Three Must Watch Speeches

Today I read a message in Weibo about three speeches one must watch in life-time. The first one is the speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford University. I knew this one long time ago. Actually this one is the one changed my view about Apple. In 2007 I switched my focus more on Apple, Mac OS, iOS and its related technologies.

The other two I do't know. I took time to watch them. They are also very inspirational ones. I like them very much. One is the speech by J.K. Rowling at Harvard University and the third one is the last lecture by Randy Pausch. Their in-deepth sight and passion hit my heart. I think that they will have the same influence and impact on my life as Steve Job did.

Here are speeches:

Steve Jobs at Stanford University

J.K. Rowling speech at Harvard University:

Randy Pausch's last lecture:

and Randy Pausch 10 minute speech:

At the tudou video sharing site, Randy's speech with Chinese subtitles:

Tips on using Microsoft Office

Here are two tips on using Microsoft Office. I use Microsoft Office at work on various works, including support and development documentations. Office documentations are common way to communicate at work.

The first tip is a simple one. In many cases, we need to copy content of an Excel cell as text. If you use normal copy by control+C key, actually you will get some extra information. This results in formats or extra carriage return be pasted. To copy text only, you can select text in the top input area next to toolbar items. Copy the text there will only get plain text only.

The second tip is about Word file. I like to use style to format text in word documentation. The style is something like css classes. You change one style, and all the text assigned with the style will be changed automatically. The second advantage is to layout the documentation by styles, such as title, heading 1, heading 2 and so on.

In the toolbar area, there one dropdown box for existing or current used styles. This list does not list all the predefined styles there. It is tedious to enable all the styles. One thing I noticed is that the dropdown box is editable. You can type in a style name. If it exists, it will be loaded. For example, Title is not normally in the list, but you can type it to bring it out. This is very handy way to use styles you remember.

Those are two very simple ones, but I use them very often.

Challenge: My Participation in Calgary Marathon 2013

Today I have registered the run of Calgary Marathon 2013, one day before the special register fee.

In the past month, I have practiced several times over the weekends to run along Bow River path trail. In about two month time, I'll challenge myself to run the full Marathon, the first try in my life time. I am very exited to take this challenge and going to prepare myself for the full run. My goal is to finish the run in about five hours.

Within my fundraising web site, I add a video of my previous practice running in March. One time I run from Edworthy Park to Prince's Island, Downtown Calgary, return back, and another time extended to Calgary Zoo, a return run. The third try was from Bowness Park to Calgary, but return only to the 7-11 store at Crowchild Trail on the Bow river side. I was exhausted.

I understand that this is a very huge challenge for me. I have never run the full length of Marathon before, even during my preparation in the past month. One thing I keep in mind is that I am not going to run very fast, but a none-stop run. I'll not run crazily to hurt myself, just within my conformable level. I know my limit, but I have several secretes to help to finish the run. I'll make my best effort to take the challenge. I hope I'll be able to make it.

As my effort to support Charities, I choose to raise funds for Alberta Cancer Foundation with my participation in the event. Please help me to donate your contribution as an incentive for my run.

References

• Calgary Marathon | Home
• My fundraising web page: Helping Daqing(David) Chu to Take Marathon Challenge
• Alberta Cancer Foundation
• How to prepare for Marathon: Marathon Training for Beginners

Nike+ Running App

Yesterday I had an another great run. This time I used Nike+ Running app for iOS to help me to record my running. I was going to get a Nike+ sensor, but I found that that sensor is only of iPod. Nike+ sensor is old technology. Now with iPhone GPS, there are many other better apps available for tracking running. Nike+ Running is one of them and it was free when I got it yesterday.

I gave it a try with close to two hour run, about 16+K. One of great features is that it, by default, keeps announcing my running status, such as distance, time and speed every one kilometer. I had clear picture of overall running. I kept running at even pace, so that I was able to control my energy during my run. After running, I can see my running statistics. All those data are also available at Nikeplus web site with my personal login. That's great. With this app, it will be great tool to know my strength, energy level and progress.

Here is my stat about my average speed:



The app saves my running route as a map:



And this are my overall numbers:



This is a great app!

References

• Nike plus
• Nike+ Running at iTunes Store

My Plan to Run Marathon

In the past 4 weeks, I have been in preparation for Scotiabank Calgary Marathon 2013. I got this news from a local news group. I was immediately attached by this event. The reason I am interested in this program is that I have been on a weight loss program. At the time I knew about the marathon, I was already in one week in the program.

Basically, the program is based on a package of products from Melaleuca. It recommends to change three meals in to three smaller ones. To overcome craving, it suggests to add two snack foods between meals. The snacks are Attain or GC Attain, which is based on a technology with natural ingredients to block craving desire. All those are for reducing calories input.

Another key element in the package is to use Melaleuca's exclusive and patented Access bar. The bar itself does not have feature for burning fat. However, it can block adenosine effect, which locks fat release when energy is required during exercise. In other words, by taking the bar 15 minutes before exercise with empty stomach, it will allow fat to be released when energy is required.

I like running exercise. It is a outdoor activity. By running long distance, it will push hard on my body for energy, as a result the energy from fat. I have never tried marathon run before. That's why I would like to take this opportunity try out Melaleuca's weight loss program.

This was my first long distance run on Mar 1, 2013. It was about 15k.

The second weekend I added another 5k, extended from Prince's island to Calgary Zoo. The last weekend I added another 10K starting from Bowness Park to Zoo, and then back to Crowchild Trail at river side. During those long distance runs, I used Access Bat to help me to get more energy power.

In addition to all those weekend runs, I intentionally do more physical activities during week days. In the past week, I started to walk from 4th floor (this is the only lowest one to access to stairs, 1-3 doors are locked) to 23th floor twice a day, and run from 15th to 23th once. Those are great exercises to help me to build strong muscles.

Another great product I use is the Pain-A-Trate. This one has great effect to reduce muscle sore or pain. Without it, I would not be able to recover so quickly from my muscle sores.

References

• Melaleuca Quick information: Weight Loss Program
• Larry Wang's article: How Does the Access Bar Work?
• Calgary Marathon

Use HTML Button Tag in Blog

This morning I read an article on web. The article is a long serials one, but it does not show the whole article on one page. Instead, it breaks down into small ones and placed serval buttons at the end of each one: First, 1, 2, ..., Last. I like this style. I immediately related this to my blog. Sometimes, I do the same thing, but I use UL LI list tags to show them as a list.

I did some investigation. What I found are three basic ones. First is to use DIV or UL LI with CSS. Although it does provides flexible and nice layout, it is a little bit complicated. The most concern I have is that I have to define CSS styles in my blog headers. This is not an issue in Blogger, but my other blog web providers do not allow me to add CSS styles.

The second method is INPUT tag. It is very simple. It provide a button like UI. However, it is a single tag with limited layout enhancement.

The third one is BUTTON tag. With this tag, any HTML tags can be placed within open and close tags. I like this one very much. Both INPUT and BUTTON utilize OnClick event to trigger click or hit event. For my blog purpose, what I need is to direct to another URL, either in current document or a new window. This can be done by client side JavaScript. I'll show this later on.

Here I give it a try in this blog.

The following codes define two BUTTON tags. By using inline Javascript, one will open a URL (Apple web page) in another new window and another open Microsoft web page in the current window. Within each button, there is an image content with text on the next line.

<button type="button"
 onclick="JavaScript:window.open('http://www.apple.com')">
 <img src="http://images.apple.com/home/images/billboard_ipad_hero.jpg" />
 <br/>Go to Apple... make my day!
</button>
<button type="button"
 onclick="JavaScript:document.location='http://www.microsoft.com';">
 <img src="http://compass.surface.com/assets/e4/38/e43802e2-8e9c-4fb9-80d6-f27fa6cf50df.jpg#1280_carousel_1_meet_surface.jpg" />
 <br/>Go to Microsoft... make my yesterday!
</button>

Here is another example with two buttons. I added a SPAN tag with TITLE attribute so that each button has a tooltip when you move mouse over the button.

<button onclick="JavaScript:window.open('http://davidchuprogramming.blogspot.com/2004/05/my-first-blog-entry.html')" type="button">
<span title="First blog">||&lt;&lt;</span></button>

<button onclick="JavaScript:document.location='http://davidchuprogramming.blogspot.com/2013/02/communication-between-mvc-controllers.html';" type="button">
<span title="Previous blog">&lt;</span>
</button>

Communication Between MVC Controllers

When there are more than two MVC controllers, controllers need to pass data or send notifications between two controllers. For example, a table list controller, parent, may push to an item edit controller, child, when an item is selected. The easiest way to is to set a property in child controller and pass the reference to parent controller to child's property. However, this strategy has one drawback: strong binding between parent and child controllers. In case the parent controller is changed to another kind of controller, the property of child has to be updated.

The alternative way is to implement delegate in Objective-C. Define a delegate in .h, then keep communication by defined methods in the delegate. Here is the steps of this strategy.

Define a Delegate

The delegate provides APIs to pass data or to send notifications. For example, the following codes define a update method:

@protocol MyEntityEditDelegate <NSObject>

- (void) updateEntity:(NSIndexPath *)index;

@end

Add a Delegate Property in Parent Controller

The next step is to implement the delegate property in the parent controller. This breaks the strong binding between the parent and child. The child will call parent by the delegate APIs.

@interface ParentListViewController :
    UITableViewController <..., MyEntityEditDelegate>

....
@end

Define a Delegate Property in Child Controller

The last step is to add delegate property in the child controller. This will let the child hold a reference to its parent by delegate.

@interface ChildEntityEditViewController : ...

@property (nonatomic, weak) id<MyEntityEditDelegate> delegate;

@end

Notice that the property type is id<...> type. This prevents the coupling between the parent and child.

What is the Next Big Thing for Apple

This is a question most people ask today. There are many rumors about iWatch, a wearable device can be attached to human body. Personally, I think this is a tip of iceberg, and it must be a part of Apple eco-system.

In the past, from Apple's WWDC seminars, I noticed that Apple has been very interested in BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) technology. There was a demo about using iPod touch as a BLE device to communicate with iPhone. This is a open standard protocol and has great application potential in many areas.

I remembered one Video of Steve Jobs' talking about what Apple learned from its past. Apple invested a lot in personal computer, OO technology and graphics OS. Steve was so fascinated with this. This came out of the result of Mac computer. One thing Steve mentioned that he missed out network and internet, the potential products in this area. Actually, from Apple's past, the company has invested a lots in this area with innovative technology, such as zero configuration networking or Bonjour.

With iPhone's success, I think this has been raised to top priority of Apple's next technology innovation. iWatch is just one device for motion monitor device (MMD). It seems that Apple is also working on motion event device (MED) as well.

The next big thing is built from the past technology or concept in Apple for long time. When it is out, I think it will be a big surprise WOW for consumers. This will be not just one single device. This is a whole system with iPhone and mobile devices. The innovation will be built on a solid system and it will an open system for developers.