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Hooray for WHO and ZERO The lifting of travel warning from WHO yesterday came much earlier than I had expected. It's definitely great news for Hong Kong, and that of Guangdong province, but our comrades in Northern China and Taiwan, especially, are still heavily affected by SARS. A double celebration for us came today as we reached our first zero new SARS infection. Although it will unlikely remain at zero in coming days, but knowing that no infection is possible gives us hope and a reason to party.
Matrix Reloaded so-so I went to the premier of Matrix Reloaded this afternoon with my sister. My niece already saw it back home in Honolulu, and told me she didn't know what the heck it was talking about, though the action was awesome. I took her warning and rented The Matrix DVD to watch over a few nights ago, so that I would be prepped for this one. My niece pretty much described Reloaded to the T: I could care less for the laborious dialogs, but the actions were anything but tiresome; they made this sequel worth watching, but let's hope we get more action and less talk on the last one.
9 days and counting For the past 9 days, the number of new SARS cases in Hong Kong has remained below 10, to as low as 4 yesterday and 5 today. That is a remarkable improvement, considering the opposite direction of our neighbors in China and Taiwan, where numbers of infected are still growing. Even as we slowly strive for zero, I don't think we can call for a victory here until our comrades have the disease under control as well. Hong Kong is too closely tie to these two countries, where thousands cross over everyday for business and what not. And by now we all know that it takes only one unaware infected person to start the horrifying cycle again. So let's keep our awareness up and our fingers crossed for a brighter tomorrow.
Down to single digits For two days in a row now, the number of people contracted SARS in Hong Kong has gone down to less than 10--8 to be exact--a first since the outbreak began in March. I also notice considerably less people are wearing masks in recent days, while more people are out on the streets. Last night, being Sunday, was especially encouraging to see the many crowds in shops, restaurants and other public areas. Even the theater where I went to watch X-Men 2 was crowded. What a contrast from the empty places and gloomy faces of just a few weeks ago. At this rate, by that day when new SARS case is down to the magic number "zero," I believe we shall see a major celebration in Hong Kong, matching that of Christmas and New Year's Eve. Finally, I can see light at the end of the tunnel.
SARS a joke? A follow up After my first entry on this topic, I received several responses from people who read Andrew Lisa's article. Phil Ingram of Flying Chair, where I found the link to the article, informed me that Lisa actually commented on his entry. To my surprise, or more appropriately, not too surprisingly, Lisa added the following to the end of his comment: "God bless chopsticks! God bless Hiroshima (Yeah, I know that's in Japan, but let's be honest, it's all the same shit). God bless Yao Ming and God bless dental floss, without which you people could never be blindfolded." Phil also wrote on his blog a follow up, in which he wrote a complaint to the editor of The Daily Journal, where Lisa works and his article appears. Instead of getting a serious response from the newspaper, Lisa wrote back directly to Phil with more wisecracks. I was so disturbed by this Lisa character, and the suspicious operation of this newspaper that I had to go back to The Daily Journal website to make sure it isn't some hate site disguised as a legitimate newspaper. Had Lisa's article appeared on his personal weblog or on some hate sites, it wouldn't have been as frightening. But here is a newspaper with a staff of at least 16 listed on its staff directory (strangely, Lisa isn't on here), including six other editors. The bigger irony is the paper actually has a Principle of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms, with a long list of ethical conducts the paper and its journalists supposedly adhered to, including one that states the following: We will treat people with dignity, respect and compassion. If that is the case, then how in the world could Lisa's article made it passed the other editors to appear onto its newspaper pages? Can this possibly be an oversight by the company staff, or does the underlying reveal a darker, more disturbing truth--that bigotry and racism are well and alive in North America?
Slick iTunes 4 When it comes to making the complicated simple, you have to hand it to Apple. On the night of the music announcements--it was around 2 am in Hong Kong--I download iTunes 4 without a glitch. I installed it on my PowerBook, opened it, clicked on Music Store, and was instantaneously there. I got a warning about accessing outside of the U.S. and that I needed to update my Apple ID for the store, but once those were cleared, the process of browsing for music, choosing and buying selections, were almost too easy. In less than two minutes, I bought two exclusive live tracks from Fleetwood Mac for US$1.98, downloaded to my iTunes, and was listening to them on my JBL Creatures. No hassle. No moving from one program to another. No problem.
Finally, a gathering It has been over a month since I had a get together with friends. The last time was on my sister's birthday in early March, before the SARS outbreak; we went to Karaoke, which is pretty much off limit nowadays. Yesterday was a family friend's birthday, so it's as good a reason as any to take this chance to get together again. We met the night before at a Japanese buffet we frequent for dinner. Not surprisingly, everyone had a mask on as she came in. Also, as expected, our conversion revolved around SARS from news, from work, from home. We waited till almost dinner's over before Georgia brought up the idea of going back to her place for a game of mahjong. Normally, it isn't a big deal at all. Since SARS, however, going inside someone else's home seems to be a taboo, because on one hand, you don't want to bring germs into someone's home, and on the other, you don't want to get germs from someone's home. Yes, it's pathetic, and we realized it, too, as we debated over dinner. Finally, the seduction of mahjong took over any remote chance of catching a virus, as we headed out the door to hail a cab. Here' a picture I took at Georgia's home on the night before her birthday. They purposely left the mask on for the picture. They took them off after that. It shall be a birthday well worth remembering for all of us. (JPG, 62 KB)
SARS a joke? I read this article over a week ago, outraged at what I read, then decided to let it simmer to see whether my reaction was from the heat of the moment. It wasn't. I just reread the article, "Oh, great - another disease to worry about," and I am still in rage at what I read. The article appears on The Daily Journal--a regional newspaper in New Jersey--written by its copy editor Andrew Lisa. I believe he is trying to write a humor piece on the SARS, but nothing I read appeared remotely funny. Rather, he wrote one of the most bigoted, arrogant, insensitive piece of misinformation on a crisis to appear on a reputable newspaper and website. How and why it went through other editors and got published I do not know. What is even more outrageous is how he managed to get away with inserting racist remarks in every paragraph of his prose: "I personally find feudal communism to be a slightly dated way of running a country, but what do I care? I don't live in China. I can look the other way on their using wooden sticks for forks and I've learned to accept the "Shanghai Noon" sequel. I've even stopped complaining about that 8-foot Gumby creature they have running around our NBA." "The Chinese aren't happy unless they're trumping the rest of the world, so they've gone airborne with their freak disease." "One out of every five people on this planet is Chinese. To an airborne pathogen, that ratio may as well be a plate of General Tso's chicken in front of Star Jones. It just ain't gonna last long." "...they tricked us in the typical Chinese fashion by lying and covering it up until it was out of control." "They Shanghaied us so well that for a while..." "I understand their need for population control, and I agree that SARS may be a better option..." "...I've got taxes, war, exploding jihad and a Celine Dion comeback tour to worry about at the moment, and I'm really at the end of my wits with China." (At least the last paragraph shows us the depth of this moron.) If you think I am taking things out of context, I can only assure you that they only made the actual writing less offensive. But please, read and see for yourself. This is one of those times when I do want feedback from others on your take on Lisa's article, to see whether this is something only the Chinese will be offended by it, or most people in general. It is okay if your views differ, since I don't think I can be any more insulted than what this Lisa character already wrote. Please send your feedback to kwong@mac.com. Finally, I wonder how funny Lisa thought it was when the two towers from his neighboring state came crumbling down from the terrorists' bombing, leaving thousands dead. I'm afraid to dig through his old files to find out. Thanks to Flying Chair for pointing out this article to me. [Update: May 3, 2003; 10:26 PM] I wrote a follow up to this entry where others responded, including Lisa himself to Flying Chair.
My Amoy Gardens friend I just talked to my aunt--a childhood friend of my mom's--tonight over the phone. She lives in by now the infamous Amoy Gardens. Fortunate for her, she doesn't live in one of those buildings where blocks of residents caught SARS. She's well into her 60s now, so if she were to get the virus, her recovering is slight. She almost never left her apartment for over a month, except when she absolutely has to. She's afraid of going around her neighborhood; besides, most of the places in Amoy are closed. She tells her two younger sons not to come to visit her, and she's afraid to go to visit them. She tells me the same thing. It is so sad to hear. Only this past December we went to Shun De together with my mom. Now my mom's back in Hawaii, safe, and she's stuck in Amoy Gardens. I read the daily list of buildings with SARS cases, and a building right next to mine, at 63 Wuhu Street is added the list today. Since my building has only 28 units, with one elevator, if a resident here were to catch the virus, it would make the rest of us living here quite distressful.
Personal air purifier In addition to wearing a face mask, I now put on an Air Supply Mini-Mate Purifier before I leave the apartment. It supposedly de-contaminates the air we breathe in, killing up to 75 percent of germs within 2 seconds. Since face masks trap viruses and don't cover the eye area, the Purifier should work complementary to each other. This wearable ionzier is expensive, HK$1,280, about twice of what you would pay in the states. Putting on one of these things around my neck would have looked pretty ridiculous in non-SARS times, but compared to a horrendous face mask, the Purifier practically looks like a thing of beauty. [Update: April 23, 2003; 10:39 PM] The Purifier isn't much cheaper in the U.S. after all. I sent an e-mail to the manufacturer inquiring where I can buy this product in Honolulu. I got a reply the next day referring to a website where I can buy it through mail order, as it isn't physically available in Honolulu. I went to the website and found the Purifier listed at US$145, about the same as what I paid in Hong Kong after a 10 percent discount for bulk purchase. So much for wanting to save money. So far I have to say the Purifier works well, for this is one of those products that you have to assume it works unless you caught the virus, then you can say it sucks.
Take a risk I risked my life for Chow Yun Fat, literally. Last Thursday I went to the premier of his new Hollywood movie, Bulletproof Monk. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been that a big deal. Given the SARS outbreak, however, theaters are on the list of places not to be. On the contrary, or to justify my action, I figured theaters are probably one of the safer places, given recent news that some theaters had zero audience for many showings. With nobody around, where else could be safer? Besides, I decided to take extreme precaution and to go to a theater in a low-risk area. Before I left my apartment, I put on my mask and told myself I would not take it off for the duration of the movie. That meant I cannot buy any junk food or even a coke to drink, since they required unmasking. That would be a first for me. I went to a matinee show, so the theater was definitely quiet. I was the only one in line to buy a ticket, and as I looked around, there were more employees than customers. On my way passed the concession stand, the lady called out to suggest I buy some some soda and popcorn before going inside. It was tempting; I gave it a thought, then continued on in. Much to my surprise, I wasn't the only one in that cinema house. There had to be at least 15 other people seated across different sections. I chose an isolated aisle seat with no one else around me. The screen was still showing previews when I got there, and I noticed more people came straggling in after me. By the time the lights started to dim, I looked around quickly and counted roughly 30 people in the house watching this movie with me. That is not a bad number for a matinee show in times of an outbreak, and very different from what the news reported. So I can only attribute that to Chow Yun Fat's Asian star power. Unfortunately, the movie was only so-so.
Street talk Here's a typical conversation you might hear from two acquaintances who run into each other on the streets of Hong Kong today: Housewife: Wey, I almost didn't recognize you with your mask on. Her Friend: Yeah, what a humbug. I don't even want to wear it, but I get scolding from my family. Housewife: I know what you mean. Sometimes I get dizzy when I wear it too long. Hey, you have the pig nose (respiratory mask) on, aren't they expensive? Her Friend: Yeah, but they say it's the safest kind. Housewife: Ah-ya, the health department said the surgical mask is good enough for everyday use, and it's cheap, only HK$2.00, and it's imported from the U.S. Her Friend: Oh yeah? Where you bought yours? Housewife: I bought mine at the OK convenience stores; it comes in blue and pink. Her Friend: I better go get some, too, then. Mine costs so much I don't want to throw it away after I get home. Housewife: Ha ha, then you ought to hurry. The last time they sold out it took them a week to get stock again. Plus, there's no limit to how much you buy this time. Her Friend: Ok, then I must go now. I don't trust the kind they sell on the streets. I'll talk to you later. Housewife: Ok, bye-bye.
Links worthy For UKGP 1.50, ladies can turn their Nokia mobile into a "discreet" vibrating massager using the Purring Kitty software. Who would have thought? I can already hear the cashier register ringing. Sorry, a U.S. version isn't available at this time. Wired News reports. [MacSurfer] A retired FBI agent accused of having an affair with a Chinese double agent, negligently giving her access to confidential documents stored in his briefcase. The double agent was spying for both the FBI and the Chinese government at the same time. And to think you only read this in mystery novels. CNN.com International reports. A news executive at CNN finally spoke out on some of the terrifying things that could never be told about the Iraqi government before the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Interestingly, his confession is posted on The New York Times. A very intense reading. Don't miss it. [Scripting News] A nursing mother forced to drink her own breast milk by the security at the JFK Airport is one of winners of a "Stupid Security" competition. The other winners are almost as insane. [Macsurfer] Which music manuscript could possibly fetch up to US$4.6 million? No other than Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, of course. CNN.com International reports. Is this for real? "US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush" [documentroot.com] An inspiring story of a teacher totally dedicated to his students, past and present. [MacSurfer] Possibly the biggest Internet auction fraud by a 25-year-old woman, conning 350 victims out of US$880,000 from selling Apple computers. [MacSurfer] Scotland's Clackmannanshire Council unknowingly bought piracy product licenses and ended up paying 150,000 pound in new licenses and legal costs. Another prominent victim is UK's anti-terrorism police. BBC News UK reports. [MacSurfer] The 7th Annual Webby Awards nominees announced. [MacSurfer]
A doctor's visit I've been feeling a bit sick lately from indigestion, so yesterday I finally decided to see a doctor. I tried to hold off from visiting a clinic for as long as I can, because as you know, doctors and nurses have the highest SARS risks. Before I left my apartment, I put on just a regular face-mask, good enough to walk the streets. I haven't had the need to visit a clinic in my neighborhood since I moved here 16 month ago, so I didn't have a specific one in mind as I wander out on the street. I knew there was one opened not long ago right next to my building, so for convenience sake, I decided to go there. When I got to the front door, the lights inside were off, and a "Closed" sign was hanging from the door. I looked at the hours on the sign and read that it's closed from 2 to 4 pm. Since it was only minutes after two, I wasn't about to wait around, so I went down the street to find another one. I always knew there were a few clinics in my neighborhood, but until yesterday, I didn't realize there were so many. In a 3-block radius, there had to be at least 10 clinics: some on main streets, some on side streets, while some inside of buildings. I know because I had to walk passed one after another, for they all had temporary close signs on their doors. In fact, I am sure there are way more than 10, since I didn't get to some across the street and on side streets. I know restaurants are everywhere to feed the hungry, but I didn't expect clinics are everywhere, too, to cure the sick. With so many, which one to choose? I looked at each of the signs the clinic posted outside, and on it are the doctor's name and qualifications beneath it. Some qualifications was a simple one liner: Bachelor of Medicine from Hong Kong University. But some had acronyms attached to it like in an alphabet soup; I have no clue as to what they are. Since I didn't know what they meant anyway, I decided to look for one with the most acronyms, assuming the more, the better. That afternoon I gave window (doctor) shopping a whole new meaning. Finally, I found one with enough qualifications on the sign for me to feel safe; it was located on the fourth floor of a small building. Before I walked inside the building, however, I suddenly had second thoughts about the mask I was wearing, whether it was safe enough for a "high-risk" area. I looked at my time and had about 10 minutes to spare, so I quickly walked to a Watson's shop to buy an N-95 respirator masks to replace the one I had on. I felt rather silly while waiting in line to pay for my mask, but then I thought to myself, "it is better to be safe than sorry." Inside the clinic I waited an hour before it was my turn to see the doctor. When I entered, I saw the doctor wearing a regular surgical mask--the kind most people are wearing on the streets--rather than the safer N-95 I had on. After he diagnosed me and was talking to me about my indigestion problem, he looked at my mask for a second, then told me I was wearing it wrong. He reached over to squeeze the metal film to snugly fit the bridge of my nose. He said you can't let air in your mask, otherwise it is a waste of time to put it on. Before I stood up, he added: "You don't actually need a respiratory mask; it's kind of an overkill and expensive. Just get a surgical mask like the one I have on." "Uh, okay." I said and headed for the door.
SARS: breaking the 1000 barrier is only the beginning Today, Hong Kong passed its 1,000 victims who contracted SARS, with a total of 32 fatalities. From just under a thousand yesterday to 1,059 today, and no cure in sight, one wonders whether this is only the beginning of what is to come. The epidemic is affecting everyone of us: our behavior, our friendships, our camaraderie, our work, our businesses, our economy, but most damaging of all, our faith.
Books arrived The rest of my books from YesAsia arrived today. I think the same postman delivered my package yesterday. It took a total of 9 days to complete my order of 3 books. In all, I am very satisfied with its service--free and prompt shipping at a fair price. Now I can wholeheartedly recommend my Hong Kong friends to YesAsia to shop for books. Time for me to get some reading done.
SARS continues I walk on the street now and see more people wearing face masks than not. SARS, evidently, shows no signs of slowing down. Every other shop I pass by is selling some sort of masks. They are cheap, averaging about HK$2-$3, but given they are non-reusable, and with 6.9 million people, it seems to be the only profitable business in Hong Kong for the moment. Here are more recent news of the virus: Fear of virus turning Hong Kong into ghost town - April 3, 2003 [Google News] ""We eat in separate rooms. We do everything separately. We only take off our face masks when each of us is in a room by ourselves." China Admission Raises Number of Reported Cases of Mystery Illness - April 3, 2003 "China admitted yesterday that it had 1,190 suspect cases, not 806, and 46 deaths instead of the 34 it had previously acknowledged." WHO targets SARS 'super spreaders - April 6, 2003 "the phenomenon of 'super spreaders' -- people who seem to spread their disease to a lot of other people." Public confronts new virus on laymen's terms - April 6, 2003 "The illness tops the 'buzz index' on Yahoo , the popular Internet search engine." Travel fears cause some to commute online - April 7, 2003 "The Sprint Corporation has seen minutes spent on teleconferences spike in recent months, rising 23 percent in March from February, and 58 percent from March of last year for its top customers." CDC: SARS 'the beginning of a problem' - April 7, 2003 [Drudge Report] "it could take two to 12 days to develop symptoms." Deaths from virus reach 100 and Hong Kong fears thousands more - April 8, 2003 [Drudge Report] "Hong Kong said it was preparing for a leap in SARS cases. Health officials were expecting as many as 3,000 patients. There are 700 now." SARS is here to stay, health officials say - April 8, 2003 [Drudge Report] "We believe that every citizen could become a carrier of the virus," especially if people do not follow practices like hand washing and the wearing of face masks." False rumors of SARS hurting Chinatowns - April 8, 2003 "In New York's Chinatown, fears of the disease have led to a buying spree of respiratory masks and herbs meant to ward off SARS." Japanese tourism in Hawaii plunges by up to 40 pct of SARS, war jitters - April 9, 2003 "But Hawaii has reported up to five suspected cases of SARS itself, forcing the industry to brace for further cancellations and fewer bookings." New SARS outbreak fears - April 9, 2003 "The Lower Ngau Tau Kok cases have prompted authorities to add cockroaches to the list of suspected spreaders of the disease. Cats, rats and leaky sewage systems are also under investigation." As you may have noticed, I have added a temporary section to the left with links to sites with comprehensive SARS coverage. I hope I don't have to leave it up for long.
Book arrived My first of three books ordered from YesAsia arrived today by local post; the postman even delivered it right to my door. I ordered three books just before midnight on March 31st, so it took a total of 8 days to get my first book, which is within the time-frame specified on its website. I am very excited about YesAsia, because it offers free shipping and actual list price or lower on books, which is a first in Hong Kong. I wrote more on it here. Later in the afternoon I received an e-mail from the company notifying me that the other two books are on their way. That means I should get them by tomorrow. Hooray!
Links worthy ImageWell 1.0, released today, is a handy image editor that sits on your OS X menu bar. Just drag-and-drop an image onto the 'well' icon, resize, crop, frame, label your image, press the send button, and it will automatically publish your enhanced image to iDisk or an FTP server. The user-interface is excellent. This is one of those little utility so good you can't buy it, because it is free. [VersionTracker] The 2003 Pulitzer Prizes' winner's list is out. The Boston Globe staff won in the Public Service category for its coverage of the Catholic priest sex scandal. The Fiction winner is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and for History, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson. The complete list of winners is available at the Pulitzer Prizes' website. [Drudge Report] An article with a comprehensive listing of free tax services available online to help you beat the deadline blues. [MacSurfer] Yahoo! has a new search engine. It looks a lot like Google's, and this AP story and NY Times article tell you why. [MacSurfer] Speaking of New York Times, just as its archive suddenly disappeared, it has miraculously reappeared, with all links pointing to it intact and working again. Dave Winer writes about it. A contestant and his accomplices were found guilty of winning a million pound by cheating with strategic coughs. They include a major, his wife, and a college lecturer. I never got around to try Audible books when iTunes integrated it in version 3, but Walter Mossberg tells of his positive experience with it. And though I don't own an iPod, the audio books work with my Tungsten T. Now I am interested. [MacSurfer] If you're not the Audible kind of guy, try Zinio, instead. It's a digital magazine reader for your desktop. An OS X version is announced, and Macworld has joined Zinio as one of its partners. This is good news for people who live overseas, as printed subscriptions tend to be very expensive for us. Now I can get my doze of U.S. magazines in digital format. Zinio is offering the March 2003 issue of Macworld as a free download. I already bought that printed issue earlier for HK$80, but I downloaded it anyway, and it looks exactly like the print magazine, page-per-page, on the screen. [MacSurfer] "Who's 14, 'kewl' and flirty online? A 39-year-old detective." An inside peek of how a NYPD detective poses as minors online to catch pedophiles. It's sick. It's funny. It's a must read. [MacSurfer]
NoteBook and NoteTaker: separated at birth? If you go to Circus Ponies's website to see its just released NoteBook 1.0 for OS X, you will find that the pictures and descriptions of the product is eerily similar to AquaMinds's NoteTaker 1.1, so much so that you will first check to make sure today is not April 1st, then think to yourself how somebody is going to get away with this? Well, if you look in Circus Ponies's FAQ section, you will learn that both NoteBook and NoteTaker share a common code base from a NeXTSTEP software also called NoteBook, formerly developed by Millennium Software Labs, founded by Jayson Adams and Scott Love, who happen to be the creators of NoteBook and NoteTaker, respectively, for OS X. So although they are similar in appearance, they are two different products by different companies. Only in time will we know how each one will improve itself to differentiate from the other, and to prevail. To get the ball rolling, Circus Ponies is offering its US$100 NoteBook software at a competitive upgrade price of just US$10. That's one-tenth of its regular price. As you might have guessed, the qualifying competing products include NoteTaker, as well as OmniOutliner and others. I think this is a smart move on Circus Ponies's part. Being a couple months late on the scene, NoteBook obviously lags behind in version number and publicity AquaMinds got when it first launched NoteTaker. While I assume the two companies are after the same target audience, the users who already bought the US$70 NoteTaker may not be so quick to plunge another US$100 for NoteBook. By enticing NoteTaker users with a no-brainer US$10 competing offer to own NoteBook, too, Circus Ponies has created a level playing field, whereby users can own and try both products without much risk, then decide for themselves which one to upgrade when version 2 is released. For those who don't own either products or any outlining software, but are still interested in buying NoteBook at the competitive upgrade price, why not just buy a copy of OmniOutliner for US$30, then add US$10 to get your own license for NoteBook, too? I already paid and got my license to NoteBook, as Tinderbox qualifies for the competitive upgrade offer. [VersionTracker]
Links worthy "The dullest blog in the world" is so dull it gets 89 comments from one entry: "I noticed that there were a few things lying around here and there. I decided to leave them where they were." It's a Yahoo! Picks for the day. I couldn't help but read the whole blog; it sure makes my life seem less dull. Don't forget to read the comments. [vog blog::vlog 2.0] China is trying to set a boundary between the right a and wrong of the Internet for its people. The interesting stat is that last year China has 59.1 million Internet users, and is the 'second world cyber power' after the United States. [MacSurfer] An article tells of how China retaliated on a recent U.S. report--criticizing China's human rights performance--by issuing its own report titled: "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2002," criticizing back the U.S. on how the human rights in its own country has deteriorated since the 9-11 event against Muslims and Arabs. Ouch! I only discovered isbn.nu today. It compares book prices among a list of e-tailers. The site is simple in design, yet functional to use. It reminds me a lot of Google, but in a micro-scale. InfoWorld has two articles on how this one-man e-commerce site is highly profitable despite the dot-com bust, and how the owner made a simple change to his site to jump from 4,000 to 100,000 pages on Google's index. Good stuff. The owner of isbn.nu is Glenn Fleishman, journalist and co-author of Real World Adobe Golive 6, which he recently made into an e-book and gave it away free, in hope to spike sales of the printed version. It turns out what was free for the downloaders almost cost him a small fortune from his hosting company. Tidbits first reported the story, then Wired News expanded on it. Glenn writes about it on his blog, too. Another small enterprise that is making even a bigger killing on the Internet is the Drudge Report, which rakes in an estimated US$3,500 a day, by two people running the site on a shoestring. Business 2.0 has the details. [MacSurfer] A 330-pound squid was found off Anartica, New Zealand, the biggest of its kind. Do you know there are 58 moons orbiting Jupiter when Earth only has one? It is finally happening: a real mobile phone you wear on your wrist is debuting in Japan, of course. My TrickList Pro is to keep track of all the guys you date, handily on your Palm. It has a category on call, dinner, met, slept over and all; another category on atheletic, average, good looking, knock out, pretty and all; yet another on great chest, hot legs, pretty, talker and all. Scroll to the animated GIF of My TrickList Pro on the company's website to see for yourself. [VersionTracker: Palm OS] Recent discoveries in Iraq: a torture chamer and 200 boxes of decomposed bodies, with pictures. Spooky. In case you missed it, Back in Iraq 2.0 is independent reporting of the war, by journalist Christopher Allbritton, with funds donated by readers of the website. Now isn't this much more worthy than, say, donating to help someone pays off her credit card debt? I have decided to skip the 17" PowerBook, but two raving reviews by Washingtonpost.com and The Wall Street Journal sure makes it look tempting. Almost overnight, The New York Times has made all its past article archives to subscription based, rendering all the links on the web pointing to them almost useless. Dave Winer writes about it. The Mecury News reports on how the recording association RIAA is suing four college students US$150,000 per song for music-pirating. Some students are in deep trouble is an understatement. [MacSurfer] On a similar note, a new file-trading service, The Honest Thief, announced in February and got major news coverage, re-announced on April 1st that the service was all a hoax. Instead, it is intended to sell a book of the same name, reports Wired News. [MacSurfer] Two specials for Mac users: A "Beyond the Browser Bundle" of Watson, Spring and NetNewsWire for US$68, and "Every Mac needs .Mac" offer, a US$30 discount on a .Mac services subscription. SBook5 Version 5 is released. It is small, smart and fast. It can sync with Apple's Address Book and export to iPod or vCards. To top it off, it's freeware! Don't miss it. By far the longest "Links worthy" entry yet, thanks to VoodooPad in helping me keep track of my links. I hope to write a review on it soon.
I quote: "Why is it that everyone has fun using hypertext, but gets all serious when writing about it?" Kingsley Kwong
Farewell My Concubine Last night I went to a video store looking to buy a DVD movie by Leslie Cheung--who past away on April 1st--as a token of remembrance. I knew it will be either Happy Together or Farewell My Concubine, as they were international award winners and truly memorable films. Happy Together is good, but it is more of a Tony Leung film--his co-star in the movie--for it is told from Leung's narrative. Farewell My Concubine, on the other hand, is Leslie Cheung all the way, stretching his acting abilities through several generations. How often do you see actress Gong Li in a more-or-less supporting role? Thus, I decided to get the latter. The movie wasn't hard to find, as it was already on the store window display, along with several other Cheung's films and concert DVDs, as expected. I needed to look no further. I walked inside with cash in hand and asked the owner behind the counter how much the "Concubine" DVD costs? He quickly answered: "HK$280." I looked at him wide-eyed then repeated the price just in case I heard wrong. "HK$280? Oh, okay, thank you." I slowly slipped my HK$100 bill back into my jeans pocket, embarassed, I walked toward the new-release section and pretended to browse the other selections. All the while I am thinking, "what is wrong with this guy?" I can understand some markup to cash-in on the current event, as unfortunate as it might be; it is a business after all, but over three times the normal selling price? Ridiculous. Actually, I don't know what the "normal" selling price is for this particular DVD, but in general, Hong Kong DVD movies can be bought usually for under HK$80. They are in fact a lot cheaper than Hollywood movies, which sell for HK$100 and up. Even last year's biggest Hong Kong hit, Infernal Affairs, and this year's Oscar foreign film nominee, Hero, are selling for only HK$95. That just about puts Cheung's "Concubine"--made a decade ago--the most expensive Hong Kong DVD ever. After a couple minutes of "pretending," I left the store. I decided the extra walk to Blockbuster will now be worth the savings, for I was sure the super-chain store wouldn't gouge its customers' money that way. When I got there, the queue at the counter was long, but I figured since I am already here, I might as well get it now. I looked around, but couldn't find the "Concubine" DVD, so I asked a clerk for direction. He answered in a way as though he's been asked a hundred times that day: "The 'Concubine' movie never came out on DVD, and the VCDs are all sold out." I thanked the clueless clerk anyway and left, while thinking, "no wonder the other store owner is gouging; he has no competition from Blockbuster." So what am I left to do? Well, I just had to call my bigger brother, who happens to be in Shengzhen, China this week. "Don't worry," he said, "I will buy the DVD for you here." Then I warned him, "I only want an original DVD; no copies, got it?" "No worries," he answered, "original DVDs here are so cheap." "How cheap?" I asked. "HK$15." He said. Note: For the uninitiated, the huge price gap on DVDs between Hong Kong and China matches that of the standard-of-living in those two places. Thus, DVDs in China cannot be exported to Hong Kong. Got it?
SARS and microwave I avoided eating out the last couple of nights due to the SARS outbreak. Suddenly, the microwave that came with my condo, which was hardly used for over a year, is getting all my attention. I stuff everything edible I find at the corner OK Shop (a 7-Eleven wannabe) into my microwave: precooked chicken wings, Napoleon pasta, congee, seafood fried noodles, you name it. I even bought a microwave-safe plastic rice-cooker and a steamer, so the microwaveable food comes out, well, more edible. They are not that bad, really. But tonight I have had enough of "ding-ding" food and decided to venture out to my favorite pasta place at Fisherman's Wharf in Hung Hom. I go there at least twice a month, so the waitresses all recognize me. Upon my entry, three of the girls were at the door to welcome me, all wearing face-masks. It got me by surprised, as they were right in my face. They led me to a non-smoking table, then one of them held out a spray bottle and said, "let me help you spray a little." That was my second surprise. I immediately responded, "where do you want to spray it?" She answered, "your hands." But of course, it's an anti-bacterial hand spray; so I held out both my hands. When the waitress handed me a menu, the inquisitive me had to ask her a question. "Has your restaurant's business worsen since the virus outbreak?" She responded without much thought, "not really; not much difference." I looked at her a bit surprised (my third, by the way), as it wasn't what I expected to hear. Then she continued, "the business is bad before, so I can't really tell the difference." I rest my case. After dinner on my way home, I stopped by my corner OK shop to pick up a pack of precooked chicken wings, just in case.
Links worthy Wired News today has a feature story on a 21 year-old engineer's pledge to build a low-cost, upgradable Mac called the iBox. Pictures of the Headless Wonder is up on his company's website, where you can pre-order your configuration. It's April 2nd, so it's no April Fool's joke. Check it out before Apple's legal department sees it and seize it. Best of luck, kid. macHOME has a review of the 3-megapixel brother of the 2-megapixel Nikon Coolpix camera I bought last year for my niece, which I borrowed to take some great shots of my trip back to the states. But if I were to buy another digital camera today, it would be the Coolpix SQ. MacAddict reviews iData Pro X, a free-form database from Casady & Greene. An alternative is SBook5 Beta 4, a freeware from Simson Garfinkel. A news story on PayPal, its past successes and challenges ahead. MacTech notes the release of Hydra--Seven brains are smarter than one--a collaborative text editor using Apple's Rendezvous. Neat. Of all the arguments over piracy, this one is the most convincing: "Reducing software piracy by just 10 percentage points worldwide would generate 1.5 million jobs and add $400 billion to the world economy." The report has stats and all. The Fortune Weblog by Peter Lewis talks of his experience in setting up the work-in-progress 802.11g standard at his office, and how he decided to wait for the work-in-progress to be taken out before he buys into the new wireless technology. More on anti-spam, and how AOL has blocked one billion junk mails from going to users' inbox in a single day. On the same note, a cheat sheet on "5 killer ways to eradicate junk mail." An interesting article on how a husband-and-wife team defrauded people of their money under 11 pseudo companies, targeting job seekers who posted their resumes online. The couple faces "21 counts of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, and communications fraud. If convicted, they could each be sentenced to 30 years or more in prison." Thanks to MacSurfer's Headline News for the above links.
SARS: Personal (part 2) It has come to this, if recent news is any indication: Living in the midst of a killer virus - March 28, 2003 "The virus is said to survive for three hours outside of the body, meaning it can be transmitted through a handshake or even pressing an elevator button previously touched by a disease victim." New travel virus alerts - March 28, 2003 "The Chinese territory -- where eleven people have died from SARS and 425 are infected -- has shut schools until April 6 and ordered the quarantine of more than 1,000 people in their homes from Monday, on penalty of fines and/or jail." CDC: Mystery illness spreads more easily than first thought - March 29, 2003 "Rapid spread throughout communities in Hong Kong and Vietnam suggests the infectious agent causing SARS might be airborne, meaning that the disease could spread even without face-to-face contact." Virus numbers 'will rise' - March 29, 2003 "Taxi stands where people normally line up during rush hour now have taxis lined up with few customers in sight." Killer bug 'could be airborne - March 30, 2003 "In Hong Kong alone, 60 more patients with symptoms of the illness were hospitalized on Sunday, the biggest one day rise since authorities began tallying figures." Scared of new virus? Wash your hands - March 30, 2003 "Worried citizens of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have taken to wearing surgical masks in public and many avoid cinemas and shopping malls." HK alert over killer bug cluster - March 31, 2003 "All residents of an apartment block in Hong Kong have been ordered to quarantine themselves at home for 10 days after a steep rise in cases of a deadly form of pneumonia." SARS toll climbs in HK - April 01, 2003 "Hong Kong on Tuesday reported 75 more people were infected, bringing the total number of cases in the former British colony to 685. The local death toll from the disease now stands at 16. Eighty new cases and two deaths were recorded Monday." Virus raises Asian recession fear - April 01, 2003 "Economists are warning that a deadly pneumonia spreading across Asia is potentially the most serious event facing the region since the 1997-98 financial crisis." WHO issues HK virus travel warning - April 02, 2003 "In neighboring Hong Kong officials have opened four holiday camps in the territory to serve as quarantine centers." Thanks to CNN.com International for the above timely reports of the SARS epdemic. More daily news coverage is available in Chinese at Yahoo! Hong Kong.
A tragedy For some people in Hong Kong, tonight's news is sadder than the SARS epidemic that's been going on. Earlier tonight, Leslie Cheung--a popular singer, actor in Hong Kong--has jumped off the building of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Central, leaving behind only a suicide note. Leslie Cheung is a true, enduring entertainer in Hong Kong for over 20 years. International audiences may remember him from the films, Happy Together, playing a gay couple with Tony Leung, directed by Wong Kar Wai, and Farewell my Concubine, where he played a Chinese opera singer living through the cultural revolution. A common topic you hear on Leslie among the Hong Kong people is "How old is he? How come he still looks so young and handsome?" He was 46.
SARS: Personal (part 1) Yesterday, it was my turn to put on a mask. I had to attend an early appointment at a law office on Hong Kong side. My sister and I had to take an MTR (metro) from Jordan (Kowloon) to Central (Hong Kong). The MTR is considered a high risk area given the congestion and poor air circulation. The MTR started passing out masks in bulk earlier this week, but when we got there, a sign at a counter said the masks are out-of-stock. We went inside a convenience store to buy two respiratory masks, which is considered the safest kind against the airborne virus. As we headed downstairs to wait for the train, I noticed many people already had a mask on. When we got on the train, I looked around and saw more passengers with masks than without. While standing for the short ride, my sister suddenly whispered in my ear to tell me someone sitting on the bench to my right looks sick. I looked toward that direction, and sure enough, an elderly man without a mask held a handkerchief to his nose and mouth and was coughing uncontrollably. His eyes were reddish and he didn't look too good. My sister then moved me to the next compartment with her. As if it wasn't far enough, when the train stopped, we got off and ran two compartments down only to go back in again. Has it come to this?
Links worthy This one is too good to miss: a time-traveller and Wall Street. You figure it out. [Biz Stone, Genius] Also found on Biz, "How to write a book on anything in 14 days or less...guaranteed!" It links to a page of sales copy for the book package so powerful, you will almost think the US$297 price tag is a bargain. About six months ago, I linked to a story on a woman asking for donations to pay off credit card debts, and other women like her. I went back to check her site today, and she had paid off her US$20,000 debt in only five months, over US$13,000 of which came from donors. Anyway, she no longer needs donations, and has added a pass-a-buck section on her site linking to others with similar needs. Meanwhile, she has written a book on her successful endeavor and will be out in September. What an enterprising girl! A New York Times article tells of bloggers who were offered rewards (mobile, gift certificate, etc.) to mention particular brand of products in their weblog. The article talks about the moral issues of such activitiy, whether it should be disclosed by bloggers in their blogs. Frankly, this is my first time to read such marketing ploy even exists. When will these marketing companies start knocking on my door? [MacSurfer's Headline News] Days for a better web may be getting closer. First, U.S. is expecting to pass a law against porno sites with innocent URLs. Case in point: whitehouse.com. Second, a California anti-spam law has passed, giving the rights of spam recipients to sue sender for US$500. Third, Two IBM researchers have come up with a proposal to force spammers to donate to charity if they want us to read their e-mails. Finally, a court ruling a law for restricting junk faxes as constitutional, may help eradicate the same for e-mail spammers, soon, hopefully. For your information, two years ago 8 percent of our e-mail was spam. Last year, 36 percent. By the end of this year, 50 percent of our e-mail will be spam. I found the stats on mailblocks, an e-mail service to eliminate spam now.
YesAsia books I don't know how I could have missed this, because I have been looking for an online bookstore in Hong Kong for years. I know the beauty of being online is that distance is no boundary, but when the product I am ordering comes in physical form, it makes a difference where the virtual store is located. Yes, there are brick-and-mortar bookstores here, either small, independent ones or big, chain ones. I actually frequent both types at least once a month. The problem with these bookstores is that the selection of English books isn't nearly complete. They will carry truckloads of bestsellers, but when you want to find a specific book, say The Naked Truth by Scott Kelby, you are out of luck. The other problem is the markups on English books are much higher than the cover price, generally 22 percent or more. Still, when I am in my reading mode, I will go to one of these stores and browse for books. The books I can't find at bookstores I order from Amazon. The prices are cheaper, but the shipping is expensive and the wait is long. Nonetheless, at least I get the book I want. Last year when I went to the states, I didn't go on a shopping spree for clothes, shoes or gadgets, but for books. I brought back a bunch of books and magazines from the trip. Unfortunately, I don't go to the states often enough, besides, do you know how heavy books can add to your luggage? That is why I am relief to see an advertisement this week in PC Market magazine for YesAsia.com. It is an online retailer much like Amazon, with an English books section carrying over 600,000 titles. What is the difference between YesAsia and Amazon, then? YesAsia ships to Hong Kong residents for free. Also, the book prices are no more than the actual cover price, therefore, they are cheaper than bookstores here. If you choose the popular titles, you can even get a bigger discount. Harry Potter Book 5, for example, will sell for US$18.59, compared to US$17.99 at Amazon. Quite reasonable when you take into account that YesAsia doesn't add any charges to ship the 768-page book. I am so excited about discovering YesAsia.com that I added a link to my Favorite sites on the left. I even joined the associates program to save a few bucks when I order my books, or earn a few when someone uses my link.
iBlog 1.2.2 Shortly after iBlog 1.2.1 was released, a major bug was found in its "Preview" mode, leaving some users like me out in the cold, unable to use it further. What keeps a program promising and the user from insanity is the developer, and luckily, Lifli Software is a responsive, professional developer. Only a few hours after I reported the bug--others may have as well--Lifli came up with a fix in version 1.2.2. Now everything is working fine, as I am trying it on my .Mac homepage. Way to go, Lifli (pronounced lively)!
Links worthy A list of British and U.S. Casualties of War in Iraq. Updated daily. Sad. iBlog 1.2.1 is out with some much needed fixes. I hope this is the version good enough for me to use on my site. David Pogue, a brilliant writer for the New York Times, reviews three digital camcorders from Sony in an unusual, but innovative way. He's certainly not your typical product reviewer. [MacSurfer's Headline News] A library, an university, a domitory, a bank, and of course hostpitals, are among those to have found cases of SARS victims. The Standard reports today. This guy's .Mac homepage took stunning QTVR photographs from different places of the earth; stunning enough to make me want to take a trip today. Don't miss it. [MacDailyNews] CNN.com has a story on "Soldier 'bloggers' report from war" with mention of several blogs worth looking into: SGT STRYKER, Blogs of War, LT Smash and A Minute Longer. Drag'n'tooth is an utility that connects your Palm to your Mac via Bluetooth to transfer and install files. What's especially cool is that it uses a Tungsten T for an icon to sit on my Dock. [VersionTracker]
SARS: Getting personal My cousin wrote to tell me today that her colleague's father has just past away from SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). This is the first incident since the start of the epidemic that I am able to make a connection to an actual victim, rather than from news I only read about. Suddenly, the threat of the virus has become very real. Tonight, I went down to a noodle shop for dinner. The place wasn't crowded, but it was small, so tables were set close to each other. I found an empty table along the wall and sat down. Adjacent to me was a middle-age lady sitting on the next table, with a friend across from her. Her back was only a foot or so away from my right elbow. When my bowl of noodle came, I picked up my chopsticks and started to eat. Then the lady suddenly turned her head back--which is to my front--and SNEEZED. My immediate reaction was to move my bowl and my body against the wall, while holding my breath for around 10 seconds; it was an instantaneous reaction. Yes, at that moment I was afraid for my life. I hope the government and WHO (World Health Organization) find a cure for this disease soon, as the citizens here are getting paranoid. To read the latest number of victims infected by SARS, read this CNN.com story and my previous post.
Links worthy A website for writers who use the mac; just what the doctor ordered. [Macinstein] SBook5 Beta 1 is a simple but intelligent freeform database. Just type a URL, an e-mail address, a mailing address, or a phone number, and a matching icon appears next to it, ready to perform the appropriate task for you. The search bar on the top filters your results, and boolean search is added in this beta. It's written in COCOA, so Services like spellcheck works right off the bat. A Qt (not QuickTime) version of SBook that works on Windows, FreeBSD and Linux is also available. Wired News ran a story on what's been happening under the hood of the Dear Raed weblog from Baghdad. Apparently, genuine photos were switched to political parody ones by the server hosting the original pictures. The server had been inundated by the weblog's popularity ever since major news media covered it, and it was trying to get the attention of the blogger (Salam Pax and Blogger) to respond. The original photos are now back, but the story is worth reading still. [MacSurfer's Headline News]
The virus continues More and more people are wearing face masks on the streets of Hong Kong, as compared to what I observed eight days ago. Railway officials began passing out masks to passengers, expecting to distribute some 500,000 in the coming days. As reported by CNN.com: "The virus has spread swiftly across the world, killing 17 people -- 10 in Hong Kong -- and sickening more than 470 in 13 countries, Hong Kong and Taiwan." Six schools here are temporarily closed to prevent spread of the virus, and in Singapore, government has imposed "law to quarantine 740 people in their homes for 10 days, with the threat of stiff fines if they venture out," as reported by New York Times. The good news is the cause of the virus is identified: a new and mutating virus strain traces back to the common cold. The bad news: no cure has yet been found. More about the epidemic is reported at The Age in Australia. So while the people in Iraq are dodging bullets and missiles, we the people of Hong Kong are dodging coughs and sneezes. [Update: March 26, 2003; 10:08] An aptly named special report "Mystery illness on the move" from CNN.com has latest news, resources, videos and links to the recent outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).
A blog from Baghdad USA Today has a story of a 29-year-old man blogging the war from his home in Baghdad. Reading the news on mainstream media from a safe distance is quite different from reading words of a civilian whose last post might literally be his last. "People (and I bet "allied forces") were expecting things to be mush easier. There are no waving masses of people welcoming the Americans nor are they surrendering by the thousands. People are oing what all of us are, sitting in their homes hoping that a bomb doesn't fall on them and keeping their doors shut."
RealOne Mobile Player for Palm The RealOne Mobile Player for Palm OS 5 is a free download from RealNetworks. It supports RealAudio and MP3 formats loaded onto an SD card. Thus, only the Tungsten T handheld is supported with this initial version. A plug-in can be added to your desktop RealOne Player for easy transfer of content to your Palm. Alas, the plug-in is for Windows only. The Mobile Player is also available for various Pocket PCs, Nokia 9200 and 60 series.
Connect mobile to your PowerBook Three AppleCare Knowledge Base articles teach you How to Connect Your Mac to Your Mobile Phone, How to Use Your Mobile Phone as a Wireless Modem, and How to Connect to the Internet Using GPRS Mobile Telephone. A good reference for PowerBook users on the go. [MacSurfer's Headline News]
Apple with a sense of humor? I was shocked to read the following headline on Apple's Hot News: "Bush Demands Recount In Gore's Board Election" The title links directly to an entry from...the Crazy Apple Rumors Site. Is this a prelude to what's to come at Apple when Al comes on board? Does Steve know about this?
P800 first look The PowerPage has a first look at the SonyEricsson P800 with some nice detailed pictures. Interestingly, what appeals to the reviewer about the P800's appearance is what turned me off: the bulkiness and the ugly flip-up keypad just wasn't that cool to me. I'm sticking with my T68i for now.
Free online Jaguar training for .Mac members Apple is offering a Mac OS X Jaguar training free for .Mac members. The training is based on Quicktime movies, with practice files you can download to try for yourself. The eight sections to this course cover the basics of using Jaguar in clear, concise videos. A great bonus for new .Mac and OS X users.
macHOME reviews Tungsten T macHOME has a positive review of Palm's Tungsten T, slanted towards Mac users. I agree that the TT is an able PDA companion for the Mac, but the clunky USB cradle/charger takes the portability right out for users on a trip. However, you can buy a simple USB cable from Palm that will recharge and HotSync your TT using your PowerBook/iBook. Figures.
Pneumonia spreads What was considered a problem of Guangdong provinces only last month has now declared to be a world risk. No one is sure whether this new string of pneumonia that is hitting Hong Kong in a big way is related to that of Guangzhou, but it seems likely. All the newspaper headlines in Hong Kong are covering this mysterious virus for the past few days. As of today, though, I haven't seen anyone wearing masks over his or her mouth on the streets by where I work. I'm not sure whether this is a good or bad sign.
When spell-check turns bad A study shows that using the spell & grammar checker in Microsoft Word can actually make you a worse writer. The test of 33 undergraduate students, in which half was given a letter to proofread in Word, and the other half to proofread without, consistently shows the ones who used Word had a higher number of errors. To be fair, other electronic spell-checkers should yield the same results, not just Microsoft Word. [Macsurfer's Headline News]
iBlog 1.2 iBlog 1.2 is released, and I have finally registered my version. The number is incremental, but the changes are significant, as this is the first version to allow bloggers with single weblogs to post without an entry page. [Update: March 15, 2003; 00:37] I tried to use iBlog 1.2 to publish part of this weblog to test how well it works, but was disappointed to find that the archive links to individual entries do not work. That basically renders this version of iBlog still unusable. The positive side of this software is that the developers behind it are extremely responsive to feedbacks and in updating the program to fix bugs and add features. It's a matter of time now before iBlog is ready for the masses.
iBlog 1.1 This newest update has built-in integration with Apple's iLife. Four new buttons are added to the toolbar for importing image, music and movie files to your blog entry. The last button is for attachments. You can also finally register iBlog with this new update. Two types of licenses are available: A Single User (2 seats) for US$19 and a Household (5 seats) for US$39. An interesting tidbit is that the charge is in rupees, as the developer is based in India, I just found out. That's the beauty of the Internet; distance is no barrier for innovation. VersionTracker states that another update is coming in a week to include additional features and bug fixes. Reading the comments in VT confirm the most wanted feature in iBlog: to get rid of the My Blogs page. That's what I said.
Links worthy The worst novel ever published is reviewed by washingtonpost.com. It is an interview with the author of the self-published book Great American, which has so far sold 400 copies. The author is humorous is his responses to the reviewer's pointed questions. Considering the dreaded "worst ever" title given to his work, Burrow's an all-time good sport. [Waking Up is Agony] The attribution above happens to be from the publisher of PerversionTracker, what CNET describes as the site that mocks the "very worst of Mac software." The reviews are actually fun to read, (except for the developer whose sofware is being reviewed), as are the comments posted after each review. Watch out, VersionTracker! The oh-ever-so interesting Japanese fashion is worth a peek. Is it fact or fiction? Note-to-self: Ask my buddy from Japan about it; he's an expert on that. [Scripting News] Biz Stone, author of Blogging: Genius Strategies, wrote an informative piece on independent publishing about blogging. Links to this and his other writings can be found on the page of Genius Writing. It's always interesting to read what authors do to promote their own books. Here's what John Farr is doing while waiting for his e-book, Buffalo Lights, to be published by traditional means. [Applelinks] TidBITS has an in-depth overview of StickyBrain 2, and how the writer uses it on her desktop. Mac Net Journal also points to this review and links to discussions on other organizers, including Tinderbox. I happened to have StickyBrain and Tinderbox, as well as tried other similar tools. But for organization purposes, I, too, rely on StickyBrain 2. Tinderbox for me is to write and blog.
What? No TV? I get that a lot. Most people think I'm joking when I first tell them that. But when they find out I'm serious, their response is usually, "but, why?" Truth is, five years ago had you told me you don't watch any TV, I would have asked you "why," too. And I did. Back then I knew a guy who didn't even know who Pamela Anderson was (and In 1997, she was known for all the reasons). He isn't some strange alien-nut we are talking about here, but a young man in his mid-twenties. So I asked him, "but why?" He said he worked in Japan for a couple of years prior, and he never did get a TV, or needed one. But even before that, he said he grew up mostly without watching TV. It's all a habit for him, or a non-habit, in his case. As I get to know him better, he turned out to be one of the more sincere, strapping, wholesome lads I have known. Yes, those would be the appropriate adjectives to describe him. Since he is a mutual acquaintance of ours, my sister and I often discussed whether his uniquely nice character is correlated to the that fact that he doesn't watch TV. We both think so. Look at the time we spend watching television, and the type of programs we watch. They are mostly unconstructive, brainless TV. I'm surrounded by friends who when they step in their home after work, the first thing they do is turn on the TV, regardless of what's on. I was probably among them. I have a coworker whose eyes get fixated to the TV the moment it's on, even while it's playing commercials. My good friend even leaves hers on while she sleeps. The two may be a bit overboard, but I am sure they aren't isolated cases. So when I came to Hong Kong in 1998, I moved into my first apartment, sans TV. My other sister insisted on giving me one, but I refused. She said I need it to at least watch the news. I thought how many people tell themselves that they watch TV mostly for the news. Yet, if they count the actual hours a week they spent watching the news to the total hours they have their TV on a week, I bet it's just some insignificant fractions of the time. Besides, I can get all the news I need online, when I want it and how I want it: read, listen or watch. I read, exclusively. It has been 4-and-a-half years and three apartments later, and I'm still doing without a television. What I learn during this time is that we're truly creatures of habit. Whereas before I would have tried my best to free Thursday nights for TV (Seinfeld was still on at the time), I don't have the urge for television anymore. Sometimes I go to my sister's place and there's a good TV series showing. I stay to watch the episode, but no matter how interesting it gets by the end of the hour, once I leave her house, I never feel the need to return to watch the next episode. Even when that series is my favorite, The X-Files. I certainly never thought I could say that before. What's most amusing about not having a TV is that when I get pulled over on the streets by some folks selling cable, or get a phone call for a television survey, and they start asking about my TV-watching habits, I simply tell them I don't have a TV at home. Four out of four, they are caught without words, with nothing more to say but to set me loose. To them, it's a smart-ass excuse for rejecting them, but to me, I'm only telling the truth.
Doorman Hong Kong is a place where people mind their own business. They go about on their way as though everyone is on a mission. It doesn't matter what that mission is, but getting to it is priority one. Some, along the way, are so determined that they disregard the slightest of manner. Have you tried opening a door to a mall or a shop lately? You probably do it without thinking, letting the few people behind you go first, or wait for the next guy to take your place at the door. If you tried that at a traffic mall in Hong Kong, you're going to be holding the door until your arm aches, or your face turns blue. Not only will the lady and her 2 kids behind you walk in--that's fine, that's why you hold it in the first place--but the guy a couple of feet behind them will quickstep his way to get inside, too. Soon you will see a rush of people of both genders trying to get into the door you're holding open, even though there are three other doors to this mall entrance. Once I had two handful of shopping bags. I walked up the stairs to this mall, struggled to open one of eight entrance doors. I opened the door partially with my elbow, then leaned my shoulder to the side to hold the door. As I looked behind, two well-dressed young men hurried up the stairs to where I was standing. I thought, "how nice of them to grab the door for me to go in." Not so. I had the door on my shoulder at a 45 degree angle, and the two men passed right by me, each side-stepping and leaning backward in order to get through the door without touching it. Unbelievable! I was awestruck. I stood there with two handful of bags, a shoulder and a foot on the door, looking at the back of these two lads, who continued on their way as though nothing is unusual. Never, especially, try to be a gentleman at the movies. Another time I was sitting by the exit in a theater, so I was first to leave when the movie finished. I pushed open the heavy exit door, got out, held the door for the next couple, but the guy didn't take the door. He had one arm around his girl and the other free, but he pretended not to see me. Then flurry of people followed, not one bothered to put a hand on the exit door so that I can let go and be on my way. I can be a gentleman, to an extent. When you're dealing with selfish people, you have to act like them. You just have to let the heavy door loose and let it land on where it may. And that's just what I did. I can be on a mission, too.
Cyber Notebook Cooler Mac OS Planet wrote about the Cyber Notebook Cooler, a thin pad with 3 circular fans powered by USB, or an optional AC adaptor. I happened to own one since last year, and it works well to keep my PowerBook's fan from kicking in. It works better than the popular Podium CoolPad (I have one of them, too), because the Cyber Cooler has fans that blows air into bottom of the PowerBook, then a ventilation in the back of the pad lets the hot air out, whereas the CoolPad simply dissipates heat by increasing the air space between the notebook and the CoolPad. From my experience, the CoolPad doesn't stop the fan in my PowerBook to kick in when the environment is hot. The Cyber Cooler, however, has yet to fail the test. An on/off switch in the front of the pad controls the fans. If your environment doesn't need a fan, then the Cyber Cooler works as a heat dissipator, too, though it doesn't levitate your PowerBook as high as the CoolPad. [MacSurfer's Headline News]
P800 no more I decided to forego the SonyEricsson P800. Not that it isn't the greatest phone-PDA hybrid created; it is. I've been wanting one ever since the hype started last year. It finally arrived in Hong Kong, with a list price of a whopping HK$5800, Still, many are on a waiting list eager to buy one. I went to a retail shop to see the physical product the other day. I was boggled by its size; it was huge! It made my Tungsten T looked puny by comparison. That and the fact the two came mostly with identical functions. Do I really need to carry around two PDAs? Instead, I bought a SonyEricsson T68i, with a new ROM upgrade and all the functions needed to work wirelessly with my Tungsten T. The two complement perfectly to one another. I will be writing more about my experience with my dynamic duo in coming entries.
WWJCD "What Would Jackie Chan Do?" A new abbreviated language traveling over mobile phones across theater seats and classroom seats and everywhere teens are seating. The article explains the "texting" phenomenon in detail, with a list of "Text speak made easy" at the end. Dr. Randall interviewed for the article had this to say about it: "Teenagers are particularly strong at being able to stay on the phone for hours and say absolutely nothing, and that's what this is."
Burglary Yesterday, I had people come in to install a stainless steel front door--sort of like a screen door, a mini-gate, if you will--and a stainless steel frame for my kitchen window. Last month two apartments in my building were burglarized on the same day, both lower floors. Considering there are only 28 units in this building, the chances of my condo being picked is relatively high. When the guy from the shop came to measure my window, he asked what kind of window frame I wanted. I said the aluminum one is fine, since it's cheap. He looked at me and asked whether I was using it to prevent kids from falling out of the window? I said, "No, I live alone. It's to prevent burglary." He then smiled and told me that aluminum frames are not going to keep a burglar out. "Right now we're re-doing the whole security doors and windows for one of the apartments below that was burglarized." He continued: "Those folks already had window frames in placed, but they're made of aluminum." He pointed at my kitchen window and continued: "The burglars broke the window then kicked the aluminum frames open and came through there." "Really? Then it's no use that I install the aluminum frames then?" I asked. "Nah, only if you have kids and no burglars." He said. "So stainless steel frames are a lot safer?" I asked. "It's made from the same material as your front door, so it's a lot safer." He answered. "So how much more is it?" "HK$500 more than the aluminum. It's a special if you install it along with your door. Usually we charge at least HK$800 for the frames alone. So you want it?" "Yes, of course" Crime prevention is good business.
OS X 10.2.4 ready. I'm not I'm usually first in line to download whatever new update Apple has to offer. After the incident with the iPhoto 2 upgrade nightmare, I lost motivation to even open Software Update. That's unheard of to me and those who know me. I wonder how long it will be before I regain confidence in Apple?
Tinderbox 1.2.3 A new version of Tinderbox is out. This one is mostly a maintenance release. There is a startup wizard for beginners; a new RSS attribute for importing syndication; a new markup for indentation, among others. The release notes is appropriately saved as a Tinderbox document.
Poison in the air A deadly pneumonia-like virus is in the air in Guangdong provinces. Hundreds of people are infected with at least six killed. Some say Zhongshan is the root and most severely affected, then passing through Gaungzhou and other areas. I was staying by the Pearl River in Guangzhou only a few days ago, and everything appeared fine. Today, people there are running scared, buying every mouth mask and white vinegar (said to diffuse the virus) they can find. Read the breaking article at South China Morning Post (registration required), as CNN.com asia hasn't covered the story yet. [Update: February 12, 2003; 06:17] Today's edition of SCMP provides more details on the spread of the viral infection, as the Chinese government are more forthcoming with the information. Apparently, the influenza started back in November of 2002 in Foshan and has since spread to five other cities, with thus far 305 people infected and 5 dead. The SCMP front page shows a family of five on the streets of Guangzhou, each with handkerchiefs tied to cover noses and mouths. Strange that CNN.com asia still hasn't covered the story. [Update: February 13, 2003; 05:06] CNN.com asia has finally caught up with the news, but added a twist: The soccer match between China and Brazil in Guangzhou on Wednesday was played out. The score? A tie.
iBlog 1.0 released The OS X-only software for managing multiple weblogs is available for download. I wrote to the publisher regarding the option to skip the extra blogs description page, thus shortening the URL for users of single blogs. I got a prompt reply stating they're already working on such an option for the next update. I can't wait. You can buy a license key starting February 20th for US$19.
iPhoto 2 upgrade nightmare I awaited the release of iPhoto 2, praying that it would fix the long outstanding problem with the iPhoto on my PowerBook, where several buttons from the Share menu were missing, particularly Order Prints and Homepage. Without the button to order prints, I couldn't take advantage of the 100 free prints as part of my .Mac services subscription. Finally, the day iPhoto 2 was released, I downloaded it and ran the installer. When I opened iPhoto 2, it asked whether to upgrade my current iPhoto Library to be compatible with the new iPhoto. That should have been a glaring red flag. Why didn't I click on NO and do a back up of my photo library right there? Overly anxious, probably. Mindlessly, I clicked YES, then iPhoto did a conversion of some sort of all my photos. When it finally opened, all my pictures seemed to have converted over nicely. I then looked at the bottom row and bingo, the buttons that were missing before the upgrade are now present. Finally, I can order my prints. I couldn't be happier. The next day I went on a week-long trip to Shun De again for Chinese New Year. I left my PowerBook home and took my Tungsten T, instead. I took along the free digital camera that came with the purchase of my Palm, the ORITE VC2110. I took a bunch of photos with it, and was excited to see whether the quality of the photos are up to par. After I got back from the trip, I immediately connected the ORITE to my PowerBook to transfer the photos. When iPhoto 2 opened, the same dialog came up asking to convert the photos. I thought nothing of it and clicked YES (In retrospect, why would it asked to convert my photos again?). Then iPhoto 2 opened, but my albums of pictures were gone, only the newly imported pictures were left. Where are the hundreds of pictures that I took from my trip back to the states last year? Where are the rest? I tried every conceivable way to recover my lost photos after that. Nothing worked. It's been several days of trying and mourning, and I have to finally come to face that those photos are gone forever. I blame myself for not backing up my photo library before making the upgrade. I do make regular backups of my PowerBook, and the iPhoto Library is part of that backup routine. But in between the iPhoto upgrades, the backup synchronization must have wiped out the iPhoto Library on my backup drive to match that on my PowerBook. That's why this backup is of no use to me. Still, I should have known better to leave something as invaluable and irreplaceable as photos to only one backup. It would have been easy to drag the iPhoto Library to a separate backup folder, so the synchronization nightmare wouldn't get to it. I curse Apple for allowing a consumer software that handle invaluable user data to be released with a glitch so big that it deletes users' photos with the blink of an eye. It's thoughtful that it added CD burning to iPhoto 2, but if users can't open their present photo albums in iPhoto 2 without first converting them, then what good is CD burning when the conversion may rid of all their photos before they can burn? I have learned my lesson. Too bad it had to come in a price so big as in hundreds of irreplaceable photos. I would have seriously rather paid hundreds of dollars for the lesson, instead. Don't let that happen to you; always make more than one backup of something you value. By the way, the quality of pictures from the ORITE camera isn't bad at all.
The PowerBook Dilemma Sometimes, choice is bad for business. Before the Macworld keynote, I had long decided on getting the next PowerBook Apple will surely introduce at the expo. I, and the rest of the world, had no idea what Steve Jobs will pull out of his sleeve, but were certain that it will be a better and a more powerful PowerBook. Indeed, Jobs lived up to our expectations and introduced the gigantic 17" PowerBook. But that was only from one sleeve. On the other sleeve was the tiny 12" PowerBook, a direct contrast to the first one. My mind has been in flux ever since. I wanted the 17" PowerBook and its state-of-the-art technology. If nothing else than to claim the largest LCD notebook on the market, and still fits in a 1" casing, is enough to make me want to buy one now. The 12" PowerBook is a practical notebook I know I will be carrying around. After carrying my current 15" PowerBook on a month-long trip to U.S., I opt for something a lot lighter and smaller. The 12" fits the bill, whereas the 17" will only add to the burden. But how often do I go on long trips? Two, three times a year, perhaps. That's not often. My dilemma then is whether I should go with the all big-and-mighty and remain at the cutting edge of technology, or to start getting practical with the small-but somewhat-mighty (with SuperDrive, of course). And if I can't make up my mind, there is always the middle ground of the two extremes, and that is to stay with my current 15" PowerBook, until my choice becomes clear, or not. That's not something Apple is expected or wants to hear from a loyal Mac user, I'm sure.
Links worthy If this tidbit is true that an Apple Store is opening at the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu, then for sure I'll make my way back home again this year. [MacSurfer's Headline News] The long-awaited Spell Catcher X is finally here. But I had already upgraded to Grammarian PRO when it was introduced by Linguisoft last year, and a spell checker is already built-in. Should I or do I still need Spell Catcher X? Safari has been my default browser since its Macworld debut. It works smoothly on most sites, except for some encrypted ones, at which it chokes. Even PC Magazine has a positive review of it. I pray that iPhoto 2 will finally work on my PowerBook, so that I can order my 100 free prints and post pictures directly to my .Mac homepage. Neither Order Prints nor Homepage button shows up in my current iPhoto. iBlog is already at beta 4. It should be a matter of time now before it hits final status, at which time I will get a copy and use it for the FTP site that I will be working on.
New toy: Palm Tungsten T I couldn't resist. I would have, if the ultra-thin keyboard wasn't attached snugly to the Palm Tungsten T they had on display. I asked the sales rep to take it out so I could type on the keyboard; I was immediately sold. Never mind that I had never used a Palm before (not entirely true; I had a Treo for three days last year; it was meant for my brother who didn't bother), the PDA-keyboard combination was enough to convince me I needed one now, rather than waiting for the SonyEricsson P800 that's forever delayed. Besides, will the P800 have the same solid, tactile keyboard as an accessory? After taking the Tungsten T home, about the hardest part of using a Palm was waiting six hours for the battery to fully charge the first time, as suggested by the rep. Everything else about it was easy. It took no time to connect the cradle to my PowerBook, start up HotSync, install the keyboard driver, enable Bluetooth, set up iSync to recognize it, and learn Graffiti in one bathroom seating. Each task was hands-on of trials and rarely errors. The Tungsten came with a bundle of software on a CD, but WordSmith, a popular full-featured word processor, wasn't among them. So I downloaded the latest trial and tried it. It works great with the Palm keyboard; in fact, they are so well integrated that a stylus is hardly necessary. The best, though, about WordSmith is that it came with a spell checker and thesaurus--which made me slightly regret buying the PalmPak dictionary/thesaurus expansion card when I bought my Tungsten. WordSmith beats Pocket Word on Pocket PC hands down. I will take my Tungsten (JPEG, 34 KB) to work tomorrow. I have much to discover about its capabilities and features of Palm OS, especially their Internet tools. It will be interesting to see whether the Tungsten can replace my PowerBook as a portable alternative.
iBlog 1.0 Beta 2 The release of another iBlog beta today coincides with iCal 1.0.1 and iSync 1.0 final. Beta 2 of iBlog looks and works more and more like one of Apple's own iApps. It's a matter of time that Apple will buy out or license iBlog from Lifli Software, and you can quote me on that. With hypertext linking, WYSIWYG editing, templates and stylesheets among its new features, iBlog is ready for .Mac members to put it to use on their homepage. For other Mac without-the-dot users, a peek in the Preferences of iBlog reveals two additional but not-yet implemented publishing options: FTP and Blogger API. This should be good, unless Apple gets a hand on it, then for sure the other two streaming options will remain unseen.
2 X 8 Mile I saw 8 Mile for the second time--first at the U.S. premier; today at the Hong Kong premier--and enjoyed it as much, if not more this time around. It may have helped that my buddy Johnnie from Japan is staying with me for the holidays, and now every waking moment in the house is filled with hiphop music. I also enjoyed watching the battles in the movie, because it shows me a world that I otherwise could or would never see in real life. The film gave me new perspectives for rappers, because to do what they do impromptu in front of a crowd take lots of preparations, guts and wit.
Happy New Year! No resolution. No wishes. Just be happy.
Shun De, China I just came back from a 3-day stay in Shun De. My mom, a few friends and I caught the ferry from Kowloon to Shun De. The weather there was freezing cold, around 3 degrees at its coldest. The heater in the apartment we rented didn't work, so we took all the blankets we could find and curled around the sofas in the living room, still covered in jackets, scarfs and socks. It was a ridiculous scene. Shun De is all about eating, and eating in Shun De is all about fresh fish and seafood, and that's exactly what we had at every meal. Our first meal after we arrived was a hotpot, with exception for "grass chicken"--chicken raised in the open--every dish was fish: fish slices, fish balls, whole fishes and steamed fish. I never had so much fish in one seating in my life; it was fantastic. After, we headed to the oldest temple in Shun De to sample another famous local dessert, ginger-milk. Watching how the Shun De lady (JPEG, 30 KB) makes it was a treat in itself. She first puts whole gingers into the grinder to make ginger juice, then pours it into each of our bowls on the kitchen table. On the stove she had an old tin pot simmering milk, all the while stirring to prevent it from boiling over. When the temperature of the milk is just right, she takes her big scoop, and evenly pours the hot milk into each bowl with precision perfected only by years of application. The amazing part came right after she finished pouring the milk; she takes a plastic soup spoon and gently drops it onto the milk in each bowl. The spoon miraculously lies atop the milk, as the milk had already solidified into a paste-like state, instantaneously the moment the milk mixed with the ginger juice. The natural reaction should impress even a chemist, but for the rest of us, the warmth of ginger in milk in our stomach was all the explanation needed. At night, my cousin took us to a Bruce Lee memorabilia tea house. Bruce Lee is of Shun De people, so it's fitting to have a memorabilia room and the name of the tea house dedicated to him. The memorabilia room has many pictures of a young, handsome Bruce Lee, also actual equipments he used to perfect his martial arts skills, including a jong (JPEG, 34 KB) and a punching bag (JPEG, 36 KB). The tea house concept is new to me, but according to my cousin, it has become very popular in Shun De and other parts of China in the last few years. Folks go there to gather and to drink tea, much like going to Starbucks to drink coffee in the west. We sat around a table in our own room with a hostess making and pouring a particular brand of tea we chose. The cost is not counted by the number of persons or the amount of cups we drank, but by each 10-ounce brand of tea we chose. The cost of tea depends solely on its quality, ranging from under HK$100 to several hundred HK dollar per 10-ounce. I can't tell the difference between good and bad tea, but apparently, sophisticated tea-drinkers like my cousin can, as he was making intricate and subtle comments about it. The next day we went to a night wild zoo. It's the first of its kind that I know of. The boarding didn't start until after 6 in the evening, when the sky is already dark. We got on a long, open trolley, connected by cabooses, with four people to a row. We saw wild animals on both sides of the trail, and some deers that strolled right in front of our path, as though to warn us we are now in their territory. The night effect presents a more mysterious side of the wild, even a bit chilling to the uninitiated, as we were. After the night tour, thousands gathered at the outdoor dome for a circus finale. What amazed me wasn't the trained animals, but a lady who had four glowing hula hoops spinning in four sections of her body, while with one hand, held onto a rope that took her flying hundreds of feet towards the sky. All hoops were still spinning as she clung in the air in the middle of the dome, with no safety nets in sight. An astonishing feat. In the evening, I ate water snake for the first time. Had I not known ahead of time, I wouldn't have figured out what it was they were serving me. The water snake came on a tin platter the size of a trash can cover. It was skinned and sliced and served steaming hot from the kitchen to our table (JPEG, 30 KB). Each slice curls in a half-moon shape, with a spinal bone in the middle and cluster of finer bones protrudes from both sides. The little meat it had was tasty, but it takes patience to get to it, and practice to eat it cleanly. We also had water snake congee, which, for me was even better, because it didn't take any effort to eat it to get the essence of it. Water snake is healthy for your body, and keeps your temperature warm in the winter. The last day we cramped six adults and four kids in a car made for six to visit a sunflower garden in Punyi. The suffocation was almost worth it if only to see the countless giant sunflowers all stood facing one direction--that of the sun--on acres of soil (JPEG, 70 KB). Each yellow flower stood three feet from the ground. Multiply that with infinity and you sense the breathtaking scenery I saw (JPEG, 59 KB). When it was time to come home, my mom's relatives made her stay behind for a few more days, while our cousin drove us to the port. It took two-and-a-half years from my last visit to Shun De; I hope it won't take as long for my next one.
Christmas presents for myself I finally got myself an Airport Base station for my home. While at the Apple Center, I saw the JBL Creature in stock as well. I had a crush with it the first time I laid eyes on it at the Jaguar launch--the unit there was only a demo, as it wasn't available in Hong Kong at the time. Now that it's here I couldn't resist getting one for my PowerBook. Two colors are available: the silver one matches my titanium PowerBook, and the white one matches my furniture. I ended up buying both. I shall decide later the one I want to keep, and the other, I'll give away as a Christmas present. Setting up the base station was almost too easy. Connect the wire from the cable modem to the base, turn on the PowerBook, run the Airport Setup Assistant, upgrade the Airport software, reset the base, and I was instantly online. No reboot needed. Connecting the JBL creature was even easier. Plug in the two speakers to the subwoofer, connect the subwoofer to the headphone jack of the PowerBook, plug in the enormous power brick, and voila, I was listening to some incredibly sounding music. Just in case you're wondering. I'm keeping the white one. Three days and counting...
Links worthy Hero, the action epic by famed director Zhang Yimou, premiered in Beijing with 200 armored guards in a Hollywood-style launch. The movie is already hyped as the next Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It opens in Hong Kong tomorrow, with a special star-studded premier tonight. I was offered tickets, but can't go. Darn! Don't miss the top ten offbeat news of the year, to include the official world's funniest joke. A witty essay on how to write a weblog by Jeff Adkins at Low End Mac. [Macsurfer] .Mac is holding a homepage contest that I don't qualify for in any of the three categories--Creative, Humorous and Incredible Pets--but I can't wait to see the winners. NoteTaker 2003 is a commercial-grade note organizer with a stunning interface, using the traditional spiral notebook metaphor. [VersionTracker] The final version of Spring 1.0 is out. How computer users will adapt to using an unique, concept-centric desktop browser is excitedly unknown. [Update: December 18, 2002; 16:49] Mac Net Journal talks to the creator of Spring in an exclusive interview. I upgraded to Bookit X 3.0 to unify my bookmarks among the four browsers I have on my PowerBook. You should too.
Links worthy A Mac addict's suspenseful tale of his indomitable pursuit to catch the crook who cheated him out of his PowerBook, and the camaraderie he received from the Mac community. A must read. [The Scobleizer Weblog] Read a different perspective of piracy--online file sharing--through the eyes of a book publisher. It's not all bad. [Scripting News] A compilation of the most useful tips for Tinderbox users is available to download. I was pleasantly surprised to find my name as a contributor inside this "Tinderbox Tips" file. Two highly anticipated software that had been in perpetual beta have at last released final versions for OS X: RealOne Player 9.0 and Opera 6.0. Both are working stably on my PowerBook.
10 Days to Christmas Overlooking the harbor from my living room window, I see more Christmas lights blinking brilliantly on buildings than I did beginning of the month. The decorations spans from left to right for as wide as my view; it looks almost magical. I had always thought that Christmas in Hong Kong is more beautiful than in Hawaii. A look out the window reaffirms my belief. Surprisingly, a customer at my shop today told me he was spending the holidays in China, "as it is even more festive than in Hong Kong," he said. I questioned whether it is true--for what I know, Christmas is not a tradition shared by the Chinese. He said it isn't so anymore. For the last few years, as Hong Kong economy worsens, Hong Kong residents flock back to China during the holidays to celebrate. For a lot less money, they can party to the fullest, and still have leftovers for the new year, which is important for the Chinese. Besides, fireworks are allowed at designated areas, so people there can actually play with fireworks, rather than just be spectators, as they do in Hong Kong. Since my mom is here, I plan to go with her to her home providence sometime during the holidays to witness firsthand whether China is indeed more fun.
ATPM: Dana and .Mac A day after my note on AlphaSmart's Dana, the December issue of ATPM (About This Particular Macintosh) published a long and thorough article on it. The writer knows what he's talking about: he's had one for a month, and prior to that, the AlphaSmart 3000IR. I was impressed enough to go to my corner 4-story computer mall to look for one, but no one carried it. I'm still waiting for a reply from AlphaSmart on a retailer in Hong Kong who might has one in stock. While at ATPM, read the review of .Mac services, and the integration with the iApps. I was just talking about iBlog as part of iApps, too. If I'm not mistaken, ATPM seems to be the only Macintosh e-zine left in production on a regular basis. I remember a few years ago there were a few more, some even quite ambitious. They relied mainly on contributing writers for contents, just as ATPM. So why is it that the others demised and ATPM is still breathing? A dedicated group of founders, perhaps.
ViaVoice X 3.0 I bought ViaVoice 3.0 for OS X when it first came out last year. It costed an-arm-and-a-leg to buy it in Hong Kong, but, at the time, I felt it would be worthy if it could replace my typing. Besides, it came with a microphone headset. This wasn't the first time I gave it a try. Back in the days when it launched on the Mac platform, I tried it on my PowerBook G3 and Bondi Blue iMac running OS 9. It was slow--so slow I gave up using it shortly. I still have that headset that plugs into the headphone jack and the now defunct microphone jack. The OS X version of ViaVoice uses a USB headphone. With my PowerBook G4, speed isn't the problem; it is accuracy, and the cumbersome way to correct text, which is required to improve its accuracy. It's like a two-edge sword. Many writers attest by voice recognition, with David Pogue and Charles Moore come to mind. Both of them can't type for long at each writing session. Yet, look at the volume of words they produce regularly. For some, voice recognition software is the greatest gift. For me, however, typing is faster, so I put ViaVoice aside. Even if I hadn't, I wasn't going to be able to use it later. Shortly after it came out, Mac OS X got updated and rendered ViaVoice inoperable. If you go to VersionTracker or Applelinks, you'll read the many dissatisfied customers who just couldn't get it to work. Yesterday, I decided to give it another whirl. I took out the headset from the drawer and fired up ViaVoice. After changing the Sound and Speech preferences to use the headset, ViaVoice opened without incident. Since I took great pains to train the software to recognize my voice before, I didn't have to go through the training phase again. I started to dictate into SpeakPad my recollection of driving from New York to Connecticut at night on Highway I-95 from my trip. As expected, the accuracy was mediocre, but I didn't bother stopping to correct errors. I just let the words flow through my mind as thoughts and images of that night appeared vividly. Only after I finished reciting did I go back to correct what was on the page. ViaVoice works wonderfully as a rough, first draft, I found out. Although the page was filled with errors, what was written on the page were detailed events that came from my uninterrupted train of thoughts. This would not have happened had I corrected the errors while I was dictating. The same could be said of typing, as there is no way I would have let errors go uncorrected while I'm typing. As the writer in Finding Forrester put it: The first draft comes from the heart. The second draft comes from the mind. In that sense, ViaVoice does its job admirably.
Dana The makers of AlphaSmart have come up with another word processor, Dana, that runs on the Palm OS. It looks a lot like its sibling, the AlphaSmart 3000, with a full-size keyboard and a whopping 30-hour battery life, both pluses for the on-the-go-writer. I'm tempted to find one in Hong Kong, but I already have a much more powerful handheld, the Sharp Telios 7000, with a color LCD, built-in digital cam, and a nearly full-size keyboard. However, it's the nearly full-size keyboard the reason that I look for a replacement, because "nearly" is just not good enough for a writer.
Christmas in Hong Kong It's time for Christmas. Still three weeks away, but already many buildings from across the harbor are dressed with blinking lights, some from head-to-toe. One in particular has lights covered the four walls. From where I sit miles away, I can see the whole building aglow, changing colors every few seconds, from red to green to yellow to patterns of spirals and jigsaws, then to the words "SEASON'S" and "GREETINGS." How can I not be in holiday spirits?
FTP disk Good news: I read in OSXFAQ today that you can create an FTP disk without having to go to the trouble of opening "Connect to Server..." in the Finder. To do this, type in your FTP URL in TextEdit, or any app you choose, drag and drop the text to the desktop; a bookmark with a big "@" icon should appear. Click on the icon, and your FTP disk will launch on the desktop. [MacSurfer] What prompted my interest on this was that Rob McNair-Huff at Mac Net Journal commented on how opening "Connect to Server..." will crash the system. This tip should bypass the problem. By the way, MNJ is now made with Tinderbox, more the reason to like it.
iBlog 1.0 Beta Although still in beta, iBlog is already looking impressively like the next must have iApp that doesn't come from Apple. With iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iChat and iCal, what's missing is a text publishing tool that integrates seamlessly with .Mac, and that's what iBlog is attempting to do. The iBlog interface looks a lot like iCal, with a calendar and categories to the left side and the main input window to the right. If you've tried another blogging tool, such as Blogger or Radio, it will take you no time picking up on iblog. The beauty of it over the other two tools is that it's an application made for OS X, not server or browser dependent, until you want to preview or after you published the entry to the web. iBlog already has many of the features of the more established blogging tools, with multiple weblogs, publish and subscribe to RSS feeds, and a unique integration with the OS X's Address Book to e-mail your blog URL to recipients. Much is missing or yet to implement, but that is expected of a first version of anything, no less a beta. My guess is that if Apple isn't already secretly coding a weblog client for its .Mac service, then we should soon see it buy iBlog from Lifli Software, and brand it as its next iApp.
Unpublished books site I discovered this valuable site in CompuServe's Writers Forum (may require membership). The author himself offered a link to his site that sits 7 of his unpublished books, and many of his other writings, free for readers to peruse and download. His reasoning is that these books have little chance of seeing the published light, so rather than to stash them in the dark for eternity, he decided to put them on the Web to share with readers directly. What a generous gesture. What amazes me is Mr. Foreman's dedication to his writing. In ten years he has written 12 books and over 150 articles. The six books that were published are all non-fiction. However, another non-fiction book available on his site is How to Write and Sell Humor. It should be of interest to all writers. Go and get it!
QuickVoice 1.5.2 On similar "voice" note is QuickVoice by nFinity, Inc. It is not a text-to-speech program, but a voice recording software. Use it to take voice notes for yourself, or send it as a voicemail with your e-mail program. The recipient will only need QuickTime to listen to your message. The interface is simple but functional; it looks and works like a personal voice recorder, only you have unlimited capacity to record (limited only by your hard disk). Once again, the free alternative is SimpleText, but when was the last time you used SimpleText as a recorder? QuickVoice at US$19.95 is a lot more convenient and powerful. Who has time to start up OS 9 each time to take a voice message? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a message?
Text to audio software Three similar software appear on VersionTracker within the last few days that translate written text to AIFF files, using OS X's text-to-speech technology. The more mature of the three is Dejal Narrator 1.1.3. It allows different voices to different parts of text, good for reading dialogs. At US$19.95, it is also the most expensive. Voice Box 1.1, at US$10, is more basic, but has full AppleScript support. At version 1.0 is AudioBookMaker. It has neither AppleScript nor mulitple voice support, but at US$1.35, it's practically a bargain. Only one software is cheaper than AudioBookMaker, and that's SimpleText. Yes, the venerable pre-OS X app has built-in text-to-speech support, and it's absolutely free. The problem is you have to have OS 9 to use it. Oh, well, you decide if "free" is worth the hassle of starting up OS 9.
Vacation over I'm sitting at the same wireless access area at Seoul Incheon Airport; this time, however, on my way back to Hong Kong. Yes, I'm aware of the one month lapse between this and my previous posts. What happened, you ask? I had too good of a time to be writing the good time I was having. Does it make sense? The month-long memories are still vivid in my mind, backed by 400 photos I took along the way to help jog my memory when I play catch up with my writing. All of the photos will be archived on a CD, but I will selectively scale and post a few of them online. As my journey comes to a close, I have new found appreciation for the telecom edge in the East. Take wireless access: I have successfully logged on at Seoul and Hong Kong airports without incident. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the U.S. Of all the airports I took flight on this trip--Honolulu, San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Los Angeles and Las Vegas airports--none, NOT ONE, had wireless Internet access. And these are major U.S. airports. How disappointing.
Manhattan, New York I didn't get to sleep for long in Claudia's friend's home. Claudia came in the room at around 4 in the morning to tell me that her work needs her back in California A.S.A.P. She booked her flight for tomorrow morning; our trip barely got started, and already I was to go solo for the rest of the journey. We didn't want to waste anymore time, besides, we couldn't go to sleep after bearing the bad news. I got up and we drove to Manhattan to see what we can see in the wee hours of the night (or morning). We drove aimlessly looking for the former Twin Towers site, but couldn't find it. Instead, we passed Grand Central Station, 42nd Street, Fifth Avenue, and all the famous landmarks of New York City. We were running out of time before our booked one-day tour of Manhattan begins, so we decided to drive our way back to Chinatown to where the tour meets. Just when we weren't trying, we passed by the Twin Towers site in lower Manhattan, all the while we thought it was was in mid-Manhattan. Can you guess where we parked? Yup, at the same garage we parked yesterday. This time though, we're going to get the most of it, since we're parking for the full day for US$22. Quite a bargain relative to the US$17 we paid for 3 hours. The tour van took us around Manhattan, and our first stop happened to be the Twin Towers site. It was distressing to look at a piece of flat land so huge that it once housed 7 buildings. There are still abandoned buildings around it with windows shattered from the blasts. I stood in front of one of these buildings, and tried to imagined what it was like to be in this Burger King on the morning of September 11, 2001. Our tour included a two-hour boat ride that went around most of Manhattan. On one side is New York and the other, New Jersey. The heart of the ride came as it circled the Statue of Liberty while playing God Bless America. We didn't disembark on Liberty Island, but it didn't matter anyhow, as the narrator told us no one is allowed to walk to the top after the 9-11 incident. One day soon, though, I hope terrorism will no longer be a cause for concern, then I shall return to make the flight. Back in the van, we made a stop at the United Nations building. A special tribute to the remembrance of 9-11 was set up inside. Walls made up of colorful square postcards sent from all over the world, each with drawings and writings from children expressing their views of the tragic event. It was touching to see thousands upon thousands of these kids' work joined together to form this commemoration. Next we went to the Natural Arts Museum. The place is huge in all aspects, and you sense it right away as you enter the foyer and a soaring skeletal dinosaur awaits you. One can easily spend a day in this museum alone, but since we only had an hour or so, we had to walk quickly through many exhibitions. The most captivating display for me was the Star of India, a sapphire so large (over 500 carats) and beautiful that it's one of its kind. The striking, white star on the sapphire is clearly visible from all angles, and the brightness it exuded was mesmerizing. After the tour, we drove to 40th Street, where I checked in at the Dylan Hotel. We drove by it this morning, and I even went in to pick up a brochure. The hotel is small, but has a contemporary theme tailor to the single traveller. What's most important for me was that it has in-room high speed internet access for an additional fee. I couldn't wait to finally get online for the first time since I came on the trip. Here, Claudia and I parted. The good news was the room is as contemporary as the lobby; the ceiling was high, as were the thick, dark-purple window drapes that stood from ceiling to floor. The bad news was the internet access didn't work. I tried numerous configurations after connecting the ethernet cable, but nothing worked. The front desk in the hotel had no clue as to what to do, and the technician on site knew only as much as connecting the hardware. That was the only unpleasant experience I can speak of in the one night I spent in hotel.
Laguadia, NY The traverse to New York was treacherous. It took exactly 24 hours from the time I left Honolulu to get to Laguadia. The stopover in San Francisco was 5 hours long. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had wireless access at the S.F. Airport, but from where I was waiting, there was none. I was disappointed. I had access at both Hong Kong and Seoul international airports, yet I couldn't log on at a major airport in the United States. By the time I got to Laguadia it was already late at night. We picked up our rental car and drove another hour or so to Brooklyn; it would have been sooner if we knew our way. My friend's friends lived in Brooklyn, so we found a motel nearby them. At US$130 a night, it was no bargain. The next day we drove to Manhattan's Chinatown. On our way, we stopped at Brooklyn's Chinatown for lunch, where we also got a parking ticket, even though we fed the meter. It turned out the hour or so we parked was exactly the time we cannot park. Go figure. That was the only ticket we got on this trip, luckily. The first thing that shocked me about Manhattan was the parking prices. US$8 an hour, or half hour, or something like that. We parked for 3 hours in Chinatown and paid US$17. We might as well get a parking ticket and forget about the time. Walking around Chinatown didn't bring back memories at all. I don't remember any of the places where I might have been 16 years ago. It's a good thing I guess; at least it means there was progress in Chinatown while I was gone, otherwise it means I have totally lost my memory, which is bad. We then drove to Queens to meet up with Claudia's friends. They took us to a sidewalk, where 3 of the 4 intersections had kabob stands. We chose the corner that had been there the longest, at least two generations, from father to son, according to our friends. The kabobs were big. Claudia and I both had one stick each, and her couple friends had two each. We ended the night driving back to Brooklyn's Chinatown to meet up with Claudia's other friends for dinner. It's strange to be eating all these Chinese food in New York, especially when I just came from Hong Kong, but Claudia missed the food here, and I guess that's what Chinese eat. We spent the night at one of Claudia's friends house, where Claudia played mahjong with her friends, and I played with their four young children. I kept wondering how their mother could manage 4 kids, from toddler to 7 year-old, on a daily basis. I was out of breath before the night was over, and couldn't wait to go to bed.
In transit I'm now in transit at Seoul Incheon International Airport. There's an Internet Plaza, provided by ONSE Telecom, at a waiting area with 6 desktop PCs for travelers to go online. There's also a wireless access sign in the front. I took a seat by the window, and turned on my PowerBook to sign on for access; the "onseeast" name appears as an access point, which I chose. When I opened Explorer, the page opens to my homepage; I didn't need to sign up for access. Wow, free service. Incheon rocks! Too bad I only have 1:40 remaining on my PowerBook. I better turn the screen low to conserve battery. I have a 3-hour wait until my flight. As I was turning on my PowerBook, I looked out the window and saw sunset. Here was my chance to try out my brand new CoolPix 2500. I set the camera to sunset mode (there are 12 modes for all occasions), zoomed in, and took a picture. It came out looking great on the LCD viewfinder. We'll see how it actually looks when I load it to my PowerBook. I will take a break now, so I don't use up the juice so soon. Finally, I think I'm going to enjoy waiting at airports. *** I'm back from dinner at the Asian Food Court here at the airport. I had the spicy beef soup set, with a bowl of rice and 4 side dishes for US$8.50. That includes a bottle of water. The price is definitely more reasonable than Hong Kong's airport, at least in the sense that I'm receiving value for my money. The spicy beef soup was bloody red, and the taste matched the color. I loved it. The side kimchee and raw octopus were equally spicy and good. Only one vegetable dish wasn't hot. I skipped it. I'm going to enjoy my return stopover in Seoul. I'm sitting at gate 15 waiting for my flight to Honolulu. I checked the wireless access from here, and no network was available. I have to put my PowerBook to sleep and go back to the Internet Plaza to upload this update. It's only a 2-minute walk.
Aiport with Airport I'm at the Hong Kong International Airport waiting for my flight to Seoul-Honolulu at Gate 17. I took out my PowerBook to try the AirPort Card I installed yesterday. Lo-and-behold, when I clicked on the AirPort icon in the Menu bar, PCCW was on the list as provider. Since I'm a Netvigator subscriber, a PCCW subsidiary, I can log on without having to sign up for the service. The cost is HK$40 an hour, or HK$80 a day. I opt for HK$40, since I have less than 40 minutes to my flight. I read mcuh about the poor reception of the PowerBook G4, but from where I sit right now, the experience is seamless. Before I came to the gate, I ate at the Sky Dance Cafe here at the airport. A bowl of Thai-style beef ball noodle costs HK$48 and a can of pop, HK$18. Talk about inflated prices. I could have saved the money and time and use them for wireless access instead. 0 day and ready to take off.
Preparation: yes Here's what I bought in preparation for my trip: A Nokia 7210 (in turquoise) for my nephew. A Nikon CoolPix 2500 for my niece. Note: I will borrow both of them for the duration of my trip. An Apple AirPort Card for my PowerBook. An Apple World Travel Adapter Kit (with 6 international adapters). I think I'm ready for my trip. One day and counting.
Preparation: not I had a list of things to do before I go back home, many of which are to buy stuff back for my family and friends. I never felt the need for a datebook before, as I usually just jot notes on a piece of paper or the back of an envelope. Yes, I have PDAs to handhelds to calendar programs on my PowerBook to do note-taking for me, but I haven't found one faster and more convenient than pen & paper. Besides, a piece of paper is much lighter to carry around and take out when I need it; the downside is I often forgot where I jot a note. Yesterday, as I was planning my trip, I opened iCal on my PowerBook and made a calendar for my trip. I called it Vacation. I started filling in and moving around the schedules of my departures and arrivals, and found iCal intuitive to use. I can drag my events from one date to another, so to plan my schedule as tightly as possible. I then opened the to-do list panel and started transferring all the things I wrote on paper into iCal. I'm going to keep the paper I have, but if I lose it by any chance, at least I have a backup in my Powerbook. Before I fly, I'll publish my Vacation calendar to .Mac, so I have access to it in case I don't bring my PowerBook on some parts of the trip. Technology is sweet. As for the title, Preparation:not, it's intended to remind me that I haven't done a single thing on my to-do list. Five days and counting.
Taking a turn My weblog is about to take a turn, or at least for a month or so. Thus far, I've been blogging mostly about Macs and tech stuff that's a part of my daily life. But my daily routine is ready to take a break, as I venture home to the states for the first time in over 4 years. I'm set to leave on the 10th and arrive in Honolulu on the 10th. The 18 hour time difference means I would have borrowed an extra day; that is until I fly back to Hong Kong, which then I will have to repay with a day skipped. I'll stay at home for a few days, spending time with my family and visit several friends. I will take my niece and nephew to Waimanalo for a swim, where the ocean is clean and the sand, soft. Once I made an effort to go to a beach here in Hong Kong, but when I got to Repulse Bay and took a look at the water, I didn't dare go in. A fitting name for that beach, I thought. I never went to another beach in Hong Kong since. On the 15th, I'll fly to San Francisco to meet up with my buddy Claudia; from there we'll fly to New York. We plan to stay in the east coast for about 10 days, but to where in the east is still sketchy. It has been so long. My sister Julia is a travel agent, luckily, so we'll let her do the itinerary for us. From the east, we'll fly back to San Francisco. Here's where Claudia and I might part; she has a daughter to look after, and a living to make, after all. I'll stay a day or two in SF with her, then off I go to Los Angeles, then to Las Vegas. The last time I was in the lighted desert, the New York-New York Casino was being built, so it has been a few years, too. My other sister May will likely fly over to join me in the west coast; if not, I'm sure I'll do fine on my own. Finally from San Francisco I'll fly back to Honolulu. I'll probably make a final flight to a neighbor island--Kauai, perhaps--before returning to Hong Kong. Wait, I have one last stopover on my way back, and that's Seoul. While there, I hope to look up an old friend I lost contact with. Three nights in Seoul are all I need. I should be back in Hong Kong on the 12th of November, for a total of one month and two days. My PowerBook will be with me the whole time, because a month is too long to be without my artificial brain. I will also need it to download pictures that I snap with my digital camera along the way. Of course, I shall keep a blog of my journey and post it when I can. I missed too many good memories from my past trips to Europe and Asia, because I hadn't kept a journal. I won't let that happen again. Six days and counting.
Two days to end of iTools The September 30th deadline to subscribe to .Mac at half price is only two days away. More important, if you don't subscribe by then, you will lose your mac.com e-mail, as well as everything you have on your iDisk. Countless debates abound whether .Mac is worth even at US$50, especially when essentially the same services were offered for free. I was one of those who jumped on to sign the petition for Apple to lower the price of admission and continue to offer e-mail for free. Do I really think .Mac is outrageously priced? No, but I know it's good to apply pressure to a company so that it stays grounded for its customers. I signed up for .Mac on August 22nd, two days before the introduction of OS X 10.2. I read enough to know how .Mac was to be highly integrated with the new OS, and I didn't want to be left behind. iPhoto, Backup, iCal, and soon, iSync, are applications that rely on .Mac to full advantage. Surely, each of these applications will work fine on your Macintosh locally, but the real power comes when you connect each to .Mac globally: The ease of sharing your photos with family; to back up your essential files in case of even a fire; to publish and subscribe to calendars of colleagues; to synchronize your files despite the locations of your Macs, PDAs and mobiles. For these reasons, I believe .Mac is well worth the price of entry. [Update: September 28, 2002; 11:04] Make that 16 days to the end of iTools. Apple has extended the deadline to October 14th, as noted by CNET News.com. [Macsurfer's Headline News]
Ultralingua 4.0 review It took me just two days to decide I wanted Ultralingua 4.0 to sit on my Dock as permanent resident. Version 4 is vastly different from previous editions by at least two-yardsticks. This version is coded in Cocoa, and you'll notice visual and functional improvements the moment you open it. The toolbar at the top has 7 new icons; most of them function similarily to prior version. What's new is a button to add your own entry--words that are not in its dictionary. Another button lets you find usage of a word via Google, helpful in learning new words and how they're used. The other five buttons include translation via Systran, a number converter, a grammar and correspondence guide, updates & resources for Ultralingua, and the last button let's you change the dictionary font size. Below the toolbar is the search box to type in the word to look up. You can toggle between definition or thesaurus. A helpful addition is the conjugate tool that lists all tenses of a verb. I checked: "Thunk" is not in any tense of "think," only "thought" is used. As you type your word, the Search panel instantaneously filters to that definition, and displays it in the top half of the panel. If you double-click on any word in the definition, that word's definition appears in the bottom-half panel, further clarifying the original word you seek. The Search panel works only if you know the spelling of the word you want to look up. If you don't know how to spell it, then the second panel is the one to use. The PowerSearch panel is by far the most powerful feature in version 4. Here, you have Wildcards and Options to choose to help you find your word. You don't need to remember symbols to insert into a word; a list of options under Wildcards does it for you. "fah.+t" returned with the word I was looking for: Fahrenheit. Ultralingua 4 is fast and lightweight compared to online dictionaries you have to open in a browser or in Sherlock. It has a modular structure, so you can add different language dictionaries to the same application. The English dictionary/thesaurus package I bought costs US$23.95, a small price to pay for a tool I use daily. I wrote to Ultralingua with a suggestion to support Services in OS X, where I can highlight a word in any Cocoa application, Go to the Services menu, choose Definition or Thesaurus, and have the word's definition or synonyms displayed in Ultralingua; no copy-and-paste required. I was shocked to receive a reply from the company within minutes stating the Services feature is already in the works and should be available in an update sometime in September. Wow! More the reason to own Ultralingua.
Tinderbox gains spellcheck My most anticipated Tinderbox feature is here. Version 1.2 has built-in spellcheck. With prior versions, I had to copy my text to the Clipboard, open Excalibur, do a spellcheck, then paste the corrected text back into Tinderbox. The problem with this isn't the extra trips--a nuisance, perhaps--but that every time I paste new text over my old one, all the web links I made are gone. I eventually adjusted to creating links after I spellcheck with Excalibur, but that didn't fit me: I'm into spontaneity; I like to create links over words I just typed. Version 1.2 allows me to do that again. You can choose either interactive checking to underline misspellings as you type, or wait till after you finish typing to highlight all misspellings at once. I prefer interactive (more spontaneous), but Tinderbox defaults to the latter, so each time I must manually choose Check Spelling As You Type from the Edit menu when starting the program. An option to choose the default method to spellcheck is welcome. To correct a spelling error, Control-click on the word for a suggested replacement. So far all the words I checked returned with only one suggestion, not a problem if the suggested word is the word you want, but of no use if the word isn't the one. Of course, most of the time a spelling error is only a mistype on my part, so a suggested word isn't always needed. [Update: September 27, 2002; 21:10] My mistake. The Tinderbox spell checker should default to the option you chose last. In my case, opening the application to write an entry immediately activated the Check Spelling As You Type option. Even better.
The top mobile/internet economy: Hong Kong The International Telecommunication Union chose Hong Kong as the top mobile/internet economy of the world, ahead of the U.S. (5), U.K. (8), Singapore (13), and Japan (20). The 2002 executive summary has extensive coverage of the mobile Internet, with informative charts and explanations on how and why the two technologies are converging. [The Register] This is not the first time Hong Kong claimed the number one spot this year. In July, a world-wide cost of living survey ranked Hong Kong as the most expensive city to live in, displacing Tokyo (3) as number one. Read what The Japan Times has to say about it. Who's at number two, you ask? Moscow.
Mid-Autumn Festival 2 I looked and looked but the moon was no where to be found. Still, the streets and parks were packed with groups of families and friends, some holding lanterns and neon lights, but most were there just for the gathering, as did we. We ended up at the harbour hotel in Whampoa, having cocktails while waiting for the moon to appear over the panoramic view of the sky from where we sat. We were curious as to why the moon wasn't there, the one time of the year when it should be shining bright and round at all those eyes looking up at it. Shortly after we found out why. My sister looked out the window and asked whether it's drizzle she sees outside. It was, but only lasted a moment, for the drizzle had turned to pour in no time. Within minutes we saw a bright flash in the sky, followed by a thunder we could hear from inside. We waited and waited for the rain to stop, but it didn't. It was well past midnight, with Mid-Autumn officially over, we took a cab home. On the way, we saw several teenagers running out of the park, the last of those left inside. How many families had to cut their celebration short to run for cover? I wondered. I sat looking out the window at home, hoping I can catch one last glimpse of the Mid-Autumn moon; instead, the rain poured harder and harder, thunder roared louder and louder. Yet I knew the moon was there all along, hidden by the thickness of the clouds, watching over the people, knowing they now have twice the anticipation for the next Mid-Autumn Festival.
Mid-Autumn Festival Tonight is Mid-Autumn Festival (lunar 15th of August). Everyone will be having dinner with family and eat mooncake. Kids will play with lanterns in the park. Couples will go to bigger parks and mountain tops for moon-watch. The moon will be the fullest of the year. Let us all tilt our heads and look up at the full moon tonight, from wherever we are, shall we?
Xbench I seldom download beta software, but VersionTracker listed a speed test utility called Xbench. I had to give it a whirl to see how slow my aging PowerBook G4 with 500MHz is compared to a PowerMac G4 dual processor running at 800MHz. The benching utility runs five tests: CPU, Memory, Graphics, User Interface and Disk. Xbench recommends you stop unnecessary background processes before starting the test. Good idea. I closed everything on my desktop, including Internet connection, then hit the Start button. After that, Xbench kicked in autopilot. The full test ran for several minutes; I'm sure those with a faster CPU will have a shorter wait. Actually, I didn't mind the wait at all. Watching the tests do all kinds of neat tricks on my PowerBook was entertaining, at least it was for my first time. The graphics test displayed colorful shapes and curves at micro-second intervals, while the user interface test brought up different text windows, scrolling and typing at whopping speed. Results were just as interesting. The slowest of the tests was my Disk, scored between 48 to 52 percent to a Dual 800 (set at 100). The CPU test was erratic, from a low 21 for Threads to a high 94 for Floating Point. What shocked me though was my user interface score: 187. That's 87 percent faster than the bench machine. How could that happened? My final score came to 89 percent, which is way beyond my expectation. Going into the test, I thought it would be around 50 percent, given that I have a single processor at 500MHz. Now that it's only 10 percent slower than a Dual 800, my PowerBook hasn't aged much after all. It's certainly good news to me, but not a good sign for Apple. If Apple is only able to produce negligible speed-bumps on its processors after 18 months, how is it going to keep up with Intel, running at 2.4GHz and higher? How is Apple going to convince Mac users like me to upgrade my current Mac? Download Xbench to see how your Mac is doing in the speed department. Note: Mac OS X 10.2 is required to run the tests.
Links worthy Diamonds are everyone's best friend. Blue Nile, an online jeweler, sold US$15 million worth of merchandise in a quarter, according to an article in E-commerce News.Two other profitable e-tailers you may not have heard of are eBags and BlueFly. The common bond among them is that they are specialty sites, not the everything and the kitchen sink e-tailers you see in daily headlines. A visit to Blue Nile will educate you in the essentials of choosing fine diamonds. [Applelinks] On last "Links worthy," I wrote about women asking for donations to pay off credit card debts and to leave husband. Today, I read in Wired News that a man is also asking for donations: this time to pay his legal costs after being put in jail for 27 days. Shane Anderson happens to be owner the of The Mac EvangeList, and in a post to his list, he wrote about the incident and his plea to raise US$6500. [Macsurfer's Headline News] Another gem of a site: This one is Applefritter. Here you will find an Apple optical mouse turned astray. A PowerBook Duo turned digital picture frame. A PowerBook 2400c turned iBook? Reported by Slashdot. [O'Grady's PowerPage] Napster turns porn? Reuters reports that an adult entertainment site is offering US$2.4 million in shares to acquire Napster's address. Not a good idea for teens still trying to find MP3s on the site. That's almost as bad as school kids typing in whitehouse.com thinking it's the White House, but reaching a porn site instead. [Slashdot]
Two extremely useful Mac tips The weblog of Ken Bereskin lists a short but monumental tip for OS X 10.2 users. Use the Connect to Server command in the Go menu to type in an FTP server URL, and voila, a black-and-white version of the iDisk appears on your desktop as your FTP volume. Now you can drag-and-drop files from the server to your desktop. Your search for a Finder-like FTP client has ended: it's already built into the Finder. [Mark Bernstein] The other grieve-saving tip (.Mac membership required) I found in .Mac's Discussion Boards. I had tried numerous ways to link a photo from the Pictures folder in iDisk. I know the URL to a photo album, but a single photo in that photo album has its own URL very different from the album. It turns out that to reveal the URL of a photo, click on the thumbnail in the album, a slide show of the photo appears. Hold down the Control key and choose Open Image in New Window (in I.E.), and the URL will reveal itself. Clicking on the photo without the Control key will only bring up the photo but not the URL. The same can be done on the thumbnail if you want to link to a smaller version of your photo. Here's a picture I took from my apartment looking out the living room window during sunrise. Quite a view of Hong Kong, isn't it?
Portable Adapter & USB 2.0 PC Card My saucer-shape PowerBook G4 power adapter finally died on me after 17 months of use. It had stopped charging my PowerBook. I found a tear on one end of the cord, because whenever I tried to move it, beautiful blue sparks appear beneath the saucer. I had to get another adapter right away. I went to the Apple Center at the new Etech Center in Wanchai. I bought the Apple Portable Power Adapter for HK$600, also an ATEN USB 2.0 PC Card for HK$300. The white adapter is smaller than the saucer adapter it replaced. The old adapter matches the PowerBook in color and style intrinsically, but the portable adapter is more functional in its design. The brick is designed so that you can attach a power cord to it for extended reach to the outlet, just as the adapter of old. What makes the new one unique is you can detach the cord and snap on just the prong attachment to the brick, saving the hassle of an extra cord to de-tangle, or to carry when you travel. The built-in cord that connects to the PowerBook is thinner than the old one, which makes for a lighter adapter, but might be even easier to tear. We'll see how it fares in a year or so. I mentioned the USB 2.0 PC Card, because I needed extra USB ports on my PowerBook on occasion, and a PC Card hub doesn't require a bulky USB cable. I don't own any USB 2.0 devices, yet, but the trend for USB 2.0 peripherals is growing much rapidly than the FireWire types in Hong Kong. Go into a computer store here, and surely you'll find a new scanner or printer that support USB 2.0. Not so with FireWire, despite the long head start. Although none of Apple's new hardware line has USB 2.0 ports, the good news is the system software tells another story. That's right, OS X 10.2 has native 2.0 support. I plugged in the 2-port PC Card, immediately my PowerBook recognized my attached USB devices, without any driver or configuration. It confirmed what the salesman told me about native support for USB in OS X 10.2, specifically USB 2.0, which I will find out as soon as I buy my next such device.
Links worthy Ultralingua's set of dictionaries is at version 4.0 for OS X. This version is coded in Cocoa, with Services, drag-and-drop and wildcards support, plus a new OS X-savvy logo, finally. [VersionTracker] A St. Petersburg Times article introduces the world to blogging with reasons on why we blog. [Scripting News] Toshiba's Mobilphile digital audio player looks like an iPod knockoff. Coincidentally, Toshiba provides the hard disk for the iPod. The Mobilphile uses USB 2.0, yet a review criticizes its lack of speed due to the accompanied music encryption software. AlltheWeb.com is a search engine with categories for web pages, news, pictures, videos, MP3 and FTP files. A comprehensive Macintosh site in Chinese. [Global Mac News] A must-read Wired article tells of several sites created by women asking for donation to pay off shopping debts, help leave husband, fight against Lyme disease, among others. I can understand ones for legitimate needs, but to help pay off credit card debts from shopping at Tiffany? Ironically, it can work. One such site received over US$10,000 in donations in just 11 weeks. Another similar one didn't fare as well, with only US$9.00 since August 26. [Mac Net Journal]
eFilm PicturePAD A product came out just in time for this digital traveller is the eFilm PicturePAD. I'm planning a trip back to the states this fall. I plan to bring my PowerBook, but only to Hawaii, there I plan to leave it home. I will fly to the east coast and work my way back west with a friend or two. I don't want to carry my PowerBook with me on that part of the trip--it's heavy and cumbersome--but I'm taking my digital camera, and I need something to store the pictures when the camera card gets filled. I don't want to buy 5 extra 256MB flash memory cards just for the trip; they're expensive and might not be enough if I set my camera to high resolution. Yet, it makes no sense that I have to lug around a notebook only to use as a storage device. This one problem is enough to give me a headache whenever I think about it. I thought about bringing my Sharp Telios handheld PC, since it's small and light, but it's no use, for it has no hard disk. What good is to plug a camera card in the handheld if I have no where to upload the pictures? I started contemplating on buying a super mini-notebook from Sony. The VAIO PCG-U1 is about the size of my Telios, but it's a full-featured notebook running Windows XP. The 20GB hard disk is spacious enough to hold all my pictures. Yes, I got desperate. Then I read in Mac Net Journal and discovered the PicturePAD; it's the answer to my prayers. You take the flash memory card from your camera, insert it into PicturePAD, then have your pictures uploaded to PicturePAD directly, sans notebook. You free yourself from buying expensive flash cards, and from carrying around your hefty notebook. I saw similar devices available a while back, but this is the first one with a color LCD screen. The PicturePAD is one of those gadgets you don't think about until you need it, and then you wonder how you ever travelled without it. If only the next iPod added a color LCD and the function to download pictures directly from digital cameras, without relying on the Mac as a hub, then Apple should easily win a cohort of consumers and professional photographers alike.
Britannica 2003 DVD My copy of Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD (what a mouthful) arrived last week. As I mentioned earlier, this year the DVD is a hybrid for both Windows and OS X. First I thought it was a good thing, but later I found out the convenience came at the expense of the Mac experience. This version of Britannica is created in Java, hence it's cross-platform capable. Although OS X excels at running Java applications, anyone who has tried one knows its interface is very un-Mac-like. The menu bar is separate from OS X's, with its own pull-down menus looking awfully Windows like. Even the close box is to the right, just like, yup, Windows. Compared to last year's OS X only version, Britannica 2003 is downright ugly. Luckily, what Britannica lacked in form, it made up in function, and that's always more important in using a reference suite. Sections and navigations are divided logically. You can search for an item by typing, browsing by alphabet, timeline, or its unique Knowledge Navigator. The results are listed to the left, where you choose an article to display on the right. I didn't find any glitches, and everything works as it should, although not at blazing speed. The content of the encyclopedia is phenomenal. Aside from the orignal suite, this edition adds two other levels of references, for elementary and high school students. Each level has its own set of reference works: encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, world atlas and timeline. I looked up September 11, and it returned articles on the terror attack. Search for World Trade Center and it reminds us that it's no longer standing. If you're looking for the authority in Encyclopedia that's up-to-date after more than 230 years, Britannica is it.
Links worthy I spent an hour looking at the fun animations on PassItAround. The skits on Laden and Anthrax are hilarious. Don't miss the Internet Sweepstakes and God Bless America, too. Warning: These are Flash files, so make sure you have broadband or patience before you click on the links. As I was cleaning out my junk mail, I actually found one message that is helpful to kids. The site is BrainMania, and it helps kids with their homework. Hurray for Hawaiian! The Honolulu Advertiser reports that Mac OS X 10.2 is the first major system to have native support for the Hawaiian language. The two typefaces which allow users to type in Hawaiian are kahako and 'okina. Now if it will only do pidgin, too, li'dat. The Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Ready Reference CD, a streamlined version of the complete volume, is available for US$7.95. The complete Deluxe Edition CD is also available at a great price. I didn't know OS X is capable of supporting themes, till I came across this site. So far 12 OS X themes are listed, with 3 being Jaguar compatible. For those of us longing for a unique desktop, this is it.
Myth III arrives (in Hong Kong) Actually, I don't know when it arrived. I had been looking for it since it first came on market; I looked everywhere. Alas, like all Mac software, they're hard to come by in Hong Kong. I went in computer shops large and small, though all had a copy of Myth III for Windows, none was available for the Mac. One owner was nice enough to call the distributor for me, but it didn't carry the Mac version. Then I went in an Apple specialty shop, thinking the one place the game would be stocked. No luck, as it had only a copy of the aging Myth II, which I already own. I finally gave up hope. When my sister and niece came to spend summer vacation, I asked them to buy a copy for me at their local CompUSA beforehand. They did; the Windows version, by mistake. I gave them back to take home when they left earlier this month. Just when I have given up quest for Myth III, I saw a copy for OS X on the shelf of a software boutique tonight. The front of the box has a sticker with the same distributor that didn't carry it earlier. The price is HK$280. I grabbed onto the box for dear life, as it's the only copy on the shelf. I handed the box to the cashier with my MasterCard, then he looked at the box and asked, "This is for Mac, you know." "I know," I answered.
Links worthy One of the few dot-com companies making a profit is Classmates.com. "With 1.7 million paying customers, Classmates boasts nearly three times as many subscribers as the Wall Street Journal Online," Mercury News reports. [Macsurfer's Headline News] Also from MHN, a Wired News article on undying fans of the Newton (here's a cartoon version), the PDA that started it all. I remember seeing the puff of smoke, which appears on the monochrome screen as I doodle over a word I want to delete, was nothing short of amazing. And to see it live on hidden in the Dock of OS X, where removing an item from the dock brings the puff of smoke to life, is still amazing. ZDNet reports that every one in four e-mails in the office is spam, and the number is even higher for personal e-mails. I can attest to its validity. Since using Apple's new Mail in OS X 10.2, with its ability to intelligently filters spam, several of my accounts look garishly brown (the color of spam), with only sprinkling of black (legitimate messages). Spring, a desktop software based on concept-objects, rather than metaphor of old: folders, documents, etc. Here you take an object, a friend's photo, for example, drop it on the desktop, and link relevant information (objects) to it. I haven't tried it, as it's for OS X 10.1 only (Jaguar version on its way), but I did try a similar desktop software, Shared Space. Both of of these software are based on themes, grouping and linking objects together. I will certainly give Spring a go when a version for 10.2 is out.
PC Market's Apple insert The current issue of PC Market (#474, 28 August 2002) has a special 16-page insert of Apple's new product line, from the 17" iMac to Mac OS X 10.2. The latter sections include specs of all current Apple hardware, 3rd party peripherals for Macs, and a glossary of Mac terms to include .Mac. The insert does not appear to be a paid advertisement from Apple, as credit is given to an editor at Singtao (PC Market's parent). Given that PC Market is the most popular computer magazine in Hong Kong, it's encouraging to see Apple gets this much attention in a PC-centric publication. While on the subject, two other Hong Kong weeklies have coverage on Macs as well. e-zone's PC PLUS has a 2-page spread on Mac OS X 10.2, and half-a-back page on Mac news. Hi-TECH WEEKLY has a page for newly switchers to Macs, and a section on another page on OS X 10.2, too. What a great week for Mac users in Hong Kong.
I have OS X 10.2 before you I'm writing on my PowerBook running the spanking new Mac OS X 10.2. I bought it this morning at the product launch held at the HK Convention Centre. My estimate is around 300 attendees at the seminar; that's a lot of Hong Kong Mac users in one room. I looked about from where I sat and saw almost every seat filled, with a line of latecomers standing in the back. The presentation took an hour and forty-five minutes and was entirely in English. As informative as watching the demos of 10.2, I couldn't wait to take my copy home and try it for myself. In the reception area, a long Apple booth is at the center, equipped with every new Macintosh product and some third party peripherals for fans to behold; I was among them. For the first time I saw the 17" iMac and Power Macintosh G4, all running on 10.2, of course. What caught my eye, though, was the space-age, titanium-looking dome that of a subwoofer with two matching mini-speakers. The JBL Creature truly looks like an alien space craft, or the dome of an iMac if Apple had more guts with its design. I wanted one right then for my PowerBook G4, but it wasn't for sale. On the two sides of the Apple booth are smaller Apple retailer booths, about five or six of them. I bought my copy of 10.2 from one of them when I came in, and with it, got a free, official Jaguar t-shirt from Apple that was for the event only. After the seminar, I took a taxi and went straight home. Installing 10.2 was no different from 10 or 10.1, except the new version comes with two OS X CDs and no OS 9 CD. The Developer Tools CD is still there. I imagine the extra OS X CD is for the 15 localized languages that are built into 10.2. No longer do Mac users of another language have to wait for a localized version of their favorite operating system. However, for those who require only one language, they now have many extra languages sitting around in their Macs with nothing to do but taking up space. The whole installation took 45 minutes and ran automatically, except for inserting Disc 2. After the second disc was done, there was no need to reboot (it rebooted twice already: once after Disc 1 and once before Disc 2); I was logged into my PowerBook with 10.2 up and running. Life is good.
Ghost Festival 2 Last night as I was walking home from dinner with my sister, we came across another pile of ashes on the sidewalk. As we were walking around it, my sister reminded me not to pick up any money I see of the streets for the next few days. She asked whether I knew that already, and I smiled, reminding her that she only reminds me of the same thing every year. On my way home tonight, the number of fires started on the streets is a lot more than what I saw on Sunday. I walked by an aisle beside a building with at least 5 simultaneous offerings going on. I could feel the heat and smoke from the flames as I passed. Further ahead on the sidewalk were three generations of women making their offerings. The grandmother watches the fire with a stick in hand, making sure that the paper offerings get thoroughly burnt. Standing next to her, the mother reaches into a carton, the size of a washer, to grab an armful of paper money and gold to toss into the flames. The daughter, around 12, stands behind the carton, helping her mother, with a big smile on her face, enjoying the commotion of the fire. Looking at the three women, I can't help but feel intrigued, by a modern city--a concrete jungle that is Hong Kong--that still practices traditions of centuries ago. Watching how their beliefs are passed on from old to young, from generation to generation, I can foresee these yearly burning rituals to continue well into the millennium. As I look down the street from my apartment, a fire is burning about 8-feet long, with three people feeding more and more paper offerings into the flames, like adding fuel to a fire. The fire looks almost out of control, reaching as high as the people's shoulders, then simmering down to manageable height. Then those folks would throw another batch of paper offerings into the flames again, repeatedly, igniting the fire to new heights. I trust it's the only time of year you can openly be an arsonist, and not be arrested. The later it gets into the night, what's left of many is a trail of ashes.
I will get OS X 10.2 before you The phone woke me this morning. It was a representative from Apple Hong Kong confirming my attendance on Saturday's Mac OS X 10.2 launch. Amid my grogginess, I remembered to ask the one question still on my mind: "Will 10.2 be available for sale at the launch?" She answered an enthusiastic "yes." I couldn't go back to sleep after that. To get myself ready for 10.2, I signed up for a year of .Mac services today, since Apple will extend all early adopters' membership to September 30th. That means I have an extra 39 days to use all its services, so why not sign up now? It's a smart business move on Apple's part. I don't find the new .Mac services much different from the soon defunct iTools, except for the extra storage on iDisk and e-mail. One useful addition to .Mac, however, is the member's only support section, which was missing in the free iTools. I went into the discussion boards to follow several threads: the use of .Mac's homepage for blogging; the failure to use the Backup software with iDisk; inability to use smtp.mac.com to send e-mail; the missing Homepage icon in iPhoto's Share panel. The forums have Apple moderators to help out members, but none had a solution to any of the problems, yet. The encouraging thing, though, is to see that I'm not the only one facing these problems.
Links worthy I spoke too soon about the floods in Europe. Now it has hit Asia: China, Japan, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Why is the world in flux? Is it a sign? The snakehead fish that's swimming havoc in ponds in Maryland, more than a hundred, will be treated to poison chemicals, killing them and all other living things in the ponds. Two snakeheads, originated in Northern China, were thrown in a pond by the owners two years ago, after the fishes had gotten too big (up to 3 feet). They're predatory by nature and eat everything in sight. The officials worried the snakehead will cause other rare breed of fishes in the ponds to extinct. New York Times has a detail analysis of why Apple's next big product is an iPhone, while The Register debunks the analysis, countering that Apple's goal is to embrace and integrate Symbian smartphones, based on open standards (e.g. Sony Ericsson P800), rather than competing with them. The article links to a raving review of the P800, making me want it even more. [Macsurfer's Headline News]
Ghost Festival In Chinese Calendar, July 14th is Ghost Festival. On Thursday, the hell gate opens, and as the saying goes, all hell break loose! The people in Hong Kong usually start the offerings a week before the Day, burning paper money and gold on the sidewalk for their deceased relatives. Four years ago, when I first arrived, I was frightened but intrigued by the half-burnt piles of papers I see along the street at night, with wind carrying the ashes into the air. A sense of eeriness crawled my spine, seeing ashes floating in mid-air, while some landed on my face. Sometimes I see oranges, candles and other tangibles still sitting alongside. Often, there are even coins mixed in with the others. But I know enough not to pick up the money I see on the streets during these times, as every parent would tell her child: "They are not lucky money; they are meant for the dead, and if you steal from the dead, then you will not be very lucky." The other thing I know never do is step through the pile, as it shows great disrespect for whom the offerings was made. I always walk around it. At times it's difficult, since most sidewalks are narrow, and the ashes spread from the wind. Thus, it's normal for pedestrians to walk in the middle of the street to avoid these invisibly reserved areas. It is raining in Hong Kong tonight, but that doesn't seem to stop folks from making their offerings. I went downstairs in the neighborhood and saw mini-fires on many covered sidewalks. Most of the fires are contained in knee-high tin cans, a responsible, safe thing to do. I saw mostly one or two people to a fire, but this one fire had a family surrounding it, almost like a campfire, with two kids laughing and throwing their offerings into the fire. Many people are staying indoor at night, scared of the ghosts that are free to roam the streets. But for others, it's just a family affair.
Links worthy Mark Bernstein of Eastgate wrote an article on 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web. It's good reading, as is the active discussion on it. [Mac Net Journal] While at ALA, read the other engaging story, How to Write a Better Weblog, by Dennis A. Mahoney. His site on grammar and other writings are involving, and so is his site's design. Bernstein reviews The Weblog Handbook, by Rebecca Blood. The editor of Mac Net Journal is planning to write a review on Eastgate's Tinderbox. It would be interesting to see if he will eventually make the switch from Radio to Tinderbox on his site, as I did on mine. ATPM (About This Particular Macintosh) wrote a review on Tinderbox 1.1.3. The rating isn't good. Tetrault's main gripe with it is instability, saying it crashed many times during his review. I didn't get that problem. But his conclusion sums up Tinderbox well, that it's both "intriguing and frustrating," and it's best for people "who have the patience and ability to become a Tinderbox power user." My thoughts, exactly. [MacSurfer's Headline News] Jack Shedd of ragingapathy gives an amusing, yet thorough look into OS X 10.2. Here you'll find a more standard review of 10.2 on Macworld.
I might get OS X 10.2 before you The product launch for Mac OS X 10.2 in Hong Kong is also on Saturday, August 24th. Taking into consideration the 15-hour difference from U.S. Pacific time, I should be able to get my hands on a copy of 10.2 almost a day before the folks in the U.S. Alas, the press release does not say whether retail copies will be available for sale at the event. The most anticipated feature of 10.2 for me is Rendezvous, the ability to connect network devices automatically through Bluetooth, Airport, FireWire and USB. Use in concert with Apple's iSync software, I can connect a Sony Ericsson Bluetooth mobile to my PowerBook and synchronize the contacts and calendars in each, and even to my .Mac account for backup and remote retrieval. The future is almost here.
Links worthy The flood in Europe has damaged a chemical plant in Czechoslovakia, releasing chlorine gas into the air, forming a deadly yellow cloud. On similar news, an "Asian Brown Cloud" that's 2-mile thick, can cause global threat and kill millions. The report says "a large part of the aerosol cloud comes from inefficient cookers, where fuels such as cow dung and kerosene are used to cook food in many parts of Asia." Fossils of geese that weigh up to half a ton is unearthed in Australian desert. Did you know there's an OS X-only software called WebGrazer? It's a downloading and browsing utility of free news and blogs, oh, and adult content. Interestingly, VersionTracker.com does not show of its existence.
Collaboration for solo writers Writer's Digest has an informative article on collaboration. While it suggests that we should choose someone we know and like as our temporary partner, it also advises that we should be business-like, with work-for-hire contracts and indemnity clause, in case our partner's information "is incorrect, defamatory or damaging to a third party." On the same subject, I was discouraged to find the co-authors I wrote about in zine publishing have decided to stop their efforts to write a book together. No details were given as for their reason to part.
Links worthy I was supposed to go to Europe this month. I was to arrive in Germany and work my way down to Austria, Czechoslovakia, and basically all the major flooding area of Eastern Europe. Lucky for me. Unlucky for all those who are stuck there. I drink a liter of water first thing in the morning for over 10 years. Now they say drinking too much water can kill you. Yikes! [Scripting News] My drooling factor is at an all-time high with Sony Ericsson's soon to be released P800. The last time I salivated like this was when the PowerBook G4 was first introduced last year; I bought one right away. It shall be no different this time with the p800. This year, the new Britannica 2003 DVD will be a hybrid, for Windows and Macs. Good news for Mac users living abroad who couldn't find the Mac 2002 DVD in local shops. I had to order mine through Britannica online, instead. No such hassle this year. Nonetheless, I pre-ordered mine online again, because it's a lot cheaper (US$39.95 after rebate).
Blogging on .Mac Tinderbox works wonderfully on .Mac, I found out. I was contemplating whether to subscribe to Apple's .Mac service when the current free iTools expire on September 30th. I would hate to lose my e-mail account <kwong@mac.om>, but I hardly use any of Apple's other tools (homepage and what else?), so it's hard to justify paying US$50 (first year) to keep an e-mail address. An enticing bonus Apple added is storage, from 20MB to 100MB. That's enough space to maintain a growing blog site, and all the digital photos I have on my PowerBook waiting to be uploaded and shared with family and friends. What nailed my decision to subscribe is how intuitive it is to publish my blogs on .Mac using Tinderbox. When I'm finished writing an entry in Tinderbox, I choose Export as HTML... A typical Save As window then appears where I choose the destination to export my files. Here, I can choose my iDisk and save my files directly inside the Sites folder. The next time I want to export another entry, the Sites folder is already selected as the destination. In one step, I have published my blogs to my homepage. There's no fussing with FTP, or dragging files back-and-forth. Together, Tinderbox and iDisk are every Mac blogger's dream.
Blogging with Tinderbox It's August. Summer's almost over. It's been more than two months since I last made a post. It's time to start writing again. I last used Radio Userland 8 to blog. I like the fact that it's a desktop program, rather than server-dependent, like Blogger and Movable Type. More important, I had a 30-day trial to see whether it's the blogging tool I sought. It wasn't. Radio integrates with your web browser. The interface is your browser. To write your posts, you write in a Java-enabled text window in your browser. Because I use a Mac, my browser doesn't support Radio's Java-enhanced features; not Explorer, not Mozilla, not OmniWeb. So first I had to write my blogs in a text editor, then copy them over to Radio to publish. It's an extra step I don't need. After the trial was over, I didn't buy a license and just let my blogs on Radio wither. Instead, I bought a copy of Eastgate's Tinderbox. The timing couldn't be better. I had one week left on my Radio trial, and I was debating whether to buy a license. Meanwhile, I have been following the progress of Tinderbox, eagerly awaiting for a Mac OS X port before making the jump. Eastgate came through in time with Tinderbox 1.1 for OS X. I jumped, leaving Radio behind for good. Tinderbox also works from the desktop, but the similarity with Radio ends there. While Radio is a blogging tool, blogging is only part of its many features in Tinderbox. It's billed as a personal content management assistant, a lofty claim, it seems, but once you start to get intimate with Tinderbox, you'll know that the name fits its billing. To take notes is easy. Create a note, put in a title, then type away in the text window--all without lifting from the keyboard--that note then becomes part of a Tinderbox document. You can add more notes inside the document, or inside other notes, or you can start a new document to hold new notes. In each document, you can arrange the notes to however you like, using links and hierarchies, in seven different views. That in itself makes Tinderbox a useful note-taking tool. When you start to dig beneath the surface, however, Tinderbox becomes a more powerful and complex program. You can create agents to gather, sort, and filter your notes. But that's only 3 of the more than 50 tasks you can set your agents to do! The depth of this program is sure to overwhelm you, as it did to me. The weblogging feature of Tinderbox is built into the export function, where it turns your notes into individual blog entries and your document into a homepage. Here, the agents work to put your entries in chronological order, archive recent entries, create Permalink for each blog, and all the things that make up a blogging site. You can tweak your blogs through agents to your liking, or as your expertise permits. I opt for the simpler route. I downloaded some weblogging templates (created by no other than Derek Powazek) from Eastgate, and chose the simplest one to use. I made some style changes in the CSS document, and used the Tinderbox template as-is to write my blogs. I still don't know the many technologies used in blogging: RSS Channels, Syndications, Permalinks, and such, but it's reassuring to know they're supported by Tinderbox when I figure them out. The beauty of Tinderbox is that if I want to put up a weblog for others to read today, I can do so, without having to know the complexity behind it.
Four years in the making Four years in the making, that's how long ago I took the plane from Honolulu to Hong Kong. I haven't been back since. For the first three years, I never missed it much; I don't know why, after all, Hawaii is my home. But since the 9-11 incident in New York, I have been thinking a lot about taking a trip back to the states, at least to Manhattan to see the aftermath that forever-changed history. It was 16 years ago when I flew to New York for a brief visit. I don't remember much from it; I got a special US$29 one-way ticket from Augusta, Georgia (Army days), and I wasn't about to miss it. I don't recall where I stayed or slept for the night, only that I went to Chinatown to watch a double-feature, and went to see a fortune teller whose first question was whether I was in the army, which I replied "no." He then told me I would have had a bright future had I been in the service. I think he knew. Afterward, he wanted to charge me an outrageous sum for the few minutes he talked to me, but I didn't have that much on me, not even close. He emptied my pockets and found US$25 before I could leave. The only other memory of New York was a visit to the infamous 42nd street. The streets were lined with porn theaters and everything else that was porn. I took a great picture of a theater billboard with a naked lady on top of me. I went into a bookstore to browse the shelves of porno mags, which for an 18 year-old was quite eye-popping. I wonder what 42nd street looks like today? The last thing I remember was the February snow, which had built upon the sidewalk in grayish-white, from car fumes weak and strong. Yet, it was still the best sight I had ever seen, because it was the first time I saw snow in person. I remember sticking my black gloves out to watch the snowflakes land clearly on my palms, then lifting my head to face the sky so I could feel the coldness of the snow as it falls on my cheeks. That feeling I still have with me today. As for the Twin Towers, or even the Statue of Liberty, I am sorry to admit I didn't make the effort to see them. Thus, I want to go back.
Do not utilize Do not utilize anything, use it instead. Read a page of nearly anything these days, and you're bound to find the word "utilize," "utilizes," or "utilizing" sprinkled liberally on the page, as if it were magic dust that will miraculously turn a piece of writing into something more important than what it is. Alas, the opposite is true. "Utilize" is a pompous word for "use," and whenever I come across it in an article, I immediately post a red-flag in my mind, questioning the author's ability to write concisely. Usually, if it appears the second time within the same article, I stop reading to save my sanity from a pretentious writer trying to impress the reader with pompous words, instead of using concise words to convey the importance of a message. The next time you come across the word "utilize" in your reading, replace it with "use" in your mind and see how, in every instance, the message becomes clearer and unpretentious. The only exception--there's always one--is when "utilize" is spelled "utilise," as it's a British word that's commonly spoken by them.
Zine publishing I discovered a useful series of articles on zine publishing posted free on Angela Klocke's website. What a wonderful way for her to acquaint visitors with her writing. Now I can see how putting good content on a site can help a writer build reputation, and entice readers to eventually buy her other e-books. While you're there, read her other set of postings on co-authoring, in which she and another writer, Teraisa Goldman, document their ongoing efforts to write a book. It's a light and fun read.
Give away your e-books Would you offer an electronic version of your book free for all to download? "Over my dead body, and wait 60 years after that!" You say. I would have thought the same, after all, we were told over and over by the media that digital copy of anything could only hurt sales of the physical product, be it a CD or a book. It seems to make sense. How else do you explain the fall of Napster, or the trials-and-errors of Stephen King's efforts into the digital realm? If everyone can download for free, who will pay for the product? Imagine my surprise when I came across an article on Baen Books that contradicts all the news that instills in us on why we should do away with digital copying, or if we can't, how we should encrypt it and guard it with our lives. The writer Eric Flint tells us there is no empirical evidence that passing away an e-book will jeopardize sales of the actual book. Quite the contrary, he says it can be surprisingly good for the book, even the author's other book sales in the long run, and he has his royalty checks to prove it. Flint backs his words with his own works, documenting how by putting his sci-fi books in electronic form, free, he's able to retain a high sell-through rate even a year after his books were published. Put in mind that a book has a typical 3-month of high activity after it's first published, then sales drops drastically after that. According to Flint's findings, then, an author will have a longer stream of revenue from a book, simply by generously giving his books away online. Other like-minded authors have put similar logic to test. Seth Godin's Unleashing the Ideavirus was available online, before it was printed in paperback in September 2001. The book still ranks high on Amazon.com. Author Adam C. Engst's book on Apple's iPhoto software isn't available in book form, yet, but you can order an e-book version on Amazon.com today, and when iPhoto passes the 1.X stage, appropriate updates will be made before the book finally goes to press, after which a copy will be shipped to all buyers of the e-book. What's interesting is that Engst encourages his TidBITS readers to buy the e-book, then freely share it with others, just as a library book. His book is ranking high on Amazon.com, too, and it's not yet out.
How I made $66,270 in 9 months writing for Websites Is it an act of desperation when a writer goes online to order an e-book titled "How I made $66,270 in 9 months writing for Websites" on a site that uses only PayPal for payment? Well, I did, but I wouldn't call myself desperate. Maybe in part. The other part is that I wanted to do a hands-on research on how other writers are making a killing selling self-published e-books. The web site is bare-bones and unprofessional. However, it works to the author's favor, because I felt I was buying from a real, no-nonsense kind of guy. The author, John Riddle, is a good writer, no doubt, as it took him only one page of sales copy to make me part US$14.95 for his e-book; the clincher is the bonus e-book, "Getting a Book Contract in 30 Days or Less," also worth US$14.95, he throws in for free. The other indication that he is a good writer is that it took me one sitting to finish his book, which is rare for me, even if it had only 33 pages, or a total of 53 pages for the two books. Now I can see why he didn't put the number of pages on his web site. Had he put the number, I might have hesitated to spend that amount for a relatively thin book, in a purely physical point-of-view. But, we don't judge an e-book by its pages, do we? Riddle provides useful information in his two books. His writing here is consistent with what is on his web site, no-frill and to the point. The section on creating a Promo, an e-mail letter you send to editors offering your services, is especially helpful to the beginning freelance writer. Interestingly, I found the second book to be more useful. Riddle's advice on how to pro-actively seek publishers for book assignments is a morale booster for the unpublished author.
Design for Community While some hope for world peace and others for world domination, my new year resolution was less ambitious: I only wanted to buy books that I will finish from the first page to last. To see what the fuss is about, read the previous post. So far I'm only batting around fifty, not a good percentage for most, but definitely an improvement for me. Last month I went to the bookstore, stayed in the Internet section for almost an hour, flipping pages vigorously to see whether I can find a book that meets my resolution. Carefully, I selected one, confident that I can finish the whole book, rather than tossed aside as I did with Pogue's book. I am delighted to report I succeeded this time, and the book I picked is Design for Community: the art of connecting real people in virtual places by Derek M. Powazek. This book is not technical; it doesn't teach you how to install a chatroom script on your server. Nor is it a how-to design book, as it may appear from reading the title. Design for Community is a collective insight of the author's experiences with building various community sites, and from those he interviewed in the book. Powazek himself would never call it building community sites, as you can never build a community, but instead to add selective "community features" to your site, then let users come and form the community, that is, if you have done your job right. Reading the book dissuaded me from wanting to implement many interactive features I had planned for my site. The time and commitment required to host a community is just time and commitment I don't have. Knowing that, Powazek has also succeeded, as he says that 80 percent of the time, he convinced clients not to add community features to a site. Add me to the 80. However, I do want to add a readers' feedback feature directly under certain posts I write, so I can use them as guides to improve my work. Powazek considers blogging as community building. Whereas most community features are built onto one site, with users heavily dependent on it to interact with each other, blogging allows each user to have his own space. Yet, the user can link other bloggers to his site or go to their sites, much like a real community, where every family has its own home, but can also pay visits to neighbors, or have them come over for dinner once in awhile. I most welcome the end with an interview with Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community, published back in 1993, before virtual community was a buzz, then an overuse phrase. It's especially meaningful to me, because it was the first book I read on this topic in college, and he was the keynote speaker at the first Pacific telecom conference I attended in Hawaii, in which he wore a Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants, slippers, and his trademark hat. His look is just as remarkable as the conversation he had with Powazek. I highly recommend Powazek's Design for Community to anyone who enjoys good writing. The author's talent is not merely on design, but on writing that's endearing to the reader, page after page, to the very end.
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual I looked at my bookshelf the other day, and noticed that only a handful of technical books I bought were read from cover-to-cover. Most have been sitting on the shelf only days after I bought them, and are still waiting for me to pick up and flip through the pages. But I almost never do. I don't mean to buy them to abandon them, like a kid's presents after Christmas. Each time I choose one from the bookstore, I truly meant to read it whole and absorb the efforts put out by the author. As soon as I walk out of the store, I can't wait to take it home and get started on the book. Then that moment comes when I'm sitting on my sofa to read, and after a few pages, I feel a yawn building, then my eyes start to wander off the page. I then try to flip to a chapter that looks more interesting and continue reading. Once the flow is broken, however, it's hard to pick it up again. You know the rest of the tale. Mac OS X: The Missing Manual is a book I anticipated months before it was published, because I have switched to OS X on my PowerBook, and I'm a big fan of the author, David Pogue. There were a few other books on OS X published at the time, but I decided Pogue was worth the wait. I pre-ordered the book on amazon.com and waited patiently for it to ship to me in Hong Kong. When it finally arrived, I had to pick it up from the post office, because the hefty volume wouldn't fit in my mailbox. The extra effort made me want the book even more. The 583-page book has an eye-pleasing layout, filled with practical information, with lots of illustrations, and Pogue's writing, as always, is witty. With so much going for it, it was sad to see it faced the same faith as my other technical books so quickly, to be put on inactive status. Luckily, I was told most technical manuals are not meant to be read from cover-to-cover, but as a reference for when you need help on a certain topic, to refer to the specific section of the book. In that sense, I don't feel too bad. But I really wanted to complete the Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, and write a full review. Maybe instead I should write a review based on certain sections of the book, just as how I would read a manual.
Stay off the streets of Hong Kong on a rainy day Be afraid. Be very afraid. If you happen to be on your way home, and it starts to drizzle, run for your life. Oh, I'm not talking about running from the rain; who cares about getting wet; you can always take a shower when you get home. I'm talking about the umbrellas-those sharp, deadly weapons that bound to stab you in all the sensitive areas if you're not careful. Of course weapons are only dangerous in the wrong hands. But in Hong Kong, everyone's got the wrong hand. It doesn't matter if they're old or young, women or men, blue or white collar, because if they got an umbrella in their hand, you need to watch out, or risk being another wounded victim on a battlefield. You see, these warriors don't hold their umbrella up high when they're among fellow warriors and other innocent pedestrians. As far as they're concerned, everybody's the enemy. They hold their umbrellas just inches above their head, either to cover their shoes as much as possible, or to make sure that the soaking person next to them can't edge inside for partial cover. No way. Oh, and here's when being tall actually a disadvantage: If you're standing next to a 5-foot lady waiting for the green light, it makes no difference if you're holding an umbrella, because you're going to get wet anyway. Her opened umbrella is going to thrust right in your suit, and all the rain that drop on her umbrella will pop in your face, and the rest will slide on your trousers and soak your socks. And if you think you're safe after you crossed the street and under cover, think again. That 5-foot lady isn't done with you yet. She'll march toward you with her umbrella still open and poke you right in the eye as she passes by, as though you're not even there. So you're left standing on a covered sidewalk wet with one hand massaging your eye and the other holding your umbrella as a cane. You think to yourself what rotten luck you've had, but glad that the worst is behind you. That's when you hear more marching sound coming, but it's too late. None of the marchers bothered to fold his or her umbrella when under cover. Next thing you know, you got one of those pointed needles gliding across your cheek. Then another jab on the head that got tangled with your hair. But the marcher kept marching while pulling you along, until finally you break free from her and a thimbleful of your hair. Now you got one hand massaging your head and the other still holding the umbrella, when ouch! You got another jab in the same eye. Now instead of going home, you have to visit the nearest clinic to check if your eyeball is still intact, but more important, to stay off the streets until after the very last drop of rain. Yes, the streets of Hong Kong can be a very dangerous place to be on a rainy day. This is not an exaggeration by any means and I got the scars to prove it. |
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