4 great Photos

Yes, I felt like I went back in time.  The first three photos were taken while I tried setting up the tax terminal, printer and computer for doing biz in motherland.  The last photo was the "secured" USB certificate device for my company banking needs in motherland.  

I felt being r!P ped 0fF spending close to 2K CAD for these equipments. I wasted 2 hours trying to adjust the printing of the invoices.  Well... #1, the alignment was wrong.  I had to use a pryer to yank out the metal stop so I can adjust the feeding track left and right.  After that, I spent 10 sheets of test invoices to do alignment.  In the end, couldn't.  #1, the printing had a bug in it I found out.  I had to close the tax program entirely before I can print another invoice.  Didn't matter that I do with the track adjustment for the paper feed, I still couldn't get the printing aligned at all!  Crap, crap crap!!!

According to a local friend, only the top part visible is OK.  The rest, didn't matter.  Gee....

While doing the printing adjustment, I had to deal with the constant W7 updates shutting down my computer.  Annoying to the Nth degree.  Yes, the computer language was in Chine$e only ;-) 

 

 

 

 

share

See this screen? It was made available to my mobile phone after inserting the Unic0m SIM card. I got 3G and I can pair it w/ a computer via Bluetooth as a wireless broadband router. This meant, I can surf the web anywhere in Motherland with the pairing.

Last month, I used it once because the motherland telecom was having such a bad connection that I had to use my mobile connecting to my computer to check email and IMs.

If I were to use the Samsung Galaxy S phone, I can make this sharing up to 5 devices. The poor battery and the data cost. Yikes.

proof read

Read the 3rd paragraph. I wonder if the translation was done by non-native English speaker. Perhaps the cost cutting went a bit too deep?

what a treat

Last day in Singapore. After a nice light protein filled b'fast, I was recharged. My destination was another hotel in the city. We could not obtain a 3rd night from M Hotel, full. From the Telecommunication conference. I managed getting a booking at the Regent Hotel, just off Orchard Road. It was a Four Seasons hotel.

I arrived shortly after 1pm. At the Receptionist desk, "sorry sir, we don't have your requested room with King size bed available; I upgraded you to a one-bedroom suite with 2 twin beds. They are big enough to have two people in one bed". Alright, whatever worked, I wasn't too fuzz about it. Man, what a room! Sorry, a suite. Too bed we only stayed for one night. I could have a family of four staying with room to spare. Nice....

After an afternoon of errands, I finally got a chance to lie on the couch to watch TV. News. Then by 5pm, I had to do the civilized thing - headed to the lounge on the 2nd floor for a drink or two. See pic here. It was happy hours - 2 for 1. And a complimentary small little burger - to soak up the alcohol. Notice my iPad. Yes, I was catching up to some iOS 4 programming book. Dry.. Just like my Martini. :-P

Iron-wife and I decided to have Italian at the hotel. The name: Basilico. Now, I highly recommended it!!! Yes, RECOMMENDED. The chef was from Italy. He knew his stuff. The restaurant was recommended by a friend of ours from Shanghai. He was a loyal Regent customer for the last 20 years. Long history.

Anyway, Basilico is a must for everyone to try in Singapore. Why? The menu was simple but the food was exactly what Italians eat. We only did the salad bar and dessert bar. The salad bar was SGD 27.00 while the dessert bar was SGD 15.00. The Salad bar was a feast! Green salads, squid salad, all sorts of Italian ham and sausages, the cheese... The kicker was the different types of flavoured honey. My flavourite was the truffle honey. Dripped it on my cheese. Wow...

Yes, anyone who came through Singapore and wanting to have a light classy Italian meal, Bacilico is a must in my opinion. Soooo good...

SIN b'fast

Traditional Singapore b'fast in the morning.

In the tray, I had a cup of strong coffee, toasts w/ butter and two poached eggs (a bit runny but that was the style). All for SGD 2.50 (CAD 1.98). Light and nutritious. Had all the major food groups I wanted: Caffeine, protein and carb. Good enough portion, not too big.

Then, if I want more energy for the day, I picked up a small slice of peanut butter sandwich. Real peanut butter. Not the Jiff kind. That was SGD 1.00 (CAD 0.79).

So there you have it.... b'fast from this morning was cheaper than the golden arches SGD4.00 of coffee, artery hardened hash brown and egg mc***fin. Or a cup of SB coffee.....

I have found a the Singapore local equivalent of SB's expresso. There was a food shop that served similar b'fast here. The coffee was stronger. Same size cup as my b'fast this morning. SGD 1.00. So yummy.....

leak

Wow, what a leak!  This was taken from a blogger in our beloved city of 20+ millions.  We are in the plum rain season or rather torrential downpour days....   See the water pouring in?  Well, that was inside a subway cart on the #3 line.  Scary huh?  In 2 years, we have over 12 lines.  Wonder what construction work there were!!!! 

O yeah, the subway prepared over 13 thousand sandbags for water pouring back into the subway entrances the last week.  

Wonder what it blames this time, weather, technical difficulties or "interesting" construction work.  

I best stay away from using the underground carts for a while.  Can you imagine the smell when trying to dry up in a not so dry condition?  Mole... And you can't really turn the air cond on as electric shots... 

More on Galaxy

When I got the phone in the box, I thought I was getting an iPhone 4. Both boxes looked identical. Tried opening the Samsung box, man I needed iron finger grips. Totally, vacuumed tight. After I managed opening it up, I was instantly stared back by a phone with a wrap looked exactly like the iPhone 4. Peeling through layers of packaging, I was having a deja vu - with the iPhone. Even down to the tab lifting the upper layer of packaging. Really! No wonder $@msung is being sued by fruity company. Shame on you!

Powered it up and the icons presented to me were "just like iPhone 4" down to the colours for the icons - Contacts, Messages and Call

I got two batteries from Samsung rather than one. Cool. The headset colour was black not white. The in-ear headset has only one side of plug: super large. Admittedly I am a big a$$ h0Le but this in-ear headset was BIGGER. Ha! I couldn't fit into my ears. There were no other fittings for the in-ear pieces.

Downloading apps, it was not from one place - Marketplace. It was "all over the map". Some in Marketplace while some within vendor websites.

I really do not want to flow my personal calendar on Google Calendar (security reasons) and then sync the events back down. Getting MIssing Sync to do the calendar syncing costs about USD40.00. No guarantee that things will sync properly.

The way for me to use this Android phone is: how much can I allow myself to "miss" from the phone calendar. That is being of value to me while I roam a town with calendar entries for dinner, lunch, show bookings etc. My initial purpose is having mobile phones as backup devices. That way, if computer is down I have a Smart backup device. I can still functioning just on a smaller screen. I think I will stick w/ the iPhones. I will be happier and less frustrated w/ "what were they thinking?".

Mobile Phones compared

As part of my pursue of knowing more about smartphone features for mobility, I picked up an Android phone by Samsung. It was a Galaxy S i1900. A similar spec device as iPhone 4.

I expected some learning curve and a little bit of "What the..", "Stupid", "What were these people thinking" reactions. Just need to remind myself, think NOT how iPhone works here.

My requirement were simple:

1) able to sync my contacts automatically
2) able to sync my calendar entries from my Apple's iCal automatically to the Android phone and to my iPhone
3) use my regular apps such as: Chinese-English translation, Skype, etc...
4) new apps using a 3G SIM card - Maps, "locate me", emails, "help me find..."
5) texting, prediction typing
6) able to use bluetooth to download pics and videos taken from the phone
7) subscribe and listen to my podcasts
8) ringtones

This is a big list. So I will chunk it up to several blog posts.

Start with the simplest one: Ringtones. The default ones came with the phone suck with all caps! Why? There's no normal tones. All in some "alien" music to me. I need to create my own or download from somewhere, copy it to the external micro-SD card and then load them to the phone. Great no problem. I can pair my MBA w/ the Galaxy no problem. The real issue comes that the MBA cannot see any of the files stored on the micro-SD card via Bluetooth. I need to take the card out of the phone, put it to a regular size SD card adapter and then insert it to the SD card slot of my MBA. O... look at that.. Everything shows up! Dumb!!!! Yes, Bluetooth pairing. It's BLUE in your face and you still not getting anywhere. Tooth, it gives you a toothache trying to get files out.... If I were to send a file from my MBA to the Galaxy phone, it worked but still not able to see the files in the Bluetooth file browser. Figure that out.

Contact syncing.... Yes, works great if you put all your Contact information to the "Cloud". That is, Google's online Cantact that is part of your Gmail. I am sure I want to do that as my Contact info also contains other personal information. Once "released" to the Cloud, anyone can get to it. And I don't care what the company said. So in order for me to transfer all my contacts over, from my MBA I need to export all of them as Vcards. Then Bluetooth paired the phone, copy this Vcard file over to the phone and then import them to the phone's Contact. Worked fine except my customized types could not be used. Now I have phone numbers labeled like "Singapore phone", "China phone", etc... are all labeled as "Home". Needless to say, a bit "What the F^*()..." happened.

Calendar syncing... With iPhone, I can use the cord came w/ connecting to the phone and the computer. Via iTune. That's safe as my own personal info goes from my computer to the phone through this little white wire. With Google, it's the Cloud baby. I need to sync it via 3G connection or Wi-Fi access from the phone. I enter my info either from the Google Calendar online or create a CalDev connection from my iCal. Why I am paranoid about syncing to the Cloud? Because the information is out there and someone can get to it. You are trusting the other side to make sure your information is private. You give away your privacy for a little of convenient. I don't. I take the paranoid approach. For me to sync then? From the iCal, I need to create double-entries for each event I want to appear on my iPhone and Android. One for the computer itself or syncing and one for the CalDev for Google Calendar. This is the absolute free way. Of course, I can buy Missing Sync to sync. But, I need to worry about the compatible version between this Missing Sync software and the Android phone's firmware version. I am tied to other people's capability for my needs. Restrictive... No way.

Now, how do you suppose a normal person just want to use the phone and the computer calendar and contact with different platforms feels? I don't know.

Subscribe and listen to my podcasts are easy. I went to the Android's Market place and downloaded a program called BeyondPodcast. Worked like a charm. The only problem... yes... Need to get a website from the web-browser to get to a podcast link. Or you can just type in the entire podcast URL to subscribe. Too techie......

Translation app, I still cannot find one that was as easy as my iPhone one. The search from the Android Market gives back lots of "garbage". If I can't find what I want in less than 30 seconds, I have no patient for it. And I consider it to be a a BIG zero for me.

Let say, I had to do a lot of Googling to find what I need to do with "normal" operations of a phone. Time consuming..... So far, my impression is: I am wasting time to get myself up and running on this Android platform. I can do better with only two iPhones. One for travel SIMs and one for my roaming China mobile. But that's not good either as the new iPhone 4 and beyond will have smaller and smaller SiM card sizes. My local SIMs from different countries are regular sizes..... Hence I was looking at phone options for travel.

O yeah, one annoying thing about this Android phone OR can be a good thing was: after the battery was removed and reattached to the phone, the Gmail passwords for all my various accounts were gone! I had to re-enter every single one of them. Was a non-documented feature. I have to remember too many little gritty things about this phone so I can use it. I should get a degree with it.

To lock this phone, there is no delay settings from the Galaxy or any other Android phones! iPhone has its so I can stay online before it locks itself. Android does not have this feature. Read an article last night that I can purchase an App to do that for about 2.99. "What the f&%*^(...".

The really good thing for this Android phone is it renders Adobe Flash straight from the web browser. I can look at any website online unlike the iPhone. And also the Maps and its "locate" feature using GPS. So convenient to be able to locate where I was and then say "find me this and that". That was so good.... so plugged in.

Typing... yes. I could only switch between two keyboards. I couldn't do English, pinyin Chinese and handwriting Chinese. Annoying.... And the keyboard switching option so stupid and dumb. I had to think reverse. When the option said "ENG", this meant I was in Chinese keyboard mode. When it said "中文", it meant I was in English mode. Huh? The Swype keyboard was the only one that could do English prediction word that I was aware of. Really! The Swype supposed to be convenient to type. Basically you swipe from letter to letter, the software will predict the word for you giving you a selection. Great idea. I had to learn how to do strokes so I can use it. And the prediction never work for me no matter if I clicked on the correct letter to start! O yeah, that's the only typing software English prediction was provided. Huh? If there were another one that had, I failed to find it anywhere.

Basically is down to this: Can I put up w/ the Geekiness vs userbility factor? So far, I am leaning toward the not my phone scenario until I see what changes come with the new iCloud. This fruity company is not known to have good Internet-based technology. And security wise is pretty p0000r. If new fruity devices force me to put all my personal stuff on the Cloud for "Convenience", I am switching. I might have to end up writing something for myself to use. ...... Wind0w$ m0---bile phones, what's that?

Future MFM

It's massive in the making. Not sure how this will pan out. A new transport link, an across Pearl Delta bridge will connect Macau, Hong Kong and China right at the mouth the Pearl River. The first pic is one of the three foundations being built for this bridge. The environmental study was "fast tracked". In double-quotes. This one is just next to the Macau ferry terminal and a bridge linking Macau to the Cotai Strip. The direction of the vehicles are heading toward Chinese border crossing at Gongbei, Zhuhai. Just think about the traffic jam coming in about 3 years with this new link. Ummm.... Casino revenues going up with so much easy access?

Second pic was a view from the Macau Ferry terminal waiting room looking out to Taipa. The third pic was a zoom from the same angle. Cotai Strip was just to the right edge of the pic where all major US Casino owners have their stakes.

All these pics were taken by a Samsung Galaxy S Android phone's 5M-pixels internal camera.

what a sight

I was on the roof of the Macau APT tonight with mom and dad. I realized what a monstrosity Hotel Grand Lisboa was! Look compared to the apartment complexes next to it. Can you image the residents of the apartments facing this thing at night? All the flashing neon lights in front of you! Yikes.

BTW, I took this with a Samsung Galaxy S mobile phone. It's a geek phone and I am growing to fond of it. Compared to the iPhone 4, I am "cord free"!!!! And it's half the thickness of the iPhone 4. And.... It's lighter! Much lighter!!!! Right now, I am getting all my emails on all the accounts there. I am downloading my podcasts directly from the webpage to the Beyond, a podcast player from this Samsung phone.

BTW, this phone is Android-based. It by Google. The OS is getting mature. Scary though is the packaging from inside out looked exactly like iPhone 4 packaging. Even the screen layout, the colour of the icons for each program.

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view

It meant to be a very nice pic; when I looked across, the sky was clear and the view was so sharp. Too bad the iPhone 3G S has a "crappy" sensor. The iPhone 4 would have taken very nice image for sure.

The bridge was the second bridge connecting Macau and the Cotai Strip. This bridge was just next to the Macau Ferry Terminal.

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done

Finally, we are ready for business! Why? I got the officially endorsed training required to do the tax reporting online and issuing official tax receipts.

Just want to share the location.

All Offici@l offices were so huge that they took up acres of valuable lands - no matter how poor a pr0 V!nce was. To do this important thing, here was the location. An industrial small complex with cheap big signs and printed characters on the wall announcing the training room. That's for ALL busine$$e$ on this side of the city. The other one was way out on an outer island where most taxi drivers were from.

The second picture with the back of the white van parked. To the right of it was where I picked up all my "goodies" to.

What an operation!

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A380

Saw this in Shanghai Pudong airport yesterday on my way out. Look, an A380!!! Wow... That many passengers between Emirates and Shanghai!!

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collection

I have to carry a keychain so to speak to manage every single account and sub-account with HSxC. And even within a company, I cannot manage anything that is NOT my name; that is a company credit card issued to another name. I have to get another fob issued to that person. Seriously.

Look at the site comparison too. The HxBC is just totally unorganized and in your face advertising with the red colour. And then you look at the SCB, so nice and calming. And the login panel was exactly where you are expected, top left corner where it is prominent. And I don't need to carry any FOB around. Account is tied in with your mobile number. Any transaction that needs to be done, an almost instant SMS with a one-time code is sent to the mobile. I enter it. Transaction through, done.

And the Summary for the account was the first thing I see once logged into the SCB site compared to HxBC that has more advertising and you have to hunt for the most important thing a user wants to know - how much do I have!

Switching is not far from me here I think.

pilgrimage

Receiving payments from clients is the primary goal of a company. We are getting close. One last step to.

Because there are so many "leakage" from t@X rep0t!n-G here within the H@rm0ni-o-U$ country, better process is needed. I am going to be trained on operating a pre-90's spec desktop machine (a requirement) with local language this coming week. This machine will allow me to issue official tax receipts to collect payments and at the same time being tracked of my honesty. Every company has to do it. No escape.

For the entire population of 23 millions people, there are only two locations that service u$. One was in the outer island to the North-Ea$t and the one $outh-West in town. The map was the $outh-West one I am heading.... for the 3rd time. It is not that far; the closest subway to my destination is about 1.5K away. Taxi through and through. 21 minutes? Nope.. More like 45 minutes to an hour due to our ever increasing consumptive power of gas powered 4-wheelers of all kinds. The more expensive, the better ;-)

After the map, the$e are the 3-page !nstructi0n$ for me.

The first page was the process flow in obtaining the machine$. Ye$, machine$. Basically !t wa$ a two-$tep proce$$. Fir$t, I needed to report to the location to pay for the machine$ and training. The two other $heet$ were my $hopping li$t which I selected my item$ and paid for them - Mandatory for some item$. Then I headed home. Patiently waiting for the Le@der$ calling me back for a $econd time to attend the training.

If I were to use my own desktop computer for thi$, I would have carry my box (desktop) to the reporting centre during my first visit. The technician checked out if the computer and the operating system would be compatible. Yes, the spec were: 1) Desktop with RS-232 port and a parallel port and 2) valid copy of Chinese version of MS operating system. Notice, RS-232 port and a parallel port, these were phased out by other better technologies since the mid 90's. Then on my second visit, I have to carry back the same desktop for the technician to install the tax software. I lack my sessions with my PT so I opted for a new set of everything.

For my first visit to the reporting centre, I spent:
- tax terminal to record my issuing through the RS-232 port: 1,580
- an HP desktop specifically for the tax software talking to the terminal and to print: 3,380
- the dot matrix machine to print the official tax receipts: 3,580 (cost more than a desktop :-( )
- software to export the invoicing details to excel: 580 (the comment section on that line said, eventually, the tax department will require this detail reporting and it's great for your accountant. OK)
- practice tax receipts: 10.00 ( the official blank tax receipts will have to be purchased at the tax bureau)
- ink for printer: 180.00

My final spending for the reporting: RMB 9,300.00 or so plus my round trip taxi rides of about RMB 120.00.

Wednesday visit for my training, I will have to spend more. I need to get a car to haul all the computer equipment home by myself. I am looking at about RMB 400.00

bulllet train

Was I doing a "Fast-pass matching" in Convesant term looking at the heading from Bl00M beeeerg news online article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-02/beijing-shanghai-bullet-train-targets-flyers-fed-up-with-delays.html   I would say, "Yes, I did".  What the term "Fast-pass matching" is to form your opinion about a person or a thing in less than 5 seconds even though you might not know the whole story.  This attitude causes conflict and potential of creating value.  

In this instance, this article, I am not sure I failed per se.  The article editor seems to be a Westerner living in Asia, I think he is based in HKG.  

Anyway, what I saw was a cursory reporting and lack insights.  Maybe because the article is only related to finance hence other "issues" are not of concern.  Ah.. I see how I am moving up in the Conversation Meter now...  

Couple points I like to add to this article are:

IMHO, the speed slow down is not directly proportion to the affordability of the ticket for the public.  Rather, the party secretary in charge of the railroad was arrested for bribery associated to railroad expansion at the princely sum of 100 million RMB.  Immediately after that, the entire nation railroad network was under "safety check".  Preliminary said "ok".  The speed slow down could have been due to that.  Ripping the rail lines up and fix them properly?  Ummm.....  Vibration from passing trains can do a lot of shaking.  Overtime.......  you can draw the pictures.  So hurry come try the new train now!!!

Since the start of the new class of train, the schedules for "D" class and "T" class of services were slowly eliminated.  Migrant workers just cannot afford the new train ticket pricing.  To build a consensus, have to provide a "showing" of FOR the people.  

Started on June 1, everyone who buys a train ticket must show valid IDs.  23 types were endorsed.  Before, WE the Westerner just like everyone else here can just walk up and purchase ticket.  I was so amazed in March that we could just walked up to an automatic ticket boot and get bullet train tickets in less than 2 minutes.  No waiting time, no long lines, fast and convenient.  Then, being a suspicious A$$ H0   le that I was I wondered about flow tracking - the human kind.  It was a big hole.  Sure enough, we now have.  Everyone must carry ID and the tickets are printed like airline tickets here - name = ID number = photo.  Opppsss... I should not have think it out so loud.  On the surface, it was to fight ticket scalpers and fake tickets.  That was for sure, I agree but the bigger picture was "intelligent collection" ;-)   O right, for us Westerner we need to call in advance to book our tickets and then walk up to the ticket counters to pay and pick them up.  Convenient huh? 

Over the last few months, I see more of the tightening rather than relaxing.  On the surface, there were some forms of that but underneath that layer, more restrictions.  This type of policy I can understand, a vast country with everyone on micro-blogging, mobile SMS messages and a still innocent thinking, someone needs to control the message flow.  I don't fault the policy.  This country is going through a transition culturally, technologically and morally.  Let see how things shake out.