Invite The World

The long version of the title of this topic is: Apple paid $3.3 billion in income taxes worldwide in 2011, on $34.2 billion in before tax profit worldwide in 2011.

The above figures were quoted from The New York Times (April 28, 2012) by Tim O’Reilly in his very insightful article that I found on Google+ (see links below).

I share this article because I agree to the fact that in today’s business one has to think GLOBAL, and the story shows how Apple has worked this out so perfectly for them.

Take this Apple story as an example:
Imagine this (I use “imagine” because I am certain no one will really “consider” it): If Apple were to manufacture iPad 100% in the US, I would guess that 99% of those who now have an iPad might not have had one in the first place.

1) How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes (April 28, 2012) (Link)

2) Apple’s Response on Its Tax Practices (April 28, 2012) (Link)

3) Tim O’Reilly’s article on Google+: (Link)

For months I have been worrying about reaching the free storage limit of my Gmail account. It was approaching the 70% mark *and counting*! And you know what – the worry was so real that it in effect had made it a practice of mine to keep staring at the bottom-left of the Gmail screen whenever I log in – see image in green box below. (For me, deleting read messages from my inbox is not an option – I keep all messages since day 1.)

And today I have a huge relief! I just noticed that my storage usage has reduced to 49% only, and that the storage limit has increased to 10240 MB (10 GB) from its previous 7.5 GB. And this has in fact just officially happened on April 24, less than two days ago!

My current usage at the time of writing this post (image):

Competition is G!

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I have just set up my Google Plus profile today! What an experience and what a feeling!

I’ve been using Google’s Gmail for long and only in the recent years to notice that many new “add on” services were coming out of Google. And all of a sudden I just came to notice that I was sooo outdated from those social media stuffs. I have had a Twitter account and a Facebook account for quite some years already but have only been rarely posting to them. After having read few books on social media recently, and especially having made up my mind about doing something with my International Mahjong® stuffs, I now decided that I should be more participating in the online community. I have so far set up two blogs and my profile at Google+. To many of you this might just be a piece of sesame; but it’s already a lot to me. However, it’s really fun!

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It was the New Year Day of the Year of the Dragon 2012 (Jan 23). I got an email from Tourism Vancouver advising me that I was the Grand Prize Winner of its Invite The World Campaign held in year 2011! I was thrilled to be “The One!” And that happening has led to the coming about of this Invite The World Blog. I plan to use this blog to record the activities and feelings of the invited guests related to their visit in Vancouver. In addition, and as outlined in the page About, my ultimate goal is to keep this blog as an vehicle to help bring up places, things and ideas to share with the communities where I live, and with the blog communities around the world. 当天是2012年龙年元旦日（1月23日）. 我从温哥华旅游局发出的电子邮件通知得悉, 我是她们在2011年举办的 邀约世界推广运动 的大奖得主! 我很高兴成为这个 “幸运儿”! 这事件最终导致本 “邀约世界博客” 的建立. 我打算用这个博客来记录应邀客人在温哥华的旅游活动和他们的感受. 同时, 亦正如在 “关于” 一文作出的介绍, 我的最终目标是可以维持这个博客网站, 並透过她将不同的地方, 物事和想法带出, 与我居住的社区和世界各地的博客社区分享.

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