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!

For years there were only two options for personal disc printing, inkjet or thermal. Since inkjet printing was a cheaper printing option, it quickly became the more popular method. However thermal printing was able to find a lucrative niche in the market due better reliability. Thermal printing does not suffer the same drawbacks as inkjet printing which can bleed or smear when in contact with liquid plus the printed matter can be scratched easier than thermal. Both methods have controlled their respective realms in the market for quite some time with little to no competition, until now.

With the invention of LightScribe technology, a user can now print directly onto the label side of LightScribe capable discs using a laser. The benefits of this technology is that not only can a user create custom labels directly onto a disc, but the printed image will not smear, run, scratch and does not require any additional equipment to operate. All printing is performed through the same drive that performs the duplication process, so the overall expense of this printing method is far cheaper than the alternative methods.

Initially this technology was hampered by the fact that the drive needed to be tied to a computer in order to work. Typically a computer can only operate maximum 4 independent drives at a time. Since LightScribe printing is not as fast as the other methods, printing a single disc at a time was too time consuming and not suitable for a duplication market. With the help of Vinpower Digital, the LightScribe consortium was able to overcome this detriment by creating a fully standalone LightScribe version of the multi-drive tower. With standalone manual towers as large as 15 drives able to copy and/or print on LightScribe capable media simultaneously, the once inhibiting speed factor compared to other printing methods is no longer valid. Instead of waiting 5 ~ 15 minutes for a single printed LightScribe disc, the Vinpower Digital 15 drive LS duplicator can print 15 discs in the same amount of time averaging between 20 seconds to 2 minutes per disc.

If you combine the cost savings, negligible time difference and ease of use for LightScribe compared to the alternative, the choice is clear, LightScribe printing technology is the future!

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!!

With all the hype surrounding Blu-ray and the larger capacity and better picture quality for HD video, the question may arise, what is the difference between Blu-ray disc technology and DVD disc technology. Well the below chart should shed some light on the primary differences.

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.