Book Review: How to Win Friends and Influence People

《How to Win Friends and Influence People》 by Dale Carnegie

1. The importance of human relationship: "Even in the field of Engineering, about 15 percent of one's financial success is due to one's technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering--- to personality and the ability to lead people."

2. "The person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people--- that person is headed for higher earning power."

3. Professor William James of Harvard once said "Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Starting the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He posesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use."

4. "The great aim of education is not knowledge but action."

5. Ask yourself on a weekly basis:
"What mistakes did I make that time?"
"What did I do that was right--- and in what way could I have imporved my performance?"
"What lessons can I learn from that experience?"

6. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don't criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be."

7. "Let's realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return."

8. "When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with predudices and motivated by pride and vanity."

9. "Instead of condemning people, let's try to understand them. Let's try to figure out why they do what they do."

10. Sigmund Freud said that "Everything you and I do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great."

11. Lincoln once said "Everybody likes a compliment."

12. "Don't be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you."

13. "In our interpersonal relations we should never forget that all our associates are human beings and hunger for appreciation."

14. "Let's cease thinking of our accomplishments, our wants. Let's try to figure out the other person's good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation."

15. "The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it."

16. "Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, whether in business, in the home, in the school, in politics, is: First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way."

17. "Tomorrow you may want to persuade somebody to do something. Before you speak, pause and ask yourself: 'How can I make this person want to do it?'"

18. Henry Ford once said, "If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own."

19. "The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve other has an enormous advantage."

20. "People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them."

What I learned about BB Email Structure lately

Lately, I've been fixing a really sneaky bug and today I finally fixed it! It has something to do with the email structure and also the new os version of blackberry 6.

1. Typical Email Structure of a HTML email


2. Timing of the corresponding "text/plain" content being loaded
When the email first comes to the device, if you want to access the content of the email, you need to use Transport.more() to request more information from the server. I notice that for the peer-part of "text/html", there is a "text/plain" part comes with html mimebodypart. However, when you use Transport.more(BodyPart, true) to get the information in the "text/plain" mimebodypart, it will take approximately 5 seconds to load the content to the bodypart. Therefore, in your program, you need to wait longer for the content fetching.

3. Always deep check the content
Moreover, you need to double check the content when there is some content in the bodypart to make sure the content is not just spaces.

Reference:
1. How to- Access HTML email messages
http://www.blackberry.com/knowledgecenterpublic/livelink.exe/fetch/2000/348583/800332/800698/How_To_-_Access_HTML_email_messages.html?nodeid=1443037&vernum=0

2. One useful thread in a BB Forum
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Java-Development/Extract-Plain-Text-from-HTML-Email/td-p/184499