Archive for January, 2009
Posted on January 30, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
Coolest guy on the Internet
I’m on a search to find the coolest guy on the Internet. The reasons why I’m looking for this person will be revealed in due course but for now let me highlight a few of my favourites.
Vernon Koekemoer became the most popular person on the Internet by far. At first this guy seemed like a massive joke but now Vernon is featured in television adverts all over South Africa. Straight outta Benoni into web celebrity status.
The all time classic though has to be Bolton Deventer. Bolton captured our imagination with his SEO skills and web traffic tips and occasionally we were graced with the presence of his ever loving wife – Barbara. While Bolton only managed to survive for about 7 days on the web he was and will always be a legend in our time. Visit Bolton’s site here if you’ve never had the chance to meet him before.
It is impossible to know who the next big thing will be but if Bolton and Vernon have taught us anything it’s that celebrities online are needed as much as they are in real life.
In the meantime though I’ve found a real gem on YouTube. Does this chap take the cake or do you think that someone else belongs on this list. Please let me know in the comment form below!
The search is on and may the best man win. Enjoy the video!
Update: have you guys seen this coolest guy website?
FINAL UPDATE: Competition is over. I got beaten to the draw and even despite now ranking #1 and #2 respectively for the coolest guy on the Internet I’m afraid to say it’s too little too late.
Posted on January 30, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
Schenker Logistics – a brilliant ORM example
Last Friday I posted a video titled “What happens to fragile boxes?” in which I managed to capture some boxes being mishandled by a delivery person at Schenker Logistics.
While I wasn’t expecting a response from the post in question I was extremely impressed when I received an email from Sean Carolan the operations manager for Schenker in South Africa on Tuesday.
Hi Justin
I am the operations manager for Schenker in South Africa. One of my colleagues in Germany sent me the link to your blog (what happens to fragile boxes).
I cannot view the clip, but judging from the text it did not look good, and I would like to get to the bottom of it and address the relevant driver/staff member regarding this.
Please could you send me the clip in, as well as advise in which area this delivery was taking place (and the time)?
We train our staff, and try and enforce good practices throughout the delivery process, and when incidents like these go by ‘unnoticed’ it is good that we do get feedback.
I immediately responded and sent all the relevant details to Sean who then, it seems, went on a fact finding mission and managed to get to the bottom of things.
Just this morning however I received another email, this time from Andrew Dinnie – General Manager of the Western Cape, in which he tries to address some of the comments in the post. I thought it relevant to post some of his remarks in the email as it addresses the issues quite nicely.
The delivery was a scheduled delivery to BMW parts dealership in Town. The boxes on the video which were planned for that delivery are robust automotive parts not TV screens. They happened to be very light (5-6kg’s) and hence the proceeding method of handling. We do not condone the method and have already addressed this issue with all our handling staff. We are fortunate that to date there are no recorded damages and we have confirmed with this dealership that they maintain their support for our services.
I would also like to remark on a comment made on your blog by Sean Nieuwoudt, who is incorrect when he says that our east London branch is under liquidation. It is 100% owned by DB Schenker and continues to trade healthily, as in the past.
Now I’m no rocket scientist nor am I a specialist in online reputation management (ORM) but the way in which Schenker Logistics handled this situation is exceptional. By all accounts this measly blog doesn’t attract a massive readership and it would have been easy for the guys at Schenker to simply ignore this yet they decided to tackle the issue head on.
Tim Shier, marketing manager for both Quirk eMarketing and BrandsEye, recently wrote about the SAA ORM crisis in which he details 10 points for companies to consider when dealing with ORM. I’m not sure is Schenker knowingly knew what they were doing but they’ve done a sterling job at managing their online reputation by dealing with this somewhat minor issue.
Posted on January 26, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
Today’s Solar Eclipse
I knew an eclipse was imminent – I just didn’t know when it was. Luckily though the cloud cover around this morning’s solar eclipse allowed me to get a few shots. The beauty of this shot is that I wasn’t expecting it and I only had a window of about 2 minutes. Soon after I took this pic the cloud cover disappeared and I could no longer look directly at the eclipse and it was impossible to take further photos.
Posted on January 23, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
What happens to Fragile boxes?
This morning Stii and I grabbed a cup of coffee from Ecco il Caffe in the BMW dealership below our offices. Over a healthy dose of java and nicotine we noticed a Schenker Logistics truck mishandling a load of fragile boxes.
The short video below shows one such box in particular but I’m just sorry I didn’t manage to get video of the big box they moved only moments before. The previous box was the size of a 40″ plasma TV and instead of lifting it off the ground the guy (pictured in the video below) simply rolled it from side-to-side – ignoring all the fragile signs!
So if you ever wondered what really happens to your fragile boxes then watch the clip below! I loved seeing this.
UPDATE: To see how Schenker Logistics handled this situation please read here.
Posted on January 19, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
My first Tilt-Shift photo
My good pal Gregor has been posting a series of Fake Tilt-Shift photographs and I’ve been dying to try it out myself. Wikipedia describes Tilt-Shift faking as:
Tilt-shift miniature faking is a process in which a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature scale model. By distorting the focus of the photo, the artist simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered with macro lenses making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is.
I recently acquired a new Canon 55mm-250mm IS lens for my 400D and with new lens in hand I was able to take some cool shots from our balcony at work.
I took a number of different shots and then tried to follow this online tilt-shift tutorial to create my first masterpiece but the results were not fantastic. I was not happy with the output as it didn’t seem to create the miniature effect I was hoping for.
So, I created my own selection band by manually selecting the road, carefully following the natural curve and shadows, as well as other elements like the flags and robots to give it more precision. It literally took me hours to do but I am more than happy with the output.
Posted on January 12, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
What YouTube looked like in 2005
This particular post has been sitting in my drafts since July 2008 after the iLab guys and I started looking at the similarities between YouTube’s logo and another South African company. This spurred on an analysis of the evolution of YouTube since it’s beginning and it was fascinating for me to see how the site evolved over a 12-month period during 2005.
The following screenshots (taken from the WayBack Machine) highlight the key design and functional changes during this period.
There was very little detail available for April 2005 however what I did find interesting was the drop downs that indicate that YouTube may have been somewhat of a dating site. I can’t seem to find any reference to this apart from the screenshots and if anyone has any info I’d love to know.
In June YouTube introduced search as a dominant feature on the home page and a new tag line, “Your Digital Video Repository”, is conceptualised.
By August the classic YouTube is launched with search remaining as a dominant feature however more priority is given to featured videos. This is the first time that YouTube really looks functional and easy to use. Very smartly YouTube drops the stupid “Your Digital Video Repository” tag line and changes it to a more functional one liner, “Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!”. What’s also interesting to note is that this new design highlights the start of the relationship with Google with the introduction of Google Adsense code in the sidebar.
Not many changes in September from August but YouTube have now introduced the Recently Viewed functionality to the home page as well as a new Last 8 users online sidebar.
While there are some minor design changes in December the highlight of this screenshot is the introduction of YouTube’s now trademarked tag line – Broadcast Yourself.
I love looking at the evolution of main-stream products and what I particularly liked about YouTube’s evolution is seeing how they struggled to position themselves with their tag line. In Afrigator‘s case we’re constantly trying to work on our positioning and we’re yet to find the killer one-liner. It’s good to see though that as a product evolves along with functionality and simplicity so does the positioning and I’m optimistic that we’ll figure this out with time.
Posted on January 9, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
Gaza: Why I think Israel is right
Writing about the middle-east is about as wise as walking into a pub filled with Harley-Davidson bikers and telling them that only babies drive their crap bikes – However, here I am.
Let me state firstly that this post is not meant to piss people off (yet I’m sure it will) nor do I want to create a war on my personal blog however there are things about the whole middle-east conflict that I’d like to get off my chest.
Secondly I’d like to make a point that this middle-east crisis is as a result of a small quota of militant Palestinian militia who have continuously tried to disrupt peace in the region. I don’t believe that innocent Palestinians deserve to die nor do I believe that Muslims are the cause of the problem.
While it is easy to look at the current fact that Israel have killed 750 Palestinians in just 13 days of attacks we are all quick to forget the history, and ultimately the reasons, that lead to Operation Cast Lead. Let’s look at some of the facts.
Iran-backed Hamas Rocket and Mortar Attacks
- 9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]
- 3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]
- 6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]
- 543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]
- 28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. [5]
- 1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]
The critical point here is that despite a ceasefire militants continued their onslaught and in my mind it is impossible for any country, not just Israel, to continue avoiding attacks on your people when a handful of extremists keep disregarding the peace.
Condemned by South Africa
Closer to home though I am extremely upset with the ANC and SACP who have outright condemned the attacks by Israel. They’ve setup meetings with Israeli ministers to try and get them to stop and just yesterday former Congress of South African Trade Unions president and Congress of the People National Executive Committee member, Willy Madisha, has called on the government to condemn Israel over the ongoing war in Palestine.
The SABC reports that:
Madisha says Israel has for decades been killing thousands of Palestinians in a war that has been condemned internationally. He says hundreds of people are being killed, children are being stopped from going to school and people have no food at all.
“This is a major problem and we are calling the government of South Africa to rise and say to Israel that this is wrong and that it has got to be stopped. South Africa should echo other countries’ sentiments so that the Israeli onslaught on Gaza should cease,” Madisha said.
Now the only reason all of this upsets me is because our leaders are quick to jump on this political band-wagon while they’ve done absolutely nothing about the bigger problem just outside our borders – Zimbabwe. Why they’ve chosen to pick sides in this conflict and done nothing about the epidemic in Zimbabwe baffles me.
Fair and Just?
While I can see the facts and merits of Israel’s motivation to protect their nation I’m still undecided as to whether or not Operation Cast Lead is actually the right way of executing their rights.
Either way, let’s not forget that the middle-east is not unique in this scenario as all around the world we have Muslim extremists causing havoc and inflicting Holy Wars. There really is no place in the world for people like this.
Right, I’ve had my say, and I thought that I’d like to end with this cool comic I found which I believe sums the whole situation up.
~~~ Footnotes: ~~~
[1] IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Dec. 19, 2008; “Iran-backed Terrorists in Gaza Kill 3, Wound Others in Continuing Rocket Attacks on Israel,” The Israel Project press release, Dec. 29, 2008; Barzak, Ibrahim and Friedman, Matti, “Israel rejects truce call, pursues bombing Gaza,” Associated Press, Dec. 31, 2008
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Presentation to Military Attaches,” Israel Ministry of Defense, Dec. 2008
[5] “Rocket and Mortar Fatalities in Israel,” The Israel Project backgrounder; Kershner, Isabel, “Despite Strikes, Israelis Vow to Soldier On,” The New York Times, Dec. 30, 2008, “Iran-backed Terrorists in Gaza Kill 3, Wound Others in Continuing Rocket Attacks on Israel,” The Israel Project press release, Dec. 29, 2008
[6] “Rocket and Mortar Fatalities in Israel,” The Israel Project backgrounder, Israeli Police Spokesman in a conversation with The Israel Project, Dec. 31, 2008
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