Twickenham & Smoking Banned…

Just read this fantastic news that the ban on smoking in public (indoor) places in England kicks off on 01 July 2007… pity it can’t start sooner…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6196910.stm

… which reminded me of Saturday… I was very fortunate to watch the Springboks beat England at Twickenham, along with great hospitality before and after the match in the Orchard facility. The only draw back to the whole day was that smoking was allowed in the hospitality facility (a “semi permanent structure” – or “a marqee with walls” as ordinary people call it!). I checked it out with the manager there and his reply was “Yes, I know, but smoking IS allowed”!!! Fortunately by the next lot of Autumn internationals, smoking in enclosed spaces will be against the law.

How to make clients think you’re good

It was like dejavu when I read this article, as it’s along the lines of my thinking lately.

This article is focussed on contractors, but I think it’s valid advice for whole IT departments! Just like real life, and politics, you need to spin things a bit if you want to create the right impression.

http://www.contractoruk.com/002976.html

A gadget to stop snoring…

http://www.gadgetuniverse.com/product_detail.asp?SKU=TH+375

Looks almost too good to be true, shocking in fact  - I snore… my brother has video evidence!! 

Google gets into Newspaper Advertising…

In the news today… Google has got a trial to put the AdWords model into print media. It was only a matter of time before this happened, but it’s great news for advertisers – and if they embrace it sensibly for newspaper publishers too.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-11-06-google-ads_x.htm

Three golden rules of success for running an IT department

Another great article from Silicon.com, written by Luke Mellors (never met him, but I used to work with his wife!)…

Three Golden Rules (in order)

1. Commitment
2. Business
3. Innovation

Why Ebay bought PayPal…

This silicon.com article, One in three have a PayPal account, shows why Ebay stumped up for PayPal a few years back… one in three UK adults have an account – that’s a fantastic reach of customers and a massive cross-selling opportunity.

As seen in the Mail & Guardian

I tipped off the Editor of South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper/website yesterday about my mango discovery… the Editor thanked me, got his team onto it, and within hours it was on the front page of www.mg.co.za. Here’s the article…

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=288612

Update on flymango.com site… slow slow – but at least it loads up today.

Vrot* Mango / Rotten Mango

I wrote about flymango.com yesterday… well the demand has overwhelmed them and people are struggling to access their website. So I guess it’s going to be a lot like SAA…

 While waiting for their website to load, I had a dig around their code… and found some interesting stuff!

For starters they are doing load-balancing using Javascript redirection (embarrasing), but even more interesting is a list of domains they have registered, which is listed in the code source.

Here’s the list…
“www.flymango.co.za”, “www.flymango.com”, “www.mangocarhire.com”, “www.mangocarrental.com”, “www.mangocars.com”, “www.mangocarhire.co.za”, “www.mangocarrental.co.za”, “www.mangocars.co.za”, “www.neverflymango.com”, “www.mangosucks.com“, “www.vrotmango.com”, “www.rottenmango.com”, “www.neverfly-mango.com”, “www.mango-sucks.com”, “www.vrot-mango.com”, “www.rotten-mango.com“, “www.fly-mango.com”, “www.neverflymango.co.za“, “www.mangosucks.co.za“, “www.vrotmango.co.za“, “www.rottenmango.co.za”, “www.neverfly-mango.co.za”, “www.mango-sucks.co.za”, “www.vrot-mango.co.za”, “www.rotten-mango.co.za”, “www.gomango.co.za”, “www.go-mango.co.za”, “www.flymango.co.za”, “www.fly-mango.co.za”, “www.mangojuice.com”

…they obviously don’t rate themselves either… with fun names like “rotten mango” and “neverfly-mango”! It looks like they will soon be getting into car rental soon too!

* Vrot means “rotten” in Afrikaans.

SAA sprouts Mango (low cost airline)

The name was released today, the new low cost airline backed by SAA will be called Mango. Their website flymango.com goes live at midnight tonight.

Free and Easy ways to increase natural/organic search results

Immitation, flattery… you know how it works! Checking out how other people succeed is a sure method of inspiration. This method tipped me off to two sites that seem to be getting good natural listings:

• www.aboutus.org (a wiki domain directory – with a cool robot that spiders sites for info)
• www.free-news-release.com (a free public relations release submission site – spidered by Google)