Scattered Mind

Some of you guys would remember the roar when BlogMad just launched, developed and designed by a local web movement.

A sleaky designed blog traffic exchange portal where there’s a ratio of 1:1, so for each blog you read you get 1 visit.  I used to be quite active in the beginning but eventually I started using it less and less.  I actually still have one of the TextLink banner on this blog, so I guess I’ll have to remove it now.

Well, BlogMad have decided that they are going to close down.  In their creators’ blog, they state that they are closing down, but do not abbreviate any reasons, my sneaky suspicion is that they intented from the start to build it up and sell at a profit(if they get buyers before shutdown).

It seems that aggregators like Afrigator, Technorati and many other are slowly starting to take all the lime light instead of the old blog trafficking sites.

Pity to see them go.

RealIRM is hosting an EA Forum in the following week, you can have a look here if you are interested.

Although some of the events(these that have venue sponsors) are free, it should be worthwhile to check out.

I unfortunately have other engagements for these days.

Google announced that they will be shutting down Lively on 31 December.

They have unfortunately not given any reason for shutting it down though. This has also seen some communities protesting quite alot around this decision.

I quite enjoyed the initiative shown and was quite an exciting offering, quite a pity.

A song to end this hectic weeks’ Thursday

At last I’ve joined Twitter (no comment 😉 ).

You can follow me @arnefromsa

 On Friday, as it always goes on Friday afternoons, I browsed around the internet looking around here and there on the internet.  Got stuck at FileHippo to see if there are newer version of some of the tools I use, and saw this update of a product called Digsby … ? What is Digsby….

So I quickly click the link to see what this Digsby is all about.

So, “Digsby, IM, email and Social networks in one easy to use application” – isn’t that what I’ve been looking for to clear all the clutter  from my explorer window with MSN,Google Talk and Skype running all at once.

So, immediatelyI download the install file(almost 16MB).

Setting up was quite quick and easy, auto creating an account(yes unfortunately another account) with Digsby.

After the installation, the setting up of the accounts is quite easy.

Broken up in 3 sections, you have quite a few options available:

1.  IM (Instant Messangers)
   1. AIM
   2. MSN
   3. Yahoo
   4. Google Talk
   5. ICQ
   6. Jabber
   7. Facebook Chat (this is quite neat to have this)
2. Email Accounts
   1. Gmail
   2. Yahoo! Mail
   3. Hotmail
   4. POP Mail
   5. IMAP Mail
   6. AOL/AIM Mail
3. Social Networking
   1. Facebook
   2. MySpace
   3. Twitter
   4. LinkedIn

So far I’m quite impressed with the general look ‘n feel and ease of use.

Definitely worth a try !

When I was still in school I used to read those books where you can decide what happens next in the book, and based on your decisions you change the end of the story.Well, I found this on YouTube, “The Time Machine” , after each video you have to decide how the story is going to progress further. Watch this video till the end. 

The Matrix Runs on Windows , let’s learn Ubuntu !!  

I believe that forums and bulletin boards have been around for ages, and actually it has been the first form of Social Networks, so it never actually was a thing of late in the root essence.

4 awesome forums I frequent are:

• Systemshock Forums
  • Very much techies and programmers, primarily South African base with frequent competitions and events.
• The v7 Network – Web Development Community
  • I visited this forum when I had more time to read and when I just started out in web development and SEO.
• Metastorm e-work BPM forums by Processmapping.com.au
  • I used this forum for all my product support and help whilst working with the Metastorm BPM software.
• Digitalpoint Forums
  • This is also a very nice forum for webmaster, web developers in general.  I also features an adsense sharing model, where you provide your Adsense ID on your profile, and displays Adsense ads ‘as’ you in topics where you are active. I’ve actually made a few dollars for just being active in this forum.  This is a great initiative to encourage activity in the forums.

Last night saw the announcement of the IT personality of the Year at the  Computer Society of South Africa(CSSA) Annual President’s Awards Banquet at Montecasino Ballroom facility.

What was the criteria for a person to be elected as this highly acclaimed South African awards, well here as from ITWeb’s site:

A A person who has been successful in building a highly-respected IT organisation or business

A person who has made a major contribution to the IT profession over a number of years.

A person who has made a significant technical or academic contribution to the IT industry.

An IT professional who has aided the development needs of the community.

And the Winner is

Mardia van der Walt-Korsten

Mardia van der Walt-Korsten, born in 1963, completed her schooling with a Masters in Clinical Psychology at the end of 1987. Mardia began her career working as a Clinical Research Assistant for Hoechst UK in London.

Moving back to South Africa, Mardia helped develop the HR function for M-Net and Multichoice and was key in creating a Learning Centre at M-Net, developing a M-Net/Multichoice Nursery School.

In 1998, Mardia Joined T-Systems where she helped build the company from a staff count of 210 to a total of 934 employees at the end of 2001. Mardia was instrumental in implementing the necessary transformation processes, with specific emphasis on integration of new employees.

 

A big congratulations to Mardia  !