Previously I focused on XSLT & CSS

During the intern period @ intel, I focused on the XSLT and CSS to organize some XML data into a kind of static website. I feel the strength of XSLT and CSS's simplicity. They're great. Now, I feel the difficulties and boring of WEB application's forefront development. HTML, CSS, Javascript -- all the three you should master them, not understand, mastering is important. Then XML & XSLT you need to learn more, as something is very easy for you to do by using them. Flash ActionScript is another tool, as many fancy drawing or special effects are created by Flash. Except all of these, some dynamic script languages are also needed, such as ASP.NET. I heard from some websites' essays. ASP.NET seems faster than others. But recently, some FastCGI applications report that they can provide more powerful functions and faster responding speed than other popular technologies....

In conclusion, web development involves many technologies, any one of them could reach your goal and there is no absolutely good or wrong. Better always exists. What you need is to master one and use it well.Last but not the least, to learn other better technologies fast.

Freemind 0.8 unstable maybe, 0.9 beta is good

I do not know why my Freemind 0.8 suddenly failed to load some files. It always pops up some error dialog and failed to open some files. I switch to the online website and want to find a new update version. Luckily, I find 0.9 beta, it looks better and currently, it works well for me.

By the way, mind mapping is a great tool. I use it to record something I want to do and some good things with relations. There is one defect, my laptop's screen is too small, I always can not have a overall view of the map. I use the 50% zoom-out, but I cannot read the sentences...A big LCD screen, a good keyboard & mouse is very important for IT engineer.

Firefox Again & GreatNews & Bloglines

Long time ago, I abandoned the firefox and start to use opera. There are some reasons. As Opera is faster than firefox, and it uses less memory, useful notepad and feeds reading tool. But recently, I do not know why, maybe I am bored of opera's support to many websites. A lot of sites do not follow the opera to layout. So some of them could not be seen regularly under Opera. I switch to Firefox again, with some very useful add-ons, such as Firebug, web developer, tab mix, mouse gesture, and blue star theme. It seems better than before.

GreatNews is an offline RSS reader. I tried some rss readers in recent days, such as Firefox-plugins(Sage, Brief, ...), google reader, zhuaxia, bloglines, Puto, etc. Fortunately, I find GreatNews. It is very fast and support large quantity of Rss well. Although some one may recommends oneline RSS reader, I like offline ones. They are more convenient, I believe. By the way, an online one is also needed for some reason. GreatNews supports bloglines, too. Then you can have them by using GreatNews.

Creative game, I believe

http://www.isoma.net/games/goggles.html


On this website, you can find a game based on google map. Although the graphic effect is not very good, the idea is more creative, I believe. People could use google map or earth create many new applications which are based on the real environment. This is better than Virtual Reality. As it is real~