Boney M star found dead December 30th, 2010

Boney M star Bobby Farrell found dead in St. Petersburg Russia December 30th, 2010 while on tour. The star was 61, and was famous for singing "By the Rivers of Babylon." Cause of death is unknown.

Advertising firm incharge of Obama's campaign gets purchased

Blue State Digital, the communications firm responsible for coordinating President Barack Obama’s online fundraising and social networking campaigns in the 2008 election, has been acquired by advertising giant WPP. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company's annual revenues are 12.8 million with offices in New York, London, Washington, Los Angeles and Boston.

http://www.bluestatedigital.com/

Skype announces video calling for iPhone, iPad & iPod

iPhone 4.0 devices will be able to initiate calls over 3G, unlike Apple FaceTime which requires Wifi. iPad and iPod Touch will only be able to receive video calls due to the missing front facing camera.

Visit Skype's website for more information
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/index-iphone/

SSH Find and Delete

Here's the command you want to use if you want to find every .htaccess file recursively and delete it.

find /path/to/base/dir -name \*.htaccess -exec rm {} \;

I used this command to remove .htaccess files that a spider virus placed throughout my web server. If I didn't use this method the only other way would be to individually go through each folder and delete file that was causing all my hosted websites to redirect to a rogue website.... and that wasn't possible because I host hundreds of websites, each with hundreds of recursive folders.

Lunar Eclipse 2010 - A Lunar Romance

We had just finished watching the movie The Town, when my wife and I remembered there was a lunar eclipse happening tonight.

We walked over to our second bedroom that was south facing and opened the balcony door. The brisk air rushed inside when we caught a glimpse of the moon being swallowed by the earth's shadow.

We rushed back into the bedroom and headed to grab the warmest clothes we could find. I with my fo-fur lined hoodie, and her with her white body length parka. Mitts, scarfs and toques followed with a hurry, thoughts that we were missing out ran through our minds. Confident that we were as warm as we could be we headed outside and slid shut the balcony doors behind us.

The sky was so clear, the air was clean and the darkness was silent only to be broken by the bright moonlight.

We stared into the sky and looked at the awe of our moon, suspended in the vast sky. "Hun, can you imagine what people must've thought the moon was hundreds of years ago?" I asked, while admiring the beauty of my wife. I couldn't help but think how she looked like a bond girl. "Yeahh" she replied with an extended sigh… "They must've thought it was a god." We paused… "Just imagine how comforting that is though, knowing that there is a god that you can actually see every night." I added..

The day in age we live in where we have scientific answers for mostly everything. How having an answer for almost everything, takes the magic out of the beautiful things nature shows us all the time. And how magical things must've been to the ignorant.

I completely support that we are better knowing things than not knowing, because being aware allows humankind in general to make better decisions. Not irrational decisions based on religious presumptions.

"I'm going to grab my camera", I ran inside and fitted my Canon 7D with the biggest lens I had. I didn't think i'd get any good results, but figured it was worth try. I came back outside, my wife still staring at the sky. Lifted my camera up and stretched the lens as far as it would reach into the sky, twisted the focal ring and… there he was… the man on the moon.

His smile become bigger and sharper with every twist of my wrist. Seeing his smile infected mine, the crisper he got, my smile grew larger. I looked over to my wife "You gotta see this hun…" and handed her the camera… she peeked inside the camera and her smile grew like mine.

She snapped a few photos and let the camera rest on her chest.

We stood there… staring into the sky… "I'm glad I'm sharing this moment with you hun." "Me to hun, she reached out and locked her fingers in mine. We both knew a lunar eclipse on winter solstice wouldn't happen for another 19 years.

The DJ who couldn't speak. FireText an extension of own body...

I thought this was the most remarkable story when our customer told me this. I couldn't wait to share this with all of you.

I received an email several months ago, a potential customer was asking us all the standard questions about our FireText text message to screen software. Features, pricing and how to get it all setup within his venue.

Everything changed when I picked up the phone and decided to call his number listed in the signature in the bottom of his email. I spoke with enthusiasm and introduced myself as a FireText sales agent. I never got a reply, but could hear some rustling around and background noise. I narrowed down who I was again, speaking a bit louder "Hello… I'm FireText the text messaging software company that allows your customers to send text messages to your TV screens"… still nothing. Then I heard a click. The customer had hung up on me.

Moments later I received an email saying, "Thanks for the call Raoul, I'm really glad you reached out to me, but I can't speak. So we'll have to keep our conversation over email".

My heart just sank to my heals, and I felt a tingle shoot up the back of my neck. I quickly sat up, and wrote back to him.

"Hey Ryan!

Thanks for the email back. I thought I had the wrong number when I called you.

Ryan… may I ask what you are going to be using our software for? maybe I can provide you a bit more information so it's an easier integration with your hardware setup."

Minutes went by, and I kept refreshing my inbox to see if he had replied. Nothing. So I got up, went to the cooler and refilled my cup with water. Thinking to myself, "holy crap… what's he going to do with FireText??"

When I came back to my desk, I saw his email… nearly spilled my cup of water while putting it down, he wrote.

"Raoul, thanks again for your quick reply… well, I as you know already I can't speak and I'm looking for a way to communicate with my audience. I was hoping I can use your Text to Screen and Text Song Request features so my audience can send me play requests, and I'd be able to reply back to them via your software.

This is my biggest hurdle, because right now I have to write down a reply on paper, and it takes too long.

I know using FireText will speed things up, and I'm hoping it will land me some bigger gigs."

I was absolutely amazed when I read this, that, here we are a Text Message to Screen Entertainment Company. Serving clients such as WWE Wrestlemania, Formula One Racing, NHL Teams, NFL Teams, Corporations… but now, we've become an extension of one's own body… a voice for a person who can't speak.

After this, I'm proud to say FireText has implemented a new product strategy, appreciating the diversity of our customers needs.

Follow me on Twitter
@bhattmaan

Traditional Advertising Sucks - Better Marketing Methods

Marketing using traditional media has become so ineffective now a days due to customers being saturated with advertisements.

I've found myself spending thousands of dollars only to have returns in sales that doesn't even come close to covering my initial investment. I've sat there scratching my head trying to figure out what's happened, whether my customers have lost interest in my products or whether I needed to revise my advertisements to capture their attention again.

This over spending on my behalf was due to old habits and a closed mind to these new forms of media, and using them to getting my message out.

I've always thought nothing could top traditional glossy magazine print, television and radio, I thought these were still the most effective ways of advertising. They were a effective way to get my message out to new potential customers up until 3 years ago. Then I found myself with a drained advertising budget, not being able to experiment with my current ads and couldn't continue traditional advertising methods because my budget wasn't replenished.

Coming to the realization that we live in a very different world then we did just 3 years ago. Where people are being captivated in new ways, the web, Facebook, Twitter, cell phones. I needed a way to get my message in front of them. I did some google searching and found a software called FireText.

FireText is a BULK SMS Software that's downloadable on your computer. The install is a snap, basically I just connect my cell phone to the computer using a USB cable, and FireText uses my cell phone to send and receive text messages. The great thing about FireText is that I don't have to pay a per text message fee like all other online companies that offer simpler services.

I imported my list of customer phone numbers which I've been collecting in an Excel spreadsheet and created my first Bulk SMS message. The coolest thing I found with FireText is the ability to specialize my Bulk SMS Messages, so each person that receives my text message can have it start with their name. I found this to be a nice personal touch, because I'm always about winning the hearts of my customers.

FireText offers other tools which helped me build up my list of cell phone numbers, these are clever features which took me from my list of a hundred cell phone numbers to thousands. All within a month of using FireText.

Once I got comfortable with the software, I didn't want to use my personal cell phone anymore, so I spent a little bit of money and went for their FireText SMS Transmitter. It's a little USB dongle that plugs into your computer, it was a hassle free option for me and allowed me to get my cell phone back.

Targeting my Bulk SMS customers is big for me too, there is grouping features, auto responders to deliver instant coupons upon keyword detection, and short code options if I wanted to upgrade one day when I reach millions of subscribers.

This has been a great addition for my business, and allows me to completely reduce my advertising expenses. Increase profits and target my customers with specialized text messages on their mobile phones.

The only advertising I use now is FireText Bulk SMS, Facebook and Google Ads and I'm making more sales than ever.

Follow me on Twitter @bhattmann