Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Chinese food in Atlanta

Had some great Chinese food in Atlanta the other week, most of the restaurants are located along Buford Highway, it's like a Chinatown there, but it's pretty small, and mixed with other Asian restaurants.

1. Peter Chang's Tasty (川娃儿)
It serves Szechuan food, so it's spicy and oily. Tastes pretty authentic, only it's a little bit salty.

6450 Powers Ferry Rd,
Sandy Springs, Marietta
Ga, 30339

2. China inn (六福)
The best Chinese restaurant so far, it serves very good Szechuan food, we had some nice chat with the waitress, the dish in the bottom right corner is so tasty!

5470 Peachtree Blvd
Chamblee, GA 30341

3. Canton House (富丽华)
A typical Cantonese restaurant, serves dim sum and Cantonese food, not spicy. This restaurant, according to my friend, is hot spot for hosting wedding ceremonies.

4825 Buford Hwy
Chamblee, GA 30341

4. Man Chun Hong (满天红)
The worst so far, it's in Korea Town, the dishes don't look good nor taste good, it could be it serves better Korean food, but if you are going for some authentic Chinese food, don't go there.

5953 Buford Highway Northeast
Atlanta, GA 30340

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Panda

For a guy who lives only a few hours' drive from Chengdu, home of Giant Panda, I've never thought that my first encounter with panda would be in the US, more specific, in Zoo Atlanta. And guess what, these four pandas in the zoo are from Chengdu, just a few hundred miles from my hometown. It always brings excitement to see the familiar in an unfamiliar environment, especially for the first time. That's why Americans would be excited to see Starbucks in China, and Chinese would be very excited to see Dragon dance in the US.
Visitors love to see pandas, they could stay there for a long time just to watch the baby panda climbing, they are the most lovely creature in the world. Unfortunately there are only a couple thousand panda remaining both in the wild and in conservation areas, they are endangered by low birthrate and loss of habitat.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

What's new in iOS 5

1. Chinese input.
That's added value for Chinese users like me. It's smarter than its predecessor, but a little bit slower.

2. Notification center
This thing works as a double-edged sword. On one hand, you just love how all your push notifications being aggregated into one page, on the other hand, it's a battery killer! Every few minutes, you'll get a notification from your email, SMS, Calendar, IMs, etc. So to save battery, you might not wanna put push notifications active for a lot of apps.

3. Photo editing
It doesn't do much magic, just crop, auto-enhance and red-eye reduction. Compared to what Android can do, this is just like nothing.

4. Twitter built-in
Now you can post tweets inside photos

5. Reminder
This could come in handy when you think you might forget something yet not considering it as worthy of putting in the calendar.


6. Reader in Safari


7. Dictionary
Double clicking on a word doesn't only give copy and paste, it also gives a "Define" option, which is a dictionary
When you hit it, it'll be something like this


8. iCloud
This is the killer update in iOS 5, but it seems Apple hasn't turned on the service yet, even though I had iCloud installed on my Mac, I don't see any syncing between the phone and mac.


9. iMessage



Wednesday, October 5, 2011

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

How to install iOS 5 GM


iOS 5 just went golden yesterday after Apple unveiled iPhone 4S, and promised to release the final version on Oct. 12th. If you cannot wait that long and want to lay a hand on it right now like me, you could download the Golden Master version, which is amount to the final release version, and have installed right now! Here's how (for Mac only):

1. Download the latest iTunes 10.5 beta 9, direct link, install it
2. Download iOS 5 for your iPhone, downloads are available here, http://imzdl.com. For ATT users, use GSM, for Verison, CDMA.
3. Extract the IPSW file from the iOS 5 seed
4. Back up your iPhone by iTunes
5. Open iTunes, connect your iPhone, press and hold option key and choose "restore", select the IPSW file from where you extracted it
6. Wait till the system is loaded and your iPhone restarts
7. Setup preferences, iCloud and sync with your back up



Monday, October 3, 2011

Ig Nobel Prize

Heard about Ig Nobel Prize today in Modern Analysis class. Just to be clear, it's NOT the Nobel Prize awarded in Oslo. Ig Nobel Prize acts to award "research that makes people laugh and then think", as they state their spirit. For example, this year, peace prize is awarded to the mayor of Vilnius, Arturas Zuokas, who solved the illegal parking problem by crashing these luxury cars with an armed tank, they even have a video for this