Online marketing Calgary

As I’m getting into more speaking engagements I start to think about proper tools. One of those tools is a presentation remote control or a slide clicker. So, I went into a bit of research before making my buying decision. Here’s some useful pieces of information I found in my research.

First, an good article on the process of choosing a clicker. The author goes into describing a few key characteristics of presentation remote controls and explains why you may need them. Choosing a Presentation Remote Control

Second, an article from About.com going over the main options for clicks on the market. Top 6 presentation devices

Finally, here’s a few product comparison pages from various vendors and portals on the web:

• Kensington 33062 Wireless Presentation Remote Control with Laser Pointer
• Keyspan Presentation Remote Pro presentation remote control
• PowerPoint Presentation Remote Controls
• Presentation pointers ar TigerDirect.ca
• PowerPoint presentation remote controls at NexTag
• Presentation Remote Controls at Yahoo! Shopping
• Remote-Controls Comparison at ZDNet

I hope you found this useful. If you did, share with others. Thanks a bunch!

Update: February 18th, 2010:

I ended up buying this one: Kensington 33374 Wireless Presenter with Laser Pointer... Already used it in a few talks. Very happy with it. Advantages: Plug-and-play, works flawlessly, simple.

It took me a little over 10 years to digitize some of the practice ski runs from my past.  It’s always been difficult to recall things as I miss it so much. My team mates grew up, some are still competing, most retired though.

One of my team mates and a close friend Alexander Horoshilov will be at Vancouver 2010 Olympics in a few weeks. I’ll post a few more videos as well as links to some great runs by professionals soon.

Here’s a link to a quick set of practice runs that were extracted from an old VHS by friends at the Russian Store in Calgary. I want to thank all that’s helped me in my past skiing career: team mates, friends, competitors, coaches, parents. I miss you all and hope to see you all soon.

I smoked for 10 years. Two weeks ago I quit and feel much better. Below is a list of things that may help you to quit smoking. Feel free to add more to the list in the comments to this post. Here we go...

 

1. Don't get ready, just quit. Don't think, just do it!
2. Read the book by Allen Carr called The Easy Way to Quit Smoking
3. Tell your friends and family that you quit.
4. Don't confuse "I'm quitting" and "I quit". It's done. Stop doing it. Stop thinking about it.
5. Tell your colleagues that you quit smoking.
6. Blog about it, pretty much the same way I'm doing it right now.
7. Chew some gum. I heard Nicorette helps.
8. Use patches. I tried Nicoderm, helped to get rid of physical cravings.
9. Create a Facebook group around your quitting. Make an event out of it. Courtesy of Karine Vartanova. 
10. Think of all the positive things that you will gain as a non-smoker.
11. Think about all great things you are missing out on as a smoker.
12. Think of it in a way "smoking is for kids". Courtesy of Robin Eldred.
13. Consider the diet: "Tips from Andrew Weil's anti-inflammatory diet and food pyramid will help you a lot. Most of my cooking is now based on the ingredients in this pyramid:  http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART02012/anti-inflammatory-diet" Courtesy of Alex Gault.
14. "Make sure that you eat lots garlic, ginger, red peppers and turmeric. All have powerful anti-inflammatory powers, and consuming them will accelerate the cleansing of your system of nicotine -- making it easier for your body to cope." Courtesy of Alex Gault.
15. Twitter about the process. Here's what I've been doing here @zagoumenov. People that follow up, even professionals, are people too and some of them have quit. My twitter friends have been very supportive.
16. Think of life. "Yesterday I ran and made it to a peak heart rate of 184. For my age it is clinical death by a lot of beats. With clogged arteries, from siruppy nicotine, that would have been certain death. Yo have a choice . . live longer and keep your arteries clean, live shorter and enjoy smoking . . . . vse budu horosho, in both instances we end up death, so what's the big diff?" Courtesy of Tim Hartel.
17. It may hurt, but consider meeting less with your smoking friends and more with your non-smoking friends. Try it for a little bit until you get rid o cravings. Once cravings are gone, go crazy with your smoking friends.
18. Once you quit, help others quit. It's like learning by teaching. The more I teach, the better I know the subject.
19. Once you quit, you quit. Don't screw things up by just having one cigarette. You are a non-smoker now.
20. "The best way to quit smoking is to stop smoking." Courtesy of Robin Eldred.
21. Avoid drinking companies for a little while. For many people alcohol and cigarettes are complimentary products. So, stop drinking alcohol for a few weeks

 

Good luck! You CAN do it! When you quit, thank your friends for support. The closest people will get hurt the most. Thank them big time! I want to thank Ulyana, my better half.

Visiting a good friend of mine and a great musician Kevin Kurek, we decided to improvise a bit and get this all on video. Ended up being a very pleasant melody by Zagoumenov enriched with amazing solo parts by Kevin Kurek. I hope you enjoy the music as much as we did when we were recording it. Huge thanks to Kevin for the music, inspiration, equipment, recording and editing (Kevin's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/kevinkurek). Below is the result of this great jam.

As I shared earlier, on May 17, 2009 I was part of an event "Red Fever by Russian VIP Club" in Calgary at Tropicana Lounge. A good friend of mine DV Love Productions created a short 1-minute feature on my performance. Below please see the result. Thanks again to those who came to the event, thanks to DV Love Productions for the promo reel!

Recently I decided that I want to continue my hobby of making and performing music. I realized that I need a website for my hobby. I looked around and had three options:

1. build one on my own (very simple html/css with a cool image and an audio player, possible a one-pager),
2. use wordpress (there's a number of suitable templates that can be used as homepages for performing artists and musicians)
3. get on an online platform for musicians online.

Below are the results of what I found. My requirements were

• tool for bands to make and manage websites online
• tool for bands to promote their creativity
• tool for bands to distribute their content viraly
• tool serving independent rock folk segment
• audience is russian speakers

Went to google.com to collect a list of available platforms. Here are the contenders

• Jamendo.com
• ReverbNation.com
• BandCamp.com
• MuxTape.com
• PureVolume.com
• MySpace.com
• Last.fm

Went on alexa.com compare traffic

• Jamendo.com on Alexa.com
• Last.fm on Alexa.com
• ReverbNation.com on Alexa.com
• BandCamp.com on Alexa.com
• MuxTape.com on Alexa.com
• PureVolume.com on Alexa.com
• MySpace.com on Alexa.com

See something that I missed, please let me know. See something that you've used and would like to comment on? Feel free to leave a comment, I will be extremely happy!

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