One week trip in the Bay Area

In the last week of 2005, my brother and my nephew came to visit me from Macau. It is the first time my nephew came to US. I hope to give him a memorable trip. Here are the places we went to.

Day 1: they arrive SFO at 7:30pm. I brought them to Danny's, had a full dinner. Then went to downtown San Jose, and walked around the "Christmas in a Park", a San Jose holiday tradition.

Day 2: Tech company trip in the South Bay. We drove around companies such as Cisco, Intel, Yahoo, ebay, google. Stop by and took pictures with their company logo. At night, we went to local church for Christmas dinner.

Day 3: Went to Napa Valley for wine tasting. At night, family gathering for another Christmas dinner.

Day 4: Early trip to San Jose airport, they went to Las Vegas for three days.

Day 5: In Vegas

Day 6: They returned to San Jose at noon. Then we went to Stanford University. I showed my nephew, who is still in high school, how the US college system works.

Day 7: Tour in San Francisco. Golden Gate bridge, China town, Fisherman Wharf, etc. In the evening, we went to watch an NBA game in Oakland.

Day 8: Last day of the trip. I let my brother drove my car the whole day. Surprisingly he handled the traffic pretty good. We went to San Jose State U, San Jose library, Barnes & Noble, Guitar Center. In the evening, they took flight back to Macau.

Too bad the weather wasn't good, so I didn't bring them to the Mysterious Spot in Santa Cruz. Maybe next time they come in Summer, I can show them more outdoor activities.

Happy Holiday Shut down

It has been several years already. My company shut down over a week during the Christmas holiday season. It is an enforced unpaid shut down. Some people don't like this idea much. Believes it is a cheap shot of the company to save money, out of employee's benefits.

For me, I like this holiday shut down idea. There are only one main reason. It is a vacation that nobody works. My whole team take off, so I don't need to worry of missing anything. Also, after a full year hard work, it is good to take a long break and recharge for next year.

So, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

Monitor evolution

I bough a new PC in 1997. At that time I were struggle to buy a 15" or 17" monitor. A wise man told me: "Buy a 17" so you will never need to consider buying a bigger one." I took his advise. It was a NEC 17" CRT mon, price tag was $500. I kept using this NEC mon till 2005, the quality was so good that I never have any problem. However, flat panel monitors are everywhere now. I check craig's list, my NEC mon worth less than $50 bucks.

Early this year, I finally bought a Princeton 17" flat panel monitor, price tag is $210 after rebate. It was a good deal. However, later on I am addicted to using laptop, so I put my Princeton to storage. Recently, I saw this news in Yahoo "Plastic Logic Fabricates Largest Plastic Active-Matrix Display". In near future, plastic monitors may replace flat monitors. Then I may end up buying another 17" mon.

I have a mixed feeling when I recalled what the wise man said. Well, he was not particularly wrong ...

Pastic Logic

OLED: Technology vs Marketing example

Based on an EE Times article, Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) shipments grows due to demand of MP3 players. OLED is Organic LED. Its biggest advantage is bright and low power consumption.

A friend of mine worked for a company that made OLED products a few years ago. At that time their OLED technology could only produce grey level display. Their target market was cellular phone. As usual it took a few years for technology development. But when the product was ready, most cellular phone was using color display. Their company's marketing then changed direction. My friend mentioned they changed to target for small home appliance such as shaver display. Eventually this product line didn't do very well.

A few years ago, who can foresee the huge MP3 players market? And who can foresee the usage of OLED in MP3 player display? In the Valley, Technology and Marketing live and die together.

OLED shipments grow again, says DisplaySearch

Language barrier

I used to speak poorly in English. I took me many years to practice, now I feel pretty comfortable to speak. It is funny I feel a lot easier to speak English with other foreigner such as Korean or India. But when I talk to American, it still feel a bit uneasy. Recently this problem has been improved a little. The husband of my sister-in-law is an American, I talk to him quite often, so it helps.

Long time ago when I was still in Seattle, an experienced Chinese co-worker told me that I should speak English anywhere in the company even talking to Chinese. Because it would allow other people to join the conversation and improve the PR. I took his advise and kept doing so. But when I come to the Valley, I feel most people (at least in my company) don't do that. Chinese speaks mandarin with their friends and Indian do the same. Unfotunately, my 1st language is Cantonese so I can't really join either conversation.

Perhaps I need to find a relative who speaks Mandarin or Indian.