Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Nokia 5800 settings
I called Fido and they gave all these info. I have to figure out how to put the information properly in the phone because I did not buy the phone from them.
Add a new access point under Network destinations. Do this twice (one for internet and one for wap)
Connection Name: fido wap (it can be anything I think)
Data bearer: packet data
Access Point Name (APN): wap.fido.ca
user name: fido
promopt password: no
password: fido
authentication: normal
homepage: http://fido.mobi (i need it because I use prepaid)
use access point: after confirmation (again because I use prepaid)
now go to options|advance settings
network type: ipv4
phone ip address: automatic
DNS addresses: automatic
Proxy server address: 205.151.11.11
proxy port number: 0 (8080 for internet settings)
I also find it curious that nobody talks about their $1 a day nor their $3 for a week (unlimited) data plans.
Add a new access point under Network destinations. Do this twice (one for internet and one for wap)
Connection Name: fido wap (it can be anything I think)
Data bearer: packet data
Access Point Name (APN): wap.fido.ca
user name: fido
promopt password: no
password: fido
authentication: normal
homepage: http://fido.mobi (i need it because I use prepaid)
use access point: after confirmation (again because I use prepaid)
now go to options|advance settings
network type: ipv4
phone ip address: automatic
DNS addresses: automatic
Proxy server address: 205.151.11.11
proxy port number: 0 (8080 for internet settings)
I also find it curious that nobody talks about their $1 a day nor their $3 for a week (unlimited) data plans.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Hong Kong - sports part 1
I went back to Hong Kong for a few weeks. Here is a recap of the activities I have participated in.
Wakeboarding
I remembered trying water skiing when I was a teenager but do not recall any success in it. It is fashionable to do wakeboarding and we were fortunate enough to book a boat. When you have a couple of noobs trying to learn this it is truly an expensive exercise. Everything from wearing the boots that are attached to the board, setting the boarder and the boat in position, resetting after the boarder has fallen in the water. Every round takes a good few minutes for the noob to try to hang up to a few seconds of board time. Throw in a couple of noobs and the time flies by pretty quickly without any interesting action.
To make things more interesting the guy who has the most experience was not on the boat when I was. I was left with little instructions and pure speculation based on how I've seen noob snowboarders do. And I have to share my thoughts with my daughter too.
I got 4 tries on the board. I was happy to stand up on the first try. By the third try I can turn the board so I was kind of surfing. On the fourth try I was able to hang on for about 10-15 seconds which seems like an eternity.
One odd thing about this boat trip is that the water inside the harbour is rougher. We got on the boat in Central and it was a rough 30 minute ride to get out of the harbour. Once we were able to turn the corner towards Pokfulam the waves die down. I haven't been on a cruise for many years and the busy traffic inside the harbour is to blame.
Wakeboarding
I remembered trying water skiing when I was a teenager but do not recall any success in it. It is fashionable to do wakeboarding and we were fortunate enough to book a boat. When you have a couple of noobs trying to learn this it is truly an expensive exercise. Everything from wearing the boots that are attached to the board, setting the boarder and the boat in position, resetting after the boarder has fallen in the water. Every round takes a good few minutes for the noob to try to hang up to a few seconds of board time. Throw in a couple of noobs and the time flies by pretty quickly without any interesting action.
To make things more interesting the guy who has the most experience was not on the boat when I was. I was left with little instructions and pure speculation based on how I've seen noob snowboarders do. And I have to share my thoughts with my daughter too.
I got 4 tries on the board. I was happy to stand up on the first try. By the third try I can turn the board so I was kind of surfing. On the fourth try I was able to hang on for about 10-15 seconds which seems like an eternity.
One odd thing about this boat trip is that the water inside the harbour is rougher. We got on the boat in Central and it was a rough 30 minute ride to get out of the harbour. Once we were able to turn the corner towards Pokfulam the waves die down. I haven't been on a cruise for many years and the busy traffic inside the harbour is to blame.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Did you notice?
That the hockey statisticians credited the loss to Brian Boucher for game 5?
If they used baseball rules it should have been Michael Leighton.
If they used baseball rules it should have been Michael Leighton.
Friday, June 04, 2010
Network Load Balancing in Windows
I am using NLB on a prototype I am working on. I have a custom process that listens to custom port and I have two Windows 2008 boxes to act like a web farm. The quick gotcha is that if my process is down but the network on the machine is still up NLB will try to distribute the network load around the two nodes. I was hoping for something a little bit smarter (like figuring out the port has not listener) but that is not the case.
Monday, April 26, 2010
TSS and CTL
For the definitions of TSS, TSB and CTL read here.
This is my second year training with a powermeter. Last year it was mostly about getting the field experience of using it, matching up the perceived effort with the real power, managing efforts so the training is effective. This year the focus drifts into looking into TSS and CTL and how it relates to racing.
Firstly instead of using number of hours as a gauge of training effort, I am trying to use weekly total TSS as a gauge. So a big week needs to have say 600-700 TSS.
A rest week would be used to reset TSB to zero without losing CTL. The point is to keep building up CTL without going overboard. Last year I got sick right around Easter time trying to do too many big training rides and took more than one month to fully recover.
CTL is used as measure for race-readiness. If I were going into a 1.5 hour road race I need roughly 130 TSS. If my CTL were below 65 chances are I would crack before the end of the race. In comparison the one-day classic races the guys are racking up 300+ TSS in a day. Not only do you have to have the Watts per kilogram to stay with the guys, you need the CTL/TSS to stay with them for the duration of the race.
Lastly I counted the number of times a ride exceeds 150TSS last year and it is less than 10. So in terms of training regime 150 is a big ride. So if my "A" race is a 2 hour race worth about 180TSS, I will have to ride a couple of big rides to get use to that level. Either that or just stick to 30 minutes criteriums. :-(
This is my second year training with a powermeter. Last year it was mostly about getting the field experience of using it, matching up the perceived effort with the real power, managing efforts so the training is effective. This year the focus drifts into looking into TSS and CTL and how it relates to racing.
Firstly instead of using number of hours as a gauge of training effort, I am trying to use weekly total TSS as a gauge. So a big week needs to have say 600-700 TSS.
A rest week would be used to reset TSB to zero without losing CTL. The point is to keep building up CTL without going overboard. Last year I got sick right around Easter time trying to do too many big training rides and took more than one month to fully recover.
CTL is used as measure for race-readiness. If I were going into a 1.5 hour road race I need roughly 130 TSS. If my CTL were below 65 chances are I would crack before the end of the race. In comparison the one-day classic races the guys are racking up 300+ TSS in a day. Not only do you have to have the Watts per kilogram to stay with the guys, you need the CTL/TSS to stay with them for the duration of the race.
Lastly I counted the number of times a ride exceeds 150TSS last year and it is less than 10. So in terms of training regime 150 is a big ride. So if my "A" race is a 2 hour race worth about 180TSS, I will have to ride a couple of big rides to get use to that level. Either that or just stick to 30 minutes criteriums. :-(
Friday, April 09, 2010
how things have changed
Back in the days when I was learning piano, I often hear my teacher play the song once or twice in the beginning, rely on your memory and your reading skills and try to play the song. I was one of the luckier guys when I was in University and can use the record (vinyl) collection in the music library to hear the music while reading the score.
Last night my son told me that we were tasked to pick a new song (list C) for him to play and the recommended composer is Rachmaninov. So I opened up imslp and search what they have. We then look for the corresponding pieces on youtube and have these great pianists playing for us. We picked prelude op 23 no 5 - something I haven't played myself.
Last night my son told me that we were tasked to pick a new song (list C) for him to play and the recommended composer is Rachmaninov. So I opened up imslp and search what they have. We then look for the corresponding pieces on youtube and have these great pianists playing for us. We picked prelude op 23 no 5 - something I haven't played myself.
Monday, March 29, 2010
invalid license data. reinstall is required
I have Vista 64 SP2 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1. Monday morning I got this error message when I try to start Visual Studio. MSDN recommends reinstalling Visual Studio.
Luckily the technical support guy reminded to reboot the computer first. The problem goes away.
Luckily the technical support guy reminded to reboot the computer first. The problem goes away.
Monday, March 01, 2010
withdrawal
What did I do after watching the closing ceremonies? I re-read all the emails that were sent to me from the volunteer program manager. I baffles me that 7 years or planning and executed the plan in 2 weeks. Think designing, coding and testing a system for 7 years and run it for 2 weeks and throwing it away. Imagine hot-fixing it within the 2 week period as well. Amazing.
Next thing I would do: re-read the training manual. :-)
Next thing I would do: re-read the training manual. :-)
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
GroupBy with XElement
I am working on a new project and experimenting with Linq. It is very powerful and useful however it is a paradigm change for us old geezers.
The problem at hand was an XML string that needs to be sorted by a the value of an inner node:
I want to grab a list of "b" sorted by "c".
So I tried:
var xmldoc = XElement.Load("file.xml");
var grouplist1 = xmldoc.Elements("b").GroupBy(x => x.Elements("c").Select(y => y.Value);
When I do that the key is not the value1 but some sort of IEnumerable.
Then I tried:
var grouplist1 = xmldoc.Elements("b").GroupBy(x => x.Elements("c").Select(y => y.Value);
Then the compiler complained that I cannot cast an IEnumerable to string.
The issue is that within XElement you can have multiple "c"s although we know it could not. So this finally works:
var grouplist1 = xmldoc.Elements("b").GroupBy(x => x.Elements("c").Select(y => y.Value).ElementAt(0);
Of course it assumes there is at leaat one "c" node inside or else it would not work.
Lesson learned:
(1) types are still your friend. Declaring them make things easier.
(2) Break up Linq queries into smaller function calls. You will get the right result faster. At least it works for me.
The problem at hand was an XML string that needs to be sorted by a the value of an inner node:
<a>
<b>
<c>value1</c>
</b>
<b>
<c>value2</c>
</b>
<b>
<c>value1</c>
</b>
</a>
I want to grab a list of "b" sorted by "c".
So I tried:
var xmldoc = XElement.Load("file.xml");
var grouplist1 = xmldoc.Elements("b").GroupBy(x => x.Elements("c").Select(y => y.Value);
When I do that the key is not the value1 but some sort of IEnumerable.
Then I tried:
var grouplist1 = xmldoc.Elements("b").GroupBy
Then the compiler complained that I cannot cast an IEnumerable
The issue is that within XElement you can have multiple "c"s although we know it could not. So this finally works:
var grouplist1 = xmldoc.Elements("b").GroupBy(x => x.Elements("c").Select(y => y.Value).ElementAt(0);
Of course it assumes there is at leaat one "c" node inside or else it would not work.
Lesson learned:
(1) types are still your friend. Declaring them make things easier.
(2) Break up Linq queries into smaller function calls. You will get the right result faster. At least it works for me.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
reflections on the Olympics part 1
Just a little background: I signed up to volunteer for the 2010 Olympics and recently I have been officially offered a position as an NOC (National Olympic Committee) assistant.
I have been attending the training sessions since April. I did run into a cycling friend in one training session but other than that these are all strangers to me. Being the anti-social self I have not been interacting with my fellow volunteers. All that changed today as I have my driver training. Three of us were assigned to a car and our job is to go through a couple of the Vancouver venues to locate the entry roads, dedicated parking, loading zones, etc. And for a few hours the three of us have to interact, make conversation and discover the solution for the problems posed to us.
Here is my reflection: as diverse are the people coming to compete in the games, the volunteers are similarly as diverse. We don't have to be friends, we don't have to have the same political views, we don't have any similar interests. We are all there just to make the games work. And as long as that objective is achieved that is the bottom line.
I have been attending the training sessions since April. I did run into a cycling friend in one training session but other than that these are all strangers to me. Being the anti-social self I have not been interacting with my fellow volunteers. All that changed today as I have my driver training. Three of us were assigned to a car and our job is to go through a couple of the Vancouver venues to locate the entry roads, dedicated parking, loading zones, etc. And for a few hours the three of us have to interact, make conversation and discover the solution for the problems posed to us.
Here is my reflection: as diverse are the people coming to compete in the games, the volunteers are similarly as diverse. We don't have to be friends, we don't have to have the same political views, we don't have any similar interests. We are all there just to make the games work. And as long as that objective is achieved that is the bottom line.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
bike fit
I went for a bike fit at this bike shop. Here is what I have learned from the session.
1. Most of us have feet that are not parallel to the ground. I have known since a teenager that the outside of my shoes wears out first. Yet most pedals and cleats assume we are parallel and we are locked in while riding. I sometimes get soreness on the outside of my feet possibly because of this. The guys at the store installed some cleat wedges to rectify that problem.
2. In an ideal world the world the knee should be perfectly above the pedal and moving up-and-down only. Sideways movements just causes inefficiencies in the power transfer. The guys figured that my knee was moving outwards and rectified it by moving the pedals out by 20mm. At first it feels drastic but after a few rides it seems natural now. My only worry now is how peddling through a corner in a crit will be affected.
Before I went into the fit session I thought it was mainly about adjustment saddle and handlebar positions. They spend way more time on cleat and knee position than saddle/handlebar. I now have results to prove that I am more effective and would recommend this bike fit session to any serious cyclist.
1. Most of us have feet that are not parallel to the ground. I have known since a teenager that the outside of my shoes wears out first. Yet most pedals and cleats assume we are parallel and we are locked in while riding. I sometimes get soreness on the outside of my feet possibly because of this. The guys at the store installed some cleat wedges to rectify that problem.
2. In an ideal world the world the knee should be perfectly above the pedal and moving up-and-down only. Sideways movements just causes inefficiencies in the power transfer. The guys figured that my knee was moving outwards and rectified it by moving the pedals out by 20mm. At first it feels drastic but after a few rides it seems natural now. My only worry now is how peddling through a corner in a crit will be affected.
Before I went into the fit session I thought it was mainly about adjustment saddle and handlebar positions. They spend way more time on cleat and knee position than saddle/handlebar. I now have results to prove that I am more effective and would recommend this bike fit session to any serious cyclist.
Monday, September 21, 2009
a question
With all the discussion around gender differential disorder these days, it brings back an old question I had about 10 years ago: what if a person with an sdd goes to apply:
1. to be a Catholic priest or a nun?
2. a single-sex school?
(1) brings the most interesting discussion as it is defining a rule based on science (gender) and the science is giving a non-boolean answer.
(2) brings similar issues as the IAAF as it has sports performance implications among other issues.
1. to be a Catholic priest or a nun?
2. a single-sex school?
(1) brings the most interesting discussion as it is defining a rule based on science (gender) and the science is giving a non-boolean answer.
(2) brings similar issues as the IAAF as it has sports performance implications among other issues.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tuesday Night Crit Aug 18
Raced 9 laps with the main pack until my diaphragm start cramping up and my legs cannot turn the pedals at that rate. Another 2 laps or so and I could have finished with them.
Normalized power is 279W for just over 20 minutes. Too bad the season is coming to an end...
Normalized power is 279W for just over 20 minutes. Too bad the season is coming to an end...
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Horseshoe Bay Aug 12
I have done this ride a couple of times this year. The ride really starts once we passed Dundarave. With a bigger group the pace is higher and I will get dropped around Lighthouse Park and ride tempo the rest of the way. Today there were only two of us and Joe was nice enough to work with my tempo. Here is the section starting from Dundarave:
I went as hard as I could and we even have a sprint finish! Average power was 233W and normalized power is 272! That is definitely a personal best.
I went as hard as I could and we even have a sprint finish! Average power was 233W and normalized power is 272! That is definitely a personal best.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Thursday Crit Aug 6
First time racing in the 3/4s. Power is actually lower (average 216 normalize 234) than this race but pace (41.9kph)is higher. There were a lot of big guns out there so I know I have no business sticking my nose in front. I was just "swimming" up the peloton to get a good position and drifting down slowly. Rinse and repeat for the whole race. I felt good and confident that I can hang with the big boys for the whole duration.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
mishap
When I was commuting to work, there was an accident in the intersection of Cornwall and Cypress. A cyclist was knocked down and emergency crews were treating her right there. Let's hope she's alright and everyone please ride safe.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Cypress Hill Climb
Climbed up Cypress on Wednesday. 41 minutes from the first switchback to the end of the steep part just beyond the power lines.
The dips in power happened where the switchbacks are. It is relatively flat and only on the lookup was I trying to power it through. With the others I was actually stretching my back and legs.
Everything done in one gear: 39x27. Cadence was mostly between 75-80. Power drifts down as heart rate drifts up.
Actually I was surprised that I have heart rate data for the whole climb. These old Powertaps tend not to record heart rate data when it is too "busy" - normally means when there is substantial power data there is no heart rate data. From today's chart it looks like it is speed related and the cut off speed is around 22kph. Will keep this under observation.
The dips in power happened where the switchbacks are. It is relatively flat and only on the lookup was I trying to power it through. With the others I was actually stretching my back and legs.
Everything done in one gear: 39x27. Cadence was mostly between 75-80. Power drifts down as heart rate drifts up.
Actually I was surprised that I have heart rate data for the whole climb. These old Powertaps tend not to record heart rate data when it is too "busy" - normally means when there is substantial power data there is no heart rate data. From today's chart it looks like it is speed related and the cut off speed is around 22kph. Will keep this under observation.
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