yEd - freeware for professional diagrams drawing

Talking about professional diagrams drawing, including Organization Chart, Venn Diagram, Flow Chart, Entity-Relationship (ER) diagram, Use Case Diagram, UML Class Diagram, Network Diagram, BPMN Business Process Diagram, Semantic Diagram, Decision Tree, Family Tree, Swimlane Diagram, ... and so on, what would be in your mind?

I am sure you will think of MS Visio, which is now part of MS Office suite. Visio is superb, but it is not free. For the free one, you might think of the open source Dia, now under GNOME project. Dia is good enough for most of the people looking for free MS Visio alternative, only that you need a lot of effort to use Dia to produce nice looking diagrams, and to maintain a relatively large diagram.

I've found yEd, a freeware developed by yWorks of Germany, which enables us to draw and maintain professional diagrams easily, and able to produce nice looking diagrams. One of its selling point is that it has a powerful feature that enables us to automatically rearrange all the elements in the diagram into well organized nice looking position, just with a single click.

The video below is a 90 seconds introduction to yEd.

yEd is running on Java, therefore it is cross-platform, able to run in Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc. It can import diagram/data from multiple format, including GraphML, GML, MS Excel spreadsheet, GEDCOM, TGF, XML through XSLT, etc. It can also export to multiple format, including JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PDF, SWF (Flash), SVG, EMF, EPS, HTML imagemap, etc.

Here are some sample diagrams drawn with yEd:

 

Click here for more information and download of yEd.

The mobile network icons on smartphone and their speed

When your phone is connected to a mobile network, you will see an icon on its title bar (a.k.a. annunciator panel) indicating the type of mobile network it is connected to.

Have you been wondering what type of mobile network does that icon indicate, and what is its maximum upload and download speed? Here is the answer.

Icon             Network              Max Download         Max Upload
-----        ---------------       ----------------      -----------
  G               GPRS (2G)            14.4 kbps                 12 kbps
  E                EDGE (2.5G)        177.6 kbps               40 kbps
 3G              WCDMA / UMTS     384 kbps                 384 kbps
  H               HSDPA (old)        7.6 Mbps                 384 kbps
  H               HSUPA (old)       7.6 Mbps                     2 Mbps
  H               HSDPA              14.4 Mbps                   384 kbps
  H               HSUPA              14.4 Mbps                   5.7 Mbps
4G LTE          4G LTE               300 Mbps                 75 Mbps

Therefore, you will experience a slow network speed when the icon is either G, E or 3G; and you will experience a smooth network speed when the icon is H or 4G.

Note that most of the phones released earlier than 2012 are not supporting 4G Internet connection yet, and most handphone does not support HSUPA. HSUPA is more commonly used for home/office Internet broadband connected with wireless router device.

Both the phone and also the mobile operator's network infrastructure must support the network type in order for such Internet connection to be established for the phone.

What is the meaning of WORK to you?

If somebody asks you the question: "What do you do?", what will be your answer?

WORK can have different meaning to different people. In fact, what "work" means to you is a big part of who you are.

"Work" can be one of, or an intersection of more than one, of the following to you. Check it out!

Work as Job

This means working for the sake of a paycheck, without much personal involvement or satisfaction. Yet, jobs can produce valuable feelings of skill and satisfaction, not to mention sustenance that enables a worker to pursue meaning in other areas of life.

Work as Career

Work as career is motivated by the desire for success, achievement, and status. The careerist’s approach to work is not a passionate attachment to the work itself. Rather, it emphasizes the feedback about the self that comes in response to work. For the careerist, work is a means of creating, defining, expressing, proving, and glorifying the self. Work as career can be an important source of meaning and fulfi llment in life.

Work as Calling

The word “calling” derives from the idea that one is “called upon” to do a certain type of work: either externally, by God or community, or internally, by a natural gift demanding expression. It’s done out of a sense of personal obligation, duty, or destiny.

Work as Fulfillment

Work as fulfillment is best described as a strongly interest-driven (or even passionate) approach to work — but one lacking the overwhelming, allencompassing nature of a "calling". People pursuing work as fulfillment may choose unconventional career paths that favor personal interests over financial reward, recognition, or prestige. Such work can be an important source of meaning in life.

Note: The above is learnt from a book called Business Model You, which is derived from an earlier book called Business Model Generation.