Freebies alert!

Freebies. Everyone loves freebies: whether it be ‘the toy’ from the cereal packet when you were a kid (or maybe you secretly still get the cereal for the toy, I won’t tell anyone); ‘surprises’ from your mobile phone dealer; or a £10 gift token for going to a 2 hour meeting; if there is something extra thrown it, then we go for it - well at least I do anyway, whether that makes me a good bargain hunter, easily swayed or just a vulture, I don’t know.

I used to be with Vodaphone, but back then they didn’t give you any ‘benefits’ for being with them; then I discovered O2 who seem to load you with ‘extras’ all the time, it’s great! I know they only want my business, but it definitely builds them a good reputation – I certainly went with them because everyone always enthused about them.

I am staying in halls at the moment, and last month there was a ‘quarterly meeting’ held by the staff in order to get feedback from the residents; not the most exciting way to spend an evening, but they were giving out £10 HMV vouchers to the first 20 people to show up. Yes I went, and felt bad, but it was actually quite interesting and I will probably go next time regardless. I like the fact that I had something to contribute to the running of the place, and that my opinions and views can influence and change things; but why should it take free things to persuade people to go?

Giving is really important. There’s a proverb which says: “Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything.” And, “The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” This doesn’t always appear to be the case, but it’s not always all about materialism, it’s about who you are and who you are becoming.

Something I wrestle with a lot is things like Comic Relief and Live Aid. I think it is really good that lots of people get together and support a common cause, and I’m sure it does a lot of good, but you can’t just blast away poverty in one lump sum: remember them saying, “Let’s end poverty?” Nice thought, but sorry it just doesn’t work like that.
The media blast us with pictures of poor children in Africa, and yea, it makes you feel bad and overwhelmed by the whole situation, but sometimes it feels like people use charity events as a band aid for the guilt; “Oh yea I give to charity, I bought a red nose this year, did you know they raised millions?” And then you somehow feel that you’ve done something major, but in fact it was a cumulative effort, and in fact you only gave £2. Besides, this amount doesn’t even begin to sort out the world’s economic imbalance.

I’m not saying that these one off events aren’t good and don’t help at all, and even giving a little bit is better than nothing, but I just don’t think they are enough. I can’t say I’m the greatest shining example of a philanthropist because I am often very selfish, but I don’t want to be someone who just says, “Isn’t it awful,” and then turns away and justifies it by giving my £2 each year.
I support and believe that the best thing we can do is - through various organisations - support individuals in developing countries through regular donations. I have been doing this for about 3 years now; it costs the same amount I top up my phone each month, and also involves writing to and receiving letters (and sometimes photos) from the sponsored person. They are in turn able to go to school, and are provided with medical care and other essentials (things we can take for granted).
I have sometimes found it really hard (like when I was in college and had no income) and I have on numerous occasions almost cancelled it, and yea I sometimes just have no idea what I should write back, like when the child writes, “Thanks for the Christmas present, I had a great time and was able to get a new pair of shoes.” Sometimes it all still seems so plain insignificant, but when I see the photos and read the letters and see what my little is doing to change someone’s life, it helps me remember that one person can make a difference in someone else life, and perhaps that person will in turn group up caring deeply for others around them and work to see change in their communities and countries because they realise that they also can do something for others. Not to mention what they might become in the future through the doors opened up to them through their education.

Granted we have our fair share of poverty here as well and I’m not ignoring that, but ending poverty is not just a one off payment: it’s a commitment. Imagine what could be done if every ONE person in the developed nations supported ONE person in the developing nations? YOU can make a difference.

www.actionaid.org.uk
www.compassionuk.org

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. “
- Mother Teresa -

Windows 7

Windows 7

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 on my laptop, because I was fed up of Vista. Anyone familiar with computers might notice that Vista is really slow (I only noticed this properly when my friend introduced me to his Mac), the reason for this massive lag in speed is that Vista comes by default with a whole bunch of pointless programs running in the background eating up all the computer’s memory. Originally I attempted to sort it out by going through a list from the internet of different programs that you can stop without ruining your computer: such as Infrared Monitor Service (very useful seeing as I don’t have anything Infrared on my PC). However when I discovered an offer of Windows 7 available for students for £30 (instead of about £70), I decided it was worth it, for my sanity’s sake.

Windows 7 seems great so far: it’s a lot slicker; it takes my computer about 2 minutes to restart and get back to where I was before (instead of like 6 minutes); I like the layout which is user friendly (some people compare it to Macs, but I think it is sufficiently different); and the special visual effects don’t seem to slow it down to a snail’s pace.

I think that a similar thing can happen to us sometimes: life can occasionally feel very noisy what with all the ‘processes’ running in the backgrounds of our minds, and sometimes we can get bogged down with pointless things and ‘run’ a lot slower. Sorting out junk mail for instance is one of my pet hates, just because it takes up so much time (especially owing to the fact I have more than one inbox).
Junk mail isn’t just emails though: I try and put junk snail mail in the bin without even opening it; and I refuse as much physical literature as possible that people try and hand out to me on the streets, or at university etc, just because it takes so long to try and sort through it all, and I usually end up keeping half of it and it just clutters up my desk space.

Something else that seems pointless and often doesn’t get done is reading all the ‘terms and conditions’ for things. Most people just agree to terms and conditions without even reading them (which is bad really), because if you read all the terms and conditions for everything these days, you would probably still be there now. Banks also seem to continuously send you updates to their policies (which you need a degree in banking to understand anyway); they are probably just trying to blag your head so that they can get away with things!

I just wish life could be a bit simpler and user friendly sometimes, like Windows 7 :)

(If you are a student or lecturer and are interested in purchasing a copy of Windows 7 for your PC for £30 or a copy of Office 2007 for £38.95, please support me by using the below link, thanks.)

http://student.theultimatesteal.co.uk/z/2/CD1093/

Comments Please

Whenever I am thinking about buying a new product these days, I usually check out the reviews first.
On sites such as Ebay, customer reviews are crucial to the seller’s success, because if they have ‘black-marks’ next to them because of bad reviews, people are less likely to buy from them.

Because I am at university now, and don’t have a house phone anymore, I have finally deemed it necessary (although I could possibly get by without it) to get a contract phone; after being with pay as you go for so long, it just isn’t working anymore. Besides this, I am fed up with the inefficiency of my old phone, and being a slight technical junkie, I have spotted a new more exciting phone, no it’s not the iPhone, it’s the HTC HD2. Oh and don’t anyone dare turn the ‘comment section’ of this post into a debate between iPhones and other phones, or indeed Apple (who make the iPhone), and Microsoft (who provide the operating system for the HD2).

When I was choosing where to get this phone from, I happened upon mobiles.co.uk, which I had never seen before, however they are apparently part of the Carphone Warehouse. Because I had never seen this company before, I wanted to check out opinions on their reputability, so – like I do – I checked out some reviews. I typed ‘Mobile.co.uk reviews’ on Google, and what I found was quite interesting. The reviews of the site on Mobiles.co.uk were all good (biased maybe?):

“I would just like to thank Mobiles.co.uk for a quick and smashing service. I will be recommending you to my colleagues, family and friends."

"Thanks again for the great after sales support. I have already recommended you to various friends."

However the reviews on O2’s website from a forum were pretty much all bad.

“I had to try to get in contact with them the other day regarding an upgrade issue for someone else, I was on hold for over 25minutes and then got an error message saying the lines had been suspended. “

“I personally wouldn't touch Carphone Warehouse with a surgically altered Bargepole.
Read too many horror stories about their allegedly shocking customer service and after sales support.”

Even though Mobiles.co.uk deals with O2 products, I found that the deal I got from them was cheaper than the deal I would get from the O2 website itself. Could it be that O2 purposely got people to write bad reviews about their competitor so that people would be deterred from using mobiles.co.uk? Big businesses - as we all know from Rupert Murdoch's example - thrive on crushing other businesses.

Finally I looked at one more site which didn’t sell products, to see what reviews said about mobiles.co.uk (not that people from O2 couldn’t have posted on this site).
Ciao.co.uk:

Great prices,customer service email based & therefore complicated
...i bought my phone from mobiles.co.uk but i wish there would be an easier way of contacting customer services. Customer service is generally by e mail and it takes four hours to answer. Have not claimed my cashback yet but it seems to be that mobiles.co.uk pay cashback quickly so i hope that works out for me. In the end of the day a good price is the most important requirment. ... Read review

one of the best mobile dealers in UK
Mobiles.co.uk is quite good in responding to your queries & have a good customer service who are really friendly. Mobiles.co.uk ... Read review

The opinions seemed mixed anyway.
Interesting. People aren’t stupid, and I have no doubt that these big companies realise how influential reviews can be. Is it just possible that reviews are more often than not manipulated? Obviously there will be some genuine ones there, but a good deal of them could possibly be there by choice of companies.
I recently posted a bad review of something on FireBox, and it was the only bad one of the lot, and they allowed that, but the product was only £5, and not a couple of hundred (like a phone).

Film reviews are quite interesting as well. The second Incredible Hulk film didn’t seem very popular (I’ve not actually seen it, but I don’t even remember it ever being in the cinema), but I always remember the ‘review’ that is on the cover: “A Monster of a Movie,” (quote by Loaded) this doesn’t really say much though does it, does that mean they thought it was good? I mean, there is a monster in the film... maybe they were just trying to get away with not saying it was bad, but not saying it was good at the same time by using a clever play on words, whilst still getting paid to submit something.

At the end of the day, I think reviews are a massive selling factor, and company involvement wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, cause its all about the money.



http://www.mobiles.co.uk/comments.html
http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=23649&sid=e9c7e8df0f22e5016256a7cb717fdeab
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Reviews/mobiles_co_uk__87437

The rea–Sun our nation is the way it is?

The rea–Sun our nation is the way it is?

Something I often wonder about is; why isn’t politics studied more in school...?
When I was in high school we didn’t have any ‘Politics’ lessons, but we used to have ‘Pastoral’ lessons in which we spoke about general issues; these would have seemed like the ideal time to possibly at least touch on the topic, but the teachers never really bought it up.
Obviously there were people who did have at least a basic understanding of political issues (and a couple if I remember who had very strong opinions), but for the majority, they had no idea, and still don’t, “Oh I don’t know who I’m voting for, I’ll just pick the one that wants to legalise weed.”
Am I wrong or isn’t it just a little bit important that the future generations who will be voting in a few years time, actually have some idea about what the parties they are voting for might possibly stand for? Is a massive contributing factor to who wins the elections just ‘Pot luck’ as a result of people just voting for who they randomly choose on the voting slip? Maybe through a lack of personal opinion, a lot of people just decide to vote for who their parents vote for, or maybe there’s more of a sheep mentality going on, “Oh I don’t like them because the Sun says they are bad,” which leads onto to talking about the role of the media as mobilizers, and how they flaunt their opinions in order to indoctrinate people with their own propaganda.

I have been in meetings in the past where people have raised their hands to vote for things because everyone else’s hands went up, and then turned round and said, “What did I just vote for again?” The, “Opinion leaders of taste [in society]” are so influential because no one wants to feel ‘different’ because having a sense of belonging is so important; but when the dominant voice exercises its power to get what it wants, this can become a problem. The sun claimed that it was, “The Sun ‘wot won it,’” when Tony Blair became prime-minister, and it probably was, because instead of thinking for themselves, people tend to follow the most dominant voice. I mean ok with some things, you might not have formed solid opinions yet, which is fair enough, but it’s when people blindly walk through life not even attempting to change and learn how to think things through for themselves that gets me.
I wouldn’t wish for the sun to go jump off a cliff, but only because it would be tragic to see the line of people who followed it to their demise.
If things change, and the paper’s original opinion is now classed as wrong, they just change their opinion – trying to keep themselves popular in the public eye (who’s the sheep now?) – and not only that, but they make it out like it was THEIR opinion in the first place and everyone conveniently forgets where the paper stood not too long ago.

What’s worse than changing your opinion just to be popular, is having two different opinions at the same time just to be popular; as illustrated in ‘Media Communication,’ when the euro was brought into Ireland for the first time, the Sun, made two copies of the paper: the British one which was heavily anti-euro; and the Irish one, which was explicitly pro-euro, even heralding their support by writing the price - which was in Euros for the first time - EXTRA-LARGE to make it blaringly obvious how ‘excited’ they were about it, and plastering the page with their distinguishing tacky puns, “It makes cent to buy the sun,” oh ha ha yes very funny, I’ll never need to watch any comedy DVDs anymore because I get equally good entertainment just from my newspaper...

It’s strange also how the TV has to stay highly professional to keep people’s trust up, but the Sun is more like; before we tell you what’s going on in the world (or at least our version of it), here’s some boobies. How many news reporters on TV lift their shirts before reading out the news? Can you imagine what kind of reaction that would spark off. Mind you I had heard that a lot of people’s preference of which news channel to watch depends largely on who’s presenting it.

In my opinion it’s a pity we can’t say the Sun is a blazing ball of fire millions and millions of miles away.

'Voices'

'Voices’ are everywhere. Not just audible voices, but visual ones too; as the saying goes, “A picture says a thousand words.”

We hear ‘voices’ sometimes without even consciously listening to them: how many times have you suddenly noticed a song going round in your head, and then realised (or not realised) it was playing in a shop you left ten minutes ago, and you hadn’t even been aware at the time?
Our minds are powerful things, and one of the ways we process information so quickly is we read words as wholes (anyone ever seen that thing where they mix up the letters and you can still understand the sentence? http://www.toxicdrums.com/typoglycemia.html) so we are constantly (and very quickly) taking in so many words, especially from adverts.

The world is full of adverts wherever you go: on the television, in the cinema, on trains, on the walls of the underground, on billboards, etc, so the amount of information we are constantly being fed on a daily basis is enormous. You can’t escape it, which in a way could be seen as good because it can help give us a sense of cultural identity, i.e. all being familiar with the same things, and so the ablity to communicate on the same level (as far as products are concerned anyway).

The voice of advertising is powerful: how many of us can quote commercial catch lines from when we were children? “They’re grrreat,” “Cheery corn, cheery oats, cheery rice and wheat, they’re delicious and nutritious, Cheerioes so good to eat.” (*cringe*) Enough said. Advertisement works by trying to breed familiarity in people so they say “Oh I know that brand,” and therefore they trust it.

We all have what psychologists call an “Inner Voice,” this being the scripts we subconsciously read to ourselves over and over. They can become evident I find, during rhythmic tasks such as running, or playing scales on guitar. At first it is easy not to even notice these voices, but after a while it can become really obvious (especially if they are negative, “You can’t do it”). During a race, spectators will often cheer for the person they are supporting, “Come on! You can do it!” and this helps the athlete to subconsciously internalise the voice, because our subconscious learns by repetition, so for the athlete, being constantly told that they “Can,” helps reinforce the internal belief that they “Can.”

Whereas people who don’t believe that they, “Can,” will often fall short of their potential, because they don’t believe in themselves.

This video I found describes this pretty well, and is really inspiring (Will Smith is ace!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEMEBBwO6J8.

What I’m saying through all this is that the voice of advertisment media often tells us that we need more and more to be happy, and this can become part of our ‘inner voice.’ They can also try and play on insecurities; take for example Gilette: their slogan is, “The best a man can get,” so what are they trying to imply? If you don’t have a Gilette, then you are less of a man.

Subconscious scripts are internalised either by you yourself dwelling on something, or having others internalise them for you by saying them over and over to you (Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me - because I refuse to internalise them). Saying the alphabet over and over as a child was boring, and you probably weren't really thinking about it too much, but it went in. This is also is the case with creeds and explicit goverment propaganda (like in North Korea) etc which are repeated over and over and consequently become internalised, then a part of you, and then you end up behaving in accordance with it.

But I often find that the more I have, the more cluttered my life feels, and I end up sometimes just wanting to get rid of everything and keep only the bare essentials.

People who come back from poorer places often report that people there with “Nothing,” are actually much happier, because they are not bogged down by materialism. In fact, just thinking about it now (and I’m DEFINITELY not saying that people in poorer countries don’t need help and support, because a lot of big transnational corporations leech other countries, leaving them with all but nothing (I'll save that for another blog)) but is it possible that some charities view and present certain civilizations as poor because they have been led to believe by society that to be happy you have a certain amount of stuff???

To summarise, I don’t think we can completely avoid how we think in relation to certain things because they are ingrained so deep within us and our culture, and I think greed and ‘wanting more’ is part of human nature, however I think that we can be aware of what we are being subconsciously told at least, and by being aware, we can make steps to control these things, instead of having them control us.