Nciku Online English Chinese Dictionary with Great tools to learn Chinese Mandarin

Most of the online English Chinese dictionaries that you find online just give you the basic translation. Take for example Google Translate. It gives you variety of translation between lots of languages. It’s simple and fast but it doesn’t help much if you try to learn the language. If you’re trying to learn a language, perhaps you’ll have to search for a better website. Nciku is an online English Chinese dictionary that includes several online features that helps you to learn Chinese Mandarin. There are lots of sections created in this site just for the purpose of easy learning Chinese Mandarin, for example Chinese Conversation of the Day, Learn Chinese Characters and Learn Chinese from Pictures. Among those sections, I find that Learn Chinese Characters is the best part of all. It shows you exactly how the Chinese characters are written. The animation of the stroke order is perfect for those trying to learn how to write Chinese character. Each character written also comes along with pronunciation and definition. There is also a section that you can use your mouse to write the Chinese character in the given block section. Once you start writing, the dictionary will try to compare it and list out the character that you’re trying to write. Click on the Chinese character and it will be transfer to the search box on the left. This is actually a great tool as it can also act as a tool for you insert a Chinese Character without typing it. You can just write it directly. If you’re trying to skype with your friends that use Chinese Character to chat, this can be very handy. It will be a lot faster if you’re not familiar with using keyboard to type Chinese characters.

Nciku can be considered a good site to learn Chinese mandarin as it uses every available resources. You can write, listen to the pronunciation and watch videos and pictures to give you a better understanding and easy learning. I’m sure this site is good for anybody that trying to learn Chinese Mandarin. Especially for kids, learning a language online should be very interesting. Parents can use it as a tool to learn the language together with their kids.

Michael Jackson Memorial Set for Tuesday 7th July 2009

11000 tickets for Michael Jackson Memorial situated inside Staples Center in LA will be free. That is definitely not enough for MJ fans. I suppose Tuesday will not be a normal day. It’s going to be a special day for MJ’s fan around the world. Many of his fans might fly themselves to LA for one last MJ event. For those that are not MJ fan but staying and working in LA, Tuesday 7th July 2009 might just be the busiest day, especially for the LA police, fireman and the officials that will be on duty that day. There will be many people and traffic is going to be congested. I just hope that everything will be running smooth as plan.

As for the fans around the world, you might want to check out your local news channel if they have live coverage of MJ Memorial on Tuesday. Some of you might have to stay awake as it might be late at night at your time zone. Anyway, I think your boss might excuse you for attending the MJ memorial in front of the TV.

The question that I found a lot of people are debating is “Do we have to do so much and spend so much for MJ memorial?” Well, in my opinion MJ brings us a lot of joy and entertainment for so many years. No doubt that he earns a lot of money and become the king of pop, but sadly he did not get to enjoy the life of a simple normal person. I suppose compare to what MJ gives us, giving a respectful goodbye is undeniable. If MJ is just a normal person just like you and me, he too deserves a simple funeral ceremony. Not to mention he is a popular super pop star, fans will be attending his funeral at the same time but in different location around the world. “Goodbye and rest in peace” from all around the world will reach MJ on Tuesday 7th July 2009.

P/S: If I’m living in LA, I might just take leave from work or school on Tuesday 7th July 2009 and stay home. I suppose it is better to sit on my couch with all the food and drink that I can have and watch MJ Memorial. I’m thinking every TV channel, radios and even the internet will be all about MJ on that day. Think twice before you decided to walk out of the door as you might just get wash away by the crowds of people.

Got a math problem that can’t solve? Try looking for answer online at Mathway.

Honestly I’m quite surprise on how the internet can solve our problems and provide variety of answers nowadays. The cyber space is just like a giant big encyclopedia with lots of answer and information. There is one very interesting website that I stumble on today and I just wish that this website existed when I’m still in school. Mathway is the website and it’s basically a site that solved math’s problem. How does this works? Well, basically you enter the math problem in the given space, choose a subject and press the answer button. The subjects available are basic math, Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Trigonometry, Pre-calculus and calculus. I know there are some other programs that you can install to solve math problem and alternative you can also use a scientific calculator, but this is something that you can do it online. Perhaps kids might love this Mathway. Besides if you use it wisely, you might have a tool that can teach your children math. Instead of using the traditional way, using this online math’s solving website might just help getting your kids to be interested in working on math’s problem. According to the website, over 11130402 math problems have been solved. I’m not sure about that but I think many people already try out the website. The good thing about this site is that it shows both the answer and the step by step solution. Plus, you can graph the solution too. That makes it easy for self learning. Perhaps you might want to go through the help section to fully utilize this website.

P/S: This site is meant to help in learning math. Please don’t use it as a tool to do your homework.

Free E Book form Taiwan University Library

At the beginning, we wrote on bricks, animal skin or tress. We also make it into books with pieces of bricks, bamboos or animal skins. As time goes by books are now made of papers and are beautifully created. Perhaps this is the most common material for books right now. Later on in the future we might not use any material for books at all. Yes, you don’t need any material at for writing an ebook. The first thing that you helped by doing that is prevent a tree from becoming papers and then to a book.

Reading from a solid book that made from papers and hard cover definitely feels better then reading from ebook. It feels like you own the reading material and you can just hold it in your arm. As for an ebook, you’ll feel a sense of emptiness even if you pay hundred over dollars for it. Anyway knowledge is knowledge no matter how you obtain it. For sure there will be lot more stories, thoughts and study material made into ebook rather than paper books. That’s the effects of more people using computers and internet. Plus it’s a way to reduce the cut down of trees.

As more and more books are converted into ebooks, we can find lots of them online now. Here’s a site that I found which provides free ebooks. It’s a site from National Taiwan University Library. As for now, there are currently 68858 of free ebooks available. As it’s from Taiwan, the site is written in Chinese language. That doesn’t mean all the ebooks are in Chinese language. It’s still a library that keeps lots of different books including English books too. So feel free to check it out. All you need to do is type in the keywords of the books that you desire and press the button on the right. The search column works the same even if in Chinese language.

Free PowerPoint Templates and Backgrounds from Templates Wise

I think most of you that works in the office with a computer on your table definitely get to do presentation. Power Point, projector, pointer and of cause the audiences are the things that you’ll need to deal with when it comes to presentation. Among all the above, the one thing that I hate most is preparing the presentation draft using Power Point. Why? Lot of work and it always consume a lot of time. Few days of preparation will end up just few minutes of presentation. I know, I know, it’s important to convey the information to others correctly and effectively. That’s why we need so much time to prepare it. Just that I’m not that kind of person. Oh well, enough for my rumbling and complains. Here’s a site call Templates Wise that gives out free Power Point templates and backgrounds for presentation. I should have come to this site early. Any way luck for you guys as you now have more choices to prepare your presentation. Templates Wise categorize the Power Point Templates into abstract, general, business, nature, finance and travel. So just look around and see if any of these templates suit you.

How to make a Greek frappe coffee

This animation shows us how to make a Greek frappe coffee. It’s simple, clean and best of all makes you wonder if the coffee tastes good. That’s one thing about using animated style as it creates a lot of imagination space. You might even wonder if it’s that easy to make a Greek frappe coffee. At the end you might just go ahead and try to make the coffee yourself. Feels like have a cup of coffee now? Why not Greek frappe coffee?

The thing about working or studying late at night

Working late at night, especially between 12am to 3am early in the morning might not be what we plan of but sometimes it just can’t be avoided. This post is meant for those that have to work late at night. Honestly I’m the type of guy that works better during this period of time. I don’t know why but my mind works great and I can focus well without feeling sleepy. Instead if I have to drag myself wake up early in the morning and start work at 8am, my action will be taking over my mind. Even couple of black coffee won’t be able to keep my eyes open. Anyhow, some of us are night crawlers rather than the morning birds.

Let’s go back to working late at night. When it’s time for Cinderella to return home, most of the activities stop too. You can walk on the streets that use to fill with transportation, enjoying the cool fresh air without anybody around sharing it. Best of all you have the whole world as everybody is asleep. That means no disturbance or distraction from others. Instead you might find some company other than human. Problem is not all are good company. The no good company that you’ll get is the one that almost everybody hates, cockroaches. Yes, that’s right. If you ever stay up late at night, you’ll definitely see them. So it’s better to get yourself loaded with bug spray if you plan to work over night.

There are few things that I enjoy working late. First is sky, especially when the sky is clear. Either the moon will be around or the stars will take the spots. The quiet dark night just seems to be a big gigantic cinema and I’m the only one in it. The sky that fills with stars is the screen and sometimes the moon took the stage by itself. Either way it’s a visual sensation to me. During that time, instead of man made noise, we have tiny little sound that we might not be aware off. The little sound made by crickets. Although we might have some other sound for example frog but let’s just focus on the enjoyable sound. If I’m lucky I might find myself some good company too. Good company that try to light up the surrounding. Yes, fire flies. Perhaps they have what we call soft and gentle light.

Just like normal cinema, each enjoyable time last about 2~3 hours. No exceptional for the big gigantic cinema of mine. After 3am, the things around me might still be the same but the feeling might not be the same. That’s because we start feeling tired. When we feel tired, everything will turn out annoying and the only thing that we hope for is sleep. Besides the best of everything always come short, and I think that’s what makes it special.

Making Your Own Widget for Your blog with WOWZIO

WOWZIO has some widgets that you can customize and create for your blog. Best of all it’s free. No registration required and it can be done quickly. Almost all blog with JavaScript enabled can install Wowzio’s widget. As far as I know, only free accounts from wordpress.com are not allowed to install Wowzio’s widget.

There are several types of widget available that you can install to your blog. You have the option to choose gallery widget, panoramic slideshow widget, live activity widget, tag cloud widget and feed content widget. Depends on how your blog is, you might want to choose carefully which widget to use. Space is limited and valuable, so choose wisely.

Gallery widget and panoramic slideshow widget capture photos in your blog post and display the latest 50 photos you upload. All the photos display will link back to the corresponding post. This type of widget is best use when photos are one of the main attraction or discussion for your blog. Examples of blogs that suitable for using this widget are travel, food, celebrities and product reviews.

Live activity widget shows a list of your latest visitors. It shows visitors’ location and the post they are reading. This type of widget actually let your visitors know what’s hot in your blog. It’s a human nature of curiosity to check out why this post is view by others. So your viewers might just read more post after this widget is install.

As for the tag cloud widget and feed content widget, there’s nothing new about it as one is to create a tag cloud and another is to display the content of your blog. Good thing is that you get to use these features if your blog doesn’t have it.

Currently, I’m more interested in the gallery widget or panoramic slideshow widget. I’m planning to test it out on my other blog. Let’s just see how it goes.

The Black Hole within us

After long hours of work or having too much coffee, most of us might dream of having “The Black Hole” thing. The truth is we just need a break. A break from all these repeated same old fashion work load and the same old coffee taste. What will you do if you’re getting a piece of “Black Hole” as seen above? Perhaps put it on the floor and jump into it and see how deep it goes? Or perhaps change your job as a “Breaking an entry” profession? No matter what it is that you going to, this piece of “Black Hole” are going to change your life. Changes in life might be good or bad, depends on how you see it. At the end of the day you just need to feel happy about it and able to sleep well at night. The last thing that you ever wanted is getting caught or trap inside the changes or decision you made, unless you’re fine with it.

That’s what I call having coffee in the office

Office work sometimes can be boring, frustrated and stupid. There are times that we almost feel like blowing up, in other words going crazy or nuts. That is why we stop, take a break and have a cup of coffee. If you offering yourself to help others getting coffee in an office crowded with 20 people, you might find yourself asking for trouble. Imagine how you can remember so many different type of coffee if all of them start yelling “no sugar”, “black”, “white”, “with cream”, “lots of milk” and many more. Chances are you’ll never remember all your orders. Once you voice out to get them coffee, it’s too late to back out now. So the best solution to solve this is to get their orders one by one and write it down. Next you need to get one or two person to help you get those coffee ready and deliver them. In this part you’ll either pray that there’s someone willing to help you or you’ll need to beg for help. After delivered all the coffee, it’s time to go back to your work. As when you think that you’re done with the coffee, the impact or response starts. Some starts saying that’s not the coffee that they ordered. Later you’ll hear some complains about the bad coffee you made. When you think that a coffee break might change your mood but instead it just brings more trouble and frustration. Sometimes things just don’t work out as we plan, even if it just having a simple cup of coffee. So if you’re really not in the mood, you don’t have to be nice. Instead you can try this trick below in the video.

Do we need to worry about Swine flu?

Do we actually need to worry about Swine flu? Watching news about swine flu daily definitely is scary. Ever since the incident about swine flu takes place in Mexico, almost everybody is following closely to the flu news monitoring the spreading and action taken by the government. “Will swine flu ever get close to me? Will I get infected and die?” Perhaps these are the questions that most people will think of. The truth is before the swine flu gets to you, the news about swine flu might hit hard first. No doubt that swine flu is not to be taken lightly but sometimes it’s the fear towards the flu that is lethal. Take for example the mass slaughter of pigs in Egypt. Regardless if the pig has anything to do with the flu, this action might just destroy the living of many people. Not to mention that the amount of food that is destroyed, it’s just a waste. In some places people are worried more about starving to death then the swine flu. Or shall I say there are lot more deadly disease to worry about then swine flu. If we take a look around us and we can see that death cases cause by cancer, heart attack, AIDS including car accident has an incredibly large number. You don’t have to dig up the numbers and compare the statistics to understand it. You just have to recall the funeral that you’ve attended and you’ll feel the impact.

There are too many things that we need to worry about but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to take action about swine flu. The least that all of us must do is to get the facts right. Eventually knowledge about swine flu will help us through and so does the knowledge about other disease too. It’s not just about method of curing it. It’s about preventing, controlling and most importantly eliminate the fear within so we can continue our daily live without much disturbance.

Monday Morning War between Sleep, Work and Coffee

It’s always hard for me to go back to work on Monday. The bed feels extraordinary comfortable than usual. Eyes can’t hardly open and sensitive to sun light. There seems to have some kind of magnet in my body that keeps on pulling me to the bed. It very difficult to pull myself to the bathroom… These are all the excuse that comes in my mind saying “Stay, skip work today” every Monday morning. I have to fight on to go to work. It’s a terrible fight as the war zone is in my house. The Enemy has advantages on the land marks. The bed, the sofa, even the soft carpet on the floor can drag me down. The only way to survive is to get out of the house fast and rush to work. 10 minutes of washing and dress up is the basic necessary for work. After the preparation, breakfast has to be schedule in the office. Ever minute spends in the house increase the risk of going back to sleep again.

Next is run and pursued. This part of war occurs on the way to work. Strictly speaking, it’s the fight to keep awake when driving to work. It’s the most difficult and terrible fight. If you own a fairly expensive car that has a very comfortable seat, cool air conditioning system, absolute sound prove and super sound system that plays Johann Pachelbel Canon in D major, you’re going to have a hard time winning the war. If you lose this part of war, you might end up sleeping in the hospital for month. Worst scenario might just be not waking up at all. In order to win this war, you must switch to wake up songs like Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne. It might not be your type of songs but you need it. Roll down your windows and enjoy the cold morning wind. That is unless the air is clean enough and not carbon monoxide from the heavy traffic. Get some toothpicks in your hand and ready to poke yourself when feeling sleepy. This part of war usually last not more than 20 minutes, unless the work place is far away or unfortunate traffic jam occurs.

So when or where coffee comes in? Well, the first thing that we put into our mouth after wake up definitely is coffee. It is really not a good idea of having just coffee without any solid food but that’s one way to wake up. I’m sure many of us did that. Not encouraging as it’s not good for health. Thus some will wait to have their wake up coffee. Second location that we can take coffee is along the road to work. We just have to make sure that the coffee doesn’t get in the way while driving. Spilling the coffee while driving might cause accident. Thus some will consider wait extra longer to have their wake up coffee. The third and final place to have coffee is in the office. After all those excitement, it’s not “wake up” coffee any more, it’s “start working” coffee to be more precise.

P/S: I just hope that we can sleepwalking to work. Don’t have to go through so many troubles. Just wake up sitting in the office and ready to start working.