Some interesting facts in life.

Blogging For Business

Just finished my Business Blogging class today.  It was a great class and I learned a lot from it.  It's nice to see technologies from a business perspective.  As a software developer, it's so easy to delve into the technical details and forget about the big picture.

First time for the past 2 months, I can sit in front of my computer browsing the internet without worry about courseworks.  Feel so relaxed.  I wander at Amazon and it recommends the book on the left to me.  Sometimes I am really impressed with Amazon's artificial intelligence.  I may check out the book tomorrow in Borders.

Interview with Mena Trott

Today, Businessweek has an interview with Mena Trott, founder of Sixpart (mother company of Typepad).  In the interview, Mena touches upon different challenges her company is facing and the future direction of blog.  She commented:

"I think personal blogs are really the future, and with that comes a challenge for blogs to be more friendly and welcoming"

I agree this is going to be the main usage of blog in the future too but I am surprised she doesn't mention anything about corporate blogging.  In fact, a reader of Businessweek immediately brought up the use of blog in small business / startups to market their products.

Can We Live Without WiFi?

Read an article about Lakehead University's banning on Wifi.  I have mixed feeling about this.  On one hand I praise the university president's concern about student well-being but on the other hand, I doubt whether he understands the technical details enough to make such decision.  But one thing I am sure, there is a huge impact in their admission in the future.  As people are more and more relying on the internet these days, access to it from anywhere in a state-of-the-art campus is almost a requirement.  It is out-of-date to see all the ethernet cables floating around in classrooms and libraries.  Also, It can be a major inconvenience to students and faculties as this may limit their activities only in an ethernet enabled classroom/lab.  I think banning wifi is just a means to an end and doesn't cure the root of the problem.  What we need is better study of the effect of EM wave to our bodies and safer technology.

Pocky - Black Seasame Favor

Tried this new favor of Pocky tonight.  It has a very strong seasame favor but that's not the only ingredient.  It actually has 4 more: black rice, black soybean, black pine and black quince.  I am always impressed with the creativity of the Japanese.  You can buy this in Tsai Grocery next to the Godaiko Japanese restaurant.

Blogging To The Government

I was searching for more interesting stories about different people using blog and landed on this blog.  Our Speaker of the House Denny Hastert is also trying out blog to communicate with people in the country!  It's even more encouraging when he said:

"This is Denny Hastert and welcome to my blog. This is new to me. I can’t say I’m much of a techie. I guess you could say my office is teaching the old guy new tricks. But I’m excited. This is the future. And it is a new way for us to get our message out."

The sentence "This is the future" gives blog a promising future to become a communication channel in coroporation and government.

Vlog = Vodcast = Videoblogging

Came across the term vlog in digg.com and looked it up in wikipedia.  It turns out all three words are synonyms.  I believe this is the same as Prof. Gibson's idea of adding videos in a blog.  I think this will be a great idea to include in the future.

New Blog Analytics Tool For Nicetaste.com In the Future

AdaptivePath has recently announced to sell Measure Map - a blog analytics tool - to Google.  Jeffrey Veen, now employee of Google, said in his Google blog first day in Google, "our mission remains the same: to build the best possible user experience so people can understand and appreciate the effect their blogs - their words and ideas - can have."  It seems like Google is getting serious in improving its analytics capabilities.  I have signed up to Measure Map's account waitlist so that I can use it in www.nicetaste.com later.  I bet Sitemeter will be in serious competition with Google soon.

Corporate Blogging

In "Do Blogs offer value to corporate communications?", Joe Savard asks a question very relevant to our class.  Will blog play a key role in future corporate communication?  It is still too early to answer the question.  However, I believe if blog doesn't take off in corporation, it's definitely more a political problem rather than a technological one.  In fact, you can argue that's almost always the case when a change is going to take place in a corporation.

Forget about politics for now, let's go get a piece of deep dish pizza!

A Quiet Night In Ann Arbor

My friend and I were driving to Quality 16 for a movie.  The movie of interest was Pink Pather.  Steve Martin really did a good job in the movie and display the qualities of one of the great french inspector Jacque Clouseau although Peter Seller is still my all time favorite comedian.  The picture was taken in front of the crossroad of Maple and Jackson where Zingerman's Roadhouse is located.  What a lovely night!  Also, if you look close enough between the second and third traffic lights, you can see a flock of birds flying.  It made me think of emergence and complex systems :)  Am I too geek?

A Very Old Song

Last Saturday, I was driving in my parents' car and listened to a very old Chinese song.  I suddenly feel so old as I don't mind to listen to their favorite oldies anymore.  Here is the lyric of the song for those who knows Chinese and from Hong Kong:

舊夢不須記

歌手：雷安娜
填詞：黃霑

舊夢不須記 逝去種種昨日經已死
從前人渺 隨夢境失掉
莫憶風裡淚流怨別離

* 舊事也不須記
事過境遷以後不再提起
從前情愛 何用多等待
萬千恩怨讓我盡還你

此後人生漫漫長路
自尋路向天際分飛
他日與君倘有未了緣
始終都會海角重遇你
因此舊夢不須記 亦不必苦與悲
緣來緣去 前事的喜與淚
在今天裡讓我盡還你 *
Repeat *

I guess a song like this should go with a nice cup of tea and some great Chinese food.