I’m not really sure what to say… besides, go get a hamster and “let’s get it on!”
(Link)
WhiteAfrican
Where Africa and Technology Collide!
Page 104 of 109
HDT created a diesel motorcycle out of a Kawasaki KLR650 for the US Military, specifically the US Marines. Word on the street is that HDT will be taking orders for the civilian “Bulldog” variant by the end of 2005.
I couldn’t help but think how useful a piki piki (motorcycle) like this would be, especially in developing countries where the need for strong and reliable transportation is important. The Bulldog gets 102 Mpg at 55 Mph – folks, that’s a heck of a long way!
M over at Thinker’s Room has written up a dandy little article on why you should know more about Alternative Secure Shopping and about his travails in this part of the online industry. I couldn’t agree with him more on how hot ASSes are getting in todays marketplace.
I always find it gratifying when people move from the strategizing phase to the hands-on phase, which appears to be what M has been up to for the last 6 months. Please, take the time to read this wonderful insiders account: Me and my ASS
Many of the mainstream news agencies and those who focus on search in discussion groups often only lightly touch on Local Search. Local Search is overlooked by most search professionals, mainly due to the fact that there are bigger fish out there for them to tap as clients.
Search professionals tend to focus on large companies with bigger marketing budgets. If you can find a client willing to pay you $30k per month to manage their SEM, why would you bother going after 6 clients who can pay you $5k each? This means that there is extra competition among search professionals in the upper-end of the market, but that leaves a vast majority of small- to mid-sized companies still untapped for SEM business.
At some point a company will figure out how to break into and completely monopolize the lower-end of the search business – Local Search. A few companies already have offerings in this are, the best being Reach Local. Reach Local’s service allows you to pre-set your spending budget, provides a website for those that don’t have one, and also tracks:
- Web Site Visits
- Phone Calls
- E-Mails
- Coupons
A tool, like the one Reach Local provides, allows a smaller company who doesn’t have the time or resources to manage a complicated search campaign access to the big leagues of search. The best thing about Local Search is that it’s local – meaning it provides focused results that don’t waste the company’s money on wasted and meaningless clicks.
I came across an interesting web tool today called eSnips. I’m giving it a whirl now to see if I find it useful, but the feedback I’ve read online has been pretty much positive all the way around. TipMonkies and Passing Notes both give it a “thumbs up”.
eSnips, by Net Snippets, is billing itself as a free online research management tool. It has substantial storage space of 1 Gb, and comes with an easy to use interface and a downloadable toolbar to make the upload job even easier.
So, you might be wondering what you can “snip” that might be of use to you. Well, here’s a list:
- Links
- Text
- Images
- Video Files
- Full Pages
- Data/Images from your personal machine
The real benefit is that you can share your research whether it’s useful, useless or otherwise. Though you might have other ways of transporting or storing data, from what I see so far you probably don’t have something as easy to use and fully integrated into the web as eSnips.
My Advice: Give it a try and see if you like it… It’s FREE and it’s from a reputable company.
Africa Insight: Many computer users in Africa don’t have a computer, they go to net cafes. Besides a large 2 Gb Gmail account, this might be a great way for those users to increase storage space and be able to access it from any cafe or computer they have access to.
Wow, now this is just plain funny.
For some reason I’m posting random thoughts more than anything of true merit lately. Regardless, please listen to this audio sound bite by Lady Raptastic and Britney Spears called “Britney and Me”. I was truly rolling in the office when someone pointed me to it.
The rest of the blog can get a little wierd, but this was priceless!
Surprise, surprise! I had no idea that September 19th was the official “Talk Like a Pirate Day“. Had I known this yesterday, I might have prepared a costume… maybe not, but I would have thought of some good pirate banter in order to fulfill my obligation to this great day. Scallywags and bilge rats be warned!
If Pirates Ruled! – Photoshop contest (very funny)
In honor of this illustrious day, I will post a few pirate images, links to stories, and links to modern day pirates.
Modern day pirates – a story:
Link to a random funny blog post about Talk Like A Pirate Day.
Just when you think you’ve seen everything someone comes up with a great way to reuse old and used clothing, blankets, parachutes, jackets, towels, scrap leather, buttons…. you get my point… to make shoes.
I’m sitting here comparing my two backgrounds. My American/Western culture side of me says that this is a creative way to recycle used goods. My African side tells me that anyone willing to pay over $100 for a gimmick shoe is crazy! Can you imagine someone trying to sell these at the Kawangware market in Nairobi?
Anyway, Worn Again is a good marketing mini-site and viral campaign for Anti-Apathy, and will probably raise some money for them at the same time.
Click on the picture for a larger version, which you can use as a desktop background (right-click > “set as wallpaper”):
Finally, one of the big boys has joined the blog search niche. I wrote about this at an earlier date (Blog Search vs. Standard Search) on my company’s corporate blog, so it’s interesting to watch it unfold.
I’m not surprised that Google created it’s own blog search tool, but as of now I’m underwhelmed by it. I’ll stick to Technorati and Blo.gs until something truly better comes along. You can try out the new Google blog search at blogsearch.google.com.
© 2025 WhiteAfrican
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑