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By admin, August 22, 2012 10:53 am

上週五是英國Chichester中學同學20週年聚會，當晚感慨萬千，能有一班好朋友相伴人生、已無憾!

想當年青澀的我，對人生充滿了夢想、對前路充滿了憧憬、對愛情充滿了期待、對一切都是那麼的好奇。

努力下夢想一一實現，雖然大家多年不見，但純潔的友情依然沒變，相信接下來的日子里大家會更加珍惜彼此間的友誼，共勉之!

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By admin, August 17, 2012 10:13 am

Just received the latest EQL news update this morning, two things caught my eyes.

With the release of firmware version 5.2.5
- Faster recovery from a drive failure, especially with the 7200 RPM drives
- Dell is also providing, for download, an update to hard drive firmware for selected 500GB, 1TB and 2TB SATA 7200 RPM hard drives. This new drive firmware will help to improve the overall life expectancy of the drives. Updating drive firmware takes approximately 15 minutes.

My view is still the same and I’ve heard different bad stories about those bigger 7200RPM 2TB/3TB on EQL or Powervault that they tend to fail Much more often  than SAS 10K/15K, so if your application is mission critical, I would stay away from those drives but opt for IOPS instead (ie, SAS 10K/15K)

Please be advised that the best practices for the use of RAID 5 and RAID 50 on Dell EqualLogic arrays have changed. The changes to the RAID policy best practice recommendations are being made to offer enhanced protection for your data.

• RAID 5 is no longer recommended for any business critical information on any drive type
• RAID 50 is no longer recommended for business critical information on Class 2 7200 RPM drives of 1TB and higher capacity.

What? It seemed to my that Dell Equallogic is implicitly saying RAID10 is the ONLY CHOICE for business critical application due to it’s superior performance and reliability, and RAID60 is the optimal choice for space concern application, but and again 7200 RPM drives bigger than 1TB is not recommended for high demanding application according to the above.

So after all, can we conclude that the Near-Line (NL) SATA or SAS based 7200 RPM drive is not a suitable candidate for mission critical application after all even with highest RAID5 protection (ie, RAID50), the answer seemed YES.

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By admin, August 14, 2012 8:25 am

20多年了，好像就像昨天發生的事情一樣。

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By admin, August 9, 2012 3:45 pm

Wow…Standard Chartered really got the guts!!!

By Tom Braithwaite, Kara Scannell and Sharlene Goff, Financial Times

August 7, 2012

This is a summer to forget for British banks in the US. One after another, Barclays, HSBC and now Standard Chartered have had excruciating internal emails and conversations revealed by US investigators.

StanChart is accused by New York state’s Department of Financial Services of concealing transactions on behalf of Iranian banks and breaching US sanctions on the country in the process.

The regulator’s 27-page report quotes from an email sent in 2006 from StanChart’s chief executive for the Americas to the group executive director for risk, warning of potentially “catastrophic reputational damage” and potential “serious criminal liability” for executives over work for Iranian clients.

The group director allegedly replied: “You f—ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians?”

The order on Monday, which threatened to revoke StanChart’s banking licence, came as a bolt from the blue for the bank, according to people familiar with the matter, even though it has been in talks with US authorities over the issue for months.

Only last week, the bank, which makes almost 90 per cent of its pre-tax profit in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, distanced itself from the recent Libor rigging scandal that has engulfed many of its rivals and trumpeted the bank’s superior “culture”.

StanChart reiterated its earlier disclosure that it was conducting a review of its historical US sanctions compliance with US enforcement agencies and regulators. While it said it could not predict what the outcome would be, it said the breaches were not of the same scale as those facing rival HSBC, which was heavily criticised last month for failing to prevent money laundering by Mexican drug gangs.

StanChart said it was confident it had “very robust controls and processes” in place to deal with these kinds of issues.

It is not the first bank to run into trouble for allegedly “wire stripping” — removing codes that identify Iranian institutions for money passing through the US. Two years ago, Barclays agreed to pay $298m for transactions on behalf of customers from Cuba, Iran and Sudan that were under sanctions from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

A spokeswoman for Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, said his office “aggressively investigates, and has secured significant settlements against, banks that have intentionally evaded United States sanctions that are designed to interrupt terrorist financing”. Since 2009, four banks have paid more than $1.8bn based on state and federal investigations into their allegedly illegal conduct: ING, Barclays, Credit Suisse, and Lloyds TSB Bank, she said. “Beyond that, we do not comment on ongoing investigations.”

For much of the period in question the transactions themselves did not necessarily flout US law. Until 2008, so-called “U-turn” transfers, which involved Iranian clients but only passed through the US financial system, were permitted. But to make use of the exemption banks were required to comply with strenuous disclosure, which StanChart is alleged to have evaded.

Other banks have paid fines to settle similar allegations from US authorities, though StanChart is required to appear at a meeting next week and explain why it should be allowed to retain its New York banking licence.

The US is not a big centre of operations for StanChart, whose focus is Asia. But analysts at Bernstein warned that the loss of the banking licence could lead to “significant loss of earnings … as a bank like StanChart servicing clients in emerging markets could book trades in different jurisdictions that actually result from structuring transactions in the US”. The analysts also warned of the risk that the incident could spark “management change”.

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By admin, August 9, 2012 12:59 am

Just saw someone posted this photo from his collection and he’s from Hong Kong too.

OMG!!!

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By admin, August 6, 2012 10:41 pm

兩年都沒買過一件網球用品，自從上星期買了那對橙黑色的Barricade 7後，購買慾就一發不可收拾，OMG，最近簡直就是入不敷出，要節省些了。

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By admin, August 5, 2012 11:02 pm

昨天去Pro Shop穿線的時候，突然在2手堆裡看見了這個罕見的神兵! 好久都沒在本地鋪子或者網上看到過Prostaff 85舊版本的蹤影了，所謂可遇不可求，所以這次看到了這個合理價錢8/9成新的2號Grip (Butt. Code: UGW) 寶貝自然不能放過。

其實本身已經擁有一塊台灣版的PS85(3號Grip)了，極之喜歡它獨特的手感和擊球的獨特感覺，St. Vincent、台灣版這些早期的PS85跟近兩年再版的Pro Staff 85 6.0感覺當然完全是兩回事，你親自試過就馬上知道它們的不同之處了。

最大的不同是舊版的Prostaff 85很軟身，擊球時感覺像鞭出去一樣爽，但是對持拍者的要求變態的高，遲一點點準備功夫都可能會打不中Sweet Spot，而且拍身比較重，打起來很吃力，所以玩票性質還可以，拿來比賽的話簡直就是玩殘自己。

自己見過最罕見的版本是在2010年的Hong Kong Tennis Classic，一位超級PS85收藏家拿著這塊全新的Prostaff 6.1 Paint Job Prostaff 85給Edberg簽名，哇，真羨慕死我了!

Wilson Pro Staff Midsize Appearance Evolution:

The Chicago PS85:
- original bright yellow and red pinstriping
- bumperless construction
- grip size sticker, recommended tension sticker “String at 65-70 lbs.” and specification sticker “Weight/Oz. 11.6-12.3 Unstrung; Balanced 1.0-1.5 in. headlight” inside one side of the throat
- three separate raised throat grommets
- brown Fairway leather grip
- White butt cap with large red “W”
- no registered trade mark symbol
- red primer seen at grommet drill holes and through scratches in the top black coat
- Buttcap code located below red “W”
- pinstriping and “Midsize” on both sides of throat
- Wilson Pro Staff nylon racket bag with strap, without grip venting

Transition to St. Vincent (early-mid):
- Addition of “St. Vincent W.I.” sticker above red “W” of buttcap (these are easily lost)
- Recommended tension sticker (at some point) lowered to “String at 55-65 lbs.” Some early St. Vincent frames may have the previous higher recommended tension sticker.
- transition from bumperless construction to addition of bumperguard

St. Vincent (mid-late):
- Stickers replaced in throat to decals that describe Wilson PWS on one side, recommended tension on the other (50-60 lbs.) and higher/lower tension recommendation for control/power
- black rectangular grip size sticker placed at the outside of the throat above the handle
- throat grommets are thinner
- these have either “Midsize” decal on both sides of throat or one side has “80% braided graphite/20% kevlar” decal
- addition of red registered trademark symbol at lower right of “W” on butt cap
- “Wilson Quality” hologram sticker at base of throat opposite grip size sticker. Serial number in bold black font

Transition to Taiwan (early):
- loss of red primer to grey primer
- Butt cap code location moves above red “W”
- all cap “TAIWAN” sticker placed below “W” on butt cap
- brown Fairway leather grip

Taiwan (later):
- pinstriping color darker in tint
- recommended tension decal now has recommendation for using Wilson syn gut
- “Wilson Quality” hologram sticker now has bar code and small dot-matrix print
- Fairway leather grip
- racket bag looks similar to original, but has grid-venting for grip

Transition to China:
- same as late Taiwanese, but has all cap “CHINA” sticker below “W” on butt cap (assuming use of last Taiwanese stock)
Chinese PS85 (early):
- new design with wider throat and one-piece throat grommet
- slightly different drill pattern as the old grommets no longer easily fit
- white primer
- “Italicized” Pro Staff logo
- larger font for “PWS” at sides of head
- “85 sq. in.” decal on inner face of head near throat
- brighter, wider pinstriping
- Fairway leather and white butt cap
- throat decal has specs and square with “6.0″ swing index info
- racket bag matches fonts on racket with “braided” image on face

Chinese (mid):
- use of “Pro Staff 6.0″ in Garamond font at face of throat
- transition from use of Fairway leather to Wilson leather
- transition from white butt cap to black butt cap with red square and small white Wilson “W”
- racket bag matches the fonts and graphics of frame

Chinese (late and last):
- transition to silver specification decal at insides of throat
- use of generic Wilson Pro Staff racket bag
Tour DB (Japan):
- made in China, double braided
- sold only in 85sq in headsize
- throat says ‘Tour DB,’ not 6.0
- listed on Wilson Japan’s website under ‘Pro Staff Original 6.0,’ but picture is of Tour DB model
- different string spacing than 6.0
- strung weight ~333g, strung balance 305mm
- 6.0 is also sold in Japan (called ‘US spec’), strung weight 357g, strung balance 310mm
- discontinued in 2009 prior to release of KPro Staff 88

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By admin, August 5, 2012 10:12 pm

當然是玩票性質，主要因為Syn Gut w/Duraflex 16是1年多前免費得到的，只需到Pro Shop付出$70穿線費即可享受回以前的感覺。

令我驚訝的是Pro Shop的老闆竟然說此拍也有假貨，我總共有5只不同版本的POG，全部都是Oversize，現在想起來有點擔心。請教他如何分辨，得到的回答竟然是不方便透露，你吊我癮咩﹖老闆!

後來上網查了查，全世界只找到在中國大陸的一個網球論壇里提及此事，分辨真假是看拍身Prince Logo，假的水貼是黏上去的，真的是在透明油漆下面的。

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By admin, August 5, 2012 10:01 pm

預計現役的兩對Barricade V應該只剩下2個月的壽命，所以趁著夏季大減價，去了旺角波鞋街碰運氣，竟然發現整條街都給”波鞋霸權”允記集團玩晒，但為什麼允記不搞上市呢﹖可能其現金極充裕，根本不需要集資擴張。

最後在街尾的一間允記鋪子找到了這對”型仔”! 價錢比上星期的那對還便宜$55，熱情的店員更送了對襪子給我，誰說香港的零售服務態度差呢﹖唯一的就是覺得人山人海，自由行幾乎塞滿了波鞋街的每一間鋪子，如果我是店主該多好呢，哇!!! 錢像流水一樣地進來，哈哈。。。

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By admin, August 4, 2012 10:42 am

大家肯定都有試過網球拍打斷線，多數是斷Main或者Cross(機會少點)。

打網球超過20幾年了，昨天下午我第一次親身經歷了這樣搞笑的斷線法，好得意的斷法，哈哈。。。