Chris Drumgoole

Beijing IKEA Photos

Originally uploaded by chrisdrum.

A few of my loyal readers have complained that I haven’t been ranting lately. You want a rant, here is one.

First, on with the good stuff…

Sure, IKEA is great. We spent about US$100 on our first trip there last night. The new location, which opened in April, is 3 or 4 times as large?
Here is a list of the positives:

• Free covered parking in same building (3 underground levels)
• More stuff! My favorite section - Kitchen Ware - has a ton more goodies.
• Swedish Food Market - we’ll be having Swedish Meatballs for dinner later this week.
• Closer to home and my office than the old location.

Now, here is the rant…

Here is a list of the negatives:

• They charge you for bags. Yes. Plastic bags. Yes, I know. How crappy is that? 1 RMB for a large one, 0.5 RMB for a small one. Free parking, but they charge you for a bag?!?!
• Limited English signage! When I came to Beijing in 2003, and I went to the IKEA here (the old, smaller location), I was impressed. Almost every item had two tags explaining what it was. One in Chinese, one in English. All signs were bilingual and easy to read. Now, Just about zero of the items have English tags. All signs have big Chinese characters in white on a blue background (easy to read), and very small English words in dark grey (on a blue background). Thanks, IKEA. Guess us stupid foreigners who can’t read Chinese characters aren’t part of your target audience. I have money, don’t you want it?

All in all, my experience at the new IKEA was neutral. Great stuff, but just a few things that ticked me off. I’ll go back, but I’ll still be ticked off in the process…

Me at work

Originally uploaded by chrisdrum.

This is my work space at work. Cool, huh?

I’m just testing a direct to flickr and blog from my mobile phone. Technology rocks!!!

IMG_0428Originally uploaded by chrisdrum.

Over the weekend, Melanie and I hosted some friends for a 3-way. No, not *that* “3-way” you dirty person… A “3 reasons to have a party” party!

1. It was my Birthday!
2. Melanie and I finally want to have a housewarming party!
3. I have promised many of my friends for a few years now to host Thanksgiving dinner.

So, here are the pics! (um… click on the dang picture to the right to go to the Flickr photo set!)

It’s that time of year again: a completely random decision to change my hosting provider and design.

I will still use Wordpress, but i will upgrade to 2.0. Mainly because the new provider, DreamhostHas an auto-installer for WP 2.0.

I’ll give it a week or so for this transition to be complete. Be patient. I’ll be creating a radical new design. Boom!

What did I buy myself this time? Surprise! A new phone!

Ok, ok, ok… My original phone broke - it wouldn’t charge anymore. Small problem… Yes, I posted that entry on April 13, 2005. I got my new phone on the 23rd. Didn’t last long, did it?

So here is the pic(s):

QTek 8310		Dopod 577w
O2 XDA Orion		i-Mate SP5

Hmm… they’re the same, but different brands. Weird.

As it turns out, all these phones are made by a company called HTC Taiwan, who, coincidentally, makes about 95% of the world’s Windows Smart phone and Pocket PC mobile phones. Go Taiwan - way to be the OEM Kings!

Any way, it’s pretty sweet. I have just been playing with it for 2 days now. I actually bought it from eBay China from a shop in Shenzhen. The phone isn’t sold in Mainland China, yet, from any of the aforementioned brands - so this was a shady import, at best - most likely from Taiwan - as I gathered from the Traditional Chinese support and Taiwan warranty card… I’m a good sleuth.

I finally got pseudo-Push email working from my company’s Exchange 2003 (SP2) email server, so I’m pretty happy.

So which one actually did I get? The Dopod, which is also a Taiwan brand.

I’ll post if it breaks.

P.S. - I am absolutely warmly surprised and impressed with eBay China. Unlike other Chinese online companies (even some with foreign influence), eBay makes it extremely easy to pay! You cannot claim that for an online discount travel website, cTrip (which is on the freaking NASDAQ Stock Market) or eLong (which is somewhat related to Expedia. Still a ways to go in online commerce in China…

Mobile Phone, Dopod, 577w,

This is good (I think). Foldera Announces 4-for-1 Share Split. I bought a few shares last month. So, The number of shares I own will quadruple over night. Hopefully the lower price per share will entice would-be investors to put some money on a company that hasn’t actually launched their flagship product yet!

Foldera, Stocks