Kindle Fire HD is the best tablet for hikers

Kindle Fire HD is a hiker's tablet. Why?  Because of the loud speakers with it.

I hiked in Mission Peak today, carrying my Fire HD device as a music player.

There are several reasons that Kindle Fire HD is the hiker's best tablet.

* The Dolby-enabled stereo speakers output great music.  It is clear and can be heard with couple of meters.
* The music playing can last as long as 60 hours with a full charge.
* It is lighter than a lot of external speakers, and you just need one device so a group of hiker can enjoy music together.
* It is cheap!

I decided to take my Kindle Fire HD with me for my hiking trip from now on.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0083PWAPW/ref=sa_menu_kdpt3

How to become a Dropbox Guru?

How to become a Dropbox Guru?
I just become a Dropbox guru. Don't ask me what is a dropbox guru. Pls google it. I just know that they give me 48GB space for free for 24 months. Let me tell you how-to based on my own experience. 

After my dropbox account registered, I installed the client on my pc, mac, ipod, and android platforms. I liked their facebook page, twittered, and registered the mailing list. What I think also important is I've successfully invited several friends join in dropbox. I had shared a lot of potos with friends. All happened within 3 months. I feel that I became a promoter of dropbox recently. Well, I just want to earn more free spaces and it worked pretty good. I don't know what's their algorithm of determining the guru status. But there is one thing for sure, you have to become a heavy user of dropbox and share some stuff. It makes perfect sense from a business perspective, to keep the loyal and savvy users. Smart dropbox.

Now, I'll upload and share more stuff on dropbox for the next two years. After that, I maybe become a pay customer, as I am be locked with so much stuff on it. So, dropbox will win another customer then. There are so many players in this cloud storage market. I''ve used dropbox, Google drive, and Amazon drive. I believe dropbox is still the No.1 player. And I especially love through guru title!

hotwire sucks. Hot rate is a hoax.

I've been a hotwire customer for couple of years, booked many hotels, and cars via the hotwire website.

It works like priceline if you want to get a deal.
You are guaranteed a price and they will provide the hotel/car info only after you paid.  So, basically, you have no way to know  in advance for the hot rate product.

Sometimes, you are surprised with the final product they booked for you, but sometimes, you will be very disappointed with their final product.

There is one trick and it sucks with the hot rate.  You are unable to change/cancel/refund any service you booked with hot rate!!

I've recently booked a car for 7 days 3-4 weeks before my trip.  However, my trip was changed a bit and I need the car for 3 days earlier.  I called Hotwire and they basically denied to do anything for the extension of my car booking, even though I'd like to pay extra or standard rate for the extra 3 days.  They told me that I can book another car for 3 days, but I have to go back to airport, return the car and pick up the same car again.  There is no way to just extend my previous booking.

I called the car rental company, Hertz, as well and explained my needs. They also said that the hotwire hot rate contract cannot be changed.  I have to do the return and pickup in the middle of my trip, which is impossible for me.

I am so mad and sad about their service.  The hot rate offiered by Hotwire is actually not very cheap compare to the rate you can get from the car rental company directly.  They just play some trick, advertising a looks-very-low price, but you have to pay extra fee/tax.  And in total, it is not much a good deal anyway.
And what sucks is you can't do any change with this booking and you paid in advance before your trip!!

Hotwire's business model sucks because they tricked their customer into thinking their rate is good.  Once you realized that, you no longer want to be a hotwire customer.  You don't want to be abducted by their ridiculous terms and tricky price.  Also, the customer service guy is very rude, just tell you, "that's our policy, we are very strict about our policy, byebye". They hung up the phone before I want to hung up.

Okay, Hotwire, good luck with your stupid strict policy.  In this business world, lucky we have so many choices. I am leaving this tricky and strict policy and we are free to choice our services now.

One last comments, it is better to book the trip/flight/car through the company's website or phone directly, as you are their real customer and they will take care for you.  To book the trip through the agency, you are abducted by the agency and no one will take care of you in case of any help you needed.

Life in Silicon Valley is different from Vancouver, Canada

I moved to Silicon Valley from last September.  Almost 5 months till today.

Life in Silicon Valley is very different from my life in Vancouver, Canada.

1. living. There is no life without a car in the US. The public transit is not comparable to Metro Vancouver, where we had skytrain and many bus services. Unless you are living and working close to BART, I heard that the public transit is almost unusable for daily commute. I am renting right now. The rental is expensive than Vancouver and the house is also pricer. However, compare to the income, I'd say the house is a bit more affordable than Vancouver.  A recent report claimed Vancouver ranks #2 in the world in terms of 'in-affordability' and San Jose ranks lower though.  It's not a ranking you want your city get into. :-)

So, the first task for me is to get a car here.  I have posted a detailed blog previously about Canadian buying cars in the US.

However, once you have got a car here, the life is much easier now.  The highway system is very developed and it's easy to driving around a lot of places in 15-20 minutes, excluding the rush hour.


2. working. As I expected, the working culture in Silicon Valley is very different from working in Vancouver.  Everyone is super busy here and the projects are carried over in a fast-pace.  Even though people are working in a big company, you have to work hard like in a start-up.  That's the spirit of the Silicon Valley, as Steve Jobs depicted, 'stay hungry, stay foolish'. Most of the engineers, even engineering managers/directors will work till very late every day and overtime in the weekend.
Albeit I somehow expected this, the hardworking and fast-pace project did surprised me initially.

3. environment and weather. No doubt, SV has one of the best weather in the US, let along Canada. I can enjoy sunshine still December.  From February, the sun is shining again. The temperature is mild in the daytime and a bit chilly at night.  Remember, it is winter here.  I don't know how good it can be in Spring and Summer.  Noted the sun is very intense, although it is not hot here.  I came to Canada in Christmas, and my wife found me darker than before even though I wasn't white at all. No wonder, California is called "the heaven of outdoor". With the fabulous weather and many national parks close-by, it is almost impossible not to go outdoor. It's one of the best features I loved California.

4. social. I met a lot of local people from the hiking/running events. Most of the people here engineers, no wonder. I found more outdoor people here than in Vancouver.  I was talking about Chinese guys. Many local events, like alumni, geek group, hiking group, etc. If you are outgoing and willing to meet new friends, you won't be disappointed.