This week, I got a Merry Christmas email from one of my most respectful professors, stated that he thinks himself as a technology leader, perhaps he "should send email cards, at least to my technology literate friends, among which I count you". As flattered as I am to be considered as a techonolgy nerd, I replied as:

"I actually still believe in hand-written cards that we can physically hold in our hands, so this year, I will still be mailing my Christmas greetings.

Thanks you so much for the kind wishes and for keeping up with our 'new' or 'innovative' ways to electronically communicate with each other. I believe old fashion value never dies, and should never die. In China, we have a saying that:"You can see through a person by his/her calligraphy." Nowadays, everything emphasizes 'fast', 'speed', 'efficiency'; however, time is actually the most precious gift we can ever give to someone."

In 10 minutes, my professor responded:" In truth, I sent our Christmas letter that way to 15 former students partly because I'm late, partly to save money, and partly to demonstrate paper Christmas cards are NOT going away.  Of 15 I sent out Sunday afternoon, by Monday morning (proving these are NERDS), I received 7 responses, all similar to yours, saying in various ways, 'I'm sticking with paper.'

Mission accomplished :-)"

Phew!! I passed the test again. After 4.5 years out of school, I am till taking his test and learning from him. The only difference is that he is now coaching me about the virtue value of life.

Yes, the point of sending out a card, or offering a gift as small as a box of cookies or even a hand shake, or a hug, is to show appreciation for the past, for the friendship, for the effort received, for all of those who made an impact to our lives. Technology has made us so easy to remember special events: we get reminders on Facebook of friends' birthdays, we use E-calendar to mark anniversary dates, we can send out a Happy Birthday/Anniversary/Holidays in 5 seconds to our friends, we can even generate a sketch art work by computer program instead of having an artist spend days of sweats and emotions injected into the canvas. Everything is about fast. The truth is "When I slow down, I go faster". Slow down to appreciate others' effort, slow down to re-align priorities in life, and slow down to hand write to my dear friends:

Merry Christmas!

The first 3 PSoC 5 Production parts are open for production order entry NOW.

CY8C5246AXI-054
CY8C5367AXI-108
CY8C5568AXI-060

The other 10 TQFP part numbers will be open within the next two weeks. Please stay tuned.
   
PSoC® 5 offers the most powerful processor core among all PSoC 1&3&5 families up to date: ARM® Cortex™-M3, and is a true programmable embedded system-on-chip, offering modern method of signal acquisition, signal processing, and control with high accuracy, high bandwidth, and high flexibility

Learn more about PSoC 5 at www.cypress.com/go/psoc5, and experience PSOC 5 performance by purchasing our latest PSoC 5 dvelopement kit CY8CKIT-050 ($99) at www.cypress.com/go/cy8ckit-050.

Happy Friday!
--Meng
 

All the 66 part numbers of PSoC 3 are in full production now. Please visit www.cypress.com/go/psoc3 to access product info.

Here is the lead time by package:
100TQFP package 8~10 weeks
48/68QFN & 48SSOP: 6~8 weeks

6 has been a lucky number in Chinese culture, as it's pronunciation is similar to the word which represents "successful and fortunate." Let us all wish PSOC 3 a succesfful and fortunate future!!

Al

According to www.arrl.org: Amateur Radio: The First Technology-Based Social Network" is the theme of this year's celebration. It is indeed the most authetic way for technology fans all over the world to gather, share, and communicate. Till today, amateur has always been around to provide emergency communications during natural disasters, such as tornados, hurricanes, and even the world trade center disaster on 911... and, who are the ones behind the radios and pumping out morse code and be the hero behind the scene? Engineers.

Besides the practical usage, engineers are also proud of the efficiency of their finely tuned antenna that allows them to send/receive good quality morse code with ultra low power,  they can even use old tube based equipment and maintain them in good shape ----- To me, they are sincerely smart heros. Amateur radio is the foudation of tens of advances in radio/communication theories. Without the evolvement of amateur radio, we will not be where we at today, with all the fancy social networks, cell phones, etc.

So, here, cheers to all the Amateur Radio Engineers!!

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