How To Be An Instant Celebrity?

You do what Stefanie Gordon did yesterday on her Delta flight from New York City (LGA) to West Palm Beach (PBI) and takes several photos of the Space Shuttle Endeavor’s last lift off from Kennedy Space Center (KSC). That single action did not gain Stefanie her celebrity status but what she did when she got to West Palm Beach did.

After getting onto the Delta flight in LaGuardia (LGA) she sent her last tweet and turned off her iPhone 3GS, because she decided not to pay for in-flight WiFi, and then proceed to sleep through most of it. Until the plane began its decent to Palm Beach International Airport (PBI) and the pilot came on announcing the Space Shuttle Endeavor has just lifted off KSC.

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Cultural Differences

Cultures around the world have many differences, among those are the phrases used to describe everyday things.

For example, Canadians often call the poles on the side of the road supporting electric cables, “Hydro poles”. In other parts of the world these will be referred to as “electric poles”.

British people refer to long cushioned chair normally placed in the living room as “chesterfield”, but most other cultures refer to it as a “sofa”.

The most famous difference is the way North Americans refer to American football as “football”, where rest of the world use this term to refer to soccer.

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Dangers of Young Generations on The Net

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ebckRNly_Q
At Pacific Coffee this morning I observed a boy; about the age of ten, at an Internet workstation. From the start I see that he is fidgety, and is the type who cannot sit still. When he jumps onto the computer the first thing he does is sign into Facebook. He scans the posts in his Home stream, then proceeds to FishVille for the next 15 minutes.

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Sites Blocked in China

While in Shanghai for the World Expo 2010 the following are sites that I cannot access.

  • My Posterous Site – although I can send posts to my Posterous site via email, I cannot see how these posts appear on the site as I cannot load it.
  • Facebook – I have several comments I like to reply to on my Facebook Wall, but I cannot log into Facebook to do so.
  • Twitter – as I had mentioned in my post Internet Deprived in Shanghai, I cannot access any Twitter services or related sites.
  • FriendFeed – I cannot post anything to FriendFeed because the entire site is block. This may be because it is now own by Facebook.
  • YouTube – I cannot see any videos on YouTube referenced by articles/posts I read. Therefore missing much of the content of a post. This lack of access also eliminate my sharing of interesting videos found on YouTube.

Without the above makes it hard for me to share. Fortunately, I still have Google Buzz and Google Reader.

Smartone-Vodafone Attempts to be Chic

Being one of the most critical users of Smartone-Vodafone (SMV) I am also someone who believes SMV can do better.

With the introduction of Zendgo on the SMV mobile network it is definitely a sign that SMV wants to be chic, whether it is time will tell. Using substitutions in place of Chinese or English characters in a message is not new. Taiwanese and mainland Chinese use numbers to represent phrases in SMS and IM. Japanese mobile and iPhone users have Emoji. Mobile handsets and carriers around the world had adopted Emoji as an alternative form of expression in SMS like emoticon‘s use for IM.

Why SMV invents a new form of emoticon, especially when its users have to subscribe to a tariff plan to use. Not to mention the recipients of these Zendgo message will either have to install a Zendogo client and/or subscribe to the SMV Zendgo plan to view the incoming message.

Can someone explains to me why SMV doesn’t simply promote the use of Emoji instead? It is free for all handsets that support it (ie. iPhone, Samsung selected models, LG selected models, and many others).

How I Became a SSD User

I like to share with my readers the process in which I became a SSD (“Sold State Drive”) user.

The price of SSD drive is still way more expensive than a regular HDD, especially when you compared the cost per GB (Gigabyte).

In Hong Kong on average one can find a reasonably fast 7200rpm 1TB (Terabyte) 3.5″ internal drive for about HKD790.00. Even if you purchase a USB capable external enclosure that is only an additional HKD120.00. Giving you a cost per GB of HKD0.91/GB.

On the other hand the Intel SSD X25-M 160GB cost me HKD3770 at the beginning of January, giving me the cost per GB of HK23.56/GB. This means using a SSD cost 24.89 times more.

How I come to decide on purchasing the Intel SSD X25-M? Partially it is because of the reviews and information gather from AnandTech’s web site, plus the feedback from various people about Intel and OCZ SSD.

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