DB Designer 4

It has been a long time for me to look for a free (better if open source), user friendly and powerful ERD editor. Most of the foundings are trial version, limited version, non-open source, or not so user friendly.

But this week, it seems God wants to give me a gift - DB Designer 4, which is an open source, user friend and powerful DB designing tool. It support connections to various data sources, e.g. MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle and ODBC, execution of queries, reverse engineering on db design, forward engineering by applying the change in db design or generating SQL script. You're also allowed to export the diagram in to PNG or BMP, which would be useful for documentation while some other tool doesn't export any graphics...


DB Designer 4

StarUML

Half year ago, I found this tool very useful for system design and documentation. Six months later, I still think so. StarUML is a free CASE tool for OO Methodology, supporting UML, MDA, and both forward and backward engineering. The tool is planned to support round-trip engineering, which I'm interested in very much. I hope the tool can be continued with its development and we can see the power of round-trip engineering at the days.

StarUML

My recent thought

Recently, I thought of a system framework to allow us to develop software in the same way as how chemical factory works. It will be nice if I can implement the framework, and then show you the interesting idea. Hope it won't be too late for you.

Germany 2006 - The Goals

Germany 2006 - The Goals

Nothing in IT. It's just another one of my favourite - World Cup.

ASP .Net Web Page Optimization Checklist - The Code Project - ASP.NET

ASP .Net Web Page Optimization Checklist - The Code Project - ASP.NET

Do keep your application clean and efficient. Try this out. It works!

Ajax Patterns

Ajax Patterns

Have you started AJAX development? If so, how many of the patterns have you applied? You can find out a list of patterns of AJAX development, covering aspects like Performance and Usability. This page is useful to not only AJAX developers, but also for developers with no AJAX developemnt experience (for preparation).

Ten Essential Tools: Visual Studio Add-Ins Every Developer Should Download Now -- MSDN Magazine, December 2005

Ten Essential Tools: Visual Studio Add-Ins Every Developer Should Download Now -- MSDN Magazine, December 2005

I have just figure out a new article in MSDN magazine on add-ins for Visual Studio. Those add-ins cover areas like testing, documentation, Visual Studio usability, Web Services development and cache monitoring. I am not sure if these are useful, since I haven't read through it in detail yet. But the 10 Must-Have tools introduced by the author last year are quite helpful. Enjoy.

A web service as a framework for simplifying development and deployment of business functions - The Code Project - SOAP and XML

A web service as a framework for simplifying development and deployment of business functions - The Code Project - SOAP and XML

This is one of the best preparation material for starting Web Service development for systems in medium to large scale.

Ting-hao Yang's ASP.NET blog : Cross page navigation techniques in ASP.NET 1.x and 2.0

Ting-hao Yang's ASP.NET blog : Cross page navigation techniques in ASP.NET 1.x and 2.0

If you found the loading speed of your pages is slow, you would probably need to do some performance tuning on those pages. You may most likely think that the database query is slow, the page computation is too complicated, or the page size is too large. However, it may also be the case for long client-server round trip time (propagation delay). Here is a blog post from Yang on the details of page navigation scenerio. It may give you ideas on how to fine tune the loading time of your pages.

Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Project Tutorials in C#

Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Project Tutorials in C#

I don't know when will I need to work on some migration project from dotNet 1.1 to dotNet 2.0. But I do think this will happen some days later, and this tutorial will be helpful.

To lead, or to be led?

It's just a very simple question. To lead, or to be led? I think most of the people thought of times that they're in the leading position. However, how many people reach there? How to get there? I don't have a concret idea. But standing behind someone and tracking their path obviously doesn't work.

Be more active, or even proactive.

Ken's Goodies Blog

I'm not sure how many of you recognise that I've established a new blog, named Ken's Goodies Blog, for new product alert (or may be there's nobody reading this blog). It seems that the new blog is not very popular, perphaps it's because I've not put much effort in promoting it. I think I need to promote the blog in more public channels. Let's see what will the situation be in the early January.

The Dilbert Principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I found out his Wiki article today, when I was finding information on Bottleneck Bill. All I can say is that this principle is really something.

Cell phones outnumber PCs in China | Tech News on ZDNet

Cell phones outnumber PCs in China | Tech News on ZDNet: "Cell phones outnumber PCs in China"

This remind me of my Final Year Project in CityU, entitled "Online Game in Mobile Phone". When will this idea really come true?

Vodafone is leaving, but who's next?

As reported, the loge of some high-tech companies may be on Mancehster United shirts next year. What will that be? Google? IBM? Or Yahoo? I think I'll then buy a new MU shirt the coming summer.

George Best 1946 - 2005

Keane, Vodafone... And then MU lengend George Best has also left MU, and the world.

Google Video of the Day

What a collection of the Google Video entries. This blog is like the "Google Map Tour" blog few months ago, but much more interesting for the rich of media.

Geek to Live: Find free music on the web - Lifehacker

Live like a geek, and find the media you need like a geek.

After Keano, Vodafone is leaving MU

Manchester United Official Web Site - Club & News - News - 1:08:24 AM

The remarkable Vodafone logo will not be on the shirts starting from next season. I'm lucky that I've bought a training shirt for this season.

Create a simple file transfer Web service with .NET - Techguides - ZDNet Asia

This situation is really interesting. "Creating a file transfer Web Service" is the topic of a girl's final year project last year. She also won in the Imagine Cup by Microsoft with that project. My friends lost in that competition and argue that the topic is too simple and not useful. Well, yes, it's simple to implement. But perhaps they're on the wrong track. In that competition, as shown in the name, creativity seems to mean everything.