H5N1 Avian bird flu forecast blog

Dropbox Sync Services

xo — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:49:08 +0000

Dropbox has the advantage of sharing files such as photos. Although there are several sync services, dropbox looks good and is easy to use. Watch the video: http://www.getdropbox.com/screencast

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Communication. Skills of successful people

xo — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:49:23 +0000

The degree of success a person will achieve depends on the skill he/she has to communicate.

Just the other day a friend told me, “Don’t send me text messages on the phone. I prefer you call.” I took a note of that. I have another friend, who says, “Any time you want to ‘talk’ to me, just send me an email.” People are different. Not everybody likes to communicate the same way. Here are the top tips in a nutshell for you.

General guidelines for Communication

1. Take genuine interest in the person you’re talking to. Ask people about themselves and they’ll talk for hours.

2. Make eye contact. It is the window to a person’s heart.

3. Master the art of listening.

4. Use body language. Researchers say 70% of what you communicate is in the body language.

5. Ask the other person’s opinion on the subject.

6. Speak in short intervals. Do not monopolize the conversation.

7. Be enthusiastic when you speak or listen to someone. Lean forward.

8. Be curious and show empathy.

9. Express your sense of humor and laugh at theirs (even if you’ve heard it before.)

10. Shut up. Harness the will to remain silent after you’ve asked a question.

Communicating by phone

1. Prepare before you call.

2. Smile and say something positive. It puts the person on the other side at ease.

3. Get personal. Give your name and ask for his/hers.

4. If you’re making the call ask permission, “Do you have a minute or five to talk?”

5. Know and state the purpose of the call. “…the reason I’m calling is …”

6. If you’re receiving the call, first, listen.

7. Agree as much as possible. Never argue.

8. Ask questions. Understand before you seek to be understood.

9. End conversation on an “up” note.

10. Speak clearly, slowly and repeat your phone number if you leave a voice mail.

Communicating by Email/Letters

1. Make the email subject line clear and interesting. Otherwise it may not get read.

2. Stick to the topic. Multiple themes and requests get ignored. Better to send multiple emails.

3. Reply to personal emails. It confirms to the sender that you’ve received it and eliminates misunderstanding.

4. Keep your inbox clean. Reply, forward or delete messages as quickly as possible.

5. Include the previous message when replying to questions for clarity.

6. Don’t send BCC email to people in CC.

7. Do not send email when you can communicate orally.

8. Ask for permission before putting them on mass mail list, and offer a way to “unsubscribe.”

9. If you are writing to a larger audience, pick one person you know and write to that person.

10. Add signature with your name and contact information.

Keep communicating!

See more Life Lessons at www.buildinternational.org

7 Secrets to Remember on Father’s Day

xo — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:22:14 +0000

1. You’re incredible. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13. In spite of your shortcomings and imperfection you are God’s masterpiece. Nothing you have done or ever do will diminish your value in God’s eyes. The enemy wants you to fade away as an insignificant man. God says He will use you and make your name great.

2. You’ve got what it takes. From Adam till today the enemy has tried to discredit you from being the person God has made you to be. When Daniel, my son was about 5 years old he took off the training wheels on his bicycle. One of the first things he wanted to do was to make skid marks on the road. Why? He wanted everybody to know he can do “crazy” things! Grown men are not much different from my young son. We want others to see. We want to leave a mark. I pray the Holy Spirit will supernaturally reveal to you, “You’ve got what it takes.” Whatever God has called you to do, you can do. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13.

3. You can do more. No matter how stretched you feel, you can do more. That is one characteristic of a man that sets us apart. Men rise to the top when surrounded by adversities. Just think of the blood, gore and agony men at war have to endure. Well, life is a series of battles. You may have lost a few but in the end you are crowned to be a champion. Are you living like one? What you do today will determine whether your family line will live under the blessing or curse. You’re the man! Just do it.

4. You’re making a difference. One of the most dangerous things men are tempted to do is to get complacent. We’re duped in to believing that our efforts are not doing much. In reality, just the opposite is true. Sometimes, simply your presence as a man makes all the difference in the world. If you’re not getting the admiration you need for the thing you do right, just know, that you’re making a difference simply by being a man.

5. You can speak blessing. Did you know that a child’s identity comes solely from the father? And nothing else will build your child (no matter how old they are) than to hear you speak positive, affirming, uplifting words over their lives. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Proverbs 18:21.

6. You can break the cycle. Do you feel like you’re stuck in a destructive cycle of mediocrity, violence and destructive behavior? Stop rationalizing that it came from your forefathers or it “runs in your family.” Be the strong man and break this vicious cycle of degenerating habits. You can give your future offspring a head start by confronting your weakness and inviting the power of the Holy Spirit to deliver you from those bondages.

7. You can forgive and release blessing. I know too many fathers who are at odds with one of their kids. What they’ve done against you is real. Your hurt matters. But nothing is more important than restoring your relationship with people you love. Listen my friend; you’re the father here. Why don’t you be the big man that you are and humble yourself and restore the relationship? Forgiveness is setting a captive free and then discovering that the prisoner was you!

Must see video clips if you have a daughter:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MLYxtuC0oRk

Must see video clip if you have a son:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wy8hOOvM0t0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dDnrLv6z-mM

Impressed? Touched? Motivated? Think what your Heavenly Father did for you! John 3:16.

Happy Father’s Day!

See more on www.buildinternational.org

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“How to” : Visual Effects in PowerPoint 2003

Ron — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:29:16 +0000

Helpful on all power blogs are presentations whether they are video, audio or of the PowerPoint type. The following presentation is a very good overview of how to create good PowerPoint presentations which are visually appealing yet with a strong story your audience can easily understand.

| View | Upload your own

It is very important to know how to do good visual effects using PowerPoint to make your blog a power blog.

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WordPress versus traditional (html) websites

xo — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:07:57 +0000

Before I came across WordPress I enjoyed creating websites for various people on a range of subjects, all using traditional HTML (hyper text markup language). I never was great at graphics nor had much of an eye for colors, but I did find the technology of the Internet fascinating. As the Internet opened up, so too did a world of users. I have become good friends with many people just through the Internet.

While not all about the Internet is good, most people who have access to it would agree that the possibilities seem endless. But I must confess that trying to keep up with every new technology and trying to get my websites found, indexed and searched through the ever-growing web became tedious and much to much. So it was with much relief that I finally tried WordPress.

I probably would have tried WordPress sooner but upon reflection, I really couldn’t understand its benefits, or more likely, I really didn’t understand what WordPress was all about. I wasn’t into blogging anyway (remember those dreaded sites where friends and foes alike ranted on about the breakfast they had or the car ride they were on or how grandma had just come by to visit?). And since I had no big interest in blogging, I could not get a feel for what WordPress was all about. (I was using Blogger for a few niche items.)

I don’t recall exactly what the sequence of events was, but I did eventually decide to try WordPress “just to see what would happen.” And am I glad I did. I suddenly realized that despite some strange descriptions and marketing, this really was a tool that could help me.

Again, although I enjoyed creating websites, I found I simply had too many to update and change and add clever navigation to in a world of constantly shifting interests and needs. And in fact, it was really the old problems of creating internal links while pages would come or disappear into the archives which drove me to try WordPress in the first place.

From the descriptions I wasn’t much wiser:

WordPress is a blog publishing system written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database. (Wikipedia)
WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. (WordPress Codex)
Excellent open-source and free blogging software that should soon or later take over all its competitors (tutorialseek.com)

And of course these are today’s definitions - I seem to recall the older definitions were quite vague.

Here is a definition I like better (in the context of my article title):

“Upgrading web applications is annoying – but not for WordPress users!”

And that is exactly what I found to be true. Instead of trying to update my HTML websites each year, particularly before the New Year came (”Copyright 200x”) I found I had a system at my finger-tips which updated almost everything for me. I found I could add or delete articles (called posts) or edit external links not just easily but also globally - meaning I did not have to worry about whether I remembered to fix all the links or whether I had remembered to add my new article link in all the right places.

In the last several months that I have been using WordPress, I can honestly say it has saved me a ton of work and thus time. I can spend much more effort on getting more projects done. What’s more, WordPress has a very large community which means that there is a good source of help to both understand WordPress and of course to resolve issues.

Does WordPress help my pagerank increase?

What I have not seen is any real change to the number of visitors who come to my sites. Checking the logs over the last months shows little sign that WordPress has helped me with PageRank or bringing me extra traffic. That is hardly surprising since people visit based on the content, not what tools I use to create the content. But I do think it is a myth to suggest that using WordPress will somehow make your site more visible in search engines or drive people to your site. Instead, WordPress is just a great tool for creating content and organizing it is an easy way.

See Matt Mullenweg’s video here regarding: Matt’s view of the future of WordPress

niche blogs or to diversify?

Ron — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:04:14 +0000

John Pozadzides mentioned at a WordPress WordCamp that he does not believe that niche blogs are the way to go. He should know, he writes about just about everything on his blog and he certainly has the traffic to prove his point.

Actually, I happen to agree with him. Although I have tried to stay with the subject of my websites, they do tend to get dry after a while. And as far as SEO, (search engine optimization) it is obvious with so many blogs and websites who do diversify and get high pagerank and visits that niche is not necessary, certainly not at this time.

Although I am not a “blogger” in the sense of someone who just loves to right about every detail that comes to my mind, I am going to try to diversify on this blog. The proof of the pudding will obviously be in whether or not you and others come back to visit, so we will see after some months.

(And don’t worry, I am not going to create posts about what I ate or didn’t eat for breakfast - those types of blogs are of no interest to me whatsoever.)

If you are interested in getting started in the Niche blogging market, here are some tips from Maki:

Darren over at ProBlogger.net disagrees with diversity.
PS. You can see John’s presentation about blogging here >> 45 top blogging tips

WordPress 2.5 Tinymce visual editor problem and fix

Ron — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:16:51 +0000

When I installed WordPress 2.5 on this particular site I manually downloaded the software from WordPress.org and followed the easy-to-use instructions. Everything went smoothly and I quickly fell in love with the new 2.5 interface.

Some days later WP 2.5 was available to me on other sites via the Fantastico administration panel supplied by my web host. I was delighted and quickly updated three other websites.

Only a few days later did I notice that my Visual editor (TinyMCE) was no longer working. I was stuck in HTML mode and I could not fix the problem. Searching the forums and various help files, there were a number of sensible suggestions and some not so sensible (such as adding a plugin to fix the problem - more on that in a moment).

Here for example is a link to the WordPress.org forum on the subject of fixing tinymce

I tried all the above (and other) fixes but nothing worked. Again, I now had 3 out of 4 websites where I could not use the visual editor. However, since one site did work, I realized there had to be another solution. I FTP’ed the WP 2.5 software to a non-working site, it also didn’t help.

Finally I found that my wp-config file, created using the Fantastico interface, had a tiny problem in it. It had a line-feed where none should be.

Once I corrected that, all my sites worked fine and even with upgrading to WordPress 2.5.1, every site has continued to work perfectly (as far as my Visual editor is concerned).

The wp-config.php file (found in the root directory of your blog, often www.mysite.com/blog) should look like this:

// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(’DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value

// Change SECRET_KEY to a unique phrase. You won’t have to remember it later,
// so make it long and complicated. You can visit https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
// to get a phrase generated for you, or just make something up.
define(’SECRET_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); // Change this to a unique phrase.

// Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the
// chosen language must be installed to wp-content/languages.
// For example, install de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to ‘de’
// to enable German language support.
define (’WPLANG’, ”);

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

define(’ABSPATH’, dirname(__FILE__).’/');
require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);
?>

If however your Fantastico or other system has varied the file in anyway, even to just adding an extra line-feed, it is very possible that your blog, specifically in this case the tinyMCE which controls the visual editor, may not work properly.

PS. I add this help simply because I did not find the solution anywhere, and even doing a search now on Google I still don’t see this mentioned, at least not in an obvious way.

PPS. I think it is unwise to try to fix a WordPress release problem by adding a Plugin. If a new release has come out, then it has been tested to work in most environments without additional Plugins. It is more logical, I think, to look at the environment first unless the whole WordPress community has the same problem, which is unlikely.

Trust that helps solve your WordPress 2.5 tinyMCE visual editor problem! Ron

Is Bird Flu causing a food shortage?

xo — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:26:45 +0000

The economic reality of avian influenza

Picture yourself in a tiny village in a developing country, say in Southeast Asia. One of your chickens die. Before you know it, government troops are getting off the back of lorries and swarming into your compound - slaughtering the rest of your chickens.

This may in fact be happening more often than you might think.
“For every human being infected, there is at least 1 million animals infected—and that is probably an underestimate,” Dr. Ilaria Capua, the head of virology at Italy’s Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, said Tuesday morning. “The veterinary community . . . have never before faced a challenge this big.”

I was recently in Hong Kong and was amazed at how much they take the threat of bird flu seriously. Even at the airport there are special areas to clean oneself, not to mention at public parks where wash-hand basins were installed. But on mainland China, it is much more difficult to adopt widespread measures such as in an encapsulated environment such as Hong Kong. In Indonesia, it is much more difficult even to monitor the situation.

And of course who wants to loose their livelihood. There is not much incentive for a poor farmer to report a dead bird since compensation will not necessarily be enough to buy another animal. And while it is often difficult to grasp, but poor people are badly hit with the economics of both the culling of animals and from trade bans causing the selling of birds to be limited. “Basic outbreak-control measures of culling infected birds and closing live-bird markets pose immediate threats to the income and nutrition of individual families,” according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.

“This disease represents a food security issue,” Capua said. “It is destroying the livelihood of rural communities.”

Training manual on bird flu coverage available online

xo — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 07:14:57 +0000

02/08/2007 | International Journalist’s Network

A new trainer’s manual aims to provide health journalists with adequate tools to report on threats of bird flu.

Put together by Internews and funded by UNICEF, the manual is to help trainers design and conduct media workshops on avian influenza. The manual also includes the basic resources that media need when trying to promote awareness and discussion about the virus.

The manual was a result of a series of three-day journalists’ training workshops in Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, Indonesia and Thailand. The training was part of the “Equipping Journalists for Accurate Reporting on Avian Influenza and the H5N1 Virus in Southeast Asia” project conducted by Internews.

The training manual (PDF format): http://tinyurl.com/33ukzs. (1.7 Megabytes)

Source: International Journalist’s Network: http://www.ijnet.org/Director.aspx?P=Article&ID=306552&LID=1

Bird Flu Back in Germany

Ron — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:50:44 +0000

After a two year pause, Avian Influenza has resurfaced in Germany. We got the news late Sunday evening that swans and a Canada goose have been found dead and tested positive for H5N1.

On one side there is quite a bit of surprise that this would come in the month of June since birds are not migrating right now. On the other side, since bird flu broke out on a turkey farm in neighboring Czech Republic last week it is feasible that the cases are related. The Czech border is only 120 Km (75 miles) from Nuremberg where the swans were found dead.

As usual Germany sprang into action and cordoned off a 4 km area. All pets must be kept close at hand and Germany’s national laboratory for avian flu testing is busy on the scene to test and control all animals in the area. The German TV was quick to mention that there is no immediate danger to humans although deaths have been reported in Egypt and Indonesia confirmed its 100th case, in a 27- year-old man from Riau just in the last few weeks.

The last known case of Bird Flu in Germany was August 1, 2006 when a black Australian swan was found dead at the Dresden Zoo in eastern Germany. It appeared to be an isolated case.

Germany continues to be vigilant and open about its findings of H5N1 cases and it is expected that this case will be controllable. More news headlines are here…

H5N1 Avian bird flu forecast blog

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