My register lost johnliu.net domain and didn't even tell me

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I don't know if I had blogged this before, anyway, I've owned johnliu.net for a couple of years.  In 2006, It expired into redemption period (because I've changed email and didn't follow my old email address, my bad).  But I was able to save it in time.

In 2007, it again expired, but this time I received no email notification from the domain register.

They were not able to re-secure my domain, so now it's parked by some evil domain squatter.

The register gave me john-liu.net for free.  But it sucks when you can't trust your register to remind you that your domain is expiring.  (The same register seem to send me a lot of spam mail promoting their SEO technology).

I think this year, I'm going to go for an external host and have john-liu.net redirected there.  I'll probably keep using spaces for blogging.

December 2007

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Is gone.  Lina and I went to New Zealand for a visit, with our unborn child (the little guy is probably sleeping through the whole trip). 

I don't know if I expected NZ to change a lot, I feel it changed, but not much.  One Tree Hill is no more, there is no tree now, and the whole place is just the Park Summit.

No more George Pie.

Auckland Grammar School has about 4 or 5 more buildings which is kind of crazy.

My old place is still there, but it's now inhabited by strangers who has planted new and strange plants in the garden.

The road to Cape Reinga is being resurfaced and they've removed the shop (and the post office).  There is a mail box though, but stuck between two Portable-Loos it's just not the same.

We still had heaps of fun.  Thanks NZ.

jliu

Why should I specialize? Why should you specialize?

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Was asked over a company coffee thing.
"Oh you are interested in WPF"
"Yea"
"What are you planning to do with it?"
"Eh?"
"What is your next step?"

I was caught unprepared.  I've always seen myself as expert in anything I want to do.  Why not?  Why limit yourself to one technology tree?  What happens when that technology is a dead-end?
I've done Java, and now I'm sold on .NET.
I've done both Windows Forms and Web Forms.
I've done SQL Server 2000, 2008...
Part of the reason I've never been convinced of SharePoint.  Initially it was this portal system.  Then it seemed to compete with ASP.NET 2.0.  After a while... it got bundled into everything: Microsoft Office SharePoint.
Perhaps there is someone really high up in Microsoft that refuses to let it die.

There always seem to be these people (Evangelists) that seemed to know everything there is to know, about everything.
How do you go about becoming one of those?

Anyway, I can see the company's point of view.  Master of One Trade is easier to sell (and train) than Jack of All Trades.

But I still feel if I had to abandon any one of my many interests, it'd be like cutting my arm off :-(

jliu

Heaps and heaps of updates

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Ok, heaps of update, stay with me.
(This is what happens when you don't blog for a while - but you ain't getting no apologies from me!)
  • .NET stuff
    • Having done .NET 2.0 for nearly a year, I can't remember what it was like without generics, or anonymous delegates...
    • Spring.NET is cool.
    • ASP.NET AJAX is cool.
    • NHibernate is somewhat cool (but I'm not sold).
    • DB2, the database that's used here sucks really bad.  Like a vacuum combined with a blackhole.  People should use a real, up-to-date database system, like SQL Server or failing that at least Oracle...
  • Work stuff
    • People come and go, I haven't decided whether I want to stay here or get moved to a different project.
    • Oh ya, did so much javascript (in particular, JQuery), I think I can dream in JQuery now.
  • Gaming stuff
    • Following quitting WoW, I played LOTRO initially to help me quit Warcraft.
    • LOTRO turned out to be a bit of a dead-end game at end game.  So we quit that.
    • Got into Tabula Rasa for a while.  That was a dead-end too.  Beta had too many issues and not many impressive moments.
    • Got an XBox 360, just for Halo 3 - that is one good game - probably as good as the hype.
    • Got into Bio Shock which I actually finished (got the good ending).
    • Got into Viva Pineda which was quite fun but I feel not much replay value.
    • Really got into Puzzle Quest - that is the cheapest $12 I've ever spent on a game.  Everyone loved it.
    • Got into Hellgate London - fun but not much things to do - it turns repetitive quite quickly.
    • Got back into World of Warcraft.  There's just nothing on the market that can compete with it for now.
    • Wish List: Mass Effect (will get this possibly after Chrismas)
  • Personal stuff
    • Wifey is pregnant (yay!), we're expecting in May 2008.  All signs are currently normal, which is the best I can wish for.
    • Going to have our last holiday together (since I heard after the baby is born I won't be going anywhere) to New Zealand, where I grew up but haven't returned for over a decade.