A few years ago, a government job at any level was the first choice of those looking for work. It meant a secure position. The benefits were good and the work environment comfortable.

Goodbye to all that.

Now the search is for jobs with foreign-funded or joint ventures - especially if the job-hunter is young. The most impressive reason: assurance of a high salary.

As for me, I expect a job that displays my capablilities and offers me room for development.
Just as a coin has two sides, so does a person. Everyone has advantages and disadvantages. When looking for a job, I consider what I want. Then I make a choice that will best use my expertise. In a sense, the job should be a stage on which I can display my capabilities and show my value through achievements at work. A good stage can not only give me confidence but also put me in a position that allows me to do a better job. In addition, the sense of fulfillment will make me more confident and push me to work harder. Under those circumstances, I can make a successful career. The job I expect also should offer me room for personal development. I want to be able to pursue advanced studies. The knowledge ecomomy will play an increasingly important role: Everyone will strive to learn more.
To gain an edge in the increasingly heated competition, I need frequent opportunities to keep up with the latest advances.

Then, I want the chance to be promoted to a higher position because of my efforts. I don’t expect a very high salary, or status, at the beginning. But after a period of time. I’d like to be given a raise based on my performance. In other words, I would appreciate a reasonable incentive system. I don’t think this is too much to ask, of my employer or myself.

Since yesterday until now, you might have noticed that some images on this site can’t be loaded. The server on which those images reside became inaccessible because of DNS failure. But how to contact the administrator? That’s a question.

Well, thanks Google cache. I got their telephone number, QQ number, and alternative email address. The custom service girl told me that their DNS server had been recovered. But there is still a buffering time up to 24 hrs, during which DNS records should be updated.

March 10th UPDATE: not solved yet.

Picasa 2 (freeware)

On July 13, 2004, Google acquired Picasa. So you might have guessed the answer. Picasa is great at searching and organizing pictures stored everywhere in your machine. Picasa is tightly attached to other Google services(Gmail, Hello, Blogger). Picasa has a simple but florid user interface, and a bad support with GB2312.

IrfanView 3.95 (freeware)

Do you think your ACDSee 6.0 PowerPack is extremely slow? Although it is really more powerful than version 3.0, I just couldn’t bear its startup speed, slow like a snail. So if you were also hunting for a high-efficient image browser, you’d make a trial of IrfanView, which is on the top of my recommendation list. Believe it or not, its setup file size is only 856.5kB!

With various plugins, it can also handle text/audio/video files. This brings a shortcoming that you may find too much IrfanView icons(little red reptiles) in your computer.

Turbo Photo 4.2 (shareware)

It contains both an image editor and an image browser. I use Turbo Photo to resize images, enhance quality, and add personalized frames.

Personally speaking, surfing the Internet via Google search results can be a frustrating thing, coz quite a number of websites have been blocked by the so-called Great Firewall of China. The actions taken by China censorship are mostly reasonable(I mean FLG), while sometimes are arbitrary. You know, we could not visit blogspot(Blogger.com(Google)) directly here in China, while this site might be the world’s largest blog service provider.

Here is some thoughts dealing with this:

1. Proxy: This is useful for those directly connected to the net. But it’s insane for me to use a proxy server to access another proxy server;
2. Google cache: It used to be blocked by the firewall too. I’m happy to see the restriction is gradually loosening;
3. Online RSS aggregator: This is a good idea. At least we could read now, since not write;
4. Anonymous web surfing software: Haven’t tried yet.

Which extensions do you recommend?

• Gmail Notifier;
• Bloglines Toolkit;
• Deepest Sender: Post to LiveJournal;
• Tabbrowser Preferences: This 1.1.1 version make the browser in single window mode;
• ColorZilla: Snap the color of the mouse position within the browser;
• Send To: Send selected text to my Editplus;
• lget: Simplify downloading files of any types;
• del.icio.us: Post current page;
• Furl Tools: Furl this page.

How to remove search engines in the Firefox search toolbox?

You might have noticed that a bunch of search engines are natively integrated in Firefox. You can access them via just a few clicks, without installing any plugins. It’s also quite easy to add engines that you want through Mycroft (del.icio.us / search, Baidu mp3, and CIBA is NOT in it. I’ll try to add them shortly.). However, you can’t remove anyone of them from the GUI. Here is what you’d try out:

• Navigate to $PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins;
• Each search engine has a .src file and a .png(or .gif) file. Delete the two files for the search engine you wish to remove;
• Restart Firefox.

With MSN Search officially released on Feb 1st. Google is no more the exclusive search solution for me. You know, I used to be so addicted to it. Anyway, having more choices is not bad at all. (I hate monopoly. Vive la freedom!) So my Firefox search engines are including but not limited to Google, Google Images, Yahoo, AltaVista, MSN, Wikipedia (EN), Furl.net.

P.S. Ask Jeeves always has problem with GB2312. Report said that Ask Jeeves acquired Bloglines. I usually spend about 2 hours on Bloglines everyday. So this message somewhat turned me down, I’m feeling nervous about the uncertain consequences Ask Jeeves might bring to Bloglines. God bless the poor online RSS aggregator.