Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
DStv adverts
If I have to see one more DStv advert thrown in to the middle of a show/song/programme that I am watching I am going to throw something through my television set. I swear it.Could someone from multichoice please explain to me why there is this obsessive need to destroy their subscribers programming with meaningless, mindless, irrelevant and badly timed adverts?
Fresh Faced Comic - Demetri Martin
It has been almost an eternity since I posted my last fresh faced comic. Every comic has a gimmick, Demetri has a guitar and a pointlessly chilled out riff that he has underneath all of his jokes. For some reason I love it. This man has the most incredible one liners from batteries dying to fingering puppets. Hysterical.
Million Dollar Avatar
I signed up for a promotion service called MillionDollarAvatar about a week ago. I was promised exposure, I was promised hits, I was promised a front page. These promised were delivered. Yesterday I received an email telling me that my profile was on the homepage, today I have received an email alerting my that my profile is on the backpage as well as on the random blogs of the day.This site aims to promote people with websites. On the backpage I am in the company of Mr. Paul Stamatiou and if you ask me that's not too bad.
iPhone at the Oscars
For those of you who managed to watch the Oscars last night good on you. Helen, Forest, Martin and others walked away with a golden statue of a naked man missing the good bits.If you were awake and did not miss a single ad break (and if DSTV/Mnet didn't make the ads local) you could possibly have seen the very first iPhone advert! The commercial is over 18Mb to download so if you don't have a worthy connection (not sure what I am talking about "worthy" pah) don't bother.The commercial features a collection of scenes from television and film with stars saying “Hello†on a telephone. Nice idea and there is even an awesome Back to the Future scene.
Samsung cell phone flaw
Apparently if you type in "economist" in to an SMS of any of the new models of a Samsung cell phone and then press the "#" key the phone stalls and resets.Not so apparently. I tried it and it worked on my new D900 and a D820 that I tried. The phone just out right stops working and resets without pin requirement.I am so interested to know how many other people know about this and have tried it? Let me know if you have a Samsung. Maybe the guys from Mobile Q and A could try this out and give us some feedback.
Massive Media Workshop kicks off
I am sitting at UJ and have been since early this morning. I am actually not too upset by this as I have been given the chance to be the blogger of the conference, so I get to blog for 5 hours solid. Joy. While some of my friends shop all day (har har Carls!) I will be covering events here and providing students with a summery of each speaker and the days events.Visit the Studentwire Blog for more info
Studentwire and the "Massive Media Workshop"
This weekend brings with it another student media conference. This one is held at the University of Johannesburg. I am attending as a Studentwire represntative and have been given the nod to blog about the conference, conclusions and speakers.Keep up to date with the happenings of this conference by visiting the Studentwire Blog where I will be posting about the conference. You can also check out the Studentwire moblog at Studentwire itself or visit the Studentwire flick account.
Egyptian blogger jailed
An Egyptian blogger received four years in prison from an Egyptian court. Abdel Kareem Soliman was apparently jailed for criticising a top Islamic institution.It seems that in certain countries freedom of speech is a non-existent concept. If that was the case here in SA, I would've been jailed long ago for a much longer period of time as would many of the vociferous bloggers in SA. If I were the al-Azhar university and President Hosni Mubarak, whom Soliman called a dictator, I would also be pissed and call cops, that it is if I actually was a dictator and wanted to appear guilty!This is not the first time a blogger has been reprimanded or jailed for thinking that freedom of speech existed. This definitely explains to me why so many millions of bloggers remain anonymous at all costs (the cost being jail time nowadays). Things can't be that bad over here if we are all so excited to have our name.com url's.Facts and image courtesy of BBC News. Thanks to Mich for the lead.
BMW drivers - the worst on the road
Hoping to have an enjoyable evening out with Jen tonight I drove to pick her up from her house. However no drive in Sandton is complete without some moronic BMW driver thinking he owns the road and drives a Ferrari.Let me tell all of you BMW drivers something; you are not special. You drive one of millions upon millions (scott,maybe you can help out on numbers here) of BMW's out there, there are millions upon millions of other people that drive your exact model. Thus, therefore and hence, you are not special. Do not drive like you own the road, do not drive like your irritating blue lights are cool, they aren't, sorry Kevin.The reason for this post: While driving to Jen's place I was aggressively pushed on to the right hand side of the road (that's the wrong side of the road if you are wondering) on a right-angle corner by a black BMW. If you are reading this, screw you. I proceeded to do what every man would: I hooted the crap out of my hooter. It gives me satisfaction to do this. I thought I had made my point. I hooted until I couldn't here myself think. We both took the corner following another car in front of us. The three of us are now so closely knit that I can see the ridiculous hairdo of the driver of the black BMW.Then it happened, to add salt in to the wound of a correct and safe driver, the Black BMW man flicked his stompie (cigarette butt) on to my windscreen in triumph of his idiotic and dangerous driving. Do these people think they are clever by placing other peoples lives in danger? I couldn't give a rats ass if someone like this crashes in to a wall (not in to other people) and hurts themselves. They deserve it. There are enough things in this world that can end a life, why would you want to make your driving another murder weapon.Take your flashy driving and BMW attitude and stick it wherever is most uncomfortable for you.This post in no way intends to brand EVERY SINGLE BMW driver an idiot, but do me a favour and help yourselves out a bit, drive like you want to live.
30 seconds to mars
I haven't done a post like this for a while but this band has done my little nut. I just caught 30 seconds to mars's song on MTV now and i was literally mesmerized by their presence and song writing skill. The lead singer, Jared Leto can really belt out a tune and rips it up on guitar. What a boy. Oh, did I mention that he is an actor too (Requiem for a Dream is my personal favourite of his).I must say that of all the actor-turned-singers this man is absolutely the best without a shadow of a doubt. Let's not forget the fact that he plays with an entire band who make him look as good as he does.But seriously, I have not had a mesmerizing reaction in a very long time (since Skunk Anansie I recall) so these guys must have something!!
Christmas in February
What is going on with DSTV and the Movie Channels? If I have to see one more movie on these channels with the words "christmas" in it I swear I'm going to do something drastic.
Mobile Q and A...hmmm
I am intrigued by this site, MOBILE Q and A. Firstly I am intrigued by the url http://mobile-qanda.com/... I immediately pronounced it as i read it, QANDA. That's not a major though. So who cares.Rafiq has a great point, goodluck getting people away from Mxit. But I think that there could be some use in this site if it used correctly. Ask the right questions, review the right phones and deal with a need you have. Interesting.
Pavlov's parrot theory
I feel like I am living in Pavlov's dog theory. You know the one: the master rings a bell when the dog's food is ready and the dogs come a runnin'. Then one fine day Pavlov rings the bell, the dogs come a runnin' but there is no food.Well I have an African Grey Parrot at home. This bird shrieks at all and any hours of the day. Initially I thought that it was random but today sitting outside making some calls he/she (we don't know the parrot's sex) didn't make a sound. I started to wonder why. I think that I am being played by the parrot.Crackers (the parrots name) yells when his/her water is dirty, when there is no food, when he/she is cold or when he/she gets too hot. Crackers yells and waits for a response. If no response comes Crackers yells a bit more and a bit more until I come a runnin' and do all the things that I think will "shut him up". Little do I know but there sits Crackers the Parrot mastermind that he/she is in a little cage making my jump whenever her yells.Am I running after the parrot or is the parrot running after me? hmmm....
Ananzi in top ten local websites
Mybroadband recently released the usual top ten for SA websites. I am shocked that Ananzi is anywhere even close to the top ten never mind in the top ten.I am even more shocked that Ananzi is actually still around. With that said I have just visited the site and am even more surprised to learn that there has been a major redesign that I am pleasantly impressed with. Now I cannot really continue with my little rant about users inability to move the times because it seems as though the product has done so before the user needed to.I remember Ananzi being frustratingly text heavy and irritatingly cluttered. This is not the case anymore. I haven't used Ananzi for over years because of the issues that I had. I didn't even check the site because of my frustration, this seems to have been my mistake in hindsight!I will definitely be using Ananzi over the next few weeks and see how it goes because design may be all good but search engines are meant to search effectively. I am not convinced that Ananzi is doing this yet.I just searched for myself (nic haralambous) on Ananzi, the top results involved Shaun Dewburry, some myspace chick, South African artist called nic, an accounting firm and a business report involving some dude called nic.That is shocking considering I own and run 4 local websites (one of which is nicharalambous.com). When I searched for nicharalambous I got zilch. Not impressed here, at all. Not only are the results shoddy, but I was asked by the site to put all names with a Capital Letter. Seriously, how much admin is that if you don't know what you are doing and you leave out the capital letter, the search engine doesn't recognise that you are searching for a person... as if that should matter.Google's search results for nic haralambous returned results involving things that I have done (1st was this blog (3jobblog)) people who have linked to me and sites that I own, all in the top ten!! Now you have to wonder why people use Google. I also didn't need to put my name with capital letters!I don't know, you tell me, how is it possible that such a rubbish search engine with such a great design (cough, cough) manages to maintain a top ten position for local websites?
Live Earth Concert
The Chumps have done it again and broken a story that just blew me down and brought a lovely tear to my eye.Live Earth is a massive world wide concert that is being held to try and make the world aware of the climate issues we are facing. The artists are trying to rally support for our Earth so lets keep our eyes peeled and our wallets full enough to purchase a ticket.Word has it that the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, the Foo Fighters and Fall Out Boy will be coming to SA. If that is the case I am sold, in, there, going, gone, done and dusted. I love this game.
Max rocks SA
Maximillian Kaizen has just posted the first of hopefully many posts to come on SA Rocks.This wonderful lady has a fantastic way of presenting a point and this post is no different. Rock on down now and check out the post.
Google might just do some evil
The term Googlebot is fast becoming one that may have more impact on the world than people initially suspected. Co-founder of Google, Larry Page, recently let slip that Google is not as far away from creating Artificial Intelligence (AI) as people might suspect.I am not saying that this move is an evil one or that it will end badly. I am going to suggest that Google is not necessarily interested in staying within the boundaries of online world.There are moral as well as ethical issues surrounding AI; if it is self-aware can it be controlled? If it is self-aware is it murder to get rid of it if it is not serving its purpose? These are just two issues of many.
Why Greeks Cannot be terrorists
As we all know I am a South African Greek and proud of it, but I just could not help but post this:Why Greeks can't be Terrorists':10. 8:45 is too early for us to be up to board a flight.9. We are always late. We would have missed all four 9-11 flights.8. Good looking people on the plane would distract us.7. We would talk loudly and bring attention to ourselves.6. With food and drinks on the plane we would wind up dancing.5. We talk with our hands, so we would have put our weapons down.4. We would all want to fly the plane.3. We would argue politics and start a fight in the plane.2. We would have put the Greek flag on the windshield of the plane.And the number one reason why Greeks can't be terrorists:1. We would have told everyone a week before what we were going to do.
Tree-Nation, saving the world one tree at a time
Saving the trees is kind of important I am told. Hell, even Al Gore has gotten involved in the cause so it must be something to concern ourselves with. If you are really and truly one of those jeeks/geeks who has not seen the sun in approximately three years, 15 days and an hour, then Tree-Nation is for you.for a nominal price you can purchase a tree to plant in a desert area that suffers from desertification. The project aims to plant 8 million trees in the Sahara desert. I am not a tree hugger, hell I don't even recycle but I think that this strange little site is doing something really impressive.
The trees above were used in the making of this paper.The Citizen, Mike Stopforth and SA Rocks
Mike Stopforth writes a column for the citizen. I think Mikes a great guy and knows what he's talking about, so with that in mind, go and read his column. This week Mike went out of his way to make mention of SA Rocks. Thanks Mike, lets get those offline people online this week!