Educating Myself
Education starts at birth and only ends at death
That quote has been a constant thought within my head since I heard it around two years ago. It is a simple sentence that simple resonates with me and follows my beliefs in life. You are never too old or too young to learn something new.
Where this quote has really come to the fore for me, is because of the fact that I am working this year. With it being my first year out of school and jumping straight into the industry, I have learnt a great deal at a pace much faster than I expected and I am absolutely loving it.
I have also realized that I could be doing a lot more. With working, you need to develop skills that set you above the rest and provide you with the edge that can help you provide your job to the best of your ability, and that is something that I have been trying to acquire this year.
So when I did the Quirk eMarketing course earlier this year, I really enjoyed the experience and really realished the chance to learn at a higher level. Also, learning about something that I was extremely passionate about just put the cherry on the top and the skills that I learnt there are invaluable.
So I am attempting to continue to educate myself and provide myself with the opportunity to learn as much as I can before the year is out. With this, starting from tomorrow, I will be participating in another Quirk Course, just this time, it will be with regards to Search Engine Optimisation.
How to nominate someone in the SA Blog Awards 2010
I am sure that you have all heard the hype around the SA Blog Awards 2010, and that you have seen the local blogosphere go crazy lately as people try to win your vote/nomination. Wait, hold on a second. They have been trying to win your vote, but you actually have no idea how to do so? Today that all changes. Below I will show you how to nominate someone in three easy steps.
The process really is simple, and can be done by following the steps below:
1. Click HERE to go to the nominations page
2. Enter your email address and the Security Code on the right.
3. Check your email and click on the confirmation link.
That sounds nice and simple, but let me make it even easier for you! I will break things down step by step for you so that you have to do even less work and won’t stress your intelligent brains at all.
1. Click HERE to go to the nominations page and automatically vote for me in the Best New Blog category:
Now, I have tried to make things as easy as possible for you lovely readers out there and all you need to do is click HERE, or on the banner on the right, to automatically vote for Captain Awesome in the Best New Blog category. It couldn’t be any simpler.
*Alternatively you could click HERE to just be taken to the nominations page where you can vote for anyone you like.*
Please note that this will open a new tab.
2. Enter your email address and the security code on the right.
This is where things start to get slightly trickier, but don’t worry, they are still pretty easy.
SA Blog Awards 2010
Ladies and Gentlemen, the time has arrived. The moment is upon us where the whole of the local blogosphere turns franetic in the hope of getting their act together.
I present to you, the South African Blog Awards 2010.
This is a prestigous event in the South African geek calender. A time when all of us turn into crazy, mad, raving lunatics in the off chance that we can scrammble together enough votes to get nominated for an award that all South African bloggers are after. This year is no different than those before with all bloggers stratergizing their campaigns, how their stratergies were going to outperform the rest and how they could come out trumphs this year.
I eagerly watched the blog awards last year and I knew from that moment on that I was going to enter this time around and see what my baby could do after only being just one year old. Now is not the time though to delve into such matters and shamelessly get onto my knees to beg for your vote. That will come later.
For now, I merely wanted to introduce the awards to you and let you know that it is hunting season again for those valued votes. Your twitter stream will get clogged up with the SA Blog Awards, and I am sure your Facebook and email will be jammed with messages from friends asking for your vote.
I merely warn you, that with just over a week to go, things are going to get messy. Now is the time when bloggers will stop at nothing to shamelessly steal your vote from you emploring any tactic they can to obtain it. They will be prepared to pry it from your cold lifeless keyboard that they relentlessly cut the cord on.
Thank You Quirk and GetSmarter
Better late than never.
This is simply a post were I can extend a gigantic thank you to two companies for something which I am really grateful for.
Way back in March this year, Quirk and GetSmarter came to my rescue when they agreed to help me out tremendously and sponsor the Quirk eMarketing course through GetSmarter.
Thank you Quirk & Get Smarter
I am now done with the course and I would just like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to both parties for helping to make this happen for me. I really, really enjoyed the course, and have already felt how it has impacted me in a big way. I would not be able to do my new job at ROI Media if I had not been sponsored that course, and you have no idea how appreciative I am of that fact.
It was only through the generousity of Quirk and Get Smarter that I was able to do the eMarketing course and I am really grateful of how they made this possible for me. Without them I would not have been able to do the course at all, and they managed to sweep in right in the nick of time and help me out with complete sponsorship. The thing that amazes me even further, is that in my previous post, I offered to help people out and exchange my services in return for sponsorship, but neither Quirk nor Get Smarter demanded anything in return. They did not even set a minimum standard or mark that they wanted me to achieve. They simply provided the course to me free of charge and let me embrace it how I pleased.
10Mb ADSL: Finally arrived
Africa, and South Africa in particular, has been crying out for decent internet access for years. It has been too long that, as a country, we have been developing at such a rapid rate, but without the same rate of growth in terms of connectivity and technology.
Steps are finally being taken to remedy this problem though. With the launch of the SEACOM cable last year, bandwidth issues have been a thing of the past. We have seen bandwidth prices plummet from R70/GB to as little as R14/GB lately. Times are certainly changing and we are moving in the right direction. With the launch of the EASSY cabling system last month, another route has been established to Europe providing Africa with an abundunce of bandwidth. Some might say that we are now saturated with the amount of bandwith in the country with the number fast approaching 5TB per second, but many disagree with the view point saying that they are needing to make up for lost time.
This weekend saw the next step in the process to put Africa on par with the rest of the globe in terms of internet technology – the arrival of 10Mbps ADSL speeds. Telkom were set to roll the speed upgrade out to no more than 20 000 subscribers across the country, and it looks as if I was part of the lucky few – for a while at least.
I have been keeping a very close eye on when the line speeds would be upgraded and have regularly done speed tests to determine if my line speed has changed. Alas, I was finally met you great happiness on Saturday morning when I ran the following speed test:
Day 2 at ROI Media
So I decided that I would give you a quick run down of what happened during my second day at ROI Media.
The traffic was horrible this morning, but I *just* managed to make it in on time and got going straight away. I didn’t even have time to check any emails or my iGoogle and I was called into a meeting with the Sales team. The meeting was just an introduction into what the sales team does and how they do it. It was very short and sweat, but still really valuable.
There was not too much excitement throughtout the rest of the morning as I had a few things that I needed to tackle myself in an attempt to learn and grow my knowledge. I got things done, did a bit of research and just generally got on with things.
The big surprise of the day actually popped up during lunch time. A Counter-Strike server popped up, and the next thing I knew, most of the office, including the Big Boys, were playing! I actually couldn’t believe it! CS has to be my favourite games of all time, and the fact that a game popped up without me being instrumental was awesome! Also the fact that the bosses were jamming along was even cooler, and you could hear the laughter and screams of anguish coming from their offices throughout the game!
Unfortunately for me, I was a bit more disciplined than I had expected and finished a few personal things that I had planned to do during my lunch break, and I actually got them done, so I was feeling pretty chuffed, but also a bit bummed out as I had missed the game! Don’t worry boys, I will be in the action tomorrow, and you all better be prepared!
New Junior Online Marketer at ROI Media
New Junior Online Marketer at ROI Media
I understand that I have not blogged in ages while my hosting and website issues were sorted out, and you might be wondered what this post is about after reading the title.
Allow me to fill you in.
As you are well aware, that while my blog might have been down, life keeps on going. While I was not posting, I had decided that I needed a change from Tamar. I loved every minute there, but I wanted to expand my horizon and see if I could start climbing the proverbial ladder of the working world.
Interview at ROI
Well doing my standard reading on the industry and trying to learn as much as possible in my free time. I came across the ROI Media website. I had come across it a number of times and read all of the blog posts, but once again I found myself searching through it once more.
I found the free website health check contact form and thought I would give it a go. There was nothing I could lose from it right? Nothing to lose definitely, but it appeared everything to gain!
They got back to me asking what I would like to be checked out, and I didn’t understand their response. I thought that I had read the website wrong, so went back trying to find the page again, and stumbled across the jobs page while doing so. I emailed Sebastian back providing him with the info he needed, and I also dropped in a slightly sneaky question, and politely asked him who would be the best person to send my CV to at ROI Media.
The Captain is back!
Yes, you read that title correctly! I AM BACK!
I understand that I have failed miserably on my goal of trying to blog daily to in an attempt to try and get nominated for an SA Blog Award. My goal still stands, but I am going to make a slight change. I am not going to blog daily, but I am rather going to focus on giving you loving readers only a few articles a week, but rather posts of a high quality.
I am getting a much better response from articles that I sit down and plan along with doing a little bit of research. I rather want to give you something that is going to be of value to you rather than just passing along news that you can find anywhere.
So after my hosting issues I have finally managed to get things up and running. I will do a blog post depicting my experiences and difficulties in doing my first host transfer for all of my domains.
Also, look forward to a new domain that I will hopefully be able to release at the end of the week!
I am back, and hopefully it is with a bang! I have quite a few exciting ideas going on which I will be able to execute within the next few months, so stay tuned!
Until then, Dans Dans Dans
- Captain AwesomeHosting Issues
This is just an update for all of you as to why there have been no posts for the past month.
I have been experiencing major hosting difficulties and therefore am looking into getting a different hosting package which is unfortunately rather expensive to host all of my websites on,
Please be patient as I look into getting a new hosting package setup as soon as possible. Hopefully I will be all systems go by the end of next week.
Don’t worry, I have around 10 post ideas ready and waiting for when the site becomes live again!
- Captain AwesomeMzanzi – Nine Cities, Ten Stadiums
Here is something to get you into the vibe of the World Cup. If you are foreign this will be even better for you as it provides you with a bit of background and information on the nine host cities and the ten stadiums.
Enjoy, and welcome to our country!
- Captain Awesome
About Captain Awesome
