My email to Bryon Wilfert (Canadian Telecommunication Industry)

Hello Honourable Bryon Wilfert,

I just came back from vacation on a 3 week tour of the Far East, including countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. As a professional in the high-technology industry, I noticed that telecommunication technologies available to the common consumer at these countries are far superior to those offerings that are available here in Canada.

As an example, a local calling cellphone plan for 880 minutes just cost $88 HKD in Hong Kong. That’s less than $12 CAD (using exchange rates on Oct. 4, 2010). This is a pre-paid commitment free plan. Calling back to Canada cost less than $0.03 CAD per minute. People in South Korea has enough bandwidth to watch TV on the subway. Time and time again, I see these examples throughout my travels. Of course, I am envious of these observations, and would love Canadians to experience and have access to this scale of information freedom. Yesterday on October 3rd, I am reminded of yet another horrible experience dealing with one of our major Internet Providers here in Canada, and felt compelled to write to you, so that I can bring your attention to the disparity that we face with these countries.

If you are not aware already, organizations such as SaveOurNet.ca does an excellent job in communicating the issues at hand. A good summary video can also be found here: http://bit.ly/4G3e3T Thank you for your time and attention, and I hope that you can objectively represent our global position on this matter.

Kang Lu

Day 1 of our Far East Trip

Arrived at the Hong Kong International Airport at around 1:30pm local time after a 15hrs and somewhat better than expected comfortable ride on an Air Canada AC15 flight. Time on the flight passed quickly as I used it to watch many movies, The A-Team, The Losers, The Last Air Bender, and others. Carol slept, while the kids either enjoyed the on board kids entertainment or their Nintendo DS.

Our arrival was more troubling, as the immigration line was extremely long, and the never ending queueing for luggages, train, and taxi. We didn’t arrive to the place where we are staying until 4pm. We were then greeted by Carol’s cousins who brought some local food, which we snacked or devoured, not sure because at this time I really was not fully awake.

Carol’s cousin went out and purchased some communication necessities, such as local SIM cards and their corresponding prepaid plans. While they made their errands, the kids and I took a little nap. We went out for dinner, making a quiet and early evening, because we were very jet lagged. We all turned in early and were in bed before 11pm.

But here I am writing our first day’s experience wide awake with our new prepaid Internet service via one2free nextG. It is good to be online again. The data rates are so cheap around here. We got a one week unlimited data plan for $200 HKD.

Why I Ended Up with Parallels

When I switched from my Dell to a MacBook Pro, I knew that I still have to retain some type of Windows capability, especially the product that I develop predominately runs on Windows due to its connectivity with a Windows database, Microsoft SQL Server. There were three options at the time: VMWare Fusion, Parallels, and dual booting with Bootcamp. The last option is really a non-starter, since it is way too cumbersome to reboot when I have to switch OS.

So it boiled down to a choice between the two solutions involving virtual machines. I started out with VMWare Fusion, because our company had experience with VMWare on Windows and we had a few VMWare virtual machines already built. I went ahead and bought version 2.

The best way to sum up my experience with version 2 is that running it made my MacBook feel sluggish. The disk I/O read and write speeds were very slow. I ran some non-scientific benchmarks and they were sometimes five times as slow as native reads and writes from Mac OS X. Since I use the VM for the specific purpose of running a database, this is somewhat problematic. To compound the disk I/O issue, it gets worst after the VM is suspended. It almost seems like the VM never fully wakes up. Restarting the VM from suspension also took a very long time. Due to these irritating characteristics, I ended up shutting down the VM completely, and restarting the VM frequently, countering the convenience that I would have enjoyed with the Mac’s very nicely implemented lid-closing suspend feature. I also do a lot of presentations and demonstrations. Of course during the demonstration, I would plug my MacBook into a projector. All this worked fine, until I unplug the projector. Going from mirrored displays and back to a single display caused VMWare to misbehave. I sometimes get a black LCD screen, or my computer just freezes. Either of these two situation forces me to bounce the power button.

Shared folders in VMWare also caused me endless headaches. Finally, I thought my prayers were answered when VMWare version 3 came out. It got a little better. I/O speeds improved somewhat, but the basic instabilities still existed. I then came across this article and found that Parallels’ I/O performance is significantly better. After downloading a trial version of Parallels Desktop 5, I started by converting my VM. This procedure was effortless and pain free. Sensing good karma already.

When I started the VM with Parallels, I was pleasantly surprised how fast it started up. Disk I/O was fabulous, very close to native speeds. The most enjoyable experience is that I can now close the lid of my MacBook and open it up again without having my computer feel sluggish. Parallels simply does a phenomenal job when it comes to start, suspend, and restarting the VM. It is just a pleasure to work with! No more issues when displays are mirrored with a projector, or viewing the VM in full screen mode, and the other working mode does not bog down my OS X experience. Everything is not rosy though. I did find an issue with copy and paste, but can be quickly remedied by simply quitting Parallels and re-launching again. Given Parallels’ fast performance in stopping and starting VM’s, I rather deal with this one issue discovered in more than 10 days of putting Parallels through its paces, than the litany of issues previously described with VMWare Fusion. In summary, my trial ended yesterday and I bought my Parallels license. Goodbye VMWare Fusion (off of my hard drive for good).

TEDTalks (video) – George Whitesides: A lab the size of a postage stamp – George Whitesides (2009)

Amazing. Diagnostic medicine with paper! Check out this episode of TEDTalks (video) at George Whitesides: A lab the size of a postage stamp – George Whitesides (2009) – http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TEDTalks_video/~3/sOSnF8DDgrE/760

How I would use the iPad

Let’s say that I own Apple products from all three categories.  An iPhone for true mobility applications when I don’t want to carry anything like a bag.  The iPhone fits nicely in my pocket, and gives me enough online experience when I’m about.  A MacBook Pro for real productivity work like coding, video editing, anything else requiring heavy duty CPU power.  And finally assuming I get this new iPad, a device that has a form factor that is easy to hold while lying in bed, on the couch, or sitting at the dining room table.
Given the above situation, I think I can imagine the following scenario:
  1. Come home from work
  2. Put my iPhone in the dock (its use is completed while I’m at home)
  3. Plug in my MacBook Pro so it is charging, and its contents are shareable on my home network
  4. Pick up my iPad in the living room and start any of the following activities (in order of most likelihood):
  • Surf the Internet
  • Check Email / Calendar (mostly reactive)
  • Listen to my usual podcast
  • Read a book
  • Watch a movie
  • Browse some pictures
  • Play games

Of course I can do all of the above with my MacBook or my iPhone but I think the experience of the iPad could be better.

This is of course all speculative since I have not held an iPad in my hands yet, and therefore have no idea what the actual experience is like.  So the above only holds water if the experience is indeed superior to what the iPhone or the MacBook (or for that matter any other device) can give me, and is good enough to drop down the $500 USD.
I guess that is all there is to say, without getting into, the iPad SHOULD BE this, or the iPad DOESN’T HAVE this.  Just value it for what it is right now and see if it is worth it to you or not.

TEDTalks (video) – Shashi Tharoor: Why nations should pursue “soft” power – Shashi Tharoor (2009)

Check out this episode of TEDTalks (video) at Shashi Tharoor: Why nations should pursue “soft” power – Shashi Tharoor (2009) – http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TEDTalks_video/~3/PWVyj99AcMs/689