Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
Gizmo Call - free calls around the world
Gizmo Call gives users 10 free call minutes per day to any number anywhere in the world. What an amazing development. The Gizmo Project initially entered the market as a Skype equivalent that required both parties to download the Gizmo software (which is fairly irritating). Gizmo Call has removed this little bug and now provides users with the opportunity to call anyone in the world at the click of a button.I have tested the product to my land line here in South Africa and it worked fantastically. Skype charges you for any and all outgoing calls to landlines and cellphones. Gizmo Call entices users by providing 10 minutes per day free calls. 10 minutes is not a whole lot, but it is enough to make me switch over from Skype to Gizmo Call
sarocks.co.za launches today
After much debate about domains, hosts, servers, content, themes, blogging tool and other issues, SA Rocks is ready to be introduced to be launched.The principal behind sarocks.co.za is to create positive hype around South Africa. I feel that there are enough websites and people constantly saying negative things about South Africa, it's time for a positive representation of our country and www.sarocks.co.za.Everyone and anyone is invited to contribute their positive stories, photos, lines or words about South Africa. Please visit the blog, spread the word and the positivity.
Egoli and Binnelanders take over
What is going on with Mnet lately? It seems to me that this major television corporation has no interest in enticing the non-Afrikaans speakers to their television station. Maybe I am misinformed on the Mnet stats but do people really want an entire hour of open-time television dedicated to Afrikaans?Binnelanders and Egoli have now joined forces on Mnet's open time and represent the 18:00 - 19:00 slot. I am super excited that the powers that be are willing to put locally produced viewing on a prime slot, but why, oh why is this viewing in Afrikaans? Could someone please fill in the blanks here because my pea-sized brain cannot compute this move.I personally feel that locally produced television is great. I love the fact that South Africa is moving to a stage where we can produce our own quality television and that people watch it (Isidingo). I am also aware of the fact that locally produced television is more costly than simply purchasing an overseas television show. Everyone has made allowances for the changing face of our country, lets have Mnet do the same. Get some multilingual shows into the mix and slap on a subtitle or eleven.
Sandton City mess
I had lunch in Sandton City this afternoon. I have never seen such a mess in a shopping centre. The escalators in the main part of the centre (where the movies are) have been shut down for repairs. In my little brain that means that they still exist but are being fixed. Not so. The escalators are gone. Now using steps.
This just goes to show that no matter how advanced we get, sometimes it's better to just take the stairs.
Wordpress installation trouble
I am starting a new blog and am making use of wordpress to see what it's all about (thanks Mike for the suggestions). I think that for a first time user and first time installation I am doing fairly well. Unfortunately I have run in to a snag of some sorts. So if you have installed wordpress on to a host site before using Cpanel please drop me an email: nharalambous@gmail.com.Thanks.
People I chatted to
The 27 Dinner might have been a couple days ago but there are a few people that I met for the first time and I felt I should share the linklove going around:
- Shaun Dewberry
- Hblog - Heather ford
- Dave Duarte
- Victoire
- Dom White
- Mike Stopforth
- Paul Jacobson (chillibeanchillibeanchillibean)
- the scott
- Peasontoast (General consensus: She's hot, trust us)
And then there were the bloggers who got me started:
- The Shnitz
- Gregoogle
- Verge
- Dom
- Courts
- Vincent
To all those that I met and forgot due to the free wine, my apologies.
Rodrigo Y Gabriela
I have shown myself to be many things on this blog. The one thing that most people who read my blog don't know about me is that I am a musician. I have been playing guitar for about 10 years and bass for about 4. I played in a band (Thus Far).Lately though I have slipped up and managed to get lost in a world of appreciation of music instead of admiration for the skill of playing it yourself. That is until I went out and bought Rodrigo Y Gabriela on CD. Their sound could be mistaken for sultry Spanish guitar when in fact these two are Dublin-based Mexicans who really can.Their fingers are nimble, theirs writing skills are mind-blowing and their ability to create a hummable tune within a wall of guitar is phenomenal. Please do yourself and your music taste a favour and buy this CD. Do not download it, these guys are not mainstream, are not rich and could use your support. For some video clips of them performing visit their website.I am now playing my guitar again. Life maybe isn't that bad.
I hate Mondays
I hate Mondays so much I can barely be bothered to spell the damn word correctly. I hate Mondays for a variety of reasons. If there is a day in the week that would begin badly it would be Monday and if there was a day that would end badly, it would be Monday.I am currently freelancing at Job #1. Everything was going well until Monday came around. Job #1 has now turned ugly. I have had issues with my pay from Job #1 and am thus fairly apathetic toward the work. This is no excuse really. I am just being a lazy sod. This is thus all my fault and not Mondays' issue but mine. I have produced some lazy journalism and am being punished for it.I hate Mondays.
Job Waiting
One of the most painstaking things about getting your CV complete is waiting for the responses from potential employers. Do you take the first job offered if the salary is almost what you are looking for? Or do you wait for a better offer and potentially lose your initial offer?I am stuck in this position right now. The waiting game is really not a pleasant one. Yet I am determined not to sell myself short. I might be shooting myself in the foot but I am of the mind that you should be able to weigh up your options against one another rather than weigh up an option that has nothing to be compared to.So my advice to myself at the moment is to stay calm and wait for the offers to come in before I accept one and turn down others that I haven't even received yet.
Networking rules the blogosphere
The 27 dinner of January 2007 has come and gone. I am sure that many people will be talking about how great it was to meet everyone, and it was. I must admit that I will not be talking about that aspect of the meet and greet.I was blown out of the water by the caliber of person that I came in to contact with. Not the caliber of personality, or personable person, but the quality of the business minds that I was surrounded by. I was and still am astonished by the networking that these individuals do and force you to do.Anyone who ridicules the web addicts for being "geeks", "nerds" or any other term that they think is derogatory do so at their own peril and that of their business. These people are a force to be reckoned with and I am glad that I am sitting on the right side of the fence.I need to explain why I was so impressed: Network, Network, Network (not chillibeanchillibeanchillibean). I have never seen any group of people so shamelessly and successfully market themselves. Everyone wanted a piece of everyone else's pie. If there was no pie left people suggested backing a new pie with greater synergy between their two pie making organisations and a new pie was born and chopped up and spread around.Moving away from the geek side of things I must impress on people reading this that I value networking as a successful and useful tool to seek employment. Do not overestimate the value of a degree or underestimate the value of who you know (or who your father's best friends daughters boyfriend knows). These people will like you when they get to know you and when they like you they will more often than not try to help you out in one way or another. Make use of the connections that are out there.
Bachelorette hijacking
I have just heard about the dumbest idea for a bachelorette party. The lady to be married will be driving, three friends (one she knows) will know where she is driving and stop her in her tracks. They will be dressed up like hijackers and pull her over, pull her out of her car and "hijack" her to her party.WHAT ARE THESE MORONS THINKING????In our country, with our background and the current state of the hijacking statistics (which are pretty bad I think) there are a number of outcomes to this scenario.
- The "hijackers" scare the living daylights out of the lady and her party sucks. This would be the "hijackers" fault. Bad outcome.
- The "hijackers" are unsuccesful in their attempt to pull the girl over in which case she has a horrible story to tell and misses her entire party. Bad outcome.
- The "hijackers" manage to pull her over, she fights like a mad person and injures herself and the "hijackers". Bad outcome.
- In the process of the "hijackers" "hijacking" the lady some noble citizen decides to intervene and shoots/cuts/runs over/ harms the girl, the "hijackers" or injure themselves. Bad outcome.
All in all, there are no good outcomes here. These people are idiots, this idea is stupid. Morons.
Fresh Faced Comic - Iranian Comedian
This is some funny stuff. An American-Iranian mocking the daylights out of himself and the rest. Great laughs.
Clear out Gmail
I know that Gmail provides its users with a gagillion MB's of space but let's just be honest: It is very possible to use up that space with random funny emails coming through once a day from a thousand friends.So what do you do?I found this post that explains how to constructively search for larger emails in your Gmail inbox.By simply searching your Gmail search for the term "has:attachment" your results will show every email with an attachment. As you can only imagine some of these attachments are random funnies from random friends who have nothing to do but email .wmv movies to everyone in their inbox.Other effective search terms include: "filename:pdf" or "filename:xls" and various variations of the like.Try them out and flush out those pesky emails taking up all your space. What a pleasure.
Creating a CV...
is hard work. Not only is it tough to balance being humble and confident without appearing arrogant, but it's tough to gather all the relevant and beneficial information.Then there is always that part that you think might make your potential employer think you are kissing his/her ass when in actual fact you are "driven, trustworthy and steadfast". What do those words actually mean to someone who wants to employ you?When you finally have all of the above kind of complete you need to look for sufficient and relevant references. Then when you think that you have found those wonderful references you need to get them to write you a reference or get them to agree to placing their contact details on your CV so that someone else (new employer) can call and ask about how fantastic you are.It's all a bit much for me but a necessary evil at the end of the day. Hopefully this is one necessary evil that will get me the job that I want.
27 Dinner around the corner
Mike told us all today that there are all of three spots left at the 27 dinner table on Saturday. Personally I am stunned and impressed that we have almost reached 75. I am honoured to be attending and very keen to meet all the bloggers and industry people attending.It will also be somewhat of a mini Rhodes reunion as there are many Rhodents from my year attending. Should be a great nice and an incredible experience that I hope continues every month!
Google does own the internet
I recently read a brilliantly written article about Google owning fiber optic networks. They have been very careful to not actually purchase any companies that own the networks but have entered in to agreements with the companies to control the networks themselves. Thus avoiding all monopoly trouble in the industry.Read the article, watch Google grow and fear the takeover. Google might be good, but anything that is secret and growing this quickly must have some flaws somewhere in the organisation.
Laws Newton Forgot
I was sent this email and thought is was very, very appropriate.
Rumshot rocks
Rumshot is a screen capturing tool that dolls up the images for you. I am impressed by this tool but struggle to see the great value. Possibly if you are not using photoshop or any other editing tool then this might be worth while. Cool to play around with though.
