For my reference, next time I want to go Jamba Juice.

http://www.mightyfoods.com/archives/2006/06/trend_secret_menus_jamba_juice.html

I am sure you all know about this site, if you have a very large file that you can’t email to someone, you can upload it to this site, then the recepient can download it by receiving an email notification about it.

Maybe not the best thing to use if you have confidential/sensitive docs, but then again you can triple encrypt it for protection.

Anyways, writing this since I forgot the URL today and I needed, so for my own reference: www.yousendit.com

My first cousin whom I had a chance to reconnect with after som 16 years while we were both serving as volunteers at the Baha’i World Centre has picked up painting and as a proud counsin I thought I would give a shout out to him and link to his site. In my eyes at least, he has talent…

As a new resident of US, I saw my first State of the Union speech by President Bush on TV tonight. I didn’t expect this to be particularly eventful, but after the first few minutes I couldn’t take the constant ovations which became just a huge distraction. After few more minutes, I started to realize the synchronized, orchestrated standing ovations of the right part of the audience and then left part and followed by the entire audience giving standing ovations making me realize depending on what the topic was (driven by republicans or the democrats), the republicans (or democrats) of the crowd would give standing ovation. And as true sports fan each camp was sitting together.

So what did he say? No idea as I was too distracted by the applauds and synchronized ovations, just like a football game. I found it amusing though…

I found this clip by the comedian Omid Jalili very funny on the topic of conflict resolution…

With Microsoft office 2007 being out, and if you have not heard it, but use Word/Excel regularly, you still have some time before the new Office document format will force you to upgrade, you might also have heard or seen the new menu system used in office 2007Â called ‘the Ribbon.

New menu system brings confusion to the user that like to use the mouse to perform different actions as they will be wondering where each command . Fear not though, as there is an interactive website where you can look for a command in Word, Excel or Power Point 2003 and it will tell you where to find those commands in the respective 2007 versions.

• Word 2003 Commands in 2007
• PowerPoint 2003 Commands in 2007
• Excel 2003 Commands in 2007

The life story of Mona (Mahmudnizhad), a 16 year old children classes teacher is a well known one amongst the Baha’is. Mona along with 9 other Baha’i women were executed by hanging for being Baha’is.

Despite efforts from the International community, the threat against the Baha’i in Iran continues to grow. Elsewhere, the Supreme Administrative Court of Egypt decided to heavily discriminate the Baha’is of that country because of their belief, and make non-citizens of an entire religious community.

It still seems so unbelievable that the Holocaust could take place in front of the eyes of the World, yet we have seen and continue to see similar type of start and if given the slightest room, the government of Iran (as well as other countries) would love to continue these persecutions and discriminations against the Baha’is.

A movie has been made, telling the story of the 9 courageous women who were executed and it will be produced this year. I am certainly very excited to see the final result. The website below gives you a better idea of this and the progress on the movie.

http://www.monasdream.com/

Iran’s President in an interview said paraphrased, his way of trying to start talks on Israel and Palestine conflict was through the conference he initiated in December 2006 in Tehran titled something in lines with: International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust.
The goal according to him was not to deny or prove the existance of the Holocaust. Further though, the Iranian Foreign Minister said: “If the official version of the Holocaust is thrown into doubt, then the identity and nature of Israel will be thrown into doubt. And if, during this review, it is proved that the Holocaust was a historical reality, then what is the reason for the Palestinians having to pay the cost of the Nazis’ crimes?”

What Iran’s true motive with this conference was, only they can answer, but here is a related story that I would like to share.

“This story was aired on Sunday, Dec. 17 on CBS on 60 minutes about a long-secret German archive that houses a treasure
trove of information on 17.5 million victims of the Holocaust. The archive, located in the German town of Bad Arolsen, is massive (there
are 16 miles of shelving containing 50 million pages of documents) and until recently, was off-limits to the public. But after the German
government agreed earlier this year to open the archives, CBS News Scott Pelley traveled there with three Jewish survivors who were able
to see their own Holocaust records. Its an incredibly moving piece, all the more poignant in the wake of this weeks meeting of Holocaust deniers in Iran.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2274705n

So I decided to sell my old digital camera. After 5 days of excitement it was sold and shortly after the drama started. First I get an email from the winner asking me to be ship it to Nigeria despite the fact that I stated in my listing that I don’t ship outside of USA and UK. The fact that it was Nigeria was a red flag in my head immediately since I have seen many spoof emails from there. Also the user threatens with bad feedback which also was a red flag. Here is the email:

Shortly after I got an email, supposedly, from PayPal that the winner has deposited the money. The sender email (highlighted in yellow) below was not from PayPal, so I proceeded to read the fine print and it says that I won’t get the money until I provide PayPal with a tracking number. Here is the spoof email:

I reported it to Ebay and PayPal and they confirmed that this is not from them. We will see what the outcome will be.

With my parents being far away from where I leave (10 hour time difference), we keep in touch usually by using Skype or Google Talk. While this works great as I have my laptop around me at least 8 hours a day (Tablet PC with built-in mic), there are shortcomings with that and the reason for that is that these calls, while great in sound quality means that my parents and myself have to be close to a computer (with a broadband connection). With that said, the whole Internet calling can be divided in three parts:

PC to PC (Cost free)
The giants here are Skype and Google Talk in my opinion. MSN does not really come up to par in voice quality the few times I have tried.

Phone to Phone a.k.a Calling Cards (Not free)

Many options here to choose from (including buying calling cards from gas stations etc). One online option I have tried and I like is Jajah.com. Problem with JaJah is that you have to be around a PC to initiate the call (you give the number to the site, the site calls you then call the destination and connects the phone together). One thing good that is good about JaJah is that you can schedule a call which eliminates the need to be around a pc to initiate the call though, but that does not really solve the problem here. I am still looking for better and cheaper alternatives so feel free to drop a comment with tips.

PC to Phone (Not free)

Skype is a well known option here. But another option that my dad will not stop praising is internetcalls.com (both for it’s quality of voice and prices and it also works with SIP devices). I have not tried it myself, but will take my dad’s word for it.
Are you using better options for any of these three categories?

Time for some reflection again. Some of the topics I want to note down today may be random, but I have been reminded of them several times. In no particular order:

• Return Policy – Certainly this comes as no news that the return policy in U.S. puts all other countries to shame. I am not going to discuss at what cost this comes at, but it certainly makes life a bit easier with the return policy of stores such as Costco, Nordstrom and so on where you can return things even years after you have purchased the good and they won’t even ask you why. Try returning something in Europe and you are lucky if they don’t throw you out of the store.
• Availability and Abundance – Which brings me to availability and abundance of it. I have touched on this subject in another post, but the point I have to make here is that I cannot think of anywhere else in the world where (almost) anything is so accessible for purchase. You can walk into a store and buy anything from a Jacuzzi, pool table, mini tractor, or even a small & easy to assemble mini cabin!. And I am not talking about going to specialized stores to get these items. Go to your closest Costco and pick one up! Next after that, most of the well known (clothing) brands that are considered more on the exclusive (and expensive) side elsewhere in the world such as Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss and so on can be found in piles here in the States which also is a bit puzzling. I guess this works well with the commercial philosophy of U.S. which probably goes something in lines with: ‘People should be able to buy anything they want anytime they want as much as they want and we don’t care how much garbage it will produce, though we can compromise on the quality so the prices are not too high. If we don’t compromise on quality we will charge the customer three arms and five legs to let them understand it is quality stuff they are buying.’
• Junk (paper) Mail – I am still puzzled by how financial institutions (as well as other companies) are so persistent in bombarding your house’s mailbox with offerings printed on thick glossy papers. During the course of last month alone I have had 4 offerings to become an American Express customer and I already have had two cards with them for over a year! (one personal and one for work). Makes me wonder how they run their operations. Actually I have come to realize a big share of the corporate world here who make very good profits and are well known are not running smoothly because they run a lean and efficient business model. They just have reached a stage where they make so much money that they can cover their inefficiencies and still look like they are running a smooth operation.

I needed to sign a document and send it in over fax today. Getting it in electronic form is easy. By you now most places offer their forms/applications as downloadable PDFs and the signing is easy for me to since I have a tablet PC.

It was the sending it electronically part that became a challenge. There are tons of services out there that charge anything from $10-$20/month to allow you to send and receive faxes electronically. But with my needs I maybe send fax once every blue moon, so those services are no good to me. Sending it from work doesn’t feel right either. So I started looking around and this were my findings for sending and receiving fax for free.:

Receiving - Get a free account on eFax.com and you will get a U.S. based number. If anyone faxes you, you will receive it in your mailbox.

Sending – The one I found useful for my needs was faxzero.com. It gives you two options; either send it for free (max 2/day) and it will put an ad as the cover page for your fax (see below) OR you can pay $1.99 using paypal to get it free of the ad cover page. Your choice.

And finally I found this page full of links useful. If you have other useful/free services for faxing please leave a comment.

Interesting documentary where lots of different theories are being presented. But the one thing I did find particularly interesting was the analysis of the Military industrial complex.

The term first was used in president Eisenhower’s farewell speech where he warned of the too significant of a role that the department of defense has come to play and the amount of resources that it uses for its purpose. “Iron Triangle” which is another similar term used for this concept refers to an institutionalised collusion among defense contractors, The Pentagon , and the United States government, where these three ensure to create a permanent war economy, which in a nutshell states that since productivity of the nation is higher than normal during war (at least during WWII), the economy cannot be allowed to return to a civilian economy.

As a result the defense is heavily dependant on the industry (defense contractors) and it needs to secure a steady stream of revenue from the government to be able to support this model, something that is seen a heavily against the public interest.
Very interesting movie and definitely worth seeing.

Good collection of mistakes made by president Bush and caught by the camera….

Update : Found this site that has a better comparison.

With taking so many digital photos, the time has come where I have enough material to give photography as presents to friends and others. Having said that, sometimes, one photo just does not feel enough nor express what I am trying to say as an ‘artist’.

Now I can use one of the few services available online to make my own photo book. Here are a couple of them:

• MyPublisher - $30-$60 for a 20 pages hardcover album
• iPhoto - $30 for 20 pages hardcover album

If you have other services similar to this, please let me know.