Category Archives: General

Small facts about MS Office

– Docx equation editor does not automatically italize characters you if are entering with a non-Romanized input method, even if the characters you enter are alphabets.

– Excel .MMULT function requires the two inputs to have the same dimension. You can use it to multiply two 1-dimensional arrays or two 2-dimensional ones, but multiplying a 1D array with a 2D one will fail with an “unable to get the MMult property of the worksheet function class” error. The practical meaning of this is that if one of your input is just a vector, you still need to declare it as a 2D array.

穿了數年的褐色皮鞋快要斷開成兩截,竟然給我在先施清貨中找到同一款式。嘿,這樣就為我省下了不少時間,就當從沒換過好了。
(貓咪:那舊鞋是給我當玩具吧?我最喜歡抓鞋帶的了!)
With my brown leather shoes in need of replacement after years of service, I was pleasantly surprised to find the exact same pair of shoes on clearance in a department store. Now I can just pretend I am still wearing the old ones.
(Cat: “So I get to keep the old shoes? I just *love* pulling shoelaces!”)

Windows 10

Windows 10終於有內建多重桌面,感覺亦較一致。Start menu其實係縮小版嘅start screen。Cortana暫時無料到。

It has always bewilders me that Windows do not have built-in multi-desktop functionality. Now Windows 10 is finally going to have one.

Overall Windows 10 feel a lot more consistent throughout then Windows 8, which feels like a forced blend between a screen-friendly interface and traditional mouse-based Windows. For example, A lot more settings are now available in the Win8-styled “PC settings”, though the good-old Control Panel is still here. My guess is the latter will be gone in the release version.

Start menu is back…sort of. Microsoft essentially scaled-down the Windows 8 start screen to get a hybrid between the old and the new.

Cortana is pretty much just a shortcut to Bing at the moment, not much to see.

經濟夫婦過情人節

我和內子都是教經濟,情人節是怎過的呢?

其實,經濟學家最在行是套利(arbitrage)。情人節當天預先紮好的花束是非常的貴,但散買的價錢是和平日一樣的。同樣,當日外出享用西式晚膳很貴,但酒樓茶記價錢不變, 在家下廚就更是加分殺著。

以今天情人節正日為例,花墟十支玫瑰連襯花,紮好要六百元,不連襯花也要三百元。散買呢?九十元—二十支。一束花三分之二的價錢去了包裝,是否值得見人見智,但若你一年只會紮一次花,那就應該在差價最大的今天紮。同樣,若你一年只會下一次廚,今天絕對錯不了。

那DIY到底有多便宜?以下為我倆今天的支出:
花盒:黃紅色馬蹄蘭$95 、紅色小玫瑰$90、沙巴葉$20,共$205。
芝士火鍋:芝士$20 、麵包$10、有機沙律菜$20等等,約共$100。

 

Powerline Network Adapters Hands-On

Most people have probably faced the problem of not being able to provide good Wi-Fi coverage for every room at home, and this problem is particularly severe in Hong Kong due to the use of concrete walls. In the past one would consider wiring the rooms with Ethernet cables or installing Wi-Fi extenders.  Today I am going to review a third option: powerline network adapters. They work by sending signal through electricity wirings, and units plugged into sockets under the same meter and will automatically form a network. To get internet access, simply connect one of the adapters to your broadband router with an Ethernet cable. Furthermore, there are Wi-Fi-broadcasting models that allow you to extend Wi-Fi coverage.

This hands-on features kits from two Chinese brands: a budget model from Tenda and a mid-range model from TP-Link. Budget models differ from higher-end ones in two major ways: First, budget models usually have maximum theoretically speed of 200Mbps, whereas higher-end ones have speeds up to 600Mbps. Since these numbers are theoretically limits, practical speed will only be a fraction of that, as my test results will show below. Second, high-end models sometimes have a pass-through socket that could be a life-saver if your room is in short of wall sockets.

Test models: Tenda P200/P201 kit (~HK$460) and TP-Link TL-WPA4230P Kit (~HK$650). Each kit comes with one cable-only unit and one Wi-Fi-broadcasting unit.

Test environment: Hong Kong Broadband 100M connection. Test conducted with speedtest.net with a Fujitsu Q584 tablet.

Basic installation: Easy. Both kits work immediately once I plug the included units into wall sockets.

Advanced Installation: you can build a network where devices roam between different Wi-Fi sources depending on their strength by setting the same SSID, encryption mode and password for all Wi-Fi access points on the network. The TP-Link unit has a button for automatically cloning my original Wi-Fi router’s settings via WPS, whereas for the Tenda unit I need to manually change settings via a browser. In practice I have never found WPS particularly easy to use, and it took several tries before the TP-Link unit was able to clone settings successfully. Furthermore, for unknown reasons I could not access the TP-Link’s settings panel the way the manual describe.

Speed: My HKBN connection has an average speed of around 60Mbps. Plugging the powerline units directly into wall sockets, I got the same speed with the TP-Link unit, whereas for the Tenda unit I only got 30Mbps at best. The results were the same regardless of whether I use an Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi, so the bottleneck is the Tenda unit itself. Speed drops dramatically if you plug the units into an extension cord—the average speed was only 3Mbps in my test.

Conclusion: Powerline network adapters present a very convenient way to extend your home network. Base on my test results, I would recommend spending the extra money to get the higher-end models due to the large speed difference.

周可夫司機今天突破個人最佳紀綠,一個早晨就來回九龍新界車全家:
7:35am 車太太上班
7:55am 車母親上班
8:31am 車父親和妹妹到地鐵站
10:00am 車婆婆去「上班」(= 打牌)
10:30am 回到中大見學生

“Chow”-ffeur has outdone himself today, having driven his whole family around the city in one morning:
7:35am Drove wife to work
7:55am Drove mother to work
8:31am Drove father and sister to subway station
10:00am Drove grandma to “work” (a.k.a. mahjong)
10:30am Back to CUHK to meet with students.

識電腦硬件都知道,現時固態硬碟(SSD)價格平到一個地步其本上唔值得用普通硬碟開機。但係好多機構係唔明依點,覺得舊電腦慢就買新電腦,要最快嘅CPU最大容量嘅硬碟,偏偏就唔肯花錢買SSD。用唔夠幾耐,部機個普通硬碟用到慢晒,又再花錢買新機,完全係浪費金錢…

Those who are familiar with computer hardware knows that Solid State Drives are so cheap these days, there is really no reason to boot your computer with a traditional hard drive. Many organizations do not understand this point, and keep replace old computers with new ones that pair the newest CPU with a traditional hard drive. All too often, the new computer slows to a crawl and becomes a target for replacement itself.

 

風雨飄搖中又教完一個學期。三點感想:
一,我應該算得上是非常支持佔領運動的老師,但我不會接受同學在欠交功課甚至缺席中期試後以參與運動為開脫借由。你要瞓身學運,可以學效周永康岑敖暉申請暫時休學;想準時畢業,就要像梁麗幗張秀賢般自行追趕進度。
二,今年一年級的經濟系同學,你們的英文和自制能力真的很弱,比上兩年度的學長學姊弱得多。你們在未來兩年半一定要努力改善這兩點,否則到求職時你們連第一次面試都過不了。
三,有志讀研究院的朋友,不要猶豫,盡快報名。很多人留意到本地生在研究院中的比例低,卻不知其在報讀人數中的比例其實更低。機會要靠大家主動爭取。

「震撼全球史詩式鉅獻,激戰實感超越《雷霆救兵》」

我可以告訴大家,這標題絕對是騙人的。《戰逆豪情》的場境只是HBO級數,完全說不上「史詩式」。至於「激戰實感」,本來小隊式的坦克戰還過得去,但片尾畢彼特中了四發狙擊槍還可以說話,之後再吃多兩記手榴彈帥臉還是完好無缺,我不由得懷疑他是否以為自己還在演《特洛伊:木馬屠城》中的阿基里斯。

如果你喜歡的是《雷霆救兵》或《Band of Brothers》, 這套戲一定會令你失望,因為它實情是一套用上「寫實」拍攝技巧的傳統美國英雄戲。