User Comments - tiaopidepi

Posted on: Reinstalling Windows

It's very dubious. Wine is a great idea but doesn't work well in the real world. It's a great idea, and all works in theory, but it's never going to be complete enough, and it's never going to be very fast (as it's all user mode.)

A quick web search found an article about running IE 8 on Wine. Apparently it requires copying a few Windows DLLs over to your Linux box on top of the Wine install. http://wine-review.blogspot.com/2009/11/internet-explorer-8-on-linux-with-wine.html.

Won't changing your user agent string fix your problem for you? If you have Firefox tell the web sites that it is IE, then everything should just work. (Unless the web sites are horribly broken IE 6 based sites.)

Posted on: Reinstalling Windows

If you are using Windows XP, please install some decent antivirus software. And install the latest Service Pack. XP is over 10 years old now. Microsoft has made great advances in security in the last 10 years. (The picture associated with this lesson is of Windows XP.)

One very good antivirus software is Microsoft Security Essentials. It is free, but unfortunately it requires that you have a properly validated operating system. As Jenny says, 在中国我们都没有. We--employees--pushed Microsoft to not limit antivirus software to people who actually paid for the operating system, but the bean counters won that battle.

Posted on: You've been everywhere!

I wonder how the Chinese government would respond to a project to preserve these dying "dialects". I wonder if they would try to prevent it.

I'm thinking about the American government's projects to preserve dying languages: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/del.html. Of course, America is implictly responsible for every language in the world because we don't quite have a history of our own ^_^

Posted on: Computer Problems and Tech Support

Ironic that my teacher assigned this lesson this week. I had to laugh when I heard John blindly bashing Windows. http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/10057

Posted on: Going to the Toy Store

Don't worry about it, mate. I work in a very multicultural city and cannot tell you how frequently I hear "Americans all...." when I should be hearing "Seattleites all..."

We all generalize. It helps tie those neurons together.

Posted on: John and John Talk Cheese

Speaking of the iPhone app, is there any progress on a public API? I'm quite interested in making an app for my phone to help me study but I don't want to do it the hard and brittle way if the public API is forthcoming. And I certainly don't think CPod will make a Windows Phone app : )

Posted on: Love Tangle 9: The Divorce

If soap opera is what you want, you definitely have to go further. And these characters are interesting enough to support it.

Fast-forward 20 years into the future. Lulu's son has gone to university and falls in love with a girl...who turns out to be YangYang's daughter. It isn't until they go for a marriage permit that they discover they are brother and sister.

If you want to pull in the nerd-reference twist, you can name Lulu's son 卢克, and have the dramatic scene be at the altar where YangYang's daughter's estranged father says to Lulu's son, “卢克，我是你的爸爸！”

Posted on: 人家: Other People and Pouty Girls

I wouldn't say it's 可爱，although your definition (tolerance?) may differ. It's 撒娇。

Posted on: 人家: Other People and Pouty Girls

C'mon John....we've been around long enough to know the truth. You do girly talk every chance you get: http://chinesepod.com/lessons/girly-talk

Posted on: Buying Sandals

OK, "strappy sandals" it is.

I had a coworker who left the company to join a startup in Vietnam. They developed this cool technology that lets you point at a picture of something and it will find something similar for sale. It only works for women's shoes, handbags, and men's watches. Anyway, these are marketed as "strappy sandals", and they look to me like pretty much the same thing:

http://www.heels.com/womens-shoes/carve-heel-white-snake.html