Category: Personal

Despite being at work all the time, and being constantly busy, I am still a human. I am social. I have a life, family, and friends. I have thoughts and experiences. Once in a while I share them, and when I do, I do so in this category. If you don’t know me personally, chances are you’ll find posts in this category particularly boring.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2012 Year!

Here we are, in the last hours of the 2011.  Those of us who celebrate the New Year holiday are either taking a quick nap, getting ready for the night of partying or getting ready to receive guests, cooking in the kitchens, calling relatives, cleaning the house, and starting to have a quick drink.

I am among those who are cooking in the kitchens and taking a quick drink.  Taking a quick break from all the preparations, it’s a good time to relax and reflect on the year that is almost gone, as well as pave the road for the coming year.

If I was to use a single word to describe 2011, I’d definitely stick with ‘quick’.  It seems that only a few weeks ago we celebrated the New Year, and here we are again, a year later.  It is, for sure, one of the quickest years I had so far.  Things just flew by me so fast that I barely noticed any time at all.

It wasn’t as chaotic as 2010, but it did bring a lot of new and interesting moments.  I spent most of 2011 working for FXCC.  Even when it just seems like yet another Forex company in my resume, it is not exactly so.  New team, new concepts, new technologies, new ways of doing things.  The experience I had this year was definitely enriching and empowering.  One example to give was my new and extended experience with Microsoft Windows.  And even though I haven’t changed my personal preferences from Linux, I’ve definitely learned a lot and saw many things in a new light.

One of the items on my wish list from last year was an Android phone.  I’ve been following the platform for a few years and finally I got myself an Android device early in 2011.  I also was considering an Amazon Kindle, but that wish changed a bit.  Instead I now desire a tablet.  And even though I still don’t have one yet, there is one in the mail.  Yes, that’s right, I’m awaiting a delivery of a tablet device.

One of the biggest adventures I’ve ever had happened this year too, and I didn’t even have to travel for that.  I’m talking about ImpreStyle – a start-up and a project that I am doing together with my very close family.  We started back in May and recently we reached yet another milestone (more on that later).  There were a lot of slow downs, problems and misunderstandings, but we managed to pull through, solve it all, and push it together.  We have an excellent team now, where each one brings to the table something that others can’t.  And we have some really good signs for this project for the upcoming year.  I’m sure that each member of the team learned plenty of new, but I’ll speak of myself here.  It’s been a while since I wanted to get into mobile technologies, and finally I did.  I’ve learned a lot about how this industry and market operate.  I’ve learned a lot about web promotion.  I’ve learned a lot about online marketing – now from a more practical perspective.  I’ve learned more about finance, accounting, management, and other areas of running a business.  In some more, than I ever wanted to know.  Yet, I’m sure I will learn more next year.

Something else that I experienced today and enjoyed a great deal was my first TED conference.  TEDxNicosia event was awesome on its own. But for me personally the timing was excellent as well.  It came just when I needed it and provided the inspiration that I needed.

While I’m writing this post, and thinking back and forward, I’m enjoying a glass of a real port wine.  I got a bottle directly from Portugal thanks to Michael.  This is yet another first time for me.  I’ve tried the Russian idea of port wine quite a few times but it has nothing in common really.  The real stuff is awesome – definitely something to experience again!

Now, for the New Year.  My biggest hopes and plans are all around the ImpreStyle project.  I think that that will be the year when it grows up, defines itself better, and gets a much needed infusion of resources.  We’ll see.  Regardless, I think I will get even more into the mobile stuff – smartphones and tablets in particular.

I also think that working on the same project brings the family closer together.  That’s what was happening this year, and I hope the trend will continue.

As with any year, I am always looking forward for some travelling.  I haven’t been out of the country in either 2010 or 2011, so I hope this year will provide me with an opportunity or two to go and visit foreign lands.

That’s about it really.  Instead of having many different wishes and expectations, I am concentrating more on those which are the most important to me.  How about you? What are you expecting from 2012?  How did 2011 treat you?  How does it compare to your expectations from it a year ago?  Let me know in the comments.

Once again, Merry Christmas and  a Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.  Enjoy the holidays season and family time.  I hope Santa Clause brings you everything you wished for and a little more on top of that.  Have fun, eat, drink, and I’ll see in 2012. Tada!

Personalized phone call from Santa

Gmail team, as awesome as it is, has outdone itself.  Here is a little tool they’ve created for the seasonal greetings – SendACallFromSanta.com .  The idea is old but the application and execution is fresh and excellent.  Basically, you just provide a bunch of information about the recipient and then gets either an audio or video message from Santa, very personalized and unique.  Here is a video message that it created for my son Maxim after I answered all the questions.

Try it yourself – it’s fun and cool!

 

Website traffic, the learning curve

I’ve built plenty of websites over the years.  Some – from scratch, others – mere customizations and adaptation of someone else’s work.  But when it came to web promotion, I’ve usually handed it over to someone else.  Don’t get me wrong – I have a pretty good idea about how these things work, but I didn’t keep up and I haven’t practiced in a long while.

Currently, I am involved in the project, where the web promotion bit is my responsibility.  Until the project grows and earns enough to hire a professional.  So I’m using it as a platform to refresh my knowledge, catch up with current trends, tools, and techniques, and to try out a few ideas of mine own.  It is an interesting experience.

One thing I like is that the website is brand new on a very young domain with no previous history.  The A/B testings and statistics cuts are very clean.  There is an opportunity to measure the effects of this or that campaign with a lot of precision and no interference from any other traffic sources.

A lot has changed since I did it the last time.  One thing that amazes me is how dirt cheap the web traffic is these days.  I mean that when I first went in to buy some, I had a price in my head.  I paid less and I got more than I expected.  Then I studied it for a few days and got a way better price.  Then I tried something else and got an even better price.  I’m sure I’m not at the end of the tunnel yet either.

Of course, this is a random, not targeted, pretty much not convertable traffic.  But it does have its pros this early in the game, and given the price – it’s well worth it.  Even with that I’ve got more conversions than I hoped for.

Let me mention it once again – I am pretty much a newbie in the practical terms of this.  If you have any advice or any resources that you think might help me out – please share and let me know.  Once I get a better hand of it, I’ll share my thoughts and experiences too.  Right now though it’s too embarrassing to do so.

Death by a thousand clicks

If you don’t know or remember the expression “death by a thousand cuts”, it refers to an ancient Chinese torture.

Slow slicing [..], also translated as the slow process, the lingering death, or death by a thousand cuts [..], was a form of execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly. Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as treason and killing one’s parents. The process involved tying the person to be executed to a wooden frame, usually in a public place. The flesh was then cut from the body in multiple slices in a process that was not specified in detail in Chinese law and therefore most likely varied. In later times, opium was sometimes administered either as an act of mercy or as a way of preventing fainting. The punishment worked on three levels: as a form of public humiliation, as a slow and lingering death, and as a punishment after death.

Then, of course, there is a modern day office variant – “death by a thousand papercuts”, which I won’t go into any detail – you can get the idea.

Well, today I discovered yet another, even more modern variation of that – death by a thousand mouse clicks. And even if you’ve heard that before in regards to a bad user interface, there is another meaning to it. Yesterday I paper cut my right index finger. While it’s not that bad on its own, when combined with a mouse button it is indeed a new form of torture.

Do you have any idea how many times you click, double-click and wheel-scroll every day? A lot! I tried to count but I don’t know a number that large. Except gadzillion, to which I don’t know how to count. Anyway, even if you don’t use your mouse so much, you still need to type, don’t you? And typing with the cut on the index finger is more annoying than with any other finger. All because of those little nobs they put on keys F and J so that you could find the home row. Good thing I’m not bleeding at least…