MachineDaena's Blog

Visit AllYourBanter.com

2012-04-06T18:55:00.006+01:00

Visit AllYourBanter.com! All the best banter from the web, in one place!

Banter - The playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks. To submit - Email submit@allyourbanter.com

Their social pages here:

How Not to Market Your Business on Facebook

2011-03-08T13:11:00.000Z

Edward Stern is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on online colleges and universities for the Guide to Online Schools.

Facebook is the most exceptional and exciting marketing tool in the history of the world, period. The social networking platform allows businesses to create a page, access 500 million and counting users, and target them based on location and interests. Never before has there been a way to reach so many people -- specifically, the ones you want -- so quickly and so affordably, as it's free to create a Facebook page.

However, like anything, there is certainly a right and wrong way to market through Facebook. If you do it wrong, you'll do serious damage to your marketing efforts, let alone the reputation of your company. Here's how NOT to market your business on Facebook; because sometimes, knowing what you shouldn't do helps you understand what you ought to be doing.

Don't be THAT person who clogs feeds with daily updates on how amazing you are. The goal of social network marketing is to make them care, but there is no quicker way to further apathy and create disdain for your business than to spam the people who like your page. Don't spend every waking moment sending messages about how great your business is, especially when you have little in the way of backing it up.
Do not offer deal after deal on Facebook, because you might get booted. Wanting to drive traffic and "likes" to your page is fine, but don't do it by offering miniscule Facebook-only deals. It'll frustrate your customers who don't live on the Internet and may even get you banned from Facebook; you have to get Facebook's approval to run a promotion on your wall. What you can do is publicize a promotion through Facebook -- but again, don't publicize it to death.
Do not abandon your Facebook page to wither away and die. Social media can be confusing, and you may not always know the right thing to say, post, or promote. The best way to figure it out is to dive straight in and keep posting with persistence. Do not abandon your Facebook efforts after a week and a handful of "likes;" it's something you must build up, which takes patience and commitment, just like growing your business. Facebook is a free and unprecedented powerful marketing tool, so don't waste its potential.
Your business' Facebook page is not your profile. It's good to give a human touch to your page and add pictures from the company picnic, but don't turn it into your profile or even something resembling a personal profile. Keep updates about your dog and that crazy bachelor party last weekend to yourself. When updating your business' Facebook page, keep it strictly business.
Don't be shy about adding content to your page. Your clients want to see what your company is up to, so feel free to share anything that might be of interest to your client or potential client. Be sure to update regularly with wall posts, adding pictures, changing your info, etc. -- again, make a commitment and set aside time as part of your schedule dedicated to Facebook. A skimpy, unloved Facebook page is a waste of bandwidth and will live in Internet limbo forever, a sad testament to a failed effort nobody paid attention to.

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Spoof logos - Massive laughathon

2011-01-09T21:14:00.015Z

I've recently been looking at integrating more online marketing related content into the Machine_D blog, and have come across some pretty funny spoofs! Aside from the spoof / guerilla marketing post and have more business banter articles that I recently added I wanted to also add some extra content of innovative and daft logo spoofs that I've seen circulating the web! Although these logos have a lot of irony in them, some of the designs actually even undermine the company which they're advertising, most of the logos you'll see are recognisable instantly which further underlines my point about the importance of having business branding, particularly when starting up. See how many of the following you can recognise!

And this one isn't really a logo, but something I sumbled upon, found funny, and thought I'd share with you good readers :D

New Years Resolution - Have More Business Banter

2011-01-03T20:53:00.002Z

MachineDaena's new years resolution is to have more 'business banter'. Not that this needs an explanation but basically I want to be more 'business' but in a fun and banterful way! Since establishing Machinedaena's Blog I've learn't far more than I thought I would about online marketing, online business, online social networking and business in general. In 2011 I want to continue to learn and utilise the online community to share my efforts and to hopefully make some cash / ding on the journey!

What this means for the blog is that I'll be adding more lolocaust (a genocide of laughter out loud) moments of banter in the articles, whilst I hope to improve the level of business advice and learning capacity of the content. Not everyone enjoys learning new things and it can be boring. Not everyone enjoys business, and that also can be boring. However learning and business don't have to be boring. In 2011 I will be exploring new ways of adding some laughter and banter into the process and as mentioned in my last post I shall be using social networking tools MORE, particularly Youtube. Look out for/subscribe to Machinedaena's Youtube content in tandem with the blog.

My first business banter will be about logos. As you all know a business logo can be essential to success and in itself can be worth millions, even billions of pounds. A logo helps people recognise your business, your services and remember the service or product that they received when they last visited. A logo also can help distinguish you from a competitor and often acts as a reference point to what your business does. If you're starting in business it's essential that you pay due care and attention to your branding and logo. You don't have to spend any money on it, particularly if you are a small business or start-up, but making your logo look catchy, pretty and something to remember is fantastically important and doesn't have to cost the earth. A logo contributes heavily towards your businesses brand which in essence is the overall public perception of you and what you do.

Can you guess which are the top 10 valued brands in the world? The answers are at the bottom of the page. Now for some business banter. Here are some my Top 10 not so good logos / brands for your pleasure:

Answers - Top 10 most valued brands in 2010

1	Coca-Cola	70,452 ($m)
2	IBM	64,727 ($m)
3	Microsoft	60,895 ($m)
4	Google	43,557 ($m)
5	GE	42,808 ($m)
6	McDonald's	33,578 ($m)
7	Intel	32,015 ($m)
8	Nokia	29,495 ($m)
9	Disney	28,731 ($m)
10	Hewlett-Packard	26,867 ($m)

Digg my Facebook Youtubid Twitt

2010-12-30T21:53:00.005Z

Hasn't the world changed so much. All the new social media tools that are available to facilitate socialising or market your business, to advertise or simply to stalk your new love? I remember just five years ago trying to get my head around Myspace personal page coding, unsuccessfully. I joined Facebook soon after and have been joining social media websites ever since, even more so since writing MachineDaenas blog. This is a small lie actually, as I remember for years prior to myspace using Faceparty, long before Facebook was around. For those of you who don't know what Faceparty is, it's basically a dirty UK version of facebook that at one point was more popular in terms of page impressions than Amazon and eBay in the UK! Impressive eh? I've recently seen the film 'The Social Network' and have been obsessively wrapping my head around the social media circle and tools/websites. I have got a good feel for what people want from a website that facilitates being social or the publishing of media and I wanted to share my findings and opinions on it all with you stupid twitts.

I like to think of this post as a mini review of what is best from the social media websites that I've used and what's not so good - sort of like a miniature critique on the social sites I've got experience of using. Bare in mind that each website is designed for a different purpose and each have their own USPs (Unique Selling Points).

Youtube is something that I plan to use a lot more in 2011. As most of you should know Youtube is a video content sharing website whereby you can upload, edit, share and view video content. The main benefits of Youtube are that it's free to use, as are many of the social networking websites, it is a lazy way of gaining information (just find, sit and watch!) and you can often find precisely what you're looking for very quickly. Youtube can be monetised (Youtube partnership program) and you can really add value to your business product, business service or even just your social standing through sharing content. The main drawbacks are that Youtubes partnership program can be difficult to join (you need to have numerous videos, high levels of views and strict content parameter such as no copyright or trademark infringements). This means that actually being able to monetise your content can take time, but I'm very aware that once you get on the program it's very lucrative indeed, particularly if you have a good number of subscribers and followers. Another major drawback is that the content can take a long time to edit and upload to Youtube, depending on the length, quality and editing needs of the video, unlike some of the other social media websites for both business or pleasure where you can simply type and hit 'enter'. Here's a little video tutorial to help you see how to use Youtube. I picked this video particularly because I like the South African accent! haha.

You can view Machinedaena's Youtube channel, there isn't any video content on there just yet but there definitely will be in the early part of 2011 - please subscribe to get updates of the content on there.

Twitter is another social media tool I plan to use a whole lot more in 2011 and onwards. Twitter is a very basic way of sharing links to pictures, websites, music, blogs, products etc as well as 140 characters of content (link characters count toward the content character limit). Twitter is very useful to quickly target your information at a particular person, or list of people, and is very easy to use. Your content can be written, added and shared in seconds. Twitter is a great way to gain a following or audience. As a social tool, I haven't really had the same level of interaction with my target audience (particularly friends) as with other social websites that I use, but have used Twitter quite a lot to gain exposure to MachineDaena and other websites that I run or administer, personally and in business. Twitter lacks the ability to monetise and also lacks extensive content sharing due to the character limitation, however you can very easily refer people onto better content using Twitter. The added benefit of using twitter is that it can easily be used to integrate into websites to share content and you can see what Sir Alan Sugar has been up to recently - something I know you're ALLLL very happy to know about!

Follow Machinedaena on Twitter to read my tweets.

Facebook is something that I've used a hell of a lot over the past three or so years, particularly in the last year. I've used it mainly in a social capacity rather than business capacity, because it's very good for sharing high levels of content, for managing your social calendar, for updating people on events and for stalking people. OK, so I don't stalk too often these days but you get where I'm coming from. It's very useful for simply just keeping in touch with people, particularly those that you may struggle to keep in touch with due to geographical issues. There are adverts on Facebook which can be annoying, plus Facebook cannot currently be monetised in the traditional (Ad)sense, which makes it poor for business use directly, however you can use Facebook to gather information about people which can be sold, or to simply refer hundreds or thousands of people onto further products or services so Facebook has a fantastic potential for business if used well. I'll continue to use Facebook socially as currently there is no obvious rival in terms of usability and popularity, but I'll be investigating how to use Facebook in business much more as the new year falls.
Add me on facebook to interact with Machinedaena on Facebook.

Digg is a social media tool that I'm not so accustomed to just yet. I've got a few accounts on Digg but haven't yet actually done very much on any of the just yet. Digg has been around for around six years and is one of the smaller players in the social media website arena. In fact, there has been much talk and speculation regarding the sale of Digg (at one point Google were in talks over a $200m takeover) and the company are no performing so well on the cashflow front having to rely on investors to keep the business afloat - which incidentally is probably the main drawback to Digg. The main function of Digg is to publish or re-publish content in various formats and has a primary functionality to 'digg' a particular story such as vote it 'up'. Formerly very popular and has now been adopted by other social media sites, particularly Youtube and facebook. Digg is fantastic as a way of raising more awareness of your content and potentially to drive traffic to your website, however is not so much used as a two way communication platform such as Facebook or Twitter. It's very much reliant on quality of content and generating high levels of exposure, even before it is 'Dugg' up to being popular content. More recently with the update of V.4 the user interface of Digg has become more like the other social media websites in that you can follow or link with other profiles which was previously a function neglected. Overall I'd say that Digg is worth a shot. It's certainly not a time waste and if your content is written well enough and gets enough exposure Digg can be very useful as a business or traffic generating purpose. So far as actual social use is concerned however, I'd stick with some of the other social networking sites for this aspect.
Digg or follow machinedaena's content on Digg.com

Linkedin is 'Facebook for business'. It's basically a more professional version of Facebook where you should expect to see more information about companies, people's business, career or academic experience rather than pictures of what they were up to when they got drunk at the weekend. I've been using Linkedin for almost exactly as long as I've been using Facebook and have found it immensely useful for day to day job related business. It's fantastic to connect with people in a similar business environment to you, or people within a similar community so that you can contact them with business related enquiries. It can take time to set up and for it to really be useful you need to have built up a history of useful connections, however I can say that within a business context I have definitely made money from Linkedin through selling things such as recruitment services or health and safety training. The major drawback to Linkedin is that it's very reliant on the business aspect. It's not generally used for 'socialising' and I'm constantly aware of how 'professional' I'm coming across when using Linkedin for marketing my work's business services. On the plus side, is that you can market yourself very easily as Linkedin almost works on a CV profile based page whereby you're basically presenting yourself in a professional way to everyone that views your profile.

Verdict on Linkedin is that it's a must have for business, particularly anyone in a sales or marketing related job, however not so good for socialising. It lacks a complex content uploading mechanism that Facebook or Youtube has, however you can now have statuses and follow other people, as well as 'link' to them. I'll continue to use Linkedin in 2011 but I'll likely try and integrate a this with Machinedaena's blog if I direct the website more toward a professional look rather than it's current smart casual look / content.
Add Daena on Linkedin to follow my business progress

Last.fm is just about acceptable as a social media website. It's primary function is to provide music, music recommendations and information about all things musical - including profiles, ticket information and gig lists. As you can imagine Last.fm is popular with emos and new bands trying to break through into the music industry, but more recently last.fm has moved in line with social media trends to provide additional communication lines such as detailed profiling of the user, comments sections, groups and journals. I've been using Last.fm for just two years but have raked up around 2000 tracks of listening time and discovered some pretty cool new music through the website. I can't say I've been social on the website whatsoever as I've never posted a comment, edited my profile or done anything on it aside from listening to music but the functionality is there nonetheless. I imagine this website is no so good for business if you're outside the music industry, but exceptionally good if you are within the music arena. Visit last FM to set up a profile and get listening, you'll be surprised at what music you discover!

Spoof / Guerilla Marketing - viral heaven

2010-12-26T15:37:00.003Z

Everyone likes seeing something new, something different or something just outrageously unusual. Whether this is in business or a banterful capacity. Well, some of you may have heard of Guerilla Marketing? The guerilla marketing concept is sort of the two capacities combined, business and banter that is! If you tap on Wikipedia you'll see guerilla marketing you'll see guerilla marketing described as marketing of an unexpected nature and marketing in an unconventional nature. Often guerilla marketing is an unusual idea, usually totally original and is deployed in a way in which can be very impacting.

Often the main driver behind guerilla marketing is one of two things, 1) There is a tight budget to work to, and guerilla marketing often is a way of gaining high levels of exposure through word of mouth and indirectly through traditional media channels once people have 'marvelled' at the piece of innovative marketing and subsequently republished about it; and 2) The idea is too good to not employ and potential results from the particular marketing campaign are too high to risk not doing.

Well I agree with this, but sometimes when you see the guerilla marketing active in society or see pictures or videos of it at a later date it's difficult not to think to yourself "the designer of this campaign are just having a laugh! Some epic banter!". That said, I simply enjoy looking and laughing at the unusual results of the guerilla marketing and thought it'd be fantastic to share some of the good work of these marketers with the business or banter viewers of Machinedaena's blog. Feel free to comment and leave feedback:

Used on a busy public road to advertise a teeth whitening product

Raising awareness of a new condom product from Durex

Product marketing on public transport for a watch brand

Pasta anyone?

Job board advertisement - fantastic motivator for people to leave their jobs
and sign up!

Carlsberg -money talks.

Roulette baggage run - Casino advertising

Another dental related guerilla marketing campaign

Hoover advert - very innovative this one!

Is this guerilla marketing or vandalism?

Kit-Kat guerilla marketing. Think how many picture will be taken
of people on this bench!

If you have any other guerilla marketing pictures of videos that you think are worthy of a mention, put the link in the comment section.

Noobs guide to Wordpress.com - Free Blog and Web hosting for business

2010-12-20T13:50:00.002Z

As always, I've been using and testing numerous tools that are essential, and not so essential but 'nice to haves', to develop business ideas for small business enterprising activities. Most recently, as an aspiring entrepreneur myself I've been utilising much talked about 'wordpress'. Wordpress is an open source content management system (CMS) often used to publish blogs, or business websites. Many of the worlds largest or most well known websites use the MYSQL and PHP back end that is Wordpress, 12% of the top 1,000,000 websites to be accurate.

Wordpress Formats - pros and cons?

Wordpress comes in two formats, wordpress.com and wordpress.org. The first, wordpress.com is free to use and you can customise your domain name (addyourwebsitename.com). It's easy to set up and hosting is free from Wordpress. There are certain disadvantages of this however for a beginner or non-technical curious, this option is fantastic for getting accustomed with blogging or basic web development. Spamming is taken care of as is set-up, upgrades and back-ups. I've recently used this to start a basic help and advice site for CV making - Visit how to Make a CV to track my progress so far (this website is less than a week old and is very much a work in progress). The disadvantages are that wordpress.com cannot be monetised as easily as other providers such as Google's Blogger or wordpress.org. Supposedly when your traffic gets to over 25,000 hits per month you can monetise the site and split the earnings 50/50 with Wordpress, however this isn't very good business in the long term. There is option to negotiate this I'm sure if you have massive traffic volume which would give you better negotiating standing. This factor isn't so important if you're just starting out as all of the content that is published on your website belongs to you and as such you can export the content to another website, along with your domain name at a later date, should your business website be lucrative in traffic volume.

Wordpress.org is a little more technie. It enables you to have full control of the PHP back end and integrate one of the many useful plug-ins that have been designed to improve and increase functionality which is very useful for a small business website. With wordpress.com, there are widgets available to improve functionality, as well as numerous fancy templates, but these are very limited in their use. Spamming and back-ups are not handled by Wordpress.org, you'll also need some more technical knowledge in how to set websites up, as well as having to pay for hosting (which isn't too expensive really anyway, I recommend Godaddy who are an excellent provider of domains and web hosting). I haven't fully tested wordpress.org as I wanted to get familiar with wordpress.com first, although I will be testing out wordpress.org in the near future to expand my learning and employ one of my business ideas. I'll report back my findings and in due course.

Summary

So far I've found Wordpress a very pleasant tool to use. I can see that it's got better applications for business because of how many widgets and plugins you can use. Also from my knowledge there are many more actively profitable users of wordpress than other free CMS providers. It's very popular within the geek community and there are endless tutorials available on how to set up, layout and make the most of your wordpress blog or wordpress CMS websites. The dashboard / admin section of the website is very easy to use indeed although the statistics that are available to your wordpress.com website are not as detailed or useful as google analytics, you can add Google Analytics to wordpress.org so at least there is this facility available within the products counterpart. I'll likely publish another article later on in my research to report more findings as at the moment this is just initial use and research. I can see that using wordpress.com is going to take a lot of the pain out of the publishing your content in a tidy, well presented manner, however the problem with monetising the blog / website concerns me - something that is satisfied by the fact that I know I can export my content at anytime to a more money friendly CMS, free or paid.

I'd recommend anyone learning to give this a go, although I'd also certainly recommend anyone looking to consider the 'best' option for their content purpose to consider other options also.

Top 10 pet hates, pet peeves and general annoyances

2010-12-06T20:15:00.248Z

There are some things that I fucking hate! Others that are just general annoyances and some rather niggly things. My biggest pet hates, pet peeves and just general annoyances are as extensive! I'll detail them because I think it's quite healthy to voice them and other frustrations now and again. I'd like very much to know what your pet hates are too! I'll be blogging the best and/or funniest 'pet hates', 'pet peeves' and 'annoyances' so list them in the comments section for mine, and others' amusement! Who knows (?) if I get enough I may be able to do a funny list and a most annoying voted list! I know you have some pet hates and peeves, here are MachineDaena's top 10 in order of least to most annoying:

Number 10. Over-exaggeration

'BIG' over-exaggeration to be precise. OK, everyone over-exaggerates at least a little; "The train was running 20 minutes late", "I made her cum in just 3 mins" or "I've lost half a stone this month" but some people are appalling! This shouldn't become a habitual thing! I especially can't stand it when they know you know the story but they do it anyway in your presence! It's actually rather excruciating! A little over-exaggeration makes a story funny, but too much makes a story totally untrue, and makes the teller a total wanker!

Number 9. One-upmanship

One-upmanship. "My story is better than yours". I have to admit, sometimes I naturally do this so in some respects I'm a hypocrite, although in my defense I genuinely do actually have a vast number of pretty extreme, awesome and funnier stories than you (OK, most. . .slight over-exaggeration there)! I don't mind a little but of this, because it can be really amusing to watch someone trying their best to conjure up a better outcome that his social pal. Again this pet hate comes rather situational, I get very annoyed at people that chose to get one over on a friend by telling outright lies about what has happened in relaity! I know people that do this a lot, and what tends to happen is that people laugh AT THEM, rather than their story! Don't be a dick-head - tell real stories, how they happened please!

Number 8. Self-love

No, not wankers or furious masturbaters; people that just love to look in the mirror at every opportunity! You know the type? Takes two hours to get ready, won't associate with 'lessers' and is totally self-indulged. Again, everyone can get a little bit like this at times, but moderation is beautiful, unlike the individuals that seem to perve on themselves!

Number 7. People that are better than I am at playing Call of Duty (COD)

Call of Duty (COD)? OK I know this is pretty sad. I don't care. I won't pretend that many people, if any (!), will agree or sympathise with me on this one but for one sec imagine some cocky little pre-pubescent squeaky voiced bastard devil child yanks spending over five minutes in a game virtually humiliating you by shooting, stabbing, grenading, flash-banging and teabagging you? Not that bad I hear you say? Now imagine the bald-ball-bagged little shit both power-banters you over his geekrophone AND then get's a massively better than you set of 'for all to see' killing and accuracy stats? One way road to smashed televisions-ville. The stats don't lie.

Number 6. Small-Man syndrome

Anyone that knows me shall be acutely aware that I'm not the tallest. I can also be rather confident and cocky at times. Don't mix the elements up for small-man syndrome! The missing link is natural angriness resulting from inadequacy of height. "what did the small angry man get when he stormed through a woman's legs? A clit round the ear and a flap round the face". STOP, DON'T JOKE! This is a serious disease affecting those males sub 5ft 4in who visualise themselves in a body of Heman or Popeye and act accordingly. No really, a major pet mate is angriness! I think I actually just hate all people that are overly angry, it's just that for smaller people it is more noticeable!

Number 5. Football 'over-banter'

<-- How much does this kid look like charlie from the video 'charlie bit my finger'! Anyway, football 'over-banter' - I hate dick-heads that, even if they've just met you, think it's acceptable human behaviour to give massive headache and super heavy levels of banter toward you or your beloved childhood football team whom you've put hours into watching, supporting and purchasing things from. Small banter = funny! Big sporting banter = get out of my face or someone will hooligan you!

Number 4. Smokers in public doorways

Be more considerate toward other peoples' health! This is a major one for me and was a contender for the number 1 spot. The smoking ban has made things far worse because now instead of smoke spread thinly throughout a train platform, bar, pub or HOSPITAL waiting room, it's now spread triple-thick outside the doorway of every public place in the UK. Smoking isn't cool, least of all when you're freezing cold stood outside a bar in your dancing shirt or glam-wear with blue wrinkly lips. FAIL.

Number 3. Noise ignorance

This one is pretty standard really. So I thought I'd jazz it up with a Christmas festive audio treat (just turn your speakers on and click play). Whilst this is playing out, just remember to have a little more noise awareness. We don't want to hear you wanking, shagging, gossiping, moaning, screaming, watching tennis or reading humour.

Number 2. Family or Friend Bashing

Nobody likes it when their friends and family are put in a position of dislike or discomfort. I especially hate this. It's a major pet hate of MachineDaenas. I'll fully admit that I catch small man disease cold when my friends or family are bashed and often have to dispatch the ninjas. . . . . .

Number 1. Negative Facebook status'

I'm not exactly number one fan of negative people anyhow, although I can see how a post about pet hates and pet peeves totally undermines this statement (before you say so). It's not fair to push, ney PREACH, this on your fellow pals and family on facebook. I routinely cull people from my facebook friends list that are too negative because sometimes you just have enough going on in your life without additional negative stress from some girl you once met in a club when you was 16 years old. You wouldn't walk up to someone you've not seen in 5 years and tell them about your abortion | toe stubbage | hangover | Xfactor vent | inadequate pay, so please don't do it on Facebook. Or at least if you do, please don't expect me to see it. . . . . .

November / moustache = MOVEMBER fun!

2010-12-05T01:59:00.002Z

Movember? For those of you who don't know what Movember is, it's a charity initiative that started in Oz years ago which entails blokes in November across the globe to grow a Moustache all month. Many people chose to raise money for charities particularly for prostate cancer, but it's also a great way of raising awareness of the charities. I heard about Movember in early November 2010 and luckily I'd not shaved so had a chance to get on board. Unfortunately I hadn't heard about it early enough to raise awareness and cash for charity, so I'll do this next year with good preparation and hopefully earn loads for a worthy cause. I simply thought it would be cool to see / feel what it's like to grow my man hair for a whole month! Here are the results of my Movember!

The Movember tramp

Here’s me with just short of a month of hair growth from November. As you can see, I’m a fairly manly man, but not a REALLY MANLY man because my hair growth is not mega thick. I look like a tramp, my girlfriend hated it and I think I probably nearly lost my job in part because of it!

The Movember David Brent and Movember David Haye

Self explanatory this one. I’ve included some comparatory pictures for you too. I think this one actually suits me a little, although I do look like a proper mental weirdo. Not quite as nails as Haye, or as funny as Brent but then I'm no boxer or comedian!

Rufus / Handle Bars Movember

A personal Favourite of mine. Doesn't look so fantastic on me because growth either side of my pie hole is relatively thin, but you get the idea. I really enjoyed cutting this one! I'd love to have the handle bar Movember permanently however it's not epic enough to justify this!

THE MOVEMBER

OK, this is what I look like if I don't shave my moustache for a month. Would you have given to charity in exchange for me walking around donning this? I look like a paedophile rapist, or your average weatherman. Epic!

Hitler Movember

Just a little hitler fun, always goes down a delightful treat. Lolocaust.

Email machinedaena@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena. www.twitter.com/machinedaena

Top 10 newbie online social media resources

2010-12-01T21:27:00.003Z

Hi all. Do you want to start your own business or pursue an idea and have no clue about Social Business? Social Media? Social Marketing? Online tools? I'm certainly no expert in any of these areas, but I mentioned in my last post that I'm keen to start some direction in my research and learning with view to being able to become more aware of social online marketing and to at some point potentially make some money from something I both enjoy, am interested in, have a limited level of understanding in and want to improve my understanding of. I've mentioned blogging as being a potential area for interest and inevitably revenue. People read things with many expectations and within varied contexts and I would hope that some people read my blog for three main reasons - 1) The blog content is interesting to them, 2) The blog content makes them laugh, and/or 3) My blog inspires others to take action on some of their thoughts and ideas (which could in reality be the next 'google', the next 'facebook' or next 'eBay' - these all started off as ideas that people acted on)!

I have ideas that I'm taking action on, but if YOU haven't yet and you'd like to have a starting point for which resources to use to learn and research to enable to you to do this better this post may be of use. As promised in my previous blog article, I've come up with a list of some of the most useful items and online social or business resources that I've either been using actively or plan to use. I'll try to keep each item as short as possible here as I really could go one forever to explain each (I could write a 100-page website on each).

1. Godaddy

I've chosen godaddy for three reasons really. Firstly, this is widely regarded and reputed to be one of the best domain name and hosting providers available in the world today. They're big, have their fingers in a lot of pies and are in absolutely little or no danger of going bust / out of business. Second, everyone seems to tell me that these guys are the best and easiest to use, including resources/people that I list later on in the blog. They are so widely used that there are lots of instructions and tutorials on how to use their domain name registration and hosting services. Third and finally, godaddy are a facility that directly allow you to literally act on your ideas by registering a suitable website name and hosting your website to start talking to people!

2. Google

I honestly can't speak highly enough about google! From MY experience, all of the products that I use of theirs are highly tuned and of very good application and use. They've also got their fingers in a lot of pies which again means that they'll be hard pushed to fold. Particularly useful products include gmail, which is good for storage, spam filtering and manages your mail well, google analytics, which tracks your website / blog's statistics in terms of visits, visitors and the associated demographics, and another key product is adsense which enables registered users to access marketing activities inward (making cash from placing other peoples adverts) or outwards (actually advertising via google in various formats). If you own a website or blog, you HAVE to be useing Googles products. There are many more that I use and I will discuss these in much more detail soon, but the ones I've mentioned are key.

3. Youtube

I'll let the video do the explaining. . .

I like youtube because it brings TV the masses. In a business context, it's free advertising so long as the content (and traffic) is there. If the content is shit, the content won't be re-blogged, re-linked and become viral, but on the other hand so long as there are items that a viewer want to see or are compelled so see, they'll view (and in turn make you money if you're savvy ;D ). OK, youtube is good for many reasons and it really is down to your perception as to how it can be used best in a business way, social way or any other way for that matter. I like it for two main reasons really, 1) because it's easy for a user to, errr, USE and 2) because it is something that can be monetised easily.

I've been recently taking a listen to what Edzjohnson and JeffBT have got to offer in terms of advise. I've also been doing a great deal of laughing at the now rather critically acclaimed Shane Dawson. Check them all out, hopefully they'll link to me and scratch my back a little.

4. Blogger (Google product)

I use Google's blogger to make this blog. I haven't got a lot of experience in using many other tools for 'wizarding' or facilitating the making of a blog or website (and it's something that I'm researching), but my experience with blogger has been a relatively good one so far. It's also allowed me to integrate many or all of the other tools that I describe VERY easily. I'm not at all technical in terms of using the internet or barely even a computer, however due familiarising myself with blogger I've been able to learn a lot about web, social media and all the other associated 'media' and marketing tools. Blogger is very easy to use.

You can sign up and have a blog made within 5 minutes, because there are loads of templates and free widgets for structuring things on your blog. Blogger is also well integrated with other Google products which I actively use which helps for ease and convenience. It's the time and care that you take toward making, editing and marketing your content and articles that will make the difference on it's success. I try to take a lot of time proof reading, editing and re-editing my content before I actually submit it for people to read (publish the article). OK, so I'll make the odd spelllling or grammar errorrr but on the whole I hope reading my articles is a good experience for people. Let me know your feedback on the content and layout in the comments section if you agree or disagree!

5. SEOMOZ

SEOMOZ is basically a glorified blog in itself, but someone is making ALOT of money from this! What this website provides are tips, advise, guides, tools and expertise on all things SEO (search engine optimisation) and SEM (search engine marketing), as well as the associated essentials for web marketing.

For a start, the site is very well optimised as you'd expect and a huge amount of people link to it (which is always a good sign as to a websites usefulness). They send marketing advise in a not too 'spammy' way, which as a result of reading has continually expanded my learning experience. You have to pay to use a number of 'premium' features on the website, which I'm sure would be value for money, but I'm yet to test these. I'll do this at some point and blog the results (yes, I'll be your Guinea Pig!). I suppose it's tough to really explain how really useful SEOMOZ actually is because without actually READING the articles, you won't understand, but take my word for it I've so far found SEOMOZ rather tasty. Oh my main reason for liking it is that they're very honest in they're content! They don't hold back too much and pretty much just let you know in layman's terms 'how it is'! Try them out at www.seomoz.org.

6. Technorati

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. By June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. The name Technorati is a blend of the words technology and literati, which invokes the notion of technological intelligence or intellectualism. You can use Technorati to search good blogs and research your topic of interest, or (and crucially for bloggers) submit your blog post for others to find. There are lots of these website types around but Technorati is one of, if not THE, market leader and has many accolades to prove this. It can be used to add credibility and/or traffic to your blogsite.

7. Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the ultimate blog. Advert-free, and arguably the most useful tool on the internet. Imagine having over 17 million articles of information right at your computer, free and accurate. OK, so it's not always accurate but they run a very tight verification process for all articles submitted so if things are not referenced properly then they get flagged and removed quite quickly. Wikipedia is the ultimate student resource. Most of my high school and university work can be attributed to Wikipedia, so I think it's worth mentioning a little 'thank you'! I continue to use (and often plagiarism) Wiki, even in my blog, which is why it's in my top 10!

8. Facebook

Over 500 million active users. Over $800 Million in revenue (2009). Alexa rank 2. Just 1700+ employees and still growing. I've written about Facebook a lot in my blogs, not nearly enough as I've got the time to, because it facinates me. It also provides me with the tools necessary to keep social in a busy lifestyle and from a business perspective it allows be to take my ideas to the masses quickly. I use it everyday, YOU use it everyday, Will Smith uses it everyday. I can't say I've learn't very much from Facebook, so this isn't the reason why I've added it here. It's just that I can really see the potential in business application in the longer term from Facebook. Their advertising products are still quite young, so are still in the developing phase, but clearly there are a lot of applications (in both senses of the word) for Facebook socially and in business.

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9. Linkedin

I've used Linkedin for around four years now and it is absolutely fantastic for 'linkin' to business contacts. I call it the facebook for professionals! It's basically a way justifying using 'Facebook' at work. In all fairness, you can do TONS of things in linked in, much like with facebook and google, such as advertise, create and publish to the masses your content of all types and, what I find most fascinating, bring together groups of communities with ease. If you work in an environment were you have a lot of contact with people, get on linkedin. More recently, Linkedin has become more like Facebook because they've simplified much of their user interface and linked to other social media websites etc. Linkedin has over 80 million members as of Sept 2010 so it's big. Linkedin is also really easy to use which goes some way to explaining why it's been popular.

10. Wordpress

Wordpress is RAVED about! Basically it is another 'Google blogger' type tool, only that it is for making both Blogs and/or Websites. Now, I've not actually used Wordpress just yet - this is on the list, but I've seen enough Wordpress-made websites and heard enough good feedback to know that it's the tool that I'm going to use a huge amount more in the future. I'll be reviewing more about this I'm sure in the future. Hopefully I'll also be able to show some of my Wordpress examples too!

If you've enjoyed this or found it useful, please subscribe to me, resend a link to my website to your friends, comment your opinions and more importantly for me your ADVISE as I'm keen for feedback.

Email machinedaena@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to comment your voice, follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena. www.twitter.com/machinedaena

Top 5 childhood media - a business context?

2010-11-23T22:30:00.006Z

In my epic journey to learn all about online business, E-marketing and E-entrepreneurship, I've come across some amazing tools and free advice streams. It's actually quite amazing just how many free resources are actually available to someone who is willing to put the time into learning, and I've been surprised at the quality of the advise that has so far been willingly given to me. I will blog about these resources in my next post, but recently with view to gaining a little bit of direction and business context to my learning, I got to thinking all about what area of business would be suitable to pursue for me. As many of you may know it's my ambition to successfully start, run and grow a tidy business. The billion pound question is, how will I decide what area of business to start in?

It's pretty obvious that the choices here are endless. You only have to type into google 'business idea' and over half billion results are presented for you to casually flick through. . . . There are lots of ways to decide what area of business you wish to pursue but one thing I can highly recommend from all the advice and knowledge I've been given and hold, which is that typing into google is definitely not the way forward! I did this for all of 5 seconds simply to see how many results there were to blog post the result to you and that was enough to put me off.

I have lots of ideas on what business could work for me (or me work for it) and things that I believe would be successful to varying degrees. I could look at starting a business in what interests me? What others do well? What others advise me do? What has proved to be a success historically? What the statistics say I should start-up in? Simple innovation and bold invention? What sells at the highest price? Or in highest volume? Something that is a sure-fire formula to success and money? Or something that is an educated gamble / risk? I could choose to try and change peoples lives? Enhancing the social experience? There's a point to all of this - which is that it doesn't actually matter how I choose to derive to my business start up. What matters is that I DO DECIDE eventually, and take the necessary steps to make it successful and making it 'happen'.

Up until now however, the best influence on me for deciding what area of business I should step into has been that it should be something I enjoy, know about, have an interest in and want to learn more about. After all who'd want to start-up in something that grates or bullies you into bordom?! At the moment blogging, for its business, E-marketing and E-entrepreneurship aspects, fits these categories perfectly. So to blogging. . .

Something I simply thought would be really interesting for people to know about because hopefully you can all relate to it in your own contexts, laugh about in my context and enjoy thinking about:

My Top 5 childhood media:

5. Nokia 5110 (and SNAKE!)

The Nokia 5110 was one of the first phones I ever used. It took phones from being not only hand-held and usable in rational society because of it's relatively small size in comparison with previous 'mobile' phones, but it threw into the mix some awesome USPs (unique selling points). Namely the introduction of customisability via interchangeable case covers, and the latest in gaming super-viral, snake!

Needless to say this product was HUGE! It sold millions. I don't know this because I've researched and found out - actually I did research but couldn't seem to find out how many were sold, I know because I knew millions of people that had them! The highest score you could achieve if you played Snake perfectly, if my memory serves me correctly, was 2000 points.

4. The YO-YO

The YO-YO - Simple but effective this little baby. I think I've had about 20 YO-YOs in my time. All with different 'selling points' and ability levels. It's in my top 5 because I love how simple the idea is yet how varied the product can actually be! I remember the kid with the most expensive YO-YO at high school was always the 'coolest' kid. The cost of YO-YO to 'coolness' were inextricably linked. I always managed to maintain a distinctly average YO-YO quality level which means at high school I was never more than averagely 'cool'. As you can see this fella has a top quality YO-YO and GLOVES so is probably called Bart Simpson and has a Playstation 4.

3. The Personal CD player or CD Walkman

OK so by the time I had a CD Walkman, I was starting to get into my teens, but still a child - I say this with some level of hard proof, because one of my first CDs was Chef Aid - South Park Album, which says it all! This, like with the YO-YO, had a link into coolness. Basically the less your CD player skipped, the more cool you were. Non-skipage mean't that you could bully people or break dance, two very cool things for a kid to be doing in their early teens. I'll admit, my standard of CD player was always quite low, but then again most people were in the same boat as a decent one of these little buggers cost like £130 or something, which was a MASSIVE amount of cash back then (probably about £160 in today's futuristic currency). The only kids that could afford these at that price were the teens that smoked and that footed the bill of purchasing one by dealing drugs, two things I never really got into.

2. POGS

POGS! What can I say about POGS! Well firstly, I had hundreds, nearing thousands of these little bits of laminated card! I can't say I remember POGS being 'in' for very long? It sort of seemed like they went away as quickly as they came? Shame really, because I'd love a cheeky game of POGS today. NOW!? I think one of the things that made POGS go out of fashion was that all the shitty Chinese manufacturers sent over loads of poor quality POG type rip offs that flooded the playground with soggy fat dirty pieces of circular card. As soon as something because one or all of 'soggy, fat or dirty' it becomes pretty uncool. In my top 5 simply because of how many I had, and how good a business idea it was. These were literally pieces of decorated paper and billions were sold! Fantastic!

1. SEGA Master System

Now first, I want to say that this list is personal to me before people start to scream SNES or MegaDrive! I played the Master System until my fingers hurt. I played games until I literally got so bored of them I wanted to bin them, and then I simply traded the game for another one with a friend down the street! Personal awesome memories of the Master System of mine include 1. blowing into game cartridges to 'fix' them, 2. blowing into the cartridge slot to fix the console, 3. Alex the Kidd - built in game! I never did complete it, because the last level was too hard. Oh well.

Notable mentions have to go to the Tamagotchi and Gameboy, but for various reasons they didnt quite make the grade in my book. What would be in your list? Why? Comment and let me and others know! If you enjoyed this post do me a favour and bookmark the page, subscribe to the page or link into the page.

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Audley Harrison is a fraud - top sports fraudsters

2010-11-14T22:11:00.003Z

I watched the David Haye vs Audley Harrison fight last night and needless to say I was disappointed. I won't go into a huge amount of detail as to why, because I'd be ranting, but safe to say the stats speak for themselves. Audley 'A-force' Harrison threw 33 'punches' and only one of them landed - I use the inverted commas because you really could barely call the attempts from Audley to hit Haye punches. I honestly can say that I would have put up more of a fight that he did last night, and I'm no heavyweight! He just didn't want to have a fight, I don't think it's in his nature!

I got to thinking about how David Haye post fight described himself and his family putting big amounts of money on a round three knock-out. I couldn't help but think that maybe also Audley had this bet of as well! myself and my mates had a right old laugh about this but in reality this definitely could have been the case. Audley should not have been fighting, he didn't deserve the title shot and he wholly lived up to this statement. It's pretty clear that this fight purely benefited all parties with the exception to the consumer, or viewers as you may be more familiar with. Think about it, the advertisers got their way, sky box office got their money, David and Audley will have made bundles on the fight alone, regardless of side bets, and their teams will have made a packet. The only problem is that now Audley Harrison has to relive the embarrassment of being a failure one last time on one of the biggest stages in sport - a world title fight, I'm sure his millions will make up for this.

Something to make you, the viewer, slightly less grieved - a naked boxing lady

It all came to feel like a big fraud to me. I honestly felt like I could have been doing something much better with my time, specifically my girlfriend, rather than wasting it watching a crap fight built up to be much more than it in reality actually was. Anyhow, my mini rant about the fight is over and now lets reflect on some other sporting frauds. Here is my top 5 sporting frauds:

5. Henry fruitlessly takes France to the world cup, with his hand

The late William Gallas goal, which gave France a 2-1 aggregate victory in its two-game playoff with Ireland, came off a blatant handball by star Thierry Henry. With the Irish fighting to clear the ball deep on their side, Henry batted the ball down with his left hand, darted a quick pass to Gallas, who then headed the ball in for the decisive goal.

With cries of “cheat” ringing in his ears from furious Irish fans, the Barcelona and former Arsenal forward emerged from the dressing room to say: “I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref. I played it, the ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him.

4. Man United's extra man

On 18 April 2001, before Manchester United's Champions League match against Bayern Munich, Power walked onto the pitch in team colours, and took up a position next to player Andy Cole. Although he was noticed by other players, he managed to remain in place for the team photo.

3. Stella the high-speed fella

During the 1936 Olympic Games, all three medal winners in the women's 100 metres looked more butch than their male counterparts. The winner was American Helen Stephens, whose features were so masculine and voice so deep that one British female athlete openly queried how she was even allowed into the women's section of the Olympic village. The silver medal was won by Stella Walsh, a Polish sprinter whose true gender was only discovered when he/she was gunned down in the crossfire of a bank robbery in Ohio in 1980.

The autopsy revealed that her nickname of 'Stella the Fella' was well deserved: she was found to have male genitalia.

2. Ben Johnson and his drug fuelled Olympic sprint 'win'

On September 24, Johnson beat Lewis in the 100m final at the Olympics, lowering his own world record to 9.79 seconds. Johnson would later remark that he would have been even faster had he not raised his hand in the air just before he finished the race. However, Johnson's urine samples were found to contain stanozolol, and he was disqualified three days later. He later admitted having used steroids when he ran his 1987 world record, which caused the IAAF to rescind that record as well. Johnson and coach Francis complained that they used doping in order to remain on an equal footing with the other top athletes on drugs they had to compete against.

1. The hand of God

With the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal match between England and Argentina tied at 0-0, and just minutes left on the clock, Argentinean striker Maradona and English goalkeeper Peter Shilton converged on the ball. Shilton reached out to clear, but Maradona leapt into the air and, with a seemingly impossible header, guided the ball into the net to give his team the win.

The shot was exactly as impossible as it looked. Slow-motion replays -- and an infamous still shot taken by a Mexican photographer -- showed Maradona using his left hand to deflect the ball toward the goal. Argentina won 2-1, after Maradona scored a second -- legitimate -- goal. In an interview the next day, Maradona described the controversial play. "It was partly the hand of Maradona," he said, "and partly the hand of God."

Email machinedaena@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena. www.twitter.com/machinedaena

Funny Facebook amusements for you to joy at - short and sweet!

2010-11-11T19:35:00.003Z

Facebook is a funny old piece of on-line communication isn't it? It's affected or impacted basically everybody whom I know and associate with. Facebook brings people together and breaks them apart, in an oh so public domain! I've been brought together and torn to shreds by Facebook in the past, but overall I think that Facebook definitely one of the most innovative and useful tools of this, and possibly any, decade (if you don't agree with this please comment and voice your opinions below in the comments section!).

Anyways, that's my very short opinion on Facebook. Now for a little light hearted banter from MachineDaena. I've trailed through the web to find a select few amusing Facebook statuses for you, please enjoy, share, like, comment and maybe one day make one of these yourself to repay me the favour of laughter! We call enjoy a good Facebook Status!

(HINT! Click to make them bigger!)

Tails publicly comes out of the closet

You can f*ck my girlfriend, but DO NOT steal my food

God invented Facebook, probably?

Just add sugar to Sweden your coffee

Please follow me, add me on twitter, give me some skin, link to my blog, look out for more posts and most important of all ENJOY! :D

Email machinedaena@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena. www.twitter.com/machinedaena

Call of Duty Black Ops - Sleep Deprivation - 20 hours later - review and overviewed

2010-11-09T21:34:00.004Z

Call of Duty Black Ops has impressed me so far and also disappointed in some way - and I'll explain why in my short review of Call of Duty Black Ops COD 7 in the paragraphs below, but first to say I haven't been a sleep since I got the game because I stupidly chose to have an all nighter hammering Noobs last night with my cousin. Sleep deprivation is a desperately tough thing to deal with and I highly regretted staying up to play Call of Duty Black Ops this morning when I had to spend 9 hours at work from 8am this morning! If it wasn't for cheap Sainsburys energy drinks, I'd have fallen asleep at my desk today!

I've fluctuated from being wide awake and mega alert to being into a daze almost falling fully sleep with no notice or warning! Anyway enough about my geeky antics, lets get down to Call of Duty Black Ops COD 7 with particular attention to the first impressions of this years most eagerly anticipated game release from Treyarch.

First impressions of Call of Duty Black Ops COD 7 were pretty good. I immediately got the impression that they'd made things a whole lot more complicated with the new player credits system where online players earn experience points and also 'credits' to spend on goodies like perks, new guns and weapons, as well as camos, call signs etc. Very appealing I thought, and any initial resistance to change away from the much played Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2's ways was duly stamped out during the course of game play on Call of Duty Black Ops as I got used it. I like this game so far because it's quite different in many ways to the other titles in the call of duty collection but two or three aspects of the differences in Call of Duty Black Ops I think are 'bollocks dropped' differences that are simply mistakes - changes to game content that should have been left how it was.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Game play Demo Pt. 1

I'm going to outline what these 'poor' differences in COD 7 are then summarise and then close up because I'm tired and need sleep! Firstly, I don't like the movement and controlling aspects of the player. In Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) when you ran you seemed to move around in a more realistic way, as someone would if they were sprinting for their life! The movement almost enabled you to 'feel' the rocks and difference ground surfaces on each varied map. On COD 7 Black Ops, it's like the player is wearing ice skates and the ground, no matter what the scenery, is slick ice! There's not the same feeling to it.

Secondly, there are no major improvements to the Perks and Killstreaks in Call of Duty Black Ops, with the exception to new picture and name designs for perks, and the Attack Dogs (very cool) killstreak. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was great because it dramatically improved an already fantastically successful game, particularly MW2 perks and killstreaks. If you ask any COD fan what he likes most about MW2 and I guarantee he'll say the then new killstreaks - and lets all face it, if you don't like them it's probably because you're a shit noob and probably can't ever attain the better more fun killstreaks! Final thing really is only a small thing, which is that the maps, although new and cool, all seem rather frantic. It seems Treyarch don't like campers! There doesn't appear to be any nifty little hiding spots or camp sites! I'm by no means a camper, in fact I'm more of the 'marathon pro, lightweight pro and commando pro' run around like an idiot having fun type of guy.
It's just I'd like a few quiet spots to get used to the maps initially! It all seems a little bit like Treyarch have sort of just been a little lazy with this Call of Duty Black Ops game. None the less, I'll still play it because there are still lots more exciting aspects that make it well worth purchasing Black Ops! I'll be reviewing some of the more exciting and innovating aspects in a later blog post but until now please let me know your thoughts and opinions here as I'm very keen to know what you think of Black Ops COD 7 so far!

Email daena.hayhurst@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena

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Call of Duty Black Ops: COD 7 - Geeks Haven, 'buy' bye social life

2010-11-08T19:14:00.014Z

Call of Duty Black Ops: COD 7 - what can you say about this game? Well I love it, it's not even on the shelves just yet in the shops as Call of Duty Black Ops release date is tonight at 12am, however the hype combined with the success of MW2 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2: COD 6 this year and last, as well as the amazing Black Ops game play footage means this game can't help but be a success and all attributes moulded into one amazing killing gamefest excites me.

Buy Call of Duty Black Ops COD 7 below on Amazon

Call of Duty Black Ops: COD 7 was released on the 9th Nov 2010

20 days of my life in the past 12 months has been spent playing COD6 MW2 and I anticipate another that in the next 12 months 40 days at least will be 'devoted' to the next instalment from Infinity Ward. How many copies of COD6 were sold I hear you ask? Activision has confirmed that COD Modern Warfare 2 sold over 20 million copies worldwide, 4.7 million of which on the first day. This makes it the biggest selling game of all time in the UK and second highest selling game in the USA. Pretty impressive when you compare it to some of gaming history's finest.

COD Black Ops has some pretty impressive expectations to live up to right? Well it's now widely regarded to be the biggest selling video game in history. COD 7 Black Ops markets itself - largely due to it's predecessors' success, particularly Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

Call of Duty Black Ops COD 7 - Trailer

The game features a variety weapons such as crossbows (with alternative explosive ammunition), Dragon's Breath rounds and ballistic knives. It also features some impressive new multiplayer game modes. Everyone knows that to get the best from Call of Duty games, you have to play online - so please don't buy Call of Duty Black Ops COD 7 if you plan to just play the offline modes (although they will be pretty much a game worth it's cost alone!).

I' going to go and play Call of Duty Modern Warfare now to get some practice in for later. Then I'm going to queue up in the freezing cold, with a bag of chips and a big smile on my face because I'll be able to own someone in Afghanistan and pretend I'm a real solider later tonight. Lets hope my purchase Call of Duty Black Ops lives up to its name.

Email machinedaena@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena

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Liverpool FC are looking better

2010-11-07T20:12:00.015Z

Anyone that knows me even a little will know that I'm a big Liverpool FC fan. So obviously with Liverpool beating top the league and champions Chelsea today 2-0, I'm a very happy man. But I got thinking about Liverpool's season so far and the troubles that they've had.

First thing to think about really is that no matter who the manager, who the players, or who the directors/owners of Liverpool FC are, there will always be a weight of expectation on them to perform, from the fans and from each other. Liverpool have had a few major issues this season which are obvious major contributions to their shortcomings in terms of our start to the Premier League campaign. First thing and most important is that there's been a change of manager. Roy Hodgson is totally different in playing/managing style to Rafa, and the team he has to pick from is in no way his 'own' team, rather the team of his recently unsuccessful predecessor. Liverpool have had all sorts of trouble with spending big money on players and then not allowing time for potential to come through, and I personally think that this was probably the main reason why Rafa ultimately failed with Liverpool last season.

The other issue is obviously that of the turbulent times, particularly this season, with the change of owners. Gillett and Hicks were a joke, and that's pretty much all I need to say about them. But it can't have been a great place to turn up for work at Anfield with all the uncertainty. This must have been a contributing factor to on pitch form. There's 'a lot of work to be done' according to John Henry, which is nice to hear. It means he's not content with how things are and that he's willing to change, hopefully for the better.

It's now four games won in a row for Liverpool, three of which in the Premier League. Things are looking more promising than they were this time a month ago, and I only hope that Liverpool keep up the work rate. Continue to build confidence and keep some consistency through what is to be an 'easy' run of games the next few weeks. Nobody with an ounce of sense would write Liverpool FC off from attaining a top four spot this season so long as we can keep Torres, Gerrard and two or three other key players fit for most of the season.

One thing is for sure, same as Liverpool are much weaker without some key players, so are Chelsea as we saw today, such as the nature of football. I really hope this season turns out to be a tight one for the title chase!

Email daena.hayhurst@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. Add me on Twitter www.twitter.com/MachineDaena Q2444MGHVR3F

I DONT READ, BUT. . . .Ben Mezrich - 21, The Social Network and rigged!

2010-11-04T22:36:00.005Z

OK I've never been a big reader. I'm more of a film goer! I've literally read around 15 books in my lifetime, and half of those have been biographies or autobiographies, which is nothing to brag about. But of the few books that I have read I can highly recommend Ben Mezrich who is the author of the book behind the hit film 21 and the book that formed the basis for the more recent The Social Network.

It can be difficult to actually describe and persuade someone to go out an buy a book, particularly those that prefer not to read like me, but I can't stress enough how amazing the Ben Mezrich books are! Often starting slow but building up steadily to generate a really accurate picture of the various fictional or non-fictional scenes, Ben Mezrich's writing makes his books impossible to put down! I've read all but the latest of his non-fictional books, in order of release and thoroughly enjoyed each one and finished them in no time!

Again to emphasis the entrepreneur factor, the books are always circled around aspiring success wanting entrepreneurs and risk taking personalities, never focusing on more than just the one person. If you watched The Social Network or 21 and enjoyed them, go out an buy the accompanying books from Ben Mezrich because you will not regret it. Better still, order through Amazon using the book links below, because this means I'll take a minor cut from Amazon (Stick it to the maaaaaaan!). I'm actually going to visit my own blog and buy a book from my own affiliate link because my copies of his books were borrowed!

Final thing really, if you ever feel de-motivated about things, or just have a business or enterprising streak in you, I urge you to take my advice here! Read a Ben Mezrich book and enjoy. Peace

Twitter me: http://twitter.com/DaenaHayhurst

Email daena.hayhurst@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena

The Social Network - Mark Zuckerberg is a genius (review)

2010-10-31T23:32:00.003Z

I recently went to watch "The Social Network" at the cinema and found myself keen to get back into blogging! This seemed to be a big hobby of Mark Zuckerberg and if it's good enough for him I'm willing to keep at it! Zuckerberg got rich quick as an offset from his blogging, what more encouragement does one need!

I was also encouraged when I looked at my blog visit numbers since it started, and even though the volume isn't huge, certainly nothing compared with Mark Zuckerbergs or facebooks would have been, I was getting visitors even when the blog was inactive. I'm hoping to improve the blog and generate huge traffic as I'm experimenting with learning this aspect of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) in my work activities at Xi Training and obviously keen to do the same on a personal level.

"The Social Network" is basically about Mark Zuckerberg and how he started and grew facebook or 'thefacebook.com' as it was known in its infancy. It portrays Zuckerberg I feel in a very honest light and not as you might have expected to be as a total angel, which is something I certainly liked about the film. The film checked back and forward to one continual scene about how facebook actually happened, and of course all the associated problems Mark Zuckerberg encountered, and then to scenes assumingly recently when Mark went through the courts some years after facebook was started. So we had split scenes between Mark and his various associates or old friends and business partners sat round a table arguing with lawyers, and then scenes with drunk american college kids shaping their social lives around computers at Harvard. Sounds pretty boring. . . far from it. The Social Network is a fantastically gripping film, and I'll tell you why later in the article.

Anyone that knows me knows that I studied Business Enterprise at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and that I'm a keen aspiring entrepreneur. For this reason, I got quite emotionally involved in the film because I could see early flaws in how business was run by Mark Zuckerberg and his then financial director or CFO (Chief Financial Officer) as the Americans say. Conversely I could also really appreciate the good aspects of how things escalated with Facebook and the genius ideas that caused this.

There is a !Eureka! moment in the film where Zuckerberg realised that people are attracted to 'exclusivity' - something that he leveraged when first rolling out his Social Network "thefacebook.com" to Harvard students (and ONLY Harvard students), and another similar moment where he realised social circles revolve around gossip with particular attention to 'relationship status'. All of this seems common to us now that we're accustomed to Facebook and use it daily, but at the time to think of adding just a simple 'relationship status' to someone's personal social page was quite astounding and real genius!

What I liked most about The Social Network was the way it was different to all other films I've seen. From the way it was filmed (cutting back and forth), to the unusual nature of content (social networks) whilst also maintaining a real underlying business theme.

This film is bound to be a winner because it relates directly with something that almost everyone uses everyday, Facebook and social interaction, but this aside I hope there are others out there that appreciate it for its innovation, its business contexts and its emotional involvement. Sure it has the odd cliché moment as many teen based movies do, what do you expect when watching a film about a teen virgin geek, but all in all I'd highly recommend watching this film, especially if you appreciate learning, business and enterprising genius.

I'll continue to use my Social Network, but probably from a slightly different perspective. I'll also be thinking slightly differently next time I stare upon a computer geek, not that I do this often.

Email daena.hayhurst@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena

New PS4 concept design - welcome to the future?

2010-06-01T17:00:00.007+01:00

Sony are innovators - think of most technological advances within the audio and console entertainment sector and only one brand really comes to mind, that's Sony - queue sentimental memories of personal tape players, disk-man, mini-disk, PS1. They have also had massive success in other areas such as personal computers (particularly laptops), digital cameras and even robotics. Everyone has experienced a 'Playstation' moment whether that's your first time playing grand theft auto for the PS1 to hammering the call of duty releases on PS3 but what will your memory of PS4 be? Well you may soon find out because concept art for the new Playstation 4 has been released signalling that the new console is in development - this shouldn't come as a surprise to you.

I did some investigating and found images of the most popular concept image that is being thrown around and as you can see its very impressive. I'm still looking forward to the release of Grand Turismo 5 which we keep getting teased with but now I have a new bitch to look forward to! With the designs you can see that they've keep similar ergonomics to the controller as their original PS1 layouts and much of the branding is in similar fashion to how it's always been for the Playstation phenomenon.

I personally thought that despite how much of an advancement PS3 was it was still rather bulky -very heavy and not particularly well put together in terms of design. With the new designs they've added the clear glass to improve the coolness and make the product suave, smaller looking and actually more innovative. The console looks like it will have touchscreen technology on it similar to that of the ipod era and it will no doubt increase it's diversity into the 'entertainment' sector by incorporating more blue ray type funcions. My guess is that they will have an easy UI audio feature that won't require the system to be fully booted like an ipod docking station and possibly heavy reliance on web entertainment and content. For now It's safe to say these teasers are enough to get you thinking and possibly a little excited?

Email daena.hayhurst@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena

Iron man 2 is the best film you'll see this year!

2010-05-14T19:58:00.006+01:00

Thought I'd take a moment to review the Iron Man 2 film. I went to watch this last Wed's for Orange Wednesday at Lancasters Vue cinema. Being a massive fan of Iron Man's first installment, largely because of it's individualism from any other film I've seen and it's cool cars, gadgets and Robert Downey Jr's laid back suave sense of humour, I knew that Jon Favreau, the producer who also stars in the film as Happy Hogan - Starks body guard slash personal manager, would have the vision and pedigree to match if not top the IM1. I wasn't let down!

I first chose to take another view of the first film the night prior to refresh myself before heading out the following day with some mates Birkett, Yearron, Stu Peters and his Mrs. Now one thing I noticed from the first film is that they seemed to avoid (and very effectively I might add) making too many hero cheesy clichés and for those of you that took the time to watch the extra scenes on the DVD will see that some of this was present but cut from the final edit. I was pretty keen to see if they'd manage to make a good hero film but avoid the horrible cringy moments that most other films of this sort can't manage. I'm pleased to say that despite one or two minor Hollywood lines they successfully did this, although they let themselves down a little near the end when Iron Man stood next to a child who had an Iron Man mask on and banished an enemy with the line "Nice job kid"!
The effects in this film were just as cool as in the first movie and there was a more logical focus on how 'Stark Industries' takes an interesting change in business towards bettering peoples standards of life through technology which mean't some of the more extravagant scenes had a good setting. Which brings me nicely on to my next positive, the fight sequences between Iron Man and various foes including the excellent Mickey Rourke, were action packed and full of innovation. Another slightly cheesy moment where Iron Man takes down around 10 foes in one foul swoop sees him employ a Cyclops style laser like move that sees all enemies drop in an instant and his suited partner ask him why he didn't use that move sooner rather than 5 minutes into the scene - Stark replies "because it's a use once only move" -nevertheless awesome FX! Scarlett Johansson brings a new edge to the table by suiting up as an avenger and looked nothing short of fucking stunning to offer gwyeth Paltrow some much needed competition for Starks attention.

There are lots of reason to go and see this film, it follows on very well from the first film which I thought was a pleasant change and the screenplay is superb. I find myself being reminded of the James Bond films although I'd have to say Iron Man and Iron Man 2 would bring James Bond to the 21st, or even 22nd Century! The cast worked well together on the big screen and one of the only real down points I can think of is how annoying Justin Hammer (CEO of Hammer Industries - Stark Industries rival arms company) was. He's got a kind of eerie look about him that made me want to leap up and punch the projection but then I think that's probably the desired emotion the writers wanted to plot. All in all I thought the film was outstanding - it shows a weaker more human side to Stark and in one scene he's even drunk in his outfit at a party (to some damaging effect to his house!) however despite this alterer side IM's good intentions still prevail as you'd expect, sorry for the spoiler! This film is a mish mash of Hancock, James Bond and Xmen and whats more it reveals more about the Avengers involvement. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said he is happy with the results of Iron Man 2 and predicted that Iron Man 3 will be in theaters by 2013. "We do have a contract with Robert Downey Jr. to do it, and it will come after The Avengers", Feige has been quoted to have said. Jon Favreau said that although the character would need reworking, the Mandarin would be in the third film - this all adds up to some exciting Marvel Movie times ahead but for now I'd highly recommend seeing and enjoying Iron Man 2 on at the cinemas - don't wait for this one to come to DVD guys!

Email daena.hayhurst@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena

10,000 days old!

2010-05-05T15:45:00.001+01:00

Being a none religious individual and very much against people who choose to preach their religious beliefs I always found it amazing that mum buys more pressies for me on Jesus' birthday than my own! Anyone else find this happens with them? Sort of pisses me off especially when you consider my own beliefs which couldn't be further from what we're supposed to be celebrating on Dec 25th. I think to myself "well celebrate health and being with family and friends" which puts my anger at ease somewhat! Anyhow I've been thinking lately and for the past few years that I want to stage a birthday party for my 10,000th day old birthday!

I calculate that if my date of birth is 11th Feb 1986, I will be 10,000 days old on June 29th 2013. Now I know that it seems ridiculous to be thinking about this given that it's three years until the date however I really do want to stage the most over-exaggerated, ostentatious and ridiculous birthday party you've ever been to! I mean MTV shit! Entertainment, bands playing, huge venue, fireworks, amazing food, casino entertainment, shit loads of bodies, fire eaters, clowns, bouncy castles, magicians, Susan Boyle playing the bongos, the lot! I want celebs there to wish me luck with my next 20,000 odd days and I want it to be a massive success. I need to save some cash so that I can fund this but can you honestly say that you've been to a birthday party where the aforementioned factors have been present? We all know the answer to that! What more reason do I need to make this happen! So who wants to come to my 10,000 day old birthday? Because I also want outrageously flamboyant invites to send out too!
Email machinedaena@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. All comments welcome. Love MachineDaena

Why do we poison ourselves?

2010-05-03T20:59:00.003+01:00

Seems a little weird that most people want to live as long as they can but week in and week out mostly at weekends we engage in throwing alcohol down our throats to make ourselves merry, absolutely wankered or even to the point of bundering down you or your mums couch! It's not healthy because alcohol poisoning can cause long term liver damage which may lead to all sorts of problems as well as the obvious potential death, and short term physical damage should you fall over and hurt yourself or even fight!!

Now this post isn't about health bashing, far from it. Indeed MachineDaena is an advocate of tipples, particularly Jack Daniels and coke! I frequently get into a mess socially and wind up staggering home or worse thinking I'm invincible and throwing my tiny 5ft 6 body aggressively at anything that crosses my path, but I found myself wondering why something that could potentially be so damaging is so popular in modern society?

I initially was curious to drink in early teens, then like the feeling of losing my inhibitions at uni was appealing but this paired with a huge pressure to 'fit in' means I, like millions of Brits each weekend am almost peer pressured into drinking and often too much! It's madness. I'm usually the fella stimulating drinking games to egg others on and I'm at home with a deck of cards and a class of drinkers but recently had a night out where I drank water all night with quite humbling effects. I had a good night, chatting to people I usually fall into and actually socialising with words not chants or drink banter. I'll be doing a few more 'drinkless' nights out but it's safe to say for now that I'll probably wind up with a liver disease like so many others! Ah well you only live once, might as well live like you'll die tomorrow right?
Email machinedaena@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. All comments welcome. Love MachineDaena

MachineDaena

2010-04-28T22:19:00.002+01:00

Hi, I thought I'd start this blog by introducing myself and take it from there. Well the dude on the right is me, Daena Hayhurst (MachineDaena or Pokergeezer7) with a bit of an old school hero of mine Sonic the Hedgehog or to put it another way, a random fancy dresser from a recent night out (legend).

I'm currently 24 and have been educated at Manchester Met uni with a degree in Business Enterprise. I've got experience as a recruitment consultant but more recently have been looking to online initiatives to make me money. My ambitions are to start and run my own business and to inevitably get rich in the process. I fancy myself as a bit of an entrepreneur but have yet to prove this really! I'm quite into gaming, sports, keeping fit and learning new things. I also socialise way too much as I have a habit of not being able to say not to people. My good points are honesty and integrity, as well as just being a genuine kind fella. My vices are tendencies to drink plenty and gambling. I guess for now the aim of my blog is to let people know who I am and what my aims are and as things progress I'm sure I'll post about things that annoy me, do it for me, rage me or just things that I believe people may want to hear my opinions on. For now I'll say nice to meet you and take it easy :D

Quotes - wouldn't you just love to have people quote you. .

2010-04-28T17:59:00.002+01:00

I'd love to be remembered by the things that I said, by the quotes on how to be, much like Jesus but without the lies or story telling and 2000 years of chinese whispering. And with that MachineDaena blogs some of his fave quotes imported from his Facebook profile (I've spent time collating it once before so I'll take a shortcut this time):

"Veni Vidi Vici (i came i saw i conquered)" - Julius Caesar

"you can fool some of the people, all of the time. and all of the people, some of the time. but you cant fool all of the people, all of the time" - Abraham Lincoln

“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”

"i come from a little place called Britain, we ruled the world before you did" - Ricky Gervais

"That which was revealed" - the meaning of my name

"there he is look, there he is look, there he is! ahhhh whoooo" - Pete Kerr (irish legend!)

"what is life but just a dream" - Vanilla Sky

"Strength and Honor" - Russell Crowe (gladiator)

"if you fail to prepare, your preparing to fail" - Whinston Churchill

"marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes and expecting to pull out an eel" - Leonardo Da Vinci

"its the fight in the man, not the man in the fight!" - the salmon meister

"Si vis pacem, para bellum" - if you want peace, prepare for war - Julius Caesar

“She said, 'I'm your biggest fan,' and I said, 'Who are you?' She said, 'Paris Hilton." - Ricky Gervais

"lets get to work"
"ok"
"and in MY CAR" - corrie DVD

"She was 5ft 10, a catsuit and BENDYEYES" - Westlife

"Women are like banks, they're ok for a while, then you start to get fucked over, so then you just move to another branch. Whats really good is if theres a branch right on your street!" - Dan Vill, 2007

"mate got a few good games we can play, they might end up in us getting slaped but in for a penny and all that!! lol" - Stu Peters, 2007

Who are you to judge the life I live?
I know im not perfect - And I dont live to be.
But before you start pointing the fingers...
Make sure your hands are clean!

- Bob Marley.

"Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.” - Richard Branson

Finally some cheesy leadership quotes I saw that made me laugh!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhxINyIZ454

Email MachineDaena@gmail.com for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena