Writing with Pathos and Flair

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Google Apps: Should You Switch?

The suite and others like it are visions of a possible future when all software will be delivered over the internet. Does the arrival of Google Apps Premier Edition signal the death of desktop software dinosaurs like Microsoft Office?
--Google Apps: Should You Switch?

Just what I was talking about: cloud computing.

everybody's favourite David turned Goliath just came out with a revamped suite of webapps.

now your email, word processor, presentations, spreadsheet, calendar, contacts and chat can live online--with your very own intranet thrown in to boot.

it's not a desktop replacement yet, but it's getting there. as it is, it's a good desktop supplementation.

the status right now: good enough; and it's free.

would you switch from Microsoft Office to Google Apps?

Got a stroke? bleed your fingers...

I'm posting this to alert anyone who googles it up, that it is false information.

pricking a stroke victim's fingers and ears is not going to reverse the stroke. you'll just have a bleeding, rapidly deteriorating stroke victim.

get the scoop at http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/stroke.asp.

the email making the rounds (and posted on many blogs as true when I googled it) is reproduced below in all its glorious zaniness. I mean, look at Step 6! "If the victim's mouth is crooked, then pull on his ears until they are red."


         A NEEDLE CAN SAVE THE LIFE OF A STROKE PATIENT -
         From a Chinese professor.
         Keep a syringe or needle in your home to do this...
         It's amazing and an unconventional way of recovering from stroke,
         read it through it can help somebody one day.
         This is amazing. Please keep this very handy.
         Excellent tips. Do take a minute to read this.
         You'll never know, ones life may depend on you.

         My father was paralysed and later died from the result of a stroke
         I wish I knew about this first aid before.
         When stroke strikes, the capillaries in the brain will
         gradually burst.' (Irene Liu)
         When a stroke occurs, stay calm.

         No matter where the victim is, do not move him/her.
         Because, if moved, the capillaries will burst.

         Help the victim to sit up where he/she is to prevent him/her
         from falling over again and then the blood letting can begin.

         If you have in your home an injection syringe that would be the best.
         Otherwise, a sewing needle or a straight pin will do.

         1. Place the needle/pin over fire to sterilize it and then use
         it to prick the tip of all ......10 fingers.
         2.. There are no specific acupuncture points,
         just prick about an mm from the fingernail..
         3. Prick till blood comes out.
         4. If blood does not start to drip, then squeeze with your fingers.
         5. When all 10 digits is bleeding, wait a few minutes then the
         victim will regain consciousness.
         6. If the victim's mouth is crooked, then pull on his ears
         until they are red.
         7. Then prick each earlobe twice until two drops of blood comes
         from each earlobe.
         After a few minutes the victim should regain consciousness.

         Wait till the victim regains his normal state without any
         abnormal symptoms then take him to the hospital.Otherwise,
         if he was taken in the ambulance in a hurry to the hospital,
         the bumpy trip will cause all the capillaries in his brain to burst.

         If he could save his life, barely managing to walk, then it is
         by the grace of his ancestors.

          'I learned about letting blood to save life from Chinese
         traditional doctor, Ha Bu Ting, who lives in Sun Juke.

         Furthermore, I had practical experience with it.
         Therefore, I can say this method is 100% effective.

         In 1979, I was teaching in Fung Gaap College in Tai Chung.
         One afternoon, I was teaching a class when another
         teacher came running to my classroom and said in panting,
         'Ms Liu, come quick, our supervisor has had a stroke!'
         I immediately went to the 3rd floor.
         When I saw our supervisor, Mr. Chen Fu Tien, his colour was off, his
         speech was slurred, his mouthwas crooked - all the symptoms of a stroke.
         I immediately asked one of the practicum students to go to the
         pharmacy outside the school to buy a syringe,
         which I used to prick Mr. Chen's 10 fingers tips.
         When all 10 fingers were bleeding
         (each with a pea-sized drop of blood), after a few minutes, Mr.
         Chen's face regained its colour and his eyes' spirit returned, too.
         But his mouth was still crooked.
         So I pulled on his ears to fill them with blood.
         When his ears became red,
         I pricked hisright earlobe twice to let out two drops of blood.
         When both earlobes had two drops of blood each, a miracle happened.
         Within 3-5 minutes the shape of his mouth returned to normal
         and his speech became clear.
         We let him rest for a while and
         have a cup of hot tea, then we helped him go down the stairs,
         drove him to Wei Wah Hospital. He rested one night and was
         released the next day to return to school to teach.
         Everything worked normally.   There were no ill after effects.
         On the other hand, the usual stroke victim usually suffers
         Irreparable bursting of the brain capillaries on the way to the hospital.
         As a result, these victims never recover.' (Irene
         Liu)Therefore, stroke is the second cause of death.The lucky
         ones will stay alive but can remain paralysed for life.
         It is such a horrible thing to happen in ones life.

         If we can all remember this blood letting method and
         start the life saving process immediately, in a short time, the
         victim will be revived and regain 100% normality.


         IF POSSIBLE PLEASE FORWARD THIS AFTER READING. YOU NEVER KNOW
         IT MAY HELP SAVE A LIFE FROM STROKE.


please spread the word and save potential stroke victims from dying with bloody fingers and swollen ears.

DDB Chicago Creative Believed to Have Taken His Own Life

The Cook County Medical Examiner's office today confirmed that Mr. Tilley died after falling from the Fairmont Hotel, which sits next to DDB's office in the Aon Center here, and that the death had been ruled a suicide.
Paul Tilley Dies at 40 - Advertising Age - News

This is sad news, today.

please don't push yourself too hard.

Top Ten Reasons to Quit Your Job

These are the top ten reasons why you might want to quit your current job. --Top Ten Reasons to Quit Your Job

I once quit a job because of a Number 4 and a Number 9.

sometimes it really is better to quit so that you can live to play again. I have a friend who quit because of Number 6, and friends who've held on despite Number 5 and Number 9, and are languishing while their job skills degenerate. what if their skills degenerate beyond the use of any possible future job?

have you ever scored in any of these ten reasons to quit?

on the matter of quitting, an excellent book to read is Seth Godin's The Dip. it talks about when to quit (and when to press on). good stuff!

Mobile Apps 2: Rise of the Webapp

In loving memory of the mobile applications business. Adoring child of Java, Psion, Palm OS and Windows Mobile; doting parent of Symbian, Access Linux Platform, and S60; constant companion of Handango and Motricity. Scared the crap out of Microsoft in 2000. Passed away from strangulation at the hands of the mobile industry in 2008. Awaiting resurrection as a web service in 2009. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make a donation to the Yahoo takeover defense fund.
--Mobile Opportunity: Mobile applications, RIP

An ex-Palm developer talks about the death of the dedicated mobile app and the rise of the mobile webapp.

another harbinger of Web 3.0.

and when I say Web 3.0, I mean that it will be to Web 2.0 what Windows 3.0 was to Windows 2.0. which is to say that it will finally be usable for Joe User.

although we might have to wait for "Web 95" for webapps to finally get up to speed. nyuk, nyuk.

I'd previously written about how my Personal Operating System is the Web. this is due to the amazing amount of stuff I actually do using Firefox (by intention). my contacts, calendar, notes, documents, email, everything, are accessible through the web. Outlook, Mac Address Book, iCal, Google Calendar, Google Docs, beloved Gmail--all these synced together with Plaxo. (at first I thought Firefox was my Personal OS, but then I realised that I don't need to use Firefox. any compliant web browser would do.)

so the web's my personal OS, with Firefox as my favourite user interface.

and I ain't that fringe. lots of people are doing this. (as an aside, see Cloudo.) and now with the iPhone and pretenders, it's infecting the mobile world.

do you have an online setup? would you setup a cloud computer?

Geeks' Geek Switches to Mac

Point is: I'm not going 'all' Apple.
In time, this will all become easier to manage - but there's no time like the present to shelve the last ten years of Windows enthusiasm and... switch.
--50 Reasons to Switch from Microsoft Windows to Apple's Mac OS X ~ Chris Pirillo

Chris Pirillo has switched.

if you know him, this is huge news. I used to follow his tech newsletter chock-full of fascinating shareware reviews and advice for Windows users. he was really an avid Windows advocate.

he's still an avid Microsoft advocate, as you will read. but as an ubergeek, he's come to the reasoned conclusion that OS X is better than Windows for you and me, the average power user.

hey, wasn't the Mac born as "the computer for the rest of us"?

Mac users: fifty reasons why you're not crazy.

do you have a preference between Windows and OS X? (assuming you've worked seriously with both. I do. every day.)

2 web-based time-tracking apps that help productivity

I'm very happy to have found SlimTimer and RescueTime.

One is a no-brainer, push-button time tracker, and the other is a hands-off time and usage log. Now this is something that is better suited for the digital medium than paper. It's mindless, automatic, aggregated. As opposed to thoughtful, strategic, creative.

Over the next several days I shall discover how useful and worthwhile, or otherwise, these two web apps are.

Do you have any stories to share about these web apps or time tracking in general?

Ad exec stuns girlfriend with RM54,000 marriage proposal

I looked and was stunned. David's picture was on the board! And beside his picture, were the magic words 'Kelly Tan E Li, will you marry me?'
--Ad exec stuns girlfriend with RM54,000 marriage proposal

How serendipitous that reporter and cameraman were on scene.

what an amazing coincidence that they were able to capture this fleeting celebration of love!

The Fear of Holy Books

Predictably the first to react to the seizure of the Bibles were the Christians of Malaysia. But it is sad to note that the same level of anger and outrage that was expressed by Muslims over the Muslim-bashing sentiments of a Dutch politician thousands of miles away was not evident when this outrage was perpetrated on their own shores.
--The Other Malaysia - The Fear of Holy Books

Abortion: Two wrongs don't make a right. How about three?

I will never forget the 17-year-old girl lying on a stretcher with 6 feet of small bowel protruding from her vagina. She survived.
--Why I am an abortion doctor

A harrowing tale that sheds light on why a doctor would perform abortions.

it doesn't change my opinion, but it does temper my stance with more compassion.

it's a question on whom we pity more: the "careless" woman who made a "mistake" or the innocent baby created because of that indiscretion.

the mother gets to plead her case; her baby has no voice. (and the man often gets away scot-free.)

who needs our help more?

we need to decide. this doctor made his decision (honourably, whether "right" or "wrong").

most of those who oppose abortion have not seen the horrors this doctor has seen.

but then, most of those who are pro-abortion have never seen the horrors visited on the unborn babies either.

such a tough choice.

not tough, sitting in an armchair, but really tough, in the real world.

what would you do if you were him?

It's Super Bowl ad season again

From Anheuser-Busch's spot with Will Ferrell to Justin Timberlake's action-packed Pepsi spot and Coca Cola's 'It's Mine,' watch them all as often as you like.
--Watch All the Super Bowl Spots - Advertising Age

BlackBerry Blackouts for work/life balance

The department's [Citizenship and Immigration Canada] deputy minister, Richard Fadden, sent out a memo asking employees to implement a BlackBerry 'blackout' between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. and on weekends and holidays. --"BlackBerry blackouts" aim for life/work balance | Tech News on ZDNet

Sounds like a great idea. if management has the will to enforce it after implementing it, it will fly.

let's see what happens.

Peg Leg Pig

Farmers Jones and McDonald were sitting on Farmer McDonald's porch
discussing plowing technique when Farmer Jones notices a pig with a
wooden leg hobbling across the front yard. He turned to his friend and
asks, "Say, Fred, how'd that pig get him a wooden leg?"

"Well, Mike, that pig...," his eyes mist up, "That pig's a mighty
special pig! A few weeks back a wild boar attacked me while I was
walking in the woods. That pig there came a runnin', went after that
boar and fought him off. Saved my life!"

"And the boar tore up his leg?" "No, just got a few scratches, nothing
serious. But that night the barn caught fire. That ol' pig started
squealin' like he was stuck, woke us up, and 'fore we got out here,
the darn thing had herded the other animals out of the barn and saved
'em all!"

"So that's when he hurt his leg, huh, Fred?" "No, Mike, the next day
my tractor hit a rock and rolled down the hill into the pond. I got
knocked clean out. When I came to, that pig had dove into the pond and
dragged me out."

"...but that's not how he hurt his leg." "Oh no, no, he was fine.
Cleaned him up real nice, too."

"Okay, Fred. So just tell me. How did he lose his leg?"

"Well", the farmer tells him, "A pig that good, you don't want to eat
all at once."

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Alpha Lim
Kuala Lumpur, Klang Valley, Malaysia
Alpha Lim is a professional copywriter who would like nothing better than to see every man, woman and child writing their hearts out with pathos and flair for fun and profit. His idiosyncrasies include trying to say as much as possible in as few words as necessary, as can be seen all over his blog about copywriting and reflective writing at http://blog.passionista.net/
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