After an anxious and prolonged wait, I finally received the photograph that I took with the world renowned Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California.

Ryan Swerdloff, VP of Marketing at Vinpower Digital with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany March 2009.

As a California resident, one may consider it odd that they would meet the Governor of their state nearly 7,000 miles away in an obscure town in Germany. But that’s what exhibiting at one of the largest consumer electronics IT trade shows in the world brings about. Of course it’s also noteworthy to mention that the Governor of California is one of the most recognizable movie stars of all time, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The fact that California was a partner state of CeBIT made sense that the Governor would take time out of his busy schedule to attend this trade show. In addition, California is one of the largest developers and exporters of CE/IT products in the world. Plus with Governor Schwarzenegger’s immense popularity around the globe, his presence certainly elevated the presence of Californian exhibitors like ourselves. With our headquarters in Los Angeles county, we are directly aware of the benefits California has to offer when it comes to it’s large pool of skilled engineers and labor, close proximity to major shipping ports, and large concentration of component suppliers, not to mention the excellent weather.

It is for these reasons that I had to travel nearly half way around the world to meet the Governor whose official residence is only 300 miles from our factory. With that said, it was an exciting day to meet such a popular figure that I have watched since my childhood as well as a strong statement for the technological prowess of the “Sunshine” state.

Although the Chinese New Year has passed and all we have are our memories, this past New Years celebration was even more special because of the global economic hardships that have affected us all. It’s a testament to how we’ve persevered and managed to forge ahead even under difficult circumstances. This is a direct reflection on the employees within the company and how we have all stuck together to make our products even better and more desirable so that we can gain greater market share and continue to prosper in these difficult times. This is in honor to those I work with and how we’ve all come together professionally and socially, especially in this case.

Say Good Bye to 2008, we welcome 2009~~

In celebrating the Chinese New Year, we had our annual dinner party, or as we say “Spring Wine”, at a Korean BBQ restaurant in the Los Angeles region of Southern California.

Guys, let’s have dinner

Everyone within the company are welcome to join the festivities. We had lots of guests ranging in age from 9 months to 50. But I would say it’s also a beauty contest, as I am working with handsome men and beautiful women.

First up, the male group~

Our sales guy and R&D leader, or u can say the sexist guy and smartest guy.

Our valuable R&D team showing the mood of the evening.

This expression is so FUNNY ~~ Thanks to our production line guys to make sure we have good quality products shipped to our customers~

Here comes the baby group

See how cute they are. There are no winners or losers in the kid’s world, so I will say they’re all winners of the baby group.

Best things always comes last,

Beauties from Taiwan. say chees~~

We have beauty with big eyes and with see through lace back dress beauties….. What’s that guy looking at?
I can announce it’s best of the year.

Great papa and mama group,

It’s a wonderful night and thanks for all members who joined this meal.
See you next year~~

Happy Chinese new year~

Around this time, the Western society is celebrating Christmas or Hanukah and having big feasts. In the Chinese culture, the same time span represents the winter solstice which is a very important solar term in the Chinese Lunar calendar.

Being a traditional holiday as well, it is still celebrated quite often in many regions. Early during the Spring and Autumn period, 2500 years ago, Winter solstice was first determined as the Chinese traditional solar term among the total 24 terms. In a Gregorian calendar, it is around Dec 22nd or 23rd.

Midwinter day is the very day in the Northern hemisphere with the shortest day and longest night year-round. After it, daytime will become increasingly longer and the coldest climate will invade all the places on the Northern part of the globe. We Chinese always call it “JinJiu”, which means once Winter solstice comes, we will meet the coldest time ahead.

Ancient China paid great attention to this holiday, regarding it as a big event. There was the saying that “Winter solstice holiday is greater than the spring festival”. Nowadays, many regions still celebrate it as a big holiday. Northerners may have dumplings and raviolis that day while southerners may have dumplings made by rice and long noodles. Some places even have the tradition to offer sacrifices to the heaven and earth.

In all words, whether you are going to celebrate Christmas or Winter solstice holiday, I wish you all to have a good time and enjoy yourself with family and friends.

In the Chinese culture, “Ghost Month” falls every year on the seventh month of the lunar calendar. The legend says that on this month the ghosts and spirits, including those of deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm. Because Chinese people worship their ancestors, Ghost month is meant to pay homage to their ancestors when the deceased visit the living.

During this month, adults and children face a lot of taboo and must be extremely careful. For example; it is bad to go swimming or play beside any deep water edge as the “water ghost” might drown you; children are not advised to wander around late at night as the “little ghost” might play pranks or possess the children.

The Ghost Festival is celebrated on the 15th night of the seventh lunar month. The conventional thinking of “philanthropy” in China has even been extended on this day to allow those “lonely, without wandering ghost descendants” to enjoy the zeal of the human world. Every household will worship and offer sacrifices to the ancestors and spirits of the unknown world, with food and drinks.

In Taiwan, we call these spirits the “good brothers” and on the Ghost Festival, we “pu du” or worship the realms of the unknown. On the evening of “pu du”, every house’s threshold will lay a table of bumper meals, where each meal has an incense stick on it. This is called the “door worship”. After the worship, “ghost money” is burnt for the spirits to spend and the offerings are removed.

The folk customs for “pu du” has certain conventions and taboos as well, for example, longan fruit are regarded as the “money roll money”, apple as “safe-peace”, dragon-fruit as “business winning streak”, asian-pears as “away from danger”, pomelo as “protection”. The taboo fruits like bananas, pears and plums are not worship together because the Chinese syllable for these items sound like “to beckon” and it is not advisable to beckon or welcome the “good brothers” to one’s own house.

Ghost Festival is one of the most important festivals celebrated among the Chinese culture. Hope everyone enjoys peace and joy!

Just looking at the clothes we wear and the food we eat and its easy to recognize that the “Brand” is one of the most important elements of marketing. Most customers would rather purchase the product with a strong brand name rather than a lesser known or generic alternative, because they think the quality is better than the unknown brand. That’s why it’s so critical to build strong branding through effective marketing activities to create a loyal following of customers. Because they all know branding could affect purchasing behavior.

If you pay attention to the everyday conversation of people at your work, your local coffee shop, etc., you would hear how effective “Branding” really is. You’ll notice how branded products just become part of our everyday speech when we mention particular things. For example, we often say,”I’ll MSN you”, and we don’t have to explain what msn is, it’s just understood by both parties. How’s that? That’s because Microsoft effectively marketed their instant messaging service to not only become popular and widely used, but that their brand can become part of our common lexicon. Furthermore, we a brand can become so strong that it will even become the verbiage used for an entire industry. Take Google for instance. Every one knows who Google is and the main focus of their business. So, when someone says, “Let’s Google it,” everyone knows what it means. The phrase “Let’s Google it” has all but replaced “Let’s search it on the internet.”
This is a strong indication that if we want to assess how strong a brand is or identify which brand is a leader in the industry, we could find out through the everyday conversation of people. This is the most direct and obvious way to observe brand loyalty and a brand’s impact on society.

Vinpower Digital is making a lot of headway at establishing itself as a strong brand in the standalone duplication market. In developing many new and unique functions for our duplicators and cooperating with large technology companies Vinpower Digital is becoming more broadly recognized globally. Some day we may even hear people say “Let’s Vinpower it!!” instead of “Let’s duplicate the discs” as part of their common speech. I think that would be very cool and I think it’s not a matter of can it happen but when it will happen!!

Camaraderie outside the office leads to better production in the office. So let’s roll the ball!

Thanks god it’s Friday, let’s go bowling on Friday night!!

Many people may not know that bowling is a very old exercise. The bowling exercise has been a welcomed exercise for several years. Regarding the history of bowling, there have existed many forms of bowling, with the earliest dating back to ancient Egypt. Other instances where bowling was first seen can be traced to ancient Finland and Yemen, as well as in Germany around 300 A.D.

The first bowling game was brought to Taiwan by American soldier 60 years ago. It’s was a very popular exercise where the contestants can even win a sedan car if you score a perfect 300! For an added twist, Taiwanese players invented the “Sibala ball” which spins very quick like a UFO and can hit the pins harder so the bowler can score more. It’s awesome.

It’s important to maintain a disciplined office during the week so that we can better service our clients and provide quality products. Since we work so hard during the week, it’s important that we can enjoy the time we have off. To build a strong team, it’s also important that the members of the team get along and enjoy working together. For that reason, we like to have group activities that the members of the office can get out and “let their hair down” so to say. In doing so, we feel we are a more cohesive group that is better equipped to be productive and work together for a common goal during the week.

So we went to the “Asian Game” bowling hall which is a professional bowling hall, holding several professional tournaments. We divided into 2 teams, “O” team and “X” team. In this competition, the team with a total average greater than the rival will be the winner. Although team “O” scored more then team “X” before the 5th block, the game wasn’t over yet. Remember the story of the Turtle and the Hare? The turtle finally wins the race against the rabbit because the rabbit was too confident and went to sleep! So team “X” won the game in the end because they know the phrase “Never give up”!

It was a really fun evening and we all feel lucky that we have such good colleagues to hang out with on a Friday night. Just like in bowling, I’m certain that we will always be triumphant because we also live by the phrase “Never Give Up!”.

On a side note, we really love Mandy’s neice. She is really cute and looks just like the character “Boo” in Monsters, Inc. Judge for your self.

In the time that I’ve worked at Vinpower Digital, I’ve learn a lot about the optical disc duplication market, met a lot of business contacts and friends, traveled to a number of new destinations (foreign and domestic), and moved quite a few duplication products.

Now I am proud to have a new title and job function, FATHER. My wife gave birth to a beautiful healthy boy on May 31, 2008 and there has been no greater joy in my life. For that I’m happy to introduce young Asa to my friends and fellow blog readers.

Sometimes, we are too busy to remember some of important holiday for our country, and how they originated. In Taiwan, the 3 major holidays are Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival will be coming soon. It is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. It is actually on Sunday June 8th this year. In Chinese, the holiday is called Duan Wu Jie.

There are many legends about the origin of the Festival. The famous one is to commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan. The legend says that Qu Yuan 屈原 was disappointed with the emperor and his country, so he drowned himself in the Miluo River. The people loved him and tried to save him so they used long boats to go looking for him. They beat drums to scare away the fish. They also threw Zhong zi (rice dumplings) in to the river to feed the fish, because they were afraid the fish might eat Qu Yuan’s 屈原 body.

The traditional food eaten during Dragon Boat Festival is rice dumplings (Zhong zi). The normal dumplings are usually wrapped in bamboo leaves and filled with egg yolk, meat, peanut, chestnuts, mushrooms, etc. But there are many different flavors of Zhong zi that you can choose from.

Dragon boat racing is obviously the most important activity of the Festival. The races are held in the rivers or on lakes with colorful boats, beating drums and cheering crowds get people excited. Each boat usually has 22 people, including 20 paddlers, a drummer and a flag-catcher. The first team to reach the flag wins the race. It is very interesting, and many people go to watch the race although it is very hot. I prefer to stay home and watch it on TV with my family.

Standing an egg is also a popular activity. If you can successfully stand an egg on its end exactly 12:00 noon, then the upcoming year will be a lucky one for you.
I have tried it before, but I have never succeeded. I hope I can do it then I will be the lucky one. ^__^…..

Another reason we enjoy the holiday, is a day off of work. This year, the holiday is on Sunday, so we will not receive a day off of work like usually. There’s always next year

When looking at a duplicator, it’s easy to concentrate on the obvious important components such as the controller and casing. However there are two other very important components that are just as critical to the quality of the duplicated discs; the drives and the media. For the purpose of this posting we’ll focus on the media aspect which is largely ignored for its importance in the duplication process.

It’s obvious that there are lots of blank CD & DVD discs in the market today, and another fact that may have been overlooked is that many of them have a different color on the recording surface. Why the differences? Do the manufacturers just want to make the discs more colorful to make them more attractive or differentiate them on the market? The reality is that the color of the recording surface has a lot to do with the capability and quality of the “burn” or duplication. Below we will detail more about the purpose of these different visible colors on various blank media:

Water blue – uses the latest technology of Data Lost Prevention and could decrease the occurrence of buffer under run. Therefore it’s more stable for one to one or one to multi target burning mode. The best recording format is DATA.

Omega black – due to the pure black material, it should provide a stronger defense against light which could damage the organic dyes in the disc. As well as extend the life of CD-R media and preserve the data longer. The best recording formats are GAMES, DATA, and MP3.

Purple – similar to the black discs, it should provide a stronger defense against light which could damage the organic dyes in the disc. As well as extend the life of CD-R media and preserve the data longer. The best recording formats are GAMES and DATA.

Apple green – with the lighter organic dyes of the disc, it is more sensitive to allow for the player to pick up a weaker signal. That feature allows for better pick-up of recorded music. It could be said that this specific color is designed for digital music storage. The best recording formats are DIGITAL AUDIO, AUDIO CD and DATA.

Metal red and Copper mine – these colors will let the laser pass through the disc completely so that the signal from CD-R media can be read better. The best recording formats are MUSIC, CD and DATA.

Orange – same concept as the above colors, will let the laser pass through the disc completely so that the signal from CD-R media can be read better. The best recording formats are MUSIC, CD and DATA.

Diamond – this color matches with the replicated VCD format so the crosstalk-frequency is very low. Therefore it should decrease the marks and blacked out data that appears on the screen (often referred to as Mosaic errors) when playing the disc. The best burning formats are VCD, MPEG and FILE.

The better understanding you have about the recordable dye on the disc and its optimal compatibility, the better prepared you’ll be to choose the correct blank media for your particular format. Next time you purchase media, don’t just ask about the price and the brand, but ask about the color of the recordable side of the disc and you’ll be sure to that at least your media is the right choice for your needs.