There’s yet another new search engine on the block, Cuil, made its public launch today and already call itself the “biggest search engine on the web”. The new engine named “Cuil” (pronounced “Cool”) after the gaelic word for “wisdom”, founded by husband-and-wife team and run by a team of former Google employees. The people at Cuil claim the new search engine uses fewer servers than other search engine big boys, yet indexes much larger chunk from the web.

I played around with the engine quite a bit, it might be good in the future, but right now, it’s just lack of something. I did a couple of test searches and the results Cuil returned were often disappointing. Personally, I think Google is much better. Cuil is good for obsure searches, and not so good when you are searching generic stuff. But its nice to see people rethinking the way search results can be displayed. Instead of a list, it displayed results in three columns (you can switch to two column as well).

Though Cuil offers a unique perpective on search, it looks to be a long while before it can challenge the top players. Cuil has a long way to go…

Will keep trying it out for the next few days.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Photo of the day: Trump Building

A China version of Trump Tower in New York 5th Avenue – Trump Building! This Trump Building located along Dingxi road near Zhongshan park.

Popularity: 14% [?]

In recent years, housing prices in major cities like Shanghai & Beijing have really soared. If we had bought an apartment back in 2004 when we arrived, we would have made at least 50% profit if we sell it now (really feel like kicking ourselves).

The prices have risen to a level where it is almost impossible for an average working professional to own a house without carrying a debt for the rest of their lives. We have observed two trends here in china that is rather unique and interesting:

1. 1. Young couples in their mid-twenties are under great pressure to buy a roof over their heads. Part of the reason is the rising price. They figure that, if they buy a house later, it would most likely cost more.
2. 2. Usually the couple’s parents end up paying for the down payment (10~20%). Given the huge discrepancies between housing price and average salary, it is virtually impossible for most young couples to come up with the money for down payment. Hence their parents would have to chip in. China’s one child policy also means that parents feel more obligated to help their child financially.

So… Mom, Dad, have I told you I love you guys…ahm…about that house…

Popularity: 15% [?]

The 2008 Olympics is THE event of the century in China. The authorities are doing everything they can to make sure that absolutely nothing goes wrong. During this period, factories have been told to stop production. People have been told to drive less and use public transportation. Heck! Local Chinese are even told to learn English. Some of it may seem overboard (Stop production for one month!? It would be great if the authorities can compensate but I really doubt it). However, some of the measures are pretty commendable. For instance, we really hope the instruction to drive less can be extended indefinitely!!

Firstly, air pollution would be considerably less. People should really consider car-pooling.

Secondly, sound pollution would be drastically reduced. In China, most drivers’ hands are practically glued to the horn.

Finally, we hate it when the little green man appears and we starting walking across the road, the cars still try to weave & horn their way through.

Popularity: 12% [?]

I have spend some time today to update my wordpress to the new 2.6 version! It has been officially released a week ago, and almost a month ahead of schedule.

WordPress 2.6 contants a number of new features that make it a more powerful CMS. That means we can also track changes to every posts, pages and easily post from anywhere on the web and dozens of incremental improvements to the features introduced in version 2.5.

One of the most interesting things was that the “Press This” bookmarklet (you can add to your toolbar that provides a fast and smart popup to do posts to your WordPress blog) has some nifty autodetection which will make it easy to automatically embed content from YouTube and Flickr! For example, when I click “Press This” from a YouTube page it will magically extract the video embed code, and if I do it on a Flickr page it will make you easier to put the image in the post.

Here are some of the smaller features and improvements in 2.6:

• Word count! Never guess how many words are in your post anymore.
• Image captions, so you can add sweet captions like Political Ticker does under your images.
• Bulk management of plugins.
• A completely revamped image control to allow for easier inserting, floating, and resizing. It’s now fully integrated with the WYSIWYG.
• Drag-and-drop reordering of Galleries.
• Plugin update notification bubble.
• Customizable default avatars.
• You can now upload media when in full-screen mode.
• Remote publishing via XML-RPC and APP is now secure (off) by default, but you can turn it on easily through the options screen.
• Full SSL support in the core, and the ability to force SSL for security.
• You can now have many thousands of pages or categories with no interface issues.
• Ability to move your wp-config file and wp-content directories to a custom location, for “clean” SVN checkouts.
• Select a range of checkboxes with “shift-click.”
• You can toggle between the Flash uploader and the classic one.
• A number of proactive security enhancements, including cookies and database interactions.
• Stronger better faster versions of TinyMCE, jQuery, and jQuery UI.
• Version 2.6 fixes approximately 194 bugs.

If you are a theme authors, there were also improved support for SSL and some other new helper functions which will be useful for you.

I’ve been using WordPress since 2004 and it is the bEST blogging platform ever! Download WordPress 2.6 here!

Popularity: 19% [?]

This is what Ajisen Ramen’s fried mussels looks like in the picture:

This is what Ajisen Ramen’s fried mussels looks when it was served:

I still recall the first time we dined in a South East Asian restaurant in Raffles Place, People’s Square. The food and atmosphere was average. It was an incident that left a deep impression. A local couple ordered Indonesian pineapple rice and when it arrived, they complained loudly to the waiter that the dish was different from the picture in the menu. Finally the cook came along, apologized and took the dish back. I could not imagine this scene happening back home.

I saw this happened a few times in Shanghai actually. Initially I could not understand all this fuss until Ron and I had lunch at Ajisen. We ordered ramen and some fried dumplings. The fried mussels really looked big and delicious and we ordered this dish. And then the mussels arrived. What the heck! These tiny little mussels were not look appetizing at all.

Guess we finally understand how that couple felt. Being the “peaceful” type of people, we did not make a big fuss but quietly noted it down in our “Never make this mistake again” list!

Popularity: 24% [?]

It is quite common to use baby strollers. After all, it is very convenient to use and bring your babies around. But seeing the way some parents or grandparents use the baby strollers over here in Shanghai is pretty shocking.

While waiting at the roadside for the traffic lights, I noticed an elderly couple, pushing a baby stroller, approach the traffic lights at the cross junction. They probably wanted to cross the road like me. They stopped briefly at the roadside as the lights were still red. But then the couple started to push the stroller onto the road while they waited on the pave way for the lights to turn green. The little baby was still sleeping in the stroller and the traffic was heavy!! If they had any common sense or regard for the baby’s safety, they should have waited with the baby stroller on the pave way.

I have seen this a few times in Shanghai and it’s quite nerve-wrecking. Can’t help but think it’s an accident waiting to happen.

Popularity: 24% [?]

As an expatriate in Shanghai, one of the drawbacks of living and working in China is to find a good English bookstore where you can stock up for those long train rides, or nights when the only thing to watch on TV is a mediocre local film with no English subtitles.

My Favoutie Mags

I’m a huge fan of Reader Digest ! I discovered RD when I was about 13. My dad subscribed RD every year and he had a whole shelf full of back issues in his study room. He woud urge me to read “My Story”, the harrowing true tales of danger or near death, stories that beyond the call of daily life in nearly every issues. If you are a RD fan too, and want to get US edition, you can find it at a small stall inside Carefour in Gubei.

My Favourite English Bookstore

I don’t subscribe RD in Shanghai, but I do pick up a copy from XinHua Bookstore everytime I visit Xujiahui Grand Gateway Mall, my favourite bookstore chain – has 70 years of history with thousands of outlets across the nation. This outlet has the most complete English section and is also the nearest to me. Although it’s small, but it’s jam-pack with a variety of books and mags. From Harvard Business Review to entertainment magazines, self development books, children reading materials, fiction & non-fiction, architecture to interior and product design books. Ron would always get his Business Week over here. Sometimes, price for Fortune and The Economist are higher then the amount printed on the cover! Don’t ask me why…

XinHua Bookstore – Xujiahui:

XinHua Bookstore at Grand Gateway Plaza, 4th floor. Renovated last year if I’m not wrong. It’s much smaller when I first visited this store in 2004.

Business & Entertainment Magazines

Self developments books

Fictions & Non-Fictions

Architecture & Interior, Graphic to Product Design books.  Most of these books were wrapped in plastic and you can hardly have a glance throught it!

Shanghai Hong Kong Sanlian Bookstore – Huaihai Lu:

The facade.

Previous issue, Asia edition for just 20 yuan!

Shanghai Hong Kong Sanlian Bookstore
Another bookstore in Huai Hai Middle Rd that I visited frequently. You get RD previous issue here at just 20 yuan! English section here are not as complete as Xinhua, you can’t find magazines like Business Week, Fortune, The economist..etc. But you will find a huge and comprehensive selection of Lonely Planet Travel guides and probably some novels!

Address:

• No. 624 Huai Hai Middle Rd.

Inmedio – Gubei Carefour:

Just beside Carefour entrance

Gubei Carefour:

A small corner inside Carefour, it’s behind the escalator to 2nd floor.

Reader Digest US edition

Depends of what kind of books you want, there’s some other great bookstore around Shanghai too:

Chaterhouse Booktrader
Have a wide selection of cookbooks and novels, a small section of travel guides, kids, entertainment and sports magazines, but can’t find Reader Digest everytime I go. Price are much more higher compare to other foreign language bookstore. You can also get free mags like CityWeekend here.

Address:

• Shop B1-K, ShanghaiTimes Square, 93 Huai Zhong Road. Tel: 021 6391 8237
• Shop 68, 6F, Super Brand Mall, 168 Lujiazui Xi Lu, Pudong. Tel: 021 5049 0668
• Shanghai Centre, 1376 Nanjing West Road

Popularity: 24% [?]

All the pandas were safe in Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base and were unaffected by the May 12th devastating earthquake. The research base, home to world’s biggest group of artificially-bred giant pandas, is the only place in the world where these cuddly bears can be seen in huge numbers.

There are about 20 pandas relocated here from Wolong center located in Wenchuan, the largest Panda breeding center. These bears are fed with fruits, and their favourite food, bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots are reduced from their daily menu because of food shortages and damage after the May 12th earthquake in the region. According to the zookeeper, Pandas are very picky about food and eat only fresh arrow bamboos. An adult giant panda used to excrete 10 kilograms of faeces per day, but it has now come down to 2-3kg because of scarce food. Artificial diets in the form of protein biscuits have been created for giant pandas as well.

United Nations Environment Programme – The role of honour for environmental archivement.

Main gate.

Admission fee is 30 yuan, and open to visitors from 7:30am to 6pm.

Captive panda cannot survive in the wild.

Panda in the cage with beds and lots of padding to keep them comfortable

The Pandas prefer to cool it off in the cage rather than sweat outside.

Lunch Time!!!

A chance to hug the young panda, while wearing sterile gloves, booties and gowns for panda’s safety. You can’t believe you’ve got to pay how much to hug the panda for few minutes. It used to be 500 yuan, but after the Sichuan earthquake, it’s 1000 yuan (around USD146). Part of the money will donate to charity.

Some signage in the center

Talk softly, or pandas will get annoyed

Tour Service Hotline: 86-28-83510033 or 83533816
Address: No.26, Panda Road, Northern Suburb, Chengdu Sichuan (610081).

Bus Routes to the Panda Base:

• Chengdu Xinnanmen Bus Station (Chengdu Tourism Distributing Center): Tour Bus Special Line No.902 direct to Panda Base;
• Take public bus No. 1, 45, 63, 69, 70, 71, 83, 82, 49 or 60 to Chengdu Qinglongchang Bus Station, then transfer to No.107 or No.532 to get the Panda Base;
• You can take a cab as well which will cost approximately 30 yuan.

Center map available here !

Popularity: 26% [?]