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Last Wednesday I posted an article about iPhone sales in China. There is no official sales channel, as Apple has not closed a deal with any of the major telecom carriers in that country.

That has not stopped Chinese users from buying and using unlocked iPhones, as this Wired article describes. The iPhone has become the new status symbol for wealthy, urban Chinese.

Of course, the iPhone is manufactured in China. It’s not surprising that units built for export to Europe and North America have been imported back into China, especially when some Chinese users want an iPhone so badly that they will pay a premium.

How bad(ly) do you want that iPhone?

Without the carrier’s support, the iPhone is more limited. Chinese customers can make and receive voice calls. Users can surf the Internet on a WiFi connection. Songs can be synced to the device.

Unfortunately, text messaging doesn’t work well. Users have to memorize the recipient’s number and retype it into the To: field on every message. That takes a lot of the fun out of text messaging.

Data connections over GSM probably don’t work, either. That means that the iPhone’s push email features are unavailable unless the phone has a WiFi connection.

Visual voicemail is unavailable, as that requires the carrier’s assistance.

At any point, Apple could send a software update via iTunes that would break or cripple these unlocked iPhones, of course.

Wired has a pictorial summary of its “saddest cubicle” contest.

I hate cubicles. They’re not just depressing - they’re demeaning, especially when other employees have their own private offices on the same floor. If most of the employees work in a cubicle, the CXOs should, too. Share the pain.

Private meetings can be taken in a conference room.

Andy Grove used to work in a cubicle at Intel, as this 1995 Fast Company article describes.

As the semester moves along, the assignments get longer. I avoid printing the assignments whenever possible. It makes little sense, as I would have to scan each graded hard copy before returning the assignment to my online students.

It’s easy for me to grade an assignment in TurnItIn.com’s GradeMark feature, if the document is under 10 pages in length.

Longer documents take more time to load in my GradeMark editing window, depending upon my bandwidth and TurnItIn.com’s server load.

Fortunately, I have attached an LCD monitor to my office desk, by using an after-market monitor arm that can pivot and rotate the panel. The extra monitor is connected to the video out port on my MacBook Pro.

When I am grading a long paper, I open the GradeMark window in the top monitor.

I open a read-only copy of the paper in Word or Acrobat, depending upon the file format that the student submitted. I display that document on the MacBook Pro’s display.

This lets me read the original document while I’m marking it up in GradeMark.

Unfortunately, GradeMark does not have a bookmark feature. That’s a problem when I’m grading a long document.

Sometimes I need to look at a different section of the document while I’m writing a comment. This section might be a reference list or an appendix. I’ll use the bottom read-only window to display that section, so I don’t lose my place in GradeMark.

If anyone’s reading my RSS feed with Outlook 2007, please let me know.

Over the last few days, rumors have swirled about an iPhone contract with China Mobile or another major Chinese carrier. Here’s one example of these blogged rumors, from intoMobile. Here’s a breathless article from IDG.

All of these rumors has affected Apple and China Mobile stock prices, of course. The iPhonemakes a lot of sense in Asian market because the phone has no hardware keyboard. It seems easy to support specific languages with the on-screen keyboard.

According to ZDNet, a Chinese iPhone deal won’t happen any time soon, even though China Mobile has 350 million customers.

Stick to the business model

Apple wants a piece of the voice and data revenue, iTunes Store support, and locked SIM cards in the phones. But China Mobile does not want a revenue partner, the iTunes store is not popular in China, and CM’s phones use unlocked SIM cards. It’s always interesting when the key success factors do not come together.

China Unicom doesn’t support GSM, so they’re out of the picture. The iPhone is a GSM device, partly because AT&T wanted the exclusive US contract, but mostly because the European mobile carriers use GSM.

iPhones are made in China

Google’s Android platform may be more Chinese carriers, especially if Chinese device manufacturers and the Chinese government support the platform.

Yahoo’s recent problems in the US Congress are a good lesson for Apple and Google. The Chinese government will go to great lengths to monitor and control the Internet in their country, but that government needs willing partners to get the work done. Here’s a good discussion of Chinese monitoring practices in Wired.