yongfeng’s Happy Life

Gmail can talk now. Nice feature, a long await feature I always expect to have.

Be reminded, the feature of saving the chat history which done via Google Talk should be available once you changed your Gmail settings. However, if you would like to perform the chat using Gmail within the browser, you can only use http:// but NOT https://, as of now. But certainly, chatting feature within Gmail will be widely available for both in the future.

Enjoy talk in Gmail :)

我们需要简单的生活。

如果还没听过反波(antiwave.net)的话，真应该去瞧一瞧，不不，是听一听了。 反波是一个podcast(很多人翻译做播客，但我认为译得不好，失去了个中的意味)。正如反波的主持人之一，flypig，在他的blog中所说，podcast就是带声音的blog。

虽说现在中文的podcast不是很多（去Odeo的tag中查一查，就知道了，才22个)，但也是有人尝试的。比如，博客网的动听播客就有好几个。反波之所以被很多人认为是当前最好的podcast，我觉得是因为反波的主持人把他们专长完全体现在他们的podcast里，显得很专业。平客是专业电台播音员和主持人，对旧的和新的流行音乐，对媒体的前前后后有很多了解。他也是反波podcast的主音。飞猪（i.e., flypig)的文彩了得，对媒体，特别是平面媒体，有细致的观察和独到的见解。不光是两位主持人的背景使得他们的podcast有了很专业的定位，他们的用心也使得每期节目质量有了保障。光是他们的主页，就看得出他们的用心和专业性。他们的podcast，选材比较新颖，时代感很强。敢于一吐为快，不做作，讲出事实灰暗的一面，说出故事背后的故事。语言的表达上，简洁干脆，诙谐幽默，听起来意味深长。加上平客的专业播音水准，使得他们的podcast更具有可听性和收藏性。如果不知道我为何如此评价，你只要听一听他们的podcast或去主页看一看就可以体会了。

到目前为止，他们几乎全部的podcast都很不错，我都听过。值得一提是这个平客讲的段子厕所，调侃的水平非只一般，题材更是贴近生活，关系民生。在笑之余，不难体会到种种对社会现实的讥讽和抗议。当然，其他的作品也都很好听。我老婆听了这个玩泡泡，更是笑了好久。而且还记忆犹新，每每都会问我关于平客的新段子。

这不，最近刚刚听了平客讲的新段子天津话。我也努力了好久，试着去听懂最后那首《让天津亮起来》的天津话歌。大略听出其中的意思，可还是很多地方听不懂。早就想找一下歌词，可今天我去看这个podcast的留言，却发现平客已经把歌词放进了留言版上了。听说是首禁歌（其实我也听得出来），这歌词的确精妙。特抄录在此。不难看出，反波在讲笑话时，也带给我们这么多发人深思的东西。

一句话，我特喜欢反波！

《让天津亮起来》

让天津亮起来呀（哦？）我们的速度快
五百瓦的大灯泡儿装上了阳台（嘿！）
稳定了灯泡厂啊，救活了窗帘厂
一举三得的好办法儿，谁能想出来（诶！）
谁能想出来。
让道路宽起来呀（豁亮！）
使劲把大桥拆（齐活！）
宽敞明亮的迎宾道儿，喜迎外宾来（呵！）

外宾要没来呀（等会儿）
出租别瞎开（躲躲躲躲！）
压坏了上好的柏油路
没法儿跟外宾交待（哎！）
没法儿跟外宾交待。

让天津富起来呀（好啊！）
百姓乐开怀（美！），
国有企业的下岗职工政府有优待，

建设要资金呐
又周转不过来（没事儿！）
年底欠你的退休金怎么也给几百（哎！）
怎么也给几百。

我们搞平改呀（对对对！）
楼房一块儿拆（别就乎！）
三千一平的顶房价儿
两天就涨好几百（啊？）

买房不用愁啊，到银行把款贷
大不了多还它几十年你不怕没地儿呆
耶？不怕没地儿呆呀

要跟上时代呀（哦？）
地铁修的快（利索！）
不到三年它小白楼儿
它修到了南门外（太快了！）

夜里它隆隆响啊，
白天土飞扬（戴口罩），
不怕堵车的时间长啊我们能忍耐，
哎，我们能忍耐。

（都说天津美啊，我真有体会，
明亮的街道处处是夜总会。洗浴加上来呀
也叫真实惠，
****的好机会给了我们外来妹，外来妹。）

我们迎奥运呐（上！），
设施要现代（哎！），
刚刚埋好的天然气儿，
也得挖出来（何不上来呀，烧的！）

**要出台啊，
福利加足彩（买！）
过去放的那个满天花
其实掏的那都那笔钱财
就是掏的那都那笔钱财。

天津文明起来呀（对呀！）
素质要高抬（哦？）
出租司机是关键
那模样儿得让人爱（奏折！）

先学普通话呀（您上哪儿？）
全力打拒载（敢！）
四百多一个的刹车灯
你妈借钱也得买，哎
借钱也得买呀！

那我们修津河呀（漂亮！）
臭水变清澈（没治了！）
有的那青年搞对象，不怕它蚊子多

卫生要维持呀，吐痰要克制（治！）
五讲四美的好市民，过河堵鼻子
耶？过河堵鼻子

那国际大都市呀（大！）
在广场放鸽子（放多少？）
撒出去一万只和平鸽飞回来二百多（不少了）

嫩绿的大草坪啊（嫩！）
精神与物质（好吃！）
确实丰富了老百姓手里的菜篮子
耶？手里的菜篮子

过去的和平路啊（或！）
那金街放异彩（哟！）
十字路口儿的大铜钱
财源滚滚来（大发了！）

溜完了滨江道啊
都来踩一踩
挥泪跳楼的大甩卖我恭喜你发财
哎，我恭喜你发财啊

天津啊天津，我可爱的家乡
你楼房上的灯泡儿，有我的梦想
啊天津啊天津，我可爱的家乡
你阳台上的灯管儿，有我的希望
啊天津啊天津，我可爱的家乡
你楼房上的灯泡儿，有我的梦想
啊天津啊天津，我可爱的家乡
你阳台上的灯管儿，有我的希望

Recently, I was so happily installed the Google’s new IM software: Google Talk. Two days ago (31 Aug, 2005), my Google Talk just refused to work. The Google Talk installed in my own labtop, running WinXP (SP2), is still working, the problematic Google Talk is the one installed on my office desktop running Win2K (SP4).

Initially, without rhyme or reason, I just hit a serious software error and program forced me to close it.
After launching it again, my “Sign In” button refused to do the job: always disabled (dim) no matter what I typed in for “Username” and “Password”. Hitting enter key did’t help also. I have tried to uninstall and install agin. No luck either :(

As usual, my immediate reaction was to delete all Google Talk related registry from the system after the second uninstall. No surprise, uninstall process clean almost everything relevant from registry. Good enough for the uninstallation. I need to say, I don’t like some of the programs which leaving a bunch of registry values even after uninstall them. Of course, some pure user configured data might be valuable to be kept for certain circumstance. So no much I can do with registry.

My third try: I went to Google’s download page to re-download the installation program and just hoped Google has put some new release. The latest download was indeed different from my initial download, as least, in terms of the file size. Unfortunately, the latest version also has the same problem — dim “Sign In” button.

I checked with my colleagues, they have no such problem. Also, the one in my laptop wa working fine. Just too bad for my poor office PC. I guessed there must be some software conflict causing such problem. I googled but couldn’t find any solution. I couldn’t even find anyone else who has the same problem. So, at the moment, I can’t “talk” using Google Talk at office time. I will keep my eyes open on this issue. Again, my poor office PC!

Related?: Google不talk (with a very similar title, but in Chinese and the topic is different)

Erik F. Kastner creats a very elegant (at least, I think so) online tool called “Spell with flickr” to generate words using photos appeared in Flickr.

The idea behind it is very simple, just using the Flickr’s One Letter, Punctuation and One Digit photo groups, together with the specific tag to accurately get the images for any specific character. The photo groups are used to get the a pool of images for the characters and the tag is used to get the extra matching on the character. The program randomly picking letter images corresponding to the input characters. What a ingenious idea!

From the output letter image series, you can easily change the individual character by just clicking the letter image itself, it will randomly pick another image representing the same letter. So, just finetune the images to get the desired output. Look at the letter images of “yong”, I chose quite a while to get all letters in the similar style of painting or carving on the stones.

Erik is so kind to provide the source codes (written in PHP) for public access.

Showcase (the following images are created by Mosaic Maker, another great cool Flickr online tool):

What we can see from this great fun tool is the power of the social sharing among the members in the society. Filckr users constantly and actively contribute their great photos, add them into the relevant group pool and tag the image appropriately. That ends up with the set of highly useful and self-explained images collection. Of course, we need to thank Flickr’s API which offers public services to accessing the photos and many other resources. Moreover, with more and more tools leveraging Flickr freely available to public, I think I just like flickr so much now!