Catshanghai

Today is new year’s eve, but tonight I will be home baby sitting Jake waiting for Jenny to come back from a work party. As I look back over another year in Shanghai I realise I have spent more time in this city than in any other place as an adult. Working for over six [...]

Google Voice is an online call forwarding service that gives you an American phone number that can be linked to all your other phone services. The idea is that this number will follow you around. You can use Google Voice a voicemail dropoff and transcription service or as a switchboard to forward your calls to [...]

It’s been more than a week since Google announced that they were no longer going to censor search results on Google.cn in response to accusations that Chinese hackers were trying to spy on activists’ Email accounts and steal source code. I was almost expecting  the Sino Google apocalypse, but it has not yet happened. When [...]

Highlights of 2009 Jake’s birth Jake’s first swim Jake’s first smile Jake’s first laugh Jake sitting up Jake’s first plane ride to Guangzhou Valentine’s Day at Bacaro Family coming to see us in Shanghai Getting VPN to work in China Watching Zombieland Listening to Boduf Songs Setting up school Moodle site Lowlights of 2009 Execution [...]

Distributing the web is not my idea, but it resonated with me after Twitter and Facebook were blocked after the unrest in Xinjiang. The idea resurfaced among western technology commentators after a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack against a Georgian blogger crippled Twitter and Livejournal. The idea from tech heads such as Dave Winer, [...]

How difficult is it to get a virtual private network (VPN) working in China to access international sites that are blocked or geo filtered? A VPN is a way of connecting to a computer remotely. Many sites such as BBC Iplayer, Hulu or Pandora have geographical restrictions that block access from computers outside specific countries. [...]

Image supplied by nubui on Flickr I’m a big fan of Leo Laporte who single handedly created the Twit technology podcast network. His shows keeps me informed and stop me going insane during long commutes home through Shanghai rush hours. Leo is coming to China at the end of this week to participate in a [...]

Our first baby is due in May.  Should our baby have British, Chinese or dual nationality? Ideally we would like our first born child to have dual British and Chinese nationality. This would make it easy to travel and live in Europe or China without any additional visas. I’ve just telephoned the British Consulate in [...]

This is a perfect video for living in Shanghai. It’s a full episode of Fawlty Towers. It captures the communication problems, the sense of chaos, the flexible attitudes to copyright in terms of vintage BBC tv shows and web service design. America does Youtube. China does Youku Enjoy. Tell me if it plays in the [...]

I’ve just returned from Hainan Island with a group of 56 teenagers. It was a great trip, but I am happy to be home in Shanghai even though the Shanghai weather is deteriorating day by day. Highlights in Hainan included Houhai Beach and Yanoda Rainforest Park. I was a teacher supervisor, which meant I spent [...]