Blog – imailglobal.com

Tensions are running high in the once peaceful office of iMail. Henry’s Loyalists have finally decided to deal a crushing blow to Ken’s Separatist Movement. While no outright war has broken out yet, a strained unease lingers in the air as both sides quietly amass their armies. Continue reading

Google wave was supposedly the next big thing that would change the way we collaborate and share information, so it came as a shock when Google announced last week it was killing it off at the end of the year.

The wave was touted as a perfect combination of social media, email and productivity, it was hyped up by Google to be not only a game-changing product but a platform whereby developers would build on top off. Before it was given a chance to take off, it was killed off in a year. And to say it was given a year is generous, most people were allowed access to it only after a few months when it was launched.

Google Wave is a overly ambitious vision on how we can communicate and share information with our friends, colleagues and more. The biggest problem with it was how confusing it was to use, with too many buttons to hit and not knowing what was what, it suffered from Google’s penchant of getting products out early in beta and solve the problems as the products went along. What Google could have done was to cram Wave into Google Docs or even Gmail, like how they forced Buzz into Gmail. It seemed like Google had absolutely no idea how to market or nurture Wave into a landscape changing product it could have developed into.

Below we have some comments on selected examples of email subject titles.

“Connect Before Savings Cutoff.”

Because of spam filters, don’t want to use the actual dollar amount of the discount in a subject line. (Sometimes, the actual discount amount isn’t compelling enough to generate excitement.) Yet discounts and deadlines create urgency.
This e-mail concerned a wireless event. The wireless concept (connecting before a cutoff) was married to the discount idea. And a subject line was born. Short, sweet, and to the point. Continue reading

THE Information Security Forum (ISF) has listed 10 future scenarios that identify the key areas of risk to businesses, in its Threat Horizon 2012 report released last week. Here’s the list in random order:

* Contingency fails: An over-reliance on the Internet can result in chaos; with banks, airlines and online retailers in the case of a sustained regional or local Internet failure.

Continue reading

Flu season is here again, bring out the chicken soup and panadols! Even the usually healthy and strong Jennifer (German wench) is stricken with influenza. Everyone knows the common cold although not life-threatening is still a huge pain in the ass and is probably the top money maker for local general practitioners. To top it off, in an office environment where everyone is cooped up in a small air-conditioned space, it’s viral orgy time!

Now i should share some office hygiene tips i got off the internet. You might want to know how reliable my information is, I acknowledge that i am not an expert on the subject. I am just a mild hypochondriac with germophobic tendencies. I wash my hands quite frequently (about 6 times a day) and thoroughly. Someone remarked that i looked like i was preparing to enter the operating theatre. Which brings me to my first point.

1. Hand washing
This is vital. People unconsciously touch their face all the time. Your hands are not clean, in fact, they’re filthy. When you touch your face, you’re inviting the viruses right into your system. So either stop touching your face, or wash your hands. It’s more the scrubbing action of the washing process than the brand of soap which rids your hands of germs.

2. Identify Germ Hot-spots
The innocent keyboard and mouse you willingly wield daily is a foul colony of bacteria, viruses and everything unholy. The office telephone is another den of evil. Your table top is also actually quite dirty, but it’s not as bad as the previous 2 examples. On a semi-related note, the iPad (and other touch devices) are smudgy pieces of crap. It’s a good habit to clean your keyboards, mouse and desk area habitually. Although I don’t do that, i just wash my hands and not touch my face after using anything in the office.

3. If you’re sick stay at home
Why come to work? Nobody would think less of you if you do not show up when sick. I personally think that the job of a sick person is to get healthy. By coming to work, you might spread the diseases you harbour to colleagues, this ultimately will do a few things. One, everybody will feel like hell. Two, the number of man hours lost will be exponentially increased because of one illness. Three, you’re supporting the virus which is unacceptable. Humans will always be at war with bacteria and viruses. We’re already fighting a losing battle, please don’t be a turncoat. You could wear a mask which would hinder the transmission but you’ll look dumb and i doubt you’ll do it anyway because it’s really uncomfortable.

Let’s crush the cold. Go team human.

A word about our office.

It was early in the year 2010 when we relocated our office further down the street. Although physically we moved barely a hundred meters, I can speak for us all when I say that the change was like a transition from darkness to light, the transformation from pauper to prince.

Not that Gemmill Lane was in any way squalid or horrible; it was humbly furnished and although not much light did enter that small road, one could not really complain in terms of comfort. It was, however, cramped, and quite candidly, ugly. And on the topic of its security, i should mention the little incident of the break in.

We arrived one morning to find the office broken into. A laptop and a monitor were burglarized. A locked drawer, which fortunately contained nothing of import, was pried open with a screw driver. I do believe a thumb drive was stolen as well which caused more irritation than anger. Although the police caught the culprit, we never did recover our lost possessions. I suspect that the nefarious cat burglar was featured on Crime Watch.

Our much anticipated shift eventually materialized and we are now happily settled on Club Street. It is much brighter, boasts about three (or more) times the square footage and is right smack in the middle of a bustling thoroughfare. The air conditioning might be over zealous at times, during which we feel like meat in a freezer, but of course that is no reason to denigrate our new location.

Recently, we also happen to have an interesting art collection gathered in our meeting room. The inspiring works of Jose Parla, Damien Hirst and Scott Campbell which adorn our walls, always manage to extract sighs of admiration from our guests.

Now a word about the website.

This website has taken a really long time to finish. It is more or less done thanks to the dedicated work from the whole team – namely Ken and Eddie. Good job boys. Anyway, it was a hellish undertaking. The design, under the scrutiny of our boss Henry “Baba” Gomez, has undergone countless changes and is now what i call polished to perfection. Like a diamond, yes, but not shiny. The code required so much complex programming, that our good Eddie now actually has eyes like a panda (don’t let me make you self conscious Ed), from the countless hours spent being a code monkey.

After all the trials and tribulations we have undergone, the pain and suffering, the psychological agony and mental afflictions, let us proudly present our new website and if you don’t like it please email Eddie your grievances and he will make the appropriate changes.