Make It Obvious.

Many people think that the art of the headline is to attract attention. Well, the one above ticked that box for me but when I delved deeper, I discovered that the noise was emanating, irony of ironies, from a "marketing" company upstairs (read phone sales training company) and that the closure was voluntary, not enforced.

The art of the headline is not just to attract attention. It must also impart information and lead to something that doesn't disappoint.



Addendum: If you utilise multiple meanings in your heading, then you must deliver on all of them. This is advanced practice and should only be attempted by experts.

How To Easily Overclock Your Nokia N900 In Under Two Minutes

The ability to overclock the N900 has existed for a long time now and we have covered it before. But overclocking the N900 has never been so easy, two simple installs from the Application Manager and a short command via the terminal is all it takes. If you have been wanting to try it out but were holding out because it seemed too complicated, this guide is for you.

However, please note that overclocking the N900 will void your warranty, although it is possible to the flash to the stock kernel/state if you no longer want to overclock your device. Apart from that you also risk damaging your device and losing data. Please continue at your own peril.
That said, lets get started.

• The first thing you need to do is install ‘rootsh’ from the Application Manager, make sure you have the relevant repositories enabled.
• Next install the ‘Enhanced linux kernel for power users‘ from the ‘System’ section in the Application Manager. It supports overclocking upto 1.15 Ghz.
• Restart the device.
• Now install ‘Enhanced kernel for power users (settings)‘.
• Open the X-Terminal and enter the following command.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load ideal

This will load the ideal profile which overclocks your phone to 850 MHz. At this point if you experience reboots or the phone seems to act funny, try using the ‘lv’ settings that uses slightly higher voltages than the ‘ideal’ profile. If it is still unstable try ‘ulv’. The various presets are ‘default’ – ‘lv’ – ‘ulv’ – ‘xlv’ – ‘ideal’ – ‘starving’.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load lv
kernel-config limits 250 850

If the N900 seems stable, you can have these settings as a preset of your own.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load lv
kernel-config limits 250 850
kernel-config save myideal

With the current configuration, the N900 will resort to the default 600 MHz state everytime it is rebooted. This is done to avoid letting the N900 get caught in a reboot loop. If you are happy with the N900′s performance and stability, you can then also set the N900 to overclock by default on startup. Use the following command:

sudo gainroot
kernel-config default ideal (whichever preset you want to set as default e.g. myideal)
kernel-config show (this will show you your current settings)

If you want to revert to the original settings, here is the procedure to follow. Jakiman over at talk.maemo.org has a very comprehensive guide as well, if you are looking for more information I suggest you give it a read.

One last thing, if you want to configure the N900′s overclocking setting with a visual UI and not the terminal, install QCPUFreq from the Application Manager. Then once you have installed the packages mentioned above all you will need to do is move the slider to overclock to the desired level. My suggestion is don’t go past the 850 MHz mark.
Before you do this, please keep in mind one thing ‘because it can be doesn’t mean, you have to do it!’

Make Marketing Relevant.

Before enjoying an epic of epic-ish epicness last night, I was assailed in my cinema seat by a horrible advertisement featuring inane vox-pop proclamations extolling the wonders of cinema.

That's right, my enjoyment of the cinema experience was diminished by an advertisement preaching the joy of the cinema experience to people who were already sitting in a cinema!

The screen real-estate was there, the audience was there and the had an ad, so the marketing geniuses decided to throw them all together. No doubt because there was no incremental financial cost and it would gain eyeball attention. It took me back to the bad old days when magazines would call up an old colleague to tell him that he'd paid for space in their next edition and what did he want them to run in it. His answer was usually the same tired old ad he'd run in the previous edition.

Advertising opportunities may be abundant, but to undervalue them like this is to reveal a failure to comprehend that the scarce and thus valuable element in the equation is your audience's time. That is and always has been finite. If you make them waste it, there will be a very real cost to you. Even if you can't see it in your budget.

Meet The New World, Same As The Old World.

Just when I'm sure I have nothing new to say, I see that other people are saying nothing new and getting talked about.

The particular insight that caught my attention came from a Lufthansa social media executive who declared that businesses should "Make your product your ads and your customers your ad agency."

Product has always been the first P of marketing and always will be and word of mouth is the best advertising money can't buy. But to talk about outsourcing your marketing is a dereliction of duty, even if you say it at a social media conference. Outsourcing marketing is what got us into a mess in the first place.

Looking Through Your Customers' Eyes.

A local supermarket has a checkout aisle designated for customers who are using a basket rather than a trolley. It's a common feature designed to speed shoppers through rather than have them abandon their purchases when stuck behind a line of full trolleys in another aisle.

The problem is that its speedy processing of customers means that its queue is often the shortest in the store. Cue the tired, distracted shopper with a full trolley who quite naturally joins the shortest line, usually unnoticed by the harassed till operator until they've unloaded their trolley. Cue the frustration of shoppers with baskets whose exit is now delayed.

Why does this happen? It happens because the signage indicating the status of each aisle resides high above the shoppers' heads. It's visible from a distance but the designers, the user experience gurus and the store management (I've asked) have neglected to consider when their customers make their checkout choice.

Occasionally a shopper is exploiting the situation, but generally it's an honest mistake. They're looking at eye line to determine the most efficient way out of the store with their shopping. They're definitely not gazing upwards.

The managers have thanked me for my observation and said they'll retrain staff. In other words, they'll add further burdens on busy low-paid staff when the simple act of placing an eye-level sign at the checkout entrance would get their customers to self-regulate.

It's not enough to claim that you put yourself in your customers' shoes, you've got to put yourself behind their eyes as well.

Myob Perusahaan Dagang

Make Marking History?

Further evidence of marketing's identity crisis. Though the parallel with marking one's territory has some validity.