David Ding's Tech Blog

NO Post for too long

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:18:00 +0000

I came back to China this May and spent 2 months here already... traveled quite a bit and more importantly, learned a lot! I love catching up with friends and discussing new ideas and improvements. That's what I'd love to do!

However, a doer is someone who does what he/she is committed to do. right now my commitment is on my studies as I'm finally finishing it soon! it's been quite a couple of years!

all the best to friends who just attended their graduation ceremony in Singapore, US and else where. Congratulations to you! You deserve a big celebration with people love you and you love!

have a good one!

Swine Flu Live Map

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:14:00 +0000

Here is a live Google Map on the live information of the Swine Flu "outbreak".
Here is the link.
For more information, you shall visit wikipedia.org and it has the updated information as long as it is available. Kudos to the people working behind the updates to make sure we get the latest information!
here is the 2009 Swine Flu Outbreak wikipedia page.

WHO has raise the level of alertness to Phase 5.

Please don't take it as a joke any more! it's not funny.

Susan Boyle - MOST STUNNING in HISTORY

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:25:00 +0000

Check out this youtube video!
It's really stunning and I've not gotten this stunned for a VERY VERY LONG TIME!
what a motivation!
All the best SUSAN!
I'll support and follow you! =)

Google Disabled my Adsense Account

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:38:00 +0000

I was totally shocked when I received an email from Google telling me that my AdSense account has been disabled due to invalid click activities!
I checked the terms and condition again and I don't find I have violated any of the prohibited use!
I do admit that I clicked on the ads myself... I find some of the Ads are very relevant to me!
One of them is Pfingo by Starhub in Singapore... Their VoIP rates are very good and I can use it on my Nokia N81 to make Internet calls. It's 2 cents a minute for local calls and some other countries!

I've already made an appeal to Google and hope it will get done! if not, i'll be totally diappointed! Yes... TOTALLY!

Unconference SG 2009

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:28:00 +0000

(copied & pasted)

We’re currently working on unConference 2009 that is slated to happen on 16th May. It will be a full day event, much longer than the last one, taking place from 9am till 6+pm. Last year, we took a slightly different approach by combining an exhibition, keynote presentation, user generated breakout sessions and startup pitches. While we received good feedback for this arrangement, we also got a lot of constructive feedback on how we could further improve the breakout sessions, make the scedule more flexible and improve the pitching sessions. And of course, people wanted to see much more new startups! We listened to all the feedback, brainstormed and came up with an improved version this year. While it still ain’t perfect and needs a lot more tweaking, bear with us and provide us with more feedback so that we can all have the best unConference so far.

Here’s a quick snapshot on what’s different from last year and this year.

Keynote Session
unConference 2008: We had a sponsored keynote session by Microsoft. The speaker talked about marketing and some cool stuff Microsoft was working on.
unConference 2009: This time round, we’re planning on flying in a speaker from overseas. Someone who understands web technology and has a global (or maybe regional) perspective on what’s happening with the web scene, trends developing in the various regions (like how China has been booming with virtual goods and USA is still lagging behind) etc.

Breakout Sessions
unConference 2008: We had 6 breakout sessions in total. They were sporadic and topics were all over the place. Feedback for this was that more breakout sessions could have been catered for and some congruence in the topics would have been good too.
unConference 2009: This time round, we’re catering for much more sessions, more than 10 hopefully, if we can find them! We’re trying to group sessions together such that there’s an overall theme. This may be difficult but we will try our best. You can access the breakout application form and start posting your sessions now.

Startups Pitching
unConference 2008: We received all sorts of feedback for this. Some really good, some really bad. Some attendees felt that it was a great platform for startups as it allowed them to reach out to a large audience and receive dedicated attention all at once. However, others felt that the startups were not ready and the session was too draggy. We agree with both sides.
unConference 2009: We’re changing it slightly this time round. We haven’t fully decided if we’re going to open the pitching session to all startups, but we’re pretty sure that we’re not scraping this section out completely. This time round, we’re having the startup pitching as a separate sessions where attendees interested in the pitches can go view them, while the rest engage in the exhibition etc. We hope this will cater to the various interests and will give attendees more freedom on what they want to engage in.

Exhibition
unConference 2008: This was probably everyone’s favorite part. Everyone loved the startups featured, nothing bad here :)
unConference 2009: We’re taking a bold step forward this time round. We’re trying to reach out, not just to local startups, but to regional startups as well. And this time round, we’re increasing the numbers to 30! We hope to get as much quality applications as possible. We can’t do this along and we need your help, so keep your eyes open for the good one. Startups interested in the exhibition (no fees) can apply here.

So what else is there?
1) We’re bringing in case studies this time, maybe 2 sessions. We believe that its important for startups to share how they did something important (it can be good or bad), so we’re working with startups (or ex startups cuz we’re not discounting those who have failed) who have an interesting case to share with the attendees.
2) We’re trying to see how to liven it up a bit so we may introduce a music element. More on this as we firm up the details
3) Deeper schedule that allows more choice with more tracks and options (keynotes, breakouts, case studies, pitches, exhibition).
4) What else would you like to see that we may have missed out? Send me your feedback!

Interested in hosting a breakout session (no sales pitches please)? Send us your application now!
Got a startup that you want to exhibit? Do it right now!
Any other feedback? Send me your feedback!
Wanna volunteer and be part of the community team? Let’s chat!

We’re still working on the website so as soon as it’s up, we will update all of you on it. :)

We’re looking forward to this and we hope you are too.

Viral effect - phenomenal on Xiaonei.com

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:58:00 +0000

If you are my friends, you have probably been updated via the news feed about the event I posted the day before. It's the BASE 2009 April event!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=69649442711&ref=mf
I invited about 90 friends who have been part of BASE or they might be interested in the April event. By now, 20 friends have responded.

let us see what has happened on xiaonei.com.
I only created this event last night and over night I've got 70 responses (I receive message update for those who have responded a "yes"). What's more astonishing is that: I DID NOT invite anyone at all. Jiangxue shared the event after he saw my activity feed on his page probably and then I don't know what happened afterwards. I logged in this morning and checked the inbox - 47 replies. and I check again just now and I received another20 responses.

This is very interesting to see the comparison on how viral it is on these two different systems. I have to say, Facebook is getting more and more sluggish nowadays for the activities feeds. Both ways, my friends' activities to appear on my home page or my activities to appear on their home. I don't know if the number of friends have contributed a significant part making the feeding process so slow. the number of friends I have on facebook is more than 4 times of xiaonei.com.

Anyway, I also tried kaixin001.com. Because I don't have that many friends there. I just posted as a note there instead of an event. I don't think i managed to find the equivalent event application on kaixin001.com. Kaixin001.com will be a very good platform to publicize our BASE event as we want to have more local entrepreneurs to be part of our network!

Hope we will have a great event! I'm a little bit concerned about how things will work out on the even day as the responses we've gotten is overwhelming good!

Cheers!

BASE @ SG

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:02:00 +0000

I'm planning to launch BASE in Singapore... i shall give it a name...
how about BASE@SG...
I want to focus on doing business in China... it would be interesting to bring entrepreneurs who have tried and explored China market to talk about their lessons learned.

feel excited!
i shall think about the details more over the vacation period. lots of exciting initiatives...
continue our triangular relationship CHINA-SINGAPORE-US.... i've done it in china and US... now it's time to work on something in Singapore about China...

Happy April st1!

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:05:00 +0000

did you get tricked or fooled yet?

well, please spend some time having fun!

Foxmarks to Xmarks

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:57:00 +0000

Do you like to have your Firefox bookmarks portable and go with you whichever terminal computer you might use? if it is a yes, you should definitely try out Foxmarks and it is newly known as Xmarks!

Xmarks is a Firefox plug-in and you can upload your Firefox bookmarks to your account on Xmarks' server, so you can synchronize your bookmarks regardless of location, OS systems or PC ownership. Certainly, to enjoy that, you need an account with Xmarks and it is free.
What's new and cool about Xmarks is that when you do google search, on the search result display page you will find additional butterfly buttons providing additional information to help you screen the result and find the relevant ones. It looks really clean and cool. No click is necessary unless you are sure to be redirected to the site. If someone has booked that URL before, that button will show up on the right side of the display result and everything is mouse-over, meaning you don't have to click and see what more information the additional buttons bring to you.

I've been holding an account with foxmarks for a couple of years. I find it very helpful and useful. I can access the same set of bookmarks on different computers on my univeristy campus and also in the two systems on my mbp. I think this is something will help you with your Internet Use Efficiency!

kaixin.com & Kaixin001.com which one is fake?

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:22:00 +0000

if you try searching kaixin using google or baidu, you will probably find both websites!
which one is the copy of the other? I don't know! but I did got to know kaixin001.com first. it was introduced to me by an ex-sina employee. I did not get onto it as there were many friends back then yet... after almost a year... i guess lots of my friends have gotten onto Kaixin001.com... I think it's the REAL one!
Nevertheless, i did receive invitation from Kaixin.com sent by some friends... it's very confusing now which one is the REAL one to the mass! lots of people might just get onto kaixin.com because they've heard of it... it's a domain name game in this case!

the domain name kaixin.com won't be cheap... compared to 10 years ago!
please do watch out which one is the Kaixin network you want to join!

Economy turmoil really hits Singapore

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:22:00 +0000

(source: BBC news)

I guess it's pretty sad to hear all the bad news about economy of the place where you live and study/work. I guess that's the hard fact- the economy is really bad!
However, don't give up! Economy downturn does not mean the end of the world. To certain extent, it started to make people think thoroughly who they are and what they can do. So do the companies started thinking, what they did right and what went wrong. It's a good time for reflection and correction and also start to focus on the ACTUAL development and growth of individuals and companies.

If you are hunting a job, ALL the best! If you are looking for talents, good luck!

Long-sightedness and Astigmatism

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:37:00 +0000

Hyperopia, also known as far-sightedness, long-sightedness or hypermetropia, is a defect of vision caused by an imperfection in the eye (often when the eyeball is too short or when the lens cannot become round enough), causing difficulty focusing on near objects, and in extreme cases causing a sufferer to be unable to focus on objects at any distance. As an object moves toward the eye, the eye must increase its power to keep the image in focus on the retina. If the power of the cornea and lens is insufficient, as in hyperopia, the image will appear blurred.
Hyperopia, and restoring of vision with convex lens.
People with hyperopia can experience blurred vision, asthenopia, accommodative dysfunction, binocular dysfunction, amblyopia, and strabismus.^[1]
Hyperopia is often confused with presbyopia,^[2]^[3] another condition that frequently causes blurry near vision.^[4] Presbyopes who report good far vision typically experience blurry near vision because of a reduced accommodative amplitude brought about by natural aging changes with the crystalline lens.^[4] It is also sometimes referred to as farsightedness, since in otherwise normally-sighted persons it makes it more difficult to focus on near objects than on far objects.^[5]

[source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_sightedness]

Astigmatism is an optical defect in which vision is blurred due to the inability of the optics of the eye to focus a point object into a sharp focused image on the retina. This may be due to an irregular or toric curvature of the cornea or lens. There are two types of astigmatism, regular and irregular. Irregular astigmatism is often caused by a corneal scar or scattering in the crystalline lens and cannot be corrected by standard spectacle lenses. Irregular astigmatism of the cornea can be corrected by contact lenses. Regular astigmatism arising from either the cornea or crystalline lens can be corrected by a toric lens. A toric surface resembles the surface of an American football or a doughnut where there are two regular radii, one smaller than another. This optical shape gives rise to regular astigmatism in the eye. ^[1] The first spectacle lenses that corrected astigmatism were made in Philadelphia in 1841.
The refractive error of the astigmatic eye stems from a difference in degree of curvature refraction of the two different meridians (i.e., the eye has different focal points in different planes.) For example, the image may be clearly focused on the retina in the horizontal (sagittal) plane, but not in front of the retina in the vertical (tangential) plane. Astigmatism causes difficulties in seeing fine detail, and in some cases vertical lines (e.g., walls) may appear to the patient to be tilted. The astigmatic optics of the human eye can often be corrected by spectacles, hard contact lenses or contact lenses that have a compensating optic, cylindrical lens (i.e. a lens that has different radii of curvature in different planes), contact lenses, or refractive surgery.
[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astigmatism_(eye) ]

these might be the reasons causing my poorer left eyesight, compared to my right eyesight. anyway, my right eyesight is perfect.

just a side note, I guess I also belong to the Wikipedia generation!

Finally New Facebook Home

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:21:00 +0000

Totally like the new Facebook home!

It kinda reminds me of the twitter home. you know what? I love the twitter home, though it's pretty hard to find your own. =p However, Facebook finally introduced something that they wanted to introduce long ago. Remember they first announced that they were going to change the facebook look-and-feel? I guess there was overwhelming responses about how good or how bad that move was. Nevertheless, they did and it was pretty cool! much nicer and more intuitive than before, despite some of the small things that we find irritated about... checking your own wall. because you have to click on your profile to see what your friends have left no your wall.

I guess it's easier now! It's back to the 3 column layout. I really like the right column where I can find out more what's the hottest event, pages, etc. that my friends are attending or following!

nice! well done, Facebook! you deserve a pat on your shoulder! I guess many pats, as it were the efforts of the team. Thank you!

thumb size, small talk

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:25:00 +0000

have you seen the latest iPod Shuffle?
It's so small... really in the size of a thumb, maybe even smaller!~
how cool! for 4Gb it costs $79 dollars... well... still more expensive and a typical thumb drive... but you can play music with it and it comes with some buttons and earphones AND it's from APPLE!
I'm not advertising here but just want to share with you that it is worth taking a look at how small talks really work. ^^ I've not gotten one and don't think I will get one with my two iPod videos (30 Gb). It looks very slick, doesn't it?

(image from Apple.com)

For more info, http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/

I was wondering where did the control buttons go... well... fewer buttons now... they have this new feature called VoiceOver. It talks to you. it will have to work with your iTunes to make sure it does not talk nonsense. If you are fascinated by how it looks, go and visit an Apple store to feel it! i know I'm going to feel it at an apple store!

Exploring Facebook Home Page

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:02:00 +0000

If you are a facebook user, you must how the news feed on your home page!

have you discovered there is an arrow at the end of all the tabs?

Have you clicked on it and find out what that is about?

Apparently, I did not even notice when it came out! I guess it was only a few weeks back, I discovered that i can view feeds by friend lists! that's so cool! I do group my friends based on interests, like entrepreneurs; or how we met, like we stayed in the same hostels before; or we have done something together... lots of group indeed. I guess i have over 20 lists. some of them are repeated lists for the ease of inviting them to events or groups... I remember the maximum number of friends you can invite to an event is limited to 100. to make my life easier, I just add 99 friends to a list and create another one to continue the list if there are more than 100 friends belong to that list!

it's cool to find out specific information on what you classmates are doing, what your hall friends are doing, what your buddies are doing, or what are you friends from a particular group are doing... very nice and very neat!

I really enjoy this feature as it really demonstrated the development of the news feed feature, which has evolved, I believe, quite a bit. Thanks again for having such a good small feature!

What is ALL?

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:49:00 +0000

ALL?

it is a type of blood cancel and it 's full name is called Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.

"ALL starts with a change to a single cell in the bone marrow. Scientists are studying the exact genetic changes that cause a normal cell to become an ALL cell.

Few factors have been associated with an increased risk of developing ALL. Exposure to high doses of radiation therapy used to treat other types of cancer is one known risk factor. Other possible risk factors are continually under study. ALL is not contagious (catching).

ALL occurs at different rates in different geographic locations. There are higher rates in more developed countries and in higher socioeconomic groups. Scientists continue to explore possible relationships with life-style or environmental factors but no firm conclusions have yet been reached. This suggests that many factors may be involved. At the present time there is no known way to prevent the disease."

source here.

Lately, I got to know that an acquaintance of mine was diagnosed with ALL. I think it just happened last week. The acquaintance was hospitalized and went through a series of diagnosis. The family members are getting the travel documents process to fly over here to take care of her.

God, please protect her.

Why do you blog?

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:21:00 +0000

hi there,

Do you have a blog? How often do you blog? and Why do you blog?

This questions seemed very very old and were asked long time ago seemingly.

just like do you have a cell? how often do you use your cell and why do use your cell?

I guess nowadays you seldom hear people ask you the same questions for using cell phones.

so what's the big deal about blogging, right?

Where is blogging in the technology adoption curve? It has certainly passed the visionary and early adoption stage.... and I believe it has entered mainstream market... As you can discover, many many enterprises started having blog as part of their corporate blogs. well, you may wonder what blogs have to do with corporate. what's interesting is that some decades ago, technology innovation centered around enterprise because that's the only customers would pay for something useful for them. Ever since technology applications entered end-consumers, we are talking about individuals, as somewhat personal, things had changed. Technology innovation driving force started slowly moving from enterprise to consumers, as more and more consumers began to pay for services like that. So where are we today? Personally, I think the transition is still going on and we are in the stage of innovation driven by both enterprises and consumers (their needs and demands). that's why we can see clearly from the market segmentation (enterprise market and consumer market) and business models (B2C, C(2B)2C and B2B etc. ) that we seem to have two main driving forces now instead sole one in the past. More so the consumer sides started to gain more and more attention from the enterprises because their dear own employees are fortunately (or unfortunately) the users of those consumer services/products/applications. so called "what works at home is going back to the office. "

Blogging started with consumers, at least it was the mass made blogging such a big deal. Then, the corporates started to utilize (hopefully not abuse) blogging as the additional avenue to do marketing, PR, sales, customer services... just name it... all kinds of areas that different enterprises have used blogs for..

coming back to the question "where we are in the technology adoption curve." i guess for the consumer market it is still in the early mainstream (if we consider cell phones are in their mainstream or late mainstream). Therefore, there are definitely people in this world, even in the developed economies, have not heard of blog despite that they might have been in contact with blogs in various forms. just like, there are still people in the US have not seen or used a computer before. Certainly, there are a lot more people in other parts of the world, especially Asia, Africa and South America.

think again "why do you blog?" before giving a vague answer...

to be honest, just like if you ask me why I use a cell phone? the immediate answer on top of my head might be "I must have one... it's convenient.... blah... blah... blah..." in fact, i use cellphone much less nowadays compared to 3 years ago...

for me, to have this blog, it is really to jot down some thoughts of mine and to share those with other people... yes, it is the fundamental behavior - communication... but in the way of self-expression.

I was at BlogOUT! 2009 yesterday and at the last part, such topic came up. one reason of blogging was to GET ATTENTION. Not matter how you argue, it can always be pinned down to that point of seeking attention. Thus, the main reasons become more important!

Where Should You register your first startup company?

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:24:00 +0000

A friend of mine just started working on his idea in Beijing, which really made me think extra hard... where shall one register and start his/her very first startup company?
As lots of media has published, Singapore ranked #1 the easiest place in Asia to start a company. However, from my experience, it's darn simple for Singaporean citizens and Permanent Residents. I've not figured out how to register a sole foreign owned company in Singapore yet. Maybe, one has to have a local partner.

Another destination might be Hong Kong, as more and more Google Ads pop up on my Blog suggesting that Hong Kong has very good policies for starting companies... Yes, I guess it is. When i was attending some legal structures of a company in Beijing and else where, Hong Kong always poped out as one of the place to have a registered company to fulfil certain requirement to get listed publicly. Certainly, Hong Kong does not have a restriction of the nationality to register a company there.

where else? Silicon Valley? Stockholm?
Lots to discover! These are real matters to discover. It will help make a solid decision!~

OR
do you even need to register a company to start working on your ideas?

Facebook's New Home Page

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:11:00 +0000

I saw a short notice on the info bar at facebook home page... they are going to introduce to us the new home page very soon!

For detailed site tour, you shall go there.

I think I'll like it more as it went back to the tradition 3 columns instead of the current 2 columns. even though I'm on the current home page for all the while, somehow I still don't like it... I often could not find the right page that I wanted. home page is only to view others but not myself. I had to visit the profile page to check myself out.

really looking forward to the new home page!

IBM is hiring...

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:04:00 +0000

I guess IBM does not need a HC freeze, apparently... IBM is still hiring... it's good to know that. I checked that website out and found the video is very good... a quick overview of some real problem in this world...

The video is called "tale of a smarter planet". it sounded like a documentary video. Alright.. enjoy!

If you're looking at job opportunities... don't spend too time on Jobs portals... these jobs will not go there, I guess.

are local ads better for bloggers?

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:23:00 +0000

I discovered that Nuffnang is regional/local ad network for the bloggers. I guess the advertisers are more life-style oriented with a local focus... for example, nike targeting at singapore.... or samsung targeting at the phillipines.
for blogs with a stronger presence and influence, i think nuffnang is perfect... I just installed the code and it has started working... it is pretty cool... the two ads I saw are something i'm interested. =) One is the BlogOUT! event taking place this friday and saturday in singapore and the other is a movie ad for "he's just not that into you"...

I guess for my personal interests. Google adsense still works better as it really changes with the location of the readers. I was in Shenzhen and Hong Kong last week. I tried to update my blog and I saw the ads were in traditional chinese and it was mostly for shenzhen and hong kong market... so that way, it is very localized. However, it is not very targeted enough compared to Nuffnang.

I'll continue to use both and find out how it works differently. As the founders said, they are not trying to compete with Google Adsense. for personal blogs, lifestyle blogs, life story blogs, i think nuffnang stands a very good chance to lead the market... for an average blogger who talks about anything about their life, his friends are his/her targeted audience, and in additional to the content, their friends can enjoy some more relevant information on products/services... would that not be nice?

Google Adsense is a huge ad network... it's very diverse and indicates some level of interests of the bloggers based on the content. however, it might not be as good for the readers despite that they are, too, interested in the content of the blog.

Nuffnang is tiny compared to Google but it's local and best for personal blogs. The ads are more targeted and the average CTR should be very high... nevertheless, the diversity of the advertisers might not be good. nevertheless, the ads can be very useful as well...

Facebook Chat History

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:52:00 +0000

Gosh.. it was really crazy... I came to Hong Kong last night and I was searching free WiFi spot during the entire journey from Lo Wu to Sheung Wan. How does this relate to Facebook chat history?

my friend left me his phone number while we were chatting on Facebook chat. Habitually, I just did not take down the number or save it to my phone right away. I thought I could retrieve it easily 'cause it's online and on FACEBOOK. However, the reality proved me wrong. I was unable to retrieve the number fro the chat history at all, simply because I just could not look at the chat history. I speculated that it was because facebook chat requires both chatting parties to be online to allow checking chat history. Unfortunately, my friend is a working professional and the daytime is not good for facebooking, so I was not even able to find him via the search bar there... this can be really frustrating... i know Meebo.com allows us to have facebook chat via their service.... hmm... now i'm considering switching to meebo.com for facebook chat...

chat is important... but it is not about the convenience of simply chatting... I guess, more to me, the content of the chat values more than the action itself.

Facebook chat please get smarter...

Most expensive Taxi fare in China - Shenzhen

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:50:00 +0000

Guess I must have not traveled enough to discover this, until my friend here in Shenzhen told me about it.
The starting fare is RMB 12.50, and every 1 km is RMB 2.4...
after 11pm the starting fare goes up to RMB 16.10 and every km costs RMB 3.10 (requires double-check)
I chatted with the taxi driver during the journey...
he said there are not as many as passengers and he could feel it but it is not that bad, so I guess Shenzhen is surviving quite okay in the economic downturn. I usually talk to taxi drivers to find out how economy is doing in their perspective because they are the grass root people who are very sensitive to the economy changes, not in the sense they can predict but rather, they can be really impacted very early.
there are about 10,000 taxis in the economic zone and there are about another 7-8k in the suburban area, and there are another 2000 "black taxis". these numbers total up to 20,000 cabs in the Shenzhen metropolitan area.

a little bit background about the taxi driver that i talked to. He's quie young. i guess he's about 24 years od, which might not give him a decent years of experience driving in Shenzhen. A decent years I meant about 10 years or so. Althought he's very professional and he knows the area really well but that experience I'm talking about is the number of customers and the change of shenzhen in the past 10 years. He also told me that there used to be another 20% surcharge after mid-night, which can definitely beat the taxi drivers both in Singapore and Hong Kong. Luckily, it already canceled, or I would perhaps pay Rmb 100 for a good 13 km journey.

well... i have not been to the city yet, will check that out soon!
as far as my to-do list concerned, quite a number of them are cleared, which makes this trip very relaxing and easy. cool! thanks to taobao.com!

China's Censorship @ xiaonei.com

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:23:00 +0000

Xiaonei.com, the Chinese copy of Facebook.com, is currently undergoing the censorship inspection by the Chinese government...
The censorship is targeted are the Group application!
as increasing number of college students have registered and entered xiaonei.com. xiaonei.com has become an ever open platform for college students to interact and exchange. I'm a xiaonei user myself and I can tell you the rate of information sharing is much much more higher than what I experienced on facebook, despite that i have only 1/5 number of friends on xiaonei.com.

i remember i received notice earlier than the date specified on the notice Jan 15 2009 about the censorship inspection was going to take place some time soon. now it is undergoing the inspection!

well.. i don't know how long it will take for the group to come back. let us see how efficient they are then! the information in the xiaonei.com group can be a few times more than the data in an encyclopidea. That's just a pure sense of how big the database can be that it is even made the chinese government to start looking into it.

Time really slips when we are online

noreply@blogger.com (DaViD) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:25:00 +0000

4 hours have just passed...
i was working on something on the Internet.
Can we live without Internet? sure we can!
however, we are so used to having Internet around to solve our problems in life.
I connect friends there, search interesting and unfamiliar information, seek entertainment, work there etc.
there are a million and one things we can do with Internet. However there is one thing we cannot do to solve the problem is TIME PASSING. it seems that we have much less time now compared to the days we use less Internet and just seemingly did more meaningful stuff.

I simply did not feel so much time has passed by... then got me ponder... how could we make use my time more efficient online. I don't think I was wasting time just now as I was working on the cv to apply for on overseas internship as well as working on the linkedin group.

i've got a test on tuesday. Now it's time to get off the computer to look at some notes for revision.