Overseas Chinese Web Guide

Author: Ken Chan

  • $4 Million is the New Million

    New York Times: In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich. By almost any definition — except his own and perhaps those of his neighbors here in Silicon Valley — Hal Steger has made it. Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million.

    A million just ain’t what it used to be. If Mr. Steger had dreams of being a millionaire when he was 18 (back in 1974), to reach that goal in today’s dollars would require $4.2 million according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, even though he has banked $2 million, he’s less than half way there.

    If you are targeting to save a million by the time you reach retirement, you may want to recalibrate your goals to account for inflation. When everyone’s a millionaire, being a millionaire won’t be anything special anymore.

  • Review: The Corner Place

    The Corner Place is a Korean restaurant located at 19100 S. Gridley Road, Cerritos, CA. (Cross-Street: South Street). I had lunch there last week and had ordered one of the dongchimigooksoo combos. For just under 11 bucks, you get a full-size lunch box AND a bowl of their delicious cold noodles. Usually, I just order the dongchimigooksoo, but I couldn’t pass up the combo. Although the broiled croaker was delicious, I could have found something similar at a number of other Korean restaurants. However, I just can’t get enough dongchimigooksoo, which is a bowl of delicious noodles floating in a cold, vinegary broth. I’ve looked and looked everywhere and haven’t found another Korean restaurant that has anything remotely similar. I really need them to open a branch in Silicon Valley.

  • Gas Station User Interface

    Considering the prevalence of credit and debit cards in everyday commerce, you would think that the someone has already figured out the ideal layout for all the various keys needed to process a transaction. I see some version of this keypad at ATM machines, supermarkets, retail stores, wholesale supply stores, gas stations, etc. But, none of them are exactly like this one. Surprisingly, the gas station preserved the layout of the basic 0–9 keys for punching in PIN numbers and ZIP codes. Whew! However, they managed to violate every other convention.

    Rule No. 1—Group Related Items. So, this gas station has three buttons for payment types: Pay Inside, Pay Here Credit and Pay Here Debit. But the pay inside button was yellow, and the other payment buttons were green. Additionally, if you wanted to pay inside, wouldn’t you go to the attendant and pay with your cash or card first? Who’s going to go to the pump, press the pay inside button and then head to the attendant?

    Rule No. 2—Follow Standard Color Conventions. Green means go; red means stop. Why didn’t the designer follow this universal convention? Here, the gas station has two green buttons and two red buttons. The green buttons are for payment and the red buttons are for help and cancel. Because color has a different meaning at this gas station, all users must spend a few seconds reading all the buttons to find the one they are looking for. All these seconds add up.

    Rules No. 3—Simplify, Simplify, Simplify. The designer should have made Yes and Enter the same button and coded it green. Cancel, no and clear should have been integrated into one button and have been coded red. Get rid of the Pay Inside button. Change the color of the Help button to Yellow. Change the Pay Here Credit and Pay Here Debit buttons to blue. Also, simplify the text to just Credit and Debit. I think most people will figure out what that means and having Credit and Debit appear larger will make it easier to read.

  • Wal-Mart Offers Online Reviews

    Yahoo! News / Reuters: Walmart.com to Let Customers Review Merchandise. Shoppers will be able to review and rate the merchandise sold on Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s Web site beginning on Thursday, as the retailer works to expand its online capabilities.

    Finally. My two main sources of online reviews are Consumer Reports and Amazon.com. Consumer Reports offers authoritative, independent reviews based on objective product testing. Great for comparing across brands or product lines. Amazon.com offers more anecdotal reviews.

    The weakness of online reviews is that they are online. Before I bought my Apple iPhone, if I spotted a product I was interested in at a retail store, I had to go home and look it up. Now, I can read the review while I am still inside the store. If only Wal-Mart will publish their online reviews INSIDE their retail stores, then all shoppers can benefit from our collective experience. That’s an idea!

  • More iPhone Tips

    When EDGE takes way too long to deliver a web page, I turn to Google (again). The Cached link has come in handy on more than one occasion when I got tired of seeing the page loading icon. Click back to the search results page and view the Google cached version. The next best thing to having lynx on the iPhone, I guess.

  • The Best Thing About an Apple iPhone is Google

    Apple iPhoneHonestly, I had my doubts about the Apple iPhone: slow data network speeds, no integrated GPS, and high cost. I tried to hold off until Apple released iPhone 2.0, presumably with a 3G chipset and other goodies, but I surrendered to frustration. And, I blame Google for it all.

    Without a doubt, Google revolutionized the Internet. Suddenly, I could find anything on the Internet. Not just standard information like who is the First President of the United States, but really relatively obscure facts like who is the Second Emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty. And, the more useful I found Google, the more I used Google until I couldn’t part from Google. I needed to take Google along with me. And, that’s why I had to buy an iPhone. I just experienced too many instances where I encountered a problem while away from my computer where I realized that I could solve my problem in seconds with access to Google or the Internet.

    • Dull EDGE. All the iPhone reviews noted that AT&T’s EDGE data network was slow. Unfortunately, the reviewers understated the problem. I could not use EDGE for regular web browsing; e.g., reading the New York Times or visiting other websites. I don’t like waiting in line. I don’t like waiting for pages to load. I don’t like waiting. Period. Safari is fine with Wi-Fi access, but seriously underwhelming on EDGE. Would love to see Lynx on an iPhone.
    • Maps. I would certainly welcome faster network speeds, but EDGE is passable for Mail and Maps. Maps has already saved me on one occasion when I was lost in an area for which I did not have a paper map. If you commute at all and forget to check the traffic before you leave your house or place of work, Google Maps shines there as well.
    • Google. While every other website features congested layouts and graphics, Google focuses on speed. Google is one web site that I can use even with EDGE. To quickly search another company’s website, I use the site:domain.com modifier on Google. I find that I can get instant results even on EDGE instead of waiting for someone else’s graphic-intensive website to load.
    • Notes. Notes is good if you’re not taking a lot of notes. On my MacBook Pro, I take notes using Yojimbo and would welcome an iPhone version. Despite its counterintuitive name, Yojimbo is a fast and easy application that lets me store information and documents with password and tagging options. For example, I have one note where I keep the store hours for all the shops I visit frequently; i.e., Target, Costco, Home Depot, Farmers Market, etc. I look at that page most weekends. Why memorize store hours when all the data is just a few clicks away.
    • Killer App. The true killer app on the iPhone for me is Google + Safari. When I’m out at some of the shops mentioned above, I can easily price shop. Oh, Target is selling this for $15? I wonder how much Costco, Crate and Barrel or some other retailer is charging? Now, I have the answer. 😉

  • Tit-for-Tat

    Associated Press: China Suspends Some U.S. Meat Imports. China has suspended imports of chicken feet, pig ears and other animal products from seven U.S. companies, including the world’s largest meat processor, in an apparent attempt to turn the tables on American complaints about tainted products from China.

    This is great news! You know China is meticulously scrutinizing every shipment of American food products. To their credit, they discovered American meat products contaminated with salmonella, anti-parasite drugs and food additives. This is one instance where when governments play tit-for-tat, the people actually benefit. I hope they continue scrutinizing each other’s food products. It only means safer foods for the rest of us.

  • Los Altos Art & Wine Festival

    Los Altos Art and Wine FestivalI stopped by the Los Altos Art & Wine Festival this morning. Even for those who aren’t big fans of art or wine, the Festival offers many interesting attractions. Of course, most of the booths featured arts and crafts items for sale, including photos, paintings, and assorted handicrafts. Also present were local vendors, such as Whole Foods and Elephant Pharm, offering free food samples and branded tchotchkes. The Festival also had inflated play structures for the kids, food booths with tempting treats, and entertaining music for those who wanted to sit down and just enjoy the sunny morning.

  • Review: Mike’s Cafe

    cobb saladHad lunch at Mike’s Cafe in Palo Alto yesterday. I usually don’t order a salad for lunch (except as a side dish) because I don’t want to be hungry in the middle of the afternoon. But, being in an experimental mood, I tried the Cobb Salad—which I have never ordered before at any restaurant. That experimental!

    Anyways, the Cobb Salad featured a bed of fresh, crisp lettuce tossed with dressing. On top were slices of hard-boiled egg, feta cheese, chicken breast, tomatoes and crumbled bacon. I also tasted a hint of anchovies, but I didn’t see them. Maybe they were mixed in with the bacon or I was just imagining these flavors. Despite being just a salad, I found this dish quite filling. It keep me full through the afternnon and well into dinner time.

    However, I discovered that I wasn’t a fan of cold chicken breast. I can handle deli-sliced chicken breast, like the kind found in sandwiches, but chunks of cold chicken wasn’t my thing. Also, a few weeks ago, after I bought some Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes at the Farmers Market, regular tomatoes have tasted “just regular” since.

    Despite my above comments, I still think this was a good, solid, filling salad.

  • Final Score: 79-29

    Reuters: China Calls Official’s Execution a Warning Siren. China on Wednesday hailed the swift execution of the nation’s former drug safety chief as a warning to corrupt officials while detailing a web of graft that thrived for years without punishment.

    If China’s food and drug safety problem is truly limited to a handful of corrupt officials, then the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu should represent a good first step in a quick clean-up process. However, if the problem is cultural or institutional, then this execution was meaningless and will not solve the larger problem confronting China.

    As China has demonstrated, they can try, convict and execute a government official in a matter of months with chilling efficiency. However, rooting out the culture of corruption that pervades all aspects of society will be a more difficult task and not a task that can be resolved in months. It demands checks-and-balances, eternal vigilence, and institutional commitment to audit, probe and investigate corruption at all levels—high and low. And, it cannot be done on the cheap.

    China may or may not be aware that it now must play to two different audiences—the domestic and the international. In previous decades, China could afford to act alone domestically without regard to international pressure or perception. However, that is no longer the case now. If you sell to the American consumer, you must act in a manner that doesn’t breach the trust and goodwill you have earned with the American public. Because when circumstances reach the tipping point, all that trust and goodwill can evaporate suddenly. And, China will have to work for years, if not decades, to rebuild that trust.

    Earlier this week, I took a stroll down the street and counted cars. I tallied the American cars on one hand, and the foreign cars on another. The final score? 79 to 29. That’s 79 foreign cars to 29 domestic cars. In truth, I was expecting more of a 50-50 ratio instead of the lopsided margin. This told me why the Detroit auto makers are all struggling. If the American public has not forgiven Detroit for its past sins of pumping out poorly manufactured automobiles, what chance does China have?