Baidu Elderly Search

pic 1 baidu search engine

pic 2 baidu search engine for elderly

Baidu, competitor to google and China’s leading search engine, launched a search engine especially designed for older Web users in March 2009.

The portal, named “Baidu Elderly Search” in Chinese (s. pic 2), offers more than the empty, Google-style layout of the original Baidu search page (s. pic 1). It features larger fonts and search selections tailored for a more mature audience, from revolutionary song downloads to online forums on Tai Chi and keeping pet birds, popular pastimes among China’s retirees. The design emphasizes clicking instead of typing in order to help older users who might not find it easy to type Romanized Chinese (or pinyin) to produce characters for their searches. Interestingly, there are no graphics, text or ads.

Links

In China, A Search Engine for the Elderly

Baidu for Kids

Advertisement

Míngpiàn 名片

Míngpiàn 名片

名 míng
fame, reputation
label, name
describe
famous

片 piàn
slice, tablet, piece

Zhe shi wo de mingpian – Here is my business card.

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The business card in China is equally or even more important than in the western business world. You hand over your card with both hands and accept it the same way. Don’t do it the sloppy European way 😉
Accept the card with both hands (that is thumb and index finger), look at it (yes read it, it’s very ok…) and make some friendly comments or even give a nice compliment (if there is nothing to compliment on admire the impressive company visual…).

Make friends! 🙂

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Great Firewall of China

Great Firewall of China – My Blog is blocked…

http://guiworld.de (domain used for redirection to this blog) is blocked for weeks already here in China.

Today, https://guiworld.wordpress.com is blocked as well.

I mentioned already, that youtube.com is banned… Now, guiworld is blocked as well…

Read more about censhorship in China and The great Firewall of China.

Also very interesting is Rebecca MacKinnon’s Blog, RConversation – unfortunately blocked in China though (not Hongkong). Topics include censorship, blogging in China, Web 2.0

How to…

fan qiang, or “climbing over the wall” — shorthand for circumventing China’s “Great Firewall”:

Proxies

Work-around: use a proxy server. Urls are hidden by it and – given that the proxy is not blocked – you may surf on the site you wish (sometimes with some limitations though…).

Youtubeproxy

click here for more proxies

VPN

VPN (Virtual Private Network) is another successfull way to deroute the firewall. It is like a tunnel undermining all walls… You can either install VPN-Software and connect with your company or university abroad or use a commercial service. I can highly recommend swissvpn.ch. It is quite fast and costs only 5$ a month. No software necessary. You might also want to check SaferSurf.com or Steganos.com.

Free up to 10 GB: www.cyberghostvpn.com

Free *SW* : www.hotspotshield.com … I installed the SW; but it didn’t connect though…

Tor – a distributed, anonymous network

Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. Tor is a non-profit project which provides the free software. There is a firefox extension aswell.

Google

Cool! Google.com/translate …paste url, choose ch -> en, and voila Firewall bypassed… thx to compsolutions

Web2Mail – receive webpages via mail

Web2Mail Lite offers access to the web by email. To request instant delivery of a web page, send an email to www@web2mail.com with the address of the web page you want as the subject of your email message. For example an email with the subject “news.bbc.co.uk” would request the BBC news. You should receive a reply within 5 minutes but when I tested it, it took 30min or so.

Web2Mail Lite also enables you to search the web by email. For example, to search for “peanuts” send an email to www@web2mail.com with the subject “search peanuts” in your email message.

A similiar service is www.webtomail.co.cc . But as of this writing (July 2009) this service seem to be off / blocked.

Make a graphic

Do you think, your post includes some “offending” messages? Don’t write text but make a graphic more….

Test

• Testing tool to check whether a site is blocked
  www.websitepulse.com/help/testtools.china-test.html
• Check your current IP-Number
  www.wieistmeineip.de/

Update: Blocked again

guiworld.wordpress.com is blocked again since May 8th!

It was not blocked from May 1st 2009 – May 7th 2009

More Links

• Xiao Qiang: The Development and the State Control of the Chinese Internet short and easy to understand article about the four strategies how censorship in China works
• Bundeskabinett beschließt Gesetzesentwurf zu Kinderporno-Sperren Censorship in Germany?
• Die Gesellschaft für Informatik fordert Taten statt Netzsperren Die Gesellschaft für Informatik erklärt der Großen Koalition, warum Internetsperren im Kampf gegen Kinderpornografie nutzlos sind.
• Censorship on Tiananmen Anniversary Cripples Chinese Net June 4 isn’t just the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, it’s also known as Chinese Internet Maintenance day…
• 80% netizens agree China should punish Facebook …By People’s Daily Online Facebook is blocked since July 7, 2009
• Gegen Internetsperren AK Gegen Internetsperren (German)
• Cashing in on Internet Censorship Feb 20, 2010
  

More Tools

Great collection: Sesawe

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F1 in Shanghai

Now for the third time there is a Formula One race at Shanghai International Circuit.

Circuit architects Hermann Tilke and Peter Wahl on their creation: “The 5.4 kilometre racing track is shaped like the Chinese character ‘shang’, which stands for ‘high’ or ‘above’. Other symbols represented in the architecture originate from Chinese history, such as the team buildings arranged like pavilions in a lake to resemble the ancient Yuyan-Garden in Shanghai.

8000 workers worked 18 months 24 hours to create the circuit for more than 240 Billion Dollars. The Main Main Grandstand holds 29.000.

We were seated in Grandstand K row 8.

Signs

上 shàng – high, above

上海 Shànghai

And note also what I found in the dictionary:

爱上 àishàng – to fell in love

Links

• http://shanghai.urbanatomy.com/index.php/sports/1349-formula-1-on-track-for-a-cracker
• http://www.icsh.sh.cn/en/special/node_21772.htm
• Vettel Zweiter auf dem Nürburgring hinter Webber 12. 07. 2009

Pictures

Massa Ferrari: last drive…

Massa

Vettel in front

Vettel won

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Wild Work

Wild Work

Due to some requests of my interested readers, here I am going to tell you a bit about my work. More detailed insights are presented in the near future.

Wilddesign’s customers in China come mainly from China and also some from Europe and other countries with base in China. Main areas are industrial design, especially design of:

• products
• packaging
• shops
• events

This also includes development of brands and CI (Corporate Identity) including image brochures and web sites. Example products are power tools, kitchenware and medical devices.

At my desk

Due to a non-disclosure-agreement I can not tell you too much about customers and projects. In my first weeks I helped with research and proposals, attended project meetings and interviewed applicants.

Furtheron, I am interested in the cultural differences, thus, my main research interests are design, usability aswell as approaches and attitudes towards project work and business life of Europeans and Chinese.

As you might have guessed already from my posts, business and private life is not strictly divided as it often is in Germany. You sing karaoke with your customer or indulge in nice and long dinners with prospective business contacts.

The next weeks I will be busy with a new project which is about a re-design of two medical devices, which are used in labs for analysing samples. These devices are equipped with screens in order to operate these units and to analyse resulting data. Project includes design of the devices and the screens, development of CI and user interface style guide as well as usability testing. Results are 2D designs und finally, 3D renderings of the future product which will be ready for production by then. Meaning that engineering and production requirements are aleady taken care of.

Since my emphasis is user interface design of software, it is very interesting for me to experience this new area. At a closer look though, work activities are pretty similiar. Therefore, we can learn a lot from each other in comparing and integrating methods and processes.

We are 7 Chinese and 5 Germans at the moment, and there is so much work, that there are more to come…

Have a look at me at the office entrance.

Balcony view

Balcony view

Yes… I had to take it again… such a clear view – and during the day??? Sky and air was thick and yellowish… I almost felt like in Bejing today. Humidy 100% … argh…

Jing’an Temple

Goddess Guan Yin

Jing’an Temple 静安寺

Jìng’ānsì, the Temple of Peace and Tranquility is a Buddhist temple on West Nanjing Road, in the Jing’an district. It’s surrounded by shopping mails and sky scrapers, but the temple area is indead peaceful and tranquil. Entrance fee is 20 RMB. Nice place!

Guan Yin is a popular goddess in Chinese folk belief and is worshiped in Chinese communities throughout Asia. Guan Yin is revered in the general Chinese population due to her unconditional love, compassion and mercy. She is generally regarded by many as the protector of women and children. By this association she is also seen as a fertility goddess capable of granting children (source: wikipedia).

寺 sì means Buddhist temple. “Si” has more than 30 meanings, but the different signs are unique. “Si” aso means 四 “4” for example, but also 死 “death” if pronounced differently. This is why the number 4 is a unlucky number. Nobody wants to have “4” as part of mobile number or licence plate…
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Teppanyaki

Teppanyaki

Today, Japanese food for lunch…

Teppanyaki is quite popular in Shanghai, there are more than twenty places in the city.
We gathered around a teppanyaki table to indulge in grilled meats, seafood, vegetables. Our personal chef prepared beef, prawns and octopus cooked to order. Fun to watch and to eat, it’s worth a try.

Link

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teppanyaki

Happy Easter!

View from my office window, this morning 9am

Happy Easter to you all!

No Easter here in China though…

Friday and Monday are normal working days. We had a day off last Monday, on Qingmingjie. Instead, our boss invited us for a Teppanyaki Lunch today.

John Legend

John Legend in Shanghai, Evolver Tour, April 8

I’ve seen John Legend two years ago in Stuttgart and now in Shanghai, Yunfeng Theatre… What a difference. Now he is even more at ease on stage, very charming, sexy and what a great voice he has!
It was real fun seeing hundreds of Chinese singing and dancing (and a couple of Long Noses aswell…) to the music of a very relaxed John Legend. Yes, he evolved. He performed his material mostly very funky, even uptempo. And we had our share of his love songs on the piano aswell.

Opening act was Vaughn Anthony, John Legend’s brother.

Great concert!