http://benwei.blog.sohu.com/47321566.html
Article in Chinese, from the founder of www.5sai.com and www.msnnext.com.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Pay My Bills
I am staying in a rented apartment in Zhuhai, a Chinese coastal city. The landlady collects CNY3,000 of cash for the rent every month. She also gives me a passbook which is used for GIRO by electricity and water companies. So I am supposed to deposit some money into that bank account to pay off the bills. On top of that, I am supposed to go to the property management office every month to pay management fee, shared electricity (such as those on the corridors) and top up stored-valued card for pipe-gas.
I am kind of frustrated with all this and that payment. Can't everything be consolidated in a single payment?
Advance in technology and payment process has resulted in at least electricity and water companies using GIRO to deduct payment from owner's bank account. But that is still not good enough. Real-estate agents should look beyond just collect commission from making a rent deal. They should look at complete rent management, much like serviced apartments! So every month I can view all payment details from one central location and only deal with one interface to pay off the rent and bills. I don't mind paying CNY50 service fee for that every month!
Singapore's AXS station is a good solution that combines secure ATM payment with online services. But it will be more valuable with integrated bill management features. Different companies charge their bills at different time of the month. How nice that everything can be paid at one go! Different companies also send out bills in different ways: American Express provides online PDF bill which saves me from receiving those heavy paper bills; StarHub has all bills online and yet still sends out paper bills, one each for Mobile, CableTV/Broadband, and Landline. OCBC Bank allows you to view bills online, yet still sending out paper bills. And what is frustrating is that I don't have an option to not to receive those bills! What the heck!
Some time ago, there is this paymybills.com, which has now become paytrust.com I think. It is a pretty nice idea. AXS station, together with complete bill management, is the way to go. And I think there is some bright future for this! Time to work on a business plan? Well, that's always my wish but I never have managed to complete one. Sigh.
I am kind of frustrated with all this and that payment. Can't everything be consolidated in a single payment?
Advance in technology and payment process has resulted in at least electricity and water companies using GIRO to deduct payment from owner's bank account. But that is still not good enough. Real-estate agents should look beyond just collect commission from making a rent deal. They should look at complete rent management, much like serviced apartments! So every month I can view all payment details from one central location and only deal with one interface to pay off the rent and bills. I don't mind paying CNY50 service fee for that every month!
Singapore's AXS station is a good solution that combines secure ATM payment with online services. But it will be more valuable with integrated bill management features. Different companies charge their bills at different time of the month. How nice that everything can be paid at one go! Different companies also send out bills in different ways: American Express provides online PDF bill which saves me from receiving those heavy paper bills; StarHub has all bills online and yet still sends out paper bills, one each for Mobile, CableTV/Broadband, and Landline. OCBC Bank allows you to view bills online, yet still sending out paper bills. And what is frustrating is that I don't have an option to not to receive those bills! What the heck!
Some time ago, there is this paymybills.com, which has now become paytrust.com I think. It is a pretty nice idea. AXS station, together with complete bill management, is the way to go. And I think there is some bright future for this! Time to work on a business plan? Well, that's always my wish but I never have managed to complete one. Sigh.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
MyOpenId
In year 2000, I was coining the idea of establishing a web-site neutral service that provides login/sign-in authentication for many web sites out there, so that users do not have to sign up and remember many different users names and passwords. On top of this, this service repertoire can also store users' payment info so that they don't have to reveal their credit card numbers while making online payment (yes, that's PayPal, but I did not know PayPal at that time). When was PayPal founded anyway?
I even submitted a proposal (co-authored by a friend: Leon Zhang) to start-up business plan competition organized by the National University of Singapore. I didn't even get a chance to be short-listed.
Some time after that, Microsoft launched ".NET Passport" service which is essentially of the similar nature - providing centralized common authentication. I don't think .NET passport was ever popular and had very high take-up rate. But some Web sites do use that - e.g. Expedia.com. So I don't have to apply new userid/password while buying air tickets on Expedia. I can simply use my .NET passport! Recent Windows Card Spaces is essentially the same thing as well!
In CNN Money "NEXT NET 25" startups to watch (Web 2.0 category), www.janrain.com is ranked No. 22.
[Quote] JanRain has developed a single sign-on service for multiple passwords that lets people hop freely from site to site. Business demand for JanRain's services is expected to grow as Web 2.0 entertainment and social-networking sites proliferate. [End of Quote] Otherwise, please refer to www.myopenid.com.
In fact, Singapore government's SingPass initiative for all government Web sites is also a good example.
Maybe I should try to make myself on such list next time. :P
While I spoke to my pal to try to find back the business plan we drafted from Yahoo email, we came to this conclusion: Yahoo only provided 3MB of storage space at that time... we probably have used that limited and precious space to store other more important academic documents. :(
I even submitted a proposal (co-authored by a friend: Leon Zhang) to start-up business plan competition organized by the National University of Singapore. I didn't even get a chance to be short-listed.
Some time after that, Microsoft launched ".NET Passport" service which is essentially of the similar nature - providing centralized common authentication. I don't think .NET passport was ever popular and had very high take-up rate. But some Web sites do use that - e.g. Expedia.com. So I don't have to apply new userid/password while buying air tickets on Expedia. I can simply use my .NET passport! Recent Windows Card Spaces is essentially the same thing as well!
In CNN Money "NEXT NET 25" startups to watch (Web 2.0 category), www.janrain.com is ranked No. 22.
[Quote] JanRain has developed a single sign-on service for multiple passwords that lets people hop freely from site to site. Business demand for JanRain's services is expected to grow as Web 2.0 entertainment and social-networking sites proliferate. [End of Quote] Otherwise, please refer to www.myopenid.com.
In fact, Singapore government's SingPass initiative for all government Web sites is also a good example.
Maybe I should try to make myself on such list next time. :P
While I spoke to my pal to try to find back the business plan we drafted from Yahoo email, we came to this conclusion: Yahoo only provided 3MB of storage space at that time... we probably have used that limited and precious space to store other more important academic documents. :(
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
About MSN Robot
Came across this article on sohu.com about msn robot (article is in Chinese).
http://it.sohu.com/20070320/n248850386.shtml
I remember that Sun has mentioned before that there's high potential on msn robots in terms of its applications.
It is obvious now that he is absolutely right - judging from the fact that this Shanghai company who develops robots for msn messenger (also Yahoo & QQ) is getting tens of millions of USD venture capital funding.
Missed train again? :)
http://it.sohu.com/20070320/n248850386.shtml
I remember that Sun has mentioned before that there's high potential on msn robots in terms of its applications.
It is obvious now that he is absolutely right - judging from the fact that this Shanghai company who develops robots for msn messenger (also Yahoo & QQ) is getting tens of millions of USD venture capital funding.
Missed train again? :)
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
Meeting Invitation in Outlook
How often do you experience this? You are writing an email in Outlook and would like to propose a meeting.
1. You switch to Outlook Calendar to check your schedule....and go back to the mail to write down the date & time of the meeting.
Or
2. You continue to write the mail and say "I will send out a meeting invitation"!
Damn dumb right????
What about a plug-in in the mail window where you can right click and get a pop-up that shows calendar contents. Selecting a date time from the pop-up (much like what you do with date picker on web pages) shall automatically insert the text into the email
OR
include an meeting invitation in the email as an attachment, so that when the receiver opens up the attachment, it automatically becomes an invitation request.
1. You switch to Outlook Calendar to check your schedule....and go back to the mail to write down the date & time of the meeting.
Or
2. You continue to write the mail and say "I will send out a meeting invitation"!
Damn dumb right????
What about a plug-in in the mail window where you can right click and get a pop-up that shows calendar contents. Selecting a date time from the pop-up (much like what you do with date picker on web pages) shall automatically insert the text into the email
OR
include an meeting invitation in the email as an attachment, so that when the receiver opens up the attachment, it automatically becomes an invitation request.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
From PDF to Zip File
i now remember another small feature that is on my wish list for WinZip. many virus scanners disallow DLL or EXE files to be sent via email, even if they're zipped. So sometimes I have to zip the files, rename the zip file to something else (e.g. .dat) and send it. Kind of inconvenient!
This can be configurable in WinZip so I can easily send a zip file using other names. Or perhaps Outlook can have a plugin for doing that.
This can be configurable in WinZip so I can easily send a zip file using other names. Or perhaps Outlook can have a plugin for doing that.
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