Sales per pax
Was eating out the other day, and found this:
Dragon-i Restaurant is smart. Sales per pax. Why don’t more folk do this? It makes it easier to go Dutch!
life is like a box of adverts
life is like cost per click adverts. i can display them, i just can’t convert them to clicks.
its a poignant reminder, that in life, my conversion ratio, sucks donkey balls.
its been ages since “life is like a box of chocolates”, eh? bad parody…
Twitter for politics, and in the media
This is largely about social media, with a focus on Twitter.
Premieres using Twitter
Its great to see Kevin Rudd start twittering – follow him at KevinRuddPM.
He’s following in the footsteps of BarackObama. Who may just have won an election by harnessing the amazing powers social networks.
Did Obama use Ning? It would be interesting to see what Marc Andreesen has to say about the entire campaign, what was used, what was done, etc.
Twitter in Malaysian media
Oon Yeoh writes about twittering, like SMSing,is here to stay, in a column he writes for an old media newspaper.
I find it funny that he refers to the Malaysian public as “comfortable” with Facebook “status updates”, considering Friendster is still a lot more popular in Malaysia. Twitter itself is probably not big in Malaysia, because no one likes spending a premium sending a SMS overseas. I especially like:
One early adopter, who is currently studying abroad, uses Twitter as an efficient and effective way to keep her boyfriend updated about what her day is like.
Good, now she can keep her stalkers up to date as well :) Oon seems to add a questionable paragraph:
It’s not so good as an archive of news though. And that’s mainly because its search engine is quite lousy. Perhaps Google should gobble it up and improve its search capabilities.
Google did gobble up a “Twitter-like service” – its called Jaiku. Twitter themselves, gobbled up Summize, and you now have search.twitter.com (how else do you think we update the status page on foss.my?).
Its just amusing how many other errors there are in the article, but this is the drivel that is the print media, yes?
Update: Read How Techies can Improve Democracy and Governance, an interview with Silona Bonewald. (I conducted a short one, a few months back, too).
Update 2: Read about Obama’s plan to use YouTube for weekly “fireside chats”. I continue to be impressed.
fits of irony
In a fit of irony, its worth nothing that StarOffice has been dropped from the Google Pack while the Java Runtime Environment will now include the Microsoft Live Search Powered Toolbar on Windows.
I always tell people who use Windows to download the Google Pack. Maybe they would include OpenOffice.org 3.0? I’ve been a user of Google Docs recently, and there’s still something about OOo that makes it just that notch better. The other news though? Its days like this that I’m glad I don’t run on the Microsoft Windows platform.
Online catalogue software?
Dear Lazyweb,
I was browsing FACES recently, and noticed that they had an e-magazine. Nothing fancy, you have to zoom in and out to read it, making it kind of annoying on a laptop screen (the real experience will come on the 24″ or 30″ screens maybe).
What annoyed me was that the software was Windows only. It seemed to only work in Internet Explorer. These jokers make the software (Digital Magazine I believe, it is). Windows only is a silly market to be targeting – more and more Macs and Linux desktops are becoming a reality.
So, what are the other open source solutions for catalogues, brochures, magazines?
Flash is slow. The Ikea catalogue is a Flash app. Windows only (with ActiveX?) is a fail. Is there some JavaScript+CSS goo that can make it all work, in-browser? Something that also makes it usable on screens that are still standard (1024×768 resolutions?).
StartupCampKL, BarCampJB
Daniel (aka Mr. Messina of Malaysia) is organising a bunch of events, and since they’re on weekends, I’m going to gladly participate, without seeking approval from the overlords.
First up is Startup Camp KL, on 22-23 November 2008, in MidValley. On Sunday, I’m going to lead a session titled “Using Free Software to bootstrap your startup”. Check out the agenda. It should be fun, especially in today’s market to ensure there are no software licensing costs, especially if you’re a startup.
Then there’s BarCampJB, 6-7 December 2008, in Johor Bahru. I haven’t been there in…. ages :) I’ll be talking about “MySQL Best Practices for Developers”, where we’ll go through good schema practice, understanding different engines (and their uses), and probably a lot more. If there’s enough interest, a similar discussion on free software in business, will be there (AMP stacks, ftw!).
