venting

it's time for a vent or two.

not the one pictured, but the other kind.

good thing i decided to work this week when all my coworkers are holidaying it up... why? because we have an urgent catalog to ship, and i get to do ALL their work. yesssssss.

good thing i decided to get back on track with my diet... why? because thanksgiving and christmas are around the corner, of course! oh and don't forget the plethora of baked goods being brought in at work.

and finally, good thing i'm not tanning anymore... why? because albino is totally in this season.

Got Questions? Try the new Google Mobile Help Forum

We know that with many Google products launching on an array of mobile devices, you're bound to have questions. And with all your experience using those products and devices, you're also likely to have some knowledge to share. Even though we've tried to make our help center as up to date as possible, you'll likely have even more questions that we haven't addressed yet. We can't talk to everyone -- there are millions of you! -- but we've been working hard to provide you with better ways to express your views and discuss our products. To that end, we're very excited to invite you to a housewarming party as our help community moves from Google Groups to a brand new platform: the Google Mobile Help Forum.

The new platform was built from scratch to offer you some exciting new features:

• Q&A format to help you find answers quickly
• Improved search and integration with the Google Mobile Help Center
• Better spam detection and prevention
• Public recognition of Top Contributors and frequent posters (with more posting privileges as you make your way up)
• Ability to subscribe to ask questions and receive answers via email

Naturally, we're pumped for the move. We've got a dynamic system of levels to reward your contributions, and a profile that you can personalize. You can subscribe to the forum (or to individual discussions) by RSS feed. You can even vote on which responses answer the question best and mark a best answer to a question you asked.

The new forum is just one step in our quest to build better products and connect you with one another, so stay tuned for more. As part of this transition, we'll archive the current Google Help Group, as well as the Google Mobile Community. We hope you'll use the Forum not just when you need help, but also to share your enthusiasm and give tips and tricks to the whole mobile community. So stop by to introduce youself, and stay to ask and answer a few questions.

Posted by Alden and Robin, Google Mobile Help Forum Guides

Microwave Journal in China

At this past year's IMS show in Atlanta and EumW in Amsterdam, the Microwave Journal booth displayed the beta-version of our pending Microwave Journal China Website. China has for a number of years been a big manufacturing center of microwave hardware and over the past few years has shifted into design work itself. With the large number of engineers graduating in China focused on Microwave technology, we feel the timing is right for Microwave Journal to report on the news, product information and events coming out of China and to provide this vast community of new microwave engineers with our technical content in a chinese-language format.

To understand our new targeted audience better, MWJ publisher Carl Sheffres and I traveled to Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou last week. We met with a number of company executives, conference organizers, manufacturer representatives (representing China, US and European-based products) and engineering managers. The feedback was unanimous. China is ready for a dedicated source of information about our industry - in Chinese - which targets the growing number of new and experienced RF/microwave engineers.

Our first stop was the IME 2008/EMC 2008 show in Shanghai, where we saw familiar faces (Agilent Technologies, Rohde & Schwarz, AR Worldwide, Valpey Fisher, Gore, LPKF, Emerson & Cummings and Yantel) as well as many new faces.



Booth traffic was very heavy at times as engineers lined up to fill out subscription cards and take a complimentary copy of our October issue (English version). Of course, we were very pleased to hear that a number of show attendees considered the Journal to be "very famous".



Our immediate goal will be to put the finishing touches on the new Microwave Journal China web site in time for its January launch date, work with the partners we had identified to expand our audience and line up authors for this new venture. All in all, it is a very exciting time for us at the Journal as we begin this new adventure. Have ideas for our Chinese web site, add them to this blog or send me an e-mail at dvye@mwjournal.com.

Changing of the Guard- Cell Phone Leaders

There have been several market research reports out over the last month that show what I think is a permanent shift in cell phone leaders. Samsung took over as leading mobile phone shipments in the US market (Apple moved up to #6). RIM seems to be holding strong and introducing some nice products. It seems like the global market leaders of Nokia and Motorola are loosing some of their grip on some of the market. The iPhone also took over as the best selling phone which had been held for a couple of years by the outdated Razor. The smart phones are really starting to take over as they become affordable and Apple, RIM, Samsung and even LG seem to be playing the game better than the traditional leaders (at least in the US).

What do you think? How will the G1 and Android do competing against these phones??

last hurrah

On Friday afternoon, Steve took my catalog team out to lunch and a movie as sort of a last time together before we are all moved to our different teams. It was sad because our team has been a well-oiled machine for the last 2 years, and I'm going to miss the girls that I've become great friends with. We went to see Twilight, and now I'm hooked! I had heard about all these people reading the books and obsessing over the movie, so I was a little skeptical of seeing it. It was awesome though! I'm going to read the books now!!!!

So...anyone in the Dallas area wanna lend me their Twilight copy? For those of you who've seen the movie... is it better or worse than the book?