People always say there are about 1.6 billion population in China, it’s a can’t-miss-out opportunity, go and do business there! Bear in mind, 1.6 billion population doesn’t necessary mean a 1.6 billion people market. But, just saw from the news tonight on TV, there are about 1.3 billion computer users in China. One thing that every Chinese computer user must install is a Chinese character input software. Approximately speaking, that’s the market which has close to “1.6 billion potential users”. And guess who just stepped in?

There is already pinyin input software come with Chinese Windows, but not that many people are using it as far as I know. There are quite a number of people using “Wu Bi (五笔)” system, which is based on the strokes of a Chinese character. I don’t use it because it just takes too much time to learn. But once you master it, it’s probably the fastest way to input Chinese characters. So, the majority users still stick to the Pinyin system. Here are those I’d used before. ZnABC (智能ABC), ZiGuang (清华紫光), Sougou Pinyin (搜狗拼音). They are very good I have to say, but as new technology comes out from time to time, I just switch to new ones. And now, Google just launched its own Pinyin input software!

There was rumors about Google were about to launch a pinyin input software, because its technology is already quite advanced from its “Do you mean…?” correction in google search.

I just tried it, it’s pretty similar to Sougou’s. Maybe it’s because Sougou has got quite a number of users and many people have already got used to it. However, there are some better functions that Google pinyin provides. Such as instant search from input bar, direct English input, etc. But the one I like most is the synchronization of user vocab database with Google account. The software can remember your input habit and your frequently used words, and you can synchronize it to your Google account, download it when you reinstall next time. Cool stuff!

I’ve set it as my default Chinese input, still testing. One more thing from Google, what’s next?

I watched an episode of Apprentice 3 while having dinner tonight. Again, the “book smart” team lost to “street smart” team. “Book smart” is a team which all the members are graduated from top universities. Whereas “street smart” members only graduate from high school but also done a lot outstanding business. Not surprise to me, the income of “street smart” is THREE times more than “book smart” according to their profile. One “book smart” member commended : we are pretty smart, but just need a little bit street smart. They also realised their disadvantage at the beginning – tend to over analyse everything before doing it. Whereas “street smart” just came out of an idea quickly and ‘just do it’!

After watching the show, I once again asked myself the question: Is university a place to destroy creativity and entrepreneurship of students? Ok, I think some people might start saying I’m crazy now. But when I was writing my dissertation this afternoon, my brain was alwaya surrounded by those questions like “Is there enough evident to support my argument?”, “Is my words big enough (academic enough) to impress markers?”, or “Do I need to add more references?” etc. I understand the important of bibliography and citing, but those concerns always stop me from writing down my ideas. Because I was educated that academic evident are required to use to support my ideas.

University teach people things that are already done by other people, but hardly let you to explore the idea that is out of the box. University itself is the box, in a sense. When I was small I like to read Doraemon, because you never know what will come out from that pocket. Sometimes I even imaged things that I want to have in future and draw them down. But started from my first day in school, I have to follow rules and sometimes all of them don’t make any sense. I was told to follow, otherwise will get punishment. So I’ve been very careful all the way until now, until this afternoon when I wanted to write down sometimes, those “rule questions” flew inside my mind and I just can’t come out any new ideas.

A lot of successful enterprises are started from university, some of them are very creative, like Google and facebook. But none of them are through a university project or assignment, rather, Mark dropped out university after facebook was launched, and Google was started as a garage project. Well, a lot people wish to be like them, but only few can actually achieve it, the rest of them are like me, getting headache with essays.

I remember a conversation with James one day about his English exam. His teacher told him that he can’t write essays like this or like that, but he insisted to write on his own way, the teacher gave up and let him do whatever he want to do. And the end, he got a A.

Ps. I am not supposed to have time to write this post according the “time management rule” I set to myself. But I know if I don’t write them down I will never do. So screw the “rules”!

http://www.google.com/tisp/

Three years ago today, Gmail launched. And now again, 1st April, Google is going to give out Free Wireless Broadban. This is just crazy! But what’s more, it’s connected through toilet. This sounds really crazy for me. Giving out free wireless, what’s this going to change the world?

Ps 1. Google notebook updated, better interface now.

Ps 2. Found another new services: Gmail Paper

Ps 3. It’s 12:05, 2nd of April now. Except Ps. 1 and Ps. 3, the rest of this post was a 1st April joke:)