9.1MB • 9m14s • get Quicktime
Overall it has been a satisfying couple of weeks, however it has been very tiring! So many things to do just because you decide to change the name and status of your company And its no fault of the government on this one, both we and they followed procedure as laid down by law, however the thousands of things you need to do to let people know that you have changed your company’s name is rather tiresome: identity, stationary reprinting, communicating with your suppliers and customers, banks, government organisations, and designing a new rubber stamp without which no government entity is going to accept your notifications!
Add to all of that a cousin’s wedding, a business that has got to run, and me being me, I have to pick this particular time to advertise for more staff AND install a new opensource CRM package!
Now you know why I’m tired?
Fair warning, this vlog is just a talking head, no sexy graphics presented nor cuddly animals killed in its creation. Done once again on the Nokia 6630 phone with night vision on in the pool with poor lighting, results in around 12 fps, but decipherable audio.
Comments
Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Good choice for a CRM package. Did you install it locally on your machine or use their ASP?
-Sofyan
Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Hello Mahmood, I really enjoy these “talking head” videos when they are done well like this one. I’m amazed by people like yourself who can just have a dialogue with the camera like that. It’s so honest and unfiltered. And the slow frame rate didn’t really matter since the audio was of a good quality.
–Adam
Re: SugarCRM
Hi Sofyan, no I did the install locally on our server. I’ve experienced some problems importing accounts and contacts, they did go out of sync on several attempts. Admittedly that was on the 3.5.0 beta version, that got corrected by the official 3.5.0 release which I downloaded and installed yesterday on a fresh database. They have a patch announced for 3.5.0 dealing primarily with upgrades from 3.0.1 but it might also contain some important corrections to 3.5.0 so I’ll download and install that when it’s released.
I have been looking for a CRM like SugarCRM for a very long time and have gone through the various packages available but they were a lot less than what I expect from a CRM. This one is easy to install and to interact with, I can at long last can see my “pipeline” and corelate that to other contact and historical information. I am sure that it will help GBPS grow!
Re: Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Thank you Adam! Though I only got used to looking INTO a camera lens and speaking after painful trials! But when I got comfortable with it, well you see the result. I now don’t try to talk even to the camera, but imagine the camera as my audience and just go for it. If it doesn’t work, well I’ve grown tougher skin since I started this thing going, so it’s only ego that is slightly bruised, and that mends very quickly in most cases.
Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Hi Mahmood!
Glad to see u liked sugarcrm. I’m just wondering if you’d be interested in a CMS (Content Management System) talking to a CRM?
‘Cos i’ve been working alongside a team of Mambo developers to itegrate Sugar into Mambo and we’ve achieved an integration module 🙂
Interested? Even if you aren’t it’s really good to see corporates/SPC’s/SME’s implementing open source packages;)
Cheers,
Strav 😀
Re: Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Hello Strav,
I might be interested in the integration module you have come up with. Any web links? My e-mail address is with Mahmood if you need it.
Mahmood,
Have you tried [url]http://www.freshmeat.net[/url]? It’s a good OpenSource database of many popular projects…
Re(1): Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Sorry, that last one was me.
-Sofyan
Re(1): SugarCRM
Yes of course Sofyan, that’s a first stop for searching for OS projects, however there are far too many that you would get lost and waste a lot of time trying to find what you want. I “discovered” this CRM for instance by reference I think from Mohammed Ubaiydli’s site, and once I saw a couple of screenshots I was hooked!
I’ve spend most of yesterday and today entering pipeline details and it’s looking very very pretty, however, it would be MUCH prettier if I can convert those prospects into cash! 😉
Still, this CRM is the first step in the conversion process… at last all information is in the same location.
Here’s the project page for Mambo’s integration by the way: http://sugarforge.org/projects/sugar-mambo/
There are others going as well for PHP-Nuke and Xoops. Although I would seriously shy away from such integration as I would like to just concentrate on the nitty-gritty of what the CRM is made for in the first place. Adding even more components would probably dilute its usefulness.
Coming to deficiencies, the only thing I miss out of SugarCRM now is a “help ticket” system where we can log and process technical support requests, though I haven’t looked at the various community released plugins yet, I’m sure there is one that would do that.
Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Actually Mahmood, SugarCRM does have help desk ticket support as an addon. I think and i’m sure it can be worked around to getting a stable built trouble-ticket/case system. I don’t know if you’ve used the crm – vtiger (vtiger.com – opensource) but it more or less follows the same ticket/cases type.
The module within sugarcrm is called Bug Tracker, does all that tracking support with bug issues and products… you could fine tune it to go with users, tickets, resolutions, etc.
BTW. thanks for posting the, link to the mambo integration. If anyone is interested in getting involved with it, pls do join in on the sign up page and there’s another development with integrating SugarCRM & Mambo with Media Wiki (same thing that powers wikipedia). So you’d be having a crm taking to a cms within a wiki 😉 Awesome isn’t it!
SugarCRM – has an addicitve interface! i can understand why mahmood got hooked with it… a couple of us working with transparency in the NGO sector did as well 5 months ago.. 🙂
Isn’t it true that the CIO in Bahrain is running on a semi-LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, & PHP)infrastructure? So if we want to ensure transparency and sustainability in terms of auditing and accounting…why not use sugarCRM? Any pointers on this one?Even if it means a pilot implementation?… any ideas?
Re: Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
that was me strav :D… i should start logging in with my username on here 😉
Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Dear Mahmood,
If you can’t sleep this may bring peace to a fellow warrrior like yourself, who beleives in equal rights for all and how we win the battles. It may be not short but this is why one receives the Victoria Cross….. For defending damsels in distress>
You may find this to be interesting.
M.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1123087263857_118496463/?hub=Canada
Ernest Alva (Smokey) Smith has died at his home in Vancouver at the age of 91.
Last Cdn. Victoria Cross winner dies
Canadian Press
Hordes of German troops couldn’t take him, but time finally did.
Ernest Alva (Smokey) Smith, Canada’s last winner of the Victoria Cross, has died at his home in Vancouver. He was 91.
Born in New Westminster, B.C., on May 3, 1914, Smith was a joyful man with an impish smile who savoured a good cigar, a well-aged scotch and the attentions of ladies the world over.
Far from a natural-born diplomat, however, it was his fierce fighting ability that vaulted Smith, nicknamed Smokey in school because of his running ability, into the company of royalty, presidents and prime ministers.
Last fall, Italians and Canadians gathered beneath the walls of an 800-year-old castle in Cesena, Italy, to honour Smith for unleashing a few minutes of fury that saved untold lives and changed his own forever.
In a warm ceremony filled with tales, tears and tributes, officials unveiled a plaque commemorating that night of Oct. 21-22, 1944.
His actions that rainy night, when he singlehandedly fought off German tanks and dozens of troops on a road beside the Savio River, were hailed as an inspiration to all his countrymen for time immemorial.
To Smith, it was simple: kill or be killed. He was scared but he couldn’t let his fear gain the best of him or he would die.
“If you’re not afraid, there’s something wrong with you,” he said. “You’ve got to do it. Don’t worry about it.
“Do it.”
Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson, who developed a rapport with Smith over four Remembrance Days and many other ceremonies, said his feats that night resonated far beyond the moment into the hearts of generations of Canadians.
“Someone once said that courage is rightly esteemed as the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others,” she said.
“It is the underlying, rock-like base on which we can live truly human lives. (It is) something he did not only in one battle, not only in the campaign of Italy but for all of us.
“We are more human because one of our members is capable of such a thing.”
Although his comrades called him “a soldier’s soldier,” Smith’s relationship with the army was stormy.
He built a reputation as an independent-minded man suspicious of authorities. They made him a corporal nine times and busted him back to private nine times. That was his rank when he was awarded his VC, the only Canadian private to win the medal in the Second World War
Irreverant, sharp-witted and something of a trouble-maker, Smokey Smith and his deeds that night are the stuff of legend.
Already wounded once in Sicily, he had returned to cross the Savio River with his Seaforth Highlanders, the spearhead of an attack aimed at establishing a bridgehead in the push to liberate Cesena and ultimately break through the Germans’ Gothic Line.
But the rains were so heavy the river rose two metres in five hours. The banks were too soft for tanks or anti-tank guns to cross in support of the rifle companies.
As the right forward company consolidated its objective, the Germans counter-attacked with three Panther tanks, two self-propelled guns and about 30 infantry.
“The situation appeared hopeless,” said Smith’s citation announcing he had received the Commonwealth’s highest military honour almost 61 years ago.
Then 30, Smith led his three-man anti-tank group across an open field under heavy fire. Leaving an anti-tank weapon with one of his men, he led Pte. Jimmy Tennant across the road for another.
“We got hit with grenades,” Smith recalled. “We got grenades thrown all over us. I don’t know how I didn’t get hit. He (Tennant) got hit in the shoulder and arm.
“So I said: `Get in that ditch and stay there. Don’t move.’ So we stayed right there and I never got a mark.”
Smith had a tommy gun — a close-range submachine-gun — a Bren gun machine-gun and a PIAT, or Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank gun.
He also had hundreds of rounds of machine-gun ammunition strung around his neck and hanging off his body.
“We had tried to get a German bazooka, which we figured was twice the weapon we had,” he said. “But they wouldn’t let us have it. You know why?
“It wasn’t British.”
The pair were no sooner into a ditch when a Panther came toward them, firing all the way. Smith waited until the 45-tonne vehicle was less than 10 metres away before he jumped out from his cover, laid down and fired back.
He scored a direct hit, disabling the tank.
“I hit it in the side or the track,” said Smith. “A tank is pretty hard to hit. Sometimes the round would just bounce off it.
“I could see it face-on.”
Immediately, 10 German Panzergrenadier troops jumped off and charged him.
“I killed four of them with my tommy gun. That scared them off.
“They were up close — about 10 feet or so.”
Another tank opened fire. More enemy began closing on Smith’s position.
Smith grabbed more magazines and “steadfastly held his position,” said the citation.
“It was just a bunch of rocks,” Smith said. “You’re not fighting on the prairies, you know. You try and keep out of sight.
“You find yourself a hunk of ground you can hang on to. That’s the way you win wars, I think.”
He fired another round at an approaching tank. It turned away. As each German neared him, Smith fired at them.
The rest eventually turned and withdrew “in disorder,” the citation said.
“Even Germans don’t like to be shot,” Smith said.
From a distance, a tank continued firing. Smith helped a badly bleeding Tennant up and the two of them made their way back across the road to a church, where Smith left his buddy in the care of some medics.
Dead Germans lay strewn all over the road.
“I don’t take prisoners. Period,” Smith said 60 years later. “I’m not paid to take prisoners. I’m paid to kill them.
“That’s all there is to it.”
Smith heard he’d won the Victoria Cross about seven weeks after the fight. His reputation as a party animal preceded him. Military police were sent to take him to the ceremony with King George VI in London.
“They picked me up in Naples or somewhere and they put me in jail,” Smith recalled with his trademark grin.
“`Don’t let him loose in this town. Don’t let him loose. He’s a dangerous fellow.’
“I liked to party. I’d have a big goddamn party and they’d say: `Where is he now? Oh, he’s drunk downtown.”’
After the war, Smith worked a couple of years before he rejoined the army to go and fight in the Korean War.
“After I got in the army, they wouldn’t let me go. They said: `You got a VC, you’re not allowed to fight any more.’
“I said: `Why didn’t you tell me before I rejoined?”’
He was promoted sergeant, then retired with full pension at 50. He became a newspaper photographer before starting his own travel business with wife, Esther.
“I worked for Smokey Smith,” he said. “He’s the only boss I know who’s good to me.”
He retired at 82. In recent years, he was pretty much confined to a wheelchair. He had a bad cough. His beloved cigars and scotch took their toll.
Jimmy Tennant survived the war. Smith helped him find a job with the Workers Compensation Board when they returned to Canada. Tennant had lost a chunk of bone in his arm so it was shorter than the other by about five centimetres.
Tennant lived a long and happy life, not far from Smith in Vancouver. The two remained friends until Tennant died of lung cancer years ago.
After that night in 1944, Smith’s life was never the same again.
Strange women kissed him. Countless men wanted their pictures taken with him. Children smothered him with affection. He met kings and queens and prime ministers and presidents.< As much as he loved the attention, he never forgot the joys the simple things in life could provide. Master Cpl. Bud Dickson, Smith's aide de camp on overseas trips for 10 years, remembered getting dressed six years ago in the Mediterranean town of Catania when a knock came on his hotel room door. Dickson opened the door and there stood Smith. "Come here, Bud, I've got something to show you,'' Smith said. Dickson finished dressing and went to Smith's room. The door was ajar and Dickson walked in, calling Smith's name. "Out here,'' came the reply. And there sat Smith on the balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, two of his beloved scotches on the table in front of him. Dickson sat, still a bit confused. The sun was just cresting the horizon to the east. "What's going on, Smokey?'' he asked. "Nothin','' said the then-85-year-old veteran. "I just wanted you to come over and watch the sunrise.'' So Dickson, then a 33-year-old army signaller, and Smokey Smith, who had probably seen more war than all present-day Canadian soldiers put together, sat back, sipped their scotches and watched a spectacular sunrise. They barely spoke a word. About 10 minutes passed. By now, the sun was big blazing orange ball. To this day, Dickson says he will never forget the words Smith spoke. "Try to do this as often as you can,'' said Smith, who used to kill enemy troops with a half-metre-long, Indian-style warclub bristling with nails. "You never know when your last sunrise is going to be.'' The war, Smith said last year, didn't darken his soul and weigh on his heart the way it did some veterans. "Once it's over, it's over,'' he said. "It was a good life.'' A military funeral is being planned. "We are pleased with your blog." Augurwell
Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
No worries mate, it could have been the slow frame rate. Well, I just came back from a long lunch break and I feel a little tipsy!! It is sunny over here and the breeze is so fresh so it is a waste not to have one or two glasses before coming back to work. And on top of that it is Friday…wooohooooo
That ‘Shwaire’ reminds me of a funny story; once I was out with few of my mates and one of them had a hefty amount of drink. One of the girls approached him and tried to chat him up so she said ‘you look hammered gorgeous, what have you been drinking’ the answer was ‘Shmeernof Ish’
Fuad
Re: Smokey Smith
may he rest in peace… he seemed to be quite a guy! It never ceases to amaze me how heroic some people get in dire situations like wars. If it were not for these great individuals, our comfortable world we take for granted would not have become so.
Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
Hi Mahmood
I enjoyed the vlog and loved the details of the male/female segregation of your cousin’s wedding. I guess a simple research about the wedding parties in Bahrain could shed some light on how versatile is the Bahraini community. We simply don’t have a standard wedding party!!
Mahmood, I got the impression that you were tipsy while doing this vlog, I just love to have a dialogue while being in that state of mind.
keep them coming mate
Fuad
Re: Vlog #11 – Pool Ramblings
later that night, may be Fuad, at the point of filming, no I wasn’t.. I shwaire!