Archive for February, 2007
Monday, February 26th, 2007
Bwee is not dead, it lives on in Caribbean Airlines. Too bad Tribe didn’t include a Caribbean Airlines section in its “Ole Time Someting…Come Back Again”. Picture it: “The Ghost of Bwee Past”. It has a nice ring to it. After all, Caribbean Airlines is overbooking post-Carnival travelers (how do you sell more tickets that you own?), they’re bumping them, mistreating them and not offering accommodation for the extra weeks they’ll have to spend in Trinidad. Some passengers were told they would have to pay extra to get a seat because there were “no guarantees their current tickets would be honoured”. Can you believe that?
If you’ve ever been an academic slacker you remember how it was the first few weeks of that new term. You swore that you are going to give this term your best shot. And so you draw up a study schedule, you sit in the first row and pay attention in class. You come home on evenings and do your homework religiously. However, in 2-3 weeks this new leaf you’ve turned over withers and dies. You’re back to square one.
Slacker, meet thy corporate mentor.
Maybe it dawned on the academic slacker that the reason they were failing had very little to do with study schedules or seating positions, it was them. And in the same way, it’s not a matter of a paint-job or a name-change, it’s the attitude of Caribbean Airlines on a whole that needs changing. They can’t continue to conduct business in the same blasé manner as they did in the old days all the while treating passengers with the same shameless disregard.
You and I know it, but do they know it yet?
Posted in Corporate | 14 Comments »
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007
The mas is all over now. I can’t say that I took notice of a lot of it. Every year I make sure to watch the Dimanche Gras show, but that’s about it for Carnival festivities for me really. Dimanche Gras is always the best part of the season and particularly the Calypso Monarch final. I used to watch the Kings and Queens show also, but with this year’s one-song rule leaving the King and Queens of the band unsandwiched by calypsos, I’ve realized I don’t like watching it as much as I thought I did. Instead, after the calypsos were done, I came and sat here next to my computer till the results were ready.
The show overall was OK I guess. The stage design was kind of poor in my opinion. It looked like an 80’s Scouting for Talent stage. In fact the show on a whole had that feeling - more of a talent competition than the grand finale of calypso. You would think that after all these years we could produce something a little prettier than that. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.
You can see the results here, but here’s a rundown of how I felt about each finalist begining in last place:
15th - Black Sage - “Send for Somebody” - Ho hum. Subject matter wasn’t terrible, but the song itself was plenty bland. The subject of his calypso was the fact that T&T sends abroad for all its experts….or something like that.
13th (tied) Brother Valentino - “Pioneer” - I apologise, but this was just another tired calypso about pan that really didn’t have anything new to say. I think the judges let it into the final because they couldn’t bear to have a calypso about the national instrument left out of the show. It’s kind of like leaving Miss USA out of the Miss Universe final being held in New York - you just don’t do it.
13th (tied) Crazy “Paradise” - I don’t think 13th place did this justice. I thought it deserved much better. I guess it may have lacked a little originality. It was however, lyrics-wise, one of my favourites for the night.
12th Mr Caesar - “Carry Me” - Up to now I don’t know what this boy was singing about. A very forgettable performance. It may be my fault too since during stanza’s 3-4, I was raiding the kitchen for snacks. I won’t accept all the blame though since stanzas 1-2 and included chorus didn’t hold much promise. The snack was good however - ’twas a Nature Valley granola bar - the Oats ‘N Honey variety.
11th Singing Sandra - “Sudan” — Singing Sandra starts off this song talking about how we have to end racism in this country and then for the next 5 or so verses goes on a tirade of unfounded accusation after unfounded accusation about how doctors (read: non-Afro-Trini doctors) at the nation’s hospitals are killing African babies and tying African mother’s tubes - hence the title of the song “Sudan”. Right. The premise of the song was that it was a “friend” who was telling her about all the atrocities that were being committed and she (Singing Sandra) was having a hard time believing it. What a way to end racial discrimination. I used to like Singing Sandra, but *flush*.
10th Shadow - “If I Coulda” — How could Shadow make it to the final with this song but not with “Poverty is Hell”? “If I Coulda” is not a bad song, it’s a nice little ditty about not giving excuses, but it was never going to win the Calypso Monarch. Could I have missed its underlying meaning? By the way, “Poverty is Hell” is one of my all-time favourite calypsos.
9th Heather McIntosh - “Check One” — I really thought the name of this was “Check the I”. Anyway, it was a good song, the only bad part about it was that Heather McIntosh chose to punctuate her calypso with shouts of “Haile Selassie I” and “Jah Rastafari” which really had nothing to do with the song on a whole. The song was about the arrogance of the Government who does thing without checking with the “I” i.e. the electorate. Maybe I’m missing a parallel meaning, and maybe she meant to allude that the “I” was also God. If she did, that was completely lost on me. It was a little confusing. Her father Shortpants filled the roll of prop man and brought on a couple signs or something like that. I can’t remember what the signs said.
8th Skatie - “Eat Yuh Cake and Still Have it” — Ho hum. I think Skatie’s aim was to ensure that the Government would still hire him to sing PSAs like “Picture, Picture of our Health Ministry…”. I’m sure his paycheck is not in danger after taking shots at things like anti-smelter protesters. Mind you he did criticize the Government, but I think his role was more of a Shakespearean Fool than a strong critic. He also managed to take a jab at Chalkie saying (and I’m paraphrasing) that “Chalkie has won the crown so many times and wouldn’t give the youngsters a chance”. Well if the youngsters are singing crap like “Eat Yuh Cake and Still Have it”, what do you expect, Skatie? By all means Chalkie, please sing till you’re 90. In any case Skatie must be getting too caught up in the whole “Monarch” aspect of this thing. The crown has to be earned, not handed down.
7th Sean Daniel - “Ring” - This anti-premarital sex song was good and the performance was entertaining and energetic. I liked it a lot. It deserved a top 10 finish. I especially liked the prop man in the back with the oversized wedding band, performing all kinds of shenanigans. Daniel also had the best line of “No Ring, No Ting”.
6th Duane O’Connor - “Satorial Elegance” — This song heaped praises on a very praiseworthy Might Duke. It bored me out of my mind. I think this song had the “Miss USA in the Miss Universe Pageant in the USA” effect also. “A song about a legendary calypsonian? How could we leave it out?”
5th Chalkdust — “Soca Warriors” — One of my all-time favourite Calypsonians. His song this year was quite good. He used his song to demonstrate how he was a Soca Warrior too - a soca warrior before the term was coined. I think he even fired a shot off at Skatie, although I can’t now remember what it was.
4th Maria Bhola - “I Love You” - perhaps the most entertaining performance of the evening. She chose to ridicule Larry Achong behavior at the TV6 Chatham Town Meeting saying “I love you” instead of, well, the obvious. Equipped with gray hair and Achong’s Farmer Brown get-up, she worked her fake pot belly like I have never seen a pot belly being worked before (or hopefully, ever will). Performance-wise, she was the best hands down. I was transfixed to her and her pot belly from the moment she stepped on stage. Her song was pretty good too, and I had hoped for a higher place for her. In fact, I thought 4th was surprisingly low.
3rd Devon Seales - “One Song” - His was another good performance. Complete with Western wear and a orange toy pistol, looking like he was prepared for a gunfight, Devon Seales was excellent. His song was a list of all the things he wanted to sing, but couldn’t because he only had one song. I guess the Old West wear was a symbol of the one-shot showdown that the Calypso Monarch was reduced to. Obviously this didn’t go unnoticed by the judges either who gave him third place.
2nd De Fosto Himself - “Police Money” — I realize that a lot of people liked this one a lot more than I did. It’s actually a good song, but I wouldn’t have picked him to get second place. Probably it’s a little hard for me to take him seriously anymore after last years Soca Warriors calypso which looked like nothing more than a singing request to be sent to Germany with the other talent. I could be wrong though.
1st Cro Cro - “Nobody Ain’t Go Know” — Well Cro Cro has never been my favourite calypsonian. While a lot of people will say “Cro Cro is my boy”, I remember the things he has sung in the past and the amount of hurt it has caused to Indo-Trinidadians. I remember those things even when terms like “stereotyping” were not fully understood by calypso lovers and many would say, “Dat is good Kaiso”. I’m not against criticism of course, just against unfairness. I could never understand the view that one group of people could be always wrong and the other group never wrong. But that’s just me.
That being said, this calypso was OK. It was a little tired though, and a little trite, and not very creative. On top of all that, parts of his delivery were rushed and garbled. I think that if another Calypsonian had sung this song, even with clearer diction, they would not have won. Sometimes I think the judges have this nostalgic/romantic prejudiced opinion of a calypsonian that causes them to be star-struck on Dimanche Gras night.
I’ve always been confused by the Monarch results, and this helped to cement my belief that I could never be a judge in the finals. I just can’t tell what the judges are looking for.
Posted in Calypso, Carnival, Culture, Entertainment, Media | 9 Comments »
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
The following is the story about blogging in T&T written by Kayode James that ran in the Sunday Guardian (Sunday Vibe, to be exact) on February 11th, 2007 on pages 55 & 57. In some parts the formatting may be a little messed up because it was e-mailed, so bear with me.
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As crime-driven tension hits an all-time high…
T&T expresses itself online
KAYODE JAMES
In one of his most recent posts, Mani, the webmaster of The Manicou Report, questioned the motives of those responsible for the brutal murder of Clive and Denise Commissiong.
“Who can look a feeble, wrinkled old couple in their
eyes and then strike them down with a crowbar?
Do I eat next to them in the fast food outlet? Do I
sit next to them in a maxi? How do I know it’s them?”
Driven by the news, The Manicou Report (www.themanicoureport.com) delivers regular commentary on T&T current affairs, and is one of the most popular examples of the country’s ever-expanding blogosphere.
Personal Web sites run by Trinbagonians both at home and abroad are nothing new, but the explosion in violent crime of recent years has had a significant influence on the tone of content posted by T&T’s online community. More and more Trinbagonians are expressing their hopes and fears online, creating a Web-based voice that informs international opinion of this country.
The Sunday Guardian interviewed several bloggers and active members of the online community to get their words on the subject.
A sure-fire way of making your voice heard Mani, the 30-year-old student who runs The Manicou Report, described his site as “a calming release.”
“I think my family was growing tired of listening to me whenever I had something to say about the state of T&T, so I guess my blog was a way for me to find a new audience,” he joked. “Honestly, I started blogging because I wanted an avenue to voice my opinions on happenings in T&T. It’s fine to write a letter to a newspaper editor or call in to a radio programme, but then you have to compete with clogged phone lines and scores of equally well-written and equally important letters vying for a space in the paper. So blogging is a sure-fire way of saying what I wanted and doing it on my terms.”
Mani has been heartened by the feedback he regularly receives on the site.
“Every blogger starts off feeling like he’s talking to himself, but eventually the (readers) comments and the readership grows into a little community of its own,” he said. “The best part of writing a post is getting feedback and e-mail. It’s just as great a reward to see that scores of people will come back every day to see if you have written something.”
He admitted, however, that blogging had become more than just an enjoyable hobby for him.
“Although it’s been rewarding, it’s also been very demanding in that I have to at least try to be
entertaining every time I write. I also have to blog regularly. No one likes coming to a blog that hasn’t been updated in a week,” he said.
Mani initially left his personal life out of the blog, but modified his format after he saw positive
responses to personal viewpoints.
“A blogger in the true sense of the word doesn’t necessarily have to represent anyone save himself. There is no one else who can say for you what you can say for yourself. By representing himself or herself, however, the blogger inadvertently represents any number of people who may share the same likes, dislikes, hobbies, views, or interests,” he said.
More Bloggers
In emphasising the importance of T&T bloggers, Mani said that there has never been a better time for bloggers to exist.
“Bloggers all over the world have been capable of some very remarkable things and it should be no different here,” he said.
Web developer Nigel Mahabir, who catalogues and categorises locally run Web sites on
TTWebdirectory.com, is no stranger to the insights offered by T&T’s online community.
“The (T&T) blog is the voice of the unheard man or woman. The blogger is usually intelligent and
articulate, and thinks against the flow of the general public. Bloggers tend to respond to other points of view without the censorship or direction of the mainstream media,” he said.
Mahabir, who also records demographic statistics of bloggers, said that most T&T bloggers fall into the 18-35 age group and middle income bracket.
“The rich don’t have an opinion or they don’t care. The poor don’t have such consistent or regular access to the Internet, and wouldn’t dedicate their time to a blog,” he said.
Mahabir said, however, that most sites are short-term endeavours.
“Blogging requires great dedication, and then after you put out all that time and energy, the amount of people who read your work is so small,” he said. “As quickly as sites go up, they go back down. Most sites don’t last a year, and forum memberships dissipate.”
A Grim List
“Maribunta,” an advertising employee who runs TT Murders (ttmurders.blogspot.com), revealed in an interview with the Sunday Guardian that his blog is a frustrated response to the country’s murder rate.
Each post in the frequently updated site contains basic information (and pictures, when available) about the country’s latest murder victims, as well as links to relevant online news stories.
The blog is not the first of its kind. Other short-lived sites attempted to highlight the country’s out-of-hand social ills, but often utilised overtly political and widely offensive viewpoints to convey their messages. TTMurders is generally devoid of opinions or commentary, but still stands clearly as a scathing indictment on the authorities and a constant, haunting reminder of the wages of an unchecked crime rate.
“I’m as fearful and fed up as the next person is with crime, and becoming more and more angry with the government’s blasé hopeless response to it,” he said. He maintains the blog in an effort “to keep our murders in a more visible light both locally and internationally.”
“I’m hoping that if someone comes upon the blog and scans it through, they’ll be concerned, angry, or frustrated enough to pressure authorities to take action,” he said.
Maribunta is also peeved with what he described as the media’s lack of follow up when reporting murder cases, and a similar lack of investigation into unidentified bodies.
He referred to his blog as an evolving project, and is currently developing plans for its expansion and promotion.
The response so far has been encouraging. He confessed, however, that maintaining the blog has affected him more than he expected it to. “Because I read and reread most of the articles, the victims become more tangible and more personal than a statistic,” he said.
Not All Positive
Not all Trinbagonian bloggers have been inspired to post constructive or insightful content in response to the crime situation.
“The ***** ******”(I refuse to mention or link to that site here on this blog. In the paper edition, Kayode didn’t give the URL either as he did with the other sites mentioned.), a disgruntled T&T expatriate who claims to “tell it like it is”, uses his site as a venomous, often disturbing public repository for generally racist commentary on local news stories.
The ****** is one of a growing number of overt racists who have infiltrated the network of blogs, forums, and websites that make up T&T’s own online community.
The individuals are often politically vocal, come from all sides of the ethnic divide, and revel in the anonymity that the Internet affords them.
Mahabir was unaware of the recently-launched site, but acknowledged the existence of racist sentiments among some T&T web users.
“Racism is always an issue online. The question is how far you can go without your website being taken down,” said Mahabir. He said that web journal providers like Blogger have strict hate speech rules, but can’t read between the lines to censor subtly racist commentary.
Online Racism
Still, Mahabir does not believe that online racism has become a significant issue on the T&T blogosphere.
“(But) I expect it to get worse during an election year,” he said.
Richard Jobity, a strategic planning analyst who heads the T&T Linux Users Group, noted that the online community, with all its positive and negative characteristics, is simply a microcosm of its offline counterpart.
“It’s just an expression of the racism that’s there and that has been there for generations. The only difference online is that it’s more visible and more crude,” he said.
“Too much racism can kill a community. It’s an extremely emotive topic and it can degrade a serious discussion into name-calling. Even though it has different sensitivities, the web is just a reflection of society.”
I don’t feel obligated to write about it all the time Georgia Popplewell’s “Caribbean Free Radio” website (www.caribbeanfreeradio.com) has become a premiere destination for T&T blog readers.
The site offers audio podcasts, a photo journal, and a blog. Popplewell, an established writer and cultural critic, said that she was excited by “citizen media” aspect of blogging.
“For me personally, it was also a way of adding to the information about the Caribbean region available on the Internet,” she said.
“I like to describe it as being ‘how I live and what I do’…providing a personal perspective on the Caribbean region.”
Popplewell is also one of the few Caribbean bloggers whose work has become more than just a hobby.
Through her work at Caribbean Free Radio, Popplewell became heavily involved in the region’s online professional network and was eventually hired as the co-managing editor, Caribbean regional editor, and podcast editor at Global Voices (www.globalvoicesonline.com, an online magazine that monitors and reports on world events through the perspectives of bloggers.
Unlike Mani, Popplewell believes that there’s less potential for blogs to play a large role in shaping public opinion, due mostly to a fairly low level of Internet penetration, and a generally trusting relationship between the mainstream media and the public.
As an editor with Global Voices, Popplewell said that she had not seen much of an increase in social commentary from more casual, personal bloggers.
The Caribbean Free Radio blog itself is not as focused on the crime situation as TTMurders or The Manicou Report, but Popplewell has commented on the crisis in the past.
She was disheartened when her posts on the Sean Luke murder generated depressed, disturbed responses from her readership, and has since tried to avoid the issue.
“I’ll talk about our social situation if I feel like it, but I don’t feel an obligation to talk about it all the time… or to talk about (any one thing) all the time.
That’s one of the luxuries that being a blogger affords me,” she said.
Most of my readers are outside the region. In describing the positive feedback that her blog has
received, Popplewell said that she suspected that most of her readers are from non-Caribbean countries.
Manicou noted a similarly large segment of foreign readers on his site, and the observation emphasized the prominence of foreign-based Trinbagonians on.
Mahabir described the foreign-based prominence as a manifestation of what many Trinidadians want. “They want to be overseas but enjoy the culture they grew up in. They escape the negatives of Trinidad while accessing the positives,” he said.
He said that although foreigners and expatriates generally use online newspapers as their primary source of information on T&T, blogs had become a major source for cultural insights and minute details not covered by the mainstream media.
“The coverage is definitely an emotional response as compared to the mainstream media’s straight facts. Bloggers will talk about news stories that affect them personally.”
Popplewell doubts, however, that the limited demographic of the blogging community prevents it from being truly representative of T&T.
“At the end of the day blogging is simply a way of delivering information, just one that’s accessible to many more people,” she said.
“It still depends on what you say and how you say it.”
Posted in Blogging, Media | 11 Comments »
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
Looks like the good folks at Courts went shopping for an ad campaign and ended up stealing iPod’s instead.
Who am I to talk anyway, I stole my header. Plasma is $14,999? Oh lass!! I’d like to announce, I’m going to start taking up donations to buy myself that 42″ LG Plasma TV. (The purple Courts iPod TV). I’ll take whatever you can afford…..actually I think I need a scanner first.
Posted in Corporate, Media | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
I have a big gripe with Caribbean Bottlers Limited. Huge gripe. Caribbean Bottlers Limited is the company that bottles Coca Cola. My particular gripe isn’t with Coca-Cola or any Coca-Cola product. I have a problem with the current radio ad for an energy drink called Ciclon (Also spelled Ciclón) that Caribbean Bottlers Limited is pushing for Carnival. Here is a transcript of the ad:
(soca music playing in background)
Man 1: I really enjoy myself boy, but yuh see me? I had enough. I going home!
Man 2: Wha? But yuh leaving? Hmm. Yuh know we have to take one for the road? Yes! Drunk or sober, we taking one for the road!
Man 1: I could agree with that, but I taking a Ciclon for the road. I looking for relief from all those spirits I just had.
Man 2: Watch, brodda, I eh having it no other way. A beastly cold Ciclon and yuh on the road!
Both: T&T, this carnival, drink Ciclon, energize yourself and get home safe!
When I first heard this ad I wondered, “are these people really saying what I think they’re saying? Are they saying that drinking Ciclon makes you less drunk or even worse yet, fit to drive?” The message in it was so striking, it brought me online here to see if it’s ever been determined if sports drinks like Red Bull have ever been proven to alleviate the effects of alcohol. Of course it hasn’t. And just for the record, Red Bull and Ciclon have the same active ingredients including caffine, taurine, and I guess about a metric tonne of sugar.
Let me say right of the bat that nowhere in the ad is Caribbean Bottlers Limited saying that Ciclon energy drink is some kind of antidote to alcohol or a drink that helps the user feel less drunk. At least the don’t say that in plain English, but anyone who listens to the ad will understand that that is the intent of their message.
Among college age drinkers in the United States, there is an urban legend that mixing energy drinks and in particular Red Bull, with alcohol “combats the effects of alcohol”. And so may collage-age drinkers tend to mix their alcoholic drinks with Red Bull thinking that they won’t get as drunk. This of course is nowhere near the truth.
They certainly feel less drunk, but their coordination, visual reaction times and breath-alcohol levels do not improve upon drinking alcoholic beverages mixed with energy drinks. Again, Caribbean Bottlers Limited isn’t advocating mixing their drinks with alcohol, but instead consuming them afterwards. I hardly think the effects of drinking a Ciclon and alcohol mix compared to consuming each one after the other could have a great difference in effect.
Not only is there no truth in the belief that mixing energy drinks with Ciclon can make you more sober, but it’s just dangerous. For one, mixing powerful stimulants contained in some energy drinks with depressants in alcohol could cause cardiopulmonary or cardiovascular failures. I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound good.
Secondly it gives drivers a false sense of sobriety that encourages them to get behind the wheel. A drinker may feel more alert but the alcohol is actually having the same effect on them. They are still just as impaired. Dr. David L. Katz, an associate professor of public health and director of the Prevention Research Center at the Yale University School of Medicine, said:
“This is just the combination that might lead to very bad judgments. Feeling less intoxicated and more alert, one might get behind the wheel of a car, but with impaired coordination and reaction time, that decision might spell disaster.”
The combination of energy drinks and alcohol doesn’t reduce the effects of alcohol — it only makes you think it does.
Rersearcher Maria Lucia Souza-Formigoni, PhD, who works in the psychobiology department of Brazil’s Federal University of Sao Paolo did a study to test the alcohol/energy drink Urban Legend. She found that people who consume the mixed drinks are just as impaired as if they drank alcohol alone, but are in denial about it. The 26 men who took part in the study rated themselves much more sober than they actually were. They may have felt that they were more alert and a little more awake, but in reality, their reflexes were not changed whatsoever
And this is the Urban Legend, the lie, that Caribbean Bottlers Limited seems to be selling to us and to drivers. The lie that Ciclon can sober you up. Of course in a court of law, it will be said that never explicitly said this, only surreptitiously. But just look at the words and statements being used and the sentiments being expressed:
“…but I taking a Ciclon for the road. I looking for relief from all those spirits I just had.”
“…A beastly cold Ciclon and yuh on the road!”
“T&T, this carnival, drink Ciclon, energize yourself and get home safe!”
You don’t have to work at Scotland Yard to catch their meaning.
Against the backdrop of all our social problems, all our fatal accidents due to alcohol, in a season that’s prone to overindulgence; against the fact that it’s very difficult for police officers to take impaired drivers off the roads, it really boggles the mind how Caribbean Bottlers Limited could put out such a deceptive and slyly-worded ad such as this that is so incredibly dangerous - a virtual loaded weapon to an unsuspecting and sometimes gullible public. Where’s our Consumer Affairs Division anyway?
How do the people at Caribbean Bottlers Limited sleep at night? You think it’s only the bandits, rapists and drug dealers that have lost their souls? Think again.
Posted in Carnival, Corporate, Media, Social Issues | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
So it’s Tuesday again and therefore Tech Tuesday. Although my last tech tip was completely ignored, (not even one comment?) I must persevere.
The best thing about Mozilla Firefox (to me anyway) is the extensions that developers are alowed to create. Extensions and themes allow the user to customize browsers to his or her liking. So I think that my tech tips will always include extensions for Firefox since developers continue to churn out better and more useful extensions everyday.
The extension I want to highlight todays is called All-in-One Gestures. This has made browsing the internet so incredibly easy, it’s not funny. It has made me realize though, that this is a lazy man’s extension. For the following screenshots I used Chennette’s site including photos of her Gulab Jamoon. (I hope you don’t mind, Chennette.)
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| Forward |
Close Tab |
Refresh Page |
All-in-One Gestures will allow the user to control the Firefox browser with the use of gestures made by clicking and dragging the right mouse button. You can open new tabs, close tabs, duplicate tabs, go back or forward in history or refresh the page all by a combination of up, down, left and right movements. The possibilities are endless. I still haven’t learned about 80% of the gestures.
You can also customize the colour of the trail and it’s thickness and edit and add your own gestures. There is another “Gestures” extension called Mouse Gestures. It’ looks pretty much the same. I haven’t used it so I’m not sure which is better. Maybe you can use both and tell me. You can download All-in-One Gestures here, and if you so desire, Mouse Gestures here.
The next tip is for a programme called Folder Marker. This is not a Firefox extension. If you get tired of seeing all-yellow folders on your computer, this programme is for you. I hate going into My Documents to look for the same folder I’ve opened a hundred times before. Changing the colour, makes it super easy to find.
Folder Marker (the free version) allows you to change the colours of your folders (10 to choose from) and change icons that add descriptions, like High Priority, Done Work and Important Files. This is a great addition.
However make sure not to download the Pro or Home versions. They want money for that. Download the Free version here.
Posted in Tech Tip | 12 Comments »
Sunday, February 11th, 2007
Please see that I have updated my “Dotish Talk” column, with the words of two people who seem to have set up camp there. They make this blog so easy to do.
By the way, guess who was interviewed by the Trinidad Guardian in this Sunday’s paper? Moi. Cool eh? Check it out in your Sunday Guardian.
Posted in PNM, Politics, UNC | 8 Comments »
Thursday, February 8th, 2007
I deeply apologise for the late appearance of the Tech Tuesday feature. And yes I am aware it’s no longer Thursday, but I began this on Thursday and well, I’m making up the rules as I go.
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| Taskbar Shuffle Screenshot |
The first tip today is a programme called Taskbar Shuffle. This programme is pretty much what it says it is. Have you ever wanted the items on your taskbar to be arranged in a different order? Well I have, and I guess I wasn’t the only one since someone decided work on fixing that.
Taskbar Shuffle, once installed, allows the user to change the order of any items on the taskbar to his or her liking. With the ease of drag and drop you can change your taskbar itimes to any order you desire. You can get Taskbar Shuffle here.
My next piece if freeware is actually an extension for Mozilla Firefox. This one, FoxyTunes, allows the user to operate a host of different media players right from the status bar.
With FoxyTunes you don’t need to keep switching from your browser to your media player in order to raise or lower the volume, skip, search or even view song and album information. It expands to display all the controls and it can easily collapse into a single button when you need some status bar space.
There’s also a FoxyTunes mini that can be placed on top of all your windows (say the Word document you’re working on) in case you don’t want to have to switch back to your browser.
FoxyTunes works with Windows Media Player, Winamp, iTunes and many other media players. Controls are very easy and it even includes a sleep timer and an alarm clock. You can configure it to your liking and even learn the keyboard shortcuts. Definitely one of the best Firefox extensions out there.
You can install FoxyTunes from here.
You can also download Mozilla from my link on my sidebar to the right.
Posted in Tech Tip | No Comments »
Thursday, February 8th, 2007
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if your “good boy” son is hanging out with known gang leaders and men who have (or have had) serious matters before the courts, he’s not a good boy - by any stretch of the imagination. By it’s very definition, good boys don’t hang out with bad boys.
I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any pain.
Posted in Crime | 4 Comments »
Monday, February 5th, 2007
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| Trevor Paul |
Trevor Paul has put his foot down once and for all. Taking a break from all those bold face protesters, and the dangerous men with the printerless fliers, the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service has turned its focus to protecting the Carnival revellers and attendees.
“No one will spoil our mas,” said he. “Let me warn those with agendas which would counter the good order…You will not be allowed to disrupt those who are about their lawful business either playing mas, or looking at mas.”
He added that citizens can be sure that, “(the police) will be watching their backs.”
“Our operations will be guided by intelligence and we know where we should be and when,” said Paul.
Intelligence - now there’s a word that gets abused.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s great that the carnival attendees are going to be protected from bandits and rapists, but since I’m not going to take part in any of the festivities, and since I’m not going as a spectator, where does that leave me? Somehow it looks like crimewise, I have the same crappy chances during the Carnival season as I did going into it.
But hold on. Since there is going to be a large concentration of officers on the streets during Carnival Monday and Tuesday, does that mean that officers are going to be pulled away from other seemingly “low risk” areas only to be crammed in Port of Spain and environs.
What about the vehicle situation? Are vehicles going to be pulled away from the same low risk areas to be utilised in high risk ones?
So how safe am I, a regular citizen and non-Carnival event attendee? Are the police going to be able to break away from their two busy days of gaping guarding to attend to my needs as they might arise?
Surely, the Trinidad and Tobago police service hasn’t yet learned how to pat its head and rub its tummy at the same time?
It looks like my chances are worse than I previously thought. I may have to play mas just to stay safe.
Posted in Carnival, Crime, Culture | 7 Comments »
