thoroughly chinafied american business geek in shanghai (now with japanese characteristics…)
Give Shanghai Sherpa’s a shot. Pricing is not very reasonable when compared to the market, but not outrageous. Just need to think is USD…
15RMB within 4 km, 30RMB for more than 4km.
Delivery is usually about 45 minutes. I tried it out today as I was working from home (near Century Park). Worked great. I’ll do it often. Sure has an ugly website though…
Call 62096209 to order…
Quite an improvement over the Restaurants’ on the Run I used to use in Orange County…
PhillRyu.com - The Top Ten OS X Screensavers:
Looking for OS X Screensavers… Here are a few ideas…
Now if we would get a worthwhile iSight/iTunes/visualizer integrated into a screensaver… Someday. Sort of like DDR or the video cam PSP game.
Here’s a great link to pass around in case you’re ever in need of a cron reference. Or you could just memorize the file format… Now you can check your Wordpress POP account to Blog via Email
minute
This controls what minute of the hour the command will run on, and is between ‘0′ and ‘59′hour
This controls what hour the command will run on, and is specified in the 24 hour clock, values must be between 0 and 23 (0 is midnight)dom
This is the Day of Month, that you want the command run on, e.g. to run a command on the 19th of each month, the dom would be 19.month
This is the month a specified command will run on, it may be specified numerically (0-12), or as the name of the month (e.g. May)dow
This is the Day of Week that you want a command to be run on, it can also be numeric (0-7) or as the name of the day (e.g. sun).user
This is the user who runs the command.cmd
This is the command that you want run. This field may contain multiple words or spaces.
The Linux Home Networking site has all the Linux networking references you should ever need unless you are load balancing a dozen webservers… If you’ve forgotten how to add virtual IP addresses, just create a “/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0” file. Insert the following lines, of course changing your IP Address:
DEVICE=eth0:0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=192.168.1.99
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
Happy networking. Covered in depth in Chapter 3 : Linux Home Networking. Enjoy.
Seido Extended Battery for Treo put to the test - Treo accessories reviews:
Reported to have 33% more capacity than the original battery, I ventured out to determine exactly what this means.
I can confirm this one. I ordered the Seido extended battery a while back to keep Chattermail+ powered up all day long. I could not be happier. I HAVE REPLACED MY BLACKBERRY WITH MY TREO. That should be heard round the world. Really. I have a Blackberry that is prepaid and I don’t use it unless I’m traveling Internationally. When here in China, I find my Treo does email better than my blackberry (Chatter’s push is faster!) and Palm OS has far more 3rd party software than Blackberry. Most important of that software is PlecoDict (Chinese <=> English Dictionary).
Now if Wenlin would do a refresh on their Mac/PC dictionary UI…
This summer in Chongqing has been extremely hot! Check out some pictures as you sit next to your Air-conditioner…
Politics this week | Economist.com: (account required)
Iran gave its long-awaited reply to an offer of political and economic incentives from America, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany if it agreed to suspend uranium enrichment in accordance with a resolution from the UN Security Council. It said it was ready for serious talks, but would not stop enrichment by the end-of-August deadline. America’s State Department said the reply fell short. The Security Council will now have to discuss sanctions. See article
Not good news, but it could be a whole lot worse. It appears that Iran and the rest of the world will slowly cool off. No repeat of the Tehran hostage situation… In any case, I’m excited to take with my Iranian neighbor about politics. Bound to be very interesting! Can’t wait until he gets back from Tehran!
Shanghai at Night. Looking into Century Park (世纪公园) with Lujiazui（陆家嘴) in the background.
Skype tricks (with Quicksilver):
While there isn’t yet a Skype plugin for QuickSilver, as long as Skype is installed and you’ve enabled the “Services Menu Plugin“, you shouldn’t need to worry about it. There is a new Skype Plugin under development that will make automatically transferring several files a breeze, but until the plugin is stable the Skype Service menu is a great substitute.
Quicksilver and Skype play well together too. Youve got to activate the Services Menu Module in the Plug-Ins section. Once thats done, you should have access to three new options: Skype/Call, Skype/Add Contact and Skype/Send message. Now you can invoke QS, hit the period sign to get into text entry mode, enter your phone number as noted above, tab over to the next pane and type call. You should see the Skype/Call option pop up. Hit enter and youre dialing… Works even if Skype isnt openitll open and dial when its ready (assuuming youve got it set to auto-login with your username/password). Nice!
The High Cost of Cheap Chinese Labor - SeekingAlpha:
The Chinese markets are obviously electric. A few years ago, it took earnings of only $6 million for an individual to make it on the Forbes Chinas 100 Richest list; now a person needs nearly $100 million in total assets. Many graduates from Chinese universities see and hear about people making fortunes running their own businesses. They feel left behind if they stay in stable but stodgy MNCs. Moreover, its almost passé for 20- and 30-year-olds in China to stay with the same firm for more than a few years. Peer pressure to change jobs is huge; if you dont, its almost as if there is something wrong with you.
It’s almost passé to stay at the same firm for more than a few years. Really?Wouldn’t it be a lot more helpful to compare job-hopping rates in New York and LA with those in Shanghai and Beijing? Yet another example of the constant hyperbole concerning all things China.
My favorite part of Shanghai - the Subway. Take a look at the subway map. You can usually find me near the 世纪公园 station…
China’s public debt said vastly understated | Reuters.com:
Living here in China I can’t say that comes as a surprise. Whether you’re looking at the dozens of completely empty gas-stations of xinjiang, the empty airport of Zhuhai, the empty hirises in Shenzhen and Zhuhai, mismanaged ego driven investment is everywhere. As long as the currency stays cheap enough to keep dollars pouring in, I expect that the storm will be weathered. Like so much of the world today, there is a huge amount of volatility that seems to be forgotten… What % of the countries GDP can be miss-invested without causing the Chinese development miracle to run off the tracks? What % are we running at today?
Shaq’s China Shoe Deal Bad News for Nike and Adidas - SeekingAlpha:
Comment: Smart move by Shaq and at the same time, bad news for Nike (NKE) and Adidas. Terms of the Shaq-Li Ning deal were not disclosed but the “Li Ning Shaq” line of shoes will likely be cheaper than rivals’ and that means a possibility of a much broader consumer base. It will be interesting to watch Nike and Adidas’ reaction and see if they step up marketing and/or adjust pricing. The timing of the deal ahead of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing will force Nike and Adidas to fend off a hungry Li Ning, the latter which is likely looking to move into at least the 2nd spot by the time of the games.
Haven’t been back in the states for a while so I’m not sure what sort of brand equity Shaq brings along with him but it seems his best years are well behind him.
More importantly, Li Ning isn’t a new local brand preparing to compete with the global players. Li Ning had the #1 spot in the market here a few years ago but lost #1 to Nike and #2 to Adidas. Additionally, the last low priced sneaker (Nike’s world shoe) was a large flop here. Li Ning may hold the #3 spot, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Last Week’s Terrorism Arrests:
And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don’t be terrorized. They terrorize more of us if they kill some of us, but the dead are beside the point. If we give in to fear, the terrorists achieve their goal even if they were arrested. If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose — even if their attacks succeed.
Bruce Schneier’s (Worlds best known Cryptographer/Digital security expert) words about Terrorism… I wish this is something that would be recited in the USA right along side the pledge of allegiance. The pledge not to let the terrorists win….
