Overseas Chinese Web Guide

Category: Tech

  • Bose QuietComfort 15 Noise-Canceling Headphones

    Before the iPod and iPhone came along, I never carried around my own set of headphones, especially on a plane ride. I just used the airline-provided set of headphones to listen to the airline-provided entertainment options. However, the first time I brought an MP3 player aboard a plane, I discovered that I couldn’t hear the music using the standard-issue white earbuds because the ambient airplane noise was too loud. So, I during a recent long-distance flight, I decided to try a set of noise-canceling headphones.

    I really liked the Bose QuietComfort 15 headphones. These headphones comfortably fit both young children and adults alike. The headphones, which fit around the ear, really made the bothersome background airplane noise vanish. The Bose QC15 headphones came with 1 AA battery, an airplane adapter (which converts a one prong audio plug into a two-prong audio plug), as well as a carrying case. To use the headphones, you must turn on the headphones, which is activated by a switch on one of the ear pieces. The single AA battery lasted during the roundtrip Trans-Pacific flight, a shorter regional roundtrip flight in China, as well as numerous plane and bus rides. I had packed an extra AA battery just in case I lost power, but that never occurred during two weeks of usage.

    The good part of using the Bose QuietComfort 15 headphones was that I could view the iPad, iPhone or onboard entertainment system at a lower volume setting. With the noise-canceling activated, I could comfortably listen to the onboard movie as the second-lowest audio setting. Using the complimentary airline-provided headphone, I had to turn the volume much higher and still couldn’t hear the movie nearly as well as when I was carrying the Bose QuietComfort 15 headphone. This product is a winner.

  • Cathay Pacific EmPower Laptop Charger

    Traveling across the Pacific Ocean used to be a grueling experience. However, the long flight can be made more tolerable with an iPhone or an iPad in hand. However, what if you run out of juice half way across the ocean? From the Cathay Pacific website, I thought I needed an EmPower charger, so I ordered a Kensington K38037US Auto/Air Power Inverter with Two USB Ports for Mac or PC. But, once I was aboard the plane, I realized that I had made a mistake because I didn’t need a separate EmPower charger. Right above the EmPower outlet was a standard two-prong outlet. I didn’t need to recharge the iPad for the Trans-Pacific flight, but I was able to recharge the iPhone whenever the battery ran low using the regular wall outlet charger.

  • Website Banned in China

    Whenever I read about the Great Firewall of China, I always assumed that it was blocking the other guy. However, during a recent visit to China, I discovered that I was the other guy.

    I tried to access the Overseas Chinese Web Guide from multiple locations within China and simply could not reach the website. It definitely was not a server issue. Was it the complaints about how melamine contamination was damaging China’s reputation and future? Not sure. Regardless, I also wasn’t able to access Facebook behind the Great Firewall of China, so I know that I’m in good company.

  • 24 Hours with an iPad

    I just spent 24 hours with the “magical and revolutionary” iPad. What’s so magical and revolutionary about the iPad? First, start with the battery life. Absolutely amazing! The iPad is still going strong 24 hours after its last charge. After a full day of browsing the Internet, watching videos, and running apps, the battery is still 37% full. If I used the iPhone under similar conditions, I would have hit the 20% remaining battery warning message a long time ago.

    Now, the best way to describe the initial iPad experience is to compare it to the HDTV transition a couple years ago. After purchasing an HDTV, you probably searched for HD programming from over-the-air, cable or satellite sources because an HDTV without HD programming provides an unsatisfactory experience. The same goes for the iPad. Sure, the iPad can run iPhone / iPod Touch apps, but viewing the app in a quarter of the iPad screen feels so limiting. Even if you upscale the iPhone app to fill the entire iPad screen by tapping the 2x button, it just appears underwhelming. All the images and text are seriously pixelated. I understand why you cannot upscale graphics, but how come the iPad has to display the text all pixelated as well? That’s not magical!

    So, I headed off to the iTunes Store to find iPad apps. Maybe it’s still early because only a handful of my existing apps had an iPad version. For those iPhone developers stuck behind a long list competing apps, here’s your chance to leapfrog the competition because all these iPad owners are looking for new apps. I was also searching for some children’s picture books. I found nothing in iBooks. I was surprised by the limited selection. Instead, I picked up the iReading HD app, which features Chinese / English versions of four children’s stories. Now, if I can only have an ePub version of all the books currently sitting on my bookshelf, that will really be the iPad indispensable.

  • iTunes Audiobooks Do Not Show Up in Books

    iTunes had stored some of my audiobooks under Music instead of Books. Actually, I had not realized that these were mutually exclusive lists under I wanted to transfer some audiobooks to an iPhone and realized certain titled did not appear under the Books tab.

    All this time, I had been flagging titles as Audiobooks under Genre, not realizing that I needed to change additional settings to move them over to Books. First off, if your audiobooks are in MP3 format, you should convert them to AAC so that iTunes can remember the playback position. In the Music tab, you will be able to see all versions of your audiobooks. However, under the Books tab, I think iTunes consolidates the listing so that if you have both MP3 and AAC versions, you will have a difficult time deleting the MP3 version. Before you convert the MP3 to AAC, remember to visit iTunes > Preferences and adjust your Import Settings under the General tab. If you are regularly encoding as iTunes Plus, your AAC audiobook will end up much larger than the original MP3. So, selecting Spoken Podcast under Import Settings fixes this problem.

    Next, select the AAC version of the audiobook press command + i to summon the information window. Under the Options tab, selecting Audiobook under Media Kind will then move the audiobook from Music to Books.

  • Chinese Google Maps

    Today, I recognized the connection between literacy and computer literacy when I reset the default language on a MacBook Pro to 简体中文. Within the Language & Text settings under System Preferences, a user can select a language for the computer. I had thought that selecting a language other than English would only alter the language of the drop-down menu items. However, that was not the case.

    Instead, changing the default language also alters the names of certain Apple applications. I discovered this when I struggled with the new Chinese menu. I know where all the menu items roughly are located on Safari, but switching from English to Chinese slowed me down enough that I wanted to switch right back. But, when I searched Spotlight for Preferences, Spotlight did not return the System Preferences application. That’s when I knew something was wrong. Instead, I had to find the System Preferences by browsing the Applications window and finding the right icon. If I only had file names and no icons, I would have been in a really bad situation.

    While using Chinese as the default language, I also discovered the Chinese-version of Google Maps. Americans all know the English name of 北京 is Beijing. But, if someone from China asked about the Chinese name for American streets or cities (outside of the obvious 旧金山 for San Francisco), I’m usually stumped. Instead of making up a name phonetically, I can now point them to Chinese maps of America.

  • Pages: You Need a Newer Version of Pages to Open This Document

    Today, a co-worker asked if I could open .pages document. Of course, I thought. Send me the document. After all. I have iWork installed on my MacBook Pro.

    See. Even though we have just entered 2010, the latest version of iWork is iWork ’09. And, my version is iWork ’08. Surely, a version of iWork that was released the year before the current version can open all .pages documents.

    Nope. In the perfect world, I could use an older version of Pages to open a .pages document created by a newer version of Pages. Granted, everything might not look perfect, but at least I will have some access to the content. Sort of like the way that users running Lynx can still access the Internet. Sure, you can’t waste time watching YouTube videos or playing Desktop Tower Defense, but you can read articles on the New York Times.

    Yeah, it’s not a pretty sight, but at least it works. So, for a product with such low market share, how can IWork afford not to be minimally compatible between versions. I’ll take a stripped down text only viewable copy over not being able to access the document entirely. The only way around this mess is to install a 30 Day Free Trial of iWork ’09. Not going to buy it though since I’m sure iWork ’10 version is just around the corner.

  • Omron Pedometer HJ-112: Step Currency

    I love my Omron Pedometer. I am constantly checking it throughout the day just to make sure that I am on track to meet my fitness goals.

    With pedometer secured, I am totally focused on “step currency.” That’s a term for my personal game where I earn steps (or points) throughout the day for completing certain activities. So, I am now figuring out how many steps I will be rewarded with each activity. Huge stores are priceless. I picked up 1,000+ steps at Costco a few days ago. That really helped boost my step count. The pedometer also totally reverses my normal strategy. Ordinarily, parking karma means securing a prime spot right by your destination. However, if you are trying to boost your step count, parking a little further away is now a positive, not a negative. Imagine, fighting for that spot in the parking lot that is the furthest away. A total change in thinking for the better.

  • Omron Pedometer HJ-112 / HJ-113

    I recent purchased an Omron HJ-112 Digital Pocket Pedometer. Amazon also sells the Omron HJ-113 Digital Pocket Pedometer, but only through a third-party. Besides the obvious color difference, the HJ-112 has a front reset button to zero out your stats, and the HJ-113 does not.

    First, I am a reluctant adopter of a pedometer. I thought it would end up being another pointless gadget to lug around throughout the day. However, after just two days of use, I am really glad I purchased it. The Omron HJ-112 pedometer is a rather basic model. No stored stats with accompanying maps or color charts like the RunKeeper iPhone App. However, the trade off is that the Omron HJ-112 pedometer boasts a tremendous battery life measured in months, unlike the iPhone 3GS while running RunKeeper.

    Anyways, the pedometer has really proven to be a good motivational tool because it made me realize how little exercise I was getting during the work day. On my first day, I only mustered around 500 steps at work. Hard to hit that 10,000 daily step goal when the prime hours of the day are wasted in sedentary work while plopped right in front of a desk. I thought I would be generating a few thousand steps at work, but that was not the case. Anyways, I soon realized that I had to take full advantage of every opportunity to walk, such as walking (instead of driving) the kids to school or eating at a cafe down the street instead of at a restaurant in the same work complex.

    Another lesson I learned is that stealing a 1-2,000 steps throughout the day is a far more manageable practice than trying to meet the entire 10,000 step goal all at once. From parking down the street at work to taking the long way to lunch, you can add to your tally without ending up completely drained for the day.

  • Loss of Supermajority – There’s an App for That

    On the day that Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat went to the Republicans, the White House launched its new The White House iPhone app. However, parents beware. The White House is not safe for children because it may display “infrequent/mild realistic violence” and “infrequent/mild alcohol, tobacco or drug use or references.”