The Eric Wroolie Blog

Overpass Experiences

Leave it on or shut it down?

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I turn my desktop computer (running XP) off every day when I’m not using it.  It is a pain to wait for startup and shutdown times, but I’m concerned for the environment and all that.

I think most people leave it running 24 hours.  I can understand why.  Sometimes it take over 10 minutes to really get all services loaded.  I’ve tried hibernate, but the Dell 9150 I use comes back from Hibernate with the fan running at full speed and it’s very noisy.  Windows seems to be geared for 24 operation– with automated processes kicking off at different times of the day.  It’s like the fridge– but I’m not sure how it compares in terms of energy consumption.

I’ve actually set my bios to kick on at 4am so the computer has finished start-up before I get up there ten minutes later.  It does all my site backups at a specific time.

I’m trying to find more energy efficient uses of the pc.  If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to know.

What Twitter is becoming

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I enjoy Twitter.  It’s easy to update.  The low character limit, rather than being a hindrance, encourages people to start using it who would never think of started a self-serving blog.  It’s easy to put off a quick statement without having to think too much about it.  I find I update Twitter far more than this blog.

I’m getting lots of followers.  This is good for the ego until I look at who they are.  On any given day, I will get a few email like the following:

SomebodyYouDontKnow is following you on Twitter.
Followers: 300
Status Updates: 121
Following: 1421

Now, I ask you . . . how can someone follow the status updates of over 1400 people?  How is it even possible?  Why would someone want to do it?

I get two or three of these type of followers a day.

I’m also seeing a lot of articles on the web titled “How to increase you followers in Twitter”.  It’s like the new SEO.  There are people now calling themselves “Social Media Consultants”.

I suspect that people follow thousands of people so that those people will in turn follow them.  It makes sense I guess– you send more mail when you want to get more mail.  However, there is just something spammy about this.  Maybe they are looking for the top spot in the Twitter stats.

Twitter is not like Facebook where you have to give permission to people so they can see your status.  You can search all tweets (unless the author specifically selects to option to make it private)– so there is no reason to follow 14k or more people. 

A few years ago, I kept getting contacted by SEO charlatans saying things like “I can get your company in the top 10 on Google.”  It was a ridiculous statement.  I asked if they knew what my business did or what keywords I wanted, but they didn’t. 

I now soon expect to be told, “I can get you 20k followers on Twitter. ”  But who wants that?

UKTI “Doing Business in China and Hong Kong” seminar

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Today I attended the half-day “Doing Business in China and Hong Kong” seminar given by the Southeast UK Trade & Investment organisation.  It was a decent presentation which discussed some of the aspects of doing business with China.  It focused more on Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong than on the Northeaster areas I’m interested in, but it was very interesting all the same.

My trip to Dalian was supposed to happen a few weeks ago, but do to the bureaucracy of the UK Home Office, I had to cancel it.  I’m planning to make the trip within in the next few months.