Sing your troubles away

If anyone told you that the had no problems in their life, they are either lying or there's something wrong with them. Of course it varies from person to person. While some have really big problems, others on the other hand only have some quite minor one. The fact is totally free from problems.

Is that too philosophical?

Anyway, I was going through the GotTrouble.com directory, and realise that my problems might not be a big deal after all, looking at what some people have to go through. This directory gives solutions to common problems that people go through everyday.

I guess my problem comes under employment. And I even wrote a song about it:

Walking down the road,
searching for a job.
degrees coming out of my ears,
doesn't mean a thing.

It's terrible, I know. If you feel that you are more talented, check out GotTrouble.com’s Video Promotion. Put your pain into music, create a commercial for them and share it with the World on YouTube and you stand a chance to earn US$5,000.00 as a cash prize.

My old phone line has been taken back

This is to inform all my friends who have been unsuccessfully trying to contact me using my old Celcom number, that it has been cancelled.

I was using their Xpax prepaid line and I had activated the global roaming service before I left Malaysia. The reason I retained it was because our Maybank TAC pin numbers were sent to it.

One day I noticed that my phone was showing a "SIM not found" warning. I realized that I had forgotten to top up the airtime and asked my dad to help put some airtime in. My father put in RM30 but the SIM was still deactivated.

Check the validity periods as given below:


This means that even if you don't use a single sen, you still have to top up when the validity period ends.

Wrote an email to the Celcom careline but didn't receive any reply. I only found out that they had canceled my number after my dad went to their local office in Kota Bahru and inquired. I know it's my fault but am annoyed and sad as well because I have had that number for nearly 6 years now and the fact that there was still more than RM100 credit.

I learnt that they recycle old numbers, which means that the number is back in the market and someone is probably using it now. So don't be surprised if you get a "Hello! Is this Adam?" on your phone. It means that you got my old number.

British Gas goes green

Zero Carbon is one of the two new green energy tariffs to be launched by British Gas and according to a press release, is said to be the greenest energy tariff in the UK. With this initiative, British Gas shows that they are pro-actively tackling the issues of climate change and demands for environmentally products from their customers.

For just a few extra pounds a month (estimated at around £7), you can now do your little bit for the Environment. The other tariff introduced by them is called Future Energy.

Read the full press release below:

BRITISH GAS LAUNCHES GREENEST ENERGY TARIFF

9 August 2007: British Gas has announced it is launching two new green energy tariffs, Zero Carbon, which will be the greenest tariff available on the domestic market and Future Energy. British Gas has launched the tariffs, in response to the increasing demand for green energy products.

Householders signing up to the Zero Carbon tariff will:
• reduce their household energy carbon emissions to zero through Kyoto compliant offset schemes which will meet the new Defra requirements
• help fund a direct increase in investment in renewable energy generated in the UK
• contribute to the new British Gas green fund which will:
o invest in developing new renewable technologies such as wave power
o oversee a programme to help schools in the UK reduce their CO2 emissions

Gearóid Lane, Managing Director British Gas New Energy said,”Our new tariff responds to consumer demand for truly green energy solutions. It is essential that customers have confidence in green energy tariffs and that their credibility is not damaged by tariffs that claim to be green but in reality do not deliver any incremental environmental benefits. Green tariffs are moving from niche to mainstream products and we’re leading the industry by offering a tariff that will do more for the environment than any other product currently available.”

Under the government’s Renewables Obligation (RO), electricity suppliers in the UK are already required to produce an increasing percentage of their electricity through methods such as wind farms which, unlike traditional power plants, produce zero carbon emissions. For 2007/2008 this figure is set at 7.9%.

In a recent report, the National Consumer Council (NCC) raised concerns that some energy suppliers are packaging electricity which is produced under the RO scheme as “green”, yet it delivers no additional environmental benefits. The NCC called on energy suppliers to take steps beyond their legal requirements and offer green energy tariffs that provide genuine additional environmental benefits, in particular CO2 emissions reduction.

British Gas worked with Global Action Plan and The Climate Group’s “We’re in this Together” campaign to develop Zero Carbon which goes further than any other green tariff in meeting these requirements offering consumers the only zero carbon option on the market.

The tariff carries a premium of £84 per year, reflecting the higher cost of producing energy through lower carbon emission schemes.

Virginia Graham, Chair of Global Action Plan, said, “The British Gas Zero Carbon tariff delivers on all three of the essential requirements of a green tariff which are: additionality, transparency and verifiability. As such it is a very welcome new offering in the market. Consumers signing up to the tariff can be confident that they are getting 12 per cent more renewable energy than they would otherwise have got. The carbon emissions from their electricity and gas will also be offset with emissions reductions from projects accredited by the United Nations.”

Zero Carbon is one of the first initiatives launched through the ‘We’re in this Together’ campaign, which was launched in April 07 as an alliance of some of the UK’s biggest brands who are all working to help their customers reduce their impact on the climate.

Dr Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group and founder of ‘We’re in this Together’ said, “We’re committed to offering people ways to make a real impact on climate change through Together.com. We’ve worked with British Gas to ensure that Zero Carbon is a genuine step forward in delivering more environmental benefits than any other tariff currently available.”

British Gas’s second green energy tariff, Future Energy, offers an alternative green electricity tariff at a premium of just £20 per year. Customers signing up to this tariff will contribute to a green fund which will provide solar panels and other renewable energy technologies to UK schools. Money from the fund will also be invested in development of future renewable technologies and sources.

To sign up customers can call British Gas on 0845 604 0055 or visit www.britishgas.co.uk

Do follow ah ok lah

After putting it off for several months, I finally updated my blog template from the old classic Blogger to the new Blogger.

Came across this free template called Adsense Tech Template by by Charm Skins. Spent several hours yesterday tweaking and modifying the template to look like my previous template and it was finally done around 2 am in the morning.

So what do you think?

One of the major advantages is that this template now allows me to remove the 'nofollow' tag from the comment module. So I am officially part of the Do follow movement. For more information, read my post "I do follow" on my SEO Expert blog.

I have also joined the "Do Follow Blogroll" that was started by my online pal, Tricia. Don't forget to leave your comments.



Please refer to the 'Do Follow Bloggers' post on Trica's blog for more information if you want to join in as well.

The queer blog

Ryan is a blogger from Melbourne, Australia and his blog is titled simply "R*yan". It is a personal blog and he has a nice writing style. Mind you it's a PR 5 blog with over 100 subscribers.

I like the way he has personalized his blog. It's amazing what a nice background can do to the over look of your blog. Certainly makes it slightly different from all the other Blogspot blogs with generic templates.

I also like the fact that he has pictures to go with almost all his posts. Something I have been trying to do as well. There are a lot of nice pictures and a lot of them are pictures of men. What do you expect? After all this is a blog with a queer bent.

Unfortunately Ryan has taken an "indefinite break" from blogging. You can still and read his old posts though.

The Nokia N95

The release of the Nokia N95 in mid March of this year, went almost unnoticed in the hype surrounding the debut of the iPhone. The phone was released with the tag line "It's what computers have become" and with the S60 software running on Symbian OS, it truly is a mini-computer in your hands. This smartphone has a integrated GPS receiver, built-in Wifi, built-in 5 Megapixel (2592 x 1944) digital camera with Carl Zeiss Optics as well as a frontal CIF camera for video calls, a media player and several other advanced features.

Another unique feature that I almost forgot to mention is that the Nokia N95 is among the few to support a 4GB MicroSD / MicroSDHC memory card.

Job search update August

I went for an interview yesterday (the second one since I moved to Coventry). It went off quite well. At least I think I did. However, I don't really know as I thought that my previous interview went off really great as well. No! I didn't get that job.

Coming back to the interview. It was an interesting experience because it was the first one where I had to take a practical test to test my skills before the actual interview. I was really nervous and hope I did OK.

So my job hunt is in full swing. I have been applying for all kinds of jobs - left, right and centre and am not even restricting myself to managerial or supervisory positions anymore.

Last Thursday, read this ad in the newspaper saying that IKEA was looking for customer service, checkouts, sales, food services and warehouse staff. So I drove to the IKEA Recruitment Centre at Saturn Facilities, Lockhurst Lane. There was no one manning their counter when I got there. The receptionist for Saturn Facilities there, asked me whether I had brought along my CV. I had rushed there without thinking and so I went back home, printed my CV and came back again. I dropped it off with the same receptionist.

So far no reply from them.

On Friday, I also dropped by the Adecco office in the City Centre. They are supposed to be UK's largest recruitment agency and if anyone can help me get a job, it's them.

Here's their address: 12-16 Trinity Street, Coventry, CV1 1FL. Tel:024 7655 9655, Fax:024 7625 1699.

Kylie, the lady who talked to me was really helpful and asked me to email her my CV. She asked me to send her two versions - a detailed one and another scaled down version. I am still waiting for a reply from her as well. So you can see that I am waiting for a lot people to get back to me.