Alright guys, we are less than 2 weeks (14 days) for the New Year!

Glupppp

Ouhhhhh….365 days elapsing very soon…

How was Year 2009 for you? For me, there is my Year 2009 in Review:

January 2009

New Academic Semester 2009
A new start…

February 2009

UML Case Tools presentation for the Software Engineering class at UoM

An absolutely amazing opportunity to be presenting CSE students before the Head of Dept of CSE, and one of the best lecturers that the university has!

March 2009

AMBCS (Associate Member of the British Computer Society)

Obtaining the post-nominals was a nice moment. I could feel approaching slowly but surely to the Corporate IT Professional world.

Air Mauritius – Hedging Strategy or Aptitude

Wow, via this blog post, I feel proud that I am a blogger trying to share the goodness of being a UoM Student. Sadek gave me the opportunity to talk on this blog post in his MSc Finance (Risk Management Module) class!

The joy of Winning Academic Prizes

Who does not love to win prizes??!! I always wanted to ponder a bit about past achievements, some day in my life

April 2009

Sandwich Students

An opportunity to think strategically for the 6-months training

Our “Littoul” Software Team

Real Team-Spirit. An example of Group work at the Univeristy. It was an unfogettable experience working with you guys for this .NET project.

June 2009

BCS Core Diploma Module

One of the most important exams in Student Life
Britain Got Talent
Some fun!

July 2009

Mauritian Bloggers Meeting 2

A cool day at the seaside with great friends who we see regularly Online!

Watch out for Part 2

Salut!

What do you think will be the best hits of the year in the following Category:

Hollywood

Stereo Love

Bollywood

Mauricien

Bhojpuri

This is a follow up of the blog post: Mauritian Technopreneurs.

There was another meeting (1st one being only with Technopreneurs for the presentation of projects) “a la BOI” for the allocation of resources to the projects. This is the first time where we saw the Business Angels.

After the reserved meeting with investors only, we all gathered up (with some minutes late than actually planned) to start the allocation of projects. I was excited to know on which project I was allocated. We were given the choice to select the projects in which we wanted to work (3 projects out of 8 with no 1 being the project priority).

And the verdict came: I was allocated Project No. 2!

Euhh…OK

Time to meet the Business Angel, who is supposed to be our Captain…

F***K

The guy was simply pessimistic about the Project.

Then the decision came, after consulting the BOI facilitator to have a new Business Angel for the project. And then…..the adventure took another “tournure”!

Business Angel

We now have The New Business Angel!

The first meeting with him was held yesterday. It was a great meeting, up to the professional level! Yeah, this I can assure you.

Actually amongst all the CEOs (Mauritians specially) that I have met yet, he is the most charismatic one, I should say.

Highlights of the meeting:

• Coming on time
• Welcome by his personal secretary
• Welcome in a very nice CEO Office – I was actually amazed by 1) the simplicity of the Office and 2) the nice view of Rose-Hill, Reduit from there
• Professional Handshake creating the Halo effect
• and last but not the least: the conversation.

I was stunned and pleasantly impressed by the mastery of the CEO of “The Art of Asking Questions“.

At the end of the meeting, just like I was impressed after meeting Prof. Sudarshan Jugessor (Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mauritius), I told him “It was a great honour to be working with you, Sir”.

BTW, here’s a nice pic from National Geographic Contest:

National Geographic picture (International Photography Contest)

Well, everyone knows that: Google is amongst the best company to work for.  Amongst Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to work for 2009,Google has the rank no. 4.

I have blogged on: A very nice Office.

Now, we find another nice office, this time with a good Corporate Culture. (BTW, a nice film to watch on Corporate Culture is: Office Space, Work Sucks!)

Have a look at this office tour (TinyPrints – www.tinyprints.com) shot by Scobleizer. You will see, employees even come to work by their Bicycle, which they keep next to thier office which is Open Space. Cool

Posted in Management, That's Life!, Web 2.0 ]]> http://asheshr.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/another-nice-office/feed/ 0 curiousEngine http://asheshr.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/aged-politicians/ http://asheshr.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/aged-politicians/#comments Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:27:18 +0000 Ashesh http://asheshr.wordpress.com/?p=927 ]]>

“Greenpeace is running a clever ad campaign in the Copenhagen airport in preparation for the Copenhagen climate negotiations that start on Dec. 7. They’re a series of ads featuring Photoshopped images of sad-looking world leaders, apologizing for not addressing climate change when they had the chance.

Source: Boingboing.net

I’m sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic climate change… We didn’t.

Old Barack Obama

Old Nicolas Sarkozy

Read more on: Creative Review – The best in Visual Communication

You, how would you react, if we photoshoped your profile picture to make it look as old as in 2020?

We all read L’ express which has the motto: Sur, Fiable et Precis. Lexpress.mu, the redesigned website has some elements of Web 2.0. This is encouraging! I follow http://twitter.com/lexpressmu for real-time news update.

Hats off to the nice Digital Photography work. Below are some of my favourite pics from the website:

I love the Music of these guys, as well as of Eric Triton

Ahhh...the world cup..if only I could had the chance to lift it and shout: We (L'equipe d'Italy) are the Champions!!

eihhh...beaute fatale - Miss Mauritius 2009

This event was instantly made online via Web 2.0

Toyota

and you, what are your favourite pics?

Hey ! Thanks to wordpress.com for the nice Snowing Feature on the blog. This is amongst one of the reasons why I prefer to have my blog hosted on WordPress.com. The guys there, sometimes do amazing stuff!

Here’s the Pic of the Day!

Which one is mine, amongst the Three??

Finally the Rukmini Dwarka Dwesh Mandir is opening in Mauritius’ largest village Triolet! The Grand Opening Ceremony is scheduled as from 23 Nov till 29 Nov. There will be Bhagwad Katha everyday from 18:00 to 20:00 and Abhishek on 29 Nov.

This is the last time that we are having our usual ceremony in the small mandir. The latter was jam-packed today and believe me, the devotional level was at the highest. All devotees are happy for the Grand New Opening of Dwarka Dwesh Mandir…The first mandir in the world being located in Los Angeles and now the second one being opened in Mauritius, paradise island.

What surprised me is that there will be a “Raj Bhog” consisting of 1008 dishes! Wow Need to have a strong stomach for this… In the pic below is our new location for Mahaprasad, in the Open Air…

After Maheswarnath Mandir (The largest Shivalaye in Mauritius and the biggest one in Mauritius), here we are, Triolet is blessed with another one.

Here is the link for the location of the Mandir (Ahh, Google has not bought satellite images yet, hence the temple won’t be visible on the land)

Jai Shree Krishna!

Yupi! It just cropped from my Tree. Who wants some?? :

First Come, First Served

Yesterday, the Graphic Designer produced this artwork which was required to be in One Hour.

My question: How do you find it?

For me, personally, I could not stop ROFL!!

Not to offense the designer or any bad thing like that, but it was strange to see an artwork like that.

Via this blog post, I wanna open the discussion on:

how a Web Designer’s and Web Developer point of view on a web work differ!

National Day Celebrations 2009 at Champ de Mars

Some Anecdotes:

Hobbies and Interest (In a CV)

I like to enjoy doing X, Y, Z which forms part of the Mauritian Culture…

Another One:

In the HRM class, when starting the new chapter on Corporate Culture:

What is Mauritian Culture?
And then we have different answers from students:

• eating dhollpuri
• being lazy at work (not willing to work on sunday for eg.)
• being courteous
• enjoying Mauritian Sega
• having a preference for Mine Appollo, Achard, Cheddar Cheese and Tropical Fruits
• without forgetting the typical Mauritian Cuisine: Du riz blanc, rougaille, bouillon, brede and sachini pomme de terre
• having long queues at public utilities for bill payments since we don’t have computerised systems
• slow internet connection
• sending mauritian gifts on Facebook
• sharing tips when Telecommunication companies put promotions (Emtel/ Orange)
• la mer, beautiful fun
• freedom of speech in Mauritius
• Mauritians – kozer ki boukoup, agir moins
• Chauffeur Mauriciens
• solidaritE Mauriciens (no need to take rendez-vous before going at your relatives place) -
• Mauritianism – Jeux des Iles 1984 for eg.
• Kreol Maurisien
• Mauricien kone ” Tracer”
• Mauricien “bater bis”
• ban dialogues mauriciens ” ki position my army, eye husband Good, Big Weight”

Here is a blog post of mine on Culture whilst doing the Sociology module. From Wikipedia’s page of Culture of Mauritius, we can read:

Mauritian Literature:

While Kreol Morisyen (Mauritian Creole) is the most spoken language on in Mauritius, most of the literature is written in French, although many authors write in English, Bhojpuri, and Morisyen (Mauritian Creole), and others such as Abhimanyu Unnuth in Hindi. Mauritius’s renowned playwright Dev Virahsawmy writes exclusively in Morisyen.

Important authors include Malcolm de Chazal, Ananda Devi, Raymond Chasle, Loys Masson, Marcel Cabon, and Edouard Maunick.^{[citation needed]} Lindsey Collen has been able to carve out a meeting of imaginaries in the unique social setup of this multi-faceted country. Other younger writers like Shenaz Patel, Amal Sewtohul, Natacha Appanah, Alain Gordon-Gentil and Carl de Souza explore the issues of ethnicity, superstition and politics in the novel. Poet and critic Khal Torabully has put forward the concept of “coolitude,” a poetics that results from the blend of Indian and Mauritian cultural diversity. Other poets include Hassam Wachill, Edouard Maunick, Sedley Assone, Yusuf Kadel and Umar Timol.

The island plays host to the covetable Le Prince Maurice Prize, a literary award celebrating and recognizing ‘writers of the heart’. The award is designed to highlight the literary love story in all its forms rather than for pure Romantic Fiction. In keeping with the island’s literary culture the prize alternates on a yearly basis between English-speaking and French-speaking writers.

I have sometimes blogged on Mauritian Theatre, the web content which is a bit scarce.

Finally another anecdote:

Whilst at University, a classmate friend of mine asked:

“Are you Proud to be a Mauritian?”

For me, it was a stupid question on behalf of a Mauritian friend. I wonder if he has grown up singing the National Anthem whilst he was at Primary School!

Well, everybody knows about the Giant American company Kentucky Fried Chicken.  From KFC.com,

KFC Corporation, based in Louisville, Kentucky, is the world’s most popular chicken restaurant chain, specializing in Original Recipe®, Extra Crispy®, Kentucky Grilled Chicken™ and Original Recipe Strips with home-style sides, Honey BBQ Wings, and freshly made chicken sandwiches.

Every day, more than 12 million customers are served at KFC restaurants in 109 countries and territories around the world. KFC operates more than 5,200 restaurants in the United States and more than 15,000 units around the world. KFC is world famous for its Original Recipe® fried chicken — made with the same secret blend of 11 herbs and spices Colonel Harland Sanders perfected more than a half-century ago. Customers around the globe also enjoy more than 300 other products — from Kentucky Grilled Chicken in the United States to a salmon sandwich in Japan.

KFC is part of Yum! Brands, Inc., the world’s largest restaurant company in terms of system restaurants, with more than 36,000 locations around the world. The company is ranked #239 on the Fortune 500 List, with revenues in excess of $11 billion in 2008.

Recently, the big mutinational has been in our Mauritian newsroom:

KFC, Le colonel Sanders a repris son tablier

and many other articles.

Given KFC (Mauritius) had made massive loss during the closure days, an aggressive marketing campaign is being undertaken.

Apparently, we Mauritians, “Nous avons confiance en KFC”.

Putting the problem of the KFC Port Louis branch aside (problem de canalisation), let us ponder on some of the KFC Facts.

The main argument is that of Animal Cruelty:

Again from KFC.com, we can read the ‘facts’ here on the Animal Welfare Program.

From my personal point of view, concerning healthy eating, I would encourage folks to eat at Olive Salad Bar. Otherwise, if you wanna eat to have a finger licking good and spend nice moments eating really tasty chicken, grab some KFC.

Unfortunately in Mauritius, we do not have ‘mangez mieux, bouger plus‘ campaign.

After all, the politicians do not need a healthy population for the elections. You can caste your vote even if you are obese, who cares!

Well, it was my first opportunity to assist to a Graduation Ceremony. It was absolutely superb! During 2 years at the Réduit campus, it was amazing to see how beautifully the graduates were ‘in the coulisses’ getting the instructions for the Graduation. Well, today I am proud, I was part of a Graduation ceremony (despite not wearing the gown)

I admit, we (whole family) were a bit surprised and maybe tensed also for all the formalities for the ceremony. I mean: there were lots of rules written in the invitation letter – you cannot come late on the ceremony, you cannot bring children less that 10 years in the hall, need to be nicely dressed, only a formal handshake to be given to the conferrer and no kissing etc etc.

I arrived at around 12: 15 and joined by friends who were obtaining their Diploma and Post Graduate Diploma. Then we obtained instructions to align ourselves according to our prizes. Certificate – row 3, Diploma – row 2, Graduate Diploma/ Honours – row 1.

After having waited for the Chief Guests to arrive (included ICT Minister Hon. Asraf Dullull), they joined us, in the coulisses. BCS Executive members were in nice blue gown, whilst the special guests in red.

At 13:10, the parade started. There was a music in the background and everybody in the hall standing up during this process.

As usual, Some Speeches…

Then the conferment of awards.

It was a great honour for me to be awarded by a UTM academic.

Then Vote of Thanks by Chief Examination Officer BCS, Mrs Sharon Hurd

Then Photo taking time

Finally refreshments….

Now, me gonna get ready for the BCS IT Personality Award 2009!

Keep Connected!

Grab your basket, take out your bicyle, let’s go to Bazaar to replenish kitchen stock with fresh vegetables….

Pomme d'amour

Annanas

Bingel, Carrot, Lichou

Margoze

Cresson

Sousou

Cauliflower

giromon

Onions

Potatoes

Légumes fin

yummy, tamarind!

(The meaning of the mantra can be found here.)

There’s also the Matrix (Navras by Don Davis) version

Wishing you and your family, Deepaavli tyohar Abhinandan!

Don’t forget to come share some ‘gato patates’ at my place also..hee hee

I am curious to know what are the cakes being cooked at your place?? Apart the traditional gato patates, of course…:)

Edward Maya Feat Vika Jigulina ’s Stereo Love: Qui dit mieux (House Music)?

Beauty and Music in a sound soul: Ouchhh!

I adored the subject: Creative Education at CPE level. You have to do a lot of cool stuff within the coursebook: from cutting potatoes and onions (which were used as brushes) to cutting fabrics and pasting them in the book.

At secondary level, I also wanted to do Arts at O-Level and then compete on the Arts side at A-level.

To even satisfy my passion as a Fine Arts artist, it was a pleasure for undergoing the Hobby  Course – Fine Arts offered by MGI in the Regional centres.

Painting is a passionate hobby for me, and I know friends who are intending to do a career in it. At the printing press, during the new design for my business card, I was impressed by the young guy doing very well in CorelDraw. I told him: I am still a Photoshop guy!

Despite the super computing power (via Macbooks, of course ) in the Digital Graphic world, nothing is betta than taking some pastel and a blank sketch pad page to churn out some creativity.

Long live Creativity, Imagination and State-of-the-Art design!

Having already embarked on the Diploma in IT journey, here we are, with the final obstacle: The BCS Core Diploma Module. Reading the blog post of last year for the preparations for the BCS Professional Examinations, I realise that I am not ready for the exams which is due in a  few days only.

Personally I think the main reason behind this lack of thorough preparation is the Practical Training 2009. I just wanna damn complete this stupid thing as fast as possible so that we could return to the knowledge temple of UoM.

The another reason is: I am passionate about my freelance opportunities. It is a great pleasant surprise to find that loyal customers exist. Its an honour for me to continue working with them and providing quality IT service. It is about this that I have read in the Marketing textbooks:

Marketing is the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.

Thirdly, I cannot resist reading books which are not necessarily related to the BCS exams, for eg. reading psychology books to at least try understand human mind and behaviour scientifically.

Despite all these constraints, bastard you exams, I gonna nail you down. I am even more determined to accept this challenge (this core module has the no 1 failure rate, followed by software development module) and deliver my best shot in the exams room.

Yo Lady luck, are you free tonight?

Data Centre Strategies Mauritius 2009 has been organised by the Board of Investment, in collaboration with Broadgroup consulting. The Agenda for the 2-day event can be found on broadgroup’s website.

Very nice atmosphere in the conference Hall. The giant screen broadcasting an underwater diving clip was wonderful!

My First impression: Waow, I learnt a lot during these 2 days. It was absolutely well organised, well disciplined and global experts on the topic present at the conference hall of Four Point Sheraton Business Hotel.

Mahen, the master of ceremony on day 2

A bit hats off to Mahen Govinda of BOI, who is the ‘Mastermind’ of organising this event very professionally.

Got the opportunity network also with a South African Hosting company – Hetzner, who have 10+ years in the hosting business.

Hetzner directors from South Africa

It was also great to talk business with the Director of a Mauritian Hosting company.

Secondly, it was also a very, very cool, jovial and happy atmosphere. With most of the professional speakers also having a good sense of humour.. There was also a Great Gala Dinner organised where we enjoyed a lot the Bollywood show.

Thirdly, my favourite presentations were on :

• Steve Wallage – his nice pace of presenting, I was absolutely amanzed by that. He knew his slides well..
• the presentation of the Mauritius Eco-Park Project (maybe the main reason why I wanted to
• come to the conf.),
• 

  Mr. Iqbal presenting the land based oceanic project

• Data Centres: New Trends  – Virtualisation and Cloud Computing
• 

  Nitin Shan presenting benefits of cloud computing

• Business Continuity Management
• European Commission Presentation on Code of Conduct for Data Centres (mainly because he was funny)
• Dr. Ian Bitterlin, the Specialist. was absolutely amazed by his expertise

It was a good experience to network with key IT professionals in the country and internationally. Opportunity cropped up to have professional discussion with them during lunch time or during the tea break!

I wish, the guys are right now, enjoying the Cocktail and Dinner at Ile aux deux Coco – Blue Bay!

Step 1. No one can see your password or whatever you are typing

Step 2: Step 1 + No one can see on which website you are surfing

Step 3: No one can identify you on the web!

courtesy: funandfunonly.org

We have 3 stupid stages of life:

TEEN AGE

Have Time + Energy ….. but No Money

WORKING AGE

Have Money + Energy……but no Time

OLD AGE

Have Time + Money……but no Energy

What say you?? Ayooooooo mo pena letemps??

This is a the work desk of a Girl:

and

this is that of a boy:

So what can you conclude???

Mahatma Gandhi Institute Secondary College

Ha! School days! I feel a bit emotional writing this blog post  …enfin…let’s start

Doing a follow up of  ”A Website for each Mauritian School“, yesterday night we had a meeting with one of the best rectors in the island. It was a great pleasant surprise for me to be able to meet that person who I respect so much and is amongst one of the best, best, bestest english teacher I have ever known, after so many years.

The meeting was mainly about the eLearning platform which would permit students of the school to download their homework. I was pleasantly amazed by their fast comprehension of the utility of the system!

Then at the dinner, we had very nice discussions about School days! I expressed my pleasant surprise and warmest congratulations to the rector given that the school had an amazing performance: 3 after – laureates on the first batch of HSC students competing for State Scholarships.

My questions (out of curiousity ) were about the administration style of the school, the school infrastracture (notably Library and internet connection) and what about extra-curricular activities of the school? I was pleasantly surprised by the dynamic being of the rector, open-minded and “putting students first!“. That’s the spirit!

Being the webdesigner of mgicollege.com team (I have done mainly the flash part ), it was another great pleasure for me to offer my Web skills to the prestigious institution of the island. Mgicollege.com was the era of Web 1.0. Today we have moved towards a new evolved form of the web: Web 2.0 – where focus is on easy creation and sharing of content via media like blogging, tweeting, facebooking, youtubing etc. With this state of mind, I proposed training sessions to both staff and students on Web 2.0.

I would like to end this blog post by the memorable quote that Sir rector told me yesterday as we were discussing about teachers and their style of teaching (as it is not necessary that college students appreciate all teachers):

Ou kapav kombien tire manzer pou zeleve, mais so dignité, zamais ou pas touché!

I 100% agree with this quote. Students (so do I) always have a grudge against teachers who have hurt them and had no respect for students.

At first, I thought bhai yashvin’s post: No Handshaking please! would be a kind of cool joke!

Until I realise today in the fine Monday morning, when entering in the office: “Ahh pas de bises et de handshake. Lavez vous les mains!”

Then we get to hear from UoM:

All students are required to consult their emails regularly for the latest information and directives.

Students who show symptoms of flu or feeling unwell are strongly requested to stay at home until they recover.  Kindly inform us of the progress of your health status at reportflu@uom.ac.mu.

Students showing symptoms of flu whilst on campus are requested to proceed immediately to one of the two First Aid Posts (one behind the MCB and the other at the Gym).

Additional info regarding AH1N1 will be posted as from tomorrow on the UoM website.

Ag VC

There is also an interesting powerpoint forwarded by the Registrar:

Then some interesting info on preventing to have Swine flu in Mauritius:

What is swine flu?

• Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by Type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs.

• Swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people.

Is the current swine flu virus contagious?

• Various international agencies (US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, World Health Organization) have determined that this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human.

• WHO has escalated the world Pandemic Phase from Phase 3 to Phase 4 (in a 6-scale Phase), indicating that a worldwide pandemic due to swine flu H1N1 is possible.

What are the signs and symptoms of swine flu in people?

• The symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue.

• Some people have reported diarrhea and vomiting associated with swine flu. In the past, severe illness (pneumonia and respiratory failure) and deaths have been reported with swine flu infection in people.

• Like seasonal flu, swine flu may cause a worsening of underlying chronic medical conditions.

How does swine flu spread?

• Spread of this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is thought to be happening in the same way that seasonal flu spreads.

• Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing of people with influenza.

• Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with live flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.

How are human infections with swine influenza diagnosed?

• To diagnose swine influenza A infection, a respiratory specimen would generally need to be collected within the first 4 to 5 days of illness (when an infected person is most likely to be shedding virus).

• However, some persons, especially children, may shed virus for 10 days or longer.

• Identification as a swine flu influenza A virus requires sending the specimen to a hospital laboratory for testing.

How can someone with the flu infect someone else?

• Infected people may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 7 or more days after becoming sick.

• That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick.

How long can an infected person spread swine flu to others?

• People with swine influenza virus infection should be considered potentially contagious as long as they are symptomatic and possible for up to 7 days following illness onset.

• Children, especially younger children, might potentially be contagious for longer periods.

Is there a vaccine for Pandemic Flu?

• Because the virus is new, there will be no vaccine ready to protect against pandemic flu.

• Vaccine against Swine Flu virus H1N1 needs at least 6-12 months to be produced.

• Seasonal flu vaccine or past flu immunization will not provide protection.

Are there medicines to treat swine flu?

• Yes. The US CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir (Tamiflu®) or zanamivir (Relenza®) for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with these swine influenza viruses.

• Antiviral drugs are prescription medicines (pills, liquid or an inhaler) that fight against the flu by keeping flu viruses from reproducing in your body.

• If you get sick, antiviral drugs can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious flu complications.

• For treatment, antiviral drugs work best if started soon after getting sick (within 2 days of symptoms).

What surfaces are most likely to be sources of contamination?

• The virus can be spread when a person touches something that is contaminated with the virus and then touches his or her eyes, nose, or mouth.

• Droplets from a cough or sneeze of an infected person move through the air. The virus can then be spread when a person touches respiratory droplets from another person on a surface like a desk, doorknob, child’s toy or phone handset and then touches their own eyes, mouth or nose before washing their hands.

How long can viruses live outside the body?

• We know that some viruses and bacteria can live 2 hours or longer on surfaces like cafeteria tables, doorknobs, and desks.

• Frequent handwashing will help you reduce the chance of getting contamination from these common surfaces.

What can I do to protect myself from getting sick?

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.

• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.

• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. The virus can spread this way.

• Try to avoid close contact with sick people.

• If you get sick with influenza, stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

What is the best way to keep from spreading the virus through coughing or sneezing?

• If you are sick, limit your contact with other people as much as possible. Do not go to work or school if ill.

• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. It may prevent those around you from getting sick. Put your used tissue in the waste basket.

• Cover your cough or sneeze if you do not have a tissue. Then, clean your hands, and do so every time you cough or sneeze.

What is the best technique for washing my hands to avoid getting the flu?

• Washing your hands often will help protect you from germs. Wash with soap and water or clean with alcohol-based hand cleaner.

• When you wash your hands — with soap and warm water — that you wash for 15 to 20 seconds. When soap and water are not available, alcohol-based disposable hand wipes or gel sanitizers may be used. You can find them in most supermarkets and drugstores.

• If using gel, rub your hands until the gel is dry. The gel doesn’t need water to work; the alcohol in it kills the germs on your hands.

What should I do if I get sick?

• If you live in areas where swine influenza cases have been identified and become ill with influenza-like symptoms, including fever, body aches, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, or vomiting or diarrhea, you may want to contact their health care provider, particularly if you are worried about your symptoms. Your health care provider will determine whether influenza testing or treatment is needed.

• If you are sick, you should stay home and avoid contact with other people as much as possible to keep from spreading your illness to others.

• If you become ill and experience any of the following warning signs (next 2 slides), seek emergency medical care.

In children emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:

• Fast breathing or trouble breathing

• Bluish skin color

• Not drinking enough fluids

• Not waking up or not interacting

• Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held

• Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough

• Fever with a rash

In adults, emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:

• Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath

• Pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen

• Sudden dizziness

• Confusion

• Severe or persistent vomiting

The fun of having followers on Twitter is that they post tweets which are of interest to you. Much people who are not “Twitter-aware” yet argue that Twitter is a bad stuff where you “veille zafer lot dimoune!” The counter-argument which I would put forward is that: Twitter is a micro-blogging platform which updates information in Real-Time. The fun of reading tweets and re-tweeting them is when you find “followable” twitterers.

So who is a followable person? You, Me, Barack Obama?

Here is an excerpt from Robert Scoble’s post after he UnFollowed more than 100,000 people on Twitter:

How about “what makes a ‘followable’ person?” Now that’s better.

I’ve found several things.

1. I’m more likely to follow you if you have a well targeted Twitter profile. If you say “fun guy,” sorry, no. But if you say “engineer at Yahoo working on Flickr.” Well, then, I’ll be much more likely to follow you. Now, take it out of geek ville. Let’s say I was looking for quilters to follow. Well, then, I’ll be biased toward people who identify what kind of quilting they do.

Follow me: I am junior Web 2.0 Programmer working for a startup company!

2. No picture, no follow. For a brand like BestBuy you better have a logo. Out of 1,600 follows I’ve done this week I’ve only broken that rule a few times and even when I broke this rule it made me think very long and hard about whether following them is worth it.

Follow me: Dr. House Picture!

3. I bias toward following people who DO things in real life. Entrepreneurs. Politicians. Actors. VCs. My list, which you can check yourself, is biased heavily toward people who’ve made something of themselves.

Follow me: I do speak Management jargon in the shoes of a Geek!

4. If tons of the people I trust (you know I trust them, because I’ve followed them) recommend you, I’ll add you too. So, repetition is important.

Follow me:
#followfriday @judahsmith @carrotmadman6 @kurtavish @asheshr @sjdvda @Morinn @NRamjee @kissmyattitude @yashvin @alomoris @blebon

5. I look at who YOU follow. Do you follow lots of other geeks and people I like to follow? Then you’re more likely to get me to follow you too.

Follow me:I have a list of updated M’tian geeks and top programmers in the Geekosphere!

6. If someone smart keeps retweeting you (like how Dave Winer keeps talking about Jay Rosen) then I’ll follow you too.

Follow me:
yashvinThumbs up for the image used RT @asheshr Managing Humans…: [...] http://bit.ly/Fp9h0 (Bhai yashvin is an intelligent guy! )

7. If you’re a news maker. Hey, I follow Barack Obama. Why? Well, he makes news. Among other things. Same reason why I follow TechCrunch.

Follow me:
UniverseOneRT @asheshr I wanna say “vas te faire fouttre” @http://online.uom.ac.mu/. ive neva seen such a crapy systm eva which dsrvs a bullshit awad!

8. If you’re powerful, I’ll follow you. I follow both powerful bloggers like Ariana Huffington as well as powerful VCs like Jeff Clavier and powerful executives like Marc Benioff. They probably all will laugh that I called them powerful, but they are.

Follow me:
kissmyattitude@asheshr I was just reading your blog on wordpress. Interesting posts. I love your layout too! Keep it up.

9. Do you have a brand I like? I notice that I’m adding more and more brands I like like Zoho and Evernote and others. But if they abuse that position I’ll unfollow them first.

Follow me: Euhh,.. ashesh r is a perso brand just like Steve Jobs is one! lol

10. I look at your last 20 tweets. If you are just talking about your lunch, I probably won’t follow you. But if you’re talking about a project you’re working on and it sounds interesting I’ll follow you.

Follow me: My recent project: exploring Windows 7 and reviewing it

11. If I’ve met you face-to-face I’m much more likely to follow you. In fact I’ve scanned all my business cards in, thanks to Cloud Contact’s great service, and I’m now matching those up their Twitter accounts and adding them too.

Follow me: Ben, you can always meet me on the Reduit Campus!

So are you a Twitter followable person?

(NB: This is my first blog post from Windows 7 Ultimate (Evaluation Copy) and Office 2007 (Trial))