Today, I found some interesting sites and their idea behind these sites are very cool!
1. www.googleguide.com - Guide you to use google
It's cool because google is the most powerful tool for guys nowaday. If you can find the resources you want, you have been successful more than a half. So this site is worthy to take a look!
2. www.flickr.com - almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application
interesting features:
add notes and tag to the picture, telling people the story behind each picture;
you can create family group, special group for some events and share photo with members;
Full RSS and Atom support;
a mobile version of website for mobile phone and PDA to see your latest photos in any where;
group photo pools. Every member of the group can upload related photo on one place;
Also memtion its company blog: http://blog.flickr.com/ (It has been a habit of me to check the company blog of any product/company.team)
3. www.upcoming.org (its help: http://community.upcoming.org/) - It's very popular to make anything socialable, blog, wallop (microsoft), photo sharing. This is another new idea about social software. Global event calendar - share your events with your friends and track the interesting events of other guys. The idea inside it is simple and interesting!!!!
4. http://www.musicplasma.com/ - find the potential interesting movie/music for you. My computational intelligence lecturer recommend this website to me. It shows the application of visualization techniques. Showing other relationship of your interesting stuff with others, it's fantastic and useful for you to get something is insterested to you and you don't know!!!!

The pioneer retrieval engine of music/audio

SingingFish: http://search.singingfish.com

GoFish: http://www.gofish.com

AllMusic.com: http://www.allmusic.com

FindSounds: http://www.findsounds.com (interesting site - can search different sounds, sound effects and musical intrument samples)

Gracenote: http://www.gracenote.com/music/

Online Music Record Database http://www.towerrecords.com/Music/Default.aspx?adv=1 Yahoo Musicmatch (http://music.yahoo.com/): what I am interested is its original version. I can't find it now.

Web 2.0 is a new evolution. I recently learned this interesting concept and decide to follow its development. It is promising because of my personal explaination. The core idea of web 2.0 is social sharing. The new century is the information world. The numerous information make everyone lost! Even for best expert in web surfing can only exploit a small part of the big cake. How can you image you lost lots of interesting and important information. Maybe you will lose your business, your money, your success because of that. Web 2.0 is a evolution for that. Social applications, social network provide social concept to everyone. Share your information and knowledge, transact with others and get more useful information from others. With the help of web 2.0, everyone can stand on the shoulder of a giant which is the sociaty built by everyone including you. From What is Web 2.0 written by Tim O'Reilly, web 2.0 based application has the following characteristic:
Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
Trusting users as co-developers
Harnessing collective intelligence
Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
Software above the level of a single device
Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models
Before the appearance of Web 2.0, I have heard that the service will be future of IT 2 or 3 years ago. And some pioneer like IBM has focused on provide service for business. However, only few service-based compnay achieved success like ebay, amazon etc. And for myself, I was not aware of how service can faciliate users like myself at that time. Why? recently, when I was really impressed by the power of social service, I get to know the answer. Service is created by social but not IT companies. Because of the variety of everyone, the services provided by the company always cannot satisfy large society of users. That's the reason why old services doesn't attract my attention (maybe the same to others). Web 2.0 proposes social service. It is fantastic and exciting because the service is not static anymore, every user would make the servie better, more users would make this service more powerful. That's the core of web 2.0. collective intelligence (social application, blogging) is utilized transparently to extend service & knowledge. The collected knowledge database is valueable. The following is just an example of myself to reveal the power of web 2.0 social service. Traditionally, I use the bookmark function of the web bowser (IE ago but now Firefox). I definitely use it but it doesnot mean it is very useful for me. Because the web is dynamic system (update every second), the site I collected become out-of-date very soon. And I am always not sure whether this site is best (provide most useful information for my topic) or not. Now I am using social bookmark (del.icio.us). When someone introduces it to me for the first time, I decide to use it and store my bookmark on the web thus can be used on each PC. But later, I found its true power: I can share the knowledge of others. I can find the most important site I want even I am not an expert of using google. I cannot find the most exact information from google (because my poor english, and who can say he can always find the best information ?). But I can find a common related site. And find the guys also having this site in social bookmark applications. And finally find the most useful information from this category (the site which is bookmarked by many people). This assumption is analog to the pagerank algorithm of google: More people (link) connected to this information, more interesting and related it is. And when I find new interesting site, I add it to the social bookmark application. I am not only helping myself, also extend the knowledge fundation of the system. Whatever the information I found is best, common or bad, it is helpful for others. Next time, when someone find the same site (means he is searching the same topic and accidently get the same site with me), he can through my connection to locate the most popular information of this topic. Very exciting web 2.0 social service. It is just the begin but not the end - For web 2.0 social service as well as my series blogging about it!!!!!!

- How to make full use of handheld devices for mobile entertainment and study in the bed? - How to access internet using handheld devices at home without wireless network?- How to access internet using handheld devices without Wi-Fi wireless support?
This article exhibits an interesting solution for above questions. If you have a handheld device (PDA) with support of Bluetooth, how can you enjoy it when you are in the bed at night? The possible answer are playing game, listening music, watching video or else. But the most valueable source - Internet can't be accessed when you are in the bed. Even your PDA has the support of Wi-Fi wireless support, your home environment maybe have not a wireless network available. Is there any possible solution to provide the internet access to mobile device without wireless network? The answer is definitely Yes. Through bluetooth, the LAN internet connection can be shared to the mobile devices and provide internet access ability for these devices. In the following, a detail procedure of how to set up this environment will be described.
1. Hardware RequirementUSB Bluetooth Adapter - Used on Notebook and Desktop PC to provide bluetooth interconnection;Bluetooth-enabled Handheld Device - The target device of this solution;Desktop PC or Notbook with LAN Internet Connection - Provide LAN interenet connection for sharing;
2. USB Bluetooth Adapter InstallationDon't use the default window driver for the USB Bluetooth Adapter - Windows Bluetooth Simulator, it can't work for USB Bluetooth Adapter. You should update its driver using the attached CD. Select the proper driver from the driver list to update the driver. After installing the adapter, right click the bluetooth icon on the system tray, open the Advanced Configuration dialog. Configure the Network Access to allow other devices to access Internet/LAN through this computer.
3. Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) Set UpThe next step is Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) set up. After installing the bluetooth adapter, you can find a Bluetooth Network in your Network Connections. This virtual connection provide the access ability for different bluetooth devices. The default IP for this connection is "192.168.0.1" which will be used in the configuration of PDA. ICS is configured by the procedure: right click the LAN connection and select Properties. In the Advanced tab, check the option of "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection" and select Bluetooth Netowork as Home network connection.
4. Handheld Device Bluetooth ConfigurationTo share the LAN connection of notebook or desktop PC, the handheld device should be assigned a internal IP address to connect with the notebook or desktop as a personal network. After select Start->Settings->Connections->Connections->Advanced->Network Card->Bluetooth PAN User Driver, set the internal IP address of PDA such as "192.168.0.3", network mask "255.255.255.0" and Default gateway as "192.168.0.1" and the DNS IP address.
5. Bluetooth Connection for the Use of Shared Internet ConnectionOpen the Bluetooth Manager and create a new Connection. In the Bluetooth Connection Wizard, select "Join a personal network" instead of "Connect to the Internet". In the next dialog, tick the option "Join a personal network". Finally, select the PC or notebook providing LAN connection, create a shortcut of connnection and connect.
After above find steps, now your handheld device has prepared for internet connection. You can open an Internet Explorer and view the web page through internet.

Keyword: Chinese Support, Chinese Display, HP IPAQ, PPC
As a chinese, I need to read chinese webpage. Sometime, I also need to input chinese character (But seldom on PDA). So I require my HP IPAQ H5550 to support chinese. Unfortunately, the Window Pocket PC 2003 OS is the english version and doesn't support chinese defaultly. After checking the related information using google, there are three ways to add chinese support to HP IPAQ.
1. Refresh the IPAQ OS to the chinese version of Windows Pocket PC 2003The advantage of this method is chinese version of os has the build-in support. But the chinese version os does not support english so well. What we need is my PDA can support english well in english context and support chinese well in chinese context. What's more, updating the rom is a risk for common users.
2. Use Chinese Supporting Plug-in SoftwareCE-Star V2.2 for PPC2003: One of the most popular chinese plug-ins. It supports multiple input methods and support both simplified chinese and traditional chinese, even for japanese. Good performance for hand-writting recognition.Pocket Knife V2.04 for PPC2003: A famous chinese suite for PPC. It is a embedded chinese system not a plug-in which make it more stable and compatible. It also supports traditional chinese and japanese as well as multiple input methods. A special keyboard layout helps to improve input efficiency. Another advantage is the GoGoPen hand-writting recognition system. ClearType font is built-in supported for this software.Monster Chinese 2003(EN) V4.0 for PPC2003: Another famous chinese integration system. It also use embedded system. Simplified/Traditional Chinese and Japanese are supported. Both TrueType and ClearType fonts are supported. It adds chinese support for PPC Outlook, IE and ActiveSync.
All these software can be downloaded from http://www.mypocket.com.cn
3. Modify OS Files to Support PRC Region and Chinese FontsIf we can set "PRC" as the default region in the Region Settings in the Control Panel, the english version of OS will support both chinese and english well. This is a common thing in desktop PC. Similiar to PC, there is a solution for PPC. But english version window pocket pc 2003 does not have "PRC" option in Region Settings. wince.nls is the file in PPC which controls the default language. We can download the wince.nls of chinese version OS and replace it to support chinese language. The procedure also need to update the reg information (e.g. use TascalRegEdit to import xxx.reg file into register table). If you want to use some chinese font in your system, you also need to copy the font file (xxx.ttc, xxx.ttf). Some guys develop a install package for chinese supporting. It is a *.cab file. Copy this file to your PPC and execute it. After soft resetting, your system will support chinese. (B.T.W, for compatibility, it is better to backup your old wince.nls).
Chinese Support Install Package: http://www.hanzify.org (2003中文支持包)
I try the third method and it is simple and effective for my HP IPAQ H5550.

From the view of mine, reading rss headlines of news, websites as well as blogs is the most popular and useful application for mobile devices. With the popularity of blog, exchange and discussion through personal blogs is a useful communicating ways in our internet life. Mobile devices facilitate us to read blog anywhere and anytime.
NewsBreak 1.0 coming from Ilium Software Inc. maybe the possible best, user-friend rss reader for Pocket PC. Another possible good software is Egress.
Channel ManagementMultiple options is provided to add Channels (RSS feed) including import from a file (*.opml) which can be exported from your desktop rss reader software and seach online for channels as well as manually input rss feed address. Channels on your PPC can be exported as *.opml to your Desktop PC inversely.

Keyword DefinitionThis is a very cool feature on Newsbreak which makes users to find the more interesting stories on the top of headline list. "By define a list of special words and icons associated with them, when a headline is downloaded with one of these keywords it will be flagged with the corresponding icon." (coming from review article of Geekzone). You can also define the alerts based on these keywrods. Whenever a headline including specific keyword is synchronized, an alert will be received.

Auto UpdatingDifferent from many other rss readers for PPC, NewsBreak allows update over any connections: wireless LAN, ActiveSync, GPRS/CDMA and so on. Also there are options to define update frequency, either on general level or at individual channel level: when to update or wait until a connection is available. One possible usage is that when the battery of your device is low, you maybe wish not update until your device is powered.

Related Article:NewsBreak for Pocket PC Review, http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=3594NewsBreak Homepage, http://www.iliumsoft.com/site/nw/newsbreak.htm
FAQAfter you install the NewsBreak, if you meet "Unspecified Error" when you load the headlines. Just disconnect and reconnect your PPC.

Just read a news from http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/. It is talking about skype for smartphone. Skype is the most famous VoIP application on windows platform. It outperforms MSN and other Instant Messaging (IM) softwares in connection between two hosts blocked by firewall. Applying VoIP application in smartphone has a brilliant future since it can utilize Wi-Fi wireless network or share wired internet connectiong through Bluetooth for voice chatting.
One example scenario:You have a unlimitted broadwidth internet connection at home. You are an enthusiastic chatter oftening spend much money on phone fee on chatting with friends or spend much time on chatting with others using IM in front of the computer. Now Smartphone and Skype on it will provide more fun of chatting and reduce your fee. By sharing your broadwidth internet connection through Bluetooth, you can chat with others using your smartphone when you are walking arround at home. The advantages of this solution is as follows:
Chatting across one fixed unlimitted broadwidth. So no additional phone fee is required. You will pay $0 for chatting. You can chat as long as you like;
Two guys can talking through internet by both using smartphone. The chatting experience is much better than IM on computer because it is like chatting on phone;
No need to sit in front of the computer, you can chat while lying in the bed, while watching TV and so on. And your eye can be relaxed from computer monitor for rest;
Possible disadvantage is that if you chatting too much, there is a more possibility for radiation sickness. :)
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好奇心特重的我2007年又要赶时髦了，我决定开始使用Flock作为我的缺省浏览器。这个决定来自于"生活中必不客少的Web2.0公司" （“2007: Web 2.0 Companies I coundn't Live Without”）。而其中能引起我的兴趣的就是这个整合blog编辑的功能，你可能drop and drag任意网页和内容到blog编辑器，来编写你自己的贴子。不知道这样的整合特性，能否使得一个没有写blog习惯的人，变得经常写blog记录自己的思路，与其他人分享?

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Are you using both web2.0 portal (e.g. Netvibes or PageFlake) , web-based aggregator (e.g. Bloglines) as well as desktop rss reader in different environments like me? If so, have you suffered from the pain about updating a new RSS at multiple sites. The following is my experience:

I see an interesting site with RSS feed, I first add it in my bloglines feed list (This is easily finished by firefox livelines plug-in). However, if I don't update the opml files of the other sites previously imported from bloglines, I cannot read this new interesting site in other environments. I have to do this manually and it is very boring!

Today, I come out a new idea about this issue called - RSS of RSS. RSS is used to synchronize the content of individual distributed site for central access. By extending the scope of RSS, this can be applied to any content that are to be accessable elsewhere. For opml files, the solution of creating a RSS feed for my feed list and using RSS instead of importing OPML will easy our life! We only need to update a centralized location and other environment will automatic update!

From my point of view, the most beauty of web app is its distributed property: I can solve my problems at anywhere. Given a computer with network connection and browser, I can finish my jobs. However, there is a conflict requirement for Centralization. What do users want to centralize - the data which is the most important resource for any company like Google, Yahoo! and any other web companies.

There is a problem distributed and centralized for user data. For user, different categories of web applications help users to handle different problems. But they are not seperated. Every application needs to connect to each other for achieving better integration and really faciliating users' job. For example, the online project management platform need to connect to the online email platform to integrate contact list of team members. If the system rebuilds contact list or import contact list from email system, the user data is distributed by constructing a local copy. If the email system provides an API for other systems, the user data is distributed by sharing access. But considering the update of distributed data within other systems, the seamless integration requires the data are updated centralized. Undoubtedly, user possiblely need to update the distributed data in other systems (e.g. When I do the project management work, I need to add new team member to the contact list.). If the data is updated only in the local copy of the user data, the user data will become unmanageable.

Although the service provider always wish to collect more user data for their own platform, it is painful for users to maintain multiple copy of their data. The better user experience can be achieved by the way that users can access their data from any related system but the update can only be centralized to one source. Just imagine that whenever we need to use user profile, we only have one source (e.g. MySpace profile/MSN profile) and whenever we need to use contact list, only the contact list within email system are accessed and updated! If Using RSS synchronization to access data is called forward synchronization, can something called backward synchronization be implemented automatically? For example, the RSS provider keeps tracking its clients which synchronize the centralized data by RSS feed, if there is an update in any client, it automatically update the centralized data.