A.Connector

Pwned by Peas

Tis the season and I have a tale to tell. A social media tale in fact. There once was a place called Twitter-land. Within this strange and mysterious land there lived a princess named Susan. Now Susan was a very bright and cheerful princess. Not moody and sulky like many of the other princesses. One day our princess discovered something positively frightening-a hard area in her bosom. Not one to sulk or keep secrets from her fellow Twitterzens, Susan shared her ordeal with us. She even let us know that “Boobs on Ice” (Susan provides the boobs, birdseye the frozen peas) was a soothing solution to the discomfort caused by the growing tumor. Peas, peas and more peas so many peas began to turn up in Twitter-land on peoples avatars,err peavatars demonstrating their concern and love for their princess and friend.

Unfortunately Princess Susan is not alone in her battle against this ugly disease in Twitter-land. There is also at least one other princess and a prince sucking up their courage and battling this intruder with great dignity and poise(present pluperfect tense of peas?).

So in this busy bustling season I ask that you note these folks. Add them to your prayer list, warm thoughts list, contribute to charities that help find cures, most importantly show these friends that while they are fighting the hardest, they aren’t fighting alone.

Revving up for 2 x Holidays

Here in Taiwan we get to go through 2 sets of holidays. Notice I used the term “get to go through” instead of enjoy? Well some of it is enjoyable. The first set are the holidays that most of you from US and Europe experience: Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa and New Years. Set #2 is indigenous to Asia and overseas cities that have sizable Chinese populations: Lunar New Year(Chinese New Year).

The interesting/challenging part is the business side. While most of my customers enjoying leisurely Christmas break we’re usually still kind of frantic about making sure the end of year orders that need to happen and get shipped prior to Chinese New Year do get out. The time window between Jan. 1 and CNY varies since CNY is based on the lunar calendar. This year we get about a month and a half since CNY drops Feb. mid-month.

Confusing? Well we’re used to it and when we focus we can actually enjoy 2 sets of holidays. Kind of crazy I know-but it’s our life. Ahh almost forgot-we at A.Connector wish you and your family a peaceful and healthy holiday season and new year!

Indulge me for a moment…

As I near the mid century mark of my life(still over a year but I check on teh clendar from time to time) certain things become much more apparent. The little ordinary things in life often provide the most meaning and joy. Case in point-my son had a virus the other day and was pretty miserable after having an exam at school(Confucius must have loved exams because Chinese schools are forever giving them). His mom decided to heat up some oranges for him since the Chinese recognize citrus fruits as “cold foods” and not suitable for respiratory conditions unless heated. I went to my old school move(thanks Nana for teaching me) and did the Jewish penicillin thingie: chicken soup.

Well he was doing worlds better the next morning and my wife checked his homework entry for that day. In it was, “I’m a very fortunate child, my mom made me heated oranges and my dad made a batch of chicken soup just for me because I was sick. I’ll be rocking that one for a long time to come.

Shiny new gadget…

OK just to prove I’m not immune to shiny new gadgets… Actually my buddy Jeremy-the new official Seesmic blogger pointed me to this in response to a conversation on how I wish Seesmic had a privacy option to record personal video-mail messages that can be sent via e-mail. Voila(hmm that’s French). It’s called EyeJot and I even have a widget right here on right sidebar that you can record something in and send to me. So far I’m very pleased. This kind of technology was one of the few things I liked about Facebook but wished wasn’t locked up inside Facebook. Well here we are. Hope you like it.

Kinda knew right??

Didn’t we all kind of know that Facebook and all the hype and invites and linking and the early joy and wonder were too good to be true. Not to mention the fairy-tale valuation of $15 billion(albeit shrinking) dollars. Well Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and the damage control is in effect as customers begin deserting Facebook’s Beacon program. First Coca Cola, now Overstocked and Travelocity are fleeing the rat ship claiming ignorance of what the evil Facebook was up to.

Should Facebook be held accountable for violating it’s users privacy and going overboard with sharing and collection of data and being generally creepy? Of course, but we need to hold the advertisers that encouraged them and joined them accountable as well.

Om Malik has a piece titled, “Beacongate…” and PC World addresses the privacy issues in detail.