qianqin.de - personal homepage of Qian Qin

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2

the bottle collectors
2007-03-10 14:28:00
When you walk around in China, you can find people walking around and collecting empty bottles. I always thought this phenomenon only exists in not-yet industrialized countries. The people are so poor that collecting those bottles and selling them to a garbage dealer allows them to make enough money to survive. But during the last ...
More About: Bottle , Coll , Collector

Is euthanasia fundamental to a civilised society?
2007-03-09 13:12:00
This is a very sensitive topic that will split the readers’ and writers’ opinions. Some of us may have already been confronted with it and this makes it hard to have an impartial view on it.
More About: Society , Fun , Mental , Asia , Men

Can money buy happiness?
2007-03-04 14:36:02
What is Happiness ? It?s a feeling that describes the very positive state of one person. Even though we differ from each other, the cause for happiness is equal. Happiness is the state where all of that our desires are fulfilled. So can money buy happiness? (more…)
More About: Money , Ness

connect to internet via command line
2007-03-01 02:34:01
After using Windows Vista, I wondered if it was still possible to connect to internet via VPN (Virtual Private Network) or DUN (Dial-Up Networking) though the command line. Well, it works just like before in XP. The command for connecting is (replace name with the name of the connection): rasphone.exe -t "name" The command for disconnecting is: rasphone.exe -h "name"
More About: Internet , Inter , Line , Connect , Comm

Is hate a stronger emotion than love?
2007-02-24 02:30:02
It?s probably not very hard to see that sadly, the nice project ?Love to Lead? has been sabotaged and it has become impossible for the real contributors to win. A ? 3000 prize for a simple blog article will lure cheaters and there is no way to prevent this. (more…)
More About: Hate , Hat , Motion , Tron

Vista on my Notebook
2007-02-23 02:30:01
After getting everything to work on my Desktop with Windows Vista , I decided to install Vista on my notebook too. I own a Acer Extensa 2902, which is nothing else than the Travelmate 292 Lmi-M11. With a Pentium M Centrino 1,4 Ghz, 1 GB Ram, 80 GB hard disk and a Mobility Radeon 9700 with 64MB, it still meets the minimum requirements for Vista new Look’n'Feel, Aero Glass. It’s one of the major reasons why I installed Vista. I just can’t take that ugly look of XP. Of course there are other reasons, but a nice design lets you work much more comfortable. Vista will probably rob the gamebility of my Note book . I don’t think that it’ll be even close for running Vista and a 3D accelerated game at the same time. Well, after having a working set of CD for installation, it actually only took me two tries to install it. Quite amazing compared to my Desktop try. So next were the drivers again. Luckily, the only things missing were my network printer and Bluetooth. ...
More About: Ebook , Book

Are computer games a waste of time?
2007-02-23 02:30:01
Yes, it definitely is! I played “Counter-Strike” for years, but I would do it again if I’d given the chance to choose. (more…)
More About: Games , Computer , Time , Comp , Game

Surround sound and Windows Vista
2007-02-09 14:26:01
I finally have surround sound! After suffering way to long with the built-in stereo sound from the default drivers of Wind ows Vista , I am finally able to enjoy music on Computer again. I only own a Sound blaster Live! 5.1, which is really old, but still a very nice soundcard. But when Creative decided not to support the Live! Series under Windows Vista , I decided to never buy another Creative sound card again. I hope many of you do the same. Anyway, I wanted my 5.1 sound back on Vista, so what now? Luckily, I came across the kX Project on Driver Heaven. They have made their own Driver for the EMU10K1 chip, which is also used on the Soundblaster Live! Series. Their official download page is kind of old, but on the Driver Heaven forum, they have posted new drivers which work under Windows Vista just fine. I got the 3538m version, which worked perfectly after some configuring. Read more to see how to configure it for 5.1 sound. (more…)

network printers under vista
2007-02-06 02:24:01
After using Windows Vista for a few weeks and several emails with Samsung support, there seemed to be no solution to get my printer (Samsung ML-1410) to work as a network driver. My printer was connected to my SBS2003 Server (Windows Small Business Server 2003) via USB and shared as ServerSamsung Laser. My Notebook (XP) could access it without problems, but my fresh install of Vista on my desktop computer always gave me 2 different errors. First one is “The specified print monitor is unknown”, which is caused by disabling User Access Control (UAC). Turning it back on might help some, but it didn’t work for me. I got the error “There is not enough memory to complete this operation”. Anyway, here is the solution for this problem: (more…)
More About: Inter , Work , Network , Print

enjoying music
2007-02-06 02:24:01
Today, I went to Gravis, a store selling all things from Apple and equipment for it. Because I just sold my iRiver SlimX iMP 550, I wanted to check out the Apple Ipods. There was one other major reason why I went to Gravis. They had all Shure earphones there for customers to try. Because Shure earphons are extremely expensive, I wanted to test them. I myself only own a pair of Sony’s MDR-EX 71 SL. (more…)
More About: Music , Enjoy

Making Wordpress multilangual
2007-02-04 14:22:01
After spending days on installing all kinds of pluginsand “hacking” around in the code of several plugins, I think I am finally finished. Here is the list of plugins I use: Akismet 2.0 - A plugin for fighting comment spam, which is working very nicely. Google XML Sitemaps Generator 3.0b6 - A plugin for generating a Sitemap for Search Engines. Polyglot 2.0 - A plugin for making Word press multilingual. When I first installed Polyglot on Wordpress 2.0.x, some little things didn’t work. Wordpress didn’t apply filters for things they should have and Polyglot didn’t add filters for those functions, so some things didn’t get translated. After updating to 2.1, I have to say that every bug I fixed a week ago (why didn’t I move to Wordpress a week later?), was already fixed. But the bug fixes for Polyglot were still needed. The main reason for me hacking around in Polyglot were the Date functions. It was not using strftime, which caused me not to be...
More About: Press , Multi , Tila

Vista + Firefox + Videos
2007-02-04 14:22:01
Today, I browsed through my website to check how everything is looking in Vista . Everything was looking just fine, except the videos. Fire fox told me that “mplayer2″ was missing and only showed a box saying missing Add-On. I googled around and found the solution: Download npwmsdrm.dll Download npdsplay.dll Copy them into the Firefox Plugin directory. (In my case: “C:Program FilesMozilla Firefoxplugins”) Restart Firefox and you are done.
More About: Video , Videos

merry christmas
2007-02-04 14:22:01
Well, it’s christmas time. I guess everyone is having fun with their families, so enjoy your holidays! My belly is full and it is time for me to enjoy myself with a round of Natural-Selection.
More About: Christmas , Christ , Chris , Merry Christmas , Merry

Here comes Vista!
2007-02-04 14:22:01
Microsoft Windows Vista is finally out! As a student with MSDNAA subscription, I can get the “Business” version of Windows Vista for free. So yesterday, I downloaded everything and installed in on my computer to give it a try. I read on Wikipedia something about an 20 minute installation, so I was quite disappointed for needing the whole day to do a clean setup. Unlike the retail version, I could only get the 5 CD version. They tried to make every CD image smaller than 640 MB, so the 5th CD ended up to be only 8 MB big. Seriously, who uses blank CDs with less than 650 MB capacity anymore? (more…)
More About: Come , Here

RAM error, what next?
2007-02-04 14:22:01
As some of you might know, I use a pair of 512MB Twinmos Twister Pro Dual Channel RAM. They’re not only the fastest DDR1 modules around, but they permit overclocking without voiding the warranty. Of course, they weren’t cheap when I bought them almost 2 years ago. Around last week, my computer started crashing and I ran memtest86. It showed me several errors during test 5. I couldn’t believe it, because I didn’t even overcloak those modules. Anyway, I wrote to Twinmos, asking about the “lifetime warranty”. And what response did I get? “We don’t give out warranty on these modules anymore”. WTF? These modules are not even 2 years old! It seems like the Twinmos lifetime warranty is limited by them to the time they are still producing the product. But actually, for those who bought the RAM later than me, they might not even had 1 year of warranty. What a rip-off! (more…)
More About: Hat , Next , Error

international green week
2007-02-04 14:22:01
Last Saturday, my girlfriend and me went to the “Inter national Green Week” in Berlin. It’s a exhibition from the food industry. Everything you can find there has something to do with our everday food. The price for a day ticket is ? 6,00 for students. (more…)
More About: National , Nation

Moving to Wordpress
2007-02-04 14:22:01
I have used my own CMS for about a year now, but last week, when I installed Word press for my girlfriends homepage, I was kind of fascinated by its features. Although Wordpress has no multilangual support out-of-the-box, but there was a plugin which made it possible. It’s called Polygot and allows the usage of multiple languages. Because Wordpress is W3C conform by default, I decided to do the same with my design. (more…)
More About: Press , Moving , Ving

blessing in disguise
2007-02-04 14:22:01
Yesterday, Liu Chengyang (we call him Liu) and his girlfriend Pan Junli (called “Trampeltier”), Qian Le (someone else with similiar name like me), my girlfriend and me wanted to go to Snow Funpark, an indoor skiing hall in north Germany. Because they have been overbooked the last two days, they recommended that we should arrive before 9 am, so we could still get tickets. Anyway, to get there on time, we had to get up early and meet 6:30 am. 2 minutes before 6:30, Liu called me and told me he had an accident. Quite shocked I asked him what happend and he told me that he broke one of the wheels of his car by driving into the curb. But luckily we were able to get the wheel changed at A.T.U. and we could continue our journey 2 hours later. The trip was around 130 miles, so we had a brake at “Walsdorf Ost”. After we all went to the bathroom and sat back in the car, it wouldn’t start, so we called the “ADAC” (a car club in Germany) to ask for help...
More About: Sing , Less , Blessing

time for winter sports
2007-02-04 14:22:01
?It’s getting cold again. All the years before, I’d stay at home in front of my heater and hope for the winter to end. But after my Shanghai trip, I changed. Winter is great, why? Because of winter sports. I had so much fun with the indoor skiing hall in Shanghai and Beijing that I just bought myself a complete set for snowboarding. First, I got snowboarding clothes from “Tchibo”. It is pretty cheap compared with professional clothing, but still very nice. I paid ~ ? 130 for jacket, pants and gloves. Then I looked for an used board with bindings. On eBay, I found one from Salomon called “Substance” with “SP3″ Bindings also from Salomon. It matched my clothing pretty good and had the correct length (151 cm), so I bought it for ? 150. I hoped to get it cheaper, but some jerk kept trying to outbid me from ? 120 until ? 150, when he finally gave up. So now only the boots where missing. I walked into a ski and snowboard store and tried some...
More About: Sports , Sport , Inter , Time

christmas is coming
2007-02-04 14:22:01
It’s december again and Chris t mas is coming. Well, I should be very festive and motivated in the university. But first, I need to be awake. Like every day morning, I get woken up way too early and it is not very astonishing that I am very tired after I got to the university. How to help myself out in this problematic situation? How to survive another day of endless lecuring? How to become motivated? How to become festive for Christmas? Is there even a solution for this? (more…)
More About: Ming

Google Treasure Hunt 2008 Question 2 Solution
2006-11-30 01:00:00
Question 2 of the Google Treasure Hunt is out and is fairly easy compared to the last question. They request you to sum up numbers of a specific line in files where the path or file name contain a specific pattern and have a specific file ending. I quickly wrote an PHP script to do ...
More About: Question , Solution

Windows Photo Gallery
2003-11-30 01:00:00
Windows Photo Gallery is the default program for viewing images on Vista. It’s pretty simple and works great. But it only works from the Windows Explorer. What if you want to use it with other Tools like WinSCP to preview images from different, maybe linux servers? I started looking for an Executable file to open ...
More About: Windows

Urania.de goes online!
2001-11-30 01:00:00
I’ve been working on the new Urania website together with Jonas for quite some time now. Today it launched! Check it out: www.urania.de! We wrote the site completely in Django, a really cool Python framework for making websites quick and easy. Well it wasn’t really easy, we did encounter a lot of Problems. But ...
More About: Online

My files are safe?
2001-11-30 01:00:00
Anti-Virus is good business. There are so many companies fighting to get their anti-virus software on your computer, you might even think that they release viruses just to improve their revenue. But when you search around the web, you can actually find free anti-virus software. AntiVir Personal by Avira is one of the best examples. ...
More About: Files , Safe

Amsterdam by car
2001-11-30 01:00:00
Last weekend, I went to Amsterdam with my girlfriend. While looking for a hotel to stay at, it struck me that almost no hotels offer parking space. Weird, I thought and googled for public parking spaces and their costs. ? 50 a day! That’s more than I pay for the hotel! A closer look on ...