Vivid Lamp - It's all about Ideas that spread

The financial global turmoil - how depressing!

Marie — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:25:32 +1100

I'm sure wherever you may be living in the world you've heard about the global financial crisis, the sub-prime crisis, etc... And every day, when the news is on all you see is that markets around the world have loss billions and billions of dollars.

Even down under in Australia, it's hard not to notice these events or stories, particularly when our TV stations and newspapers are constantly talking about the grim state of the global economy. On Friday, our own Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) lost 8% tinkering at 3,920 points. Mind you, I recalled about 3 months ago when our market was over the 6,000 point mark. Business news reports I've been listening to have said that our market compared to the same time last year has lost nearly 40% of it's value. Billions of billions of dollars wiped out! It's pretty grim news. In particular when our own government, the US government (780 billion bail out), the UK and European governments working together to protect people's savings account, etc...all these international actions to try and restore confidence and yet the world wide markets are still in a major panic! I feel so sorry for the people of Iceland, that country has literally gone bankrupt and heading for a recession.

If you're a psychologist, I'm sure you fully understand people's responses and behaviour to this economic crisis. Unfortunately, a lot of us are not and this global panic is certainly impacting all the world's economies. Growth will slow down, unemployment will rise, consumer spending will decrease...which in turn will lead to a recession. All the expert economists I've heard interviewed are also at a loss and don't even know when this panic selling will end and when the bottom of the market is going to be reached so people will come back and start buying shares again.

In Australia we are told that we are in a better position compared to a lot of countries in the world as our banking industries are well regulated. The government recently announced today to protect ALL of our savings that are held in bank accounts (by major institutions) for up to 3 years. I know that they are just trying to ease our fears and to encourage people to remain calm. It's really hard not to notice, especially when our Australian dollar to the US currency is now only worth around $0.66c - when in July of this year it hit $0.98c (what a major drop!).

So how did we get to this stage? Was it greed by banks and corporations to get the best return for their shareholders and themselves? I revisited and read about "The Great Depression". This event in our history started in the US in October 29th, 1929 and it took the markets around the world another 10 years to recover. There were many factors that caused the great depression, but one of the main triggers was apparently DEBT - American consumers and businesses relied on cheap credit. In Australia, our debt levels are higher per household now than they were years ago. One economist even had a grim prophecy that this worldwide economic downturn could be worst than the great depression. I really hope that he is wrong and that we do not repeat that sad and difficult period that people faced in the 1930's. I guess we do need to try and keep calm in the midst of this global turmoil.

How has the global financial crisis affecting your day to day life?

Browzmi: Live Social Browsing

Louie — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:30:30 +1000

With everything on the web going social nowadays, you can expect to see all sorts of web applications to have a social networking feature. The main goal of the social feature is mainly for users to interact with each other while using a web service or application.

Browzmi is a unique and interesting social networking service. It is a mix of social networking and browsing. It is a combination of a lot of online tools: a social sharing/bookmarking site, Instant messenger and a browser. Browzmi is a browser within your browser which can be quite confusing if you describe it like that but it’s exactly what it is. It’s a web app that acts as a browser which is equipped with instant messaging. This allows members to share with each other what they are browsing in Browzmi.

The browser within the web app is a unique way of sharing URL’s to your friends. You can either use Browzmi to surf the web or use their Firefox plugin to easily transfer a URL from your original browser to Browzmi. This will allow you to quickly share a page in just a click. The plugin, “Browzmi Homebase,” allows the web service to connect to your browser and allow web traffic to bypass their servers. When I tested it without the plugin, some sites are missing some widgets and some CSS failed to load. After installing the plugin, the sites that I visited worked perfectly.

The service functions more of an instant messenger than a screen sharing site. Browzmi’s goal is for friends to discover websites and share them with each other in real time. This is made possible by the “rating” and “add to favorites” tool which serves as a bookmarking feature for the service. Once you gave a URL a thumb up or marked it as favorite, your friends will be notified by a sound and can immediately see it live on their collapsible and unobtrusive sidebar. Of course, you can always do that by copying a URL and pasting it on your friend’s IM. The only difference is that with Browzmi, your friends can instantly see the pages that you have bookmarked and they can always go back to the pages that you have visited even if you are offline and easily access that URL when they visit your Browzmi profile which is very common to social bookmarking sites.

Browzmi is also a great place to share your other social networking profiles to your friends. You can easily add your blog URL, Twitter address, Facebook profile page, Friendfeed feeds and a lot more to your Browzmi profile. By doing this, your friends can easily browse your social pages in just one tab. They can rate you pages and make comments about your blogs or social pages.

As I see it, Browzmi is more useful when connected users are online. Otherwise, it’s just like most social bookmarking sites where you can share your favorite pages of the web with your online buddies. I guess the combination of both live and offline features is what makes it different from the others. The real-time sharing is its selling point.

Thanks to Travis Parsons, founder of Browzmi, who was kind enough to guide me through the web app and answer a few questions through their chat service.

A working life

Marie — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:49:34 +1000

When I read the article below, it did make me laugh. However, when looking at it deeper, it also make me think about a few things.

I remembered seeing a painting once (unfortunately, I can't remember who the painter was), but basically they captured the image of workers going to work each day like robots. Sometimes I feel like this too. It becomes a monotonous experience and I feel like I'm on auto pilot!

Lately, I've also read news commentators proclaiming how recent studies have shown that in the western world we are working even harder each day to support our lifestyle. A lifestyle you cannot even enjoy (ie: the big house, the nice car, etc...) because people are spending more time at work and by the time they get home, it's already dark! To add to this, those that have families, spend a partial chunk of their incomes on childcare and they too suffer from not being able to spend quality time with their child/children. This in turn makes parents feel very guilty and they end up spoiling their child/children out of guilt for working so much. A vicious cycle then occurs as these children will grow up to be so spoilt, materialistic and consumers themselves. Worse still they do not learn to appreciate the things they receive as we push through becoming such a disposable society.

I know I seem to sound bleak in my views, but I hope after reading this post, you too will take the time to breathe and reflect on your own lives.

Recently, my husband and I went off on a little holiday break and it was great for the soul. To be away from the office and to do what we really wanted and to just enjoy the day was very relaxing. Having time out from the hustle and bustle of life is definitely a must and I highly recommend it.

Posterous Offers Auto Posting to Other Blog Platforms

Louie — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:47:51 +1000

Posterous is a new and different kind of blogging service with unique features compared to other free blog platforms. The service is designed for on-the-go bloggers who wants to make quick blog entries without going through the process of using a blog editor. Although it has a resident rich text blog editor, Posterous blog entries can also be published through email and SMS.

Account registration in Posterous is also a unique process. In order to create an account in Posterous, you must send an email containing your first blog entry to post@posterous.com. The subject of your email will be the title of your post and the email message will be the body.

What I like about Posterous is its portability. Using email to make blog entries is a great idea. What makes it even more useful is that you can attach different types of media along with your “post” email. I tried sending a blog entry with an image attached to it and the result was great. Large images will automatically be resized and can also be viewed in its full size. It also lets the user to download the full size image through a link that the engine created. Sending a zip file of photos and images will result to a gallery type blog entry. Attached MP3’s will be playable using their branded ephonic player while documents are automatically converted to iPaper.

The New Feature

Previously, Posterous already offered auto posting to Twitter and Flicker accounts which is great. You photo posts can immediately be seen on your Flickr account and you Twitter followers will get updates each time you make an entry. Now, they are offering auto posting to other blogs which confuses me strategic-wise. I understand the fact that Posterous wants to extend their usability but this act might seem like too desperate a move. The service already shows a lot of potential in becoming a full pledge blogging platform packed with easy to use features. By doing this, they are driving users away from actually using their service as a blogging platform, and besides, bloggers who are concerned with SEO will question this issue of having double posts on different blogs. That being said, I can think of a few uses for the new feature. Since Posterous hosts all your images and files, you can use Posterous as a gateway to your blog posts on your 'other' blogs. The images will be auto resized and you can even post podcasts without using plugins or inserting codes.

Posterous offers a unique and easy way of blogging. I see it as a great tool for casual bloggers who just enjoy posting from their mobile phones and anything that has email. It would seem more appropriate if they focus more on creating a name for themselves as a blogging platform instead of being used as a mere gateway to popular blogging services. They may not get millions of users right away but it will surely build an organic amount of loyal users as time passes.

Staying Focused Over the Long Haul

SimonB — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:16:54 +1000

Innovators are always pushed into action when problems affect their personal lives. A frustrating experience with an existing product or service creates the opportunity to find a better way. Many of the greatest innovations in history came about because someone asked, “How can I improve this?”

“The best place to succeed is where you are with what you have.
”

Charles Schwab

In 1953 Malcom McLean was the owner of one of the largest trucking companies in the United States. One day he learned that oil tankers usually carried no cargo above deck. His mind flashed back to a scene that had been etched in his memory 16 years earlier, when he was making a living hauling cotton and tobacco from North Carolina to Hoboken, New Jersey.

McLean wasted a whole day waiting for his used pickup to be unloaded. All day long, he watched dockworkers hoist boxes, crates, and bundles onto slings. Each sling lifted its cargo into the hold of a waiting ship. Inside the ship, workers unloaded the slings and put each item in its place.

“What a waste of time and money!” thought McLean. “Wouldn’t it be great if my trailer could simply be lifted up and placed on the ship without its contents being touched?”

Nineteen years after McLean’s frustrating experience on a New Jersey pier, his first container ship sailed out of Port Newark. The era of containerized shipping had begun.

As early as 1929, a company named Seatrain was rolling railroad cars loaded with cargo onto its sea vessels. But McLean envisioned a system in which trailers without wheels could be stacked on top of one another.

To make his idea work, McLean redesigned trailers: His container would be independent from the trailer bed, so that it could be lifted on and off. He patented a corner-post structure that allowed containers to be gripped for loading and unloading, and which made them strong enough to be stacked.

In less than 15 years, McLean built SeaLand Industries into the biggest cargo shipping company in the world. But it wasn’t a corporation that reinvented the centuries-old shipping industry: One man’s vision did that.

Organizations that have a stake in the status quo are always the least likely innovators. As the owner of the largest trucking company in the southern United States, McLean had a stake. If container shipping became an important form of transportation, it would cut into the profits of his trucking business.

How did McLean handle the situation? He sold his 75% interest in the trucking company and staked everything he had on the future of containerized cargo.

Today 90% of the world’s trade cargo is transported by container shipping. It is a tribute to one man’s focus: The frustrated truck driver who asked, “How can I improve this?”

Twiddla Offers Live Collaboration

Louie — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:40:08 +1000

Twiddla is another digital whiteboard jam packed with collaboration features that you might find both interesting and useful. We have covered a collaboration tool called Dabbleboard before and really got great responses from our readers. If you liked Dabbleboard, then you might enjoy this even more.

So what makes it interesting? It’s a digital whiteboard where you can collaborate with co-workers and business partners online. What make it so special are not its drawing tools. Although the drawing tools are more feature packed than DabbleBoard, I still find Dabbleboard’s drawing features easier to use and more powerful than Twiddla’s.

Twiddla’s drawing tools features the usual shapes, freehand drawing, eraser, and text placement. The changeable pen sizes make it more versatile in making different line sizes. These tools are very common to digital whiteboards. What makes Twiddla stand out is the ability of the web app to add media on the whiteboard itself. You can easily add documents, email address and images. My favorite part of Twiddla is that you can also add Widgets, Codes and Mathematical formulas. There is also a chat feature which allows text and voice communication among the users.

Non-private collaborations can be done instantly without signing up. You can easily invite other users to your session by entering their emails on the invite form. They will then be redirected to your created Twiddla session.

Twiddla will only ask you to register if you decide to make your session done privately. Invited users will be asked for the password that you created for the session. This is another great feature for online collaboration as most collaborations are done in a secured manner, especially sensitive company discussions. The tools are very useful and the added text and voice chat makes it even more handy. There is no need to add each other's IM's of you are using different services which takes away the time spent on registering of a new IM account. This also takes away the platform conflicts of IM's being used in different operating systems.

Twiddla and Dabbleboard are two great free collaboration tools with different features. I personally like Dabbleboard for its simplicity and user-friendliness but you can’t deny that Twiddla’s versatile features make it more useful for all types of users. Its ability to insert widgets and codes are very useful for code writers. The document and image insertions will be of great use to everybody.

They call Twiddla a web-based meeting playground. It’s a pretty useful playground if you ask me.

Which of the two do you like better? Share your thoughts. We’d love to hear them.

Related Article:
DabbleBoard : Think and Communicate Visually

Ring, ring...can your cell phone cause cancer?

Marie — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:06:03 +1000

I bet you have probably owned one of these at some point in your life. I bet if you look around, almost everyone has one. In fact, some people own more than one at a given time. What am I talking about? In Australia we refer to them as mobile phones. In other parts of the world they are known as cell phones. Whatever name you know them by, I'm sure you're very familiar of their use (if you haven't heard or use a mobile/cell phone, I'm not sure where you have been all this time or what your situation is...but honestly, if you go into one of the major cities in the world, I can guarantee that you will see these little devices everywhere!)

They come in different styles to represent who you are, with matching accessories, different colours and even your personalized ring tones to choose from! In Australia, you even have a wide variety of payment plans to choose from, or just opt to pay as you go (pre-paid but you must buy the phone outright). A new model with new whiz bang features seem to come out every few weeks from the many different companies out there, trying to sell you the latest and best ever cell phone with camera, radio, ability to surf the net, gps, personal organiser, etc...and some models now have those special touch phone features like apple's iphone or the htc's touch phone. Literally, the market is just saturated with many cell phone models that are out there for sale and at different price ranges.

Which one do you have and why did you choose that particular mobile/cell phone? As for myself, I ended up getting a htc touch phone last christmas as it came with an organiser (which I needed). I was impressed with the touch technology it possessed, to allow me to navigate through my screens and menus. I have seen and did do some research on apple's iphone; unfortunately with all the bureaucratic issues between apple's iphone and one of our biggest telecommunications company here, (eg: contractual obligations, network access issues)...it turned me off from getting one at the time.

The cell phone was invented 35 years ago by Martin Cooper. He was a general manager for the systems division at Motorola and had an interest in embedded wireless devices. In an interview with the SMH newspaper on March 28th, 2008 Mr Cooper said that, "While the popularity of mobile phones has skyrocketed, with more than 3 billion people owning cell phones now compared with only 300,000 in 1984...he sees much more room for wireless in industries ranging from health care to power."

Although recent studies have proven to be inconclusive, in terms of any links between mobile/cell phones and cancer (in particular, brain tumors); a recent article published three days ago (July 24th, 2008) in the SMH newspaper wrote about how the head of a prominent cancer research institute (from the University of Pittsburgh) Dr. Ronald B. Herberman has warned that everyone should not be complacent when using their cell phone because of the electromagnetic radiation that is emitted. This is of particular concern in young children, as their brains are still developing. Eventhough, a lot of worldwide studies in this area have not found a link between cancer and cellular phone usage, Dr. Herberman argues that because it takes a very long time for science and a conclusive study in this area to come to a resolution, we should act now and should only use our cell phones for emergency use only.

I believe this is sound advise. I mean, when cigarettes were first sold and used by people it was glamorised and shown to be a really cool thing to take up. It has taken many years, but now Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research in the UK are urging the public to give up smoking, as research studies can now prove that the habit is linked to at least 14 different types of cancer which cause around 70,000 deaths every year.

Like I have said at the beginning of this post, many of us probably own one or two and know a lot of our families and friends that also own and use a cell phone; and our reliance of this device and technology has been increasing of late, so please use it wisely. Only use it for emergency or for short periods of time. Being proactive and promoting prevention is much more sensible than waiting for scientific research to prove whether or not cell phones is linked to cancer.

MediaWombat: Search Engine for Flash

Louie — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:59:07 +1000

I just discovered a new search engine called MediaWombat. It’s got a weird name and I would never have thought that it’s a search engine and a really cool one to boot. Now that you know that it is in fact a search engine, you might have already guessed that it’s a search engine for media files. You can search videos, audios, images and my personal favorite- Flash sites.

The search engine actually works a lot harder than other search engines available to us. Google, our favorite search engine, does not have the ability or does not want the ability to search Flash sites because of the tedious method and the amount of resources that it is needed to accomplish the task. It actually takes more hard disk space and RAM (memory) to index Flash sites. They have to be ripped apart and have their content hosted by the search engine server(s) in order to get them indexed. So the easy way out is just to get as much available text as possible from Flash websites, index them and display limited search result information and a link to the original URL.

MediaWombat crawls the internet looking for Flash files. After seeing one, it grabs the Flash file (.SWF) and rips it apart to get the content embedded in it. The content will then be indexed by the search engine to be available in the search results. This will be a great help to people looking for Flash content and for Flash site owners who wants their websites indexed properly.

The search results page is obviously rich in Flash and other media such as audio and video. The preview feature is pretty cool. You can choose which of the Flash content you want to view. You can preview the whole Flash page, embedded audio, images and videos. The text content is listed below the preview buttons and there is an email feature available for quick sharing.

The MediaWombat team created the search engine because of the large amount of un-indexed Flash content available in the internet, from YouTube videos to Flash Game sites to News sites. Flash sites are awesome to look at and navigation usually delivers an amazing browsing experience, but the problem is that they are not search engine friendly. In MediaWombat, all Flash and media files are very much welcome for indexing. They take as many parts of the Flash content as possible and index those parts.

The search engine is still on its very early stages and managed to crawl and index only a handful of flash sites (mostly game sites). The logo is also a no winner but they are actually making a more professional looking logo. They also said in their wiki page that they are not too in love with the name either. Any suggestions for the name (domain name) and logo will be a great help to them. Do you have some suggestions? We'd love to hear them.

The Dark Knight: A Conflict Between Good and Evil

SimonB — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:10:47 +1000

I had been anticipating the return of Batman to the silver screen after watching Chris Nolan's Batman Begins. The Dark Knight was entertaining and delivered much more than I expected. This film raises many great ideas, but in particular posed the question - can good exist without evil and vice versa?

The conflict between good and evil is one of the most common conventional themes in literature, and is sometimes considered to be a universal part of the human condition. Let's explore this by exploring some of the characters that are pivotal to the story of The Dark Knight:

The Joker is the villain in the movie. His aim is to test humanity. He isn't in it for the money, rather he wants to experiment to see how he can manipulate individuals. He has a strong interest in the human psyche - what drives us, what makes us tick? He is constantly testing society to find if good people can turn bad. We can see this with his experiment with Harvey Dent.

Harvey Dent represents the white knight. The good guy who wants to wipe out corruption and "fix" society. He's the pin up boy that everyone is cheering for, to clean society and bring justice against corruption using the power of the law.

Batman is the dark knight. The vigilante who does the work that no one else wants to do. He doesn't follow society's laws, but his own set of morals. Batman feels that Harvey Dent is the new protector of the city and the people will no longer need him, he can hand the mantle over to Dent as he is the white knight that Gotham city needs. Dent has the power of the law behind him and Batman recognizes his full potential to be the hero that Gotham wants.

The movie runs for about 2 and a half hours and is full of some great concepts and ideas, including the following:

White knight vs. Dark Knight - The hero Gotham needs vs. the hero Gotham city wants.
The idea that anyone given the right situation could turn evil.
This is personified in the "Joker's" character. Was he insane or did his character personify just pure evilness? I believe, Alfred sums it up best:

“Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
”

Overall, I think this movie has something for everyone. If you like a good story, you got it, if you like action, there’s plenty. If you want thought provoking tid-bits to talk about later, well you got that too. Definitely go see The Dark Knight in cinemas.

World Youth Day and Networking

Marie — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:39:36 +1000

Sydney, Australia is recently experiencing a large number of young visitors for World Youth Day 2008. Pope Benedict XVI landed in Australia yesterday for the festivities and ceremonies that will kick off tomorrow. This marks the fourth Papal visit to Australia.

Australia was chosen as the site of the 2008 World Youth Day celebrations and announced by Pope Benedict XVI during the conclusion of the 2005 World Youth Day celebrations in Cologne, Germany.

There has been significant criticism of the 2008 World Youth Day due to the quarter of a billion dollar funding arrangement from the Commonwealth and New South Wales State Governments. Both the Commonwealth and New South Wales State Governments have stated that the revenue generated by World Youth Day will offset these costs. Catholic schools and community centres have been kind enough to provide accomodation for the young group of people who are visiting Sydney. The NSW government have been busy trying to sort out the logistics, transportation and security issues, but so far everything seems to be going to plan.

World Youth Day was initiated by Pope John Paul II in 1984, that would bring together millions of young people on pilgrimage to Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia, and Oceania.

According to Wikipedia, the idea behind World Youth Day, stemmed from Pope John Paul II's experience with his young friends in Srodowisko and their exploration of the personal and vocational dynamics of adolescence and young adulthood. Srodowisko saw youth groups evolve into networks of intellectual conversation. Both youngsters and intellectuals got involved in vacation excursions.

We (Sydney siders) have been warned that there may be delays in public transportation, so we have a few choices to make during this period. We either take a break, work from home or stay away from the city during this hectic time. Luckily for us (or unlucky) we actually live very close to work but also a walking distance from the Sydney CBD. We are starting to see a lot of young pilgrims walking about in our already busy city.

Simon and I walked through Darling Harbour in Sydney on the weekend and took some photos of the preparation and impending celebrations in the coming days. You can see some of the photographs I've taken against this post.

Networking

One news report stated that networking is an important part of getting the pilgrims to World Youth Day 2008. On hearing this, it actually got me thinking about the concept of networking and it's application in our daily lives, business and on the internet.

1. Purpose of Networking - Some people network to gain new friends or new business opportunities. On the internet, you may be involved in social networking to obtain or share knowledge with like-minded people, to promote your business/brand, or simply to make new friends. Why do you network with other people?

2. Networking Benefits - By getting to know other people, you may find some that are extremely helpful and a great support system to have. They may add content to your blog/website, promote your product or idea and are generally good allies to bounce off ideas or share information with. When you meet people like these, don't take them for granted. Like any relationship it's a two-way street, so always maintain a sense of professionalism and respect for each other. If one party is constantly giving, while the other is constantly taking, it will certainly destroy that networking relationship. Try to be fair and balance with how you both approach things. Have you found some great people you are currently networking with?

3. Places to Network - In life, people can network through mutual friends, work, religious affliations, at sporting events, clubs, pubs, or just about anywhere where you may start up a conversation. Through the internet there are many social media sites you can join up with, you have all heard of many of them before so I will not mention them on this post. Depending on what it is you wish to achieve will define the type of social networking site that will work for you. If you want to promote your website/blog or just who you are, I've found that visiting regularly sites of interest and leaving quality and constructive comments or participating in the forums can help get you noticed. What has worked for you?

4. Creating a list of Friends - These days a lot of people have their own list of friends or are on someone's list of friends. This is great, provided that you are on a list with a group of like-minded people who share your ideas and understand the areas you are interested in. There's nothing like getting a shout on Digg (from a friend) about a new 'hot sports car' if you're interested in saving the environment. Therefore, find a list or group of people where you have a common ground. You do not need to agree on the same thing or like exactly the same thing, but having the same basic fundamental view of certain concepts will certainly help. Do you have a small or big list of friends? How effective is it?

Now look around, start networking with those around you and find a connection. You might be surprised with what you find out, what you may learn and what opportunities it may open up for you.