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What is to is must is!

I just could not get over this one…lol

It depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is!

This one reminds me of my cousin

So I have finally upgrade my blogging software, Wordpress. Everything took about 2 hours. I have been procrastinating to do this for over a year, but after getting literally thousands of spam comments every single day, now seemed like a good time to do it. Some spammers even managed to inserted hidden html code into my posts and even in my footer! Although this was sneaky, it was very effective because I certainly did not detect it (since it was hidden) and who knows how long it was there…

So I’m posting this message using Wordpress version 2.5.1. It’s pretty slick (posts are auto saved while you type and Akismet is installed by default).

So thanks to this upgrade, spam comments are more effectively detected, automatically dealt with and legitimate comments can now be approved faster.

When I get the time, I’ll try upgrading my personal site and maybe getting a nice-looking theme in there as well. I think the current theme sucks…

Shivan was last seen perplexed trying to figure out how to make sada roti with Happi flour…hehehe

I am really impressed with the Facebook architecture (believe it or not). I’ve seen companies spend thousands/millions of dollars on getting their product out there. I’ve read business plans and came up with a few in my career. They are all good but few are innovative, creative and match the growing trend of the latest cutting edge technology. Your marketing plan is only as successful as the intellectual capability of the people/team behind it. And if these people are a bunch of technological duncies, well then you have just wasted a bunch of money. What about finding that right match….a marketing team or person who knows the ins and arounds of technology to pad his marketing plan to perfection, be innovative and most importantly, be successful….by taking into account technology and the Web 2.0.

By definition,

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses.

What I have seen companies spend millions of dollars on can be done on Facebook for free, in seconds, by one person. I kid you not. I am not saying that Facebook is a replacement for the typical marketing plan but it can be a significant complement.

Facebook Groups
By starting a Facebook Group, you can give your brand *instant* awareness. You send out invites, friends invite friends, friend’s news feed show the recent group activity and friend’s of friends of friends of friends (you get the picture) join in. And trust me, this can all happen in ONE day at the cost of $0.00. Compare this to ads in the newspapers, radio and the rest of the media. IMO, this is by far the perfect demonstration of viral marketing.

This same analogy can be applied to Facebook Pages, Facebook Events, Facebook Notes and Facebook Marketplace.

Facebook, the online market place where food prices never go up.

You know something wrong when you want to find out how to do something, so you google it, the first result is your own damn web page, you read it and then figure out what you wanted to do.

How weird.

After reading Shivonne Du Barry’s article, I realise that it was not only me who feel that way. So what have you been up to Shivan? (Ha, I also just realise there is another Shiv that cant answer that question!) Well, from what angle do you want an answer? From the outside: nothing much, bumming around, going here and there, finding excuses to wear a tie now and again. No biggie.

Now from the inside: So what have I really been up too? Well the other day I “un-hacked” one of my websites. Yes, a website of mine was actually hacked. I thought that was pretty cool, btw. This is what you get when you use outdated and cheap software to run websites (no not Drupal). Oh oh, yesterday I spent 4 hours buried into Nelly (my laptop) debugging my code only to realise I was missing an equal sign in one of my “if” statements. This culprit equal sign literally foo-barred my entire site! So what else? ummm…..there must me more, wait a min let me think.

I bought some domain names because I felt like it….lame lame lame.

Oh yeah, last week I attended an interview at a company. Hey, i wore a tie! Oh last month I attended another interview (wore a tie again) and I was commented on for wearing my earring. How sexist! In this day and age, people still do that?? So I guess it’s ok for females to accessorize (hair color, necklace, earrings, nose rings and rings that go anywhere the human anatomy can take a hole) but males..we get shot down for *one* earring. So that interview didn’t go to well. Let me put it this way, earring or not, it does not affect my ability to perform. So leave it alone. For my next interview, I will be walking in with a mohawk…that should give somebody something to comment on. haha.

So what have I REALLY been up too? Well I wish I could tell but it’ a grand secret for a grand secret project that I’ve been working on. (hence the missing equal sign). Right now, I have pages of notes and scribbles staring at me., two monitors facing my direction, magnetic rocks majestically dangling on my desk and trance music blasting in the background. But hey, this is how I function ok.

I’d rather share a sea-saw with Bula than change what I do. Work in what you like and you wont have to go to work another day. Well in most cases…

So as Shivonne wondered, “Does a cat count?”, I’ll wonder “does a very warm computer chair/floor/bed/couch count?”

Shivan was last seen launching websites from his bedroom.
rebel of my youth, war of yesterday, this is the anthem for the domain that got away…booyah

So, you have problems trying to get Firefox v3 or v2 and Firebug running on your Ubuntu Hardy Heron machine huh? This is what happened to me and this is how I solved it in TWO (2), yes 2, steps. Firefox 3 beta came with Ubuntu Hardy Heron but Firebug will not work for the life of me. When you try to inspect an element, the html looks raw and there are broken images etc. I am sure it all looks familiar. Worse yet, un-installing Firebug is a nightmare….the bloody thing just would not install!

After many hours of Googling, reading forums, reading blogs and reading random web pages, I finally found a 2 step solution. Make sure Firefox 2 is installed.

1. Go to /home/your_profile_name/.mozilla/firefox/{weird_profile_name}.default/
2. Change the file extentions.rdf to extensions.rdf.old

Restart Firefox now and walla! It works!

Now I can go on living…

Read the full article

This is a video clip of Mr. Arthur Lok Jack being quoted during an interview on the failed deal with Caribbean Airlines. His words are below.

..that Trinidad needs to go to the second stage, at another level…like the whole globalised world outside there we need to move in that…If I give Government back the money, do you think we are going to get hospital beds tomorrow?

When yuh large yuh large yes. And to think an educational institution is named after this (insert a descriptive C word here)…

You know in IT, there is this thought that the IT help desk personnel will probably never understand how a simple IT task is solved. We can never understand how a simple problem can be so complicated to the average non-IT inclined because we have passed that level long time ago.

Well in the same way, I am sure Mr. Lok Jack and his family will never have to line up for a hospital bed in San Fernando General Hospital or sleep on the hospital floor for that matter. They will *never* understand the cries, pleas and dissatisfaction expressed by most of us - the public of Trinidad and Tobago…

For those of you living in the neglected city (San Fernando), the speed was increased to the advertised rate of 1 Mbps at exactly noon on Friday March 7th 2008. The real (effective) rate is around 875Mbps - 900 Mbps…with downward bursts of 0 Mbps (only possible in Trinidad).

And I noticed Blink has lived up to their name, yuh blink, the internet working, yuh blink, it not working! sigh….

Well…at least, they went from Blank to Blink!

And for those of you who are still on dial up, if you want the Blink Broadband experience, take a wet fork, dip it in salt and then shove it in yuh eye…that’ll give ya the Blink experience…

Has anyone else noticed that the TSTT DSL service has been dropping ever so often (in the blink of an eye, get it?) for the last 2 weeks?? I cant even down/upload a file for 2 weeks now…

i just want a reliable internet connection of speeds >= 1Mbps, is that hard to ask for in 2008?

Oh and the TSTT helpdesk people are soo funny! poor indian dude…say this with a strong indian accent:

“we regret to inform you but there are technical difficulties in your area, I hope you understand sir.”.

me: “just by the way, where are you located?”

funny indian dude: “i am sorry sir, due to company policy i am not allowed to disclose that information”

(sounds really funny, I swear)

At this point I am thinking, gee, I wonder if I should ask him where I can get some chicken biryani in “my area”…

the saga continues…