Calling All Taiwan Bloggers

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I’ve decided to see if I can’t get a small group of bloggers together initially in Taipei one Saturday afternoon to discuss blogging and make some connections…

I’m planning to make this a regular thing with a chance to socialise, present topics and discuss issues related to blogging (it’s going to be relaxed and informative, I hope!) such as writing, blogging, software, hardware, marketing, photography, business side of things, techniques, tips, social chinwag, etc…

I’m looking at the Saturday 29th in the afternoon… Anyone interested? If so, please add your name to this thread or contact me. I’ll gladly create a mailing list, and set up a presentation or two (anyone interested in talking about their blog?)… I don’t have a venue yet (and that depends on how many are interested…)

So let’s see … Sign Up on this form! Once there are enough replies, I’ll create a formal notice using MeetUp. But I’d rather start small … (I’m not wildly ambitious, really)! :whistle:

Kenneth

Christmas Shopping: Don’t just focus on the price, focus on the play value

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With Christmas just around the corner, it’s getting tough in this economic environment to justify spending a lot of money on anything other than the essentials: rent, food, fuel and clothes. With Christmas just a short month of shopping days left, parents everywhere are scratching their heads wondering what gifts are affordable and desirable for their kids.

One Christmas my parents bought me a toy called FlightDeck. I wonder if anyone remembers that! The object was to land a plastic aircraft via a pulley system on the deck of an aircraft carrier. I loved it, and it was no doubt fairly expensive. But it suffered three main flaws: it was pricey, it was easily broken, and its play value was limited. In fact, I broke on Boxing Day, and couldn’t play with it after that! I was sorry, and never told my parents.

It’s not a mistake I would repeat on buying presents for any kids of mine! I’ll always try to find toys that have extended play value, such as Lego, Games, etc… One such toy that is perpetually popular: cars for the little boys. If I was able to play ‘secret santa’ to some little boys in our school, I’d be heading for the toy car section in the local department store looking for popular models or familiar models.

I was enchanted especially with the character cars from the movie created by Pixar. This set provides three vehicles for kids to play with as they recreate and relive the scene from the movie “Cars”. Of course, my own favorite has to be Lightning McQueen, but that’s a personal favorite.

tipping tractor

For the little girls, perhaps a disney figurine would be great, too. Either way, perhaps the easiest way to a kid’s heart this Christmas is to buy them a gift that helps them to rediscover their innate imagination and story telling skills (or yours!). Three simple cars, like this, can recreate hundreds of variations on the scenes in Cars. Who knows? Perhaps they’ll be able to play with them even when some of the parts have gone missing, or the toys are broken.

Whatever gifts you choose, especially from a store like Mega Brands Toys, you’ll find that the play value will far exceed the monetary value.

Keeping a track of your expenses: using Google Docs

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When we were away on our travels, we really had a good time, and we found that Taiwan is really a place for enjoying yourself. For better or worse, we used our credit cards to pay the hotel fees. It was just so much more convenient and we’ll earn the points.

But I failed to have a great system for recording these expenses. I read about using Google Docs to create an expense list from somewhere. So I decided to see what I could create in a few minutes. Surprisingly it was easy.

Google Docs now allows users to create forms. Sign into Google, click on Google Docs and on the right hand side you’ll see a short menu that allows you to create four types of documents. Click on the ‘New’ tab. You’ll see the first item is called ‘Forms’. When you click on that, you’ll be taken to a simple form that is populated with the first item already.

Try it out for yourself or read my full post. As you approach a major spending time, such as summer travel or Christmas, this can be a great way to monitor your spending. You’ll find the tool quite easy to use. For more, read this post on Google Docs and Forms.

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