Goodmorning Folks, It's a nice day here in Sunny Cairo. A little less hot than usual. I would like to first announce the launch of a new project I've been working on for some time now called Voiceover Buy & Sell. The site is a classifieds buy & sell site dedicated to the voiceover community. The premise is pretty simple. If you have a piece of equipment that you are not using and would like to sell then you can list it on the site. If you are a voiceover coach and you would like to advertise your workshops. Then you can list
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Today is the first day of the holy month of Ramadan. That means for the next 30 days I have to fast from sun-up till sun-down (islamic fast means I don’t drink or eat plus a few other things during that period) so for half the day I don’t eat and the other half I’m fine.
The thing about Ramadan though is that it brings the family together… Most families get together to break their fast. The other thing is that its a month of intense worship for Muslims. After the Night prayers (the last prayers of the day) you will find most of the mosque filled to the brim with worshipers wanting to perform extra prayers… not just the ones that are compulsory (there are 5 daily compulsory prayers anything beyond those is kind of like extra credit).
If you see a Muslim… greet him with Ramadan Mubarak… or Ramadaan kareem.
Now onto other things.
More Talk of Goodies
So a while back I told you guys that I ordered a few things online and was waiting for them to arrive.
What I do is I usually wait to see if one of my friends is going abroad and then I buy stuff and forward it to their address for them to bring with them. Usually its microphones or computer parts or clothes.
So yesterday I got my last batch of stuff … and it included one of the items I was looking forward to laying my hands on.
One of the issues I have with having an online business is that its kind of hard to communicate with some of the agents only through email. Long distance calls cost a considerable penny here in Cairo especially since you have a limited number of carriers. There are no competitive long distance rates in Egypt.
So as you might know by now I’m one of those people that likes to experiment. I found some ads about a product called the MagicJack… Figured I can dish out $40 usd for one and get myself US number.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Morning Folks, Just got back from my Annual vacation. Overall a nice relaxing experience except for the fact that I was supposed to be going to a place much cooler than Cairo (which was going through some global warming related series of heatwaves). To my chagrin the heatwave followed me to a place where they are generally unused to heatwaves and so were ill prepared for the heat. Roughly translated, they didn't have many air conditioners around. I took lots of pictures and even splurged on a new digital Video Camera which means you guys might be unlucky enough to have to
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Notice I didn’t say like, or admire, or even “Are you fond of”. I said love, because it seems to me like most of the people I have dealt with in the Voiceover industry “love” the business they are in.
Very recently a client had made amendments on an IVR I had recorded for him. They had added a company to their IVR system (a second company) so they wanted to add the new company to the system. But the way the gentleman was talking to me… it was like I was a rockstar… He treated me like Talent, with respect, appreciation and regard.
It was odd to tell you the truth as usually I have to deal with casting agencies who will peddle the job to the lowest quoting VO out there… Make me feel anything but talented and miles from appreciated.
Popularity: 7% [?]
As voiceover artists we sometimes have to put on several occupational hats. From Social networking marketeers to accountants, to recording talents to sound engineers. You can’t do everything but you can try to make some of the different aspects of the job easier with the right tools.
I don’t know how it started but a few weeks back I realized that I need a proper invoicing software. What I did in the past was a somewhat laborious and a very medieval method of using a graphic design program to design an invoice template and just used that design program to send out my invoices and quotations (or estimates if that is what you like to call them).
I usually limit myself to finding free or open source (which technically means free) applications that can do the job for you. But this time around I figured that I won’t limit myself to just free applications, the only restriction I would put on myself is how much I would pay for them.
So I embarked on a quest to find an invoicing solution that suited me. Oh yeah, and I also didn’t want to use an online invoicing company although their are many available who will not charge you if you have less that 10 or so clients. The reason for this decision was that I was kind of sick of having all my information available online… and didn’t want to have to go through a facepalm moment (look up facepalm online for clarification) if one of those sites gets hacked and my information goes public.. although now that I write this I have no idea who would find that information in the least bit interesting.
In any case, a few weeks back this was an issue for me. So I started looking for both applications and server based programs that you run on your hosting account.
Popularity: 3% [?]
