES

I found a good movie article in TED.
It is about politics and psychology.

Jonathan Haidt: The real difference between liberals and conservatives
Now we found a connection between psychology and politics based on human nature.
I think this is great.

Sep 16, 2008

EJB ( Enterprise Java Bean )

I have heard about EJB all the time since 5 years ago.
And yesterday I have found what it is.
It was actually not so complex.

I though it was a big library collection like STL or MFC.
But it wasn't.

The EJB technique reminded me of the memory pool technique in C++.
EJB container instantiates some of Bean classes, which is Business logic classes.
And then it manage them, allocate them, and release them.

There are three different types of beans: stateless, statefull and message driven.
I don't know the details for each one yet. But it must be basically same.

One can find good tutorial Here:
http://java.sun.com/javaee/5/docs/tutorial/doc/bnblt.html

I recommend one see the example files first:
http://java.sun.com/javaee/5/docs/tutorial/doc/bnbnb.html

Sep 13, 2008

Checking capital characters for password.

One of my favorite web site is We Disk: http://global.wedisk.co.rk
One day I have typed in Captial characters as my password, and the web site showed this pop-up message.
The meaning is that
if your "Caps lock" is turned on, password will be wrong.
I think some of people might intentionally use "Caps lock" when they type in password. But it is good to notice the users all the time.

In addition, I like the simple image that the pop-up message uses. It is instinctive.

Sep 11, 2008

No end in sight, 2007

This is summary of the documentary, "No end in sight, 2007". This is for Iraq war.

US army didn't stop Looting. Army stand in each intersection and do nothing but saying that we are here not for stopping lotting. It encouraged robbery to other places.

In side of US government, they didn't communicate well. People who are charged in significant role had no experience, no plan, no frequent communication. And they most of time stay in Washington not in Iraq.

CPA made three bad decisions.
  1. Stopping the formation of an interim Iraq government.
  2. De-Ba'athification.
  3. Disbanding the iraqi Military.

Baath Party had played significant role for Iraq society in education and techniques. But since they are founded and supported by Saddam, CPA dismissed the party and all of them become unemployed.

Soldiers are suddenly unemployed. Iraq become worse not only in the sense of security but also in the sense of economy. There was demonstration by former soldiers, and become more violent. Their way for insurgency is professional: bombing and ambushing.

$18 billion in reconstruction money was made available on Oct 1, 2003 by congress. One year later, only $1 billion had actually been spent. There are a lot of corruption and wasting.

US soldiers arrest a lot of Iraqis. Even in mid night when people hear sound of helicopter or tanks, they wake up and prepare to be investigated. Many of them are just missing or die. Army doesn't disclose the number of Iraqis arrested or detained in Iraq since 2003 and even now.

All of this kind of insurgency result in the growth of religious group can giving them political power. They are explosive and aggressive to America.

Security is horrible. Kidnapping, bombing, and killing are happening. Kidnapping is not only for one or two people, but for group of people. Violent gangs or private security guards just kill people on street. Some of them made a home video that shows just killing people in cars without any reason.

Direct war cost to date: 379 Billion.
Future military operating costs: 389 Billion.
Veterans health care and lost productivity: 482 Billion.
Other defense equip and personnel cost: 160 Billion.
Oil price effects: 450 Billion
Total costs of Iraq war: $1.860 Trillion

Sep 5, 2008

Why is summer hotter than winter?

I have found a interesting question at TED site.
Why is summer warmer than winter?
Is it because during summer, the earth gets closer to sun?
Then you might imagine ellipse shape of the path of earth around sun like this:
But actually it is not true. It is not ellipse.
In fact it never gets closer at all like this:

The real question is that why do we come up with the ellipse shape for the path?
I think it is because we have never experienced about solar system ever.
Or we have not had any chance to think about the path.
I have never seen the Mars by my eyes.
I have never checked any path of any star.

Lack of experience stupifys us.

Aug 19, 2008

Weta in North America.

I think my house has Cave Weta.
According to wikipedia, they live only in New Zealand, but my house has.

Actually I'm not sure what they are.
1. They don't have any wing, so I don't think they are cricket.
2. I have never heard they make sound, and only cave weta among all kind of wetas doesn't have ears.
3. They appear usually at night, and weta is nocturnal.
4. They look like grasshopper, but they have too small eyes; actually I cannot see their eyes.
5. I suspect they come from basement of my house, which feels like cave.
6. They are easy to be caught; they don't run away much. I guess this means their eyes are so bad.

Only one strange thing is all of web pages says they live only in New Zealand. But I'm living in North America. This might be a big discovery in Entomology.

Aug 12, 2008

Pixel and Inch in Adobe Photoshop

When we talk about image size in computer graphics, we generally use Pixel measurement.
One pixel is a dot, which only includes a color information, RBG.

The concept of Pixel is friendly to most of programmers. The problem, however, is it is not familiar to most of graphic designers. They are familiar with Inches.

It is because by default Adobe Photoshop, which is the most famous graphic design tool, use inches instead of pixel.

Then how large is 1 inch? The meaning is clear to designer, because it is 1 inch when they print out the picture; it is misunderstand that 1 inch is for the size on their screen. But it is depending on how much delicate the printer is. The more precise printer is, the more detailed picture they can print out.

So this is real question for a programmer. How many pixels is 1 inch? Because programmer should understand when a designer talk in inches world. A programmer need to know DPI, Dot Per Inch. For instance, 300 DPI printer can print out 300 pixels in 1 inch. That means 1 inch is 300 pixel.

Then how could we know how much DPI a designer is talking about? The photoshop show the DPI setting whenever we create a new canvas

Here this screen shot shows 72 DPI, which means 1 inch is 72 pixels; "Resolution" on this screen shot means DPI.Considering game developing, we shouldn't use inch measurement, because inch is for printing out, and most of gamers like to enjoy on screen not on paper.

Aug 1, 2008

Team Fortress 2

Today I bought X-Box live Gold member ship card.
So I have played Team Fortress 2.
It was quite fun. I have enjoyed a lot.
I like medic and soldier.

There are total 9 classes.
Medic gives me the feeling we are cooperating.
Soldier gives me the rocket launcher; I live this.
Spy was a little bit strange; they looks ally, but enemy.

I'm gonna play a little bit more.

Jul 26, 2008

The Road to Serfdom.

I have read the book written by F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom.
Generally I agree what he meant in the book.
His main idea is that socialism is bad because it is based on totalitarianism.

Even though I support socialism theory, I can also agree his main idea, because now none of socialists thinks Russia, China, East Germany, and North Korea are socialism country. How could I agree his idea, with supporting socialism idea? It is because Hayek didn't separate totalitarianism from socialism; he strongly said it is impossible to separate, and this is only one I disagree.
I'm not gonna summarize his idea but I want to write a little bit of my idea.


About Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is as bad as Nazism. Its main idea is group can sacrifice individual. Patriotism and nationalism are also in the same category. I totally agree totalitarianism and collectivism is so bad. And they are directly oppose that of democracy.

Just one thing I cannot agree is that Hayek said totalitarianism is inherited and inevitable characteristics of socialism. Where does this idea come from? I read carefully but I couldn't find the reasoning. All I have found is Hayek said since socialism has developed mostly around Germany and Italy, they are combined. But I want to point out one fact, that Marx has never agreed totalitarianism or collectivism. In fact Marx could not have any chance to hear about any of them, because all of them have developed after Marx died. Actually Hayek has never cited directly what Marx said. Most of his examples came from Russia, and East Germany. I think this is weakest point of his book.

Hayek, in addition, said nationalized central planning system doesn't work in real world. But does socialism always require centralized production system? I agree totalitarian would insist centralized production system is the only one way to achieve socialism society. But what if we can implement democratic socialism not totalitarianism socialism? Hayek would deny any possibility to separate totalitarianism from socialism. I think it made sense 60 years ago, because many of even socialists though totalitarianism socialism or national socialism is the only one way to go to socialism society. But now none of them thinks Russia, China, East Germany and North Korea are successful model. It is clear that the experiment has been failed. We got much more experience.


About Planning

Hayek partly agree in some small space planning production system works fine, but mostly his idea is that "decentralization has become necessary because nobody can consciously balance all the considerations bearing on the decisions of so many individuals." He spent lots of pages, I think about 50% of the book, explaining why planning system is bad. But I found most of his way is finding and using some bad cases in real world, not using reasoning way. For me his way is like this; many of Christian are bad, so Jesus was bad. I understand it is hard to logically prove planning system is bad. But I think it is far fetched idea that most of planning production system is bad.

I see even in free market, they seems like freely compete each other, but inside of each company has their own strong plan. How could we image a company has no plan for their product? It is still true even in big company such as Microsoft, Samsung, and Apple. They even announce their next year plan to public. Their planning starts from Market Investigation, and it will tell them how much customer could buy their product. Hayek said it is impossible to predict the demand from so many individuals, but in real world most of company investigate, estimate, and plan.

I think whether planning system is inferior than free market is kind of old fashioned argue. One of a famous politician, Ryu Si Min, already have wrote this idea in his book. When I had first time read it, I just laughed. But for two years I found his reasoning makes sense. He said it is outdated ideologic argue.

I agree distributed system performs better than centralized system. One of good example is Internet system. In fact we, computer scientists, can seldom develop a good distributed system, because it is hard to design and many of cases their results are unpredictable. For example, Internet system, a famous well designed distributed system, also shown up its security problems and limited number of IP numbers problem. Now computer scientists have developed next version of Internet system, called IPv6, but we don't use it, because changing from old system to new system will cost a lot.

It is far fetched conclusion distribute system is always better than centeralized system. All of them are depend on its external conditions. In this sense I agree in world sized market we need distributed market system, which capitalists call 'Free Market'. And I don't think centralized production system is only one solution that socialists always insist. It might be strongly true long time ago, but now they don't need to stick on centralized production system. Big question is not how to produce but who has the power.


About Democracy.

I could think Hayek insisted only free market can bring democracy. But unfortunately I cannot find direct mentioning from his book, because he only condemns socialism is way to Serfdom. But I can induce he means free market is the only way to Democracy.

I want to suggest a little bit strange perspective that a company system is very similar with Monarchy system rather than Democracy system. We have the election system for the president of a country. But why does we have not the election for the president of a company. Government system is now quite democratic. We are all appreciate. When I studied about U.S.A history, I was really surprised by what George Washington did for democracy. Democracy is big progress in man kind. But what about a company. Some of big companies are now even bigger than any of countries in our entire human history. But the system is strongly hierarchical and monarchic. I don't think basic characteristic of Capitalism is democratic.

What we need is more Democratic system than Capitalism. If someone simply say it is impossible, I want to remind that most of people said it is impossible to share a nation during Serfdom society.


About Socialism

I have heard many of socialists say Russia, China, East Germany, and North Korea are all national capitalism not national socialism. If we can consider a government as a big monopoly company, it can explain a lot.

Why those governments sticked in planning production system is because even in Capitalism system the inside of company goes on under a plan. Why those governments has strong hierarchy is because it is a big company, which is same in capitalism society.

I can find many of evidence they are capitalistic society. But I can hardly find any of evidence they are socialism society except only one fact they insist they call themselves socialism society.



Actually it is still controversial specifically what is socialism system. I'm sure none of socialists shares strong model. In my opinion, the simplest way to think about it is everything is same with now except one thing the workers who work in a company has the property right for their company as if people who live in a country has the power for their country.

* PS: in the reason of maintenance I'll erase every comment after I read.

May 19, 2008

Excluding check box User Interface.

I have found a small example for a bad User Interface.

This is the screen shot from True Image 11: (if the image is too small, you can click it.)
It looks fine. But this made one of Korean mistaking.
This User Interface assumes everybody can read English, but actually it's not true. So he checked in every check boxes, in order to make sure everything are included. I guess he didn't know what's the meaning of 'Exclude.' And he was crazy when he found his backup doesn't work as he expected.

I think most of cases, English Nouns are shared in Korean. But Verbs are not. So most of Korean might read:
  • "[ ] blabla.. all hidden files and folders"
  • "[ ] blabla.. all system files and folders"
  • "[ ] blabla.. files matching the following criteria"
So that they might check in every check boxes.

Actually the English word 'exclude' is not so hard. But I think it can be improved in better ways. For example:
  • "[x] include all hidden files and folders"
  • "[x] include all system files and folders"
  • "[x] include files matching the following criteria"
Since the meaning of check box is 'I want this,' when the sentence refers whether including or excluding, it's better to follow the traditional meaning. Or using icons can be an alternative way.

True Image 11

I have found a amazing backup software: True Image.

This True Image is almost similar with Norton Ghost, which is a famous image backup software. But this is more powerful and easy.

Here is the comparing with Norton Ghost.
  • Norton Ghost requires at least 512M ram. But True Image doesn't have limit.
  • Norton Ghost requires you to make a 'Restore CD'. But True Image doesn't. When you boot up your computer, you can get into the restoring process, pressing F11 key.
  • Norton Ghost doesn't have any function to change the size of original partitions, so you need to find other software such as Partition Magic. But true image has the function to change the size of partitions.
Yesterday I have reinstalled the Windows XP on a old computer. Actually installing windows itself is not so long. But the problem is updating from windows update site. It usually takes 4 hours. After finishing updating, I tried to back up entire system. The true image made a new 6G partition to store the backup data. It means the size of my original HDD decreases from 18G to 12G.

Clean your computer, using AJAX.

This is just for fun.
AJAX is a famous computer terminology. But there is a cleaning item in Korea called AJAX as well.