11.16.09

keeping a diary with important things, daily

Posted in random, social behavior tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 1:29 pm by stefan4m

Call me old-fashioned, but I like keeping a diary! It’s been 2 years now that I kept this one unique diary style from Letts, one page per day, and since I was in school / more indoors / studying a lot, I had to write a lot in there. Now I’m so happy I purchased a Filofax nice leather diary, where I would hopefully write daily & hopefully this will help me be more organized… You can really create your personal universe in your diary, writing about / on:

  • Post It Notes – coloured and in different shapes/sizes(rectangular, small, square, perfumed, pink / red / yellow / neon / orange / blue / green, etc) with either lists of things to do, notes from a meeting, interesting things, quotes, quick email addresses, other addresses of people, funny stuff, etc;
  • flyers and pictures, add to the diary stuff that u pick up / find / receive during that day, and just put it there… with or without a note;
  • the main events of the day – writing down what you consider to be more important for you, either
    - in advance – to remind you about events, calls, birthdays, etc;
    - in retrospective – notes about certain meetings, events, interesting things, important data;
  • Thoughts / enjoyment / interesting things – there are so many interesting things that can happen, unpredicted, gestures, some feelings, some thoughts, some nice persons you met, etc – that’s what a diary is about;
  • financial stuff – if you feel like these things can be “read” by others, I would recommend that one keeps a record of at least the major things he purchases, like: electronics, major grocery shoppings, books, big/large items, important items/gifts/cards, etc – list them there, either when you buy them(in that particular day), or on a specific list of in/out spending/receiving $$$;
  • calls – we make lots of calls every day, and sometimes/many times they are just gossip/chats – but some calls are “milestones”, or more topic-related, overseas calls, or even keeping in touch with old friends, finding news about them… – I sometimes write down the name, duration of call, and the main thing we talked about;
  • To Do & Projects – both on a daily basis, working on more important things, or weekly/monthly targets, projects you’re working on with deadlines and milestones, companies that help you/you need to call, etc. Also, what I do sometimes is that I write either electronically or on a post-it note – the things I need to do when I get to a certain place & I am in a certain environment(at home in front of my personal PC; at work when I meet so-and-so, shopping lists, things to do online, things to talk about to someone, etc);
  • address book – addresses of the new people you met, either on the daily page u keep, or on the designated addresses list; as you meet people, get their number/email address/mail address, or… the facebook name :)

and so many other things, from the stickers u get when u go to a certain event(either with your name on it or with some cool design/logo), to pictures, scraps of things, badges from conferences, email addresses from people as you meet them, signatures from people, tell others to write u a note, plane tickets or the sticky band they give u as u check-in, etc – things u pick up as u live your daily life wherever u are. Things to remind u about that day. To make u happy when u look back…. – or sad. Broken relationships, not-so-happy thoughts, etc. You decide what u write/add to your personal diary :)

11.11.09

what does google know about you

Posted in google, new online, questions tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 10:45 pm by stefan4m

You never thought of that,… or maybe you’re scared of that. What does google know about you? You can say that there are at least 2 types of info google picks up about us: the information we tell him/give him, and the information we don’t, but it is our behaviour online.

What do we tell google about ourselves?

  • A good way to tell google about yourself is your google profile, that is: contact info, about you, the blogs you write, websites you work for, any links related to you, where you have been on the earth, the sidewiki, your picassa albums picture flow, etc.
  • Google dashboard – google picks up from online the services you use and centralizes them, allowing you to change your personal data in these accounts: the blogger account, calendar, the contacts, google docs, gmail, iGoogle, orkut, picasa, the profile, google reader, google talk, google voice, google voice, and your web history – your history/items in these services.
  • whatever you put online about yourself and is searchable, starting from a website, a blog, twitter, a profile page, a network, a forum, etc. Or what the others say about you.

What we don’t tell google about ourselves, but he knows/picks up/learns about us

  • our web searches and web history, our preferences – if or even if not we’re logged into our google account. He records this and then personalizes your results according to what you last time visited – he “learns” you….
  • your emails tell google what kind of adds to display, depending on the words you have in the emails; the same with the google chat: google picks the words/people you talk to/about the most…. your preferences…
  • your google docs tell google about you, your preferences, your collaboration, your friends, your trends, and it offers you an unlimited space where you can put your docs online;
  • if in the States, your google voice – the transcribed conversations, google taps into them…. – not harmfully, “do no evil” being their motto;
  • all the google services you use, whether on the desktop or online, tell google a little about yourself. You may not know that much about your preferences, but google learns from you, adapts, serves you what you want…. Maybe you use google docs, gmail, google calendar, google desktop(nice, useful, customizable, gadgets), igoogle, google chat, youtube, picasa, google notebook, google maps, google earth, the google search engine + various versions of it, google checkout, google analytics, google trends, google toolbar, etc(a list can be here).

Uhm… these articles are supposed to be short…. yet this one is interesting: google offers more and more free products, “free versions of the existing commercial products/softwares in the market“, and we gladly use them(they are free, they are online, you just need… a browser! By us using them, giving feedback, or even without it, google learns of our behavior, our personality, preferences, etc… Guess what: even if we don’t use the google products/services, by indexing the web, google finds you/about you wherever you are! Even on facebook, even with your secret profile, he finds you in your friends’ friends list! Same on twitter. So why not be open about it all and create your profile, “feed” google with the information you think is relevant about you…

Should we be scared about that? I honestly don’t know. What I know is that it is getting more intense – addictive – interesting. With google wave, with the other startups that have such cool features that we use & then google buys them,… :) I don’t know….

11.07.09

the people and google are after your content, whether SEO or not!

Posted in facebook, google, new online, twitter tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 10:58 am by stefan4m

I still can’t believe that there was a time when I had a long compiled list of search engines and directories where I would register / subscribe my website once I put the site online, so that, eventually, google would see it! Starting with the DMOZ and continuing with the altavista, yahoo, etc. There were at least 2 weeks before google saw your efforts and crawled your website. And then, if you wanted to have a new page to be indexed by google, you had to put a link on the front page/on a page with a high pagerank….

Nowadays, though one needs SEO(search engine optimization), and though you need to register with some local niche directories(depending on your business), google is after your content! So, in a way, you don’t have to “fight” too much – all you need to do is to put out the content that you think people need/love – or set up the services/functions people would love to have, and the people(social media…. social networks…) will “push you” up in google(just tweet your article/page/site, or put a link on your facebook/myspace). On the other hand, once you have a link from another website to your new site/page, it’s a matter of a short time until google “eats up” your content. I have seen a new wordpress blog site being indexed by google in 2h.

And one more tip: because there’s so much spam in the directory submission / SEO / even social media area, go along with the common sense in promoting your website(make sure your webpage has a title, some keywords, headings and paragraphs, logical links, some anchor links, solid structure, related links; get some of your friends opinion/feedback on your website, facebook/tweet it, see what their reaction is; also submit it to some related directories, comment on other blogs, etc). You know why? Because you don’t want “bulk traffic/random loads of people”, but you want your content/ideas/services to be known by real people who would also give you feedback to help you/communicate with you how to go on. At least that’s the new way things work nowadays online…

11.04.09

coca cola should also have a disclaimer

Posted in random, social behavior tagged , , , , , at 5:10 pm by stefan4m

Not only the cigarettes and the alcohol should have such a disclaimer, stating what the dangers are when you drink it/use it, but even Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola should have such disclaimers on the bottle! By now many millions of people have become addicted to either Coke or Pepsi, consuming it daily in large quantities. And we all know what the dangers are. Why not be true about it? It’s not about boycotting the Israel campaign, or the murders in Colombia(South America) related to Coca Cola, or any other gruelsome thing. It’s simply the fact that it errodates your stomach, it kills you within, damages your teeth, etc – see more in yahoo answers, what happens when you drink Coke, the 7 dangers of Pepsi/Coke, or here, etc.

I think that since all the side effects of other not-so-health-yet-addictive products are being written on their label, the same should be done with Coke and Pepsi. Fair enough?

10.28.09

my sister’s keeper – realistically, this is life

Posted in family, social behavior tagged , , , , , , , , , , at 11:59 pm by stefan4m

I promised myself I won’t talk about movies, especially since most of them are simply surreal, unreal and also not so recommended to be watched. But I recently watched My Sister’s Keeper, and I realized: this is life! Life happens. You may be the person that does a lot of things, tries to change everyone, the world, the situation, encourage others and make everyone happy – but if sickness comes in, if death comes in, you will have to accept it. This is life.

The point is – enjoy life. Not: enjoy doing as many bad / illegal things that you think you like, but just enjoy your family life, your relatives, visiting and knowing people and places – appreciate this. Don’t just go over these things. Be “moved” and “touched” by things, be attached to people, open to others, be a friend and get friends close by. I would even say: be a good & interesting person online, have friends on facebook / twitter and really mean it, interact, get to know others and let them know you. At least humanly, in the society and in the family, that’s the best you can do…. of course, you can also know God, find Him, seek for Him…. It’s not only about trying to change things, but it’s mainly about living.

10.20.09

crazy world we live in

Posted in questions, social behavior tagged , , , , , , , , , at 8:23 am by stefan4m

Born in Eastern Europe and now living in Western Europe, having traveled a little and observing things, I came to the conclusion that it is indeed a crazy world we live in.

  • In some countries there’s a fight for surviving and having the daily bread(mainly in E Europe), while other countries forgot what real bread is and delight in all kinds of fancy foods(W Europe).
  • In some countries people simply can’t change anything in the way their country is ruled(Burma/Myanmar, many Arab countries), while in the Western Democracy&USA there are too many voices speaking yet doing almost nothing.
  • In some parts of the world there is lots of sunshine, maybe too much(S California, Spain/Portugal), while in other countries there’s just clouds and cold(UK), windy, or – the regular 4 seasons.
  • The young children are reading the grown-up newspapers, since they’re free, and watching what the grown-up watch, trying to behave / do the things the grown-up do – the bad part is that their parents/supervisors don’t consider this premature knowledge/seeing as something unhealthy.
  • Respect – mainly in the Asian countries, there’s lots of respect being cultivated, yet in many Western countries there is no such thing, and this starts from the home, goes to schools, universities, jobs, on the street, on the bus, on the underground – no respect.
  • Temper – once people actually wanted to control their temper; these days in Western Europe you have to be careful how u talk to people, because everyone just reacts in what his disposition is – and many times is not nice. You never know when you spoke one word that the other doesn’t like and they hate u or worse…
  • Mentality – Some people are hard working, laboring diligently to achieve something; other people just want to receive & demand to receive, thinking this is their right; other people just take it easy – all they have to do is work a little & they get enough money to live(W Europe); some people work very hard and can barely meet their needs/their family’s needs(E Europe) – out of these, some gave up on hope for better, they just go along… others(mainly the young generation) want more, strive for more, even coveting what the other people in better countries have…

sorry – just some of the observations I made as time goes by, as I travel, as I see things… Contrasts, strange, developing in an interesting(not so positive) way, west versus east, asia versus USA/W Europe, etc…

10.12.09

spam/phishing online and offline

Posted in facebook, google, questions, twitter tagged , , , , , , , , , at 11:20 am by stefan4m

Spam is usually not good. Sometimes it can be instructive to receive and read the spam, but don’t click on the links! Recently though, more and more, I discovered more kinds of spam(besides the typical viagra, cialis, enlargement of…, OEM software, windows 7, etc):

  • phone spam – calling from BT(British Telecom) to check the billing details/phone line/internet line; the caller: usually someone with an accent from India; if you want to ask them about their company, though they pretend they call on behalf of BT, they don’t say too much. Usually, they wanna talk to the manager/responsible person. Average: 10 calls a day(at the company office).
  • email spam – intelligent email spam:
    - someone “invites you to see the profile on facebook”, yet when u log in, your details are sent to someone else…
    - IRS phishing – a series of emails saying that u didn’t pay your taxes to the US government(yet we are in the UK!);
    - HMRC phishing – “Issue: Unreported/Underreported Income (Fraud Application) – Please review your tax statement on HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) website (click on the link below)” – spam/phishing link;
    - AvMed spam – “Your AvMed Statement is attached office. Please review and confirm our details match your records.” – with a pdf attached, which is a OEM software add. Smart!
    - Banks phishing – until now we received fake emails/phishing emails impersonating: Allience & Leicester, Bank of America and NatWest. Something about: we have a scheduled maintenance, so please update your contact details via this form online(and the link is some strange mozilla&chrome-rejected one!).
    - Microsoft Outlook critical update – “Update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express (KB910721)” - when the update / new outlook was out, they also sent this email with a strange link in it…
  • blog comments spam – we all know that, starting with “good website” to “I will bookmark it” and more: “I agree with this, but what do you think about this medicine-website, etc?”. Thank God for Akismet. Still, there are some who pretend to be legit, and… they escape!
  • twitter spam – spam accounts, spam tweets mentioning your account and some link, spam DM, spam RT, spam everything – lots of spam. Still, from time to time twitter cleans up the twitter-sphere of some of these…
  • google wave spam – I don’t have a google wave, but by observing and listening, I realized that if someone knows your wave account, he can just start waving at u and send u stuff! There’s not yet a security system of approving friends on google wave implemented…

and there are other kinds of spam also. These are the ones I encountered recently while being online and working at the company. Ingenious people – why not use their creativity for constructing something useful? Good question!

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