AllenHsieh.com

I logged into Facebook and this poll question is what I saw…

Makes you go, WTF!!! 911 is a very complicated matter to begin with and this poll offers only two over-simplified choices for us? WFT!? I don’t know enough about polls on Facebook but I think you’d need to pay to create one for others to participate in. Someone actually paid money for this poll? My goodness!!!

As of 9:15 this morning, a new life was born into my family. My dearest sister gave birth to a baby girl after hours and hours in the hospital (oh that poor woman). We are extremely happy to welcome in a new family member. It’s truly amazing to think how much joy, meaning and purpose she brings to all of us. At the same time I’m also in awe because of the responsibilities that come with raising a child. I’m not even the parent here! We gotta take good care of her to make sure she is well and happy. But more than that, it’s an incredible challenge because we need to prepare her to succeed in this world. And most importantly, we need to raise her to be a good person and to make sure she has the right values in life. This sounds a bit dramatic. My niece is not even one-day old. But a new life is not to take lightly.

Congratulations, Tangmei and Wing, for a new life that more or less completes your family. Do not worry. Mom, dad and I… we will all help to give her the love and caring she deserves.

Now damn it, I wanna see some pictures of my niece!

http://www.bytelevel.com/map/ccTLD.html

I wanna get this poster!!!

Not only is Network Solutions charging too much for a domain name, but they are also abusing a “grace period” policy with domain registration to engage in this tricky practice…

When I first read about it on TechCrunch, I had never encounter the problem myself. Then it happened to someone I know. The other night, just to verify the issue again, I tried checking the availability of hanweiglobal.com first on their site and then on another. It happened to me again!!! See the following pictures that I captured right away…

Don’t ever pay more to register a domain with Network Solutions! And don’t even bother going to their site to check a domain’s availability. There are many other options anyway!!!

(It seems they do this with domains that contain certain words. For example, “global” seems to be their “list” and I’ve seen this happens to other domains that include the word, “global,” in them!)

I’ve been watching the Congressional hearing on Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee online on ESPN.com. Here are some of my observations thus far:

1. Some of the congress men and women are just idiots. They don’t have clear logic and don’t know the right questions to ask. It’s painful to listen to some of them and think they are the law makers that affect American lives.
2. They came into the hearing with their minds made up already. Some are very much pro-clemens and some are very much not. You can just tell…
3. I’ve realized and admitted that I want to believe Clemens. Though I think so far I’m less inclined to believe him than before.
4. But for the most part, you can come away not knowing exactly who is lying here. Partly because the people asking the questions are so stupid but mostly because it’s still a he said he said situation. There’s still no real evidence either way. Which to me then should mean that Clemens is innocent until proven otherwise.

Oh well… for sure we haven’t seen the end of this… Oh, Clemens’ lawyers don’t look so smart, either…

It’s been a week since Microsoft offer $45 billion USD to buy Yahoo. They said in the news that Yahoo’s board of directors already met to discuss their options, though no words yet as to what they plan to do.

If the decision was mine and mine alone to make, I’d say losing Yahoo to Microsoft is a definite no. Staying independent is what I’d pursue above all (even after Steve Ballmer has already said that the Yahoo brand will live on…) Many people are saying that outsourcing search advertising to Google is cutting off a long term growth opportunity and that is equally bad. But I don’t really think so. First of all, I never see Yahoo as the same kind of company as Google is anyway. Google is first and foremost a search engine. It’s also quickly becoming a web application service provider. Yahoo on the other hand has always been a portal and a web destination, providing news, sports, finance and content in other areas. We’re talking about a search engine vs. online media company. It’s always been apple and orange!

If not for that Yahoo is a public company and public companies are always under ridiculously heavy pressure to find growth every year, I’d say Yahoo is just fine as it is. They never really needed to compete with Google head-to-head to begin with. Yahoo can generate a lot of revenue from online advertising with its huge user base and pageviews. I never get the notion that you’d have to be in search to grab the online advertising market. That Google needed to buy up DoubleClicks and that Yahoo is already good at display advertising say enough to me on this topic.

But anyway, Yahoo is already a public copmany and needs to make sure its share price doesn’t continue falling. And since they are a public company, rejecting both Microsoft’s offer (with a high premium) and Google’s partnership idea (with a high immediate pay-out) is not an option, either. Some morons will for sure sue the board of directors for failing their duty to maximize shareholder value. (Whatever…)

Which brings me back to the options they are facing right now. I’d take Google’s money and hand over search. That’d give Yahoo the chance to focus on what they do well and buy time to bounce back. It shouldn’t stop there of course. If they did partner up with Google, they’d have to find a new direction for its long term growth strategy. But I think they’d be just fine…

It’s funny that I’m rooting for a Yahoo-Google partnership and not a Yahoo-Microsoft merger. I’m rather anti-Google these days… (This is not to say I necessary like Microsoft though.) But of course, my sentiments don’t have any bearing on what I actually use. Here’s a list of web applications/services and who I use:

E-mail: Google (Gmail)
IM: Microsoft (Windows Live Messenger)
BSP: Microsoft (Windows Live Space) and my own
Search: Google
Web Startup Page: Yahoo (My Yahoo!)
SNS: Facebook

For all the denying he’s doing, he is either lying and incredibly ignorant of the serious consequence of his denial or… he’s actually telling the truth. Well, I have no way of knowing either way. But I find it hard to believe that his lawyers would let him dig a bigger and bigger hole for himself. It is now too late for him to change his story without facing some real legal consequence.

However, what I really have a problem with is that somehow a lot of people look at the Mitchell Report as being the definitive authority on what really happened. Well, I haven’t read it, yet, but from I do know about it, I’d say it seems rather incomplete and inconclusive. And the report is naming names, it seems, with evidence provided by just a few individuals. That hardly seems enough investigation and makes it hard to agree that there’s enough evidence in there to accuse anyone specifically.

I think if not for the fact that Andy Pettite has come forward and admited that he did indeed get injected with HGH, then Clement would have a lot more credibility right now. But with Pettite’s admission, it becomes much harder to judge.

Well, I thought Americans believed that you were innocent until proven guilty. I just don’t think Clements has been proven to be a steroid user, yet!

Everyone is talking about the proposed deal right now… You can find a lot of articles and blog entries dissecting what would happen if the deal goes through, or why Yahoo should or shouldn’t accept the offer. Well… on a lighter note in all this, I have one question… If the combined company is to have a new name, should it be…

Microhoo or Yasoft???