Where to shop online in SA this holiday season

Sarah from Babazeka recently got in touch with me and presented me with a sterling idea that we've now been running on SA Rocks.Considering it is the time of the year for Hallmark holidays, spending, red and silver shiny things we thought it would be a great idea to show people where they can shop online in SA.There have been three posts so far. Get over to SA Rocks and have a read:Shopping with Faithful to NatureShopping with The WrenShopping with JezzeIf you have suggestions for real local online gems that supply truly local and lekker content please contact me. For now, get shopping, get reading, vist and support the local sites.

I went to a party

I received the below poem/text/story in an email. I can't accredit it to a proper source because I don't have the proper source.I went to a party,And remembered what you said.You told me not to drink, MumSo I had a sprite instead.I felt proud of myself,The way you said I would,That I didn't drink and drive,Though some friends said I should.I made a healthy choice,And your advice to me was right,The party finally ended,And the kids drove out of sight.I got into my car,Sure to get home in one piece,I never knew what was coming, MumSomething I expected least.Now I'm lying on the pavement,And I hear the policeman say,The kid that caused this wreck was drunk,Mum, his voice seems far away.My own blood's all around me,As I try hard not to cry.I can hear the paramedic say,This girl is going to die.I'm sure the guy had no idea,While he was flying high,Because he chose to drink and drive,Now I would have to die.So why do people do it, MumKnowing that it ruins lives?And now the pain is cutting me,Like a hundred stabbing knives.Someone should have taught him,That it's wrong to drink and drive.Maybe if his parents had,I'd still be alive.My breath is getting shorter, MumI'm getting really scared.These are my final moments,And I'm so unprepared.I wish that you could hold me Mum,As I lie here and die.I wish that I could say, 'I love you, Mum!'So I love you and good-bye. That's enough to make you not want to drink and drive in the upcoming holiday season.

Banned from Google and back on in 2 days

I have had a roller coaster ride experience with Google. Spanning from utter reverence to complete disdain, to fear, concern, joy, revolution and many more experiences that all have left me with an impression of Google here or there.My most recent experience of Google was a two day festival of emotion and reactions.Many people wont have a clue what I am referring to here but I recently saw a serious drop in traffic on SA Rocks:Those red arrows...never good. I freaked out. Emailed people, tried removing things I thought might be problematic. And then Mr Jason Bagley tweeted the answer in geniously casual fashion: "check out Google Webmaster tools - might be able to spot something happening in there."Yes, the answer was there. SA Rocks has a problem. I am not going go in to much detail other than to say that thousands of invisible links are injected in to the SA Rocks template occasionally. I didn't even remember this issue and consider it a problem. But it was. Google had booted me off their indexes. Not. Good.The drop in traffic is the result of having every page, every search term, every SEO effort that you have put in for over two years vanish off Google. Gone, kaput, over. Again, I freaked out. This is where the angst, anger, frustration and a mass of other emotions began to flow. I hated Google. I hated the fact they could almost literally grind my hard work to halt by simply removing me from their service. It's a shocker. And they are strict. If you haven't made use of them yet, I suggest you head over and get on top of Google's webmaster tools. They will prove to be invaluable should you one day be booted off Google.I received a message in my Webmaster Dashboard alerting me to the fact that I had been removed from Google. I then Googled SA Rocks, South Africa Rocks, Rocking, SA or anything that I knew would pop SA Rocks on to the top of the ranking somewhere on Google. Nada. Nothing. Niks nie. Kak myself.But it wasn't too bad.I was alerted to the problem by the helpful text-person talking to me on my dashboard. I figured it out, invisible links, google, spam, bam. Went to the origin of the links, manually removed them and then applied to be reevaluated by Google. This is an absolute must if you ever want to be visible on the known web again.Then I honestly thought that I would be waiting for weeks. But I didn't I waited for two days and was reinstated to the Google Indexes. Thank goodness. Can't tell you how glad I am that this is over.Be sure to check up on your website, Google yourself, your websites and your profiles.

Media have to pay to cover Zapiro's book launch

UPDATE: Apparently there has been some sort of a mixup regarding the Zapiro book launch. It seems as though there is someone from the PR company and Charity organisations involved with Zapiro didn't really know when the book launch was so instead she led us to believe that the launch was at her event which was a charity event and hence we were asked to pay.I am not 100% sure why the lady who we were in contact with didn't simply let us know that the Zapiro book launch is happening in Cape Town on the 27th November 2008 at 18:00 for 18:30. Recreation Centre, Pollsmoor Prison, Steenberg Road, Tokai.My thanks go out to Richard who represents Zapiro, for getting in touch with me personally and sorting things out. Either way I think the Zapiro book launch is going to be fantastic.On a side not: I still maintain that media should never pay to promote events or attend functions.I absolutely love Zapiro's work. I think the man is a genius and one of South Africa's great heroes. With that said, I think he has made a shocking error with his book launch.It is not clear whether Zapiro is calling the shots or whether his PR agency has completely and utterly lost their minds. Either way I am a bit shocked.To attend Zapiro's book launch as media is going to cost R200 per person. Crew of two = R400 for the event. I have done many weird, strange, odd, different and uncomfortable things in my time in the practice of journalism. I have NEVER paid to cover a story or promote an event.Zoopy was told to pay R200 per person to attend the event and were basically told that we should feel lucky because media gets a 50% discount. Really? Media get a discount, well gee-wizz-wow I am bowled over at your kindness.Direct quote from "events coordinator":

As per our discussion earlier, unfortunately we don’t allow any media to attend any of our upcoming events for free.Our normal price per person to attend the event is R427-50 including VAT, however we offer Media a discounted rate of R200-00 per person including VAT.Should you still be interested to attend the event, please contact me before the end of today and have your credit card details ready to process the payment online as we only accept payments upfront to pay the venue. Our system is set-up to only accept credit card payments when a booking is made 5 working days prior to an event.

So in return for our R400 Zapiro's book launch will get national exposure, a professionally produce media video and the possibility to be featured on some of the biggest news websites in the country. That sounds like a fair trade to me.I am sorry but I don't care if you are a journalism intern, the editor of the biggest magazine or Jeremy bloody Clarkson, media should not have to pay to attend any launch of any book that could aid in the sales of that book.Absolutely ridiculous.The frustrating thing is that Zoopy (and I am sure many other media organisations) have covered Zapiro launches and events very successfully and for free in the past:If you want to read Zapiro I suggest you visit Mail&Guardian online every day and have a look at Zapiro's free.Again I need to state that I think that Zapiro cartoons and all of his work is absolutely incredible, so don't make us pay to help you spread the word.

Rap on the knuckles from Facebook

Anyone ever received one of these?Think at the point of receiving the error I was posting a link to WhyVOTE? to a group. Oh well.

Holiday shopping - What I'm going to do

I am going to buy all my holiday gifts online.I will only shop from local online stores/products.I will keep the price per gift under R120.Those are my holiday shopping assurances.

We Blog the World - A South African Bloggers Tour

I am really chuffed to be a part of a fantastic (and very smart) initiative by the International Marketing Council (IMC).The basic idea, as I like to understand it, is that 11 international bloggers who are all prominent in their respective fields will all be heading for SA for a ten day whirlwind tour of our magnificent country. You can see more about the project over at We Blog the World. So the ten day tour will invariably allow the readers of the 11 international blogs to be exposed to the wonders of SA. Therefore invoking a desire to find out more, experience SA, travel to the country or simply read more SA stuff. Great move by the IMC I think. It's social marketing. Brilliant.I have been invited to take part in the tour.Don't fool yourself thinking that I will be on a joy-ride for ten days. Big Mistake.Bizcommunity have proudly offered my a column for the ten days where I will be writing about the trip and publishing video and photo content through the ten days. I will also be double posting the trip on my two blogs, nicharalambous.com and SA Rocks. If that isn't enough I will also be posting to the Zoopy blog sporadically, the We blog the world (WBW) flickr group and the Zoopy profile/landing page for the event. I am going to be one blogged out blogger by the end of this week.But it will most definitely be worth it. The IMC have put together an incredible trip for all of the attending bloggers.Here are a few snippets of the trip, where we'll be and what we'll be doing:A heli flight over the peninsulaAn Electric Car DemoThen we head to Alexander Bay to delve in to SA's oyster culture.and then we head off to JHB for various events, viewings and museum tripsI am incredibly excited to be taking part as many of the things on the itinerary are things that I have been wanting to do in SA for ages but have never had the chance.Expect some great content.Head over to Matt's blog and see who else is taking part. Leave comments or contact me if there are specific questions you would like to see the visiting bloggers answer while they are here in SA!

Will.I.Am's Obama victory song

I have registered to vote. Have you?

Today I went to my nearest IEC registration station and changed my registration details from Grahamstown to Johannesburg.The process was simple, the queues were managed well, the forms were readily available, everything worked perfectly.I was chatting to someone yesterday who made a really valid point, this is the first time (out of the three) that I have gone to register and have had people actually talking about politics, registration and voting, alot. It's great to hear, great to see and fantastic to know that politics is no longer one of the things you never bring up at a dinner party.

Life is a strange and worthy adversary

Don't ever say never.When I was 18 I openly stated that I would never live in the area that I grew up in (lived there for over 20 years with my family). I also swore that I would never drive the same road to work that I had driven countless times to school.I eat my words writing this post. As of today I live in the area that I grew up in (one street down from the exact house). And I work within walking distance of my school.Life is a strange and worthy adversary.

Vote

The big day is almost here for the USA. So....vote.

What happened to Hollywood accents?

This trailer is about Germans, in Germany, an uprising of ZeGermanz. So can someone please tell my why Tom Cruise has an Americanese accent? C'mon Charlize Theron dropped her Saffa accent for you Americans, now can you please play fair and even attempt an accent in a movie?Or is it possible that there was an American in the war fighting with zegermanz who tried to bring forth and uprising upon Hitler??

VFest South Africa Postponed

Virgin's VFest in December is officially on ice. The festival is being put on hold to gather a more incredible and powerful line-up of international acts. This is probably a good move but dissapointing nonetheless.Your options if you have tickets:1. Hold onto tickets for next year’s Virgin Festival, as they will still be valid;2. Get a full refund from Computicket;3. Or attend the Virgin Mobile pre-show instead, which will be cheaper, so you will also be entitled to a partial refund of your original ticket price.Here's the press release I received:

Virgin Mobile announces postponement of Virgin FestivalJohannesburg, 30 October 2008 – “Changes have been made to Virgin Festival by Virgin Mobile in order to ensure an even hotter line-up, and one that will make South Africans proud,” announced Peter Boyd, CEO of Virgin Mobile.The festival has been postponed to early 2009 in order to secure the international line-up that is more in line with what Virgin Festival stands for throughout the different countries. “Our criteria for a successful Virgin Festival are a great Greenfield venue, an impressive and eclectic international line-up, a huge local line-up, the Road to V bringing local unsigned bands into the mix, and some quirky brand activations for the crowd from Virgin. Four out of five of these are on track, but we’re not entirely satisfied with the international line-up,” said Boyd. “Some of the bands that South Africans kept asking for were simply not available at that time of the year.”He went on to say that Virgin Mobile and Big Concerts will work hard together to achieve a line-up that will show South Africans what a festival of this nature is all about, and one that will make South Africans proud.As a platform for the Road to V winning band, three concerts presented by Virgin Mobile will still be taking place. On the 13th December in Johannesburg at Coca-Cola Dome, 14th December at Durban’s ICC and on the 17th in Cape Town at Grand Arena at Grandwest. Maroon 5, One Republic, The Parlotones and Goldfish will be lighting up the stage together with Road to V’s winning bands. The grand winner will still open the Virgin Festival by Virgin Mobile when it goes live.“International acts Maroon 5 and One Republic will still be coming to South Africa, therefore existing ticket sales will still be honoured, only now the concert will be a curtain raiser for Virgin Festival 2009. Unlike the festival it will be indoors, but the dance arena will still be included,” explains Attie Van Wyk, CEO of Big Concerts.For those who’ve already bought tickets, there’s no need to worry. Current ticket holders have three options:1. Hold onto tickets for next year’s Virgin Festival, as they will still be valid;2. Get a full refund from Computicket;3. Or attend the Virgin Mobile pre-show instead, which will be cheaper, so you will also be entitled to a partial refund of your original ticket price.“We are confident we have arrived at the best solution for music fans, and it will be worth the wait for Virgin and South Africa.” concluded Boyd.

I want to be this good at whatever I do

Do yourself a favour and watch this video.Nardwuar the human serviette is just absolutely unbelievable. This video teaches me two things:

Research, research, research, research.

and

Presentation, presentation, presentation presentation.

The presentation of this interview is absolutely ridiculous. But absolutely brilliant. Picture an uptight man sitting in the interviews chair wearing a suit and tie asking the same questions and presenting Pharrell with the same trinkets. The interview would not have felt the same, the interviewee wouldn't have reacted that way and the interview would've been dead in the water boring and stale. Instead the presentation was off the wall from a guy with an off the wall name, attitude and vibe! Basically the combination of the research, presentation and implementation blew this interview out of the water. Fantastic.One last lesson I learned from this is that everyone you ever speak to is human. They are not rich, famous, better than you or worth more. They all came from somewhere and that somewhere more than likely resembles the self-same place that you or I come from. Treat them all like human beings with feelings and emotions and you will come out on top.

Ex-HIV Positive. This man cured HIV! uhu.

This must be some sort of a joke?Now, let's go through the list of claims attached to this "banner":Ex-Transsexual - Uhu, that's possible. I think.Ex-Prisoner - Definitely credit for that one.Ex-Wizard - What exactly does a Wizard do? But well done for "Ex"ing that one.Ex-HIV positive - ABSOLUTELY FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE. THIS MAN HAS CURED HIV/AIDS!!!!!!!!Let's get this guy a white coat and a doctorate of some kind because he is certifiably (but ofcourse) a medical genius. But I wonder how he cured HIV? Never mind, they said it, it must be true.Next you'll notice that not only is this genius claiming to have ridden himself of HIV but he also claims that he has two children - which means he has been having sexual intercourse while being HIV positive (if you are logical and conclude that the moron didn't cure himself of HIV) which is not a good lesson to teach if you are a preacher.The most shocking of all of this stuff, which is debatable, is that he knocked up a woman without a uterus. This man is my hero. Hero I tell you, absolute hero. Tosser.sourced: The Inquisitor

I was once a rocker. Unbelievable? Believe it.

Yes, it's true. I've mentioned this fact before here on this blog but only sporadically. There is a music video, there are mp3's. In fact there are two of our songs in this very post. So go ahead and have a listen.The bands name was Thus Far. I played with some fantastic musicians over the three years we were together. Thus Far shared stages with The Parlotones, Prime Circle, Arno Castens, Albert Frost, The Finkelstiens, Evolver, Airship Orange and a host of other bands who travelled through Grahamstown, the Eastern Cape and played at Splashy Fen.I'm not really sure why it's taken me so long to blog about this, but it just has. So there you go. I will be adding some of our more refined stuff at a later stage but for now, here are two songs.The first one, Strongest Star, was written by Terence Hatting - the phenomenal bassist and song writer of the band. The second and more soppy of the two, Falling Down, was written by yours truly in all his emo, downtrodden and depressing days!

Sony Bravia blows my mind

I absolutely LOVE the Sony Bravia adverts. They really know how to think outside of the box.

Atheist Bus Campaign

This is the sort of campaign that makes me smile inside, deep down in my gut. It's guerilla tactics make me proud and laugh at how easy it can be when there are passionate people similar to yourself out there.I found the campaign through Girl with a one-track mind. She aptly put it: "Things I am doing today: repeatedly clicking 'reload page' here and grinning, widely, from ear to ear, as I watch the donations increase, and the silent majority finally speaking out.It's a brilliant campaign: I cannot wait to see the posters on the buses."The Atheist Bus Campaign is a reactionary campaign in the UK to the religious adverts being placed on Red Buses in London.

CAMPAIGN

The Atheist Bus Campaign launches today, Tuesday October 21 2008. With your support, we hope to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across the capital for four weeks with the slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."Professor Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The God Delusion, is officially supporting the Atheist Bus Campaign, and has generously agreed to match all donations up to a maximum of £5,500, giving us a total of £11,000 if we reach the full amount - enough for a much bigger campaign. The British Humanist Association have kindly agreed to administer all donations.With your help, we can brighten people's days on the way to work, help raise awareness of atheism in the UK, and hopefully encourage more people to come out as atheists. We can also counter the religious adverts which are currently running on London buses, and help people think for themselves.As Richard Dawkins says: "This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion."http://www.atheistcampaign.org The goal was to raise £5,500 and Richard Dawkins would match the figure of £5,500. Well you'll never believe it, in the space of 3 days the Atheist Bus Campaign has made it all the way up to £ 93,096.00.That equates to R1 659 901 at the current Rand-Pound exchange rate.The silent majority in the UK is clearly beginning to speak out. Wow.Cannot wait to see images of the buses.If you missed the photo above, the banners are going to read:

THERE'S PROBABLY NO GOD.NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE

SAASucks.com

My friend Justin got screwed over by SAA recently. It wasn't pretty and he ended up losing a fair amount of money with thanks to the lovely SAA.This is the result of Justin's anguish. SAASucks.com - the real SAA.Here's a snippet from Justin's blog:

So while SAA Sucks is now live it’s up to you guys to help me spread the word. Write a blog post about it, send the link to your Facebook friends, post it on Twitter, Google bomb SAA with a link to SAA Sucks, frankly I don’t care - just spread the word.Finally, If there are any designers out there who’d like to do a proper theme for this site let me know - it could do with something decent!

So if you've had a bad experience with SAA then head over to SAASucks.com and get posting, ranting and expressing yourself!

Blogging is dead, move to twitter because Wired said so

I have just read an article over at Wired Magazine that blogging is oh so 2004 and we all need to jump ship if we aren't part of a professional blogging network that dominates Google search results.What Wired says in the article is that bloggers are being taken out of the equation by professionals who blog and put out 30 or so posts a day. They are being taken out of the equation by online magazines that were once, maybe, blogs and are now business ventures. Bloggers are being taken out of the Google rankings by professional media organisations such as NYT, Time, LA Times and others with similar stature. Bloggers are becoming invisible according to Wired Magazine.Wired goes on to explain that bloggers of the personal, one man band nature, are becoming tired of comment trolls, masses of spam, irrelevant audiences and other frustrations. The solution? Move to Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and similar services. I wonder if these services paid Wired Magazine to write this article. Basically I should stop being a self-publisher and move completely to a service that someone else will make money off of? I don't agree at all. I think a merger, hybrid or cross pollination is in order. Not abandoning of the ship at all.I quickly used twitter to feel out some opinions on the topic. (I completely recognise that I am invariably endorsing wired magazine's opinion by using Twitter to get my information for this blog post!)My tweat:nicharry is blogging dead? Is twitter taking over? Should we all jump ship?!?!Some of the responses:markmedia @nicharry no yes nowoganmay @nicharry If everyone jumps ship, who will we be leaving to captain that ship?obox @nicharry I don't think so. There is still space for both, with lifestreams entering the world you can have all the cakes on one page.fromtheold @nicharry Blogging will last long after twitter :)Jonin60seconds @nicharry Slow down there profit of doom!RichMulholland @nicharry No we should simply re-prioritize our weighting on both.It's incredible actually, how many people felt they could respond to something I had said so quickly and easily. This definitely beats responses on blogs hands down.I firmly agree with RichMulholland's comments that we should not be throwing in the towel for either service. We should simply re-evaluate our goals and re-prioritize our focus on the services that are available to us.Blogging isn't dead, blogging is just becoming a force that we need to seriously consider as a profession. Just as reporting back in the day was done by a random one or two people within a town or village and is now down by conglomerates. Things change, let's change with them not fight against the change.I did enjoy the closing line of the Wired article though: "@WiredReader: Kill yr blog. 2004 over. Google won't find you. Too much cruft from HuffPo, NYT. Commenters are tards. C u on Facebook?"