Shoewear or Shoeware or Shoewhere? Summer Footwear problems in Taiwan
Jul 3 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
Summer in Taipei brings a host of foot-related problems to those of us used to wearing socks and dress shoes all year round, including skin problems, fashion issues and unfortunate odors!
Wearing dress shoes and socks in Summer here is almost impossible to bear at times because it’s 35C outside, and the shoes are on your feet all day if you work in an office. If you wear shoes and socks like that, you will almost certainly get some skin problems on your feet.
Worse, though, are the sneakers which become impossibly smelly if you wear them frequently here. The bacteria in your feet somehow leech into the lining of the sneakers, combine with the moisture of the sweat, and find a great breeding ground.
Both of these problems are accentuated in Taipei by the custom of taking off shoes when you enter someone’s house. This can be HUGELY embarrassing if you have been outside for the better part of the day and/or you’ve been wearing sneakers or shoes.
So what’s the alternative? Well if you wear sandals like Naot products, you will eliminate some of the ‘issues’ mentioned. But the sandals worn by foreigners tend to be informal, and we can unintentionally wear the wrong kind of sandals (also called flip-flops) and cause offense to hosts, customers or visitors. Additionally, choosing sandals of any kind can expose your feet to hazards on the road that shoes would normally protect you from: such as stubbing your toes painfully or gashing them on some protruding items (I’ve done both).
There’s no easy answer to finding decent footwear in Taiwan, but considerations of weather, transportation and occasion will help you to choose an appropriate pair of shoes for your ten-toed friends.
Liberty Days: Our Family Tradition
Jul 3 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
Yes, tomorrow is July 4th, a celebration for the United States. In my family, though, we’ve adopted the tradition of “Liberty Days”.
Tomorrow is Liberty Day
It’s quite simple: if either of us (or both) want some free time from each other, we declare an infrequent Liberty Day in which we both can do whatever we want, eat whatever we want and go wherever.
So tomorrow: we’re having a liberty day though we’ve not decided on the details. It is likely to involve some shopping and eating out, which coincides nicely with payday!
Neihu Metro Line opens this week!
My Plans include finding a nice cup of coffee, trying to stay out of the heat, and perhaps buying a scanner for my negatives taken in the mid-90’s. I’d quite like to visit ShihMenDing to check out the shopping… but we’ll see. The Neihu Metro just opened in Taipei, and the wife’s quite excited to see that. The line runs from ChungShan High School to the Nangang Exhibition Center via the new shopping area at Miramar Skywheel and my friend’s home in Donghu!
Updating my Home PC
It’s time to update my local PC from SP1 to SP3. But I started this process as I was typing this: WFT, I now have to restart my PC just to install the software that will help me update my PC! It’s like having a meeting to schedule a meeting – pointless to the people involved. It can wait till tomorrow.
What should you do on your first day?
Jun 30 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
It’s your first day, you’re trying hard to please! Just like it’s my first time to leave a comment on YouTube, but no matter what you do, things go wrong. Let’s see: what is Howie’s son doing on his first day at work? Checking out the sales?
So I’ve taken it into my own hands despite leaving THREE comments on this video. I just wanted to say: I thought this video could have been a little more exciting. After all, it’s Howie Mandel! The master of tricks, excitement and embarrassment! But apparently not on ads!
I just hope that his son is employed by Buy.com to shop for stuff as a professional website evaluator. Otherwise his boss is going to be seriously pissed!
LCD TVs: it’s all lingo and wattages
Jun 29 at 11:11am by ObverseView
They’re hot, they’re getting cheaper and more powerful. The picture tubes are excellent. What am I talking about? That’s right. The LCD TV. We’ve been looking for quite a while for a replacement for our CRT 29″ Philips TV. But the unit is so reliable, and so fuss-free that it hardly seems worthwhile to throw it out, just to get a new LCD TV!
That doesn’t stop me drooling every time I go to Costco’s or Carrefour’s Electronic departments. But the one thing holding me back is the terminology for LCD TVs. For example, what is a Dynamic Contrast Ratio? or a Response Time? And all the ways to input or output signals are quite perplexing. For example, the Samsung model I looked at had no less than 12 (yes, 12!) sockets, and that didn’t include S-video!
But my one concern with the panel TVs has to be the electricity. Our current CRT is rated at 125 watts. But many of the panels seem to require quite high electricity usage compared to traditional CRTs. For example, the 37″ panels averaged nearly 200 watts in onstate. Of course, since TVs sit idle most of the time, it would be wise to look at the total energy ownership cost over a longer period of time.
In the meantime our traditional CRT still has good sound and picture quality, so it’s really H-A-R-D to justify the expense of a new set! But I’ll try!
33rd Carnival of Making REAL Money – July 2009
Jun 23 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
This is the 33rd edition of the Carnival of Making Money Online . I’m delighted to offer this limited list of top quality articles that are vetted from the original list of submissions. It’s always a pleasure to read through these submissions. So enjoy, and thrive in summer 2009~! It seems my reputation is getting around! I screen posts rigorously for spammers, non-blogs, repetitive entrants… So out of 142 entrants, I am presenting the top 10% of submissions to this month’s Carnival of Making REAL Money. It looks like we’re heavy on investing this month, which must be a sign that the stock market is recapturing people’s attention as we move into the summer months.
Personal Wealth
Four Pillars asls the obvious question about Dave Ramsey: Is Dave Ramsey A “Financial Expert” and then goes on to provide “a discussion of Dave Ramsey and his methods.” On a similar note, KCLau looks at Why Robert T. Kiyosaki is a best-selling author? which is posted at KCLau’s Money Tips. He reckons “Robert T. Kiyosaki is the best personal finance author I follow. I started reading his books back in 1999. Although some reviews you found written by readers on Amazon say that he keeps repeating most of the points, I still find them interesting every time. It works as a revision whenever he repeats.” Of course, not all pundits agree.
Relax provides some notes on How to become rich at The Wise Curve. Indeed, “…the door to become rich elite is open to us…”, though he fails to state anything more than the most obvious. Now if we can only find one of the keys to open it! To which MoneyNing provides a simple ‘key’ in his post Turbocharge Your Savings with Certificate of Deposits (CDs) posted at Money Ning saying “Certificate of Deposits are boring but it’s a guaranteed way of capital preservation!”
Investing
Patrick @ Cash Money Life looks at the age-old question: What is investing? posted at Cash Money Life, and examines “The differences between investing, saving, and trading,” whilepuneetkapoor2000 presents THE ART OF SELECTION – PART 1 at KuberKhana -Indian Stock Fundamental Analysis. He reckons “Stocks beat every asset class in the long run. However the question of choice is confounding. This article attempts to demystify the process.” The Smarter Wallet presents Investing In The Stock Market? Rules To Help You Sleep At Night posted at The Smarter Wallet , though his rules appear pretty simplistic.
Glowing Face Man looks at Short Term Assets vs. Long Term Assets which you can find at Glowing Face Man: Awaken the Badass Within. He comments “Longterm investment and passive income are all the rage these days, and for good reason. But it’s also possible to go too far. Sometimes, short term beats long term.” Jae Jun from Old School Value takes on The Art of Selling Stocks. Jae Jun writes “Buying a stock is only the first half of the equation. It is the easy half. Knowing when to sell and having a strategy to lock in gains is even more important.” Praveen looks at some of the trading rules he uses in Sometimes You Bend Your Trading Rules… from My Simple Trading System. He suggests, “Taking an early profit to ease your comfort in a volatile market.” AndInvesting School presents The Rule of 72 posted at Investing School, saying, “A neat mathematical trick to calculate when your investment will double!” It’s a pretty useful rule of thumb to figure out your returns!
In the current markets, thoughMichael Cohen tells us Don’t Bet On A Soft Landing Into The New Normal from his blog at Debt, Economics, Boom and Bust. He notes, “There are those predicting a new normal of 1-2% economic growth. We will likely not ease our way into that sort of situation.” This is a theme picked up on other blogs, already. MeanwhileSilicon Valley Blogger suggest some of the Best Online Stock Brokers For Cheap Stock Trades posted at The Digerati Life, saying, “Make money by investing and using the best brokers around!” Oh, if only it were that simple!
Online Riches
This week’s online riches section turned out to be rather weaker than I first though. However, four writers made the grade.
FitJerk presents Fit Jerk Talks SEO Techniques, Internet Marketing & Laws To Run A Business Online posted at FlawlessFitness, saying, “Why isn’t your website getting any traffic? Why isn’t your online business making money? And why does your Google ranking SUCK? The 4 secrets to online success revealed…” I wish it were that simple getting traffic, but it isn’t! Robert Alan also provides some good advice in his post Guide to Marketing and Advertising Your New Website posted at Bill Hazelton , saying, “Guide to advertising and marketing your website the first 90 days after you’ve launched.”
If you’re making money online,Jason G presents Drop shipping and Ecommerce posted at The Powersellers Union Blog, saying, “The Power Sellers Union is a drop shipping wholesale site that helps its members to learn how to start an e-commerce business from home with little or no experience.You can learn to make money on Ebay or your own website in no time dropshipping products at below wholesale price using real wholesale dropshippers.” AndPeter OBrien suggests 5 Ways Niche Review Templates Can Make You More Affiliate Income posted at Free Internet Marketing Tips , saying, “A great way to make more affiliate income is to increase your chances by promoting more than one affiliate product. With Niche Review Templates, you”
And if you’re interested in having your blog featured, remember to … submit your own work ONCE only, with a suitable comment to the carnival. Chances are you’ll be accepted. It always amazes me how many people fail to follow that simple rule.
Good luck to you all,
Kenneth from Carnival of Making REAL Money
Breville vs. the Devil: Caffeinated Temptation in the Mornings
Jun 23 at 12:12am by ObverseView
If there’s one thing I need when I first get up it’s a decent cup of coffee: any kind of coffee – Starbucks, homebrew, Costco’s Best, Java, … whatever from the local coffeeshop downstairs. Without it, I’m just useless in the morning. I just can’t seem to find my proverbial feet. Oh, and don’t let me behind the wheel of a car without it! That’s a warning!
I know this recession is going on still, because some of the sale bargains coming out are enough to make you really cry. Like the one I saw on the left. I was considering actually buying an espresso machine because I do have one of the more traditional stove-top percolators and with the way things are in the morning, fussing with a gas stove isn’t something to take lightly!
The attractions of an easy-clean, electric machine, like this Breville 15-Bar Die Cast Espresso Machine, that can pump a large volume of the heavenly liquid in the morning are manifold. I also like the fact that you can steam the milk in the unit. It provides 15-bar pressure so it should extract much more of the flavor than a traditional drip filter and puts the flavor right into the coffee.
Oh, did I say the price? Well, it’s shockingly low. But more importantly it can make real espresso. If you’re not a coffee afficionado, you won’t care particularly about this kind of machine or even the flavor of your coffee. But I love coffee. I can instantly tell an espresso’s quality by the way it smells and tastes. But to get the best out of any espresso machine, you really have to use good quality coffee, otherwise you’re just wasting both.
At the moment, I’m still using my traditional moka pot… but I’m envious!
Pizza in Sanchih: Pizza Olmo
Jun 22 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
There are quite a few fancy-ish restaurants in Sanchih these days but one of my friends brought to my attention this little restaurant, Pizza Olmo. Steve wrote:
“You should check it out – nice atmosphere and good pizza. Only open on weekends Vanida tells me.”
and earlier…
“We finally found that pizza place in the backstreets of Sanjih (well it’s actually in a really cute little residential area with nice views) and the pizza’s were great (canned soup though).”
This picture is the chef preparing the pizza. Look at the link to see the final results! I don’t have a locus on the place but we’re intending to visit.
Visit their ‘blog’. Check their pictures.
Locksmiths: Call them if you’re stuck or get stuck in the rain!
Jun 22 at 12:12am by ObverseView
Ever been locked out of your house? I haven’t but I’m always worried that I will lose my set of house keys and can’t find any way to get in!
So I always have the phone number of an emergency locksmith to hand on my mobile phone and a card in my wallet. Fortunately, where I live there are a number of convenient locksmiths available at short notice. But if you’re new to an area, or there isn’t anyone obvious, it might be worth doing a little research in case you find yourself ‘locked out’ of your house or car!
For those living in the catchment area of 911 Locksmith, this company could be a lifesaver if you’re needing a locksmith for your house at short notice. Of course, the other dread I have is dropping my car keys down a drainhole or similar when it is pelting down on a cold November evening (after all, disasters – like London buses – usually come in threes). I would even keep their phone number in my wallet, just in case. You just NEVER know when you’re going to need an auto locksmith after all.
However, the most disconcerting thing is watching your locksmith expert open your door typically in a few minutes. Ever wonder why you need locks when they can be opened this easily? Of course, you need ‘em… the alternative would be FAR worse!
Introducing Kids to Libraries – A World of Reading Awaits
Jun 20 at 1:01am by ObverseView
In an effort to develop an early love of reading and encourage usage, libraries these days are increasingly child friendly. But when is the best time to introduce your child to this exciting new world?
Each Kid is Different
The first thing to remember is that each child is different. That may sound obvious, but it’s easy to overlook how different in temperament children of the same age can be, even when they’ve grown up in the same environment. Ask any parent! For this reason, it’s impossible to offer guidelines on the basis of age. One should consider the child’s temperament. One child may enjoy the peaceful environment of the library and be content to spend long periods looking through the books on offer, whilst another of the same age may be bored and thus disruptive to other library users.
Stand in their Shoes
Try and think like a small child when considering your first trip to the library. Put yourselves in their little shoes, if you will. Remember that a child has a very short attention span compared to an adult, and will require stimulation to retain concentration for more than a very short period. It is perfectly normal for some young children to be bored by hand-off type entertainment, so bearing this in mind it may be sensible to limit your first visits to the library to short trips whilst just choosing a book.
Entice Kids into the Library
Although a child will find the different environment of the library interesting, it’s best to keep the first visit short in order to maintain their interest. The new people, interesting things to look at and different activities to explore will all appeal to a young child, and you can make each visit a little longer to enable them to explore this new environment at their own pace. The aim is to make the library a relaxed, interesting and friendly place to visit and to develop a lifelong passion for visiting. By not overwhelming your child on their first visit, you should be able to ensure that your child will look forward to their subsequent trips.
One idea for a first outing to the library would be order a book in advance, either by phone or online, and then take your child into the library with you when you visit the front desk to collect it. It will provide a brief introduction without allowing the child to become bored.
Libraries Like Kids, Too!
Do investigate what activities your local library offers for young children. Many recognise that the library can become a part of a child’s life long before they can read and offer activities from a child’s first year. These may include readings from popular children’s books, or perhaps puppet shows or re-enactments of favourite stories. For older children there may additionally be reading challenges, competitions or other interesting events scheduled.
Finally, don’t underestimate the importance of visiting the library in teaching your child valuable social skills which will be invaluable for the future. Learning to replace books and take care of them teaches respect for things which do not belong to them, whilst behaving quietly and showing consideration for other library users teaches personal responsibility.
Introducing your child to the wonderful world of libraries whilst they are young will ensure that they grow up appreciating and making the most of this most marvelous resource.
Kenneth is a teacher with many years of experience in ESL at Dickson’s English School in Tamsui, Taiwan.
You can visit the school website at http://www.nozkidz.com/english/ to find out more about what our ESL students are doing, how important fluency is, and how much fun we’re having. For other advice and help, check out the columns at http://www.nozkidz.com/english/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kenneth_Dickson
First Typhoon in Taiwan for 2009- but will it come?
Jun 20 at 12:12am by ObverseView
It seems we’re about to get our first typhoon in 2009!
Don’t know if it will come, the area of probability is still quite large! But for those of you who are new to Taiwan: get some basics ready… including drinking water, extra batteries, some emergency snacks, packing tape (why?), a radio of some kind, and stuff to tide you over the typhoon weather!
Remember: typhoons can be dangerous.
Buzz: Ever considered Acupuncuture? Try Acupuncture.net for a start
Jun 19 at 1:01pm by ObverseView
Quite a few years ago, I was suffering a physical problem and conventional treatment was working fairly well. However, I happened to mention to a freind of mine that I was seeing a Western Doctor. She suggested one in Taipei, so I hopped on down.
It was a worthwhile experience especially since he was an elderly (and very competent) physician from Shan Dong Province in China. He came to Taiwan at the end of 40’s and started his own clinic. Unfortunately, his accent was quite strong, but I found his treatment quite effective. Unfortunately, the Western doctor didn’t approve particularly about acupuncture, doubted its efficacy and methodology and recommended I only see a Western Doctor.
What is Acupuncture?
It’s a technique whereby practitioners will insert and even tweak needles in particular loci or places in your body to relieve pain or for other purposes. While modern Western medicine doesn’t recognise acupuncture particularly, Chinese medicine still believes that these points influence the flow of energy or ‘chi’ through the body, and can help to get the body healing itself by restoring the proper balance of ‘chi’ or, loosely translated, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. In some Asian countries, it is used to heal patients faster after operations or debilitating strokes.
It seems also to be useful in treating a number of modern complaints, including stress and work injuries. So I personally regard the treatments as complementary: while one sought the actual treatment of the condition, the other sought harmony in the body. All very new age stuff. Of course, I am not a doctor!
San Diego Acupuncture
Anyway, if you are looking for good treatment in the San Diego Area, you could try one practitioner at UpTownAcupuncture for Acupuncture San Diego. He’s got a new website that introduces his services…
The practitioner is Kirk Pfeiffer L.Ac. who specialises in providing management of stress, massage, auto & work injuries, and even facial rejuvenation! So if you’re looking for Physical Therapy San Diego, or even just some local holistic San Diego treatment in place of more ‘orthodox’ stress treatments, he might be the guy for you.
How’s the site?
Do take a look at the site. It’s a simply arranged site, with a focus on getting the information you need to make use of his services. There’s a site feed and obviously the site is hosted on Wordpress. The color palette is quite suitable for a cclinic: easy on the eyes, and well layed out.
Though the site doesn’t make much use of graphics or images, which I think would really draw in visitors with a little human warmth! If you need some stock images of patients or physicians (if you can’t use yourself), why not try out IStockPhoto which will provide inexpensively images that you could use on your site.
One thing you’ll notice about the site, though: it’s run by Wordpress, it’s set up as a full website. You cannot see the word ‘blog’ anywhere. Proof enough, that Wordpress is beginning to come of age as more than just a blogging system.
How much texting can you do?
Jun 18 at 1:01am by ObverseView
My god! 35K texts in a month!
Music: Blue Man Group – I feel love
Jun 18 at 1:01am by ObverseView
Blue Man Group – I Feel Love
Uploaded by Yoda63. – Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.
It’s Finished by John Lanchester: Column in the London Review of Books
Jun 17 at 1:01pm by ObverseView
Recommended reading: It provides a comprehensive, detailed and disturbing review of the events of the past 12 months and can be found at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/lanc01_.html.
Be warned: it’s a seriously long article with some tough points about what’s happened in the UK, to the UK and to its citizens. But it’s a seriously good introduction to balance sheets, and that weird thing known as ‘Equity’.
Well worth the read, but set aside a good long while!
Six ‘Hows’ of Choosing Good Books For Your Children to Read
Jun 17 at 11:11am by ObverseView
This article was recently approved by EzineArticles, and I would like to share it with you.
Six ‘Hows’ of Choosing Good Books For Your Children to Read
Selecting a book for children to read can be quite a difficult decision. Often you will make mistakes about choosing books such as choosing books that interest you more, are too difficult for your child, don’t interest your kid. This article looks at six factors to help you choose books with more success.
How it looks
When choosing books for your students or children to read, one of the first and most important things you should consider is if the appearance of the book is attractive to children. The child will see the cover of the book first, so don’t choose something that looks boring. This will immediately lose their interest, especially for those who do not particularly enjoy reading anyway. Ideally, the book’s cover should be colorful and give some idea of what the book is about. If you can capture the child’s interest as soon as they first set eyes on the book, then half the battle is won.
How long it is
Another important factor to take into account is the length of the book. The more accomplished readers will have finished reading, when the rest of the children are still in the middle of it if the book is too short. If a book is too long, this can discourage children as soon as they see it. For children of ten and under, a book should take no longer than three to five days, and no more than eight to ten days for older children.
How many illustrations
Illustrations are very important to stimulate a child’s imagination. They provide a break between all those words, so that it doesn’t get monotonous. In fact, most children tend to look through the illustrations before they even begin reading the book. Good illustrations or photographs can capture a child’s interest, and often encourage them to want to read the book in order to understand what the interesting pictures are about. A drawing or photograph can also maintain a reader’s interest.
How big the words
Check that the font size and style of the book is suitable for young eyes. Younger children can find it difficult to focus on small type and tightly spaced sentences. For readers under the age of eight, it is easier for them if the type is larger than normal, and for those under the age of seven double-spaced sentences are best.
How it connects
Choosing a book that is part of a series can be a good idea to keep the children interested. That way, the children can get to know a character, and follow their adventures through a series of books. Reading books that are part of a series also makes a child eager to get to the next adventure, wanting to know what happens next, and can make them realize how enjoyable reading can be.
How interesting
Finally, choose an interesting subject. A good idea would be to discuss with the children what types of books they think that they might enjoy. Present some ideas to them, and then choose one that most have agreed on. You can always reserve the remaining subjects for another time.
Kenneth is a teacher with many years of experience in ESL at Dickson’s English School in Tamsui, Taiwan.
You can visit the school website at http://www.nozkidz.com/english/ to find out more about what our ESL students are doing, how important fluency is, and how much fun we’re having. For other advice and help, check out the columns at http://www.nozkidz.com/english/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kenneth_Dickson
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I’m working on additional articles for parents and teachers, some of which can be found here.
It seems I’m being followed by Poop!
Jun 16 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
And I’m not going to follow ‘poop’ anytime soon… Who knows I might even follow it to the bathroom!
Buzz: Get your website/ecommerce site designed in Vancouver, BC
Jun 15 at 1:01am by ObverseView
These days more and more small business are opening as people get the desire to do their own thing. In Web Design, this is also true as it appeals to the SOHO lifestyle allowing a little more freedom in your time management, professional goals, and financial rewards. Heaven knows, that’s why we started our own little business.
Today, we’re featuring a company that is based in Vancouver, BC called Seedin which as an experienced team, “… can confidently bring complex web design projects through to deployment.” (Quoted in About).
The site is sparsely but pleasantly arranged (unlike mine), has a soft and pleasing Web 2.0 style of design that provides information without overloading the eyes. A quick look through the portfolio highlights how good Vancouver web design can be: clean interface, neat organisation of content, aesthetically pleasing color palettes.
One word of advice: the Ecommerce page needs work, guys! It is the ugly duckling of your site! Get to it. Match the style/cleanliness/organisation to the rest of your site! Perhaps you can break this page into shorter sub-pages, or at least clickable links to take you to specific areas.
If you are looking for a Web Design Vancouver based workshop to create your site, you might want to give them a call!
Put your best foot forward
Jun 14 at 11:11am by ObverseView
A different perspective… is it not?
Color InkJet vs Color LaserJet: Color Printing is becoming affordable now! Finally
Jun 10 at 5:05am by ObverseView
In our school, our teachers would love to use color for the materials for our students. So we purchased several color inkjet printers over the years, but all bar one have now been ‘retired’ because they were just not practical and/or expensive. The typical inkjet printer has a tiny cartridge meaning that although you spend quite a bit of money on purchasing the cartridges, you get only a few hundred pages out of the cartridge. This means that changes are frequent if you want to do any regular color printing and the page cost is quite high.
I noticed recently that the Konica Minolta Color Laser printer was on sale, and was considering purchasing a color laser printer for daily use. The criteria are perhaps obvious but we’re looking for a machine that can install easily in our mixed OS network, is reliable in operation, and has a decent print speed for color pages. The output doesn’t have to be the highest quality, but it must be decent. Though this machine has a scanner, fax and copy function, they are not a requirement for our usage.
The other concern is how often we have to replace the cartridge. If you’re in the middle of a printing job for your class, there are ten minutes to go and the phone is ringing, you don’t want to be replacing that cartridge after it was just changed last week! So the printer cartridge should be large enough to print at least 1000 pages without a change, be easily purchase and reasonably affordable.
The Konica Minolta 1690F seems to satisfy those criteria.
Tienmou Saturday Arts & Crafts Market
Jun 7 at 11:11am by ObverseView
One of the stalls at the Saturday Market in Tienmou. It’s pretty hot in the afternoon, but things get a little livelier near dusk and in the early part of the evenings.
There are two parts to the market: a general arts and crafts stall with lots of ‘artisans’ selling homemade cakes, products, and planters; then there’s the more flea-market side to the market with people selling all manner of bric-a-brac.
It’s fun to look around, but I didn’t see too many people buying yesterday, perhaps because it was a regular school day for most of us. Worth looking around.
Kenneth
Thomas Harley Sherlock: Honored for his service to architecture
Jun 7 at 10:10am by ObverseView
My good friend’s father recently was honored by the Queen for his lifelong service to architecture, conservation, and to the community in Islington, London” in this year’s honors list.
Sarah Jane Sherlock commented “Needless to say, he is absolutely thrilled. As he says, he didn’t do all the work he did in order to receive a reward, but it is very pleasant to have his efforts recognized.”
I’m also absolutely delighted to see him appreciated for his work. He really has been a force for improving life in the cities: I wish he had done much more for Taipei which desperately needs to improve its living quality.
Kenneth
A notebook or netbook: Which offers a better package?
Jun 7 at 12:12am by ObverseView
Computex 2009 is now over. It’s a pity I didn’t get to the show, but I was quite busy this week with stuff at school. Over the week of the show, Craig has noted some trends in computing that will take hold in 2009: Android, larger netbooks, better connectivity and SSDs are getting LARGE. But most importantly, battery life is now decent.
I’m getting to the point of wondering how far netbooks will go in replacing lower-end notebooks or laptops. With sale prices, the two categories seem quite blurred now except in two respects: battery life and power. If you want more battery life, then a decent netbook is now giving you upto about 9 hours. But for power, lower-end notebooks just don’t have equipment or processing power.
While the Compaq Presario CQ40 is a refurbished model, it sports a dual core processor with 3GB ram. and an ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics RS780M card, and multi-media drive. Sporting Vista Home Premium, modem, network card, and even an HDMI socket. All for $399.99.
Now compare that with the Asus Eee PC 1000HE, which doesn’t run Vista or have a dual core processor. It also lacks a 14″ screen and a multi-media drive (though you can attach both externally). However, it has a 8700mAH battery that allows for up to 9.5 hours in use, an amount almost confirmed by practical use. And it’s approximately $10.00 less.
For most users, though, netbooks are sufficient for more than 80% of our daily use: office-type work, netting, email, even listening to MP3s. So if you have extended battery life, lighter weights, it’s a very attractive package. And all for less than I paid for my Acer AspireOne.
H1N1, Cleanliness and your Internals!
Jun 6 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
With recent hot temperatures in Taiwan, H1N1 and various viruses have reared their ‘heads’ as usual. So we decided to take things into our own ‘hands’ after we saw how the kids would wash their hands. Since Taiwan is a tropical climate, we were appalled at how children here would ‘wash’ their hands, so to encourage proper hygienic habits, we bought huge bottles of liquid soap, large piles of paper towels and lots of running water and sinks. We try to insist that kids wash their hands when they come to the buxiban. Even if it doesn’t prevent infections, it’s still worth teaching the children in our school this habit. For whatever reason, it’s a message they are not following through on at home or school
Unfortunately, though, many public and private places in Taiwan just didn’t have the facilities to wash hands properly: no soap or towels (paper or otherwise), no running water,… and I was shocked at one of the reactions to our new handwashing policy. One of our local teachers said that she thought it was so WASTEFUL of paper towels (no doubt: soap and water). That notion of ’waste’ permeates a lot of businesses here and directly impacts the health of all the millions of people here. Why it is wasteful to use a little soap, water and a paper towel to wash your hands and it is not wasteful to treat any of a number of enteroviruses with expensive medicines and doctors’ visits beats me.
While it’s not just cleaning our hands that humanity is obsessed with: in some societies, it’s cleanliness of the spirit… Christianity talks a lot about purification. The notion that we are somehow dirty is intrinsic, perhaps even fundamental to a lot of our phobias about all bodily fluids and solids. An initial awareness that somethings were contaminated and therefore unhealthy or deadly to us somehow seems to have transformed into almost a religious obsession within churches and even in society.
Take a look at the health magazines or women’s magazines all touting products that promote cleanliness of the skin, body, mouth, teeth… almost every part of the body that you can think of. As we clean the souls of our bodies, the outside of our forms, … there are many products that aim to promote internal cleanliness, too. That’s right: you can buy any number of detoxifying products, herbs, potions, treatments… from cleaning our blood to colon cleansing.
What soap and water does for our hands, these products claim to do for our internals. And you can purchase these products for a few dollars, and you too will somehow be less polluted and feel great. The medical benefits are well known for washing hands: disease prevention in both the washer and those around. The ‘medical’ benefits of detox products is highly suspect at best. The FDA in the US doesn’t regulate any of these products’ usage, and risks do apply. So if you are considering using these products, tread carefully. The manufacturers claims are not verified in the same way a medical product might be. In fact, the regulation is quite ‘loose’, if you forgive the pun!
Personally, to encourage my feeling of cleanliness, I’m going to stick with my Pure Soap and my large bottle of Dial Liquid Soap. For the internals, I’ll be eating fruit, vegetables and more fiber.
Firefox 3.0.1 vs. Opera 10
Jun 6 at 9:09am by ObverseView
I was a fan of the Opera browser a long time ago before Firefox really had a presence in the browser market. So it took me a while to give up some of the features of Opera such as ‘paste and go’ that I really liked. Recently, though, I’ve begun to notice how much of a memory hog FF is becoming. While I’m using an old machine a P4 running at 2.4GHB with 756MB of Ram on XP SP 1/2/3, FF just starts to slow down the entire PC to a crawl.
In fact, I thought it was the PC at first but the same thing happens on two similar aged PCs with similar power. And it can be very frustrating to find that you have to twiddle your thumbs while the processor just crunches the numbers before the screen changes. FF didn’t use to be like, but it encouraged me to try Opera to see if the problem was the browser or my PC. So over the next few days, I’ll be doing most of my blogging stuff on Opera 10.00 to see if I can detect a problem.
I’ll be surprised if it turns out that the PC is just old. But who knows?
Would you watch TV on a monitor? Or connect your PC to your TV?
Jun 5 at 11:11am by ObverseView
Way back when I was in University, I remember being taken to someone’s room. When we went in, I saw an Apple Mac (it was 1987… guesses please on which Apple it was!) and everyone was watching TV on the screen. How neat I thought? Twenty-two years later, it still hasn’t happened. Why?
That puzzles me because with sale prices on large LCD tvs and computer monitors becoming affordable, the vast improvement on technology and TV since 1987, and the availability of TV online services, it really should be much more commonplace. Can you name a single person who watches TV on their PC instead of what we would call a regular TV set? I can’t.
For example, you could set up a regular multi-media PC with DVD player, Digital Video and Broadband Internet running something like MythTV and pair it with an affordable 24″ Viewsonic Monitor, and some decent home theater speakers. You might need an appropriate TV capture card, as well.
Now compare that with a 42″ LCD TV which costs more than double. True, you do get more real estate, more connectors for audio and video, and more options. But if space is at a premium, you play a lot of PC games, and you’re short on your budget, then a 24″ monitor from a reputable supplier like ViewSonic seems a great alternative.
There is one reason I would prefer a traditional style telly, and that’s mostly because I can’t bear must-have technology that doesn’t work properly. A good example: our TV over IP box supplied by our local telecoms company has a nasty habit of crashing when you least need it or you just turn it on. TVs do not crash like that at all, they warm up quickly, and they work. PCs, love them as much as I do, don’t. They crash, they boot up slowly, and sometimes they just stop working. Not what you want in a TV!
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