Shocks by Melbourne

I have been in Australia for a week. For getting more chances to practice English, I chose to live in homestay. The host family came from India, they are friendly, easy to communicate with. It’s much like a multi-nations home, as there are students in this house, who came from India, Korea and China.

I think I made the right choice for the accommodation, which allow me to settle in this country smoothly, although the food the host serve is totally different from the one in China. I think the India food tend to be spicy, even they cook the food, which I didn’t realized it’s Chinese food until they told me what it is. But it isn’t as that spicy as the one of SiChuan, which is a province in China, where people can’t live without spicy.

While Chinese people mostly live in the city where they work in, people in Melbourne live in suburb even they need to spend more than one hour a day on commuting. I think the reason they chose to live beyond the city is that the suburb is livable, where there is few cars and the air is fresh while the nature is preserved very well. Every morning I would be waked up by birds, and at night, I can hear some noise made by animals, such as cat, or others which is active after sunset. However, there are too many flies in Melbourne, except at home, I can’t stop swaying my hands to keep them away. I was told it is a problem of summer. Maybe this is one of disadvantages of good protection on nature.

People here is friendly, which reflect in many aspects of the daily life. Saying “G’day” or “hey, mate” is very common when meeting someone on the street of the suburb, even I don’t know them. I remember that when I were a child, my parents and teachers in school taught me not to talk with stranger, as they may be the persons intending to kidnap child. So it is a bit of shock for me when someone I didn’t know said hello to me.















I think the building in Melbourne is not just a building, but a piece of art as well. It's not as crowd as Hong Kong. While a lot of modern building standing there, historic buildings are combined with it.


In the famous street, Burke Street, some artists played guitar with fantastic melodies. I had been standing there for 15 minutes for listening to it, as the music they played was so emotional that I couldn't easily got away from it. It really provoked my desire to buy their CD, but I gave up it when I saw the price.








This is a Chinese style building, which means the street is Chinatown. I went into a Cantonese restaurant and had a roast duck with rice, which fortunately is almost same as one I had in China, not a Australian-Chinese food.











I noticed that the street is not only for the people to walk, but also for pigeon.













When coming back from the city, I got lost. Then I asked someone where I could go, the person in the photo said he didn't know as well, but anyway he drove me home following a map book. What a kind person! I didn't know how to express my appreciation at that moment, so asked him to take a photo with me and let me made a memory of this experience.

Comfortable Tool, Less Pain

These days I have been busy adapting to a new tool, Mac OS(Operation System) X, developed by Apple corporation. Before I got in touch with it, it is kind like a secret world, many people on Internet talked about it, speaking highly of it. Now I know why such a large group of people fall in love with it, and I am not willing to return to use Windows as my first preference OS since begun the journey with Mac.

Well, I would like to share experiences using Mac computer, trying to note several top advantages of Mac. It’s very worthwhile to know a bit more about Mac, if you were tired of the exhausting Windows OS, and planing to buy a new computer.

[The picture is dedicated to represent Windows and Mac]

Tidy Desktop, Excellent Art

The first impression I use Mac is the amazing graphic animation. The motions of hiding and showing windows perform smoothly and elegantly, give me a lot of pleasure and comfortability. The operation on it is pretty easy, I don’t even need to take any tutorial about it, as it has a assistant function I can search topics about how to use specific function. The more I use the desktop, the more conveniences it offers I realize. There are many features of its desktop offer great efficiency and usages, which you can figure out on Apple Website.

Overall, the desktop management is pretty convenient, especially in a situation when there are a large number and various kinds of windows opened. I think the Mac system have developed a mature desktop, being able to offer a tidy environment . This plays an important role in our daily use of computer, as it is very similar with our desktop in real world. Try to image that lots of books, pager, pens and electronic equipment mess up your desktop, how are you feeling while working in such environment?

Just Necessary and Powerful Application

When I first got this computer and turn on it to try out, I found many most-needed applications have been built in Mac system. It’s not necessary to install ones such as Picture viewer, PDF reader, DVD burner, media player and so on, because there are a number of built-in applications perform very well in normal use, and they are excellent software in my opinion. As I spend most of time improving English, I realize the built-in dictionary is so nice that even better than ones I used before, in which definition is in a nice structure and more sensible.

Apple has strengths in multimedia area, several free multimedia application it provides are fantastic, offering professional, efficient and easy-use tool to its user. These tool are so easy to use and user-friendly that you don’t even need to learn about making movie or special effects on picture in a class, but you can easily be professional at multimedia with them.

In Windows OS, you might like to install small application on windows system, such as showing lyric of current playing song, weather forecast, calendar etc., but fear being at risk of infection of virus, worm which is at risk of ending up with OS reinstallation OS. In recent versions of Mac OS, However, installing a small applications is easy and safer. Mac system provide a platform, called Dashboard, where you can select ones from the Internet and put them onto it and manage them conveniently. These small applications are contributed by various kinds of organization or even person who are good at programming and are willing to share their small applications.

Still No Virus Nightmare

When I go back to the Windows System, the most familiar OS I had used for near 10 years, I start feeling everything works uncomfortable as I have to mind whether the anti-virus, firewall software were turned on, which significantly reduce the computer’s performance. We pay a large sum of money to get a powerful computer, and then have to make additional payment to security software, finally the computer is full of crap and working slowly. Should we deserve it?

Of course, whenever it’s a computer software, malicious ones could be developed. Also, there is virus can exist on Mac OS. The first one is found in the early 2006, but no other one has been reported. It’s hopeful that this is the only one ever. As Mac OS have done a good job on security issues, I can get rid of anti-virus or firewall softwares, saving a large amount of hardware resources.

Windows OS, a Servant

The recent versions of Mac computers have capability to run various sorts of OS on Mac OS. Softwares such as Parallel and VMware Fusion can perform as a virtual machine, acting as a real computer. With this kind of software, Mac OS is able to setup a Windows or Linux OS etc, and allow the softwares not supporting Mac OS to work on Mac.

So you don’t need to worry about some of your favorite applications can’t work after migrating from previous OS you have got used to. This means, on Mac OS, your choices of applications is enhanced, but not limited.

Overall Feeling

After the experiences with Mac during these days, I realize software should be designed to care more about the its user, but not be cared. I think Apple has achieved this very well. However, Microsoft seemly go in the reversed way.

Access to Blocked Website

VOA Website

VOA website is excellent for English learners, as it provide short stories accompanied with voice records. So English learner is able to take advantage of its voice records to practice listening skills, while improving reading skills. On the website, there also is a section called VOA Special English, which aims to provide stories for people with intermediate level of English proficiency. After studied English through it for a certain time, I realize that although the words used in stories of special English is very easy, they have various meanings in different news, and are totally different from what I learn it before from Chinese - English dictionary. So I strongly recommend VOA Special English for you to extend usages of each word you have known in different situations.

Nice Websites been Blocked

It's a fantastic website providing free, interesting stories. However, because of some negative news about China provided by it, China has banned it, and people in China can't have access to it directly. It's not the only one banned by China , but also a number of good websites, such BBC news, Wikipedia. These websites provide a large amount of useful resources, which everybody could have rights to reach. It's a shame that the resources are unavailable to almost all Chinese people.

Thanks to the open source software called "TOR", we can use it as a proxy to access these banned websites. TOR is originally aimed at offering people a safer Internet environment, as taking advantage of it allows people to have activities on Internet anonymously. This means it's difficult for someone else, such as hacker, to trace where you are from, what you are doing on Internet, avoid exposure of private information.

Advantages of TOR

1. Bypass the firewall in some countries

Basically, TOR works in a P2P way to fetch data from destination. In this procedure, it isn't connecting to target website directly, instead it achieve that through set up a link chain which is made up by links between several TOR users. Therefor, TOR user is able to have access to blocked website with the assistance of other TOR users. The original purpose of TOR is to safeguard information exchanging on Internet, So there are many users would like to use it to ensure safety of their Internet activities. This means as we want to use it as a web proxy to bypass firewalls, we don't need to worried about the reliability of the proxy, because there are so many people using it, providing plenty of points acting like proxies. Actually, it is not just one proxy, but a plenty of proxies.

2. Speed up loading pages

Each country has certain amount of Internet speed limitation to connect to foreign countries. When a large number of data transfer to foreign countries, the transfer speed of data to certain country for each domestic Internet users would be reduced. As TOR is able to connect to nearly every country in the world, it is capable to find the most fast way through other countries to destination, which help balance the heavy load of data to specific country.

The most recent version of TOR have ability to select fast users to connect to, which could promote the speed of transferring data. So when you are browsing some foreign websites, which is loading slowly, try to access it with TOR. It may surprise you.

Websites referred in this Blog
TOR
VOA Special English (Requires TOR to access)

Noting on Web Page

Noting is pretty useful in many areas of our lives. This skill works well when it's applied in real world, but when people want to note on web pages, they may have no idea which tool is capable. Well, this blog is about a tool which enable you to do that. If you like making highlights or noting on books, the tool called "Diigo" introduced in this blog may satisfy your needs on web pages.

Not only is Diigo a free tool, but also a free service, which can save whatever you have made with the tool to its server. Besides the feature of noting, it also provides additional services, such as Bookmark, Group, Searching bookmarks from others and so on. Whenever a user make noting on a pages, it would save the page as a bookmark. These bookmarks can be shared by other users, if you saved the bookmarks as PUBLIC pages. The other useful feature is called "GROUP". Everyone on Diigo can create their own groups on some specific area, then other users could sign up as a member of a group and share their pages with others on that area the group are classified as.

Diigo need to work with browser, you have to pick the one your browser is compatible with. It supports IE6.0/7.0, Firefox (The one I prefer) and Flock. After you installed it, a diigo toolbar would appear in your browser, and you need to register a user ID, then sign up to enjoy the advantages of Diigo. Once you set up this toolbar, browser enable you to make annotations or view one by others, and you can post a discussion on annotations by others as well.

In my opinion, this tool makes great effective efforts on helping people review page they visited. Before I was aware of this tool, I usually experienced having no enough time or energy to have a study on resources that I found interesting in first view. Experiences tell me If I didn't note that down, probably I wouldn't view it again, so the time and energy spent on that page last time were almost wasted.

Reviewing is also a important skill of learning English, which help me manage my time and energy in a module way, so that I don't feel any exhausting or bored, but more determined. Try to image that if you want to learn new vocabulary from a news page in English, you just read the page in order, and look up words on dictionary whenever you don't understand some meanings. In this way, when you finish reading the page, what can you learn from that page? Does that make you feel exhausted and you don't have any interests to read more? So this kind of studying method is not good for a long run, every time when you start reading a news page, you may be afraid of it, as previously doing that exhausted or bored you.

Here I illustrate how I study English with this tool in a easy way. With Diigo, I separate the process of studying English on one web page into 3 steps. Firstly, I browse my favourite foreign news website, mostly the VOA news (As it is banned in China, I use TOR to access the website), and find some stories that appeals to me. In this step, I just want to read some stories, not caring about the details of new vocabulary or grammar, noting down with Diigo the sentences in which there is a word I am not familiar with, or the sentences whose meaning I am uncertain about. After I finished reading the stories, turning to other stories if I like.

Secondly, next time I review the sentences of the stories I noted, and I could mostly make my efforts on understanding of the sentences. When I found new vocabulary or phrase, I post words or phrases attached to the sentence, which remind me what I need to focus on that sentence.

Lastly, I practice my oral skill by reading out the sentences I am already familiar with. In this step, I focus on correct pronunciation of each words. When I am uncertain about some words, I look up dictionary on PC, and correct it.


Websites:

Diigo Homepage
Tutorial on how to use Diigo

Satellite TV

I am so tired of the stupid local TV programmes, just don't wanna tolerate it any more, or maybe one day I would thought my TV set out of window. So I search information about satellite TV on Internet, and bought some devices to setup a satellite TV receiver. Now I can watch hundreds of higher quality programmes. What's more? My TV set is safer than ever. ^^

As the large amount of time we spend on watching TV, considering whether the context of programmes are appropriate are important for our mind. I think it's similar with what dishes my mother serve, and I pick my prefer dishes. Then after months or years, I grow into specific body shape. The healthier food I have daily, of cause the healthier I gain in a long run. So TV programmes, I think, could have similar effects on us, but in other way, our mind. Right? In the following, I will talk about the satellite TV, having a brief introduction and recommending some related websites, which help you know how to setup your own satellite TV receiver if you are interested.

With satellite TV, there are plenty of programmes, accounting for several hundreds, which is supplied by providers from HONGKONG, TAIWAN or Philippine etc. So now I don't need to spend lots of seconds with PPStream(P2P TV Software) waiting for changing channels and watch unclear images of my favourite channels on the small PC screen . Famous channels such as Discovery, National Geographic Channel, CNN, BBC, AXN and NBA are all can be received. Check out this website for the channels provided by one satellite (Some people receive 9 star, I just receive 2 star. The more star you wanna receive, the more dishes that is setup on top of house are required): http://www.otvro.com/138.0.htm

It's not expensive to setup a satellite TV, if you don't want to buy TV cards from provider, which may be more than 5000 RMB per provider per year. Just few people can afford it in China. In the way of piracy, it only cost about 1500 RMB to setup satellite TV station(Dish, Controller) and receive more than 2 hundred channels supplied by many providers. Most of people can set it up easily, but it's a kind of piracy, you should be aware of whether related regulations are strict by local government. If not, try to follow these guys.

Just kidding.

The most important device of satellite TV is satellite signal controller, which is connected by cables to TV set and from satellite dish located on top of house or by window. Currently, the most popular digital controller in China are DM500(DreamBox), in foreign are DM7020. It's similar to a small PC which is setup a Linus system. Many settings of it need another PC connected to it to be done. So it means setting up such device may be a bit of challenge if lack of basic computer knowledge. But it also means such controller is flexible, it allow user to download plug-ins on Internet, then installed them on it for more customized functions of controller. In addiction, it's capable to watch programmes on PC thought local Ethernet cable. Just keep in mind what kinds of programmes you are watching on PC, as the signal sent to your PC and TV set is simultaneous. This means programme played on your PC is as same as the TV set.

The word "Card" I refer to is like a KEY which is used to decode signal received from satellite. Different provider have different keys, so if you want to watch different keys legally, you have to buy these expensive cards. But even if people in China have plenty money to these keys, it's not easy to get one from some providers, whose programmes are banned by Chinese government. So let's try the illegal one. Years ago, people need to copy a card from someone who have bought one, but copied cards can't change keys automatically as the original one can, so people need to make lots of efforts to update it regularly. With the development of computer technology, we can make it more flexible. As the DreamBox is similar to computer, it can receive keys without any cards inserted. What it need to do to decode channels is to connect to server or other user's DreamBox for sharing cards thought Internet. To share cards, the devices have to setup some protocols.

Here I give a brief introduction to the two major protocols: CCcam and GBox. CCcam is a sort of server to client protocol. GBox is similar to P2P protocol, which is utilized by BT software. Generally, receiving cards by CCcam need to buy services from pirate, who buy cards from providers and share them for huge profit. Another way is to share cards with your friends by GBox protocol. Just like the theory of BT software, the more people share their cards with GBox, the more channels they can watch.


Recommended Websites:

Want to begin? Check out this one(In Chinese):
http://www.ttkws.com/

Nice website about these two protocols:
http://www.gboxforum.com/cam

Reasons Why This Blog Was Born

Hello everyone, thanks for coming my first blog website in English. There are several reasons for creating this blog.

One of the two major reasons is to introduce interesting, useful stuffs to my dear friends. I found there are increasing amount of useful stuffs appear in this world, especially in the world of Internet. However, people around me seem not to be aware of that. Sometimes when I introduced these stuffs to them, they found it interesting at the moment, but few of them would pay attention to it again. I think they might lack motivations of how useful these stuffs are, while I use them in my daily life because I know it can help multiply effectiveness on some of my works.

Another one is to improve my English skills. I realized practicing writing skills of English is extremely important for people who want to speak or write English well, while they have spent large amount of time practicing reading and listening to English. Or in my opinion, it's not effective to improve overall English. As I am going to study aboard, a high level of proficiency in English is necessary for me in the near future.

So I have strong motivations to maintain this blog, and will try to update it as often as possible. From the next post, I will mainly blog about software, websites or anything I found FRESH.

Hope it would be FRESH for you.