Colin Charles Agenda

I was just listening to an episode of G’Day World, and Cam was mentioning that he owned Australian culture (Google g’day and his podcast ranks #5 or #6). So I thought I’d Google myself.

I hit up google.com, entered Colin Charles, and to my dismay, my blog ranks number 3 in the list. Its preceded by:

• Colin Charles Award Winning Wedding and Portrait Photography – it has the domain colincharles.co.uk and has a PageRank of 1
• Music Books, Charles Colin Publ Brass & Jazz Methods… – it has the domain charlescolin.com and has a PageRank of 3

And then my blog, which has a PageRank of 6. The above two websites have got the strings colin and charles highlighted in the URL, of course. So am I to understand that if I wasn’t bytebot.net and had my name in my domain name, I’d rank higher? Or is Google’s index just broken?

Technorati Tags: web, google, search, index, pagerank, domain, name

Its probably my fault for using MSN (Microsoft Messenger), but it seems to be most prominent among a lot of users I know. Thank goodness gaimPidgin supports the protocol just fine.

My recent usage of Facebook has wanted me to drop people profile information, via MSN. I somehow get a stupid message: “Message could not be sent because a connection error occurred:“. If you’re in a chat, you get disconnected from the chat, so you need to be re-invited.

It seems that in Microsoft’s infinite wisdom, they’re doing server side filtering, and killing your messages as they fit if they match an expression. Blocking popular items like:

• .info – yes, this includes all domains that have .info in them, which is really, silly
• profile.php? – good bye to sending Facebook profiles via MSN
• download.php?
• gallery.php

A more comprehensive list is being kept at the Adium (pidgin for OS X) wiki, at MSNCensorship. They also blogged it. I’m discouraging all my friends I talk with regularly from using MSN and moving to more sensible services.

Technorati Tags: msn, censosrship, microsoft, .info, profile.php, facebook

I’ve been a big supporter of Zimbra, because I think they’re one of the few projects/companies that get email/calendering/a groupware solution, right. Sure, I don’t necessarily like the model where they cripple the open source version in terms of say, backups (but this I guess will be fixed when MySQL supports online backups natively). No AdSense zimlet? Its easy enough to write one (with spare time).

What’s annoyed me of late with Zimbra, is its lack of ability to work with my Nokia E61i. Its a known problem (since February this year?), as it also affected the E61 (and probably other Series 60 phones, when you’re trying to access the Zimbra server over IMAP). You get the certificate being displayed, you get the headers, and when you try to open any email bodies, it just stops working.

The target for this fix, seems to be Zimbra 5, and according to their roadmap, we should see it in Q3/2007. The betas are already out, though I’m not about to load it on a production system. Watch zimbra#14850 – Nokia E61 sync with imaps if this affects you. There’s also a reference forum post. And here’s hoping to a good release, this quarter (2 more months to go!).

Technorati Tags: zimbra, zimbra collaboration suite, zcs, bug, nokia e61i, sybmian, series 60, imaps, email

A couple of my good friends have had some recent achievements that I clearly should help them blow their trumpets for.

First up, we have Ditesh, who’s an active proponent of ODF, have a little e-Note published on Electronic Document Standards. I got to read it back when it was in an ODF document (*grin*), and not much has changed since all the comments were pushed. Do read it, and consider giving it to upper management to read as well. Its a very well thought out document, and should be making its rounds on the Internet soon enough. Ditesh welcomes comments via email or his blog entry.

Incidentally, this is also one of the first notes that the UNDP/APDIP have published that carry a disclaimer – “The views expressed in this APDIP e-Note are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations, including UNDP, or their Member States.” I thought that was a little soft-cock, but this is the power of lobbying I guess.

Next up, we have Aizat creating haze.net.my, aka the Malaysian Air Pollution Index. Yes, do laugh out loud – Malaysia is very well polluted, and the API readings are pretty high usually, and the government of the day always insists its still safe. Aizat built it using Ruby on Rails, and there’s some active scraping of data (via hpricot), which then all mashes up with Google Maps. The site’s well designed (i.e. its simple), there’s an RSS feed if you’re so inclined to read details that way, and if you’re just interested about a certain area (say, Kuala Lumpur), you can dig deeper, and look at the graphs (via Gruff Graphs) of when it started becoming unhealthy and so on. Exporting it to CSV works too, in case you were using it for a project/paper on the haze.

All in all, a good side-project, very informative for those living in Malaysia or visiting Malaysia. Don’t see a good income stream (ads? pfft.), but definitely very informative. Maybe sell it to a ministry :-)

Technorati Tags: ditesh, aizat, e-note, apdip, undp, electronic document standards, malaysian air pollution index, haze, haze.net, malaysia, ruby, rails

Today I received most interesting mail from a training company in Australia. They want to use some of my (dated) open courseware, and obviously, I gave them permission. What was amusing was how they approached the situation: “We are prepared to not make a profit but will realistically have to cover printing and admin.“

Yes, they’re a training company. And this was from their Business Development Manager. How many out there think the courseware should be brought up to scratch, for modern versions of OOo and Linux?

Under a modern version of the CC license, though I’m not sure how many people are out there happily not-attributing and ripping me off, as we speak. Maybe just PDFs, and no sources? Definitely interested to hear anyone’s thoughts on this (via email, even).

Technorati Tags: training, courseware, open courseware, openoffice.org, linux, amusing

Brilliant. Alcohol-related advertising is hindered upon quite regularly. Then there’s the problem of selling cigarettes. Vices are just finding it harder to advertise, and reach their prospective markets.

Hence, I have got to commend Smirnoff. They pick up a bunch of “A-list” bloggers, invite them to a party (a launch party for new Vodka flavours), and by the virtue/nature of bloggers, there are blog entries before the party, and what’s really important are the blog entries after the party. The lifestyle, is being sold. Drink Smirnoff, and you’re going to be having as much fun at similar parties (and maybe, you’ll be an “A-list” blogger).

Kids these days find the Internet more important than television (probably largely because they can get their television via the Internet, but that’s another story). Why try to fight with regulators (Philip Morris are starting a tobacco concept store on Chapel St., amidst much slamming), when blogs and the Internet are out there, for you to get community, grassroots, free advertising?

Smirnoff makes use of YouTube too – check out the Smirnoff Experience. They’re inspiring their best customers to advertise for them, not controlling them in any way.

As Seth Godin says: “The network was always there, but the Internet makes it powerful. It amplifies the happy user and spreads the word.” “Hand the megaphone to your best customers, who can help turn their friends and colleagues into your new best customers,” he adds in Forbes 90th anniversary issue on the power of networks.

(Yes, Nokia seems to be giving away free phones to bloggers in Singapore, and LG has aligned with Jeff Ooi of Malaysia, they too are harnessing the customers that have a voice, to turn their readers into potential customers. No corporate blog rubbish in general – just pure users, with megaphones.)

Technorati Tags: new media, advertising, blog, party, promotions, vice, alcohol, smirnoff, business