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Monthly archive April, 2008

27Dinner launches in Port Elizabeth

Ramon Thomas and friends27Dinner for the uninitiated are meetings arranged by and for bloggers or people interested in social media. They take the form of an informal dinner with a few speakers and have been a hit across South Africa. In Johannesburg and Cape Town these dinners have drawn sometimes as many as 100 people at a time. At least half the audience tends to be geeks or technically oriented people, while the others are a mixture Read More →

10 Strategies for coping with Scary Times from Dan Sullivan

Dan Sullivan founder Strategic CoachDan Sullivan, founder of the Strategic Coach has published an updated version of his classic, The "Scary Times" Success Manual: Transforming anxiety about the future into strategic growth, progress and achievement. These strategies seem like common sense but you rarely consider or contemplate them. And once you become conscious of them you know them to be the highest and best approach to dealing with uncertainty in the world. There is so many distraction in the world you may be confused about what to focus on. And Read More →

How to stop smoking one day at a time

There are some addictions that are so common you may believe they are normal like drinking coffee or for some people smoking a cigarette. I was probably 12 years old when I tried my hand at smoking one of my mother's cigarettes. She's since quit about 20 years ago before my sister was born. And it's so funny after all these years of divorce my ddd still smokes the same brand, which shows they had at least this one thing in common. I ended up developing this habit early on in my teenage years, reaching it's peak during my Read More →

Two simple steps to reducing your cellphone stress levels today

As far back as 2005 WebMD reported on how cell phones raise stress levels. And more specifically how it is blurring the lines between your professional life and your personal life. Now in South Africa you add in the frustration caused by load shedding, a high violent crime rate and you have enough of a mixture to send stress levels into the stratosphere. Anyway I have implemented the following two strategies to reduce my dependency on my cellphone and the experience has increased my general well being because I decide when and where to respond to my Read More →

WordPress Blogging wp-content/1/ Trojan Malware Virus

Wordpress for DummiesIt's been 4 years since I left the IT security profession to focus on research and training. However, I am glad to have this background because it helped me to appreciate the subtlety of this hack into the Wordpress blogging software. It first came to my attention when I noticed a folder named "1" as in the number one, while uploading plugins to the wp-content folder on my web host. As the sophistication of web applications continue to increase, the propensity for trojans or Read More →

Our kids are being bullied to death

written by Prega Govender 100 children tried to kill themselves in the past year because of their classmates’ cruelty When a Johannesburg schoolgirl missed class for a week after her father was shot in a hijacking, she expected fellow pupils to comfort her. Instead, the traumatised 15 year old was bombarded with more than 80 nasty e-mails a day — accusing her of bunking school to have an abortion. The Grade 9 pupil was an emotional wreck after becoming the target of relentless bullying by a group of five girls at school. She is among thousands of pupils who fall victim to cruel school-yard bullies Read More →

Why you should never get back together with your ex-girlfriend after a break-up

Received the following email the other day... Hi Ramon, my girlfriend of 1 and half years recently broke up with me. We lived together and she decided that she wanted to move out because she didn't feel the same way about me as she did before. I feel as though my life has ended. I really love this woman and would do anything to have her back. She has moved into her own place and seems very happy. It kills me just thinking that she is going to be with some other guy one of these days. Do you think it Read More →

Decoding the Asian Playboy, the world’s greatest Asian pick-up artist

Asian Playboy Jerry TranNEW YORK — Clad in a black leather motorcycle jacket with red racing stripes, he stood at 5’6”, with his hair in a textured faux hawk and a wispy mustache and goatee at the bottom of his boyish face. This was the Asian playboy. Self-described as the “Asian Hitch” and a “hard ass drill sergeant of a pick-up artist instructor,” the Asian Playboy serves as a guide into the underground world of seduction. In every major city across the world, there lies a more duplicitous subset of Read More →