Monthly Archive for September, 2006

Lyle’s Golden Syrup is officially a UK icon

Published on Saturday, September 30, 2006 in Advertising, Brand, Marketing, Society and Trend. 1 Comment

It seems that Lyle’s Golden Syrup has acquired the status of brand stardom since the Guiness Book of Records has officially recognized it as as Britain’s oldest brand !

Lyles_Golden_Syrup.jpg

Should you have suddenly acquired a craving for golden syrup just looking at the tin, then you’ll be happy to know that you can purchase some through Amazon.

As an article in the Daily Mail explains :

The Lyle’s story began in 1883, when Scottish businessman Abram Lyle built a sugar refinery in London.

A by-product of sugar was a treacly syrup, but it was canny Lyle who discovered it could make a tasty spread.

This syrup was poured into wooden casks and sold to his workers and local customers.

Word spread fast and, in a few short months, a tonne a week was being sold.

Wooden casks soon gave way to large Lyle’s Golden Syrup dispensers being displayed on store shelves.

Lyle’s Golden Syrup was first poured into tins in 1885.

Now nearly 1 million tins leave the Plaistow Wharf factory in East London each month.

Time Zone change on Google Analytics

Published on Friday, September 29, 2006 in Analytics, Blog, News, Tech, Trend and Web. 14 Comments

I’ve been conversing with Google on getting my Time Zone changed from the default ‘Pacific Time’ (GMT-08:00), which is not very handy when you live in Europe like some of us ;)

Please note that if your Analytics account is not linked to an AdWords account, you’ll be able to set your timezone preference from the Main Website Profile Information section of your Profile Settings page. By default, all accounts are set to use Pacific Time.

Further down the email from Google Support states that :

If your Analytics account is linked to a Google AdWords account, your time zone will be automatically set to your AdWords preference and you will not see the time zone feature in your Analytics account. This ensures accurate reporting on your AdWords campaigns. To learn how to set the timezone in your AdWords account, please read
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=35211 in the AdWords help center.

However I tried both suggestions and neither provided me with any way of changing it. I have an Adwords account but had never got round to activating it. I didn’t like the idea that the I would be advertising for anything/anybody. Especially not without any assurance that it wasn’t a scam, or shabby products I don’t believe in and definitely wouldn’t want to endorse in any way.

As you can see here the Google Analytics Account Settings page doesn’t allow me to change the time zone :
Google analytics time zone change

And finally here you can see that my AdWords account does not let me modify a thing either, with regards to the time zone :
Google Change Adwords time zone

So I got back to Google to explain this and well, it seems that you can’t change it, so all of my analytics data is pretty difficult to read at the moment. I’m getting the impression that people start looking at my pages from Europe at about 1 o’clock in the morning. I must appeal to the insomniacs among us !

Please note that though you have not activated your AdWords account, your AdWords and Analytics accounts are already linked. Once you have linked your AdWords and Analytics accounts, the time zone that is set in the AdWords account is automatically set for the Analytics account. This is done to ensure that data is reported accurately for your AdWords campaigns being tracked in Analytics. Therefore John, you may not be able to change the time-zone for your Analytics account.

We apologize for any confusion you may have experienced.

So I am basically stuck with this and never specifically asked for the time zone to be “Pacific Time” (GMT-08:00). There was no warning about the fact that you cannot change this nor that it would then stop me from changing my Analytics time zone settings ! Since I’m not even using AdWords I have now gained a greater distaste for it than before !

So if anybody knows what I can do about changing the time zone on my Google Analytics account I would really appreciate a heads up on what I need to do !

I just wrote to Google, asking them if cancelling the AdWords account, will get rid of the problem…

I must say that the Google Analytics system is really good although not being to change the time zone is a real pain and something that one of the lead programmers obviously forgot to integrate as an option between the two systems. Maybe the linking up with AdWords has caused this issue but regardless of the blame it is a problem that needs to dealt with.

So if you are thinking of using Google Analytics which is really useful, then do remember that your initial Time Zone setting is important !

Update: Paul Hiles has just posted a solution in the comments that I can’t check since I’m writing this from my Blackberry. I’ve copied his comment here so that you don’t have to scroll further down to read it. However if you can test this and confirm it works please let everyone know and conform it works:

The timezone setting is in Adwords, and can only be set once, but if you do make a mistake there is the option to change it (but only once!).
If you are logged into your account, then clicking the link below should automatically open a request form to update your timezone.

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/request.py?contact_type=timezone_change

Changes are carried out by authorised Adwords personnel and are usually complete within one working day (exluding weekends).

Visas in the US are still scarce

Published on Friday, September 29, 2006 in Business, Immigration, Politics and Society. 0 Comments

The washingtonpost describes the current despair that can be felt in the US from many technology companies and research institutions who really need to hire skilled workers and were hoping that this year would see new legislation pass through Congress to allow US companies to employ talented people from aboard.
Some feel that the bill that has been put forward, tried to change too much :

“It is incredibly difficult to pass major legislative reforms in any areas, and they tried to bite off a lot,” said Jenifer Verdery, a policy director for Intel Corp., which has lobbied for more skilled foreign workers. “We’ve made a strong case, and we’re hoping to take that to the finish line . . . if there is any policymaking left to do after the election.”

But the current situation is getting unbearable for many specialised companies in the US :

Jai Pathak cited the Hungarian roots of Intel Corp. co-founder Andrew S. Grove, whose work helped create the modern computer industry that employs millions of Americans.
“What would have happened if the United States had decided to close the doors on him?” Pathak said

Online Marketing and Ads work well with French and British

Published on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 in Advertising, Marketing and Web. 0 Comments

An article published today at Brand Republic discusses the findings of the recent NetObserver Europe report. The “British and French internet users are the most susceptible to online advertising and marketing”. The survey was based on over 170,000 internet users in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Some other interesting findings include the fact that German users are more inclined to buy online and Spanish users are the most prolific at creating blogs.

Dylan’s Jokerman video Karaoke style

Published on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 in Music and Video. 0 Comments

This is a blast from the past for me; we often used to listen to and sing along to this song and other Dylan songs in the car on family trips. I’d never seen a video to go along with it. With the words appearing on screen, it’s a nice version that may bring back memories for you too :)

Enjoy

The war in Irak is fueling terrorism

Published on Sunday, September 24, 2006 in News, Politics, Society and War. 0 Comments

The Far East was already fragile prior to the US invading Iraq on false pretences. A classified report from US intelligence agencies called “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” concludes that terrorism is now being fuelled by the war on Iraq.

Agencies “found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.”
New York Times

The discussion about the real motivating factors that led to the war in Iraq, the control of petrol by the US/UK rather than Russia/France that were successfully courting Saddam Hussein, has faded to a whisper. The cost in human lives alone to control the petrol in Iraq is enormous, but this report indicates that secondary effects may be more devastating.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the “centrality” of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda.
Washington Post

Although this does sound pretty logical, a previous NIE report had concluded Iraq was continuing to make weapons of mass destruction which became part of the pretext for the war on Iraq. The same report only described Bin Laden as a ‘terrorist financier’, with no mention of Al-Qaeda !
The Bush government explains it is fighting a war on terrorism. The report’s findings contest the effectiveness of how Bush has engaged the war on terror; top US intelligence agencies conclude the war on Iraq is directly helping terrorists to recruit. Are these findings the prelude to a succession of grounds to leave Iraq ? Even if such a move is likely to prompt civil war ?

L’Est Républicain reveals report of Ben Laden’s death

Published on Sunday, September 24, 2006 in Politics. 0 Comments

The French Newspaper L’Est Republicain describes a confidential report from the French secret service that in turn refers to the Saudi secret service who are convinced that Osama Ben Laden died from a severe case of typhoid. He is reported to have been in a remote area along the Pakistanian border that would have meant treatment was near impossible.
The article from L’Est Républicain is referred to in the Washington Post.

Turning away from 9/11

Published on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 in Photos, Society, Thoughts and Unusual. 0 Comments

There is an intriguing article over at slate.com revolving around a controversial photo by Thomas Hoepker. Do check out the article and the photo. The photo shows a group of young people on the Brooklyn waterfront in view of Manhattan on 9/11. I read the first paragraph and then scrolled down to the photo. I would be really interested to know how people read the article and whether your views changed on the photo after having read the article like mine did.

The last two paragraphs changed my mind, the writer’s insight on what happened that day for many people and a simple explanation for the photo becomes pretty logical and understandable. It is also an interesting parallel with what the author describes as the ability of people to move forward.

Which Movie Online ?

Published on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 in Business, Film, Music and TV. 0 Comments

TV Series and the Internet are getting on fine wouldn’t you say ? The music industry has been cornered into the position of accepting that systems like iTunes are actually working and working well. So why would the movie industry continue to dig its heals in about distributing films over the Internet ? You may think that the whole music industry versus the Internet fiasco was a lesson in itself but no it seems not !
A good article over at washingtonpost.com discusses the illogical behaviour of the movie industry and how hard companies like Apple and Amazon are working on changing this, bringing out boxes that will allow people to view downloaded films on their TVs…

It seems in the same way that book publishers are creating barriers in the online publishing industry to make traditional channels of distribution happy, the movie industry is similarly motivated to create barriers… When will they learn ?

Beware of the Pretext

Published on Monday, September 11, 2006 in Business, Society and Unusual. 0 Comments

The current HP scandal is the consequence of what is known as “pretexting”.
Over at the washingtonpost.com there is an article that covers the shady procedure of “pretexting” to obtain information about a person. Although you may like myself, be astonished and unaware that executives of the same company engaged in spying upon each other like this, it seems it is not uncommon !

pretext : a purpose or motive alleged or an appearance assumed in order to cloak the real intention or state of affairs
Merriam Webster

Have you ever wondered, when you get inundated with questions by some random telemarketer, “How many people live in your apartment ?”, “Do you own the apartment ?”, “Do you all work full-time ?” and so on… whether there is some hidden agenda ? Or worse, for the pure paranoid, whether they are planning to figure out when you’re not at home ?!