This story caught my eye! Novel ways in which Chinese tea companies can compete with Starbucks, and Coca Cola. I’ve already looked at the tea business in Taiwan, but this video story follows up quite nicely. Enjoy!
Taiwan
Newsbits and bytes: Ooo, Cows, Banking, and MT
After fixing my own wordpress install , I can get back to business with posting some stuff…
OpenOffice.org
It seems that OpenOffice is now updated to version 2.3.1. I downloaded it last night after I saw the nag screen. I’m not really sure what was fixed… but the website writes:
The OpenOffice.org Community announces the immediate availability of OpenOffice.org 2.3.1. This is a minor bug fix release with no new features for users. However, as this release also fixes a security vulnerability, we recommend all users should upgrade to this release. The next release to contain significant new features, release 2.4, is currently planned to be available in March 2008.
It’s a big install, so I’m now downloading it once and installing it on all the PCs I have. Wow! That is so much nicer than M$Office. Interestingly there is a growing number of extensions now available for Ooo.I use BorderLiner and I’m trying GoogleDocs2OpenOffice.
John Cow and his Cows
It’s true. John Cow really is branching out in unexpected ways into making mooney offline. Yesterday I was walking in the night market in Taipei behind National Taiwan Normal University when I ran into ‘his’ ice cream store. So, of course, with Dancing Cows before my eyes, I had to try some EggNog and Coffee ice cream. At NT$100 for two scoops… he seems to be doing well. John, how about a free scoop next time I come by?
Micro Lending
AFP published a story that is interesting to read about the burgeoning market for loans that are made by individuals to individuals. The featured story includes information about several of the big ‘uns: Prosper, Kiva, and Zopa (in the UK).
I’m generally very supportive. What a great idea… a peer-to-peer lending program that allows small lenders to lend money at attractive rates. The interest rates that you get will be much more attractive than simply lending money to the banks, and letting them do it for you! Zopa really facilitates the interaction between lender and borrower, and charges only a small fee. And the risk is reduced, too, by lending to multiple borrowers, so that, if there’s a default, only part of the money is at risk.
I’d love to be a part of this system, because the interest rates are quite attractive, but since I live outside the U.K. or U.S., I can’t. For those of you lucky enough, if you are looking for a way to make extra money, help people (altruistically or not), then this might be a good way to go.
Of course, there is the The Ugly Side of Microlending. This article reports on how big Mexican banks profit as many poor borrowers get trapped in a maze of debt. So it isn’t all thumbs up.
Foreign deals scare Taiwan banks
In other bank news, Asia Times recently reported on how foreign banks are increasingly buying up Taiwanese banks that have fallen on hard times. Citibank has bought several, HSBC has done so, ABN AMRO bought one, and is now the subject of a RBS buy out, and Standard & Chartered has also done so:
TAIPEI – Taiwanese financial holding groups will face increasing competition from their foreign counterparts after the world’s four major banking conglomerates recently expanded their Taiwan networks through acquisitions, market researchers said. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IL18Cb01.html
Movable Type Goes OpenSource
Faced with the increasing presence of WordPress, Movable Type (owned by SixApart) has gone OpenSource again. While WordPress has quite a lead in terms of volume, support and use, it will be interesting to see what happens to MT in the longer term. In fact, there have been three big announcements in the last few day: OpenSourcing, MT 4.1 Beta, and a reseller program. It’s quite clear that MT is trying to make up for lost ground. One reason I’m interested is that it supports multiple blogs, and I might use it on my other blogging site to manage a number of blogs with occasional content. But first, I’ve got to try it out.
Happy Blogging… and a happy Christmas when it comes…!
Sunday Newsbytes: EeePC, BlogDesk, and good food!
It’s morning time in the US, late evening in Taiwan.
A Delicious Meal: Needn’t be Expensive to be Delicious
We really didn’t do much today, but we had a lovely dinner last night at one of our favorite restaurants Dante’s (not the coffeeshop by that name), located on the campus of the National Taipei University of the Arts in Taipei City. In fact, we live less than ten minutes’ pleasant walk from the campus, so we go there often.
The meal is quite simple and very affordable: an small but well-prepared all-you-can-eat salad bar with lots of fresh salads, cold meats, and so on. Next to that is the deserts with cakes and fruit. There are also breads, and soup you can feast on. Once you order, you will also get a main course that you can select from pastas at the low end to steaks at the high end. In all, we paid about $1250 for a nice meal for two, including everything but wine. The view over Taipei is quite staggering at night, and well worth the price: you can typically see 101, the Shin Kuang Mitsuokoshi Tower and a lot in between. It’s a fantastic view.
Asus’ Eee PC 701: A hands’ on experience!
Today, we also went to FNAC in Taiwan where I finally had a hands-on experience with Asus’ newest baby: the Eee-PC 701 (in white). It was priced at about NT$11,665 which is about US$360 or so.
I came away suitably impressed with the machine, in a number of respects. I found it easy to use, networking was straightforward, it was easy to find the applications, it was a snap to start up, shut down. So, I think this device will be remembered as the device that ‘created’ a whole new generation of small but highly effective smaller-than-laptop internet connected devices. It is truly a wonderful machine… but here’s why I’m not plumping for it just yet:
1. the keyboard and touchpad: in a word, awful beyond belief;
2. the screensize: why not make it 10″;
3. and, the available memory is too small.
A slightly faster processor would help, but in the Linux system it was fast and responsive. The XP model was poky beyond belief. It was great to work in a familiar environment, though the downsides of the XP model really left it wanting more, much more: more memory (1GB), more disk space (at about 350MB), a bigger screen, and some useful productivity tools. In two of the those four areas, the Linux model was easily better. Easily. The XP model would have been quite easy to add software, too, except for the lack of space. The Linux model… well, I couldn’t figure out how to do that, my level of technical Chinese isn’t great yet, so I couldn’t find the right options in the screen.
In both cases, though, one of the biggest disappointments for me was the lack of an English Language model for sale. I was told that Taiwan only had Chinese Language Models (a fact that I doubt!). So, I’m holding off, for now. For NOW! But can I wait for Spring’s new models…? I wonder.
BlogDesk
BlogDesk has been giving me grief, though, and I think I know the reason. First of all, here’s the error message I keep getting and I don’t have a clue what it means… but I tell you, it’s because of the video I keep trying to link to. It’s screwing up this posting as I had to rewrite almost 50% of this entry. Blogdesk caused my PC to emit a string of beeps before it gave this error message.
24 as it was in 1994.
And the Video that’s causing all the trouble: almost like it was intended to create problems similar to the one in the video. Watch it, but I’m just linking to the page, until I can figure out why the code is borking my system! Perhaps it’s a mole inside College Humor.
Happy Sunday