Google working together with Samsung has launched and upgraded laptop, called the Series 5 550 and the Chromebox, their vision of a desktop computer. It is available for $329 on the Google website.
31 May 2012
20 May 2012
Tough phones from JCB
One of our friends recently got a new phone - an iPhone 4. She was really excited and spent hours downloading apps, listenign to music, taking pictures - you get the idea. Well, one day, like a lot of us, she was in the toilet doing her business when the phone suddenly rang and you might have guessed what is coming - it slipped and dropped into the toilet.
Yesterday, I noticed a billboard advertising JCB mobile phones -called the Toughphone range. I never knew that JCB made mobile phones as well and was intrigued. Going through their website, I found out that they have 7 phones ranging from the basic Tradesman,which is waterproof and dustproof and is said to be the World's first floating phone to the Pro-Smart, which is an Android powered handset with 800MHz processor and expandable memory up to 32GB. With a 3.2 inch HVGA touchscreen, the phone also has a 5MP Camera plus front facing camera.
The Pro-Smart is water resistant and dust resistant (tested to IP67). It has a talk time of 550 mins and standby time of up to 360 hours. I am wondering how much the phone weighs as they have not provided the info on the site. It does look a bit bulky and not for everyone. But it would be great to stand out from the crowd of sleek iPhones and the like. The phone sells for £334.99 with free delivery.
This is not a unique scenario - in fact, according to an article on the Phones 4 U website, "Majority Of Water Damaged Mobiles Dropped In The Loo".
Anyway, after a few moments of hesitation, she promptly rescued the phone from the loo, turned it off (it was still working), wrapped it in loads of toilet paper and prayed. She did not take insurance and it was a costly monthly contract.
She was fortunate, after a thorough cleaning and drying, the phone was working perfectly. Hopefully, she has learnt from this mistake and would not be taking further calls in the toilet in the future.
I have never dropped phone in the toilet but old Sony Ericsson K770i lost it's camera function after my wife dropped it.
I once had a really tough which was waterproof as well (the Siemens M35i) and though I am not into adventure sports or working in construction or any occupation that involves a lot of rough work, it would be great to have a phone you would not have to worry about constantly.
Anyway, after a few moments of hesitation, she promptly rescued the phone from the loo, turned it off (it was still working), wrapped it in loads of toilet paper and prayed. She did not take insurance and it was a costly monthly contract.
She was fortunate, after a thorough cleaning and drying, the phone was working perfectly. Hopefully, she has learnt from this mistake and would not be taking further calls in the toilet in the future.
I have never dropped phone in the toilet but old Sony Ericsson K770i lost it's camera function after my wife dropped it.
Yesterday, I noticed a billboard advertising JCB mobile phones -called the Toughphone range. I never knew that JCB made mobile phones as well and was intrigued. Going through their website, I found out that they have 7 phones ranging from the basic Tradesman,which is waterproof and dustproof and is said to be the World's first floating phone to the Pro-Smart, which is an Android powered handset with 800MHz processor and expandable memory up to 32GB. With a 3.2 inch HVGA touchscreen, the phone also has a 5MP Camera plus front facing camera.
5 May 2012
Samung Galaxy SIII launched
One of the most eagerly awaited mobile phones is finally out and No! it's not an iPhone. It's the Samsung Galaxy SIII.
It will be available later in stores this month. No info about price though.
I haven't had the chance to get my hands on one as yet, so here are some reviews:
It will be available later in stores this month. No info about price though.
I haven't had the chance to get my hands on one as yet, so here are some reviews:
3 May 2012
Using an Applicant Tracking System
Guest Post
by Toney Naorem
You have to agree with me when I say that life has become a lot easier with the internet. Businesses have several tools at their disposal to make their processes simpler. Highlighting one such function - HR managers and other recruiting professionals are also using various new tools to assist them in finding the right candidates.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is one such tools that can help effectively manage and assist HR in hiring the right candidates. Some of the benefits include:
1. Saving time and money
2. Easy to implement
3. Archiving your hiring process for future reference.
Today many ATS are available and one of the simplest ones I have seen is Recruiterbox. It’s an online application that allows small companies to receive and manage job applications. It is currently the preferred applicant tracking system for companies such as Skyscanner, Groupon, Codecademy, Stripe and many more.
The app allows companies to receive resumes from multiple sources to its platform - from where they can be managed and sorted easily, and decisions can be made as a team. This includes auto-forwarding of emails and attachments to Recruiterbox, and sharing internal notes and scheduling interviews on its platform.
Using Recruiterbox, companies can promote their jobs to social networks and job search engines. The company also can have a dedicated careers micro-site where all your jobs are published. Imagine how useful it would be if all the recruitment was managed from one place, and the company wouldn't have to worry about its inbox being clogged by resumes, attachments flying back and forth, and useful information hidden beneath a pile of email.
Some of the other tools are Zoho Recruit, Simplicant, Unrabble, Jobscore, Theresumator and many more. Now it’s up to you to decide which one fits best with your company.
by Toney Naorem
You have to agree with me when I say that life has become a lot easier with the internet. Businesses have several tools at their disposal to make their processes simpler. Highlighting one such function - HR managers and other recruiting professionals are also using various new tools to assist them in finding the right candidates.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is one such tools that can help effectively manage and assist HR in hiring the right candidates. Some of the benefits include:
1. Saving time and money
2. Easy to implement
3. Archiving your hiring process for future reference.
Today many ATS are available and one of the simplest ones I have seen is Recruiterbox. It’s an online application that allows small companies to receive and manage job applications. It is currently the preferred applicant tracking system for companies such as Skyscanner, Groupon, Codecademy, Stripe and many more.
The app allows companies to receive resumes from multiple sources to its platform - from where they can be managed and sorted easily, and decisions can be made as a team. This includes auto-forwarding of emails and attachments to Recruiterbox, and sharing internal notes and scheduling interviews on its platform.
Using Recruiterbox, companies can promote their jobs to social networks and job search engines. The company also can have a dedicated careers micro-site where all your jobs are published. Imagine how useful it would be if all the recruitment was managed from one place, and the company wouldn't have to worry about its inbox being clogged by resumes, attachments flying back and forth, and useful information hidden beneath a pile of email.
Some of the other tools are Zoho Recruit, Simplicant, Unrabble, Jobscore, Theresumator and many more. Now it’s up to you to decide which one fits best with your company.
30 Apr 2012
SEO is a slow and tedious process
updated: 1 May 2012
SEO work should be an on-going process and not a one-off project. A lot of people expect to see immediate results and this is possible sometimes. For example, I won a SEO challenge organised by the Wangcyber forum. This was quite easy as the keyword Melayu Boleh was not very competitive.
Moving up too fast may not be good
I personally believe that the best SEO strategy is to build links incrementally, keep making regular updates and try to move up steadily. If the site moves up too fast, it will set alarm bells ringing at Google HQ and might be penalised (I have seen this happening in the past with sites moving from PR4 to 0 and completely disappearing from results).
If you hire a good SEO expert or SEO company, you should be able to see improvements in your search engine results after a month (of course, improvements depend on the competitiveness of rankings).
Keywords help but not much
Some people seem to think that SEO is all about adding keywords in the title but I personally think that the effects are negligible. If you do not believe me, you can try adding keywords on your web pages and see whether they are able to move up 10+ on search engine results. I have found that Tags on the site, key words and the number of updates do matter. However, link backs are what makes the biggest difference.
Page rankings and social media
Search rankings and results are based not only on the links to the page but also the page rankings of the sites that link back. The higher the Google page rank of the site, the better.
Do not forget to link from social media: Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace, Google +, Facebook and Pininterst. This is where my strength lies because I have several thousand followers on my social media, even higher than several companies who do it commercially.
To conclude, I would like to stress that SEO work is a slow and tedious process and it is indeed very hard to show substantial improvements for certain keywords in just one month, unless it is very unique and not competitive.
SEO work should be an on-going process and not a one-off project. A lot of people expect to see immediate results and this is possible sometimes. For example, I won a SEO challenge organised by the Wangcyber forum. This was quite easy as the keyword Melayu Boleh was not very competitive.
Moving up too fast may not be good
I personally believe that the best SEO strategy is to build links incrementally, keep making regular updates and try to move up steadily. If the site moves up too fast, it will set alarm bells ringing at Google HQ and might be penalised (I have seen this happening in the past with sites moving from PR4 to 0 and completely disappearing from results).
If you hire a good SEO expert or SEO company, you should be able to see improvements in your search engine results after a month (of course, improvements depend on the competitiveness of rankings).
Keywords help but not much
Some people seem to think that SEO is all about adding keywords in the title but I personally think that the effects are negligible. If you do not believe me, you can try adding keywords on your web pages and see whether they are able to move up 10+ on search engine results. I have found that Tags on the site, key words and the number of updates do matter. However, link backs are what makes the biggest difference.
Page rankings and social media
Search rankings and results are based not only on the links to the page but also the page rankings of the sites that link back. The higher the Google page rank of the site, the better.
Do not forget to link from social media: Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace, Google +, Facebook and Pininterst. This is where my strength lies because I have several thousand followers on my social media, even higher than several companies who do it commercially.
To conclude, I would like to stress that SEO work is a slow and tedious process and it is indeed very hard to show substantial improvements for certain keywords in just one month, unless it is very unique and not competitive.
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