the meaning of life, the universe and everything

montred logo design.

2006-03-23T11:43:00.000+02:00

The MontRed logo design steps are a nice demonstration of the fact that design is an iterative process.

But, imho, from a cultural context point of view it will not have worked in Turkey and in some other middle east countries.

The red crescent is a really recognized symbol in the middle east.
Just like the red cross in the Europe.

http://www.kizilay.org.tr/images/thame_01.gif

When I see the logo I recall anything but diamonds:
eartquakes, floods, blood, ambulances... and so on.

Besides "crescent" is a recognized symbol in all islamic societies and when a muslim sees something crescent-like the last thing she remembers will be diamonds.

If MontRed aims to be a global brand, it should take cultural considerations into account.

Do people know Turkey enough?

2006-03-01T10:04:00.000+02:00

Dear Petros,

Dear Volcan, from reading your letter to Ms. Atlas it becomes quite clear that you know the official Turkish take on what happened, in your case what didn't happen, to the Armenians.

Yes, I am quite aware of Turkish Government's policies. But imho, me and the Turkish Government are two seperate entities and I may or may not think in the same way the government thinks. Though, the issue is independent of my point of view; it is about denying right for free speech.

But do you know, do you really know the Armenian point of view, or what I'd rather say the the Truth!

I'm not a historian, but I have read several books both from the pro side of view and from the con side. The conclusion I have reached so far is, you cannot be %100 sure unless you know with %100 confidence, the historical perspective at that time, along with social, political, economical scenes in those days. Everything has a reason. And every side is right when they see the scene from their own paradigm. Again imho, it is something more than an "agreeing on the definitions" thing.

I do not live and never have lived in a country where people can get arrested and prosecuted for thinking,

Nor do I. That was long long ago. Besides, there is an overemphasis on Turkey's laws restricting free speech and free thinking.

We are not China, nor Saudi Arabia. We are a democratic republic and everyone has their right to express their thoughts.

my views are based on having free access to information and free debate, something very difficult to achieve in Turkey.

As I mentioned above, I disagree with you.

There is an overwhelming amount of prejudice and incorrect beliefs about Turkey around. That's mostly because the geopolitic position of the country:

Turkey is Muslim, but it is Laique at the same time.
It is not ruled buy Scharia (the arabic law steming from Quran and Prophet's sayings), it is a democratic republic on the contrary. (Of course in every democracy some people are more equal than others and Turkey is no exception to this, I admit).
It is on the conjunction of Europe, Asia and Middle East.
It has a cultural mosaique: Schiis, Sunnis, Alevis, Bektashis, Christians, Jews, Armenians, Greek and Romans, Kurds and many more live together sharing the same culture. Most of the time cultural motives and traditions are so similar that you cannot distinguish one cultural segment from another.
I mean, Turkey is not a salad bowl, as in the Unites States. It is more like a boiled pot.

Dear volcan, I challange you to go beyond what your government tells you, and come to a decision based on your abilities to judge.

I hope I was able to clarify at least some of the misunderstanding.

Best Regards,
Volkan.

An open letter to PBS

2006-02-17T11:00:00.000+02:00

This is an open letter to PBS US not providing a national platform for Armenian Genocide deniers.

Dear Ms. Atlas;

As a citizen of the Modern Republic of Turkey, I appeal to you to reject the wrong-headed petition being prepared by Armenian Americans who wish to stifle all research, debate and expression that takes any position other than that the Armenian tragedy of the late Ottoman Empire constituted genocide.

The petition, available at http://www.petitiononline.com/pbspanel/petition.html, seeks to prevent the airing of a discussion produced for PBS by Oregon Public Broadcasting in which diverse views on the Armenian issue were presented.

I have noted that some people are participating in the petition just to comment that the petition is against free speech.

By no means does the Turkish seek to deny Armenians their voice to tell their story as they perceive it. Yet many Armenian-Americans work tirelessly to ensure that their view of history is the only view that shall ever be known.

If rewarded, these efforts would harm the fundamental rights of many Americans, not just Turkish-Americans, to learn an historic controversy from a plurality of viewpoints and to make up their own minds. Moreover, PBS' standards of balance and objectivity would be crushed by accepting the petition in question.

In addition to urging you to reject the petition, I therefore congratulate PBS for supporting the OPB program and urge you further to consider programming that presents views other than the
Armenian viewpoint, which, to date, has exclusively been represented in PBS programming.

Thank you for your consideration.

Kind Regards,
Volkan Ozcelik,
Just a Turkish Citizen
defending the right of mutually sharing ideas.

baby all I need is time!

2006-02-12T00:56:00.000+02:00

As an dumb-headed engineer, still not leaving his engineering habits; I think I have an optimization problem somewhere:

I have several blogs which I spare for different topics.
My todo list is expanding.
My incoming mails far exceed the number of e-mails I read.
I haven't looked at my rss feeds for weeks.
I haven't called my friends for months!
I have three or four articles to write.
I have several blog entries, photos etc to share.
sardalya's add on's todo's and optimization.
I have sevaral lists and forums (both native and global) to participate.
I have to follow the recent technical buzzes,
and the recent marketing buzzes.
My MBA graduate project has weeks to its deadline.

Moreover, I focus a considerable amount of my time for the (viral) marketing and development of my (quote and quote) "secret" project.

Yes, obviously there is an optimization problem somewhere.

As I observe from my web stats I have a crowd (okay less than a crowd) of readers who mostly visit my blogs through google queries.

Since I don't blog regularly I am doubtful that I have regular passionate readers.
Some people find my entries worth reading anyway.

So my words are to you, my anonymous reader who is not likely to visit my blog again until you google and find something of your interest at some time later on.

I know what to do to gain your loyalty:

Write quality and useful stuff,
Write them daily,
focusing on a particular subject / area / field of expertise.

And I have zillions of (imho) quality ideas to share.

It's that simple. It not magic. Nor it is about luck.

However I cannot :(

I don't know whether it's just me running out of time.

Anyways, for anyone who are interested:
I will be participating less frequently on my blogs until things settle down a bit.

Later, when I have time to breathe, I will go back to my collaborative days.

As I said, I rlly rlly need some time :)

some risk analysis

2006-02-05T00:30:00.000+02:00

Currently, I am elaborating on a high-risk (and hopefully) high return (secret) project.

I will not share the name (or URL) of the project until I see it's worth sharing.

However, I thought it would be a good thing to share my risk analysis decisions.

Define the risk factors

The first thing in a risk analysis (also known as requirement analysis) is to define the risk factors. Here are my risk factors at a glance:

I possibly will not have a project sponsor unless the project is successful. So I need to go on my own for a long time.
I need a high system availability requirement (in terms of server uptime, notification and support)
The technical requirements of the project are new and complex.
The database schema is relatively simpler (9 tables, 2 of which are lookup tables), however the data storage and data mining requirements may not be that simple.
The product (or release) is new to the market (the current buzzword for it is: it is a beta product)

Given those risk factors; let us try to analyze what each item will cause and what strategies may be taken to overcome them:

I possibly will not have a project sponsor unless the project is successful. So I need to go on my own for a long time.

Results:
The project may not get the resources it needs. This may delay the project. Issues may not be resolved in a timely manner. And time is more is much more precious than you imagine (because in order to be first in a market you need to act fast.

And acting fast requires money.

You should have known that, financial requirements, time requirements, and quality requirements cannot be decreased together. You have to sacrifice from one to decrease the other two. For instance if you have less money to support a project you either lower the quality or extend the project development time.)

Action:
Either try harder to find a sponsor. Or spend some more money (since time is important and you can't sacrife from the quality then it's the only choice). Or do not start the project at all (and just watch others skim the market, helplessly). Note that if you need return, you have to take risk. As the Turkish proverb says: "bogulacaksan, buyuk denizde bogul." (if you're gonna be drown somewhere, be it a large deep ocean; instead of a small little lake -- Yes Turkish is a really compact language)

* * *

I need a high system availability requirement (in terms of server uptime, notification and support)

Results:
Downtime problems may result in productivity decreases and loss of revenue. Newer and advanced technology may be required. More procedures and processes are needed to maintain the system environment.

Action:
Allocate more time to design, analysis, testing and quality assurance activities. Think twice when designing the database schema. Focus extra time and energy on technology architecture (both software and hardware). Use industy best-practices whenever possible. And determine exactly which portions of the system has a high availability requirement. And finally, look for outside experts to validate overall technical design and architecture.

* * *

The technical requirements of the project are new and complex.

Results:
May be difficult to understand the requirements and the implications of design decisions.
You may need some integration between old and new technology. It may be difficult to test a complex technology. Hence, the more complex the technology, the greater the risk that the problems will occur.

Action:

Document any and every single bit of code. Have printouts of your ddl statements. Have a copy of your database schema diagram on your desk. Have detailed explanations of all your DB tables, and code modules.
Define the overall system architecture and have it approved by knowledgable people (remember anyone can make a mistake, included but not limited to you. The more people approve your architecture, the higher the possibility that you're on the right track)
Create sandboxes, pilot tests and prototypes before a full launch.
Try to substitute more proven and familiar technology in the architecture.

* * *

The database schema is relatively simpler (9 tables, 2 of which are lookup tables), however the data storage and data mining requirements may not be that simple.

Results:
Solution may have a more limited value if all required data is not present (due to inefficient mining). Solution will take longer to analyze and test (if the data grows too much)

Action:
The large amount of data is not a problem if you have a reliable database. However, make sure that you really understand the relational integrity of your database design. It is likely that some elements will be discovered missing until the system constuction. Make your design flexible to be able to handle that situation. And lastly as an expert's opinion on the issue.

* * *

The product (or release) is new to the market (the current buzzword for it is: it is a beta product)

Results:
Learning curve may result in lower initial collaboration and productivity. It may be difficult testing the new technology. Technology may not be installed or configured correctly which will lead project delays. A new technology may require substantial conversion efforts. Finally, system performance may be poor while expertise is gained in configuring and optimizing the technology.

Action:
Provide as much training, help documents, tutorials on the technology as possible. Train everyone who needs to use this technology. Ensure that solid analysis is completed regarding the new technology functions, features and capabilities. Create procedures and standards on how the new technology should be utilized. Create and test a small prototype before a full launch (that's the second time I'm saying this :) )

* * *

That's it.

Hope this analysis was as useful to you as it was to me.

I'll have more things to write here when I become a millonaire ;)

Cheers!

Top Ten reasons in google's success

2006-01-25T14:39:00.000+02:00

Although Microsoft does not care at all, google is one of the largest companies in the internet industry whose products and services are invaluable in my humble opinion.

Let us dive into the reasons for google's sucess.

google was the best among the first, which helped it win its fight with the giants and dinosaurs of the internet market.
Text-only ads and it's simple yet innovative interface. It gives what you need. Nothing more, nothing less.

Simplicity, they offer. That's it.

(to have an idea compare google search and yahoo search, or MSN search. Even finding where to type the keywords is a real pain in the rear on other sites.
OTOH, google home page consists of a simple text box which the cursor auto-focuses, to make life even easier on the end-user's side)
And of course the speed and relevancy of its search results, which stems from the effective and efficient search algorithm.

Speed is both due to an army of small PC that split up the search cache into pieces, and to the HTTP GZIP compression when it sends the results to the end user.
Just one word: innovation.

They have more creative and happy employees working to get google to a better place. They are very selective on choosing employees.
B(to the power 3) : Big Brains Behind.
Google diversifies its risks by creating more than necessary services. Some succeed, some fail. They give google a "dynamic" appearance on the whole and make it win on the long run.
Google quickly learns from its mistakes.
Even as they add more functionality to their service, they remain amazing at their core business; that is search technologies. That's their core competency and as long as they hold on it, they will remain successful.
They have ads on their pages which you can hardly notice.
The last but not the least is right time, if google were founded before dot com bust, it would have been in a much worse place.

The list above is a blend of brainreaction results and my personal judgements.
Google "why is google successful" for details.

instead of hunting, do gardening.

2006-01-21T10:02:00.000+02:00

Before the dot com bust (in 2000) internet was not well-known. Internet companies were following rather pushy and agressive marketing strategies. They were thinking that creating content was simply enough. Good content would sell itself none the less.

However, pushing the services to the current and potential customers without judging their needs and wants was a key miscue, leading most of those companies away from the scene.

The ones that were not busted in the 2000 dot com crisis all shared common behaviors:

- They knew that the means of getting, keeping and growing customers was delivering and communicating a superior customer value.
- They all analyzed their customer-base, their browsing habits, clickthrough rates. They determined their segmentation strategies accordingly.

The way things work are exactly the same today as well. Except, there is way a lot more competition, rivalry and innovation around.

Thus, any enterprise or initiative wanting to survive, let alone make profit, should leave selling concept, product concept and production concept aside.

To be successful, one should follow a customer-oriented, data-driven, proactive, "sense and respond" philosophy.

TOP SIX THINGS TO DO TO ORGANIZE YOUR TAGS

2006-01-20T07:53:00.000+02:00

During the last few day I am in a rush of organizing my "lazy sheep-generated" del.icio.us tags.

I'll ammend my thoughts and sharings on organizing tags and folksonomy issues under this post.
This post may be updated at any time when some new idea pops up in my mind, so bear with me.

Here are my simple, yet effective rules, of tag organization.

1. Use as little number of tags as possible:
Describe an entry with one tag, or at most two or three tags. More tags will lead to nothing but confusion.

2. Tag for yourself, not for others:
Your del.icio.us space is for you on the first hand. So tag your items that have meaning to you.
Something that is certainly your BUSINESS and which can be tagged as business may not be a BUSINESS to other. That does not matter. Just tag it.

3. Use common sense and utilize suggestion:
Most of the time a tag that del.icio.us offers will suit your entry just fine. Don't re-invent the wheel use common tags as much as possible.

4. Use UPPERCASE for your tags:
That's because most automated tag generators (such as lazy sheep) use lowercase for importing tags and/or autogenerating tags (such as .toread, .todo, .todescribe etc.)
When you use uppercase, you will know which items you have tagged already, and which items are waiting to be tagged, by simply looking at the tags you have.

5. Use singular tags:
I mean use TOOL, instead of TOOLS; INNOVATION instead of INNOVATIONS.
Using singular case is more object oriented first of all. Plus, by this way you will not fall into the dilemma of whether to tag something as INNOVATION or INNOVATIONS. Just skip the little "s" at the end.

6. Organize your tags daily:
So that you will not have to struggle with a tag cloud consisting of thousands of entries and hundreds of tags.

That's it.

By following these simple steps, you will soon find that your del.icio.us entries are really easy to find / share and follow.

in need of organizing my tags

2006-01-19T12:18:00.000+02:00

I have literally thousands of bookmarks on delicious (and the number is increasing each day)

http://del.icio.us/vozcelik/

imho, most of the links are quite fruitful, however they are way to widespread to be accessed easily.

And I think it's time to categorize this mess a bit.

I really need to reduce the amount of tags I use.

now all of them are set.

2006-01-04T17:45:00.000+02:00

Now I have split all of them.

The official blog of sarmal dot com:
http://www.sarmal.com/blog/

The official blog of sardalya:
http://www.sarmal.com/sardalya/blog/

The official blog of orkinos:
http://www.sarmal.com/orkinos/blog/

A pseudo office with unreal events and persons:
http://www.volkanozcelik.com/openoffice/blog/

I plan to activate this blog later in the future.

The official blog of me (this one) :
http://www.volkanozcelik.com/volkanozcelik/blog/

my blog about istanbul and art :
http://www.volkanozcelik.com/istanbul/blog/

my blog about coding and developement in general:
http://www.volkanozcelik.com/crea8/blog/

~~//todo: add marketing blog here~~
I will share my marketing-related thoughts along with my personal weblog (this blog)
Since this blog is a gobignetwork member, it is a good idea to position it as a
business/marketing oriented blog.

Although most of them are empty for the time being, at least I have split my thoughts into pieces.

That's a good thing anyway.

Cheers,

istanblog

2006-01-03T23:31:00.000+02:00

Having said that here follows a brand new blog on art an Istanbul:

meet istanblog

Cheers,

I need some change.

2006-01-02T22:02:00.000+02:00

I began to realize that this blog is way too much widespread.
From this time on I will be splitting it to topic related sub-blogs.

I plan to have blogs on.

- marketing, cultural communication and other social issues.
- javascript, web development, usability, accessibility, standards.
- art, culture and Istanbul,
- my personal weblog (this one)
and
- a blog for sardalya (the dhtml api)

so it's time to get my hands dirty :)

javascript animation with DOM

2005-12-30T10:48:00.000+02:00

An excellent tutorial on javascript animations:

http://www.hesido.com/web.php?page=javascriptanimation

Keep doing good work Emrah!

Happy new year by the way :)

Meta refreshing an IFRAME causes IE to leak

2005-12-23T15:01:00.000+02:00

As Mark A. Patton has found out in his tests.

More to read on:
http://www.codeproject.com/jscript/leakpatterns.asp#xx1305422xx

Cheers,

Guidelines for developing global brand leadership

2005-12-21T16:48:00.000+02:00

First of all let us define what a brand is:

- Brand is bundles of images and experiences in the customers' mind.
- It is a promise made by a particular company about a particular product.
- It is a quality certification.
- Brand makes the differentiation between competing products.

The sum of impressions about a brand is known as the brand image.

brand equity

- is the added value that accrues to a product as a result of investments in the marketing of the brand.
- is an asset that presents the value created by the relationship between the brand and customer over time.

Global products meet the wants and needs of a global market and is offered in all world regions.
Global brands have the same name and similar image and positioning through the world.

To develop a global brand leadership you should keep the following in mind:

- Create a compelling value proposition.

- Develop a consistent planning process.

- Think about all names, marks and symbols that have potential for globalization.

- Assign specific responsibility for managing branding issues.

- Research alternatives of extending a national brand versus adopting a new brand identity globally.

- Execute brand-building strategies.

- Develop company-wide communication systems.

- and most of all, harmonize, unravel confusion and eliminate complexity at all costs.

Considerations for Setting a Price

2005-12-21T16:33:00.000+02:00

There are several considerations for setting a price for the global market:

1. Does the price reflect the product's quality?
2. Is the price competitive given the market conditions?
3. What types of discounts/allowances should be offered to international customers?
4. Should the firm pursue market penetration, market price skimming or some other pricing objective?
5. Should prices differt with market segments?
6. Are the firm's prices likely to be viewed by the host country government as reasonable or exploitative?
7. What pricing options are available if the firm's costs increase or decrease?
8. Is the demand in inernational market elastic or inelastic?

Besides one should note the following:

Gray Market Products

These are the trademarked products which are exported from one country to another where they are sold by unauthorized persons or organizations. (such as smuggling Bulgarian produced Marlboros' in Turkey in '80s.)

This occurs when products are in short supply or when producers use skimming strategies in some markets.

Dumping

Sale of an imported product at a price lower than the normally charged in a domestic market or country of origin.

Transfer Pricing

Is the pricing of goods, services and intangible property bought and sold by operating units or divisions of a company doing business with an affliate in another jurisdiction (for example Toyota susidiaries sell to, and buy from each other).

Marketing Communications

2005-12-21T16:14:00.000+02:00

Well, I'm gonna have an International Marketing final tonight and I think the best way to study it is by summarizing.

And since I type faster than I handwrite, I decided to write my summaries as blog entries.
Besides, it has been a long time since I have not written to my lovely blog.

Let us start with Marketing Communications. Marketing communications is basically the promotion P of the marketing mix. It includes advertising, public relations, sales promotion and personal selling.

When a company embraces integrated marketing communications; it recognizes that various elements of the company's communication strategy must be carefully coordinated.

The effort required to create a global campaign forces a company to determine whether or not a global market exists for its product. The trade-off betweeen standardized and adapted advertising is often accomplished by means of pattern advertising, which can be used to create localized global advertising.

The starting point of development is the creative strategy. This is a statement of what the message will say. The people who create ads often seek a big idea that can serve as the basis of a memorable and effective message.

The advertising appeal is the communication approach -rational or emotional- that best relates to the buyer motives.

The selling proposition is the promise that captures the reason for buying the product.

The creative execution is the way an appeal or proposition is presented.

Art direction and copy must be created with cultural considerations in mind. Perceptions of humor, male-female relationships, and sexual imagery vary in different parts of the world. Also media availability varies considerably from country to country.

Also when selecting media, marketers are sometimes constrainted by laws and regulations or by literacy rates.

A company utilizes public relations to foster goodwill and understanding among constituents both inside and outside the company. In particular, the PR department attempts to generate favorable publicity abut the company and its products and brands.

Many companies make use of various types of advertising, including image advertising and advocacy advertising.

Public relations is also responsible for providing accurate, timely information especially in the events of a crisis.

2005-12-13T11:35:00.000+02:00

An excellent tip from Dean Edwards

http://dean.edwards.name/weblog/2005/12/js-tip1/

Dean says that instead of detecting for object at each function call, initialize separate methods for each case.

I think I'm gonna revise the next version of sardalya accordingly.

Thanks for the fish dude!

Where you must use ajax. Where you should avoid ajax.

2005-12-05T12:14:00.000+02:00

Alex Bosworth has written up his thoughts on areas that you must use Ajax, and areas in which you shouldn't.

Happy dishwashing!

Why Turkish is that hard to learn?

2005-11-27T10:36:00.000+02:00

BlackTigerAP said on his recent comment on CodeProject that either Turkish language was very long or my translation was very short (you can view the entire thread there).

Actually - grammatically speaking Turkish is not that long.

just a simple example:

gel. - come here.
geldi. - (s)he came.
geldim. - I came.
geliyorum. - I am going to come (soon).
geleceğim. - I will come.
gelirim. - I certainly will come. / I will always come.

.... you can generate a dozen of more words from the common stem 'gel' .

And not only 'gel', all the verbs in Turkish are derived from a 3-4 letter stem words.

Just count the bytes, and decide which is longer for yourself.

sidenote:
It is easy for Turkish people to grasp it (we're born with it :) ).
But -especially my guests from the UK say that- it is a real pain in the rear for a non-native.

I cannot remember its exact rank but, afaik, Turkish is among the top ten hardest languages to learn.

Actually it is quite a joy listening to a foreigner struggling to remember the exact verb to use.

A batch image preloader - js

2005-11-26T23:38:00.000+02:00

The current project I'm working on requires some advanced preloading stuff and sardalya's Preloader is not enough.

I need to load an array of images as a batch.

Here is the current pseudocode in my mind:

var g_arImageURL={the url array}
var g_arObj={the object array}
var g_arImgRef=new Array();
var g_completedImageCount=0;

function startBatchPreload(){
for each url in g_arImageURL
....g_arImageRef.push(new Image(g_arImageURL[i])

trackPreloadProgress();
}

function trackPreloadProgress(){
for each image in g_arImageRef
....if image is complete
........change src of the g_arObj[i] to image.src
........g_completedImageCount++

if(g_completedImageCount less than total images)
....setTimeout(trackPreloadProgress,someInterval);
}

...

Or something more oo-ish:

function _BatchPreloader(){
....this._arImageURL=new Array();
....this._arObj=new Arrray();
....this._arImgRef=new Array();
....this._completedImageCount=0;
}
... other stuff ...
var BatchPreloader=new _BatchPreloader();

function BatchPreloader_TrackBack(){
... loop thru uncompleted images.

... if there are more images to preload then busy wait (i.e settimeout)
}

And if it's going to be an object, I shall find a better name for it.

Giving a name to an object you've just created is difficult in deed.

If you have children, just think how hard it was to pick up a name for them.

Of course, I don't say that my objects are like my children (well, sometimes they are actually :) ).

But you got the point, don't you?

After I'm done with this new preloader thingy I'll add it to sardalya as well.

But I have to finish the project I'm working on first: Although sardalya is my personal playground, my clients are my business. And since they give me the money, it is normal that they take precedence over other things.

However the relation is mutual:
The current project I'm working on will help me improve, test and benchmark sardalya as well.

So on one hand I gain money; on the other hand I find yet another real-life test platform for sardalya. Not a bad deal.

(note to myself : in the project ToolTip's bleeding issue over screen edges has to be fixed as well)

...

Just a final thing...

The project (the site I'm building to my current client) will be a secret until I totally finish it and upload to the production server.

After that, I'd like to share several interesting findings with you as well as compare and contrast the former and latter versions of the site.

The site is a real case study :)
I'm sure you'll enjoy when I share my findings.

Just wait for a few weeks.

The Ingy Formerly Known as Brian Ingerson

2005-11-22T07:28:00.000+02:00

Ingy, formerly known as Bryan Ingerson has changed his name to "Ingy döt Net" legally.

Here is some quote from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dots)

"A heavy metal umlaut (aka röck döts) is an umlaut over a letter in the name of a heavy metal band. The use of umlauts and other diacritics with a blackletter style typeface is a form of foreign branding intended to give a band's logo a Germanic or Nordic quality."

Once you do such a thing, i.e. change your name; you have to be aware of cross-language / cross-cultural differences your name may convey.

Your name is basically your "brand", and you should think twice when changing it (that's equally true for your logo / brandname etc but that's another story).

The meanings of a word may differ a lot:
There are dozens of (unsuccessful) examples in marketing history.

And here we come to our case: The history strikes back once again.
I mean Ingy has hit a localisation brickwall:

"döt", means ermm how to say... means "arse" in Turkish slang.

Cheers!

How to create a billion dollar idea

2005-11-20T11:36:00.000+02:00

To generate a billion dollar idea, first you should teach yourself how to create ideas. If you don't know how to create at all then how on earth can you come up with an innovation?

Just go back in time, when did you recently say "voila!", "euraka! that's a brilliant solution!", "heck, why hadn't I thought that before!"

I bet when you were around five-six years old, your every single day was full of exciting inventions and discoveries. You were amazed at every seemingly unimportant bit of piece you found out.

Why, because there were no prejudices to base your knowledge upon.

But what happened then? You attended to school. It was good and fun at the beginning. But when you pop out of university with a reputable degree, you most probably have lost your crucial abitilies which may make you innovative: questioning, relating seemingly unrelated phenomena.

You entered primary scool as a question mark. And left the university as a full stop.

Just think about when you last cried out loudly in Church (I am a Muslim, but we do not run back and forth foolishly or shout aloud in mosques as well). When did you recently punched (yes punched) the keys of the large reed pipe organ in that Church and enjoyed the combination of unharmonious notes you've produced?
(well I did it with a pipe organ in the University :) - did not punch it but my -quote and quote- "artwork" was not a pleasure to ears -- luckily it was just me around :) )

If not in childhood, then probably never.

So you want to innovate huh?

Then uncover your veil. Break the rules. Forget about what you know, what you have learned, what they have imposed you in the past. Be illogical (most genuine ideas stem from illogical relations between things)
Never lose your sense of humor (that's another practice of creating shocking relations between seemingly unrelated things. Humor is a u-turn man).

Be a fool, be an "absolute" fool. And most of it, be free. Be a child in short.

Enjoy any and every single bit of action you do.

That's it. If you want to be creative, go back to your childhood. If possible go back to your mother's womb and initiate a brand new life.

So you wonder why I haven't gained a fortune yet:

Man I am only six years old, when I become four I surely will gain a fortune and buy myself a very large ice cream. So large that it will cover up the entire north pole.

Cheers and have a lovely week start.

5GB of System partition is not enough.

2005-11-20T09:39:00.000+02:00

my 5gb C: partition is already full (only a few hundred megs left). I used to use partition magic to solve the problem on my windows98 box.

But when I read the most recent version's specs it says that:
"PartitionMagic does not support Windows NT Server or Windows 2000 Servers."

If I cannot find a solution I'll need to back-up my data, format my drives and repartition them, re-install a brand new system, install a new service pack, install .net framework, then install the patches...

That will take ages to complete!

As a side note, I install all my program files in another drive (to F:\Program Files) so that they do not eat system partition's space.

So the 5gig data mainly belongs to MS-specific "Application Data"

That's because windows insists on putting its application stuff under C:\documents and settings\my profile folder\ regardless of where the actual program setup is installed. That's annoying.

And don't get me started about the huge mess under C:\WINNT which is around 1+ gig. Why on earth does an operating system need over one billion bytes of data to run properly?

Be aware of cultural context when communicating

2005-11-15T08:14:00.000+02:00

The means of communication also depends on cultural context. The culture's context may be divided into two (not so clear-cut) categories: high-context cultures and low-context cultures (being any of them is not a bad thing don't worry)

In low context cultures (like Sweden or the States) words -generally- do not have side meanings. non-verbal behavior (i.e. body language) and non-written context of the text is often ignored. There is a high reliance on rules and legal paperwork. When communicating with these kinds of cultures, one should give direct messages and be as clear as possible. Because words carry all information, no additional meanings are bound to them.

On the other hand, in high-context cultures (such as Saudi Arabia,Japan and Turkey) people depend heavily on the situation, the context of the message, non-verbal behavior in creating and interpreting communications. In high context cultures special emphasis is given on background, (undocumented, non-verified by an independend third party) personal reputation, and basic values. As you may guess, legal paperwork is given least emphasis.

Contrary to low-context cultures, the best approach to give messages to a high context culture is to give "indirect messages", taking senses and feelings into account. (For instance Japanese commercials show beautiful scenery on the background most of the time). There, words do not carry all info, and the whole "context" of the communication is important.