post

Mystical Ball

November 9, 2005 by Leave a Comment

I’m so very excited because today I got to know how this
www.mysticalball.com works.

[for those who don’t know, this site claims it can read your mind by asking you to pick a random two-digit- number, add its individual digits and subtract the sum from the original number. The site then claims to know your final answer.]

It goes like this:
whichever number you choose, the final answer will be a multiple of nine.
eg. 28; 2+ 8=10; 28-10=18……67; 6+7=13; 67-13=54 and etc.
Now, on the site you will notice that all the multiples of nine have the same symbol.
So whatever number you choose, whichever symbol you get, the site will always ‘know it’.

Try it and see……..

Filed Under: Geek Stuff
post

For Amateur WebMasters

November 2, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Here is a great blog which aims specifically at helping amateur webmasters.

Filed Under: Internet
post

So so Sad

November 2, 2005 by Leave a Comment

The title is actually taken from a remark by my good friend Kush once he had read the BEST place on earth.
I agrree with him completely. It is really disheartening-in a small way- to read of a centre of excellence such as MIT, Harvard, Yale or even the rest of the more than 4000 colleges and universities in the US yet we in Kenya do not have any centre of excellence. To make it worse, many many high school graduates who qualify for college do not get an opportunity to get to college due to a shortage of universities. On average, only 10% ofthe 250000+ body of Kenyan high school graduates have any realistic hopes of getting intouniversity. What happens to the rest?
The government surely isn’t doing enough to combat this situation but sometimes I wonder, can it really do any more? I mean, it isn’t easy trying to overturn a 40-year economic regression.
Still, I beleive education is the backbone of any country’s future success and as a country wearen’t building a very healthy backbone. However, I think most Kenyans will agree with the fact that in Kenya, there just are’nt enough, if any, opportunitiesto do what you really want to do.Times are hard. It kinda makes you wonder: where are we heading to?
But there is hope, there’s always hope. Indeed there are those Kenyans who do make it, those Kenyans who get an opportunity to excel – yeah, there ARE Kenyans at Harvard. It is important that these Kenyans don’t forget about their country.

If you are a Kenyan, no matter who you are or where you are: Come, let us build the Kenya of tommorow today.

Filed Under: Kenya
post

Approaches to Strategy: Part 1

November 2, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Strategy can be defined as a broad based plan for doing something.

It is important to apply a strategy to everything you endeavour to do to ensure a high probability of success. Beleive me, you can strategise on how to do anything, and you should! Some of things that you can aplly strategy are sports, running a business, taking exams or even finding that elusive life partner. By the way, this list is definitely inconclusive.

So, how do you or anyone go about formulating strategies?

There are several approaches to strategy. Today, right now, we’ll talk (actually, I’ll write) about one approach:
1.SWOT Analysis
This entails critically analysing yourself or your business to ascertain your Strengths and Weaknesses. The rule is: identify your Strengths and take advantage of them while trying to minimise the effect of your Weaknesses.

With this in mind, you scan the environment( which can be the team you’re playing against, the industry your business is in or even the girl you’re trying to court) to find Opportunities and determine how you can use your Strengths to exploit them. In addittion, you determine what Threats – things that can cause your failure – exist and ways of containing them.

STRENGTHS / WEAKNESSES
———————————-
OPPORTUNITIES / THREATS

To drive the point home, lets take an example, shall we?
Until recently, I was the unofficial champion of chess in my neighbourhood. I lost my ‘title’ to someone who I though would never beat me. Ever!
After the game, I was embarrased to learn that he had used a simple strategy to beat me. He just used SWOT analysis and came up with:

Strengths: I never lose my concentration.
Weaknesses: I’m a novice and can’t always see all the options available to me.
Opportunities: Kelvin probably won’t be using any specific strategy. He also tends to lose his concentration in longer games.
Threats: If I let him, he can win the game very quickly.

So what did my good friend do? His strategy was: Defend very strongly in the beginning and ensure that the game lasts as long as possible. Later, take advantage of Kelvin’s loss of concentration.

Simple, right? It did work. The game was really tight in the beginning-my friend didn’t attack at all. Needless to say, once the game was past the 2-hour stage, I made some horrendous mistakes that cost me the game.

Thats strategy for you: it’ll take you places everyone else thought you coud not go.

Next time: Part 2-Michael Porter’s Competitive Forces Model.

Filed Under: Articles
post

[oops!]

November 2, 2005 by Leave a Comment

I’m not quite sure, but I think I may have committed a crime, plagiarism
in my last post. To the writer, I’m sorry.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous
« Previous Page
Next Page »