Boston is GREAT!

Simplified Story, Moving Fast Makes Time Goes Slower

I’ve been so busy interviewing in the last month that the time passed by completely unnoticed by me. All I remembered was interview with company 1 on Monday, company 2 on Tuesday, company 3 & 4 on Thursday and next rounds of interviews started on the following Monday, then the very last interview was on a Friday. Until all the ashes eventually fell on the ground have I figured my hair has grown to 2cm from 0.5cm, a pair of new leather shoes got worn out, and bills totaled $1,000 spent on traveling, dining in, grocery, and places I could not remember.

Sanctuary in Job Hunting

But overall it was a great experience. During the many trips to Newton from downtown, I was sitting on the green line train, listening to my iPod, OSTs from movies of Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿), and watching the green forest along the sides. Sunshine made ways between leaves and casted light spots on soil and trunks. Occasionally the train stops at some old, quiet, and rural rail stations. Everything was so peaceful and as my ears were filled with the relaxing music, I felt I was in a neverland just like the ones depicted in Hayao’s movies.

Frustrations Shall Go Away

There were still some frustrations though. I had a tough time finding a good apartment and I felt it was harder than finding a job. Then I remember before I left Toronto, I said to myself I’d like to try a different life style, one in which I don’t plan ahead of time but rely purely on how things naturally come out. I wanted stress my durability so that I can stay calm and concentrated even if I won’t have a place to live the next day or won’t have enough cash to buy a meal and have no where to refill my pocket. I just can’t believe how closely the things came out as I wished. But it turns out I am simply not quite that type of person. Just be myself and make plans early as I always do should get me the best result.

Forecast

Next Post:The tough offer selection process

I recently updated my Facebook password because my password was reset by Facebook for some unknown reason. This incident alerted me of security levels of my passwords. I was pretty much using the same passwords for many of my most important emails but also on some doubtable websites, even though they all claim they will not share registration information with anyone else.

Risks

• Increasing number of phishing sites. Phishing refers to websites which mimic designs of some popular website and asks users of the authentic website to “log-in” to the site. They would then store the credential and use them for malicious purposes;
• Increasing risk of cross-domain scripting attack. Along with the exposure of Ajax, cross-domain-scripting has gained more power and browsers can be tricked to send cookies of some domain to illegitimate domains, exposing important information in cookies to third parties;
• Reusing same id name across all websites. In the past few years many specialized web applications have been built and the Internet has become more heterogeneous. These new web apps offers service like no others. Even though they all provide APIs for other people to access their function, up to now, users still need to have register at all places. Keeping user names consistent is certainly what most people would like to do during registration. Therefore, if someone has gained the username and password pair of someone from one site it uses, it can be reused, sooner or later, on some others, or at least, as a great heuristic guess.

Schema

To guide myself in choosing password during registrations, I’ve created the following diagram to show the level of seriousness in selecting password strength for different accounts on the web.

Highest Level - Frequently Used Emails

We shall use the most complex passwords for these services and never give them to anyone else. These are fundamental online identifications which may help you reset passwords of other services in the case of password breaks.

Second Highest Level - Essential Favorite Web Apps

For some of famous and well-respected web services, we may use a looser password, but still contains variations of cases and character sets.

Second Lowest Level - Not-So-Trustworthy Websites

Some blogs ask users to register before they can post comments. This is okay since they may be victims of spam themselves. Many blogs are well-respected and they offer great contents. The authors don’t really care about your password but simply want to block unfriendly visitors. But the problem is some of those bloggers may not be able to take care of their user info, especially for those non-technical bloggers. If someone hacks through their database and get all the information about you, the damage can be significant. It will happen sooner or later, on some of the blogs. So it’s good to be prepared before hand.

Lowest Level - All Other Websites

If you are visiting some websites with crappy designs, you may need to think carefully before you give away your common password to them. Or any other websites which claim you’ve won a great fortune, stay alerted and calm. Everyone knows they are malicious and deceptive, when they are thinking about it clear-minded.

Misc

A strong password is usually at least 8 character long and would consists of letters in lower or upper cases, numbers, and even punctuation.

After 8 months of torture, both physically and mentally, I’ve finally finished school. I knocked off 5 credits, 4 out which are 300 and 400 level computer science courses. I had, on average, 1.5 assignments in every single week, and each assignment takes between 20 - 40 hours. I have, for many times, felt depressed and even desperate because of the “endless” todo list that kept getting longer as each day passed. Phew…….my hair turned slightly grey too.

“my final year GPA will be around 3.4 - 3.5/4.0″

Now it’s over, and looking back, I found it very rewarding. I’ve learnt a handful of new concepts, technologies, design patterns, algorithms, and tools etc. I expect to get another “combination” of AABB this term, and my final year GPA will be around 3.4 - 3.5/4.0, if, however, I exclude my English grade. Ha, what a shame.

I will do a summary of my courses for this term a bit later, when the mark of my last exam is out.

Meanwhile, I need to start a new journey and make up a plan for the next couple of years, like what I did two years ago.

There was a meeting today but I wasn’t able to get to my office before meeting starts, and so I decided to connect to my remote computer from home to attend the meeting. Soon I realized that I chained four computers by “remote desktop”-ing from one to another. Here are the details:

Notation:

• Computer A - Laptop at Home
• Computer B - Desktop at Home
• Computer C - Desktop at Office
• Computer D - Laptop at Office

Facts:

• I didn’t bring D home last night
• My home phone is far away from B
• VPN is installed on B, but NOT on C

Limitations:

• To connect to C remotely, I must have VPN client installed
• To connect to D using remote desktop, I must be from intranet
• The meeting requires D and any phone

Solution:

1. 1. I dialed VPN from B connect to C. But I realize that I cannot reach the phone from B;
2. 2. So I turned on A positioned close to the phone, and connect to B with Remote Desktop. Next I found I actually need to connect to the meeting server from D;
3. 3. From A, in the Remote Desktop window connected to B, I tried to open another Remote Desktop connection to D. But D only accepts request from intranet and thus B’s request is rejected;
4. 4. From A, in the Window showing B, I connected to C using Remote Desktop;
5. 5. From the Remote Desktop Window just opened on C, connect to D using the third Remote Desktop.
6. 6. To make it worse, we actually used net meeting for screen sharing and so I was connected to another Desktop from D.

It is hard to believe so far so few people joined the second qualifier, which makes this No.1 weigh much less. Perhaps all the attendees tried out in the first qualifier and no one cares about this one anymore, since they are in if they rank within 250 in any of the two qualifiers. For me, I missed the last one and so saved my energy to this round. Am I a bit too over-reactive? I hope not.

About the competition

Most of the problems were straightforward and there are a few bugs in the specifications, which some I managed to guess out, the others I didn’t. However, I captured the screen right away, instead of at a later time, because I will lose the rank quite soon due to the contest rules. When two persons’ final scores are equal, their ranks are determined by the order in which they submit solutions to the hardest problem. See that 75 point boy? He was busy thus he nailed down the hardest one on his first shot, then he sat back and could finish other things up. As long as he finishes all problems before the deadline of this round, he is the 1st. Ziyan is his name.

Woohooo

Why to join?

“It’s … our responsibilities and even professionalism …”

My intention to join this Software Development competition was actually not about any prizes, but take this chance to push myself to learn some .NET stuff, which is being referred to increasingly more popularly and somehow will be an essential skill for any Software Developers to have. Well, learning a new language should be a simple task for Computer Science students, right? It’s not about the OpenSource or ClosedSource technology debates, but our responsibilities and even professionalism require us to know the quite-well-known framework, concepts, and its advantages/disadvantages.

What’s next?

Second round would be harsh. First 24 people out of 300-500 students get in. I don’t doubt my problem solving skills, but it under a time frame. I probably won’t get rid of the thoughts like “O if I can’t solve this in five minutes, I am going to lose” in the middle of the contest. That’s why I don’t like any competition thing, first is I don’t like to see other people lose; then I don’t like to see myself lose either. It’s quite stressful as the two opposite ideas mix together, and take over controls back and forth. The result is that I couldn’t concentrate and most of the time, end up losing it. My philosophy is: if there is a chance that I will lose, even if it’s just a minimal one, in many cases I will just not bother to do it at the first place. To me it is the same as not watching a horror movie because I will feel really sad during the nights.