My Android tablet -- not an iPad

My motivation was to buy something that could allow me to leave my notebook computer behind while traveling. Having two weeks’ experience using a friend’s iPad convinced me that a cheaper alternative might be just the ticket.

I found the Yuandao when I was shopping in Beijing in Zhongguancun, the big electronics market area. I knew something about Android tablets (or MIDs — mobile internet devices) but nothing about Yuandao. So buying it was a bit of a risk, but I was feeling cocky at the time.

It went with me to the States and back again, and it was pretty handy for surfing the Internet via the built-in WiFi, or a wired connection through a USB adapter. The pad did run down the battery pretty quickly until I learned that you need to manually shut off the internal cell network modem. Meanwhile, I installed Kindle, watched movies, studied Chinese, and toyed with the idea of updating its firmware — not a task for the fainthearted when nearly everything relating to the process is in Chinese.

Once I came back to Jishou, I didn’t use it all that much. Free WiFi access here is still very limited. There are only a few cafés downtown with free wireless, so it was clear if I wanted to put the N10 to good use I was going to have spend some more money.

My cell provider is China Mobile, so I figured I would try there first. They set me up on the CMCC-EDU WLAN, which serves the old and new campuses of the university. The cost was nominal, just 100 yuan for the setup, and the connection charges are not egregiously high. Trouble is, coverage still is poor. I have no access at home and none in most of my classrooms. Once I’m off campus, I’m just out of luck.

But the need was not pressing. I put the project on the backburner until the term ended. I figured getting 3G service, like one of my American friends had done the year before for her notebook would be the best choice. So before the Spring Festival holiday kicked in, I went with teacher friends first to China Mobile (no USB 3G modems — just phones) and then to China Telecom, China’s version of Ma Bell.

In China, you do not have to sign contracts to get mobile service. Providers are happy to sell you phones and modems at close to full price and their services separately. If you already have a phone, no big deal. Just pop out your old SIM and get a new one. I like this business model a lot more than the American system of selling contracts along with deeply discounted phones. It’s nearly impossible to buy a SIM in the USA to use in your present handset. T-mobile seems to be the only provider offering such a product, and even then I’ve always had to buy them in China before returning to the States.

Anyway, China Telecom sold me a USB 3G modem for about $60 and three months’ nationwide service for another $45. Total connection time would be about 270 hours, which I figure is more than enough. I got nationwide service because I’ll be traveling soon to Guangdong. Once my three months is up, I can switch to local service or cancel the 3G plan altogether. I keep the modem.

The N10 after updating

[A short explanation: firmware is akin to a computer's operating system, like Windows Vista, Mac OS X or Linux, but it's stored in a special kind of memory on a cellphone or MID instead of a computer's hard drive. Upgrading (flashing) firmware is like switching from Windows Vista to Windows 7, but usually with a lot fewer hassles.]

Well, it worked, better than I expected. I wrote up the details in a separate page elsewhere here. The N10 now has full Internet access and seems more reliable, as well. I can give you a more detailed usage report after my trip to Guangdong.

Nora’s friend wants to propose to his girlfriend soon and wants to give her something really special to convince her he’s the right guy for her. Trouble is, he is as poor as a church mouse, so Nora came up with an idea. Here’s where I (and you) come in.

We want to compile a video of different people in their native languages (or in any languages they can speak) to say the following: “Will Sun Dan please marry Xiang Pei Dong? He is a really great guy!” [In Chinese, that's "孙丹嫁给向培东？他是好男人！" Sūn Dān jiàgěi Xiàng Péidōng? Tā shì hǎo nānrén!]

Since I have Facebook friends all over the world, I volunteered to ask them to contribute to the video. This is the first request. I will ask many of you directly over the next few days. I am hoping for a good cross-section of languages. If you can make a video while standing near a prominent local landmark, that’s even better. Don’t worry about pronouncing their names just right. They’ll understand.

You can send your greetings (audio, video and written) to my addy: john DOT wheaton AT gmail DOT com. Then Nora and I will do the compilation. The deadline is Dec. 31. So, do it now!

The comments are typically completely generic, complimenting the post or the blog in general, promising the writer will follow me, or imitate me, and by the way, mentioning some product or service the commenter is hawking. Some are more subtle, and make no product/service references, but the associated emails and URLs tip their hands. Here’s one spambot example, for some payday service:

I was recommended this blog through my cousin. I’m not sure whether this submit is written by way of him as no one else realize such targeted about my problem. You are amazing! Thank you!

And it’s just that one post. All I can guess is someone has linked to it on some spamifying service, and it’s now gone viral. Ironically, the post is about my site being hacked by a spammer.

As an experiment, I will either change the post’s headline (and thus its link) or remove it entirely in a few days.

I’ve joined the China Blog Network, and you’ll see a widget linking to it in the right sidebar. One blog I’ve been spending time reading is Wok With Me, Baby, a cooking blog written by an ex-pat in Shanghai who cooks Western-style food with mostly locally available ingredients. Her chili recipe looks good.

I found a cool world map widget that shows visitors’ locations. I saw it at Respectful Insolence, a medical blog by the sharp-tongued skeptical Orac. Although I already have a Clustrmap, the spinning globe was too cool to pass up.

The Status Update plug-in doesn’t seem to be updating my Facebook status, but I’m not going to sweat it until Nov. 22, when FB shuts off RSS feeds to FB Notes. I’ve already discovered that tweets can be fed to FB status lines.

We had our first English Corner of the new school year today. A big crowd of mostly freshmen, who for some reason seem younger (several 17-year-olds among my students) and more geographically diverse than before. I’ve met several students from Xinjiang, in the far west of China, and the dining hall is now serving some halal food to accommodate the Muslims among them.

One of my seniors has been accepted to the University of Sheffield, and I expect other unis will send her offers. She applied to nearly 20 schools in the UK. I told her it was overkill, but what are you going to do?

The Chronicle of Higher Education Global edition has an interesting article, The China Conundrum, which describes the problems Chinese students and their American universities face as more and more Chinese come to the States for undergraduate study. The largest demographic among foreign students now is mainland Chinese, some of whom have fabricated their qualifications — especially their spoken English skills — to garner places in US universities.

I have discovered how to watch American TV shows on the Internet, so for the last several weeks I’ve been catching up the last four seasons of CSI. I know it’s too late to say it, but Laurence Fishburne did a great job in that show. Ted Danson is a surprising and welcome addition, though. I missed having an eccentric genius like William Petersen on board.

All for now.

Here’s what I read today as I opened FB:

You currently automatically import content from your website or blog into your Facebook notes. Starting November 22nd, this feature will no longer be available, although you’ll still be able to write individual notes. The best way to share content from your website is to post links on your Wall.

Well, that’s just great if you have 24/7 access to Facebook, but I don’t. So, thanks for nothing, Facebook techs.

Maybe some clever coder will work up a WordPress plugin to at least post links to my FB status, but it seems FB is trying to close off all external access, except for approved apps and moneymaking links.

[Correction: I found Status Updater, a WP plugin, that can send a link for each post to my FB Status. Setting it up is not very straightforward; you have register it on FB as a new FB application. If it works, it will update my status every hour. We'll see.]

Meanwhile, my WordPress to Twitter feed is working fine (Twitter account liguy743), so I’ll explore a Twitter to Facebook feed. Surely, FB would not want to shut out another major player of the Internet.

(Incidentally, you can still subscribe to my RSS feed.)

Of course, whether I remember to use it remains an open question. I haven’t developed a Twitter habit, since direct access to it is blocked in China. Another issue is this work-around only works in one direction. I can send tweets out, but I can’t read comments or replies.

Meanwhile, I noticed that my blog posts were not automatically being tweeted. In the process of updating a plugin, I managed to disable the automatic feed. So, this is a test of that, too.

Then again, my access to Google+ seems to come and go, so I probably just shot myself in the foot publishing this tidbit of news.