the Piano
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Finally watched the PIANO by Holly Hunter and Havey keitel. Beatuful love story. Kind of reminded me of Cold Mountain.
January 2004logue
Mark Tucker Photography
Many interesting photographs, I especially love those took in lower broadway. Check Mark Tucker Photography out.
Installing Movabletype and plugins
Monday, January 12, 2004
I installed movabletype and some plugins related to BOOKS. It's all setup now. Plan to do more with this new site, stay tuned.
host doesn't have Image::Magick
Sunday, January 11, 2004
This is a solution to use NETPBM to make thumbnail pictures in movabletype
Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For 2004
Saturday, January 10, 2004
J.M. Smucker Tops FORTUNE List of 100 Best Companies to Work For; 107-Year-Old Family Controlled Business Moves up from No. 8 on Last Year's List
Alston & Bird Holds No. 2 Spot; Container Store at No. 3
(CSRwire) NEW YORK--J.M. Smucker, the Orrville, Ohio-based maker of jam, jelly and other food items, tops FORTUNE's seventh annual 100 Best Companies to Work For list. The 107-year-old family-controlled company had a total return of 100% over the past five years, and has never had layoffs. Gimmick-free management starts with the co-CEOs, Tim and Richard Smucker, who took the reins in 2001 and adhere to a simple code of conduct established by their father and former CEO, Paul Smucker. "The play-well-with-others approach, as precious as it comes across to an outsider, has clearly won over employees," says FORTUNE writer Julia Boorstin. The list and related stories appear in the January 12, 2004 issue, available on newsstands January 5 and at www.fortune.com today.
"It's been a rough couple of years for jobs. But lots of companies still want to be good places to work--and 59 of the companies on the list actually added to their payrolls last year," write Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz of the Great Place to Work Institute, which researches and compiles the list. Noteworthy list changes include: Only 16 high-tech companies made this year's list, as opposed to 22 five years ago and there are now seven hospitals, up from two in 1998. In addition, sixteen newcomers made the cut, including the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), highway builder Granite Construction (Watsonville, CA), and mall chain Hot Topic (City of Industry, CA).
Atlanta law firm Alston & Bird, which offers generous maternity leave for mothers (and fathers if they are the primary caregivers) and has an on-site child-care center, is No. 2 on the list. No. 3, Dallas-based Container Store, helps employees reduce stress by offering yoga, monthly chair massages, stretching classes and an online exercise and nutrition diary personalized for every worker. At No. 4 is Edward Jones, the financial services firm based in St. Louis that continues to grow--it added 1,500 employees in the past 12 months--and has not had a layoff in 34 years. Republic Bancorp of Owosso, Michigan, is No. 5. Last year, 300 employees were awarded trips to Aruba, Cancun, and the Dominican Republic, and all employees receive stock options.
Rounding out the top ten are Adobe Systems (No. 6), whose new high-rise in San Jose will include a basketball court; TDIndustries (No. 7), the Dallas company where all employees are allowed 100% reimbursement of tuition, fees, and books at any state-supported college; SAS Institute (No. 8) in Cary, N.C., where employees enjoy three different cafeterias, two Montessori child-care centers, and an on-site fitness center with a ten-lane pool; Rochester-based Wegmans Food Markets (No. 9), which offers zero-premium health insurance to employees making less than $55,000 and where 652 workers have been at the company 25 years or more; and Xilinx (No. 10), the San Jose chipmaker that continued its "no lay-off" policy by requiring management to take a 20% pay cut.
"Overall," conclude Levering and Moskowitz, "today's lesson is that perks are nice, but employees are looking for something more basic. They want to be told the truth, especially if the news is bad. They also want, corny as it sounds, to feel they make a difference and to be given a chance to grow."
To create the list, Levering and Moskowitz surveyed 46,526 randomly selected employees from 304 candidate companies who filled out an employee-opinion survey. Nearly half also gave written comments about their workplaces. Each candidate company also filled out a questionnaire detailing its people policies, practices, and philosophies. Companies were evaluated on both the employee surveys and the company questionnaires, with the employees' opinions being given two-thirds of the total score. "The most important factor in selecting companies for this list is what employees themselves have to say about their workplaces," write Levering and Moskowitz.
Movabletype Plugin involved with BOOKS.
lucis: "Inspired by patchwork progression , I've decided to maintian this entry in which I list all my MT tweaks. I'll probably add a new entry if I make a more complex change, but will try to list all the stuff I do with the blog here.
Some really good MT resources are: scriptygoddess , thegirliematters , and virtualvenus .
Okay, here is a list of various things that I've done with MT and the blog:
"
my.MSN.com
Thursday, January 8, 2004
Welcome to MSN.com, the revamped MY.MSN is way better than the old one. A lot prettier than my.Yahoo. I always hate MSN and MICROSOFT, but I love this aggregation of information in one place. very easy to configure.
Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
A useful read for designing website. At the sametime, Useit.com is a great online usability testing together with Agency.com
Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else This book is introduced by FreshAir today.
NPR : Talk of the Nation for Monday, January 5, 2004
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
NPR : Talk of the Nation for Monday, January 5, 2004
I heard this edition of TOTN on NPR. The segment of Career change is very interesting. here is the abstract: "Monday, January 5, 2004
The recent ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Court promises to make gay marriage one of the biggest social issues in the coming 2004 elections. The ruling is the starting point of a new series of conversations on Talk of the Nation about the emerging politics of gay marriage. NPR's Lynn Neary is guest host.
In the second hour of the show: Do you wish your job took you outside more? Do you wish your time in front of the computer contributed to something important to you? Maybe you have a private idea of how you could live better... We talk about finding life satisfaction through job change. "
Book mentioned in the show above is called "What should I do with my life?"
About "Happy New Year"
Thursday, January 1, 2004
I intended to put this post this post a little bit early yesterday, well, in this case, last year to talk about some interesting opinion about the term "Happy New Year". It's a rather pessimistic idea about the actual meaning of happy new year to many people.
There are so many people who aren't satisfied with their lives in the past year and want a new start. Saying Happy New Year to each other seems to bring happiness to everyone althought it may not change the luck or whatever you need to change the life around. It's just another way to comfort yourself and other people and say, it's okay, next year, everything will be different and better. Let's have high hope for it and expect every wish you made in the last minute of the year will come true, all the distress and sadness in the past year will be gone, the world will be peaceful for a while after Saddam were captured... Not everything will change over time, but we have hope, and we hope the new year will truly a happy one. Until then, we can say at the end of the year, I had a happy old year and I will have a happy new year!
