I was following Apple’s iPad announcement live online. I couldn’t help it but to feel overall it was quite a disappointment… even if I plan to buy it anyway.

Why do I feel disappointed? Simple. The iPad isn’t “magical” or “revolutionary” like Apple has claimed. It is, in fact, just a bigger iPod Touch for the most part. It runs on the existing iPhone OS and still has the same limitations. It does not suppot Flash. There’s no multi-tasking and no front camera to allow you conduct video-conferencing on Skype. And even with a better processor, it’s still meant to be a Netbook-like device and not a full computer. You use it to get online, play music or video and play some games. That’s about it.

“Revolutionary” would be if the iPad is more like the MacBook Pro than the iPhone…

But onto the good things about it… I do like the new iBook functionality. I plan to buy only e-books from now on. And to run iWorks on iPad is pretty amazing, considering they will sell the applications cheaply. But still…

When you get the iPhone, you think it’s amazing because all the things it can do. It goes far beyond your expectation for a phone. The iPad is considered a tablet computer but now we know it’s really not that much of a computer. And that’s why at least the current model of the iPad is a let-down. Maybe future models will become more and more powerful. Or at least I hope.

As I’ve said, I do still plan to buy it. In fact, I will get my mom one. She’s been waiting for a computer that’s light enough to easily carry around. She only needs it mostly for browsing websites, checking e-mails and maybe talking to me on Skype. I’ve resisted getting her a Netbook because I hate Netbooks in general. But the iPad will be perfect for my mom. I’ll get it for her with the keyboard dock!

Good for the Saints! Good for the city of New Orlean!!!

As for me personally…

2009 will be remembered most as the year that I quit my job at IBM and started working for my own company on a full time basis, although this story will continue into 2010 and hopefully beyond…

Other highlights of my year included…

A new relationship…
Amy and I got together actually on X’mas of 2008, but that’s close enough to 2009 so I’d list it here… We just celebrated our first anniversary and are looking forward to celebrating many many more anniversaries together in the future.

A whole month back in the US…
I was back in the US for (almost) all of September. It was great being with family and just taking a break from China.

A trip to Xi’an…
Xi’an and Chengdu were two cities in China that I’d wanted to visit the most. It was good to cross one of them from my “to visit” list in 2009. Actually it was quite a disappointment because the city was not especially hospitable for a major tourist designation and the place housing the Terracotta Soldiers was set up in a way that you couldn’t sense the historical significance of it at all.

Other notables included:

• organizing social networking events,
• getting an iPhone (which even for its price was a worthwhile purchase),
• using Twitter more actively (I had registered my account back in 2007 but didn’t really use it at all),
• spending sometime in Beijing while still working in IBM,
• a trip back to Taiwan in October,
• etc. etc.

In any case, let’s say goodbye to 2009. May 2010 bring much success, prosperity, good health and happiness to everyone!

I got this cartoon in an e-card sent by e27. It just hit on the right spot for me and I had to repost it here. My version of this would be:

“Dear Santa, all I want for X’mas is that my products roll out on time and they get mentioned on TechCrunch…”

Merry X’mas, everyone! May all your X’mas wishes come true!

But lately when I see myself in the mirror, I’m sensing a little bit of change happening. I don’t really see the big kid in me so much anymore. I wouldn’t say “he” is totally gone. But these days the person I see in the mirror looks more “grown up” than ever. In some way this “new me” almost seems a little strange to myself.

I’m not sure if this is just me being tired and stressed out all the time. But I suppose the process of growing up may never really end. I’d always appreciate becoming more mature and more sophisticated, regardless what triggers the transformation.

Here’s a recent photo of me, taken in Hangzhou.

Today a group of 10 students from Tongji University came to visit me in my office. They were part of a group called VCube that trid to groom students with an entrepreneurial spirit. I shared with them my experiences running SocialBuzz so far and talked to them about starting a company in general.

I actually recommended to them that they didn’t try to start their own business ventures shortly after graduation. My point was that they needed to build up valuable experiences, skills and connections before they tried to start a business, which was harder than most people realize. Obviously there were success stories of people starting a company at a young age and becoming rather successful, but I warned them that these stories were the exception and that for every success story, there were many many more stories of failed start-ups.

Clearly I’m not an authority on running a successful start up because I’m new to this myself, too. However, it was good to talk to these kids and I hope I provided some insights on the matter.

Yes, that’s my life/career aspiration. It is to be successful as an entrepreneur and then become an investor myself. I want to help other people with vision and aspirations getting their businesses off the ground. Sure just like any investor, I will have to evaluate what to invest in and ultimately I need to get a return on my investments. But the key for me is to help others get their first break and then perhaps guide them through their efforts to run a successful company.

I don’t know when and if I could realize this goal. But it’s as appealing a goal as anything I can think of. Let me take one step at a time to get there!

*I’m NOT being paid to say this!* I use this service called Dropbox which synchronizes your files between computers. It does that basically by making a copy of what you wanna sync to their servers. You need to download their software and place your files in a designated directory. Then voila~ you can have the same files on all your computers. The software you download will make sure every time you update a file, the newer version is synced up. What happens then is that I work on something at work and I just shut off my computer at the end of the day and go home. There’s nothing I need to copy to a USB drive and I don’t need to take my laptop home. Nice, huh?

But of course it doesn’t stop there. I also wanna have access to the same bookmarks on different computers ’cause I spent a lot of time online after all. For this, I use a browser plug-in called Xmarks. With that, whatever bookmark I save on one computer will show up on whatever other computers I have using Xmarks.

And then I also wanna make sure I have access to my e-mails everywhere I go. I stopped using a client software a long time ago. I use Gmail to aggregate my different e-mail accounts and I can access Gmail everywhere, even on my iPhone!!!

Not to mention I can access Facebook and Twitter everywhere since they are web services already. I gotta say I love how I have a fairly consistent “computing experience” because my data, files and even “social experiences” are pretty synced up wherever I go.

But of course there’s still the issue that I have different OS on different computers and have somewhat different versions of MS Office applications. There are some things I need to adjust for each computer and sometimes there are file compatibility issues, too, with my documents. But all in all I love how these technologies or services can help me stay “connected” and I can’t wait for when more of what we do is on the “cloud.”

These are the first of many things I have had or will have in my pursuit of running my own business (and hopefully a successful one). I’m gonna cherish each and everyone of them and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to experience what I’m doing now. Lately I’m terribly busy and at times I feel overwhelmed but it’s been a wonderful experience! Thank you!

It feels great to be productive. I have a tight schedule I wanna keep. And the only way I can do that is putting in a lot of hours over the next month. But this is the way to go — all engines running and full speed ahead…

It’s a little frustrating though because once I finish the prototypes and writing the development specs, it’ll still be a few months away before I have things to show for my hard work. But I know I will be very busy doing all kinds of things so time will fly and before I know it I can launch my products! People, better stay tuned!