Catshanghai

I heard about this webapp on Leo Laporte’s Net@Nite. It is an electronic note taking tool that works in your browser by going to the stikkit website. It is a bit like a hybrid between Google Notebook, Delicious and Stickis. It lets you write on a single workspace, which scans your unstructured notes for meaning, [...]

Some of my friends have lived in Shanghai for years without ever going to the cinema. They get all the film entertainment they need from DVDs that they can buy at a dollar a piece. That’s fair enough, but I think they are missing a treat.
We like to go every month or two. It turns [...]

Tomorrow will be a fine winter’s day - cold, but sunny. Shanghai will be as busy as ever in this hectic buildup to Chinese New Year. This means a heaving city centre, bustling with in your face street vendors, honking taxis and overly enthusiastic weekend shoppers. This may all be wonderful and exciting in ideal [...]

Now the winter is causing discontent. Friends and colleagues are going to bed at 7pm to stay warm, because rooms are barely 16 C even when the heating is turned on. Meiling has written this article for SmartShanghai giving lots of hints about keeping warm. Don’t worry! Warmer days should be with us again by [...]

After much anticipation, Apple has finally launched its IPhone at MacWorld. For $499 this is what you get:

4GB Ipod music and video player with 3.5 inch widescreen display
Cell phone
Touch screen interface
Built in OSX and web browser
Email and contact management
Wi-fi and Edge network support
Improved user experience for organising voicemail and SMS
Built in 2 megapixel camera

The 8GB [...]

Vegetarianism is a bit of an alien concept in China. Why on earth would you decide to avoid eating meat when it is so cheap and readily available? Only Buddhist monks choose to be vegetarians, but they renounce other sins of the flesh too! If you go out to dinner, you will soon find that [...]

This BBC story highlights some of the issues surrounding the pilot key stage 3 ICT assessment. The UK government is currently piloting computer based tests to assess students ICT levels at the end of year 9. The government planned to make the online test compulsory for all schools starting in 2008. The pilot project has [...]

Warning! This post gives too much personal information, but it is very useful for foreigners to know before they visit China.

My brother was trained to be a barcode printer, but the computerisation of this industry led him to see the writing on the toilet wall so he changed to become a plumber and bathroom fitter. [...]

I’ve just come across this great Firefox extension called Chinup that is very useful for English speakers learning Chinese or vice versa. You use it when you are viewing a Chinese language website. Chinup displays the pinyin (including a number for the tone) and the English translation when your mouse hovers over a Chinese character. [...]

We went to this Freaklub party at Club Logo in Xingfu Lu after bumping into Sebastian Tootekool at Ikea who described it as a cross between a live show and a DJ set. Read this link. Freaklub is a weekly techno night run by Tootekool at Club Logo.
I’ve always had a good time at this [...]