Recently, I have a lot of clients moved their services to cloud services, they are trying to remove their server rack. That is good for small businesses, they don't need to spend the money to maintain their servers. But the cloud backup storage is relative expensive and that is not very fast to get the data from servers via broadband. Thus, there is still some draw back.

In our AdvGenCMS, we use the repository pattern in the data layer. Inside each repository, there is a LINQ datacontext. We are completely hiding the LINQ from the upper layers. In this way, we can switch to use another ORM technology in the future without other layers. We need to the repositories. That is the reason to use repository pattern

Today, a friend asked me whether that is good to upgrade from Windows 8 to 8.1. My answer is "Good,please go ahead"! Windows 8.1 is better than Windows 8. At least you will have IE 11 and a "Start" button, although that is a kind of "Windows 8". Moreover, this upgrade is free. I can't think of any reasons to stop that.

A lot of people prefer to build a web app. They think using ASP.Net MVC or PHP + jQuery will be the best option. jQuery can make a web interface as good as a windows UI. Nowadays, web page can do a lot of interactions. Moreover, the users only need a web browser to access the application, no installation of software are required. However, our Company, AdvGen, still has some projects in WPF or Winforms, such as AdvGen Contact Manager and Adv Timer Assistant. That is because jQuery UI is very hard to test and so easy to have bugs. Moreover, WPF and Winform are still able to provide more interactions and easy to build. Thus, we still love WPF and Winforms!

Recently, I traveled to Seoul from Hong Kong. I rented a mobile modem from Vison Data. That costed HKD$60 per day and HKD$1000 as the deposit. This is quite reasonable. Moreover, the process is convenient. I booked the modem online, and then you can pay the rent fee and deposit into their bank account or pay the money in their office. Finally, I picked the modem from their office the day before our trip. Of course you can pay $20 for express post. Then the modem will be delivered to your home.

For speed, that is our reasonable too. 0.97 Mbps for download and 0.43 Mbps for upload.

Lastly, I wish to talk the return process. That is simple, you need to pick back the modem to their office before the second day of your return. Of course you can pay $20 for express post too. Then they will give your a cash cheque to you.