Joao Rei's ramblings

 

Skype launches Skype To Go, a service for mobile phone calling from abroad

 I got this message today on my inbox.

Looks like Skype is entering the mobile phone realm, by launching a service that allows you to make cheap phone calls to other numbers using a special Skype To Go number.

This is huge news, specially in Europe, where roaming charges are still ridiculously high, and prevent people from calling more to other countries. I for sure will use this feature. I was already using my Skype for symbian for my Nokia phone, but I was limited to a good wifi connection and the sound quality was not that good. 


Hi joao.reiwww.skype.com
We've activated your Skype To Go number.
When you bought Skype Credit or your subscription, you got a Skype To Go number as part of your purchase.

It's the easy way to use your Skype Credit or subscription from your mobile to call phones abroad – really handy when you can't get to a computer.

There's nothing to download or set up – we've done it for you. Simply dial your Skype To Go number from the mobile you registered with Skype and get talking.
How to use it
1
Dial your Skype to Go number:

Call from your registered mobile. Forgotten which number you registered? Check it or update it now
2 Then enter the phone number of the person you'd like to say hi to. 
Enter 00, their country code, then their number eg 00 44 77123456
Remember: save your Skype To Go number on your mobile so it's there to use whenever you need to call abroad.
Find out more about Skype To Go numbers and call rates
Happy calling
The people at Skype
Archive for

December 2009

 

The beginning of spam on Google Chat...

 Today marks the day when spam reaches Google Chat.

I login to my Gmail and an Off-line message appears from team@talkonaut.com with a spammy message about very cheap calls from the web.

I remember the days when ICQ, MSN were ridden with spambots and spam messages. Even Skype started suffering from that. Is it the turn of Gchat?

Has this happened to you? Have you experienced spam messages on your Gchat? 

Picture_10

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December 2009

 

Merry Christmas everyone!!
A little fun while decorating the Christmas tree.

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December 2009

 

Lipdub - I gotta feeling by the Board of European Students of Technology (BEST)
Very well directed!

proud of my former student association! Wish we had done something like this in my days!! Well done guys!
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December 2009

 

Why does my mom's blog get more visitors than mine?
Ok, there's a part of me that gets upset every time I log in to my analytics account and see that my mother's blog outperforms mine by a factor of 8x. 

She has a blog about her recipes. http://www.receitasdaelisa.com

But mostly, I'm just amazed at the fact that my mother (who is close to 60) is actively  (well, the last blog post was from last Christmas... but still...) blogging and her blog gets around 60-80 visitors a day!

Receitas

How many people (of around my age) can say that their mother's are blogging?

A bit of background. My mother is an excellent cook (I'm sure yours is too, but mine is exceptionally good)

So, how did I get my mother blogging?
It all started two years ago. I had been living in Estonia for about a year, and my mother's birthday was approaching fast. I needed to give her a present, but was lacking ideas. This was about the same time that I had just registered two domains for myself. www.joaorei.eu and www.joaorei.net I still wasn't sure what I would do with either (still not sure) but I wanted to control my online presence, and another Joao Rei had taken joaorei.com (he's not doing anything with it really, still under construction since 2007).

So, I decided to buy my mother a domain name and set up a blogger.com account for her. That's how it started it. That was my birthday gift to my mother that year.

I assume she liked it, she started posting avidly for a while. Mostly her favorite recipes, and mine too. Like this delicious pear tart recipe

Some comparisons

Her blog is in Portuguese, and so she gets 80% of her visitors from Portugal, but she also gets a considerable amount of visitors from other Portuguese speaking countries, like Brasil, Angola and Mozambique. There are also visitors from Portuguese communities living abroad, like in Switzerland, France, Germany and the U.S.

Her viewers spend almost 1 minute on average on her site, compared to my viewers who walk away after about 35 seconds. That's almost double the time!

I get most of my visitors from referring sites (Twitter, facebook, and a mailing list I usually send my blog posts if they're interesting). But I also get a lot of direct traffic.

My mother's blog in comparison gets most of her traffic (95%) through search engines!
Sourcesmae
And she does no SEO, has no active adwords campaigns, no paid advertising to get traffic. Nothing! 

Just one thing makes our sites different

Content. Good content. Good, quality, relevant, unique content.

See, I usually just repost stuff I find interesting on the web, or I might occasionally comment on an issue I've been reading about. But the amount of original content is very small. I post more often than she does, but I repeat a lot of what is already there. 
She, on the other hand, always posts unique versions of a recipe. The way she cooks it, and she adds personal touches to the end of most of her recipes. She talks about how to make them look nicer or how to present them or serve them. 

Post with pictures are the most popular in terms of comments from views, and traditional sweets and cakes are the most searched for keywords on her blog.

Last year, for Christmas she broke the 300 visitors a day barrier, and got 311 visitors on December 23rd. I expect this Christmas will be even better.

There are ads on the site, google ads and amazon affiliate ads. They yield no return, so I might actually consider removing them. They clutter the site needlessly.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions for my mother's recipe blog? Let me know!

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December 2009

 

[Google Fast Flip] Trickle Effect

 Sent to you by joao.rei via Google Fast Flip:

Trickle Effect

How to protect small communities, preserve wildlife, and mitigate climate change? For one leading researcher, it all starts in the forest. UN peace messenger and British primatologist Jane Goodall, the world's most famous authority on chimpanzees, is taking questions about Copenhagen. By Daniel Stone | Newsweek Web Exclusive Please fill in the following Newsweek Trickle Effect...

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December 2009

 

[Google Fast Flip] It's All About Selling for Survival

 Sent to you by joao.rei via Google Fast Flip:

It's All About Selling for Survival

by Vivek Wadhwa on December 12, 2009 The one skill which entrepreneurs need is something they don't teach in business school—selling. Yes, I know that “selling” conjures up negative images of used-car salesmen peddling clunkers. But the ability to persuade people to believe in you is a necessity. That's because sales is not just about selling TechCrunch It's All About Selling for Survival...

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December 2009

 

Corporations, businesses, capitalism - wikipedia discussion pages

There is a statement which says that 'Corporations exist to provide products and/or services that produce profits for their shareholders' and the cite is from Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports. This statement lumps far too many things in the same box. Corporations, business in society, capitalism and why people go into business are all different things. Please consider the following:

-The purpose of using a corporation is to provide legal protection for owners (shareholders) who hire managers to run the daily operations of their business. ("Corporations" The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 11, No. 5 (Mar., 1902), pp. 223-245)("Are Corporations Morally Defensible?" Gillian Brock Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 703-721)

-The purpose of businesses in a capitalist society is to provide efficient division of labor so that society can benefit from the innovativeness driven by competition. (The Natural Roots of Capitalism and Its Virtues and Values Sherwin Klein Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Jul., 2003), pp. 387-401)(Realizing the Spirit and Impact of Adam Smith's Capitalism through Entrepreneurship Realizing the Spirit and Impact of Adam Smith's Capitalism through Entrepreneurship Scott L. Newbert Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Sep., 2003), pp. 251-261)

-Why individuals do business is to maximize their own personal exchange in a market. ("The Why's of Business Revisited" Ronald F. Duska Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 16, No. 12/13, From the Universities to the Marketplace: The Business Ethics Journey: The Second Annual International Vincentian Conference Promoting Business Ethics (Sep., 1997), pp. 1401-1409)

Consider the following quote about capitalism: “More than two centuries ago, Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiment and The Wealth of Nations wherein he argued that capitalism was a system of economic organization whereby social welfare can be most efficiently created through the pursuit of economic and moral self-interest. However, due to the undue focus on the latter of these two works, modern economic thinking has become dominated by the belief that the pursuit of economic self-interests alone will engender the greatest social welfare. Unfortunately, such reasoning becomes problematic when the externalities that often spawn from economically driven capitalist endeavors are considered. It appears then that in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of a capitalist system, the interests of both the self and society must be considered, which of course was Adam Smith’s argument.” (Newbert 2003 from above).

I would take out that first statement and revise the second so that we avoid the debate in this section.

The Purpose and role of a business

Businesses in our society can influence every aspect of our lives. They have such power and can create trends so easily that they have an obligation to promote good. Their shear size, power, and monetary influence allows them to heavily sway public opinion.


From the Wikipedia discussion page for Corporate Social Responsibility

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December 2009

 

[Google Fast Flip] The Eurocrats Europe Needs

 Sent to you by joao.rei via Google Fast Flip:

The Eurocrats Europe Needs

Catherine Ashton and Herman Van Rompuy should suit the European Union -- and that's all that matters. BY JAMES JOYNER | DECEMBER 1, 2009 Today, two obscure figures will take to the highest posts in the new European Council: Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as president and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton as high representative for foreign Foreign Policy The Eurocrats Europe Needs...

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December 2009

12
To Posterous, Love Metalab