Brian Lo's blog

Tablet Computer

Brian Lo — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:17:08 +0000

My first contact with tablet went back to 2005 when we received an HP tablet on WinXP with some pen strokes input as part of the package we got from our flat. That seemed a long time back in terms of computational power. The tablet was slow and performance was lousy. Though it already had Wifi and bluetooth built in we simply left it untouched very soon.

The first generation iPad arrived in late 2010 of course once again changed the playing field and soon Android tablet, Blackberry Playbook and the short lived HP Touchpad all jumped in to divide the pie created by iOS. Very soon the kids realized how intuitive they can work on the UI on the iPad and they loved it. So after few months the iPad had to stay home!

The first worthy challenger was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 running on Android 3.2.1. It had good form factor and was equally stylish as the iPad and iPad2. The dual core drive was quick but frankly speaking the UI was not as smooth as iOS and I found that somehow it was just a bit too big. It stayed around for half a year and got traded out in my last trip in HK. My latest tablet is the Galaxy Tab 7.7 with a stunning screen and faster 1.4GHz performance. It’s also the first Samsung Tablet that supported by micro SD card under Android 3.2. It’s so new that apparently the external SD card can only allow music, photo and video storage but doesn’t allow apps to be transferred! So the web forum now all urging Samsung to have a patch to fix it. Of course there are more powerful tablets to come out but the size, form factor and the overall performance found a good and decent balance right now.

I was tempted to move to an Galaxy Nexus that runs on Andriod 4 but in the end I decided to wait. Both of the my current gadget will be upgradable to that in a few months time and for that I am not in a rush.

Hailey to School

Brian Lo — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:32:59 +0000

Hailey went to school for a few days already. We had a slight worry that she might not fit in but it turned out she liked it so much that she didn’t cry at all. Being in the same school and going to school together with Eugene probably was another comfort factor. She liked all the puzzles, toys and outdoor playground. So far a good start in this Odyssey School.

The benefit of this half day schooling was immediate: she started to utter more words already.

Round Up 2011

Brian Lo — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:19:33 +0000

We spent the last two weeks of 2011 in Hong Kong. The kids stayed in HK for almost a month this year in two trips. They received so much attention and gifts. The air quality of HK deteriorated a lot along the years and it won’t be long before we cut back such trip. Eugene went to Ocean Park the third time and managed to see a lively Panda eating bamboo shot this time. He had a great time. Hailey visited Disney World the first time on a relatively calm and cloudy day. I’m sure she will like it more when she’s slightly older.

The influx of mainland china tourists was so evident that it changed the way retail business are run and to some extend the business model as well. We managed to bring the kids to see my parents 3 times. The kids like to travel on tram, bus, ferry and MTR train.

This year is another difficult year for many and in many ways. The eurozone crisis, the weak US recovery and the slowing down of China economcy all left marks on asset and currency pricing. Managing capital and liquidity become key imperatives for many banks and the job cuts has been wide spread and deep.

On the gadget front I’ve installed a Vulkano player in Eugene’s cousin house. It allowed video streaming of the HK program to any other gadgets (iPhone, Android phone, Mac and Smart TV). Just hope we can encourage the kids to watch some cantonese/chinese programmes that interested them. Another little gadget is a media box called PD XtraTV run on Android OS. With HDMI out and ethernet in plus a USB dongle for a wireless mouse and keyboard it turned the flat screen TV into a multimedia gadget.

Meeting up with friends were again limited to the old pals: high school pals, colleagues from Paribas days and mathematicians that I knew for more than 20 years.

The new year’s eve ended up with watching the countdown firework display from hotel room window.

Full Moon Eclipse for Eugene

Brian Lo — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:08:50 +0000

We had a very good and clear windy day today. We didn’t expect we can see the full moon eclipse. We saw the full moon rising from the east when we fed the kids at 7pm plus. Just after Eugene finished his bath at 945pm we went to the window and alas the full moon became just a crescent!

I carried Eugene to the balcony to see how fast the full eclipse proceeded. He just learnt from his class and a recent book how the astraunant got into space so he had the idea that earth is round and the moon rotated around the earth. He got excited and asked me to get a ‘telescope’ so that we could see the moon more clearly! So long as he gets curious into all sorts of things in life he will learn.

From what I can recall this is also the first time that I could see a full moon eclipse so clearly and at ease, though we know this happens relatively more often than the sun eclipse, it is still quite a spectacular astronomical event. Glad that little Eugene can experience it on this 10 Dec 2011.

Globalization or capitalism at risk?

Brian Lo — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 09:36:06 +0000

With the deepening european sovereign crisis, central banks of the world flooded another round of liquidity to the financial markets. The latest responses are interesting. IMF gave a warning to HK to urge policy push to boot start the economy and the financial secretary hasted to announce lifing of macroprudential measures put in place a year ago to curb property speculations could be considered, Singapore technocrats pushed out even more austeric measures to increase buy side stamp duty especially targeted at foreign property investors. One wondered if the G20 can pull the world economcy together to keep globalization on track. There are still wolf cry on sudden surge of interest rate and inflation. US economy is going neither here or there. Where there are pockets of deep cash the liquidity simply got locked up and does not channel to the borrowers. China is still troubled by the slowing down of growth and the potential threat of a hard landing. So in a sense the stage for perfect storm is being setup.

Amazon Kindle Fire – First 48 Hours

Brian Lo — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:43:12 +0000

I ordered the Kindle Fire around 10 days ago. It arrived my office two days ago. The 7″ Android based tablet was much cheaper than iPad and it lacked some fundamental features which is good for its main use of a reader. There is no phone, no bluetooth, no camera and only limited storage of 6GB. The glass was good and strong. Buying books from Amazon on the Kindle Fire was as smooth as in Kindle 3 or through the Kindle Apps on Android gadgets.

The only drawback that I can’t figure out is the purchase of Amazon Apps and other media contents. What worked with 1-click purchase of books apparently didn’t work with the rest. Perhaps that’s only a credit card address away but as officially the Kindle Fire is still restricted to US these extra stuff would be blocked anyway. Uploading of own documents – typically pdf files of chinese ebook was as easy as ever – just have to email to your own kindle email account and that’s done.

Amazon Reader

Brian Lo — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:20:00 +0000

The kindle 3 usage has been on the decline mainly because of the lighting mechanism. For the latest few electronic books I was using Kobo on the Android gadgets. I found the user interface different between Galaxy S2 and the tablet. Of couse I also added back the iOS version on the iPad. To be honest the iPad interface and user experience was the most satisfying.

The only drawback was that in terms of collection Kobo was much inferior to Amazon. I read Steve Jobs biography on Kobo. Last week I found a site to download Amazon Android apps and it worked perfectly. The reading experience was much better than through Kindle 3. Apart from the lighting the speed of the Cpu also matters. For instance I did not use the build dictionary before but on the touch screen gadget it was just so intuitive to highlight the word and the dictionary quote just pop up. Amazing!

Now my question is whether the Kindle Fire can beat my Android gadgets. Will know in a few days.

Eugene On Recovery

Brian Lo — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:21:02 +0000

Eugene went back for blood test this Tuesday. Unfortunately his ERA indicator was still high so he has to take 1 more week of aspirin. What’s the side effect of aspirin? Some cases might cause internal bleeding. We read from the web sources that a typical aspirin treatment lasts for a month so we just hope that Eugene can stop a bit earlier.

Other than that Eugene is almost back to normal. He took a swimming class and actively prepared for the school concert on this coming Friday.

Eugene caught the Kawasaki disease(川崎病)!

Brian Lo — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:52:54 +0000

Eugene was having fever from 21 Oct which was around 3 weeks ago. He had high temperature for a few days and soon recovered. However he could easily get tired. By early last week we found peel off skins from his fingers and we thought it was all due to allergy. But soon we found peel off skin from his toes as well. Phoebe decided to bring him to paediatrician for a checkup yesterday. We were a bit shocked that he was attacked by a rare disease first discovered in 1960s by a Japanese doctor. The actual cause is still unknown and there is no way we can prevent or detect!

What had happened was all the blood vessels of Eugene got inflamated. The most dangerous part is if the artery and coronary blood vessel in his little heart got hurt as well then during the recovery period blood clots can form and might cause heart attack! Eugene was sent for a blood test and was diagnosed to be positive. He was given aspirin to dilute his blood yesterday and he went back for a 2D echocardiogram scan this morning. We were relieved that everything looked normal. All he needs to do is to take aspirin for a week and then take a blood test. In 3 months he’ll take another echocardiogram again for double assurance.

We realized that this is pure luck that Eugene caught this disease and also some luck that he was affected only slightly from it.

Again When Grandma Just Left Eugene Was Sick

Brian Lo — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 11:52:02 +0000

I counted in 2011 grandma has been staying in Singapore for two long batches, from Jan 1 to Apr 19, and then from Jul 1 to Sep 19. So altogether she stayed here for more than 7 months already! Thanks to her help the kids are having good food and attention. Eugene’s cantonese capacity development also contributed from her stay here, not to say that we also have the luxury to enjoy her cooking.

Just as the grand parent left Eugene got a hit on Friday. First we just thought he ate too much cream cake at school but it wasn’t looked right. Just before going to bed he threw out a lot after struggling for quite some time. He was relieved when he went to bed but he got a fever. By Saturday morning his temperature was down but he looked tired. We didn’t let him go out the whole day. By evening the fever came again as well as some rashes all over his body. From past experience these were the results of viral infection. His appetite was down from normal but he could sleep well. By Sunday nite he’s getting better. If he doesn’t recover tomorrow morning we have to keep him home. He was asked to sing in a school performance in November with long tunes and lyrics and he would hate to miss school. This little boy inherited the good look from his mom and has been likeable by girls as well as teachers! His english already asked him to attend her wedding ceremony in two weeks time. Not every one in the class was invited!