X-Factor back on

There are not many things that I like on ITV back in the UK, but the X-Factor is one of them. Most people back in Blighty will probably be watching the program but for my international viewers here is a little look:

alib.co.uk is LIVE {FINALLY}

Yes I know {I KNOW!} this is the third posting I have made on this subject. But I promise, the site is finished. Every single page (over 5,000 I might add) have been updated to the new template.

So thank you for continuing to read this blog, and I'll be back to posting about Hong Kong very soon.

Click here to view the site {updated and worth it, I promise}

HKDR Photos Day 3: SAT 25 AUG

Another great day of shooting dogs for the upcoming book "HKDR Dogs."

See the photos here.

How to manage PR in China (if you are an airline)

With all the rain here in Hong Kong I am not going anywhere this morning (well, until it calms down anyway). So i thought I would add some articles to my blog.

This one has been sitting in the "draft folder" for a while which is a shame as its a beauty.

So what is it all about; Well a plane crashed in China recently (read here) and luckily while no one was killed in this accident the PR that the China Airlines rolled out would make my own PR collegues blush with pride.

The firefighters had only just doused the plane and put the fire out (see picture on the right) than the PR people were painting over the logo so that you would not know that it was a China Airlines plane.

Genius. You have a bad PR story, so instead of the usual press release and "we'll do better" we "have learnt our lesson" ect, ect they just painted over the logo so that no-one will know. Even better they didn't apologize for the crash (Something they should probably do as they have at least 6 time the number of accidents as European Airlines.)

Its a very interesting insight into China and what management will do to try and protect the brand. Something for all of us to think about.

See the full story here.

Fakes {Now I'm onto cars}

So it would seem even the venerable Gizmondo is coming on board with a very interesting article on cars and how they have been copied from the German models.

Here you can see one example. Now I am no IP expert {I dabble occasionally} but if I was Mercedes or BMW I would have my lawyers on this so fast your noodle wouldn't even touch your chopstick.

There is no way that Porsche or BMW have much to fear from me or Hong Kong buyers, but you d have to wonder if these fakes can make it in the commercial world - And if you are asking that question there has to be a small amount of concern there.

Its going to get very interesting in China: read the full article here: http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/08/20/chinese_cars_havent_we_seen_th.html

alib.co.uk is LIVE {Part 2}

OK, so about 2 weeks back in my blog I announced that the site was live. In short I had some "technical" and "creative" issues with myself over the new design of the site. Combine this with some negative user feedback {someone could not use my site because he had internet explorer, which to be fair 80% of my visitors do have} and you have a need for a bit of a re-work.

So here it is: The new/revised site {CLICK HERE} Which works on all browsers and in all screen resolutions.

Now that I have managed to build version 2 {and critically get it working} I am looking at making a few small changes to the design. You can see the idea here {CLICK HERE} This is very much in BETA but I would appreciate any and all feedback.

Dog Rescue Shoot: Day 2

Another great day shooting some dogs for the Hong Kong Dog Rescue book - You can see a sneak peak at the pictures (straight out of the studio)

Here

China Bans Reporting on Bridge Collapse

Another day, another example of the Chinese government at work. A very interesting article on the Chinese government and its uneasy relationship with the press/the Internet/the world in general came up last week.

After scares over buns, toys and just about every other consumer good that is made in China it would seem that even now the building quality of the very infrastructure of the country is being called into question.

Is this fair? Its hard to say but certainly a bridge did collapse. It could be said that this is an isolated case, and when you look at some Chinese engineering examples such as the 3 Gorges Dam or some of the new 30 KM (yes 30 kilometers!!) bridges there is a lot to marvel at about China's engineering capabilities.

But the crunch factor is that a lot of these bigger projects have western project managers if for no other reason than size. This bridge example was one that the local government worked on with all the issues that local government has in China.

Is it any wonder that the new Chinese middle class does not want to buy "made in China goods." They would much rather but German cars or English leather goods and you can see and when you look at this in detail, you can start to see why. Fair? Perhaps not, but when have consumers ever been fair or rational in any culture?

Full article here on the bridge

Nokia recalls 46 million mobile batteries

Some days you are up, other days you are down...

46 million batteries. Ops!

Read more here

Clive Owen would 'never' cheat on wife

Clive Owen is the man. I don't think I could have said it better, I agree with everything he says about his wife... But if Kylie or Angelina Jolie should come along, well it would be game over for la Cazza (only fair!)

{Quote}

Clive Owen would 'never' cheat on wife

Clive Owen has vowed to never jeopardise his relationship of 12 years by cheating on his partner because he values what they have too much.

Owen told People: "I so value what I've got at home with my wife and kids that I've never messed with that. For me, that's what it's about.

"My relationship is everything to me. I'm often doing incredibly exciting plays and films, but that would mean nothing if I were floating around and didn't have a solid family behind me. Sarah-Jane is an absolute diamond."

Full story here

Be careful what you say

All bloggers and presenters should read this and LEARN...

Even the best of us can slip up sometimes, but on a slow news day/Friday I think this is worth a laugh and probably a moment of thought.

On October 6, 1997, in response to the question of what he'd do if he was in charge of Apple Computer, Dell founder and then CEO Michael Dell stood before a crowd of several thousand IT executives and answered flippantly, "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

On January 13, 2006, after a little more than eight years of hard work, Apple Inc. passed Dell, Inc. in market value, $72,132,428,843 vs. $71,970,702,760 at market close respectively.

Got any snappy retorts for that one, Mr. Dell?

Virgin America launches

So in the week that Hong Kong wins best airport for what I believe is the sixth year out of seven, Virgin launches "Virgin America" their new airline, funnily enough flying within the US.

Working for an American company, I have to travel over to the US on occasion and this normally means flying with an airline that is US based. American airlines has been amongst the worst for many years, in fact I would question if they were every good. Formed out the second world war with about the same sort of customer desire to see them as the people of Berlin or Dresden at the time, the airline has been given government protectionism for many years. This has had the effect of simply creating one of the worst industries in every possible way. Protecting these airlines from competition, upgrading their fleets and generally anything to do with customersatisfaction has funnily enough not worked very well.

The only airlines that are worse than American and North West (to name but 2 offenders) would be Air France and Korea Air. Air France because they are French and probably taught the American Airline industry everything they know about customer service (or more importantly what they don't know) and Korea Air who manage to break two records by having the oldest fleet in the world and one of the worst Air safety records, which I am going to guess has something to do with having the oldest fleet. Having flown Air Korea once and having smelt the Kim Chi that my fellow passenger was eating, I started to will the plane to crash so that the misery of the flight would end.

And this comes from someone who loves to travel and fly. But back to American Airlines. You know its bad when someone like Air Kenya has a better set up and flight crew than AA. I would rather scoop out my own eyeballs while listening to every Celine Dion record ever created in the depths of hell (even the crap she sings in French - I'm sensing a theme here) than fly on the above mentioned airlines, especially AA and Air France.

Of course there are some good airlines. I am a big fan of Virgin, simply because they are really are one of the best both in economy and Upper Class. Cathay always tops my poll, again a very good airline and comparable to Virgin. following these two are the always solid BA and Emirates who are pretty much up there.

So the launch of Virgin America is a solid boost. Will my company let me fly on them? Hopefully the corporate policy will allow mercy and so I grip to this chance of a better flight.

In summary and for what it is worth, I say good luck Virgin, fed up, tired and pissed off consumers that have been forced to fly the crap called American Airlines await you with open arms.

Photos from Macau

Should have posted this a week ago (but been busy with my HKDR work) but here are the photos from Macu.

To view them click here.

Hong Kong Dog Rescue shoot: Day 1

Hello all.

If you want to see the photos from the first day of shooting the dogs that have come from the HKDR here they are:

http://www.alib.co.uk/dogrescue/

alib.co.uk is now LIVE

Yes, finally the site has gone live or "ALIVE, ITS ALIVE!!" as Dr Frankenstein would say in the movies. And indeed this project has been a monster. Over 1,000 pages have been updated or deleted and over 3,000 images and photos have been re-worked into the site.

You can view it here

What that means is for the last 8 weeks I have been editing, cropping, slicing, re-editing and testing to create the new version of my web site, which you can see here. Mrs B has not been happy, but on the plus side she has Padstow, so I see no reason why she would miss me swearing at the computer every 5 minutes.

Some new areas/functionality:

• Each section has a new landing page, so by typing in say, www.alib.co.uk/gallery or www.alib.co.uk/photos or www.alib.co.uk/awards or www.alib.co.uk/hongkong you will see a different landing page.

• My work page has a new look and feel which you can see here
  

• The gallery section has been updated with a new and larger flash page: See here

• New photos pages have the larger flash album view, click here and view the Macu photos

• Of course the Mrs B page has been updated and linked with the wedding section
  

Please note:

• Not every page is completed, there may still be a few that don't work or are still in the old look and feel of the site

• You may need to hit refresh if any pages do not display correctly. Otherwise enjoy the site and thank you for looking. Any comments/thoughts please email me

P.S If anyone sees me thinking about redesigning the web site before 2010 please shoot me for my own sanity. Thank you and good night.

Mrs B is mad: Offical

So this morning as we are getting up I say:

{me} heh heh: Oh Mrs B... A mad woman says what?

{Mrs B} What?

{me} Yep, thats what I thought!

{Mrs B} Idiot.

(OK so you have have guessed that its a slow day in Hong Kong)