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Charlotte Parsons

This week saw one sun burst across the sky and two others prepare to burst on to the stock market. Sunevision and Sunday are hoping to cash in on Hong Kong's bout of tech fever with their public offerings.

 So would-be Sunevision investor Douglas Brown decided to log on to the tech firm's Web site to find out more about preferential access to shares.

 The home page of Sun Hung Kai Properties' 'e-business flagship' greets visitors with a mission statement. In it, Sunevision pledges 'to be the best provider of premium-quality Internet infrastructure and services in Asia, enabling businesses and individuals to thrive in the information age'.

 How nice.

 Unfortunately, the information age seems to have ended last month.

 That's when the flow of news in the site's 'Press Releases' section dried up. Of the public offering, there was not a whisper.

 Unimpressed, Mr Brown decided to send the Sunevision people a message requesting the needed knowledge. So he clicked on 'Contact Us' and found himself looking at the firm's business address, phone and fax numbers.

 But that was all.

 The e-business flagship may claim to be the best provider of premium-quality Internet services.

 But it doesn't seem to have an e-mail address.

While we are on the subject of Sunevision, don't you hate it when businesses get so cocky they feel they can get away with giving customers the finger?  A rude gesture is incorporated into Sunevision's 'Propertystreet.net' site.

 When you log on to the site, a cartoon motorcyclist roars along the left side of the screen.

 Amazingly, Biker Guy's hand jerks upward three times, treating the public to a V-fingered salute.

 Seems an odd signal to be offering the public before a public offering.

 Or perhaps it was their subtle little caveat emptor warning, alerting would-be investors to their potential fate.

PhilOnline looks like a fun place to work.

 We've been browsing the Philippine site and looking at their staff photo.

 Not for them the traditional police line-up pose, where shoulder-to-shoulder colleagues pull friendly-yet-professional faces.

 Nope, PhilOnline's group portrait looks more like something you might stumble across in Lai See's extensive collection of At-The-Vodka-Bar snaps.

 The team's members are young, grinning and locked in a group hug that lists dangerously sideways.

 One girl clings to a female colleague while peering over her shoulder from behind, their cheeks pressed together.

 Another young woman is bent over and pouting up at the camera in a passable imitation of Marilyn Monroe.

 But don't go misinterpreting all this.

 The frolic isn't reflected in their work. The site is slick and well put together. Clearly the fun-looking lot are earnest in their dedication to 'providing the best Internet service in [the Philippines] today.'  But Lai See was a tad mystified by one of their projects.

 Under 'Technology', PhilOnline claims to be engaged 'in pioneering projects involving bleeding edge technologies'.

 Maybe Lai See just isn't up on her techie lingo. But we've never heard of 'bleeding edge' technologies.

 Perhaps that's what you end up with when you try to take on cutting-edge technologies.

What on earth is going on over there on Lamma? It seems the sleepy island community is bracing for a plague of locusts, civil war, and perhaps the odd horseman of the Apocalypse.

 At least, the Bubbles Laundry Co is preparing for those things anyway. Reader John Godson discovered this when he read the 'Conditions' on his dry cleaning slip.

 'The Company shall not be responsible for any loss or damage to the goods caused by mooth [sic] of insects of arising from the act of God, civil commotion, war or fire.'  Perhaps it's all those gin-soaked, sin-soaked gweilos wafting about with pictures of marijuana leaves on their t-shirts.

 Maybe the Bubble bashers are expecting Lamma to meet the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah and want to ensure they're not liable for any garments damaged in the holocaust.



Sunevision is blind to the wonders of e-mail