One day, someone in the group attacked another with a knife. The violence woke Husain up. He was disappointed and left the radical group, continued his study, found a job in a bank and got marry. Had he been an ordinary man the story would have ended. It would have been yet another mediocre grow-up story. But Husain was an introspect man. Unable to face his past, Husain quitted his banker job and travelled to Syria and Saudi in search of his root. Finally he found the beauty of his religious and most importantly, peace in his heart.

Along with the story Husain tells you what Muslim is really all about and points out what is wrong with radical Islamic groups. He mixes those very well with his personal story, makes his points in a non-preachy way, and makes the book a very good read.

Points of View. In the wars involved the English speaking countries, Elleman tends to play down the invasive nature. He describes the opium war was a trade war, and never uses the word “invasion”. He fails to discuss if sending an army to another country for any trade, opium or tea or silk doesn’t really matter, is wrong. On the Sino-Japanese and Sino-Soviet wars, when the westerners were not involved, Elleman clearly discusses from a more balanced point of view.

Something interesting on opium war from the book:

Han-Manchu relationship. On the opium war, Elleman says the Han-Manchu relationship at the time played a part on the outcome. He says Han soldiers were unwilling to fight for their Manchu generals. To prove his point, he sites the battle in Zhenjiang, where the British suffered a casualty that was greater than from all other battles combined, when faced with a fiercely-resistant Manchu troop. I am not sure if Elleman is right, but few Chinese scholars discuss that.

Chinese Muskets. I pictured the Chinese (Qing) troop fought western cannons and muskets with bows, arrows and swords because that was the way movies depicted. This book remains me the Qing troop also used muskets, but were with a touchhole large enough to let the charge blew out back or escaped forward, and were fired by holding a slow-burning cord over a hole instead of by pulling triggers.

Weapon Improvement. According to Elleman, the Chinese weapons were not that backward at the beginning of the war, it was the British sending better and better ships and artilleries throughout the war to win.

Yangzi Economy. I thought it was purely military failure conceded Hong Kong. But Elleman points out it was the control of Yangzi and hence the following blockage of foodstuffs and commodities forced the Qing government to negotiate.

Bureaucracy. Elleman points out the Chinese officials at the time like to report how many British soldiers were killed as claims of victories. He further argues it was such bureaucratic practice made the Qing court thought winning over westerners was possible and failed to modernize the Chinese troop at a earlier point.

Post sorting

Wordpress can only list posts in reverse chronicle order. Drupal has other ways. For example, its book module is something that Wordpress does not have.

Humanized url

In Wordpress, humanized urls are added automatically. In Drupal, users need to manually type in humanized url for each post.

Themes

Both have many, but Wordpress seems to have more.

Drupal’s themes are more customizable. Users can set different themes for different views. The contents in the header and the footer can be set in administrative panel. Wordpress users have to hard code for the header and the footer.

Category list

It is the basic feature of Wordpress. In Drupal you need to find some php code to do that.

WYSIWYG editor

Worpress comes with a rich text editor TinyMCE. Drupal needs to download and install separately, but Drupal have a range of editors to choose from.

Most of them searched for “paper tiger chess“. I searched the Google but did not find my site. My visitors must be very patient. Minority matters.

A few visitors searched for “web usability and hyperlinks“. My post on hyperlinks came up on the first page of Google search result. I was really stunned. Web usabilities experts wrote too little on this.

Most bloggers start with some content in mind. The method should be useful.

Today I changed to Deep Blue theme. According to Jakob Neilsen’s Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005, the number one mistake is poor legibility. That includes small font size and poor contrast between text and background. So I made some changes:

• Used larger font size
• Changed default font colour (grey) to black
• Deleted “posted by…”
• Set image property to float:left

If you like the theme, get it from DailyBlogTips.com.

This book is full of practical advices. Most books stop at listing some web safe fonts; this book recommends Verdana because it is easier to read even in small font size. Most books stops at saying eligibility is important; this book recommends using a font size of point nine or above.

It is a little pity blogs are not touched on, probably because bloggers are unlikely to hire usability experts. Bloggers may read Jakob Nielsen’s on-line article as a supplement: “Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes” (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.ht).

Let’s end by a list of the most hated web design elements, excerpted from Chapter 3:

• Links that do not change colour when visited (except command-oriented functionally)
• Breaking the button button
• Opening new browser windows (except pdf and similar)
• Pop-up windows
• Design elements that look like advertisements
• Violating web-wide conventions
• Vaporous content and empty hype
• Dense Content and unscannable text

In 1971, a reporter Brad Darrach interviewed Bobby Fischer, the challenger to the then world chess champion Boris Spassky. Darrach wondered how Fischer would train for the match,

When I [Brad Darrach] told him [Bobby Fischer] I had heard that Spassky gives up all private life for at least six months before a championship match, lifts weights, does road work and sees a psychoanalyst every day, Fischer smiled mysteriously and said: “No kidding.” When I asked how he intended to train, he shrugged and said: “I don’t know. Go along as usual, I guess. Study. Play some tennis, maybe. Walk. I like to walk, you know.”

- Bobby Fischer Is a Ferocious Winner

In 1973, Fischer beat Spassky convincingly and became the new world chess champion.

In 2003, a book Jump Rope Training tells the same story the other way round,

Fischer had studied Spassky on tape and realized that his prospective opponent made mistakes in competition only after becoming physically drained by the stress of the event. Fischer concluded that his superior physical condition would give him an edge by allowing him to remain sharp and focused during the duration of the contest while his opponent’s physical and mental energy waned. The strategy was successful and Fischer became the first American to win the world chess championship.

- from Jump Rope Training as quoted by Blogger Good Chess Club