moving home to alanhtang.com

Finally a place called home.

10 weeks secret project

Just to get this off my chest, I planned the project for already few years, now I have the chance to do it. It's already on going for 2 weeks, it's going well. Unfortunately I have to apologize here for not able to disclose more detail on it. Because it's a secret:).

Most of my spare time I will spend on the project, which means a lot less party, less going out, less sports, less fun...

The good thing is it's a quite rewarding experience, not only my long term plan will benefit from the project, but also from the project I can gain stuff. I'm still loving it.

However it's not a easy job, it requires much work and dedication, so I need to work harder than before. For people who know me, please don't ask me what project is it, when time is right, I will share it with everyone on the blog.

Hey happy children's day, pls come back to this blog if you find it interesting.

btw, Summer outing is out in my company, and week after next week, my team is going out for a fancy French restaurant. Bye for now.

Sleepless in Haas (Shanghai)

Today I went to a Haas student chat in Shanghai. 2 student of class 2008, 1 student of 2007 admit and about 15 prospect students attended.

Haas is very popular among applicants in high-tech industry. According to Patrick and Momo Haas gives out about 15 offers each year to PRC. This year about 6 are going says Momo. 1 from Shanghai(Momo) 5 from Beijing. Each year one scholarship (tuition waiver) for PRC usually to the highest GMAT score. So target adjusted to 750 for me...

What I learned the most today is that it's okay to go to study MBA without a detailed plan. Ping challenged that I don't have management experience so I didn't know what I am going for my career. Patrick said today most people going for MBA don't have a detailed plan about what they gonna do later. But it's important to have a direction, it's okay when you finish your MBA and say hey I want to do something else. I will either do product management/product marketing or start-up in high-tech for my career. So MBA will be a good tool for me to reach that goal.

It was a nice district, however the bar chosen(Old Movies) was not so good. The bar ripped us off by demanding each of us ordering at least 50 RMB (around 7 USD) tea/snack/coffee.

A music video I enjoyed today

It is on the tip of every one's tongue. This song just sings it out. It's true, people just need to get a bit closer...

Bonus video: Travis - Closer

New apartment

Today I signed the contract with the new landlord for an apartment. 2 years in Shanghai it's the 4th apartment I will be moving in next week.

The interior of the apartment is a bit old, the building was built in 1990, I saw some neighbours today, they seem nice. The landlord wanted to have the apartment painted during the "Golden week" of May, My girlfriend and I decided to paint it ourselves and pick up our own color.

So golden week project 1. paint the apartment 2. decorate it a bit 3. move in.

Budget planning and pictures to be uploaded later.

So far, we need a dining table, 2 chairs, 1 reading table, 1 reading chair, 1 sofa, 1 microwave oven.

My current luxury (some may have seen) apartment's contract will end only in June, so I need to talk to my current landlord, hopefully she will agree to let me rent it out as the same price so we can end our contract earlier.

Virginia tech shooting

I got a message from Rachael telling me the shooting, then I looked up in CNN, then shocked.

Rumor says the gunman is from Shanghai, I am very worried, just like Bin Laden won't do any good to the image of Afghanistan student.I visited an apartment today, decor and floor is okay, price is also okay, location soso, but ok:), uploaded photo.

Here is a picture how my desktop look like:), I wanted a desktop PC, maybe after I move to the new apartment I will get one.

Update, confirmed from Metro news paper in Shanghai, the gunman is from Korea...

Belgium closing up

今天收拾房间翻出了比利时3年的房租合同， Tiensestraat 154, Tiensestraat 142, Fredrik Lintsstraat 59. 翻出了3年Fortis银行的Bank Statement， 还翻出了周老板给我做担保的担保书。
呵呵， 感叹岁月蹉跎啊， 转眼来上海也2年了。

Today I cleaned up my papers. I found my rent contract from Belgium, the addresses are Tiensestraat 154, Tiensestraat 142, Fredrik Lintsstraat 59, 3 houses in 3 years. I also found all my bank statement from Fortis bank, and the financial guarantee paper from Mrs.Zhou.

Life is like a box of Chocolate, luck is maybe at the next corner.

Take things for granted

Today my manager had some problem. Our video quality was not consistent over several boxes. The parameters were set by me. I received a report from our hardware engineer and later another hardware engineer told me to change them, I asked the later engineer if he is sure and want me to put on all boxes, he said yes, then I did the change.

The lesson learned here is that I took for granted the later engineer would communicate to the former engineer the change, which is now proven not the case:(.

I went to a restaurant and bought a take away for my dinner. When I got home, I found one dish I paid is not in the bag, I actually saw they put my fried rice in two boxes, and they gave 4 boxes. I ordered 4 dishes, so I took for granted they would put 2 of the dishes in one box.

Lessons learned, never take things for granted:). Always do some check, simple or complex, make your life a lot easier after wards

Back from Nanking

check out the web album

Pros

• Nice bullet-train ride from Shanghai to Nanking(though not as fast as bullet-trains in the rest of the world, well, not yet). 300KM in 2.5 hours, 3 stops in between.
• Hunan Rd is nice in the evening for food (if you like real Chinese food).
• Confucius temple, Qinghuai river are nice
  

Cons

• Youth hostel close to Confucius temple under poor management.
• Not as clean(organized) as other neighbouring cities

Rating: 3 out of 5
Conclusion: old capital, so it's old. Somehow not well maintained and developed in my opinion

Home sweet home

Time surely flys fast. Now I am home again for Chinese new year!
It's about 5 degrees Celsius here, and it's raining.
This is typical for my hometown. It feels very warm to be with my family. I take my camera with me so I will upload some pictures now and then.

Happy holidays everyone!

Back from Ningbo (宁波)

last last weekend, 2 days trip in Shanghai :) Pictures 2be uploaded later.
last weekend 2 days trip to a 4 hours away from shanghai city called Ningbo.

High

• Seafood is SOOO GREAT. I was so hungry and I keep eating eating and eating, so no picture of food taken this time. My apologies
• City is great too. A good escape from the hustle and bustle Shanghai.
  
• People are greater:). Nice and friendly (though I had a little water-fight using my paddle with a couple of local boys on the other boat)
• Taxi drivers are good. I mean they drive like F1 driver, yahoo!
  

Low

• A city like this should be 30 mins maximum from Shanghai~!
• Night life isn't as fancy as Shanghai
  
• There might not be enough high-end jobs for young professionals

Rating
4 of 5. Definitely a recommend if you have a few days to kill. I will visit there again, when there's plenty of seafood in autumn.

Check out the web album

7 habits of highly efficient people

There was a book 7 habits of highly effective people, this post is NOT about that.

The article I read when I am at work today (sorry, boss) is quite interesting. Here to share with you. The article is in Chinese. So can't share with those who can't read Chinese, I apologize. Here is the link:
http://www.psytopic.com/mag/post/918.html

Why I did this post is because I want to remind myself the last habit mentioned. Roughly translated as following.

Job itself doesn't bring you financial security. we can only win by independent thinking, creativity, learning ability, and flexibility; Being rich, doesn't mean you can be rich forever, what you can rely on is your abilities to build your fortune.

Spaghetti and HDR

Saturday, home made spaghetti dinnerRecipe (everything minced)
Meat, Tomato, Onion, Carrot, Red pepper, Mushroom, Garlic, Shallot, Ginger. All bought from local market



And of course CHEESE! (from local Carrefour)

and Chef

HDR is High Dynamic Range, it is a graphics technique, it makes you picture looks more like movie (or unreal). I would like to try to use this technique when I got my mini tripod. Basically I just shoot multiple pictures with different exposures so that I have all of the brightness levels that I want in my final image.

Back from Wuzhen (乌镇)

Extremely low budget trip to a old town. 140 KM to the west of Shanghai

Motivation: a TV soup (似水年华) was shot there.

Schedule:
S at, Jan 13th 14:50 Shanghai->Jiaxing (1h Train) 16:50 Jiaxing->Wuzhen(1 1/2 h Bus)
Sun, Jan 14th 12:50 Wuzhen-> Shanghai(3 h Bus)

Highs:

• Buildings & Old looking streets on the sides of the river (canal).
• Friendly local folks.
• Free sample of local distilled liquor.
  

Lows:

• Packed with tourists from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m most times of the year.
• Expensive entrance tickets.
  
• Most buildings and streets are (re)built in year 2000 with the old looking according to a local lady:(.
• "official" lodging and food inside the "scenic" area way to expensive
• The rest of the town is just as plain as other un-developed area in China.
  

Rating & Conclusion:
2 of 5. I would recommend you to take the day return trip from Shanghai, Hangzhou or other close-by city, if you insist to go there.

Online album.

Talk with general manager and Harvard Business School Reception

Today I got my Nikon P3 digital camera. I won't buy any accessories from them, cause since they sell the camera at this price and they charge a lot for the accessories, I will buy a 1 GB sd card and get me off ground.

Then in the afternoon I got a chance talking to the general manager of the innovation center I am currently working at. Basically we exchanged ideas on what I will do in 2007. At last he casually asked how I was doing, and I said I got my self some new nice gadget and did some serious thinking what I want to do in the near and far future. Then he said, care to share some thoughts ?and I said I was thinking about going back to school to do a Ph.d. Then he really gave me some good hints, he said I should picture what I might be doing in 5 years, and then try to put that image on myself see how happy I would be in that position and how much satisfaction I could bring to my self, and he said if I want to start a company of my own or bring more money probably a MBA is better(like my ex-boss is doing).

I registered a HBS (Harvard Business School) MBA reception in Shanghai few weeks ago, and it's tonight, I went there, it was MUCH more formal than the MBA reception of University of Chicago. I asked 2 questions
1. How many China Mainlanders they admitted last year
the guy is from career service department and the alumni are not current students so they guess the number was about 8-16.
2.Give 2 or 3 points what they like the most and hate the most about HBS
of course the answers vary.
I got the feeling that the competition's gonna be really tough there, there is a detail I noticed during the Q&A session, each of the 5 alumni has a mic and one of the alumni's mic wasn't working, 4 others sit there and did not offer to help, then the career service guy just couldn't watch it anymore and came up to offer a help.

Since I got the camera, I will try to take pictures from now on if I go to events like this. Excuse me for this time, I didn't charge the new battery ;).

My new gadgets

Got my HP Deskjet F388 all-in-one from www.newegg.com.cn this weekend. Reasonable price, reasonable performance. SOHO made just easier

I will get a Nikon P3 digital camera next week. Main buying factors are

• Mainstream DC, does 8 Mega pixels, 2.5" LCD. 1/1.8" CCD which enables better picture quality since most mainstream DC's use 1/2.5" CCD.
  
• Vibration Reduction, WiFi(though limited only for photo transfer to PC)
• Use SD card which is dirt cheap now. (around $12 for 1GB here)
  

Why? Why now?

Why moving blog?

Cause windows live space sucks in China. Few days ago there was a earth quake near Taiwan, it broke China's main fiber connection to the U.S. (See The earthquake broke my internet, Maybe we’ll get something better?). Rumor says Microsoft promised to run MSN and other service in China few year ago, but in reality it's not happening, after the earth quake only Gmail and Gtalk remain functioning. This has given me confidence in using google's service in China and thus it is why I am moving my blog to blogger (I can login using my google account).

Why now?

I have relocated (moved back) to China for 1 year and 5 months now, I think lots of Chinese people who studied abroad or studying abroad is watching China closely, so I would like to share my experience here. I wish it can help some of the overseas student community and thus share our unique experience.

Recommend

Today I would like to recommend www.linkedin.com for me, I can find my ex-boss, my ex-colleague, some of my college's friends and Professors and my current boss' boss on it:).