On the Tudou Intranet there is a feed of my blog, but it shows only the titles of the posts. If you click on the title you get the full text. What I did not realize is that because I started using  feedproxy.google.com (Feedburner) for the content of my posts and this seems to be blocked in China, nobody could read the full post anymore at Tudou. Because my RSS feed contains the full feed, other readers in China without a VPN could still see the whole post. But if they would click on the link to see the post itself or to comment they would get an error message.

I now added an additional RSS feed for everybody in China using Feedsky at http://feed.feedsky.com/Shanghaied. So if you are behind the Great Firewall and use RSS to read this blog, it’s probably better to change the feed. On the top right corner of this blog you will see the two RSS feeds, the original one at http://feeds.feedburner.com/shanghaied and the China one at http://feed.feedsky.com/Shanghaied.

This week the whole of China closes down for a week and so Spil Games Asia also closed its doors for a few days (we will be back in the office on Saturday morning, because this weekend will be a working weekend in China). This year we decided not to go to Beijing nor to the beaches of South-East Asia but to stay at home. Main reason is because of the kids, traveling with two young kids is quite stressful.

I actually enjoy spending a couple of days at home. I read some books (latest was Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, about the LDS church – very interesting read), played some games (just bough Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone, very addictive game), did some sports (ran almost every 5-10 km to keep in shape), and of course had lots and lots of good food and wine.

Two days ago we even hired two chefs to cook us a good meal. Quite an experience to have real chefs at home! Our regular cook went home for Chinese New Year, so this was a good opportunity to get some high end chefs to cook some special Chinese dishes for us. In total they prepared 12 appetizers and 12 main courses for us, I think I gained quite some weight that night.

Other days we cooked ourselves or we went out to restaurants in the neighborhood. Last night for example we went to Spanish restaurant Las Tapas where we tried lots of nice tapas and had some paella and noodle dishes. Excellent, especially in combination with cold San Miguel beer and pitchers of sangria. Because we started our dinner quite early (the kids also joined us) we ordered our drinks still during the happy hour, so we got double the number of drinks that we had planned to order. No big problem, we finished it all.

Of course I also played a lot with the kids. It’s fun to be around them the whole day and interact more with them. Scott is such a busy boy, amazing how he can keep on running around the house for hours. No wonder he eats so much, he probably burns more calories during a day than I do during a 10 km run. Elaine is much more quiet, but she can also scream out loud if she wants attention! She is a real sweet girl, it’s very interesting to see how different our kids are.

Next to all fun and relaxing activities I am also doing a bit of work. There are not many mails coming in, but I still had a large number of emails that I didn’t get to answer yet, and I am trying to get most of them away this week. I am also studying Chinese characters for about 2 hours every day, mainly reviewing them. I want to increase my reading skills and the only way to do that is by reading more and memorizing the characters that I don’t know. Doing this for 2 hours or more per day leads to immediate progress, it’s better than just 15-30 minutes per day. Too bad I don’t have so much time during normal working weeks.

The next two days will be more of the same. I am enjoying this holiday, it’s good to be away from the office and get my mind off of all work related problems. The past couple of months have been quite intensive and I needed this break. A few days at home may not be enough to complete recharge my batteries (I probably need to get away from Shanghai to do that), but I feel much more relaxed now than just a few days ago.

Even after living in China for over 10 years I still spot unexpected cultural differences every now and then, especially since we have kids. There are of course a lot of issues related to how to educate your kids, but my wife and I pretty much have the same opinion on that, so that’s not a big issue.

But Scott also goes to kindergarten and we recently had an interesting discussion there. The Chinese teacher told us that Scott was leading the class to behave naughtily. She told us this so that we would be were aware of it, sort of implying that she considered it a bad thing.

Although I did not say it, I see that a bit different. Scott is one of the younger toddlers in his class and he is already able to lead a group to do something that the teachers actually do not allow? I think that’s great, I am even a bit proud of him for showing leadership skills at such a young age already. And I also don’t mind that he is being a bit naughty, I actually like a personality where he does not follow all the rules right away and where he is not afraid to test the limits of the rules. The little boy just turned 2 years old, he will have enough rules to follow when he gets a bit older!

Another example, about two weeks ago I had dinner in a Chinese restaurant with some friends and I also took my family to the dinner. We had a lot of dim sum dishes and also ordered many kinds of vegetables. Scott loved the vegetables, he was especially fond of the mushrooms, the asparagus and the broccoli. The friend sitting next to me is a Belgian psychologist specialized in kids and he was surprised to see Scott eating so many vegetables. He told me that most European kids are not big fans of vegetables and prefer to eat less healthy kinds of food. It must be a cultural thing, because at home our cooking ayi prepares several vegetable dishes every day, so Scott is used to eating vegetables and rice for lunch and dinner. And although kids can be picky eaters sometimes, he is generally very happy with the choice of food that we serve him.

That reminds me that during last weekend my wife and I took Scott to Cafe Montmartre (a French bistro restaurant) where we had some salad and french fries as side dishes. And guess what Scott wanted to have? The salad! Of course he also enjoys French fries every now and then -so he knows very well what it tastes like- but he still went for the salad. I can’t imagine that as a kid I would have made the same choice. Maybe his eating habits will change when he gets a bit older, or is it really a cultural difference because he gets so many vegetables every day?

On Friday evening Spil Games Asia had its annual dinner for all employees, my 5th dinner with this company already. Like most companies in China we always organize a dinner in the last days before Chinese New Year, and during the dinner there are speeches, a lot of drinking, and people play games.

In my speech I talked about the changes at Spil Games Asia over the past year, both the good things and the bad. Some key people left last year, but that allowed us to finally build a top management team that is ready to reach some ambitious targets (the targets for January were already met, so we’re off to a good start). I also talked about the future of games and the impact that the iPad may have on the game industry. The industry has changed a lot over the past years, and I think also this year will see some big changes.

At the end of the dinner there was a lucky draw and I was asked to draw the grand prize. And believe it or not, but I managed to draw my own name! Of course I tore up my ticket and drew another number. A colleague said that this is a sign of good luck for the company (getting my own number, not tearing it up and drawing another one), always good to know!

After dinner a group of colleagues went to a karaoke bar where we sang a lot of songs, played some dice and drank more beer. It was a lot of fun and a good way to get to know my colleagues in a different setting. There is also a post with some more pictures of the party on Joop Dorresteijn’s blog.

Now that Scott is over 2 years old and Elaine is 8 months old it gets nice and nicer to interact with them. Scott really started talking now, he switches without any problems from Chinese to Dutch, and even occasionally says some thing in English. Chinese he learns at home from my wife and the nannies, Dutch from me and my parents when they are visiting, and English from the teachers and kids in school. Because his pronunciation is not yet perfect we sometimes have to guess what language he is speaking, or he mixes two languages (e.g. sometimes he says “??? kijken”, a mix of Chinese and Dutch which means “I want to watch the tractor” – a reference to his favorite TV series Tractor Tom).

Elaine also started to talk a lot, her favorite word is still baba. When I come into her room in the morning she is always very happy to see me and she immediately says “baba” to me while waving her hand to greet me. So sweet! It makes me very happy to be a dad. Elaine learns new skills almost every day now. A few days ago she managed to stand on her own for the first time, but of course she fell over after a few seconds. She now also manages to clap her hands, and she has a huge smile while doing that.

Their personalities are completely different. Scott is loud, loves to takes risks (climbing on the couch or table and jumping off) and has a high pain tolerance (on more than one occasion he hit his head against mine, which hurt pretty much but he didn’t even cry). He also loves everything related to cars. If he refuses to do something and you tell him we may go for a car ride later he will immediately follow what you ask him to do.

Elaine on the other hand is a real little lady. She is much more silent, but she can also cry and scream loudly if she is in the mood for that. Generally she just sits and observes the world around her, smiling at the people surrounding her or just completely ignoring them. At times she seems to look straight through me as if I’m not there. If you look her in the eyes, she does not look away but keeps looking at you without blinking. I can’t do that! Compared to Scott she is easily scared, for example when I am driving and suddenly need to brake she will immediately start crying. Also when watching TV she can suddenly start crying because she is afraid. But if you hold her she calms down right away and even keeps on watching the program.

We sometimes take videos of our kids and a couple of them are on Tudou. Below 3 videos that we shot with a simple point-and-shoot camera over the past weeks. The first one shows Scott and Elaine while playing in their playroom. Elaine’s nanny holds Elaine who keeps on laughing. In the middle of the video Scott takes a picture of Elaine with his baby camera, he is good at that already.

The second one shows Elaine on the couch in the living room. My wife is trying to teach Elaine to say mama, but of course she prefers to reply with baba 🙂 It’s quite funny actually to hear her saying baba the whole time. The last seconds of the clips show an article in a Chinese mother magazine about my wife. She was interviewed because they consider her a successful business woman who manages to combine an extremely busy job with raising two kids.

The last one was taken at Scott’s ??? (pre-school / kindergarten) where the class is singing and dancing. I never see Scott interact with other kids because I am always in the office during day time, so I liked it a lot that I could see him here. Scott it the boy in the red coat with a white collar. At 6:10 there is a small accident in which Scott falls pretty hard. But also here he does not cry, stands up right away and keeps on dancing with the group. I am a proud father!

This morning when I opened my inbox the first message that I saw was a press release with the title: Ho-Pin Tung in Formula 1. Ho-Pin will be the 3rd driver for the Renault F1 team in the upcoming 2010 season! That’s extremely good news for the talented Dutch-Chinese race car driver, something he fully deserves after working hard for this opportunity for many years. This means that he will be the reserve driver and will be fully integrated into the team and travel to all the races. He will also be part of the Renault F1 team young driver program, which gives young drivers the opportunity to work closely with the team as they continue to develop their skills as professional racing car drivers. Ho-Pin will have a busy year ahead, because next to his F1 obligations he will continue to compete in the GP2 series.

Over the years I got to know Ho-Pin as a talented and very hardworking person. He is totally focussed on his racing career and his whole life was centered on it. I first met him during the summer of 2003 when my wife (then still my girlfriend) and I produced a TV program in England in which Ho-Pin Tung was featured at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. We kept in touch regularly, and he appeared on this blog many times over the past years. For example when he visited our company in 2007 or when we made a flash racing game featuring Ho-Pin in 2008. See here for an overview of all posts in which he was featured.

Ho-Pin, congratulations with this major step in your career and good luck during the upcoming racing season!

During this weekend I had some time to think about the Apple iPad a bit more. I still believe that the current product is not right for me yet and that I will have to wait for version 2.0 or 3.0 before buying one. But after talking to some other people I realize the iPad now already fills a niche.

For example, this weekend my parents visited us in Shanghai and I talked to them about the iPad. I explained them the functions and its weaknesses, but for them these weaknesses are not such a big problem. For example multitasking (a MAJOR problem for me), if they write an email that’s all they do. They don’t have an IM window open at the same time, nor are they listening to iTunes in the background. The thing is that probably most casual computer users use their computers mainly in this way, and that this is therefore not such a big problem as it is for me. The same with flash, likely most people don’t even know what flash is and they won’t miss it. They’ll just notice some blank space in their browser and won’t care about it.

I guess I, and with me most people who have been blogging about the iPad so far, am not the main target group of this product. At least not initially. My parents have been traveling for the past weeks and they had a Macbook Pro with them on their trip. They found it too big, and they would have loved to have a smaller device like the iPad. As long as it easily connects to wifi, has a decent browser and an email client it is fine for them. There must be many people out there like that who don’t care about all iPad’s weaknesses.

And don’t forget about kids. My son Scott who turned 2 years on already knows how to turn on my iPhone and launch applications. On my laptop he knows how to launch a video on Tudou and he can play some very basic games. This would be the ideal tool for him. No confusing keyboard (he cannot read yet), just a large screen to play games on or to watch videos. He does not care about the device’s limitations. The New York Times sees that as well, in a piece yesterday they summed up why this may be the Toy of the Year. Among others: Kids think with their fingers (touch screen!), the 10 hour battery life (long car rides get a lot shorter with this device), 140,000 apps available already (iPhone apps work on the iPad as well) and it’s the perfect gadget for interactive books. I might actually buy one for Scott when it starts selling.

So maybe the early adopters won’t buy it right away. Or maybe they still do because the product looks so cool and we all hope that a software upgrade will remove some of the current problems. Just like with the iPhone that initially did not even have copy/paste! But if the early adopters don’t purchase yet, there is a big group of other people for who this may the exact right product. Once they are happy there will be a version 2.0 and then the consumers with more requirements will get one.

In my last piece I also mentioned that I think that Apple put the product on the market too quickly because competitors might be entering the market as well. One of my favorite bloggers, Dave Winer, seems to have the same thoughts. This weekend he wrote: Another thought occurred to me — iPad looks rushed. It seems possible that Apple pushed it out sooner because it got wind of a competitive product. Could it be that Google has a DroidPad in the pipe?

Even though he is also not impressed with the product he also feels it has a big potential: The stakes are much higher than with the iPhone. No one should underestimate the potential of iPad. That’s why I said, ironically, there’s no doubt I will buy one as soon as I can. For the same reason I bought an iPhone. You have to understand this product if you want to stay current.

Let’s wait and see what will happen, and how many iPads my family will own by the end of 2010.

Yesterday Steve Jobs launched the Apple tablet in San Francisco which he called the iPad. As usual Apple had only leaked a little bit of information about the tablet to keep people guessing about it, causing a huge free viral marketing campaign even before anybody knew for sure what the product would be like. Apple is the only company in the world that manages to do this, and they manage it time and time again.

Of course I was very excited about the upcoming launch, especially when I heard that Steve Jobs thought that this was the most important product that he had ever worked on. If this tablet would have a bigger impact than the iPod or the iPhone it must be something very special. So yesterday I decided to stay up for Lord Jobs’ sermon that started at 2 AM. My wife was actually still working by that time (she works crazy hours, compared to her I feel sort of lazy sometimes!), so it was not that difficult to stay awake.

As usual the Apple Gods had decided that the masses could not watch Steve and his disciples live on a video stream, but we had to rely on tweets and live blogging from the people in the room. There was a Crunchgear livestream, but that only showed commentary not the show itself. But with Engadget and Gizmodo on autorefresh and Tweetdeck with several keywords open it was easy to follow the whole introduction almost as if you were in the room. It was actually a fun experience to use social media in this way, listening to and interacting with other virtual spectators in the middle of the night, but that’s another story.

Steve Jobs did not waste much time and within a few minutes he showed off his shiny new toy, the iPad. My first impression was “wow, what a cool thing” and I looked forward to see all its revolutionary features. And that’s where it went wrong: there had been so much of a hype around the tablet that my expectations were way to high. And not just mine, on Twitter the Apple fan boys (and some girls) were also not that positive about the iPad (who came up with that name…?).

Sure, the product looks great, but it’s just a bigger iPhone in my opinion. It is supposed to be better than a netbook, but it isn’t because it runs on the iPhone operating system. This means that in the current version you can only run one application at the same time. Want to browse the web while having a chat on MSN? Forget about it, only one application can run at the same time. Want to play a flash game? Sorry, but flash does not run on this computer. Connect a mouse or keyboard through USB? Impossible, because the device has no USB port. How about a video call on Skype? Forget it, there is not even a camera built in.

One major selling point was that the device can be used as an ebook reader and that it would replace epaper ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle. I was flabbergasted that almost everyone seemed to buy it. Everybody who has ever used epaper should know what a difference reading from e-ink makes from reading off a flickering LCD screen. I have several ebook readers and although the epaper technology is still in its infancy it is incomparable with reading from a computer screen. I had hoped that Steve had found a way to integrate epaper with an LCD screen (Pixel Qi has developed such a technology), but the iPad has a normal LCD screen. A missed chance. It may even mean that many people will never try real epaper and do not realize what they are missing.

Of course the device has some excellent other functions, the user interface is great, the table looks very sleek and it may evenchange the way we use computers. But in its current form it’s nothing more than a bigger and more powerful iPhone. I am sure Apple will further develop the gadget into something that everybody eventually “needs” to have, but currently I don’t see the need of buying one yet. Maybe I need to work with it first for a few hours before I see the benefits, but this presentation did not impress me.

When I finally shut down my laptop at 3:45 AM I was quite disappointed. For the first time in a long time Steve’s magic did not live up to its hype. Maybe he wanted to put the tablet on the market too quickly because many competitors are entering this niche as well? The fact that we have to wait at least 60-90 days before we can get our hands on one seems to confirm that theory. Normally Apple’s new products are on sale almost immediately. Well, I’ll probably wait until version 2 or 3 before getting one. I am sure eventually Apple will get it right and then this might turn into the product that will change the world. But this iPad fails to delivery on its hyped up promises.