[[Publications]]\n[[Conferences]]\n[[Resources]]\n[[Other Stuff]]
[<img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/brenics_logo.jpg][http://www.ics.uci.edu]]\n\n\n\n[<img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/octane.gif][http://www.octaneoc.org]]\n\n\n\n\n\n[<img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/aaii.gif][http://www.aaii.org]]\n
A common saying that we hear around us is that people get wiser as they get older. However, recently I have been wondering whether this statement is really true or not? Although it is true that the older people are, the more experience and mature they become. Hence, logic might imply that at the same time, people are getting wiser as they age. At the same token, people are also getting more ignorant, sensitive, fixated thinking, and unwilling to try new things. To answer the question of whether people get wiser as they get older, I think the question should be re-phrased on whether people are making improvements to their lives, learning from past mistakes, and taking actions to fix them. If people are not doing anything about changing for the good of themselves, then they are not getting any wiser.\n\nI believe that school is a place for people to re-vamp themselves, to get re-energized, and to change our way of thinking. I'd certainly feel that very much from my own experiences. And it is this feeling that I know school is where I want to be at this time of my life. In a way, I feel excited and young again! Although numerous people have asked me why I came back to school and have doubts regarding my decision, I know for certain it was the right choice that I have made. For one thing, I know I am learning academically as well as personally, which I hope will allow me to be a more wiser person.
Throughput one's lifetime, we get to play many different roles in our lives, whether it's being a son/daughter, sibling, dad/mom, a friend, a colleague or any other titles given to us. As we interface with many people of all ages, we appropriately need to present our character of who we are, what we say, and how we behave. I've found that among all these roles, the thing to keep in mind is being yourself. Trying to be someone who you're not simply doesn't work, and nor will you feel comfortable trying to be in someone else's shoes. And more importantly, to not let other people affect who we are in trying to change our character if it's not for the better. Conceptually, it means not having peer pressure influence us. But in a more deeper thinking, it means just being comfortable with who we are as a person. There is no right or wrong answer here. It's about comfort zone, and it's about what type of rules we can/cannot accept. Personally, I think this is another important life lessons that I've learned. We have choices to make, and we should make it based on our thoughts, rather than someone else's.
[[technology]]\n
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In the past few years, the computing industry has seen significant paradigm shift of capacity from high-end enterprise to low-end consumers. In software, the example would be the open source projects. Many software projects now rely on open source code as an initial step to get things started and then companies build on top of such platform. In hardware, we see that commodity electronics is overtaking enterprise solutions. Although it is true that in many instance that high-end solutions provide better support, customization, and capabilities. However, when all things are considered and added, commodity hardware clearly outperform enterprise solutions via brute force simply by allocating more resources and getting more out of something per dollar spent. This is already true in microprocessors, hard disks, and network interfaces, and probably true for many other computing devices and peripherals. As the trend continues in driving commodity, end users will have access to more computing capabilities than ever before.
[[Networking Conference Dates|http://www.ee.unsw.edu.au/~timm/netconf/]]\n[[Networking Conference Statistics|http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~almeroth/conf/stats/]]
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\n[<img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/rexchen_gmail.png]]\n\n\n[<img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/facebook_logo.jpg][http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=660176453]]\n\n\n\n\n[<img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/linkedin_logo.jpg][http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=8249541&trk=tab_pro]]\n\n\n
''Spring 2007''\n* [[EECS 221 - Advanced Topics in Networking | http://eee.uci.edu/07s/37640/]]\n* [[Social Science 240C - Social Networks | http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/0NetSocEvol/SocNet240ABC.html]]\n\n''Winter 2007''\n* [[CS 248A - Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing | http://www.ics.uci.edu/~welling/teaching/ICS273AFall06/ICS273AFall06.html]]\n* CS 230 - Distributed Computer System\n* [[Social Science 240B - Social Networks | http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/0NetSocEvol/SocNet240ABC.html]]\n\n''Fall 2006''\n* [[ICS 273A - Machine Learning | http://www.ics.uci.edu/~welling/teaching/ICS273AFall06/ICS273AFall06.html]]\n* [[Social Science 240A - Social Networks | http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/0NetSocEvol/SocNet240ABC.html]]\n
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As I have grown older over the years, I started paying more attention to health. I believe health is one of those long-term commitments that we need to make and stick to it. Not only does it prevent us from getting sick or illness, but in an introverted way, eating well allows us the ability to accomplish more things in life with more energy and work more long and productive hours. And it starts with exercise and eating well. The former requires a personal drive to stick with the periodic repetition and not be lazy while the latter requires us to pay attention in our daily in-takes.\n\nRecently, through an observation of a friend while shopping at Trader Joe's, I found out that Blueberries is a natural food source that is highly concentrated with complex supply of quality nutrients. Blueberries is almost like a healing power gem, attributes that include low sugar, high fiber, anti-aging, good skin-care, improve memory, and better eye sight. In fact, Blueberries is at the very top of the food chain, considered as a "super-food." In this journey of eating well for the 21st century, I hope to find other super-foods that is convenient (easily accessible to purchase and eat), decently priced (without going broke on food), and even better, tasty foods (so that we can enjoy it while eating healthy)!
The subject of educational reform has been a recurring topic in different historical contexts and various culture groups. In my perspecive, as we move forward to the Information Age, this topic of education program will be even more debatable and harder to tackle. Because it now involves a new subject known as "technology" which is already changing the way people operate and communicate in our daily lives. More importantly, I think technology will profoundly change the existing educational system and the way people acquire knowledge. Even the roots of what "knowledge" is will be questioned by educators and people in society. \n\nLooking into the future, a decade from now do we even need hardcopy textbooks anymore? Willl people go to the library to study or will there even be a library around us? The concept of a "smart classroom" may transform even further into a setting where instructors and students may no longer be physically located in the same place at the same time. We start to experience forthcoming for some of these technologies such as Online training programs, Google Book Search, and Telepresence video conferencing. Instead of writing books, will educators be using online publishing as the primary method to ubiquitously distribute information they'd like to share to the readers? For our classroom, the way students are taught may be very different as well. After all, the way many of us learn things today are already very different from the past. We rely on tools such as Wikipedia, where new information are written and old contents gets re-written by the second from anyone in the world. Ultimately, going back to the question of what 'Education in the Information Age' will be like becomes very interesting. It will be a challenging and daunting task for educators and teachers of tomorrow to be creative in keeping student retention, rather than having students learn from their own laptops in the classroom.
Many of us has probably heard from news media and other forms of communication about conserving resources on Earth and making environmentally responsible decisions. However, I found this topic to be even more interesting upon watching this video from the website TED when John Doerr talks about profits in Greentech. John Doerr is a very respectful and renown venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. \nHere is the link to the video: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/128\n\nA variety of factors can impact Greentech including efforts from companies, policy makers, and people. However, the message seems to be a long tedious process to catch on, especially in a country like the United States where we have abundant amount of resources than other places around the world. Over time, I do think that Greentech will be important in our lives and that we do need to fix it, especially in the United States. Some futurists even predict that greentech may be the next big thing such as the Internet during the ~Y2K era. I hope that the beginning efforts to think in Greentech terms will continue to evolve. The benefits of Greentech will be seen not only from an environmental perspective, but from an economical point-of-view as well.
<<gradient vert #ffffff #ddffdd #88ff88>>Grad School Friends>> \n[[Michael Sirivianos|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~msirivia/]]\n[[Xin Liu|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~xinl]]\n[[Karim El Defrawy|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~keldefra]]\n[[Minas Gjooka|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mgjoka/]]\n[[Ersin Uzun|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~euzun]]\n[[Yang Wang|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~yangwang/]]\n[[Norman Su|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~normsu/]]\n[[Silvia Lindtner|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lindtner]]\n[[Judy Chen|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~judychen/]]\n\n\n<<gradient vert #ffffff #ddddff #8888ff>>Other Friends>> \n[[Colin Fahey|http://www.colinfahey.com/]]\n[[Oisze Lam|http://clearglass.net/]]\n[[Eric Lee|http://web.mac.com/cirelee/]]\n[[Shuli Cheng|http://shulic.com/]]\n[[Iris Wang|http://www.fbd.ksu.edu.tw/fbd/teacher.php?action=view&user_no=70&PHPSESSID=ff4ba72c6def433642ac0e0957289471]]\n[[Audrey Hao Fang|http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~hfang/]]\n
To get started with this blank TiddlyWiki, you'll need to modify the following tiddlers:\n* SiteTitle & SiteSubtitle: The title and subtitle of the site, as shown above (after saving, they will also appear in the browser title bar)\n* MainMenu: The menu (usually on the left)\n* DefaultTiddlers: Contains the names of the tiddlers that you want to appear when the TiddlyWiki is opened\nYou'll also need to enter your username for signing your edits: <<option txtUserName>>
I am a Ph.D Candidate in Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. Currently, I am enrolled in the [[Networked Systems Program|http://www.networkedsystems.uci.edu/]] and am affiliated with the [[ UC Irvine School of Information and Computer Science | http://www.ics.uci.edu]] and [[ UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies | http://www.its.uci.edu]]. \nMy academic research interests include the following areas:\n* vehicular communications (vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure)\n* routing protocols and architecture design for vehicular networks\n\nI also work part-time for [[Cisco|http://www.cisco.com]] as a product engineer on new wireless network technologies. Before pursuing graduate studies, I worked in the telecom industry for a few years as a software engineer at [[Qualcomm|http://www.qualcomm.com]] in the CDMA ASIC software group. I also did summer internships during college years in small/start-up companies, [[Anydata|http://www.anydata.com]] and [[Endeavors Technology|http://www.endeavors.com]]. I am an author/co-author for a few pending technology patents through industry work. \n\nAt heart, I am an engineer with deep interests in entrepreneurship. Beyond technology, I have a number of other broad interests, both professionally and socially. I enjoy having conversations with people, talk about tech, innovative ideas/ventures, finance, as well as other areas including dancing, food, and inspirational things about the world in large (e.g. [[TED|http://www.ted.com]]). For recreation, I enjoy ballroom dancing (in particular tango, swing, salsa), playing basketball, and outdoor activities such as hiking. And I love trying out new adventures whatever they may be! \n\nI am grateful to have meet some wonderful mentors in life who have provided invaluable learning capacities and wisdom for me. Here are a few quotes that I highly value, and I try to live my life with these quotes in mind.\n\n//"Happiness keeps you Sweet,"//\n//"Sorrow keeps you Human,"//\n//"Failures keep you Humble,"//\n//"Success keeps you Glowing."//\n\n\n<<slider chkSlide [[Contact Information]] 'My Contact Info'>>\n\n<<slider chkSlide [[TiddlyWiki]] 'About Tiddly Wiki'>>\n
As a technologist, I am a firm believer that IT can change our lives in many ways for the better. And although I continue to believe that the people networks (via referral) is still the best way to meet people of our liking, it wasn't until recently through several friends' recommendations, that I finally created a facebook account. And in fact, I was quite impressed with its capabilities and offerings. In today's society, I believe that people are living in a fast-faced environment and timing can sometimes be difficult to arrange, for instance, for two friends to meet up together and catch up. WWW can close this gap by having people stay connected in a non-disruptive manner, e.g. "I'm busy right now, can I call you back later" is a typical response. However, greater offerings are still needed to make these tools even more effective such as VoIP or video conferencing. It seems that the Human Network in the 21st century is about to take on another major transformation in the way people interact and form new relationships.
Back in the 1990s, people surf the Internet using their phone lines with dial-up modem. Things have changed quite a bit now. These days, we make phone calls over the Internet either through DSL, cable, WLAN, or other medium of connections. This trend seems to take another step further with not only having voice communicate over the Internet, but for video as well. The Internet will be a disruptive technology on the future of video delivery and rich media contents. Traditional television broadcast, in particular, may see a huge shift of users using their Internet connection to watch tv shows, movies, and daily news. In Computer Science, topic areas in distributed systems and peer-to-peer networks will be important on the future of IPTV.
[img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/rex_chen.jpg]]\n[[Home]]\n<<slider chkSlide [[AcademicItems]] Academics>>\n[[My Friends|Friends]]\n[[My Blog|BlogItems]]\n
Everyday, people are given numerous tasks to do such as work, school, family, or simply running errands. In all of these engagements, we need to be lots of decisions everyday. What do we do first, who do we need to talk to, what do we eat, etc... And unlike in business or scientific applications, these decisions need to be acted upon based on our own human instincts. There is no decisions trees which we can compute to get an answer with the optimal decision path. People, regardless of social status or where we are in our lives, are given the same amount of time each and every day. Recently, I've find that it is becoming more important to make wise decisions, as they shape who we are, what we like and don't like, who we enjoy meeting and hanging out, and how to live our lives to its fullest and more importantly, how to live our lives with happiness. I hope to follow the path of making wise decisions, and to never look back and regret things that I should have or have not done in my own life. It's hard to make all of the right decisions, but I hope to make more rights than wrong.
For many years now, I have admired those people who have taken the action and time to write online blogs and journals to share the world. I find that it is a good way to keep those who care about us to be informed with what's going on in our lives and what we're thinking. I commend to my friends and others who've done that over the years. Hopefully, I will now be a part of this group and share information about me through this site.\n\nFor this first journal entry, I would like to share my thoughts between having good "execution" and "patience." Although it may seem that these are separate traits, I find them to be closely correlated. Those people who have good "execution" skills get things done on-time, stay on top of it, and let the actions speak for itself. Those who possses good "patience" have the perserverance and attitude to "stick it til the end" and unwilling to give up until the last second. However, from my observations, I find it is actually difficult to obtain both skills. There are those who are good executors but are very impatient, and very so, that it may become disturbing. On the otherhand, others are so patient that they let valuable opportunities go past way and then regret not taking actions afterward. I think there is a fine line between the two skills. I will try to practice them in my own daily living.
As I get older, I realized that as responsible adults, the amount of work we need to do keeps on increasing. This seems like an upward trend that will keep on growing. Our responsibilities increase, ranging from school, work, family, and other engagements. Losing sleep is one way to dealt with the problem, but it doesn't seem to be a good, long-time solution. Perhaps, as someone once told me, it is about "opportunity cost," like the concept in economics. You pick and choose what's important and prioritize the list. Go do those things first. If you do have remaining time aside, you try and do the remaining tasks. Otherwise, you just move on with it. It's easier said than done. For my own life, I hope I can practice and follow the rule of opportunity cost in the right path.
<<gradient vert #ffffff #ffdddd #ff8888>>My Writings>>\n[[Getting Started with CRAWDAD wireless data archive|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/crawdad_guide.htm]]\n[[A Step-by-Step Guide on Using PlanetLab at UC Irvine|http://www.ics.uci.edu/%7Elbao/planetlab/uci_planetlab_instruction.htm]]\n[[VentureForth Article - From Academia to Wall Street | http://www.ventureforth.org/magazine/2005winter/#jacobs]]\n[[VentureForth Arcitle - An Introduction to Google's PageRank | http://www.ventureforth.org/magazine/2005winter/#pagerank]]\n[[VentureForth Article - From Invention to Venture | http://www.ventureforth.org/magazine/2005winter/#invention]]\n\n\n<<gradient vert #ffffff #ddffdd #88ff88>>My Spotlights>> \n[[2006 Spotlights @ the Bren School of Information and Computer Science|http://www.ics.uci.edu/community/news/spotlight/spotlight_chen.php]]\n[[2003 ICS Extreme Computing Competition|http://www.irvineworldnews.com/Astories/june19/ucicontest.html]]\n[[2002 UCI Chancellor's Award in Undergraduate Research|http://www.urop.uci.edu/symposium/past_awards.html]]\n\n\n<<gradient vert #ffffff #ddddff #8888ff>>Quick Tips on ~TiddlyWiki>> \n[[http://espringer.web.wesleyan.edu/|http://espringer.web.wesleyan.edu/]]\n\n/%\n{{{\n[[windows folder link | file:///path]]\n[[unix-style folder | file:///folder/path/name]]\n}}}\n\n|bgcolor(#DDDDDD): ''Mondays'' |bgcolor(#DDDDDD): ''Tuesdays'' |bgcolor(#DDDDDD): ''Wednesdays'' |bgcolor(#DDDDDD): ''Thursdays'' |bgcolor(#DDDDDD): ''Fridays'' |\n|class|class||||\n||||||\n%/
[[Friends]]\n
* Requesting for a slice (a "slice" is set of UNIX shell access to a number of ~PlanetLab nodes with allocated resources for the users in their experiments\n** Go to the [[PlanetLab Account Registration site|https://www.planet-lab.org/db/accounts/showaup.php]], and fill out the Personal and Login Information\n** For the Site Information, make sure to select , University of California, Irvine \n** Select No for these two questions: Are you a PI? Are you a Technical Contact\n** You will receive an email once your ~PlanetLab account is activated.\n\n* Logging to your ~PlanetLab account\n** Go to the [[PlanetLab Account Login site|https://www.planet-lab.org/db/login/login.php]], and login with your email and password. \n** Prior to getting remote login access to a ~PlanetLab node, you need to create a SSH key pair for authentication.\n** To generate a SSH key pair, use the ssh-keygen program on Linux/Unix or Windows (use Cygwin). \n{{{\n > ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa\n > <type in a passphrase> \n}}}\n** Two files ssh-keygen create: id_rsa (private key), id_rsa.pub (public key). (Note: this "passphrase" will be used later on when you login to a ~PlanetLab node with your slice name)\n** Upload id_rsa.pub (public key) in your !PlanetLab Account Login by clicking the following tabs: \n*** User -> Manage My Account -> Manage Keys -> (browse for the id_rsa.pub public key and upload it) \n** (Note that it may take take a few hours for the public key to get propagated to all the PlanetLab nodes\n\n*Adding/Deleting ~PlanetLab nodes to the slice\n** Go to the [[PlanetLab Account Login site|https://www.planet-lab.org/db/login/login.php]], and login with your email and password. \n** Click the following tabs:\n*** Slice -> View Slice -> (click your slice name) -> Manage Nodes\n*** In the Manage Node Assignments page, use "Filter" button to add or delete nodes from different sites for your slice. \n*** (Note that the ~PlanetLab nodes selected will be nodes with resources allocated to do experiments in your slice . However, the nodes that you have reserved are not dedicated solely for your use. A number of other ~PlanetLab research projects may be running other experiments concurrently. )\n\n* Logging to a ~PlanetLab node (with your slice name) \n** In the command prompt, type:\n{{{\n > ssh -l <slice_name> -i <ssh public key> <PlanetLab node DNS record>\n}}}\n*** (example: ssh -l uci_dandelion -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa planetlab-1a.ics.uci.edu\n*** For password, enter the "passphrase" you used to create the ssh-keygen key pair. \n*** You should now be "remotely login" to this ~PlanetLab node\n*** (Note that you will mostly see nothing in the directory structure, as you will be "deploying" any standard packages needed for your experiment , e.g. gcc, python, etc... )\n\n*Automating the login process \n** In your home directory .bash_profile file, add the following codes (suggested by [[Joseph M. Reagle|http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-06/msg00537.html]] ).\n{{{\n SSH_ENV=$HOME/.ssh/environment\n\n function start_agent {\n echo \n "Initialising new SSH agent..."\n /usr/bin/ssh-agent | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' > \n ${SSH_ENV}\n echo succeeded\n chmod 600 ${SSH_ENV}\n . ${SSH_ENV} > \n /dev/null\n /usr/bin/ssh-add;\n }\n\n # Source SSH settings, if applicable\n \n if [ \n -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then\n . ${SSH_ENV} > /dev/null\n #ps ${SSH_AGENT_PID} \n doesn't work under cywgin\n ps -ef | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID} | grep ssh-agent$ \n > /dev/null || {\n start_agent;\n }\n else\n start_agent;\n fi\n}}}\n**This will enable ssh-agent to run in the background and automate ssh login process for each node.\n\nA similar instruction on how to get started is also available [[here|https://www.planet-lab.org/doc/UsersGuide.php]] from ~PlanetLab. Instructions above contain more concrete instructions for UC Irvine.
!Journal\n*''Rex Chen'', Wenlong Jin, Amelia Regan, [["Broadcasting in Vehicular Networks: Issues and Approaches“]], IEEE Network Special Issue on Advances in Vehicular Communications Networks (accepted), January 2010.\n*''Rex Chen'', Kenneth L. Kraemer, and Prakul Sharma, [[“Google: The World's First Information Utility?”|http://pcic.merage.uci.edu/papers/2009/Google.pdf]], Business & Information Systems Engineering journal (BSIE – State of the Art) Issue 1/2009 and WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK journal (Fiftieth Anniversary) Issue 1/2009 (German translation), January 2009.\n\n!Book Chapter\n* Lichun Bao, ''Rex Chen'' and Denh Sy, [["On-Demand Anonymous Routing (ODAR)"| http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/publications/BaoChenSyNOVASCI2008.pdf]], Chapter in [["Security in Ad-hoc and Sensor"]] Networks, Editor R. Beyah, J. Mcnair and C. Corbett, World Scientific Press, July 2009.\n\n!Conferences and Workshops\n*''Rex Chen'', Wenlong Jin, Amelia Regan, [["Multi-Hop Broadcasting in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks with Shockwave Traffic"]] 2nd IEEE Intelligent Vehicular Communications System Workshop (accepted), January 2010.\n*''Rex Chen'' and Amelia Regan, [["Wireless Networks for Car and Ride Sharing Systems: An Assessment of 802.11 Wi-Fi"]], Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., January 2009.\n* Michael Sirivianos, Jong Han Park, ''Rex Chen'' and Xiaowei Yang, [["Free-riding in BitTorrent Networks with the Large View Exploit," |http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/publications/SirivianosParkChenYangIPTPS2007.pdf]] 6th International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS 2007), Bellevnue, Washington, February 2007.\n*''Rex Chen'', Oisze Lam, and Kenneth L. Kraemer, [["Strategic Use of Information Technology: Google,"|http://www.crito.uci.edu/papers/2007/Google.pdf]] The Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO), University of California, Irvine, February 2007.\n* Denh Sy, ''Rex Chen'' and ~Li-Chun Bao, [["ODAR: On Demand Anonymous Routing in Ad Hoc Networks,"|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/publications/SyChenBaoMASS2006.pdf]] Proceeding of The Third IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS), Vancouver, Canada, October 2006.\n\n!Posters\n*''Rex Chen'' and Amelia Regan, [["Convergence of Internet and Vehicle Communications: Evaluation of Wi-Fi,"]], World Congress on Computer Science and Information Engineering, Los Angeles, April 2009.\n*''Rex Chen'' and Amelia Regan, [["Wireless Networks for Car and Ride Sharing Systems: An Assessment of 802.11 Wi-Fi,,"]], UCTC Path Conference (Nov 2008) and Transportation Research Board (Jan 2009).
It is interesting to note that human nature are embedded with greed. And yet, as history has shown, it teaches us lessons over and over again, how things need a reality check sometimes. If it seems too real to be true, it probably is. Something within just doesn't sound quite right... We've seen this happen during the dot-com days where every tech stocks go up everyday. And in the recent years, we've seen the same with real estate where housing has boomed. Of course, we envy others who make smart financial decisions, and questions why we didn't pull the trigger in buying that stock or property when we could have done so. But in fact, patience and careful planning are critical virtues to make sure that our human greed do not overtake us. A reality check makes us vulnerable, makes us more humble, and gives us the wisdom to know better. Reality check preserves people from getting side-tracked by the fantasized idea of "get rich or successful fast" when in fact, living is a life long journey and learning process.
Type the text for 'New Tiddler'
[[Getting Started with PlanetLab at UC Irvine|http://www.ics.uci.edu/%7Elbao/planetlab/uci_planetlab_instruction.htm]]\n[[Getting Started with CRAWDAD wireless data archive|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/crawdad_guide.htm]]\n[[Download CRAWDAD dataset (ICS 273A) | http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/ics273a/ics273a_crawdad_dataset.zip ]]\n[[My "del.icio.us" online bookmarks | http://del.icio.us/rexchenuci]]\n[[ICS TA/Reader Application | http://boris.ics.uci.edu/tad/apply/]]\n[[UCI Student Billing System (Pay Tuition) | https://sbs.adcom.uci.edu/ZotAccount/]]
Recently, I have been playing around with lots of interesting technologies. I will use this writing to describe some interesting concepts, and also share with the world my favorite bookmarks and my web files.\n\nThe best of all, they are all FREE. Here is the list:\n[>img[http://www.loki.com|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/loki.gif][http://www.loki.com]]\n1) __http://www.loki.com__ GPS locator: My favorite Firefox plug-in, a virtual-GPS locator using nearby \nwireless access point to triangulate and identify one's location. \n\n[>img[http://del.icio.us|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/del.icio.us.png][http://del.icio.us]]\n2) __http://del.icio.us__ Online Social Bookmark: Ever wonder what the world is bookmarking? \nThis utility shows that by leveraging social network and also allows one to tag and create \nonline bookmarks to share with others. \n\n[>img[http://www.frucall.com|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/frucall.jpg][http://www.frucall.com]]\n3) __http://www.frucall.com__ Smart Shopper. While shopping in the store, ever wonder what price the same product costs online? Now one can call this phone number 1-888-DO-FRUCALL (1-888-363-7822), enter the product bar code number, and hear an automated voice response of the same product's online price comparison.\n\n\nHere are some contents that I manage regularly and would like to share with the world:\n*Link to My Online Bookmark at del.icio.us: [[http://del.icio.us/rexchenuci| http://del.icio.us/rexchenuci]]\n*Link to My Web Files, courtesy of UCI: [[http://webfiles.uci.edu/rex/public|https://webfiles.uci.edu/xythoswfs/webui/rex/public?stk=577A1A0E0C271C1]]\n(Note: if you type the web url __http://webfiles.uci.edu/rex/public__, make sure to click ''Launch WFS Web View'')
Graduate Student Researcher at UC Irvine
Rex Chen\n
Earlier this week, I attended a lecture by former UCI Chancellor Ralph Cicerone on the topic of Global Climate Changes. The talk give an outline of the issue in hand, what the U.S. is doing, and how things can be done better. It's not about debating whether the glaciers that are melting in the north pole will cause flooding in many of the world's coastal cities or whether/how a 2% percent increase in temperature over the next 50 years will affect our lives. I think it is about how as human beings we can be more socially responsible.\n\nMany corporations are already taking actions to be more socially responsible as a way to display a good image and give back to society. For the average people though, we don't seem to pay much attention to it. Perhaps, it is because I live in U.S. where resources are plentiful here and hence it is not a major concern yet. Social responsibility should be a way of living, and the effort of putting these actions into our daily surroundings. It does not have to involve specific occasion for one to take their valuable weekend time off and do some volunteering and charitable work. Day by day, if we can all pay a little more attention to be socially responsible, I think the compounding affect can be tremendous in the long run.
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Everyday, I find that technology is getting more important in our lives. It has changed the way people communicate, the way businesses operate, and make the world closer together. With the benefits that technology has provided us, it also brings forth some side effects. Information is increasing at an exponential rate that people are unable to consume. Life in the 21st century is getting even more complicated as each day goes by. More things to do everyday and many of us are always in a "catch up" mode. \n\nFew people today lives by simple principles. Some even go as far as not using computers, do not drive cars, and simply stay put. And yet, these people are able to live a very productive and healthy life, think clearly, and make good decisions. Perhaps, getting all the fine gadgets, latest computer power, and software tools isn't really making our lives any more efficient. It is only delving deeper into complication.
~VoIP technology has been around for quite some time. However, it is now emerging as a mainstream form of communication. First, many traditional telephony companies are having difficult times competing with ~VoIP firms such as Vonage, ~SunRocket, ~ViaTalk due to competitive pricing while offering comparable voice quality. In addition, applications such as Skype is becoming pervasive and allowing people around the world to connect.\n\nHowever, there are now many other web applications offering similar services such as Skype, the difference being that they do not have millions of online subscribers. And they too are getting very competitive. For example, I recently found these ~VoIP applications to allow "free" international calls either directly from your PC or mobile device. The technology is not completely mature as there are limitations such as the countries it can reach and some countries are limited to dial land-line calls only. However, the services will get better in time, and the days of expensive international calling rates will disappear. This is a very exciting time for communication and the movement is going towards simplicity, free services and common technology.\n\nCheck out these ~VoIP sites:\n\n[img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/allfreecalls.png][http://www.allfreecalls.net]]\n\n[img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/jajah.gif][http://www.jajah.com]]\n[img[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/voipstunt.gif][http://www.voipstunt.com]]
In recent years, we are starting to see more and more displays around us, starting with our computer monitors to flat panel TVs in the living room, and more recently, digital photo frames. Outside the home, similar trends is happening as the digital signage industry continues to gain ground. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. People are fascinated with pictures and this will have an important impact on the future of the display industry. \n\nA few days ago, I had the opportunity to try a little experiment with my roommate. Using a large online picture album in Flickr, we stream targeted pictures to a computer monitor as screensaver. We used a simple freeware package called Slickr and it worked beautifully on the first try. Here is the link to download Slickr: http://cellardoorsw.com/?page_id=4\n\nSoon thereafter, contents in the display will be dynamic, customized, and streamed on-the-fly. The display experience in the future will be exciting to watch.
A few months ago, I took a graduate course from the UCI Paul Merage Business School. First, I should say that it was a great honor to have taken Professor Kenneth Kraemer's class, especially since it was his last time teaching a class at UC Irvine after 40 years. Professor Kraemer is a great educator, and a very friendly and approachable person. \n\nFrom this class, I had the opportunity to write a case study on a high-tech company where Information Technology played a critical role on the company's success. And it so happens that I was interested in digging deeper into Google, one of the most admirable companies in the world. Few months later now, the paper has matured through several makings and I am honored to have the chance in publishing this paper in UC Irvine's own Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO), one of the world's leading think tanks on the impact of information technology on organizations and society. \nHere is the link to the Google paper published on February 2007.[img[rhttp://www.crito.uci.edu/papers/2007/Google.pdf|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/pdf.png][http://www.crito.uci.edu/papers/2007/Google.pdf]]\n\nI hope the materials written in the paper are accurate to the best of my knowledge. I welcome anyone who may have comments on this work. My email address is: rex@uci.edu
For the past few weeks, I've been quite busy with a number of things to do, both in school and at home. Having overwhelmed with the tasks in hand, it reminded me of a saying that goes something like "A job half done is the same as a job not done at all." This allowed me to better understand the importance of closure in many facets of life, whether it's at school, work, relationship, family, etc... Honestly speaking, this is still a work in progress for me, as I am guilty of not "following through" with closure for some items in my own life. Even though this a simple concept, executing it is not. In fact, I've learned and re-learned that it is actually quite difficult.\n\nOften times, people get anxious with a new task, perhaps because it is more refreshing than something we've been doing for a while that we end up not finishing a previous task in hand. From my observations, the lack of closure not only signifies the issue of not completing a task, but a lack of responsibility and inability to face the reality. After all, I think the lack of closure comes not from the "lack of time" we have (it's only an excuse), but the "lack of motivation" to fix up some existing issues in getting things back in place. We see this all the time around us. In the first day of class, classrooms are packed with students while in the final days of the quarter, only those students that are motivated will attend class. At work, a new project kick-off may stir lots of interest, but when it comes to project deadlines or presentations, only few will show up in the meetings.\n\nIn my opinion, to effectively tackle this problem of closure requires discipline of staying focused, keeping one's emotions calm, and not giving up easily (perseverance). I hope to practice these traits in my daily living to better dealt with the issue of "closure."
Everyday, I am more and more impressed with the open source community and what it offers to the world. Open source is a place for computer hobbyists or "geeks" to showcase their project to the world with complete transparency. In addition, I am big believer that open source will change software developments in the future and for the good. Rather than taking a pessimistic view-point that open source may hinder hired software engineers from losing job or value, I think it actually makes them more worthy with the ability to quickly get exposed to new projects, view source code for free, and try new things without worrying about intellectual rights and protection.\n\nThe debatable issue between open source versus proprietary software is not only about whether software should be free, but more importantly what is the best methodology that software should be written. From the software life cycle standpoint, in my opinion, open source developments create understandable requirements and specifications, more robust software, and better software releases. After all, developers of the open source community \nare doing this on their own spare time (with dedication) and these programmers span across the globe and collaborate without any "face-to-face" interactions or fixed weekly meetings. I think Friedman is right that the world is transforming into a "flat playing field" and in time, this will only be more prevalent. And this, I think, is good news for the open source community. \n\nI hope to become a contributor to the open source commuity as well in the near future.
In the past, I was not a big fan of social networks. I thought it was just another medium to meet people over the Internet. And we all hear those good, bad, and ugly stories of what happens when the two strangers actually meet in person. However, I now have a different perspective on social networks. Indeed, I think it is a very powerful tool to quickly find and spread information. We've seen what happened with ~YouTube, ~FaceBook, and ~MySpace. Social networks can rapidly build a large community base that span globally. Social network is not only becoming a favorite for the young generation, but is starting to scratch the surface in other group orientations such as businesses and alumni associations.\n\nAs Social Networks continue to grow and become viral, it will change the transparency of society. The term "six degrees of separation" might actually become five or four instead. Furthermore, social network will create more Small World Networks. One's reputation will become very important as people become closer with one another. Hiring investigators or using credit history provides a synthetic identity of the person. Rather, social networks can be a powerful tool to decipher the real person behind the face, who we really are, how we behave, and what we do. More than ever before, we need to be responsible for our behaviors because every second of our lives might actually be captured using social networks. It's not far from the future when this happens...
This site is based on ~TiddlyWiki, whose author, Jeremy Ruston, writes:\n<<<\n~TiddlyWiki is like a blog because it's divided up into neat little chunks, but it encourages you to read it by hyperlinking rather than sequentially... ~TiddlyWiki represents a novel medium for writing, and will promote its own distinctive Writing Style.\n<<<\nFrom the author's point of view, ~TiddlyWiki has the advantage of being editable spontaneously, directly within a web browser. The entire ~TiddlyWiki is contained within a single HTML file and convenient to make changes anywhere, anytime, and any machine. \n\n
In the past, I used to think that Time Management is simply a waste of time. After all, it takes time to manage how one would like to allocate his schedule. However, as I get older, I realized that more responsibilities are piled up, more role playing are required, while using the same amount of time that everyone has, twenty-four hours a day.\n\nI am now starting to learn about time management and how it needs to be done. Time management is about productivity, efficiency, patience, and priority setting. One needs to think ahead, be able to say "no," and yet stay truthful with oneself. Furthermore, time management is about when to stay focus, when to juggle multiple tasks, and when to relax with busy schedules. Working day and night without any breaks can quickly lead to burn-out, which can transform into unproductive down-turn. As I am writing this entry, I am feeling the importance of time management . However busy one can be, I realized that having a tight schedule can also be quite exciting to see how far one can stretch and reach his limits.
During this past week, I gave a presentation in my Ubiquitous Computing course on the topic of Indoor Communications. The intent was to introduce and describe a number of communication technologies for applications for indoor communications. In my presentation, I touched on a number of communication technologies including Bluetooth, Powerline, and Infrared. \nHere is the slides to my powerpoint presentation on February 6th, 2007.[img[rhttp://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/upload/rex_indoor_communications.ppt|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/picture/ppt.png][http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rex/upload/rex_indoor_communications.ppt]]\n\nHowever, it seems to me that none other than 802.11 Local Area Network is the clear winner for indoor communications. In many residential and even some metropolitan areas today, we already detect multiple wireless access points nearby. Furthermore, besides having 802.11 wireless access points in the typical household with multiple ~PCs and laptops for sharing Internet connection, there are now a number of consumer products that are already or soon-to-be wi-fi enabled (e.g. cell phones, Skype phones, cameras, and digital photo frames) Although ~Wi-Fi is known to have interference issues in the open spectrum, over time I think there will be technological solutions to this problem such as cognitive radios. \n\nThe ~FONera Movement is an interesting business case of using wireless access points as a mechanism to share network connection with every consumer being also a service provider. Currently, the target rate for FON routers is to reach a critical mass of having 1 in 10,000 FON routers to human population per country around the world.
The word "virtual machines" has been around in the computing text for quite some time. In software, it allows the same firmware to be execute on multiple computing platforms. In hardware, virtual machines essentially allows one to customize a computer such as RAM, disk storage, processing power. There is limitations based on physical available hardware resources, but virtual machines in hardware has numerous advantages over conventional computers. For example, it allows more efficiency in resource usage and resource management. It is true that simply having a virtual machine emulator installed takes computing power but as computing power continues to rise, moving from dual-core to quad-core, to...eighty-core, partitioning computing capacity into multiple, separate virtual machines provide a different perspective of using computers. Computers might no longer be the traditional general purpose device, although it still can operate that way, but rather used for specific tasks for better reliability and security concerns. For example, a computer for basic day-to-day activities such as email and word processors, a computer for gaming and graphics design, and a computer for running web and file servers for information access 24/7. Of course, all of these "computing tasks" can be performed by a single hardware (e.g. laptop, desktop) with the possibility of virtual machines.
After some initial glitch using ~TiddlyWiki, my homepage is now online. Yay!
Although holiday season is usually the time for celebration, I learned that it is also a great time to get things done. Rather than going outside to get cramped with people, simply staying put can be much more productive. For myself, during this time I bonded with new friends in graduate school, catch up with old ones, and more importantly, get to learn more computing. I also realized that during a time where most people get extended days off such as the Holiday season, we get to know people better, their personalities, and their behaviors. Of course, no one wants to be lonely, but people should also keep in mind "how much fun is enough?" In addition, it is hard to keep our regular spending habits "on par" as most people, including myself, are on a spending spree. But once again, with good discipline and periodic check-up, things should be fine.\n\nI started off 2007 by writing down some short-term and long-term goals that I would like to accomplish. I would like to get more organized and stay on top of things. Furthermore, in 2007, I hope to spend more time on research in school. Personally, I think 2007 will be an important year for me, both in academic and in life. This will be an exciting and challenging year.
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My Technology Blog