Is Google Developing an OS to Compete with Windows?
Posted on September 4, 2008
Filed Under Weblosophy | 3 Comments
With the release this week of Google Chrome, it has raised a number of questions and reminders about the direction of Google meaning that
- They have huge piles of cash and unlimited resources to develop whatever they want
- They are working on Google Android a MobileOS
- The are currently following the old Microsoft model of vertically integrating with companies and then building a better application and cutting them out of the pie. See Chrome and Knol.
- They Can!
Meaning that if I were Google, I would be working on an open-source OS based on the Linux Kernal that simplifies and streamlines the process. Use their weight to get it to the public and make it user friendly (unlike Linux)
I don’t have any tech details or rumors to confirm. But just connect the dots and you will know as well.
The Paid Communist Chinese Comment Mafia
Posted on August 24, 2008
Filed Under Weblosophy | Leave a Comment
We all know about the Great Firewall of China, that repressive mysterious structure that reportedly is manned by 50k+ Chinese internet censers monitoring the daily freedom and activity of the Chinese people. But many bloggers and on a more wide swath YouTube viewers will be intrigued to learn about the Chinese Comment mafia.
Some of you may already know exactly what I am talking about.
It first became apparent to us this phenomenon when browsing though various YouTube videos. Anytime we came across a video that had to do with Tibet, Taiwan, Dalai Lama or was even remotely critical of China’s polices, then we would see a slow and steady stream of comment shills making their ways in.
At first they were blatantly aggressive, pointing their finger and telling all the western do-gooders how they are wrong, but then they slowly learned that westerners don’t react to overboard authority the same way as their Chinese flock so they ‘adjusted’ their message to appear to consider and debate both sides of the issue while still very pushing their agenda.
This Comment Mafia has all related videos on their watch list and makes sure to make comments every few hours to make sure that their views appear on the video page. Many seem to be registered out of Hong Kong.
The situation was brought to our attention again last week when a friend of mine did a post on how to install sopcast on Ubuntu to watch the Olympics
His is a rather techy blog for Linux heads, but in the course of his post he decided to through in a little political statement and posted an image of the Tibet flag along with the phrase “China Multiple Human Rights Violation” somewhere in his rant
Well it took them a few days, but low and behold he then had a commenter which came from a Hong Kong IP and had no referrer shown which we assume means that he found it with Google Alerts based on the trigger keyword “China Human Rights Violation.” Free Tibet! (lets see how long it takes them to find this post) Free Tibet
At first this commenter appeared to be well thought out, but in the end just started spilling the same packaged propaganda - starting off by agreeing, but then deflecting and disagreeing. Furthermore, by his brief mention of the actual content of the post (Sopcast) it was clear that he had no idea what this blog was really about, nor should be commenting on a heavy tech blog. Instead of feeding the troll, my friend just quietly removed the comment.
The point of all this being that there is a paid and concentrated Chinese comment mafia, most likely based out of or using a Hong Kong VPN that is policing the internet attempting to promote their view of thing.
If you want to do a little experiment, write a blog post and use some key terms that will trigger their Google alerts and see how fast they come running. Free Tibet. China Human rights, Independent Taiwan.
/start political rant
Fortune dictates we have one thing they don’t have. Freedom.
So instead of always focusing on Free Tibet or whatever, let us understand that it is the poor 1 billion Han Chinese already enslaved by the CCP that should be considered as well. Free China!
And for you CCP Comment Shill employed to attemempt to spread unhappiniess thoughout the world, consider that anywhere outside of China we are able to say what we want. The problem is not with the Chinese people or culture, which is ancient and wonderful, the problem is with the alien CCP which is actually does not stand for the Chinese people, but for its own power.
They are powerful and evil and you cannot defeat them with force, but with intelligence and intention they can be overcome. Free China!
/end political rant
7 Sure Steps to Failure
Posted on August 7, 2008
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I can consider myself and expert at failing. I have failed at what I have set to accomplish so many times, that over the years I have begun to see common pattern in projects that fail. Anybody who has failed before will have seen similar patterns and can most likely agree
On the flip side I have been a phenomenal success in many projects I have embarked upon.
We cannot completly prevent failure as sometimes things are beyond our control. However what we CAN do is stack the deck in our favour and do all the things we can to breed success. Meaning when the judgement point comes, we will have more reasons for success and less for failure thus potentially tipping the balance
Meaning that there are a 1000 reasons that we may fail that we have no control over. All we can do is to NOT to these seven things below. By doing this we stack the deck.
Seven Sure Steps to Failure in any project.
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No Coherent and clearly defined leadership. Each project needs to have a leader and this leader needs to have the final say. Too many decision makers, too many committees or employees that are not content in their roles are clear cause for failure.
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A leader who does not listen or regard his co-workers This is in direct complement to the above point. The leader while needing to have the final say, also need to depend on his co-workers to execute the micro-expertise that he cannot have in every single subject. So this is a two part issue- firstly the co-workers need to be competent and experts at their roles and 2ndly the leader needs to acknowledge this and trust their judgment with an eye of wisdom. Really the leader needs to follow.
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Co-workers who are not on the bus. Co-workers who do not share the same grand vision as others. When an worker is on a job, then need to share the same vision and enthusiasm for the project as others. Whether they are correct or not is immaterial, what matter is that all parties are on the same page with the same vision. If there is difference in vision it needs to be overcome or sharp changes need to occur.
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Lack of Transparency in communication. In any regards, at all levels. Communication needs to be constant and transparent. All co-workers need to constantly make themselves available (both practically and mentally) for communication. A sure sign of a failing co-worker is one who does not engage in clear and constant communication.
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Lack of Urgency. The ‘facts’ are irregardless in this situation. When embarking on a new project, there needs to be a sense of extreme urgency. Even if there is no particular reason to be urgent – say a time line was set for an aspect that gives more time. Regardless of this, it is proven time and time again that success comes from people who work as if they are under the gun and failure comes from those who believe that they have all the time in the worl
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I can use a specific example from my experience preparing and submitting telecommunications tenders to government organizations in Asia. Lets say that we heard that there will be a tender released in 2 months time for a large project. The conventional thinking would be to wait until the tender is released and review and place your bid. This gives time to contemplate and consider
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- However in Asia, (and I am sure in other places) by the time the actual tender is released it is basically already decided %90 who is going to win. The reason being is because the previous 2 months your competitors have been working behind the scenes visiting the government office everyday telling them about their great product and convincing them to write the specifications of the tender to match their product.
- Meaning that by the time the bid is released, the specifications have been written in such a way that perhaps disqualifies your product (thanks competitor) or puts you at major cost disadvantage over some minor and immaterial specification.
- The point being that the GAME does not begin at the Starting gun, meaning that minute you KNOW a task needs to be accomplished, then get all your juice going to get it accomplished ASAP. If you finish it early and have nothing to do then it just means that you have extra time to review and perfect or move to the next
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No clearly defined Goal – This is one of the more common reasons for failing. Before you embark – you need to ask yourself a five paramount questions
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What do I want to achieve?
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How will I achieve this?
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When will this be achieved?
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What are the obstacles?
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How will I overcome these obstacles?
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If these 5 Questions cannot be clearly answered then you should go home right now.
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Not Wanting Success. Its funny to admit, but most people that embark on a project do not want to win. Taking that extra step to be successful can be PAINFUL. And success will only be bestowed upon those who are willing to sweat and suffer. Those that shurg and say “well then it wasn’t meant to be” or make other excuses like “it was a learning experience” or “That isn’t my style” … These are statements of Failure. If you need a concrete example look at the 2000 Presidential election with Al Gore. He didn’t want bad enough to be President. He FAILED and gave up because “he didn’t want to divide the country” and look what happened to the country as a result. Sure after you fail you can say them to ease the sting, but until it is over drive forward and break your fucking head to achieve your goal.
Thats all. We could write a series of books on each of these points, but for those that know this will just be a pertinent remainder. Keep pushing forward – Fortune favors the Bold.
Why eBay needs Affiliates
Posted on August 6, 2008
Filed Under Damn Affiliates | 2 Comments
As a happy semi-pro eBay affilaite I have the chance to frequently study the traffic patterns and how users base their search behaviors. With eBay I have noticed a definite pattern in how users interact.
First off to tell you a little about my affiliate sites that drive eBay traffic
- All driven by PHPbay and Wordpress (PhpBay is better than the eBay RSS because it allows the search engines to index the eBay results as content)
- Almost %100 of new traffic comes from organic google results. (No PPC or major inter-linking)
- People most often find one of my sites by searching for some obscene long tail keyword string
- For Example - Goto Google and search for “vintage schrade 225ot”
- (at the time of writing) What you will find is on this long tail keyword it just happens that the only results that match up are eBay results. But wait whats that at the bottom of the page? An entry from some site called My Antique Finder.
- Now the regular searcher will see all these eBay results in the results and just kinda sigh. The issue is that eBay has what we call “Negative Saturation” meaning despite the fact that they do in fact have for sale everything you could ever think of- most people have a worn out image of eBay and wont go there if they can avoid it.
- Meaning that they WILL NOT click on an eBay result even though it may be at the top, but they WILL click on a result for My Antique Finder, because it looks new and interesting
- Once they are at your affilaite site, then they will browse like it is an independent shopping site and then they click on a link -expecting to get more information.
- And Wham!!!
- Then they are at eBay and have your 7 day cookie.
- The trick is that once they actually go, then they remember the value of eBay (so easily forgotten) and buy things.
- So your job as an affiliate is to just get them there and eBay will take care of the rest.