How to play MSN Messenger game - Hexic

Hexic Tips and Strategies

· Create clusters lower on the board, that way you have a better chance of creating cascading clusters from the tiles that fall to fill in the gaps.
· To create a starflower, make a ring of same-colored tiles around a single tile. The ring of same-colored tiles will disappear and the single tile in the center will turn into a starflower.
· Form clusters using bonus pieces for extra points.
· Bonus pieces do not have to be the same color in order to create a cluster.
· Make a cluster using three same-color bonus pieces and the bonus pieces will disappear, along with every tile each of the bonus pieces is touching.
· Clear bombs first! When a bomb appears, waste no time in clearing it from the board.
· To clear a bomb, look for clusters to can clear anywhere below the bomb. Your goal is to put the bomb in position next to two same-colored tiles so you can form a cluster.
· Create a cluster of same-colored pieces using a bomb and at least one bonus piece to remove all pieces of that color from the board.
· Avoid letting your starflowers drop to the bottom of the board or you will have difficulty using them to create black pearls.
· Start making flowers early, since it is easier in the earlier levels when there are fewer tile colors.
· Look for same-colored tiles that are forming a partial flower, and then maneuver other same-color tiles into place to create a complete flower.
· Don’t create clusters beneath the flower you are trying to create or the flower tiles will fall out of position and you will have to start over.
· Create a cluster or a flower using black pearls to win the game!

Return to innocence

Enigma - Return to innocence

Love
Devotion
Feeling
Emotion

Don’t be afraid to be weak
Don’t be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence

If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don’t hide
Just believe in destiny

Don’t care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don’t give up and use the chance
To return to innocence

That’s not the beginning of the end
That’s the return to yourself
The return to innocence

Interview preparation

A few years ago, a government job at any level was the first choice of those looking for work. It meant a secure position. The benefits were good and the work environment comfortable.

Goodbye to all that.

Now the search is for jobs with foreign-funded or joint ventures - especially if the job-hunter is young. The most impressive reason: assurance of a high salary.

As for me, I expect a job that displays my capablilities and offers me room for development.
Just as a coin has two sides, so does a person. Everyone has advantages and disadvantages. When looking for a job, I consider what I want. Then I make a choice that will best use my expertise. In a sense, the job should be a stage on which I can display my capabilities and show my value through achievements at work. A good stage can not only give me confidence but also put me in a position that allows me to do a better job. In addition, the sense of fulfillment will make me more confident and push me to work harder. Under those circumstances, I can make a successful career. The job I expect also should offer me room for personal development. I want to be able to pursue advanced studies. The knowledge ecomomy will play an increasingly important role: Everyone will strive to learn more.
To gain an edge in the increasingly heated competition, I need frequent opportunities to keep up with the latest advances.

Then, I want the chance to be promoted to a higher position because of my efforts. I don’t expect a very high salary, or status, at the beginning. But after a period of time. I’d like to be given a raise based on my performance. In other words, I would appreciate a reasonable incentive system. I don’t think this is too much to ask, of my employer or myself.

A short survey

What are your thoughts about the anti-japanese protests going on right now?
The Japanese government hurts our feeling at all times. Our protests are justice, unless some take extreme actions.

Do you feel that they are triggered by anything in particular?
1. Textbooks whitewashing Japan’s atrocities during WWII;
2. Japan’s bid for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat;
3. Drilling rights in a disputed area of the East China Sea.

What do you personally think of the Japanese? As a people/culture? The government?
Generally the Japanese, like other people on the planet, live peacefully, and are the same friendly to neighbors. But of course a strong right wing still exists in its society.

Some Japanese just like to do abnormal things to make fun…(high working pressure?) As I have seen, the business men are usually too humble to be honest.

Do you think that the Chinese govt supports these protests (in moderation)?
It is acquiescent rather than supportive. This time the government behaves very well in front of the world, including Premier Wen Jiabao and Ambassador Wang Yi holding a steady standpoint all the way.

If there’s anything else you’d like to say about the issue, I’d be very interested to hear it.
Besides protests, the domestic enterprises should try their best to extend high quality products and services. That’s our way out.

Guess her personality

MBTI(Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) helps us to understand why certain areas in life come easily to us, and others are more of a struggle. And more importantly, it is an invaluable tool to mark out career path, and improve inter-personal relationships. I gradually recognize myself as a typical INTJ. But do you understand your honey’s temperament? I’m trying my hand at figuring it out.

So these might be her preferences in the 4 dimensions:

1. Flow of Energy

Every person has two faces. One is directed towards the outer world of activities, excitements, people, and things. The other is directed inward to the inner world of thoughts, interests, ideas, and imagination. This dimension defines how we receive the essential part of our stimulation, from within ourselves or from external sources. Basically, Joanna and I have a powerful inner world of ourselves. While feeling tired, we require an amount of private time to recharge batteries. So we are both introverted.

2. Method of perceiving/taking in information

Some people tend to use their sensory organs firstly, to learn colors, sounds, smells, tastes, temperature and so on. While the others seek to understand things from an overall pattern. Yes, her memory is so good that every time she recall past events in rich details, while I can only pick up fuzzy pictures. If given a brand new research topic, she always tends to set off to investigate on the spot, but I tends to stay at home making layout within my brain. So I guess she is sensing.

3. Method of judging/making decisions

Is she prone to decide things based on objective logic or subjective feelings? The answer is the former one for certain. She is thinking. This preference might be deep-rooted in her mind through the years studying sciences, I think. I admire my girl, who accepts conflict as a natural, normal part of relationships. To find out and deal with conflicts between us is not so frustrating as many people think.

4. Action orientation towards the outside world

All people use both perceiving(sensing and intuition) and judging(thinking and feeling) processes to manage our lives. Yet one of these processes(perceiving or judging) tends to take the lead in our relationship with the outside world while the other governs our inner world.

Is she more comfortable with scheduled, well-organized environments or open, casual environments? She is always proudly saying that she’d like to “take tic-for-tac actions on-the-go”. This means she adaped to variety, flexibility and multitask well. Phew! my big girl is perceiving.

Sum them up. She is a mechanic(ISTP)! Of course, this does not mean that her personality falls strictly into this category. She (and I) still functions in the opposite realms. And as we grow and learn, we’ll develop the ability to function well in realms which are not native to our basic personalities.

Anyway, from learning about other people’s personality types, we can identify their natural preferences and find the most effective way to communicate with them.

I confess myself to be a fool

As Mark Twain put it, “April 1st is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other 364.” The alarm woke me up from my sound sleep at 6:13 in the morning. Briefly I was thinking about the broken attendance check machine(because of the power outage at 23:03 last night). Did I need to get out of the cozy bed and head for office that early? Anyway, 20 minutes later, I appeared at the 302 bus stop. But what am I pursuing in such a hurry? Who knows! Many people can easily make a long wish list for the next May Day holiday. They hate Elizabeth Arden so much as they love Christian Dior. They can tell what is principled right or what is principled wrong in their minds. Actually, I don’t want to end up this special day with these headaches. I admit, I am the mentally retarded one comparing to the “fast progressing society”. Love is life. Life is truth. Truth is freedom. Luckily nothing could prevent me from pondering over my life like this.

Do you know where you are

Watts Humphrey began his book Managing the Software Process with two proverbs:

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do. If you don’t know where you are, a map won’t help.”

Again, these Taoism sayings reminded me that how important it is to learn to let go. Upon understanding our real locations and identities, can we easily and happily follow the road of life.

Luckily Google is well-being

Since yesterday until now, you might have noticed that some images on this site can’t be loaded. The server on which those images reside became inaccessible because of DNS failure. But how to contact the administrator? That’s a question.

Well, thanks Google cache. I got their telephone number, QQ number, and alternative email address. The custom service girl told me that their DNS server had been recovered. But there is still a buffering time up to 24 hrs, during which DNS records should be updated.

March 10th UPDATE: not solved yet.

There I spent my early school age

Mom and I went back to my grandparents’ home when I gotta get into the third grade in primary school, while dad was sent to Burundi by his company. (I didn’t realize the reason why we must move there until recently.)

At that time, I was totally absent to the “odd” names and directions of the towns in the surroundings. Now it’s clear. In fact, their topological positions never change. The only thing that has changed is my perceivings - I could view them from outside for now.

Experiences of life in villages is always worthwhile for a child.

Great graphical tools

Picasa 2 (freeware)

On July 13, 2004, Google acquired Picasa. So you might have guessed the answer. Picasa is great at searching and organizing pictures stored everywhere in your machine. Picasa is tightly attached to other Google services(Gmail, Hello, Blogger). Picasa has a simple but florid user interface, and a bad support with GB2312.

IrfanView 3.95 (freeware)

Do you think your ACDSee 6.0 PowerPack is extremely slow? Although it is really more powerful than version 3.0, I just couldn’t bear its startup speed, slow like a snail. So if you were also hunting for a high-efficient image browser, you’d make a trial of IrfanView, which is on the top of my recommendation list. Believe it or not, its setup file size is only 856.5kB!

With various plugins, it can also handle text/audio/video files. This brings a shortcoming that you may find too much IrfanView icons(little red reptiles) in your computer.

Turbo Photo 4.2 (shareware)

It contains both an image editor and an image browser. I use Turbo Photo to resize images, enhance quality, and add personalized frames.