Due to my new project, this is likely the last blog post of 2008.

8 things:

1) Two weeks ago I came back from a three week long trip to Beijing, Shanghai, Qufu, Jinan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. I went as a guest of a Chinese government program to share what China has accomplished in recent years with 133 overseas Chinese born individuals who play a significant role in their community, business, industry, etc from 23 different countries.

I was really impressed at how much Beijing has changed in the past 10 years. They toured us around the Water Cube, the Bird's Nest, the Bird's Egg, the Great Wall, Tienanmen Square, a Chinese liquor factory where they make the popular Baijou, and several Confucius temples. We met with government officials who shared with us the economic status of China, the constant transition of their citizens from rural to urban cities, and the importance placed on establishing a solid infrastructure while taking into account generations of growth. It was so impressive, I'm actually entertaining the idea of moving there once I learn Mandarin and my Internet projects are more established. The best part though was the people I befriended on the trip- they were the most valuable takeaway and we're already planning a reunion party in Hong Kong next year.

Some picture highlights.































2) I'm writing an eBook to share with others who are interested in launching a business of their own. I should be done by the end of the month. The new site is called smallshopbigbusiness.com. I wanted to call it solostartups.com but only after I registered the domain name did I realize that there is already a solostartup.com site. Damn. Note to others, check variations of your potential domain purchases prior to purchasing otherwise you'll "waste" your money. Oh well, I'll just redirect it.

3) In China / Hong Kong, I enjoyed local and international long distance calling abilities for something near 3 cents (usd) per minute. Well upon my return, my frustration with expensive overseas calling led me to www.Voxofon.com. It's a VoIP service so the people you call will see a local number.

My call to China: 1.3 cents per minute.
My call to Australia: 14 cents per minute.
My call to Indonesia: 13 cents per minute.

Drunk dialing will never be more fun...

"Harro! Mikey! I just flew in and I'm at a payphone at the airport, come pick me up!!" hahaha.

4) The value of viral videos cannot be overemphasized. I posted a racing video on one of my sites on Thanksgiving to see if I could get some site visitors passing along a link. I'll let the numbers do the talking.



5) I suspect Kanye West used Cherokee People, Cherokee Pride as the inspirational melody for his new Love Lock Down song. From the first time I heard his song, I immediately thought of the Cherokee song. Here they are on youtube, you can compare yourself.

Cherokee People, Cherokee Pride

Kanye West's Love Lock Down

6) HTC just came out with their Max 4G phone and it is SCARY quick. In fact, this thing is faster than the IBM Thinkpad 600E I had in 2001!

Here are some fun stats:
Processor: Qualcomm® ESM7206A™ 528 MHz
Platform: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
Memory: ROM: 256MB / RAM: 288MB / Flash: 8 GB
Screen: 3.8" wvga touch screen.
Camera: 5 megapixel camera

More here: http://www.slashgear.com/htc-max-4g-for-russian-wimax-network-announced-1222475/

7) I cannot escape how infectious the song Just Dance is by Lady Gaga. Prepare to be addicted in 3... 2.. 1...

8) I've officially had the G1 Google Phone for one month now and I think it's time for a quick review. Overall, this phone is great but there are some drawbacks. Thankfully, the drawbacks can be overlooked due to the low price.

Pros:

1) Applications! Here's a list of my most frequently used apps/services: voxofon, fbook, shazam, mortgage calculator, wikimobile, and wikitude.

2) iPhone-ish interface + a real keyboard = winner! This phone is a lot quicker than my HTC made ATT Tilt. The G1 menu slides out really quick, you can scroll through your contacts just like the iPhone, the integration across functions is also impressive. From searching for something locally, clicking it, getting directions, calling the place, saving it to your contacts list, and then mapping back to it later... it's good. If any of you know someone who is prone to getting lost, this phone is the "sauveur de la journée".

3) Browser offers multiple windows so you can sort of alt-tab between web pages.

4) Seamless integration with gmail, gcal, and contacts. I had over 500 contacts in my old AT&T Tilt which thankfully were also on my outlook via MSFT ActiveSync. To move the contacts from Outlook, I just exported a CSV file, switched my gmail account to the "old version", uploaded the CSV file to my Google Gmail contacts, and I had all 500 contacts in my G1 within 20 seconds. Un-Freakin-Believable. Oh yeah, you can add other e-mail accounts if you'd like.

5) All you can eat Internet. Of couse you're paying for it but eh, it's always nice to be connected.

Cons:

1) Picture viewing leaves something desired. The pictures cannot be enlarged with two fingers like on the iPhone due to a copyright infringement issue with the iPhone. The technology is there but just not allowed to be used.

2) Once your text message conversations reach 500+, the text messaging interface starts to take some time to load.

3) Checking google analytics is not possible with the phone nor does google have an application that can pull down the data for you. You can get your information via an e-mail setup within the GA interface but c'mon...

4) Construction. There are two arms and a curved track that keep the screen attached to the phone itself. Unfortunately though, there is too much play with the screen so after a month's use, I've found that I can press down on the screen and it'll give a little. :(