If you guessed tourist then you're right. Someone said I look like a Japanese tourist :)
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Happy Halloween!
Today is the day where everyone can dress up as they wish and no one is going to make fun of them. I recall last year going clubbing on halloween and every guy was dressed up as a pimp with their large fur coats, large top hats, and a series of flashy bling bling around their necks and fingers. On the other hand, girls had a different attire. They dressed as little school girls with short skirts, white angels (I recall one that had very large wings to compensate for the skimpy lingerie she had on), and various other outfits where clothing was at a minimal. I think the cutest outfit was someone dressed up as a large pikachu who was just walking down to the subways from the street as the streetcar I was in passed by. This year is slightly different. I dressed up at work for their small halloween event. I bet you're eager to find out what I wore. Well here it is:
If you guessed tourist then you're right. Someone said I look like a Japanese tourist :)
If you guessed tourist then you're right. Someone said I look like a Japanese tourist :)
Friday, October 29, 2004
Car in the shop
My Corolla has been in the shop a lot lately. The transmission and driveshaft have to be replaced. I'm glad it's under warranty. This is what I drove on Thursday for the day.
It has a powerful and smooth engine and handles corner better than my Corolla but I still love my Corolla's steering feel.
It has a powerful and smooth engine and handles corner better than my Corolla but I still love my Corolla's steering feel.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Part 3 - Manufacturers, Conclusion, Raw data
Style, design, usability, and brand are factors in many of the products that we buy. Why do people buy a Mercedes when most people know that Lexus are of the highest quality, BMW 3-series are the best handling, or that KIAs are the best bargin. It’s because of design and sometimes the prestige of a respected brand people choose a phone over another.
These are the brands of phones that my friends carry:
As we can see from the graph, many people carry a Nokia or a Sony Ericsson. In the industry, Nokia leads in marketshare while Sony Ericsson holds the fifth spot behind both Motorola and Samsung.
I’ve presented you a lot of graphs and you’ve been asking me about my sample population. My sample population are my friends. Most of them are Chinese with a mix of Canadian-born and Hong Kong-born. My statistics techniques are very primitive but I’m going to give some ideas to explain the graphs that I’ve presented.
Most phones my friends are using were approved by the FCC in 2002 and 2003. At that time Nokia had the largest marketshare, making it highly probable that a phone purchased would be a Nokia. Many of the Sony Ericssons belong to Hong Kong Chinese who are very into Sony things - they have Sony TVs, Sony desktops, Sony Camcorder, Sony VCR, and Sony digital camera. I admit that I have half of those Sony electronics.
The large number of people having bar-type phones can be explained by looking at the manufacturers of the phones my friends buy. Until recently, Nokia has only released bar phones. Sony Ericsson mainly produces bar phones as well. Their exceptions are the Z200 (not designed by Sony Ericsson but just branded by them), the Z600, the Z1010, and the upcoming S700 and S710a. That already accounts for 59% of the sample population.
Colour screens began to become affordable in late 2002. Many of my friends are split between phones made in 2002 and those in 2003 so the 50/50 split is evident in the cell phones by colour screen graph.
Only recently has camera phones become affordable and available throughout the lineup of service providers. I’m sure in the next two years a lot of my friends will have camera phones. The Motorola V220 camera phone can be had at Rogers for $49.99 with a 3 year contract.
I wanted to do a price survey to find out the dollar amount people paid for their phone but that information was difficult to collect and varied a lot because the value of phones depreciate quickly.
Everyday we see people around us. We take notice to what people wear, what people drive, what people carry with them. Perhaps after reading this blog you will take notice to what kind of phone someone is carrying with them. They’re convenient and something that almost everyone carries around with them. Looking at the raw data, you can see most people still view their phones as a mere communications tool. But that is exactly how cars started, as a mere transportation tool, and look at it now.
Raw data is available
If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to send them my way by leaving a comment.
These are the brands of phones that my friends carry:
As we can see from the graph, many people carry a Nokia or a Sony Ericsson. In the industry, Nokia leads in marketshare while Sony Ericsson holds the fifth spot behind both Motorola and Samsung.
I’ve presented you a lot of graphs and you’ve been asking me about my sample population. My sample population are my friends. Most of them are Chinese with a mix of Canadian-born and Hong Kong-born. My statistics techniques are very primitive but I’m going to give some ideas to explain the graphs that I’ve presented.
Most phones my friends are using were approved by the FCC in 2002 and 2003. At that time Nokia had the largest marketshare, making it highly probable that a phone purchased would be a Nokia. Many of the Sony Ericssons belong to Hong Kong Chinese who are very into Sony things - they have Sony TVs, Sony desktops, Sony Camcorder, Sony VCR, and Sony digital camera. I admit that I have half of those Sony electronics.
The large number of people having bar-type phones can be explained by looking at the manufacturers of the phones my friends buy. Until recently, Nokia has only released bar phones. Sony Ericsson mainly produces bar phones as well. Their exceptions are the Z200 (not designed by Sony Ericsson but just branded by them), the Z600, the Z1010, and the upcoming S700 and S710a. That already accounts for 59% of the sample population.
Colour screens began to become affordable in late 2002. Many of my friends are split between phones made in 2002 and those in 2003 so the 50/50 split is evident in the cell phones by colour screen graph.
Only recently has camera phones become affordable and available throughout the lineup of service providers. I’m sure in the next two years a lot of my friends will have camera phones. The Motorola V220 camera phone can be had at Rogers for $49.99 with a 3 year contract.
I wanted to do a price survey to find out the dollar amount people paid for their phone but that information was difficult to collect and varied a lot because the value of phones depreciate quickly.
Everyday we see people around us. We take notice to what people wear, what people drive, what people carry with them. Perhaps after reading this blog you will take notice to what kind of phone someone is carrying with them. They’re convenient and something that almost everyone carries around with them. Looking at the raw data, you can see most people still view their phones as a mere communications tool. But that is exactly how cars started, as a mere transportation tool, and look at it now.
Raw data is available
If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to send them my way by leaving a comment.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Part 2 – Form, Screen, Camera
It’s hard to go around town without seeing someone hold their cell phone to their head, be it when you’re on the bus or driving in your car on the highway. While we bring our phones with us almost everywhere we go, have we thought about how our phone looks? We think about how we dress each day with numerous questions on your mind such as “Do I wear these pair of shoes with my top?” or “What goes with this bottom I have?” Since we coordinate our clothing, why not coordinate our cell phone to suit our personality?
We can see from my survey the following result:
A large number of people use bar-style phones such as those from Nokia. They are the most traditional design, dating back to the original brick phones.
One feature that has made leaps and bounds on cell phones is the screen. It is something that a user looks at most often when using their cell phone. It was just a bit over a year ago that colour screen phones appeared on Canadian service provider lineups. Although many of my friend’s contracts aren’t up yet, a large number have colour screen phones:
A more recent feature that is quickly being implemented more and more cell phone models are cameras. Telus was the first with a colour screen phone in Canada and they’re also the first ones with a camera phone in their lineup.
As you can see, not a lot of people I know have camera phone, most likely because it’s still a relatively new feature in cell phones in Canada. Perhaps we’ll all be doing photo blogs in the near future.
Part 3 – Manufacturers, Conclusion, Raw data
We can see from my survey the following result:
A large number of people use bar-style phones such as those from Nokia. They are the most traditional design, dating back to the original brick phones.
One feature that has made leaps and bounds on cell phones is the screen. It is something that a user looks at most often when using their cell phone. It was just a bit over a year ago that colour screen phones appeared on Canadian service provider lineups. Although many of my friend’s contracts aren’t up yet, a large number have colour screen phones:
A more recent feature that is quickly being implemented more and more cell phone models are cameras. Telus was the first with a colour screen phone in Canada and they’re also the first ones with a camera phone in their lineup.
As you can see, not a lot of people I know have camera phone, most likely because it’s still a relatively new feature in cell phones in Canada. Perhaps we’ll all be doing photo blogs in the near future.
Part 3 – Manufacturers, Conclusion, Raw data
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Part 1 - Cellphones
You walk around downtown, the local mall, or even outside in a park and you often see at least one person talking to someone else on their cell phone. If you have a cell phone, I’m sure you’re likely to be carrying it with you when you go out. It has given us the ability to contact anyone at anytime when we need someone, be it to arrange a get together, an emergency situation, or merely to share a conversation. However, cell phones have quickly grown into something it was not originally intended. Today will start my first part of perhaps a two or three part blog about the uses of cell phones and my friends and cell phone survey.
The original cell phone was envisioned as a tool to give us the freedom to receive calls even when we’re not at home. Since the first cell phone call in 1973 by Martin Cooper, the cell phone has continually developer combining many functions normally found in other devices such as phone book, organizer, alarm, timer, camera, and more recently portable music player. But its original purpose as a communications device remains its top priority even today.
In the cell phone industry, a few different technologies exist to facilitate cell phone communications. Recent technologies enable cell phones to place calls, receive calls, send short messages called SMS, send images and/or sounds as MMS, or even browse the Internet. In Toronto, there are two main technologies being used CDMA and GSM. Since this won’t be a technical discussion, I won’t go into details about how each works but know that the two are not interchangeable so a phone designed for the CDMA network won’t work on the GSM network and vice versa. Now for service providers, Bell and Telus run on CDMA while Rogers and Fido run on GSM. Now for the survey results:
As you can see, a disproportionate number of my friends are using GSM phones so they are using either Fido or Rogers. GSM phones use a SIM card to store account information. By placing your SIM card into any GSM phone (assuming it is not locked to a service provider), you can immediately use that phone and phone calls to you will reach that cell phone. CDMA phones in North America do not work this way and require someone to either punch in codes to set up the account or to program it using a special cable connected to a computer. The advantage easily goes to GSM by allowing users to easily switch phones. Great convenience when your phone is damaged and you need to buy another one or borrow one from a friend.
Part 2 – Form, Screen, Camera
The original cell phone was envisioned as a tool to give us the freedom to receive calls even when we’re not at home. Since the first cell phone call in 1973 by Martin Cooper, the cell phone has continually developer combining many functions normally found in other devices such as phone book, organizer, alarm, timer, camera, and more recently portable music player. But its original purpose as a communications device remains its top priority even today.
In the cell phone industry, a few different technologies exist to facilitate cell phone communications. Recent technologies enable cell phones to place calls, receive calls, send short messages called SMS, send images and/or sounds as MMS, or even browse the Internet. In Toronto, there are two main technologies being used CDMA and GSM. Since this won’t be a technical discussion, I won’t go into details about how each works but know that the two are not interchangeable so a phone designed for the CDMA network won’t work on the GSM network and vice versa. Now for service providers, Bell and Telus run on CDMA while Rogers and Fido run on GSM. Now for the survey results:
As you can see, a disproportionate number of my friends are using GSM phones so they are using either Fido or Rogers. GSM phones use a SIM card to store account information. By placing your SIM card into any GSM phone (assuming it is not locked to a service provider), you can immediately use that phone and phone calls to you will reach that cell phone. CDMA phones in North America do not work this way and require someone to either punch in codes to set up the account or to program it using a special cable connected to a computer. The advantage easily goes to GSM by allowing users to easily switch phones. Great convenience when your phone is damaged and you need to buy another one or borrow one from a friend.
Part 2 – Form, Screen, Camera
Monday, October 25, 2004
Nothing to write about
Like my title says, I don't have much to write about today and for once, not even a picture to post. The day started off as any other day, a dimly lit day and the usual traffic jams. But today I was hooked on ezbay once again. I really wanted to replace the phone I have now with something more capable. Something with at least a VGA camera, memory card support, and MP3 playability. Too bad prices on ezbay quickly exceeded my budgeted amount. I think they have some good prices on things.
At home I had a long discussion about family structure. There's two main ways to how families work. The first is where after finishing high school the child mainly supports him/herself financially and moves out quickly after graduating post secondary. The second is merging the child's money into the family so that he/she cannot distinguish what is his and what is not but he/she does not have to worry about money as much. But this carries the idea that he/she should support the family after post secondary. I find myself the latter. A lot of my friends seem to be the former and are already preparing to move out. In a way I am envious of them but I know I have a responsibility to my family. At least I don't have to worry about cooking everyday.
At home I had a long discussion about family structure. There's two main ways to how families work. The first is where after finishing high school the child mainly supports him/herself financially and moves out quickly after graduating post secondary. The second is merging the child's money into the family so that he/she cannot distinguish what is his and what is not but he/she does not have to worry about money as much. But this carries the idea that he/she should support the family after post secondary. I find myself the latter. A lot of my friends seem to be the former and are already preparing to move out. In a way I am envious of them but I know I have a responsibility to my family. At least I don't have to worry about cooking everyday.
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Convocation
Yesterday was my convocation. A lot of people. Many old familiar faces and a lot of faces that I've never seen before. I guess that is how it is in a big university and and big faculty. At least they called our names in the convocation and didn't mention our student number.
Here are some pics at the beginning of convocation:
lol I don't think so. I've been out of school for 6 months already and I only miss the friends and time we had together. What do you miss most about school?
Here are some pics at the beginning of convocation:
Left
Centre
Right
Do you think I'll begin to miss the math building corridors?
lol I don't think so. I've been out of school for 6 months already and I only miss the friends and time we had together. What do you miss most about school?
Friday, October 22, 2004
Sushi on Friday
It was SOOO hard to get up today. I wish I could sleep in till 8:30am. So after work we all went for sushi. After work was 6:30pm. We went to this place:
It was good eating. I didn't take a picture of our food since I think everyone at the table would look weird at me.
Here's a picture I grabbed as we left.
Doesn't that guy in the pic look like Neo?
It was good eating. I didn't take a picture of our food since I think everyone at the table would look weird at me.
Here's a picture I grabbed as we left.
Doesn't that guy in the pic look like Neo?
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Video Phone
I worked out after work. It was great. I felt more energized and everything. then it was off to have dinner with some friends of my family. I was early so i took a look around and saw this:
It's a video phone from HK! The middle part is the screen and the left is the headset. Cool eh? doesn't look like a phone. Wonder what it can do in Canada. I also went to Times Square but i forgot to take a pic so no mall guessing for today. By the way, congrats to Jonathan again! He's right. It's Yorkdale. I'm tired now... been a long day. Good night.
It's a video phone from HK! The middle part is the screen and the left is the headset. Cool eh? doesn't look like a phone. Wonder what it can do in Canada. I also went to Times Square but i forgot to take a pic so no mall guessing for today. By the way, congrats to Jonathan again! He's right. It's Yorkdale. I'm tired now... been a long day. Good night.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Shopping after work... again
OK I went shopping again this evening. It's getting very boring. I am SOOO not going shopping again at an English mall till around Christmas time... too bad that isn't too far away from now.
So where did I shop? guess :)
So where did I shop? guess :)
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Twoooo's day
Monday's picture was of Fairview! Thanks to all those that guessed. Jonathan's right. It's right in front of the Timothy's there. I'm not too sure about the sushi place though.
So on Tuesday I went to work out at the gym downstairs. i had a personal trainer for the first visit so he showed me most of the machines and how to use them. We talked about what I was planning to do at the club and I said it was to build muscle. We talked a bit about eating healthy so that made me think about dinner that night. I decided that after listening to him mention eating healthy, I wouldn't be doing Big Macs that evening. So I was going to eat healthy. I didn't find a Quizno's so I went to KFC
So on Tuesday I went to work out at the gym downstairs. i had a personal trainer for the first visit so he showed me most of the machines and how to use them. We talked about what I was planning to do at the club and I said it was to build muscle. We talked a bit about eating healthy so that made me think about dinner that night. I decided that after listening to him mention eating healthy, I wouldn't be doing Big Macs that evening. So I was going to eat healthy. I didn't find a Quizno's so I went to KFC
Monday, October 18, 2004
Shopping after work
I didn't sleep well at all last night. Getting up for today was just torture. Weird thing is that when 4:30pm was rolling around, I seemed to have a bit more energy than in the morning. I'm a night owl. Well after work today I went to shopping at this mall:
See if you can guess which mall it is. Did you say my camera sucks so much that you can't make out where it is? Well... the camera isn't very good but I couldn't stand still for too long. I didn't want someone to think I was taking a picture of them.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Downtown
Spent the afternoon shopping and downtown. We pass by the Bata Shoe Museum:
Just kidding, they have a more normal apartment but it wasn't fun to take a picture of.
Here's another residence I frequently pass by:
Do people that go to Woodsworth really live here??
Just kidding, they have a more normal apartment but it wasn't fun to take a picture of.
Here's another residence I frequently pass by:
I hope that's enough pictures to make up for yesterday's void
Friday, October 15, 2004
Meat Washing?
I was catching up on some news and I found an article about meat washing at Chinese fast food restaurants. Makes me want to rethink my plan about eating fast food for the entire week.
Click the image above for a link to the video. Too bad it's small so you can't see the juicy details.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Camcorders
I signed up for the Sports Clubs of Canada last night. Took a while but it was nice to hear all about what they offer. I wonder if the customer service will be as good AFTER I'm a member.
I'm at home right now typing and transferring our camcorder tapes onto VHS tapes. It's not too fun and time consuming but I am seeing things I've never seen before. Here's my set up:
I'm at home right now typing and transferring our camcorder tapes onto VHS tapes. It's not too fun and time consuming but I am seeing things I've never seen before. Here's my set up:
Wish someone else was doing it and not me.
Haha! While I'm watching this, I'm hearing about how they're recording this all for me and saying "Hi" to me. This tape was recorded more than 2 years ago and this was the first time I saw it. I can't believe they took so many pictures of trees and hills without anyone in it. The Internet has made looking for those pictures so easy.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Should I join?
I have no clue what happened to my original post but I guess I have to re-type what's on my mind.
After work I ventured down to the Sports Club of Canada. It reminded me of Waterloo but with more cycles and weight machines. Nothing really special. Still thinking whether I should join.
The blue highlighted ones in the image below are the ones included with the membership. Closest to me is Steeles and Leslie... about a 30 minute drive away. Hmm... that's as far as going to work.
After work I ventured down to the Sports Club of Canada. It reminded me of Waterloo but with more cycles and weight machines. Nothing really special. Still thinking whether I should join.
The blue highlighted ones in the image below are the ones included with the membership. Closest to me is Steeles and Leslie... about a 30 minute drive away. Hmm... that's as far as going to work.
Update: OK I'm joining now. I have to go 3 times a week to actually make it worth it. Perhaps I'll even go on a day on the weekend.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
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