My Thesis for Sharing

I graduated from University College Cork, Ireland with Msc degree in 2006. Since then, I have never touched my thesis again. It is useless to only keep it in my hard drivers. I would like to take it out and hope it can help some one who may need. The thesis is put on the following page: http://www.joehe.com/my-thesis/. Some simple introductions are as follows:

A Multimedia Ordering System for Restaurant

Hu He, Department of Computer Science, University College Cork, Ireland, December 2005

Abstract:

This thesis is about a project which is developed as a multimedia ordering system for restaurant. The project includes two parts: Website Ordering System and In-restaurant Ordering System. In the Website Ordering System, customers can check the dishes, make their orders, and pay their orders through a website which has rich information (pictures, text etc) about dishes. In restaurants, PDA can be used to present the multimedia information of dishes to customers, as well as deal with the orders which can be transferred to kitchen and be recorded into database through the mobile devices and server. Also, this system provides a PC client which also can deal with orders and present the multimedia information to staff for training purpose.

Technology involved:

1: JVM on PocketPC
I use the PDA with Pocket PC system as the wireless mobile device for the ordering system, There are many JVMs which can run on the Pocket PC. Such as IBM’s J9 JVM [1] or NSICOM’s CrEme JVM [2]. There are several other JVMs on the market, but they all suffer from these problems: not supported anymore (Sun’s PersonalJava), not fully Java compatible (SuperWaba), not fully Java compatible (EWE), on sale to OEMs only (Esmertec JBed, formerly Insignia Jeode), or out of date (Insignia Jeode). Because the price for IBM’s J9 JVM is very good at $5.99/each., so I choose the J9 JVM at first.

Other technology used:

2: JVM and JDK on PC

3: RMI server-client mechanism

4: MySQL Database

Please go to this page for the details.

Fireworks show during Chinese New Year.

A real Chinese New Year cannot be there without fire works. The following pictures come from fireworks show in Guangzhou on 26 January for this Chinese New Year.

People are watching the fireworks show in Guangzhou although it is raining.

Bazhou, Guangzhou, 26 Jan 2009

Beautiful fire on the sky, Baietang, Guangzhou.

The fireworks last for 30 minutes. It is reported that 20,000 fireworks had been fired during the time.

How to check blog if it is a nofollow

Nofollow is a HTML attribute introduced by Goolge to prevent spamindexing. The way to use this attribute is to add rel="nofollow" into the hyperlink tags "href". Nofollow will tell the search engines that do not follow the link. If the hyperlink has the attribute, then it would not affect the link target's Page Rank. Currently, three search engines support this attribute: Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, although they have different interpretations about the attribute. Now many blogs are using this attribute. Usually, the nofollow attribute is used on the link provided by commenters, which can prevent spammy links gaining any benefit for page rank. However, if you want to know if a blog has nofollow attribute. There are two ways to check if a blog has the "nofollow" attribute.

1: Check the HTML source code of the page, look for the tags that have <a rel=”nofollow”>, if you are seeing a "nofollow" on a link to a commenter, then the page is a nofollow page. Search engine won't follow this link automatically.

2: Firefox users can add a plugin to check "nofollow" attribute. This will speed up the checking. This plugin is named SearchStatus . If you use the "Highlight Nofollow Links" function, then you can see highlight on nofollow links every time you open a web page.

If you know more methods to detect the nofollow attribute, please put it into the comment box.

Resource: www.joehe.com

Irish Scenery- King John’s Castle(Limerick)

King John’s Castle is located in Limerick City, Ireland, next to River Shannon which is the biggest river in Ireland. It was firstly built by the Viking sea-king in 922. I went there this summer. The castle has a really good view of Limerick city and River Shannon.

Overview of the castle and River Shannon

The entrance of the castle, some people are sitting on the cannon.

The weapon made by wood. It looks like a little bit fragile, doesn’t it?

Oven and stools

The shooting hole. Soldiers can fire arrows from there.

Bird’s-eye views of the castle and Limerick city.

River Shannon

Formidable watchtower

The man making coins

Gun and power

Some introduction about the castle from Wikipedia.

The Viking sea-king, Thormodr Helgason, built the first permanent Viking stronghold on Inis Sibhtonn (King’s Island) in 922. He used the base to raid the length of the River Shannon from Lough Derg to Lough Ree, pillaging ecclesiastical settlements. In 937 the Limerick Vikings clashed with those of Dublin on Lough Ree and were defeated. In 943 they were defeated again when the chief of the local Dalcassian clan joined with Ceallachan, king of Munster and the Limerick Vikings were forced to pay tribute to the clans. The power of the Vikings never recovered, and they reduced to the level of a minor clan, however often playing pivotal parts in the endless power struggles of the next few centuries.

The arrival of the Anglo-Normans to the area in 1172 changed everything. Domhnall Mor O’Brien burned the city to the ground in 1174 in a bid to keep it from the hands of the new invaders. The Anglo-Normans finally captured the area in 1195, under John, Lord of Ireland. In 1197 local legend claims Limerick was given its first charter and its first Mayor, Adam Sarvant. A castle, built on the orders of King John and bearing his name, was completed around 1200.

More introduction please see the link: Wikipedia.

Resource: www.joehe.com

Two girls are kissing whales

On 15 Jan 2009, a very difficult new show named “The Kiss of Sea” was performed successfully in Haerbin, Northeast of China.It is said that this is the first time to succeed in such kind of show in the world. The two female tamers took half year to practice for this show. People can watch their official show during Chinese New Year.

Photo from Heilongjiang Daily.


Resource: www.joehe.com

Obama's brother's Chinese life.

As many people may know that one of Obama's brother, Mark Ndesandjo, is living in China. Which city? It is Shenzhen, 45 minutes bus from HongKong. He has been living in Shenzhen for 6 years with a pretty low profile until his old brother Obama become the USA president. He lives a happy life in China. He is a boss of a restaurant chain named "Mu Wu Barbecue". He has been helping orphans and teaching them piano during his spare time for 6 years. He got married with a Chinese girl who comes from Henan Province. He can speak very good Chinese and is a vegetarian. People around him really like him, they might not know he is the USA presidents' brother, but know he is a good man.

Mark Ndesandjo (Photo from ifeng.com)



Mu wu Barbecue shop (photo from southcn.com)



Teaching Orphans Piano (photo from southcn.com)

Wordpress's bug caused my blog's sidebar disappeared

Today, I found my sidebar on my blog (www.joehe.com) disappeared. At the beginning, I thought it was because of my current themes, but after changed several themes, this issue still existed. I set up an apache server on my local machine, and install Wordpress on it. I found the theme that I current used on my blog is perfectly displayed from my local machine. Then I started to investigate this issue. I found the sidebar was not actually disappeared, it was just placed on the bottom of the page, since the index page is so long that I did not see it at the first glance. I compared the code of my current page to the code of normal page. Finally, I found it was because of one of the post which contains < div id="main_r" > where I should use "& lt" and "& gt". This cause this problem since the browser think there is a < div id="main_r" > in the code of the page but has no < /div > to close it。If Wordpress can check if the post contains symbols like "<" or ">" before the post can be submitted, this could reduce this kind of errors. BTW, my wordpress version is 2.7.

Source: http://www.joehe.com/2009/01/wordpresss-bug-caused-my-sidebar-disappeared/

A 309 Kilogram fish is ready to be cooked.

A 309 Kilogram, 2.05 meters long fish was caught in Zhuhai, South of China. The staff of a Cantonese restaurant are preparing for cooking this fish. The fish looks like tiger grouper. It was caught in the deep sea. Fishmen took 1 hour to land the fish with the help of divers. Need 7 men together to move this fish. Tiger grouper is delicious and expensive in China. People in south China look this fish as a high class food.




Resource: http://www.joehe.com/2009/01/a-309-kilogram-fish-is-ready-to-be-cooked/

A tiger golf game online

I just found a really funny game for golf funs. It is a kind of flash game online. The role of the game is a Tiger(Not Tiger Wuzz though). The operation is pretty simle. I only need to use my mouse to adjust the direction and the force to hit the ball. The very fisrt scenario is very simple, but the second is more difficult. I got familia with this game quickly and enjoyed this game very much. The game comes from one of flash games online site. Its' address is: http://www.miniclip.com/games/tiger-golf/en/

A good wordpress plugin for google ads.

Yesterday, I spent whole night on looking for the best plugin for Google adsense ads. I had downloaded 5 plugins named: Adsense-integrator, Adsense-manager, All-in-one-adsense-and-ypn etc. Thanks Wordpress for easy installation of plugin, I can try them all easily. After installed and tried them one by one, I found Adsense-integrator is the best one for me. It does not need too much even a little PHP programming knowledge. You can just simply fill out the form provided by the plugin and press a button to update pages, then you can see your ads ideally appearing in your posts. Actually, I don't need any tools/plugins to help me to put Ads on the sidebar, it is easier to add Ads onto the sidebar manually by modifying the code. I am sure Adsense-integrator is what I want.

Use Google search engine to promote your website

Today, I found a new feature on Google search engine. If you do some searching with keywords, you can see there is a little upward arrow on the right of each search result. If you move your mouse over the little arrow, the arrow will turn into green and show “Promote”, then next you click the arrow, the result that you selected will go up to the top of the result. So if one of the results is your website, you can use this way to make your website go to the top of the search result. Moreover, if you cannot find your website in the list of the results, then you can check the bottom of search results page, you will see a link named "Add a result". Just click this link, and type your website's URL into the box right below the message: “Add a page that you'd like to see the next time you search for...” Then click the "Preview" button, you will see the "Add" button. Click the "Add" button, your website will fly to the top of the search results. I think Google might use this way to make the search results more fit for users' intent. If more users use the upward arrow on the result from your website, then your website are more likely to be on the top of search results.But just noticed that these features are only available in English languages.
Resource: http://www.joehe.com/2009/01/use-google-search-engine-to-promote-your-website/

A way to read free famous magazines online.

The internet is just like a knowledge "sea". I spend at least 4 hours online every day. Many new things come up in front of me. Today, I just saw an article introducing how to read free famous magazines online. If you like to read the following magazines online: PC Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Popular Mechanics, MacWorld, Lonely Planet, Reader’s Digest, Playboy. Please follow the following steps.
1: Download Apple's Safari web browser if you are not using Mac system.
2: Install Safari firstly, then Select Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced, check the box "Show Develop menu in menu bar".
3: Back to the main menu, you will see "Develop" in the menu bar. Go into "Develop" menu and select "Mobile Safari 1.1.3 - iPhone".
4: Then open this URL in the Sarari browser.

Wordpress vs Mambo

I have build two websites with CMS package. One is Mambo, the other is Wordpress. They all are good systems but with different features.
1: Wordpress can only be used on blog website. Mambo can be used on some other website.
2: It is very easy to install Wordpress. It only took me 5 minutes to install on the server without any problems. But Mambo took me 30 minutes or longer.
3: Wordpress has Chinese package and support Chinese very well. It is a little bit painful to use Mambor to build Chinese website, but works!
4: It is quit easy to change template in Wordpress system. You only need to unzip the template files and move them into the specified directory. Changing template in Mambo is a little bit complicated and difficult, you have to upload files from the backend and you will encounter problems most time.
Conclusion, if only want to build a personal blog, I strongly recommend using Wordpress.

Also published this article at: writinghood.com