Peaceful Rise

More Joel for sale at unbeatable prices

jr — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:36:38 +0800

Due to popular demand, I’ve put up a portfolio of my software and web development projects at jr-code.com. Drop me a line if you or someone you know needs a website or other customized web application.

chinadecoder.com

jr — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:05:07 +0800

I made a new website for translating Chinese news into English at chinadecoder.com. I know from the front it just looks like any old Wordpress installation, but behind the scenes is an awesome Django app that automatically pulls news from a number of Chinese sources, and provides a really convenient translation interface.

The idea is that I’ll have an excuse to keep up to date with what’s going on in China, and the articles I translate will provide some good content to drive traffic to my consulting business. Features I’m considering adding in the future include automatic Google translation of all the articles that get pulled in, just for the super curious, and user contributed translations for other likeminded people who enjoy translating stuff like this.

Still not quite sure whether I like China Decoder, chinadecoder, or chinadecoder.com as a brand. Actually I was hoping to get chinachina.com but it is being squatted.

Google thinks my China consulting business is a good idea

jr — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 03:31:10 +0800

I was just curious what I could do to boost traffic to my site (Joel Rosen China Consulting), so I did a little keyword search on Google Insights to see what people are searching for when they need a China consultant. The findings are encouraging:

Massachusetts ranks highest for searches on “china consulting,” even beating out California.
“china consulting” isn’t nearly as popular a set of keywords as “china business,” but handily beats keyword sets “china market research,” “china market entry,” and “china advisory”.
Most popular searches with the “china consulting” keywords are “consulting in china” and “china business consulting” – the latter of which is rising in popularity.

Looks like I may be Jewish after all.

Joel Rosen China Consulting

jr — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 01:57:48 +0800

I’ve moved back to Boston and I’m starting up a little consulting business to help companies around here get stuff done in China. After agonizing over what to name it for over a week, I settled on Joel Rosen China Consulting. Yes, I’m as professional as I am creative.

As you can see here I’ve made sort of a logo. It doesn’t really have any particular meaning. I was just playing around in Pixelmator and I was feeling triangles and red. Do you like it?

Well I don’t actually expect anybody will read this post, but for some reason Google seems to respect links from this blog, so hopefully this will help boost my pagerank :)

Off at sea for a while

jr — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:34:00 +0800

I’m off traveling outside of China now. Follow my adventure at joelatsea.com.

Google, let’s just be friends from now on

jr — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:37:47 +0800

Ah, Google, you have truly reached a new low…

I drew a picture

jr — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:35:56 +0800

The thought that counts

jr — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:13:41 +0800

“Save Energy, Protect the Environment”

New format

jr — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:46:58 +0800

I am was experimenting with a new format for my website, which will allow for enhanced creative expression.

It don’t work just right yet, but that’s ok by me.

Update: I didn’t use the new format and got tired of having a semi-broken theme.

Thugs and Goons, Resilient in Face of Change

jr — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:30:07 +0800

As I began work this morning, and dove into my daily task of figuring out how to procrastinate for eight and a half hours, I started, as usual, by reading through the China articles on the New York Times website. The first article to fall across my screen was yet another monthly reminder by Jim Yardley of why, exactly, the Chinese Communist Party is still in power, because apparently we keep forgetting. Either that, or we’re just downright impatient. The headline was:

China’s Communists, Resilient in Face of Change

A few hours later I found that the page had refreshed itself, inexplicably bearing a new title:

China’s Leaders Are Resilient in Face of Change

The second title is actually more fitting for the article itself, which is more informative and less colored than the first title would lead you to believe. But I wonder what the explanation is for the title change. Did it all of a sudden occur to some editor that “Oh yes, those pesky Communists are leading the country, aren’t they? How inconvenient.”

On a related note, tomorrow is the opening ceremony of the Olympics, and in an unoriginal show of confused irony and ambivalence, I plan on wearing my I Heart China shirt. Either that or an American flag; I still haven’t decided.