Sighted on a local subway train: Cool Ad
Jul 30 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
The Taipei subway system is growing… It’s already been 10 years since I first traveled on it and it now handles millions of people every day on four main lines plus a cable car. It’s also getting much more crowded… so the MRT is trying to encourage better courtesy amont travelers. This cartoon made me smile!
Left to right: “Hey, dude, you can’t eat on subway trains!”; “Aren’t you aware of MRT regulations or what? Are you an extra-terrestrial?”
Left to right: “Sorry, but…”; “…I’m indeed an ET!”
I thought it was cute… apologies for the poor translations!
So where were we? Summer Trips #1 - East Coast and Taroko
Jul 27 at 10:10pm by ObverseView
Well, running your own business is never easy! In fact, it’s often difficult to take time off, and in previous years we always felt ‘guilty’ taking time off because we weren’t making THAT much money that it didn’t worry us. This summer we’ve found a little more time than usual so we are taking a two week break around the island.
I won’t bore you with the details of where we stayed, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Last week’s trip started on Monday and we came back on Saturday evening!
Monday: Coastal drive on Highway #2 from Keelung to Ilan County where we stayed at a Japanese style hotel in Jiao-xi. Along the way we took so many pictures that I had to charge my camera every night and I filled a 4mb SD ram card as well as several hundred pictures on another card.
This coffee shop had pretty decent coffee and was situated right on the highway coast with a spectacular view.
Tuesday: Coastal highway from Ilan to Hualien where we spent a couple of days, traveling in the country, enjoying the hotel.
It was difficult to capture the motion of the waves, but the light was failing as sunset was coming which contributes to the slightly dark gray air of the picture.
The geology of the East Coast is quite impressive actually, every few miles we went and stopped we seemed to encounter quite different topology and geology. It’s a geographer’s dream!
On getting out of Suao, we started up the highway to Hualien on what is a notorious road, but the only highway between Ilan and Hualien. There is still a huge debate on the economic and environmental impact of a new highway. But if you’ve ever driven this road, you’ll know just HOW awful the road is in places, and you’ll wonder why a road hadn’t been built yet! Still, if you stop off, you’ll get stunning shots across the bays at Su-ao.
Once we got to Hualien, we couldn’t find the hotel we were supposed to stay at, the Park-View. When we did find it, I was pretty exhausted, but still the room we had was quite expensive, and suitably spacious. We enjoyed staying in this hotel much more than any of the others, but it’s a pity we didn’t actually go swimming in the pool. Oh, well.
On Wednesday we drove along the #11 highway to TaiDong where we took this enigmatic and wonderful picture of the bays in the distance. In the late sunshine of the day, we thought that the beach would be very beautiful. Somehow things in the distance turned out to have much more mystery!
Thursday: Taroko Gorge which was gorgeous. We split this into two days because of the difficult nature of the drive and the long time required which took over 8 hours to drive from Hualien to TaiChung. Truthfully we didn’t drive quickly but with breathtaking scenery like this, who would?
Friday: We were blessed because the route that we originally would have taken was closed after the earthquakes of 9/21 so we had to turn from Route 8 to Route 14 which took us upto over 3,400 meters as we ascended Ho Huan Mountain where the daytime temperature was only 12.7c. Most Taiwanese like to visit CingJing Farm area, which is famous for its elaborate guesthouses, but we found the other side of Ho Huan Mountain far more fabulous than that. In fact, as we drove through CingJing Area it was covered in fog and we didn’t see much at all there.
TaiChung - it was nearly 10pm when we hit TaiChung and got to the hotel. We were pretty zonked by the drive… so we went out for dinner with some friends. Then on Saturday after more entertaining we hit the highway home to Tamsui.
That’s when I saw this sight, and I realized how appropriate it was. The flag flying against the setting sun. By the time we got home the wind and rain were already picking up for the oncoming typhoon.
Online Security with "Pragma"-tic Solutions
Jul 27 at 1:01pm by ObverseView
If you’re like most people, I bet you don’t give much thought to security on your blog or website, do you? I didn’t, until I had my own blog hosted on a VPS style system that allowed me to login via SSH. In fact, at the time I had to go and look up SSH to figure out how to login via TELNET. That was something my regular hosting account allowed, but TELNET didn’t work on the VPS system! Added security I guess.
But you can bet your bottom dollar there are hackers out there, who are able, willing and keen to hack into insecurely protected systems to steal information, commit financial crimes or even to just mess with the system! That’s where you need secure FTP to allow you privileged access to your server, upload files and download information.
One company, Pragma Systems, created a range of software tools that are used by a large number of Fortune 500 companies to protect servers worldwide. In fact, it’s quite likely no matter where you live, you’ve had contact with at least one of their clients in the past 3 months. So it’s reassuring that these companies are striving to protect their data, and yours with quality technology. Given that we live in a “Windows” world (at least for the time being), this is doubly comforting as Windows is notorious for being ‘cracked’, ‘hacked’ or ‘jacked’ depending on the variety of hacking that’s being used.
This image highlights the windows client that access your resources, no matter what services that are being run: Windows, Linux, Solaris, or whatever! In fact, one of the touches that impressed me was the mobile client software that allows mobile or handheld clients to access the same resources. Not every handheld is supported, but most of the Windows CE, Mobile or Pocket PC seem to be supported.
This post was brought to you by Pragma Systems.
Adsense on Obblogatory: Does it work?
Jul 25 at 11:11pm by ObverseView
Yes, Adsense is back on Obblogatory dot com. I’m taking it slowly at the moment and I’m only planning to add three different Adsense locations to make sure that each is optimized.
I’ve had luck with the Google Search for Adsense, and I’ve tried out one single small box placement in the sidebar on my other blog. I’ll aslo be adding an adlinks section somewhere. But we’ll take it easy.
Have you tried Adsense? Did it work for you?
Phone Camera: Images of Taiwan
Jul 25 at 1:01am by ObverseView
This image was taken on a Sunny day, at the beach in North Eastern Taiwan. It’s a beautiful picture, really. I’m quite surprised that this phone camera takes such good pictures!
What is your first picture on your new camera?
Jul 20 at 10:10am by ObverseView
This is one of the first pictures I took when I was practicing with my new Panasonic Lumix Camera. But then we like to collect Teddy Bears.
What’s yours?
Of 101, shopping and being a Party Pooper!
Jul 19 at 11:11am by ObverseView
Christine and I went to 101 this evening but as the shops were closing around 9:30pm, I was not wanting to go home just yet… We stopped by M&S, StarBucks, Page One, and the food court in 101. By then, I was quite keen to buy some comfortable shoes and T-shirts from M&S, Christine was feeling home-ish so I had to give in and put off shopping till another day.
I also suggested that we go out for a drink, but she didn’t want to "flirt" either. So I called her a Party Pooper and swore I’d make some funny t shirts with those words emblazoned on the front AND on the back I’d print "I’m a party pooper and I’m proud of it!" Now where can I get them made?
Photo: Overlooking Guandu Farms towards the South of Taipei
Jul 17 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
This image is one of my favorites, it’s taken overlooking Taipei City on a day when you can easily see the mountains in the South, lots of clouds, and you can make out the buildings! The image isn’t crystal clear, but I didn’t have a good lens! I really should learn to take good pictures!
For more great photos, visit my Flickr account.
That little Asus Eee PC: how much memory can you get?
Jul 17 at 11:11am by ObverseView
I have a craving to buy the new Asus Eee PC 900 or 901 or even 1000~!
I’m always shocked that something as small as the Asus Eee PC has more memory than any of my four personal PCs, and that’s out of the box! I have had to add memory to each of these PCs at one point or another! Drool! With prices around NT$15,000 to NT$18,000 in Taiwan for one these babies, who knows… I might even spring for one soon! Let the memory of the purchase of double monitors fade in wife’s own memory… before I branch out!
The importance of symbols: and then…
Jul 17 at 11:11am by ObverseView
Sometimes I think I must be the least worried by symbols that other people take for granted, such as flags, decorations, coats of arms, and other ways that people attach their own identities to or even to bolster their own identities.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t have symbols that I enjoy, that I feel are important to me, or even identify me in some important respect. But often these symbols aren’t mass market appealing, or even don’t connote much to more than a group of people.
If I were to sport religious jewelry, I’d be as likely to choose a Catholic rosary as a Buddhist one. It’s not that I call myself Buddhist, it’s just that living in a Buddhist country, I identify with it for very different reasons.
Can it be that I have a stone heart? Perhaps, but perhaps not. We have a Union Jack hanging in my office at work, part of the symbology of teaching and marketing, I guess. It’s not that I particularly cared for it when I was at home, but somehow it means something to me now. It represents a connection to a spiritual home that I will probably lose in 2010 or 2011 when Scotland votes for formal independence.