Fresh Ideas

Archive for January, 2009

Barack Obama, the United States of America’s 44^th president will take oath of office at noon ET on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.

2 million people are expected to gather in the Capitol Hill, Lincoln Memorial and the White House for this momentous event.

Former U.S. presidents, politicians and celebrities will also grace the inauguration day.

The weather was chilly and said to be negative 15 degrees Fahrenheit. The train stations are fully packed with people wanting to get a glimpse of the oath taking of the president-elect.

Almost all of the streets leading to the capitol are closed due to security reasons. As early as 2 days ago, crowd are beginning to buildup in the vicinity of the National Mall.

Everybody is excited for this significant event and many are saying that this was unparalleled.

There are so many things to be said in this unprecedented occasion, and the only words that I can add is that everything is possible!

Can someone tell me now if they know anyone that didn’t receive any marketing or advertising message from their mobile phones these days? I think no one can answer that.

Almost all of us who have mobile phones one time or another received text messages from their provider a promotional service, freebies or something like that.

Mobile advertising and marketing is not new to us. This is a very good form of marketing campaign because mainly people nowadays could not get out of their homes without their mobile phones.

Usually, the Mobile Marketing Company is the wireless carrier or telecoms company who send us this kind of messages regarding their running promos and other marketing stuffs. I for instance get annoyed sometimes if I didn’t like what I receive from them, and sometimes I appreciate what they send me because I could really use it or is beneficial for me.

Actually it depends on the target audience if a marketing campaign will be successful or not, and it is not different in mobile marketing. Advertising something within a specific group for a certain niche could be very well accepted; however, if it was sent over and repeated several times, it will appear spammy and potential customers could be annoyed.

Advertising on a Mobile Marketing Company could be very beneficial to your company if you wanted to be successful in your marketing campaign because just like what I mentioned at the beginning of this post, majority of the population now are carrying mobile phones, and more likely your advertisement will be read and noticed.

One of the most sought after type of business venture nowadays is franchising. Business process that is ready-made. Tried and tested methods. These lure ordinary people without proper training or experience in putting up a business in the field of entrepreneurship.

Opportunity in franchising is not that hard to grab anymore. There are so many business entities that offered franchising. This is one way of companies to expand. Get good capital and get a foothold on their niche market on certain locations that the parent company never realized on putting up a branch.

And one topic always pops out of our mind whenever we had a chance in talking money matters, and that is undertaking franchising. This kind of industry really intrigues us. We normally get excited talking about it and dream that we could one day own a franchise of any business of our choice. Of course, this business should really represent us, a business we love.

For me, one restaurant that I really like eating out is in Subway restaurant. I’m a sandwich addict and their sandwiches are by far most the best in my palate! And I cannot justify it enough that one franchise that I would really love to have, if given the opportunity is to have a Subway Franchise of my own. Now, wouldn’t it be great to have a franchise of your own that you know will earn at the same time having fun managing it because you are really into its product!

Palm is back in the game!

Palm has unveiled the latest smartphone that it will launch in the first half of 2009, the Palm Pre. It will be available initially with Sprint but the release date was not yet announced.

The new phone was introduced last Thursday, January 8 at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It featured the new operating system, Palm webOS. This is a new OS built by Palm to fully support internet connectivity and the applications are inter-related.

The specification of the Palm Pre will kept you on the edge. Listed below are what you gonna be getting with this phone:

· High-speed wireless (EV-DO Rev. A or HSDPA, depending on version)
· 802.11b / g WiFi
· Integrated GPS
· 3.1-inch 24-bit color 480 x 320 display
· Dedicated gesture area below display
· Slide-out portrait QWERTY keyboard
· Exchange email support in addition to POP and IMAP
· IM, MMS, and SMS messaging
· High-performance browser
· 3-megapixel camera with LED flash and “extended depth of field”
· 3.5mm headphone jack
· Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP
· 8GB of internal storage
· USB mass storage mode
· MicroUSB connectivity with USB 2.0
· Proximity sensor for detecting when phone is near face
· Light sensor to automatically dim display
· Ringer mute switch
· Removable rechargeable battery
· 59.57 x 100.53 x 16.95mm closed
· 4.76 ounces

As much as I would like to get my hands on this, but there are still no announcement if a GSM version will be released in the near feature.

As the name implies, this is a prelude for bigger things to come from Palm! There is so much to write about this new smartphone from Palm and I couldn’t explain more. Just check out their website for update and information.

This should have been posted a few days ago. I’m too happy to announced to everybody that I celebrated the anniversary of my campaign in quitting smoking.

The last day I smoked was on January 3, 2008. Actually, I have serious thought about it way before I quit, one of course was because of health reason. I have been smoking for about 14 years and occasionally quitting for several weeks to a few months only.

Also, one good reason for me to stop was because my loving behalf’s throat which was easily irritated when she inhaled smoke, be it through a smoker’s cigarette or any kind of smoke because she has an allergic rhinitis. Before quitting, I constantly lied about her that I don’t smoke anymore and she didn’t believe me because evidence was always being left behind through the smell of my hair, fingers or breathe. I tried to hide it, but non-smokers could really tell if one was smoking or not.

Before quitting, I have a really bad case of cough and I developed fever after the New Year of 2008 and I really need bed rest to recover, and it dawned on me that this was the best time to quit. One, is because of my significant other’s health, second obviously because I’m ill. And lastly, because this was one thing that I wanted to go with my New Year’s resolution for 2008.

I have to admit that this was not easy task to do. I’m so used at smoking that I could easily burned away 1 pack of cigarettes a day, 2 packs when I’m drinking with my buddies. It’s a lifestyle for me. It’s also hard to stop it because the nature of my work. I worked in a call center and most of my colleagues smoke and it’s one way to ease of stress.

Do you know what, many will not believe this but I quit smoking the hard way…I just quit cold turkey and did not smoke afterward. I don’t knew how did I manage to do that, but I’m still telling that story to my friends up to this day who seemed not convinced enough that I really kicked that old habit of mine.

Well, the feeling was good and I didn’t get the urge to smoke, maybe on the first few weeks and months, but right now, there is none. I dream occasionally that I’m smoking and when I tell this to my significant other, she just said that I might be tempted to smoke but I’m assuring her that the opposite was happening. I’m really determined to forever quit and I think that if a man is really focused on something good, he will succeed.

By the way, I found out about this blog about quitting smoking and it’s good to know that there are people who are dedicated in helping people quit.

If I can quit, you too can do it!

2008 is through, welcome 2009!

Obviously this was my first post for 2009. my plan yesterday was to write my last post for the year, but unfortunately, due to my hectic schedule plus the fact that I reported to work the day before, I didn’t get the chance to write something. An additional factor for this is my very slow and intermittent internet connection. Thanks to my ISP, I lose any interest in writing one last night.

Well, much for the ranting, I think it will not do me any good. I will just channel all of my energy in concentrating to what matter most, and that is to stick to my 2009 targets. I know some of us do have some new year’s resolution and mostly those were broken. I just made mine a lot simpler and doable.

Hopefully, everyone spend their new year’s eve with their love ones, and most of all, I do hope that 2009 will be much greater than the past year for all of us.