Christmas is coming. Although we don’t have tradition to celebrate Christmas, and people have different oppinions about whether we should celebrate Christmas in China, the Christmas tree is getting bigger and bigger in Shanghai, despite of the financial crisis.

Christmas Outside Grand Gateway

Swarovski X’mas Tree

Below is the Christmas tree inside the Grand Gateway.

Super Brand Mall

This is from the Super Brand Mall.

I saw this in Metro City.

and this outside the Grand Gateway area:

Hong Kong

I didn’t capture any tree in Hong Kong, but I saw this big wheel in IFC (International Financial Center).

Conclusion

My basic feeling is, Shanghai has more decoration and a little bit better than Hong Kong based on the places I visited so far. I may be highly biased since I only visited several towers in Hong Kong during my trip.

P.S. You still have friends on Facebook that use this site, but haven’t connected their accounts

I start to use the Windows Live application by Microsoft – I mean the client application tools, not the LIVE.COM services. It gave me much hope about the future of Windows Live.

When I use the first and second version of Windows Live, my comment was: "I see great hope in Microsoft Live product. It shares something in common with many great products from Microsoft – the first two versions are always garbage."

I am happy that I am right again. Although the first two versions of Microsoft Live Writer is not good, this version (version 12) works very well. It simply works without many bugs. I also enjoy using Microsoft Live Mail – using it as a client, the experience is just better than GMail – that is the strength of a desktop application over a web application. The new Microsoft Live Photo Gallery is also doing very well. Comparing to Picasa, I didn’t see significant weakness. Live Photo Gallery is even stronger in sorting according to date.

Jiayou, Microsoft.

For some reason, I postponed my dinner to 9:00 PM. Now, I am sitting in the Aniseed Vietnamese French Cuisine. While I am waiting for my Vietnamese noodle (delicious!), let me tell my friend about it.

It is the best place serving Vietnamese noodle in Shanghai, based on my limited experience of restaurant. As the name suggested, it combines the delicious food of Vietnam and the grace presentation from French. The noodle shop (maybe this is a better term to describe this "restaurant") is not big – only 10 tables. But the music and the service is very good – very rare in its kind. The Taiwanese host greets every customers and checks "how is everything" like in U.S. This is also very rare in local restaurants.

It is just downstairs of the office building I am in. Here is the address:

189 West Guangyuan Road, Shanghai China 200030
It is at the corner of West Guangyuan Road, and Leshan road (one block away from the corner of West Guangyuan Road and Huashan Road)
Reservation Number:021-64476488
Opening Hours: 11 AM to 11 PM.

I have to give you a tip: Their noodle is very delicious, but the amount may not be enough. They offer free service to add more noodles. Just make sure you ask for it.

Hope you like it. Well. My noodle is waiting for me already.

P.S. They don’t have Internet access – I am using Microsoft Live Writer as offline editing tool.
P.S.2 Vietnamese noodle is my favorite food in America. I eat Vietnamese noodle in Seattle when I work for Microsoft, in San Jose (although the noodle shop at Bascon Ave and E Hamilton Ave is just on the border of San Jose and Cupertino) when I work for eBay.  I also eat the same noodle in New York and Boston when I travel – it offers exactly the flavor I love at a cost lower then Chinese food.

(This post is posted via Microsoft Live Writer – it is pretty impressive)

Robert wrote a great blog about his thoughts on Social Aggregator. He pinged me on Skype about it. Let me do spend some time to write a kind-of review about the thoughts.

A social aggregator can aggregator various information (not just RSS feed of a blog or Flickr account!) from many feed sources, store data in local cache(db) for performance and queries, user can apply different filters to get very interesting result.

This reminded me of Rapleaf. I just met Auren in Nanjing the last week. Rapleaf is a reputation management tool to aggregate all kinds of information on the Internet about a person’s reputation. It seems similar ideas with what Robert is proposing. I know there is difference. However, the challenge I think Rapleaf faces is, there are not so much information in the Internet space. (Auren, correct me if I am wrong). For example, searching my email in Rapleaf didn’t turn out to be interesting result for me because of lack of information. Hopefully one day, when user’s profile information expands like the total number of pages on the Internet does, this aggregation can succeed as Google did. What I am trying to say is, the current problem is not lack of aggregation tools. The problem is lack of enough sources for people to aggregate. For people like Robert, Isaac, Joi Ito, Auren, and me, maybe yes. Good solution. But for many people I know, it is far from useful. Just as I know not much about music, conducting, art, drama, and space technology, they may not know Internet well enough.

I have the same comments for the three bulletin Robert wrote:

1. Use LINQ as query language?
2. Social Aggregator
3. Use LINQ as query language?Use LINQ as query language?

It is the lack of data, instead of manipulation of the data that matters.

The other comment I have about "Very interesting results that a social aggregator can generate" is, to rely on the usefulness of other application is risky; to rely on the usefulness of many applications together in more risky. For the aggregation idea to work, it has to find source that people really like to put their reading list on (maybe Amazon), or put their wish list (maybe eBay), then this application is useful. The problem is, it is not easy for everyone to agree on which service is the best, and use that one altogether.

On the idea of the previous blog, I think it is very cool application for geeks, but not individuals. To educate people to setup a blog or even an email address is not easy, not to mention to have everything ready (like Blog, Photo sharing, wish list….). I am not saying that it is not useful, but due to the high threshold, not many people is really "qualified" to be the user of this application.

In the YLF in Nanjing, I did a survey, and to my surprise, out of Internet space, even the most high-profiled people, or those archived people, don’t adopt Internet applications very quickly.

Blog is a big thing, just like email. I believe it is big because it enables anyone with Internet access to WRITE on Internet, just as email enables everyone on Internet can reach each other. These are really big thing. That is the reason I am not super excited about the idea of Social Aggregator.

P.S. I am trying to provide negative comments on this idea, as I think different ideas help to polish the idea itself. I am also happy to disclose that I am also the person who said FocusMedia is a bad idea. That means, based on my track record, if I say something bad, there are very high possibility for the idea to really succeed. 

Late sleeping last night took effect today. I fall asleep as soon as I sat down at a 10F seat of MU flight. This is the first time in my life that I didn’t enjoy a flight – I didn’t know when the flight took off and when it landed. All I know is, I sat down, slept, woke up and went home. Amazing! It seems I should stay late every time before a travel thus the boring time during the trip will be easily skipped, as if it hadn’t existed. Oh. There was even a book at Amazon to teach people to Sleep on Airplanes. LOL.

Munich’s Glass

Wendy sent back some pictures from Munich.

Munich Airport. Photographer: Wendy

If Munich is made of glass, then Shanghai must be made of people.

Stairs at People’s Square Station in Shanghai. © Jian Shuo Wang

I found myself to be a business man recently. I am working on the figures of money everyday, just like the owner of a startup.

It is a completely new world when you are counting about the P/L. In the next few weeks, I will spend some time on the finance and business part. This is a major focus shift for me. I am no longer a technical person.