Rob Cheng’s Blog

When I was returning from our vacation in Frade back to Rio de Janeiro, there was a song on the CD called “Rio de Janeiro”. As I was driving, it made me think of all the things that I love about Rio de Janeiro. I decided to put together a video of all those things and then I put the song as the background music for the video.

This was a fun project but I struggled with finding the best video software to do it. My prior videos I had been using Camtasia Studio, but I wanted HD and my version did not support HD. So I downloaded trials of Sony Movie Studio, and Corel Video Studio Pro. Both of them had their flaws and it made certain things quite difficult. Finally, I tried Microsoft MovieMaker which is 100% free. Prior versions were kind of clunky, but the latest version has some very cool effects. Watch it in full screen mode. Let me know what you think. More »

March 28th, 2011 | Category: Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Technology, Videos | Comments (2)

We just got back from a great vacation at Frade during Carnaval. It is great for running because there are mountains that come straight up to the ocean. But one of the most enjoyable things is to rent a boat and go swimming. Off the coast of Frade are over 300 little islands. It is a snorkeling and diving paradise. Here is a video we took of a few of the dives. I literally can dive and swim with the fishes for hours on end.

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March 19th, 2011 | Category: Brazil, Technology, Videos | Leave a comment

It’s been close to 10 years since I left Gateway, and I often reflect back on those times. I started as the Director of Marketing in 1991. When I began, I would flip through the Computer Shopper and be amazed at how many competitors we had. As I recall, we were competing against close to 200 different computer companies. As time went on, I watched virtually each and every one of them fall or go under until it was just us and Dell standing. Many of these companies were much larger and successful than us, including CompuAdd, Zeos and Northgate. More »

June 9th, 2008 | Category: Technology | Comments (5)

I have developed some new technologies for the web site which enables a dynamic slide show to be displayed through some simple SQL calls. The one thing that I have learned about importing CSV files is that it is far from easy. While trying to solve these problems, I did a lot of queries and again there was little to no solutions on the web. So in addition, to my last article, here are two more common problems and solutions when importing CSV files using Microsoft Excel. More »

May 31st, 2008 | Category: Technology | Leave a comment

Yes, you read that right. HD DVD got it right, by bowing out now, because they realized that they are late to market. The concept of a larger optical format delivering higher quality content may have found success 5 years ago. However, in today’s environment, it is virtually a non starter. There are two basic and overpowering reasons why Blu Ray will fail: More »

March 10th, 2008 | Category: Technology | Comments (3)

I’ve had many thoughts and discussions about the internet and its enormous untapped potential. It’s been a little over 10 years since the internet boom began. Yet, the internet has just begun to impact and influence our lives. No one can predict with any accuracy the future of this technology, but I hope one day, people will read this article and say that I got it right.

The internet is still extremely PC centric. PCs have evolved substantially in the last 10 years in order to accommodate the new demands of internet applications. PCs have more memory and hard drive space to accommodate sound and video which has now become ubiquitous. More importantly, broadband velocities have been following Moore’s Law. Cable is being replaced by fiber as the fastest and most reliable broadband options, opening up even more potential. More »

January 28th, 2008 | Category: Technology | Comments (1)

Recently I wrote about Amazon.com’s new MP3 download site. I still like it, but I tired of it quickly because the selection of music is lacking. In the space of a month, I downloaded all of the music I wanted, but I wanted more, and they didn’t have it. For example, everyone was talking about the Eagles latest CD, but Amazon did not have it. More »

December 9th, 2007 | Category: Music, Technology | Comments (17)

The beautiful thing about technology is that it has a constant and incessant need to continuously improve itself. I am happy to say that two new recently announced technologies are awesome, and give us a glimpse of how technology will further influence our lives.

My Yahoo Beta. I have been a user of of My Yahoo for close to 10 years now. Well after 10 years, it is certainly worth the wait. I use My Yahoo at least 2-3 times a day. It is my prefered way of getting news, sports scores, weather reports, stock quotes, financial news, and currency rates.

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November 12th, 2007 | Category: Technology | Leave a comment

Since PC Pitstop is a virtual company, twice a year everyone gathers for the company meeting held in a difference locale. This fall we had the company meeting in Boston. We had three days of meetings and the team outing was a Red Sox game right before the playoffs began. The weather was close to perfect although it showed a little toward the end of the game. The photos were taken by Sheila and Sandra. Sheila wrote all of the captions and then I put it all into LyteBox. Cool. More »

October 10th, 2007 | Category: Photos, Slide Show, Technology | Comments (1)