mannblogs.com Blog

My comeback post will attempt to re-cap May-December of 2008. Out by end of the week.

1. Your geek knowledge
2. Your interest & enthusiasm in all things new
3. Your audience

Here’s how it plays out. You don’t sell anything. You have all the new, cool gadgets you’re reviewing and you help people understand them and compare against their competitors. You don’t purchase anything…companies provide product to you in return for a review and discussion in the store (and online) … regardless of a positive or negative review. Maybe you even review ideas & introduce those to people looking for business connections (they will come to your store to do so).

How do you make $? Referrals. You get the consumer to the point of ready to buy…point them to the place to buy – providing a discount. You connect your stores to the web…to the blog. Maybe support plays a role too.

Just an idea, you’re probably already mulling it over. Hell, for $.21/share, how can you go wrong? You already do it better than they do.

says:
Lulu rings Suzy and tells her to get a cake for some bird in the room who’s b’day it is

says:
Suzy phones a cake shop

says:
orders a birthday cake

says:
she goes and picks it up

says:
its got a picture of a new born baby on the top of it in fruit / cream

says:
obviously the literal translation ‘BIRTH’day cake

says:
only in china

TRUE STORY!

Yes, I wore the green suit…but not yesterday. I wore it Friday night. My parents, little sister & her friend arrived in Beijing Saturday afternoon … my mom was afraid I’d show up in the suit…right from the bars. Almost, but didn’t happen.

Wasn’t a very exciting Paddy’s Day, but nice to spend time with the family in Beijing. Definitely not as crazy as the all the times in Buffalo … Savannah … Seattle … Beijing. I don’t think I ever spent a Paddy’s Day in Raleigh, but can’t remember.

Rather than showing you some pics of me this year, here’s one of one of my best friend’s baby – Sophie. As I said Alex, glad she looks like Kristine & not you!

My ThinkPad “died” last week in Singapore. Long story short, I plugged a projector in to do a pitch and it crashed my TP. Rebooted, tried to log in…started the process, then logged me out automatically. Tried going back to last good config, etc, etc, etc… Spent countless hours on the phone with support in Singapore, went to IBM Service Center in Singopore last Friday, no luck…went to IBM Service Center in Beijing on Monday…no luck.
The issue? After a bit of research, it turns out explorer.exe was not loading – needed to hack registry to fix. A lot more details on that, but am already stressed from this crap – so, if it happens to you, drop me an email & I’ll help you out.

With zero progress as of yesterday, I decided to attempt to roll a new TP myself…but, I cannot get an IBM/Lenovo imaged TP in China … the software downloads were failing.

After I ripped support a new one, again, I finally got put in touch with someone who knew what they were doing at IBM support in China. Went over this morning & was fixed in 30 minutes.

Glad that nightmare is over – now I have to dig through the almost 600 emails I’ve received over the last 6 days & migrate blackberry to new Lenovo email.

It’s times like this when I wish I was in Raleigh.

68% of Americans suffer disconnection anxiety, should probably go outside

For those of you in the US, you likely heard about what happened at the Buffalo Sabres game last weekend. Richard Zednik had his throat cut by a teammate’s skate (not on purpose, obviously). He was rushed to a Buffalo hospital…lost 5 liters of blood but is now in stable condition.

What did he ask for when he started to get an appetite? Buffalo wings of course! If there are two foods I really miss from Buffalo … it’s the wings & bbq chicken finger subs.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=3246110

the three bartenders practicing their English with each other … “no problem” … “VIP” … with Irish music over the speakers. Beer in hand as well.

Update: Irish band has showed up along with a small crowd…gone from listening to Chinese practice English and drinking a beer to listening to a great Irish band and drinking a beer.

Watch last minute or so…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7pb2c1szRw

http://lexposure.net/

My sister moved to Berlin a few months ago to start her first real job (after graduating from FIT in Manhattan). She landed at lexposure.net … It just launched a couple days ago…
“Lexposure.net is the first social and business platform custom-built for people in the fashion and creative scenes. We designed it to be the leading networking and information website for the fashion and creative scene. Whether you’re a photographer, model, designer, hair or makeup artist, editor, booker or producer – anyone can have his own account on Lexposure.net. Elegant, intuitive and easy to use, Lexposure.net is where work connects with your online life and your ideas come alive.
Users can upload portfolios, share information and link with potential partners. They can check individual activity feeds, featured members and wall posts in user profiles or mini portfolios, and communicate through the message centre, forum and pro forum or their friends’ and partners’ networks.” 

I think it’s a great idea with tons of potential. My sister is working on the “un-discovered talent” piece (yet to launch).

Good luck Meg!