Office Location

I come across this article talking about a new trend that hi-tech companies are moving into cities again from the suburbs. Immediately I thought of my current office location. I moved to Wu Chung House, the building next to Hopewell Centre in the Queen's Road East, back in 2004. At first I was quite unease about the new office 'cos the building is quite far away from the main office in the HKCEC (thus I commute between Wu Chung House and HKCEC almost every day - a waste of time!), plus it's a challenge during lunch time, and the environment is too "residential". But now I'm used to my life in Wu Chung House already after all these years. But still, when I read this article, I thought about my office location again.

(QUOTE from MSN) Autodesk is one among a raft of tech companies, including Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and newer players like professional networking Web site LinkedIn, striving for that same San Francisco symbiosis. These companies have long occupied suburbs to the south, east, and north of the city. Now they see expansion downtown as a way to attract and retain some of the brightest talent, quicken the travel time to meetings, and impress customers from around the world. "There's a lot of talent we can attract" who don't live near Google's Mountain View, Calif. headquarters 36 miles south, says engineering manager Julie Pearl, who works in San Francisco. "It's very appealing for folks." Soaring gas prices have only enhanced the appeal of ditching a 40-mile commute.(UNQUOTE)

Read the full article: I Left My Staff in San Francisco

Life in a Classroom ...

Couldn't recall if I've posted anything here about a management course I'm taking these few months. My company is sponsoring me to take a programme called Accelerated Management Talent (AMT) in the Richard Ivey School of Business's Hong Kong campus - which resides in the HKCEC!

There are four modules with 3 full-day classes in each module. The first module on "Leadership & Change Management" was done in Oct last year. I skipped the 2nd one on "Strategic Analysis & Action" last Nov 'cos of heavy workload in office. And I'm attending the 3rd module "Managing Financial Performance & Resources" this week (the last module on "Strategic Marketing Planning" will be conducted next month).

The leadership module was a relatively easy and manageable one. But I'm kind of lost yesterday when I was sitting in the lecture room this time on numbers. But I see improvements today probably because of the Cappuccino I brought with me to the class! I hope I've time tonight to do some pre-reading before I sleep ...

Photo caption: (left) a snapshot taken with my mobile with wrong focus when I was lost in the lecture room; (right) the dinner I just had in my office

HKCEC's Expansion

Most of the time in my career up till now has been spent in this complex - Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). It's being expanded with the atrium linking the old and new extension being reconstructed and enlarged with an aim to increase exhibition space by one-third.

If I'm still with my company in the coming years, probably this expansion will contribute to my annual bonus maybe? :)

Optimizing the EeePC

Seeing the previous posts and you'll that I'm kind of addicted to the new toy.

Having installed a slim version of Windows XP as well as purchased a high capacity SD card to increase the laptop's storage, I did the followings as well:

(1) researched online to find tweaks and optimization tips;
(2) sent an email to Asus to clarify whether my laptop's warranty will be voided if I remove the yellow sticker on the back of it to upgrade its RAM;
(3) installed Office 2003 + Firefox;
(4) configured Remote Desktop Connection to my office's PC;
(5) configured it so that it plays now.com.hk & MOOV smoothly.

But I was so impatient to wait for Asus' confirmation that I teared off the yellow sticker 2 days after sending the enquiry to them! I bought a 2GB Kingston notebook RAM last night in Wanchai Computer Centre at HKD320 (I was told that RAM price is dropping significantly recently) on my way back from HKCEC to my office in Wu Chung House. Again, couldn't wait any longer and thus "borrowed" a screwdriver from IT and replaced the RAM module right away. It worked "perfectly" immediately but then I noticed that it took quite long time to boot up, thus I checked and found out that the hard drive free storage dropped to an unusual level: 28MB!!! Spent a few minutes but still couldn't figure out the reason. So? I reworked everything from scratch (i.e. from removing the hard drive partition, install Windows again, repeat the 1-5 steps above) ... all problem solved. I believe the new toy is now configured optimally.

Finally spent 3 hours for the rework + watching Commercial Radio Music Award via now.com.hk at the same time. Went to bed at 3:30am last night!!!

By the way, I finally got an email reply from Asus confirming that removing the sticker and upgrading RAM myself won't void the warranty. You may also
read this from Asus US.

Andy Hui's Concert

Some of you may know that I like Andy Hui's songs. It was my first time to watch Andy's live show - coincidentally in his 40-year-old birthday.

It won't take long before I turn to 40-year-old. By then, what and where I would be?

903 Concert

Haven't attended concerts for quite some time. Last night, I went to HKCEC for the 903 concert featuring Eric Kwok, Eason Chan and Edison Chen.

An as in the past, I forgot to bring my camera (you know I've a good one that I can make an optical zoom for 12x, should be able to take close-up!). My seat was pretty far away from the stage (as you can see from the picture) but the good thing is that the atmosphere was pretty good last night. Contrary to my thought, Eason didn't conquered the stage. Eric Kwok did. Gerald - Eric Kwok's partner in Swing - was another surprise ... another big surprise was Kenny Bee who suddenly joined the group to sing one of his top hit song 癡心的一句.