Geekonomics 101

Take a look at your kitchen. Open those shelves , then open your fridge. Is there anything weird about that whole picture? No? Are you sure? Take a closer look please.... Pasta from Italy, Feta cheese from Greece, beers from Belgium and Czech Republic, sausages from Austria, German pretzels and the good old USA steak! This is like a Kodak moment for todays international commerce and globalized economy, which many of us fail to notice during our busy everyday living and even fewer take a moment to appreciate!

We're lucky enough to be the first generation on Earth with such a great potential of acquiring goods from all around the globe. Most products leave the factory and within a matter of a couple of days can be found in a supermarket millions of miles away. Codependence among producers and consumers was never before as strong as it is now and both those two classes need to respect one another and in some aspects even protect one another. Producers needs to provide consumers with products of the highest quality at any given price level and consumers need to be careful, educated and informed about those things. So it only makes sense that such an amazing thing would come with a great amount of responsibilities for each one of us, ensuring that we will keep being able to enjoy this and that we won't ruin it for the generations to come!

So here are a few things that we can do to enjoy international commerce at its fullest and to make sure that our kids will be able to enjoy it as we do.

First and foremost, from a producer's perspective, always provide consumers with goods and services of the highest quality at fair prices. Sure in a capitalistic economical system, personal/company profit is the “gas” that fuels the economy, but being willing to make less money to ensure products of the highest value and production methods with the least environmental impact is encouraged, even to those “ high capitalistic “ economies! Consumers that enjoy goods and services of such high quality are happy consumers that will continue buying those products ensuring the producer with a strong consumer basis. That may indeed mean less short term profit for the business, which in a macro analysis – given that the above conditions apply – translates to long term profits that are more stable and other non financial profits for that business [like good reputation, free “ mouth to mouth “ advertising etc ]. Let us not forget that high quality products and environmentally friendly production methods contribute to the betterment of people's everyday living, which is one of the criteria of an economy's economic development [ NOT GROWTH ].

From a consumer's point of view things are a little different, but the same “ ethics “ are once again required! A modern consumer needs to be informed, aware and ready to complaint about things that are just wrong. Filling a complaint is not just a consumer's right, but a consumer's responsibility as well! Demanding the best and only the best is something that will not only warrantee consumer satisfaction but will also urge and motivate producers to provide goods and services of the highest quality, with all the advantages that this has for everyone, some of which we mentioned above. Being informed is what allows you to take advantage of the exchange market out there, what let's you take advantage of possible offers or what simply allows you to know what's best for you and your needs and what's not! Do not act like a robot, with your needs and desires being a “constant” to the equation. Do not let producers define what you want and need. It's you the ones that define that, or that should define that. Which brings me to the last thing that i value as an essential characteristic of the modern consumer and producer in today's global market and international commerce.

Open mind, which is what took the consumer habits from the cornbread all the way to Mc Donalds and hotdogs and from there to Sushi and fine Italian cuisine. Open mind which opened a whole new world to businesses in several fields, like marketing, advertising, production methods, distribution, strategical business' plans, investments and many many more. We're living in a world that no matter where your home is, German sausages producers are just a few steps away to the nearest supermarket, Italian clothing industries are down the street and French wineries are as far as your local liquor store. Open mind is what made e-bay what it is today, what made online purchasing of goods a given and what is constantly changing our needs and preferences. Customs and values are no longer a constant for consumers. Or at least shouldn't be. So what's the constant today? Well no other than open mind itself! Look around,compare prices and don't be afraid to add and remove from your shopping basket. Why settling for that bad quality cooking oil when you're just a few clicks away from purchasing a top of the line Greek or Italian olive oil for essentially the same price? The fact that you are after the best of the best motivates companies to come up not just with better products but with better distribution plans as well, better storage facilities, better and more effective productions methods [ which i feel i should remind are not always about lower production cost and faster production outcomes, even though that's the general perception ]. A small example of companies that adjusted well to today's market, even though they suffered a serious hit in the near past, are haute horlogerie companies [ high end mechanical watch making companies ] . With an epic marketing and product advertising that was one of a kind, they managed to revive ordinary people's interest for mechanical watches. Companies like Rolex, Patek Phillipe, Audemars Piguet, Jaeger LeCoultre and many many more, after the quartz plague of the 70's and the 80's , not only managed to survive but they hit record profit levels as well! Providing their customers with top of the line products, great after sales services and the overall feeling that you're buying something that really deserves the money that you're spending, they became a “model” for modern businesses. Another great example is Apple. Top of the line hardware with probably – and i'm sure most of you out there who have had the chance to experience it will agree – the best operating system out there, along with one of a kind innovations in portable media players and an epic phone. Add to all that fair prices and voilla... a company that was in the verge of a total fail transformed, in just a couple of years, in a company which acts as a role model in the tech world! Profits for the company and amazing products for the customer!

With that we reached the end of our first little series of articles on economics. I will try my best to keep this simple and in the same time pass out some of the most complex economic functions for you to be able to understand not only how things work on global and/or local economy, but also what you can do as individuals to profit and improve your economical status. Until next time , take care and remember; profit is not always measured in currency

Cause OSX nothing compares to you...

It hasn't been more than a few days since the official release of Windows 7 and i have been pondering on what are those things that prevent me from being as excited about the new Microsoft operating system as everyone else out there seems to be. I know i'm not a Windows hater and i know for sure that i'm not an Apple fanboy. So why is this happening?

Let me start this by saying that Windows 7 is an amazing operating system. I tried it in its beta stages, i had it in its RC [ release candidate ] status and i will be getting it when it's officially out in the stores. Even in its RC stage it was far more stable than Vista ever was to me – and yes i know that lots of the bad stuff happening with Vista wasn't Microsoft's fault – and with those little tweaks that made it a true productivity boost for regular and power users in the same time. So the questions remains.... why does this feel like another glass of the same mediocre wine you'd have at your local restaurant?

Well as i kept diving deeper and deeper into the brainstorm that it is a geek's thoughts, i realized that maybe it wasn't something wrong with Windows 7 whatsoever. Maybe it was just that i got too used to using OSX as my primary operating systems. Maybe there are certain things about it that have become so important to me that i'm not willing to re-switch to Microsoft and Windows 7 as my primary OS. And suddenly a light bulb lit over my head! So here are the things that make OSX irreplaceable in my opinion.

1] Expose. Whether you're using the 4 fingers gesture on an Apple laptop or a key stroke on an Apple desktop keyboard, expose is one of the two genius features in OSX. It's a productivity boost and for sure far more intuitive than having to scroll through your applications windows using the cmd+tab,alt+tab or win+tab way. Some ask me, is it really that important? Well, try having 20 apps running all the time, with multiple windows open for each one of them and compare the user experience using expose and any other navigation method around those.

2] Spaces. This is the second genius feature of OSX! Simple as that! Spaces you're all familiar with and there's no need for me to say how important that little app is for organizing your work. For those of you that have been living under a rock all that time, Spaces is a little up which with just a key stroke allows you to have multiple desktops. You can assign certain applications to open by default in one of those desktops and in combination with Expose, which works even when you're in Spaces mode, you can throw apps here and there without any problems whatsoever. Sure there are applications out there for Windows that will allow you to do the same thing... but that's the thing. Expose and Spaces are native to Apple's OSX and unless Windows comes up with something similar to them native to the operating system i will never even consider going back to it as my primary OS.

3] Time Machine. Well not much to say here either. Time machine is another amazing application native to OSX, which allows you to automatically back things up and if something gets lost you can simply “ go back in time “ and retrieve it. Combine this with faster and faster upload speeds and i can see the need for hardware back up for regular users being perished in the years to come.

4] Leopard's mail application. Simply put epic! I've linked 6 accounts already all in one clean and intuitive desktop client. I've organized folders for everything and i've never done all that so easily. Combined with my .me subscription is by far the thing i use the most everyday whether i'm in house using my computer or out on the streets using my iphone.

5] No freaking registry.... and i will say no more. Everyone that has been involved with computers and Windows knows what i'm talking about, and for those of you out there that don't ... well , let's just say that i don't want to be the one who talks about it for the first time giving you nightmares for the rest of you lives. I sincerely wish that you never have to deal with it because things can get ugly... and i mean, really ugly!

Anyway, those are the things that i appreciate the most about Apple's OSX ... if you feel that i've left something out feel free to submit your own list or even name some of Windows features that you feel are holding you to using it as your primary OS .

The top 5 items every self respecting teenager has/had in his/her room.

It's been close to a decade since i no longer am a “teen” . There are some things that i miss about this era of my life, like not worrying about anything or like the only responsibility being doing good in school , but what i miss the most about those days is being part of that l33t group of people with the best cribs ever! I mean think about it... remember crashing at your friend's room after school and it feeling like it was your room? Have you ever though about why did that happen? What was it that made his/her room feel like yours?

Well after a recent talk with my friends about those happy days i came up with the idea that maybe it was some of the stuff that you would find in a teen's room to which every self respecting teen seems to relate. So here's my top 5 list on those things that every teen of my days seemed to have in his/her room:

1] A freaking Rubik's Cube .... Come on, dig deep down your memories and i'm sure that every single one of you out there not only had one, but all of your friends had one as well. It's like the all time classic toy that you'd joggle with when having a conversation with your pals. It didn't matter if it was solved or not... what it mattered was that it was there waiting for you to pick it up and start messing around with it! And for me that was all that mattered after all :P Some of you though may have had friends who had solved it and didn't want you to even touch it, being afraid that you'd mess it up :P

2] The infamous Albert Einstein poster. There was always something intriguing about having the man to whom your parents wanted you to be like, one of the most brilliant minds of man kind, giving you the tongue! It's like subconsciously having someone your parents looked up to giving them the finger without you being in trouble! And don't tell me that this isn't just pure ownage!!!!

3] A Doors CD. Preferably their debut album featuring the one of a kind teen song “ Break on through (to the other side)” . That song seemed to summarize in a unique way all the “I wanna go rebel without a cause” feelings that flood your teenager heart and mind. It was like raising a fist up in the air while the rest of your family is on dinner table dinning. And let's admit it, dinner time was when we all somehow ended up playing it in full volume :P I guess there's something amusing about your dad knocking on your door telling you to keep it down and you pretending that you can't hear shit!

4] A pair of Converse All Star shoes. This was like that “thin red line” that separated the men from the boys... and yeah we were the boys and damn we liked it. No Nike, no adidas... just All Stars. Some of us out there would paint on them, some of us would tie the laces, some of us wouldn't even have laces, some of us would wear them dirty while others would keep them good as new. Whatever the case, they were always there, under your bed, waiting for you to hop in and go on with the rest of your day. One of the true all time classic companions to every teenager's adventures out there!

5] A lighter/empty pack of cigarettes. It didn't matter if you smoked or not. It didn't even matter if it was yours or your friend's. What it matter is that either one of those two was always there. Some of use used to hide that lighter [ as if it would the the compelling evidence of smoking pot ] and some others had it in plain sight. It's not the use of the item that was intriguing, but the item itself. Some of the most weird ass lighters i've seen in my old friends' rooms. A couple featured explicit scenes [ like a naked lady or Lucky Luke doing his horse :P ] while some others had just nice color patterns. The fact is that they were always there.

So there you have it. Those were the things that you'd find in every teenager's room in my time. If you feel that i've left something out, feel free to submit your list as a response. Whatever dudes... time for me to “give you the tongue” , put on my all stars and take off!