Translation Column Entries Dimension File Website Script Fields

yes I can see the progress, I can see now why we did all this.

QUESTION: is this data from the latest .db file I sent you? The one where I had updated a bunch of postal codes & emails, and had added the three or four new mills at the end of the Table view, and I had added the two new fields (Mill Status & Date Updated).? I updated some addresses too, now that I think about it. I did tell you this already, a couple of times, and specially last week when we started up again so don't yell at me.

I will start work on the Species tab once you tell me how to handle the

percentages. Would be a shame to lose all that data.

Regards the Products Done tab, I am seeing a few small problems:

1) I am finding some duplications of column headings, from what I can see there were some typos/misspellings in the original file. Most of the entries end up in one column, but there are a few that linger in another. Is it safe to simply copy & paste the lingering entries into the correct column then delete the empty one? EX: "dimension" is column C, yet there is a "dimensions" (column CG) with a bunch of entries in row after it, then there is a "dimenson" (obviously a typo) column BI. Let's use "dimenson", column BI, as the example. If you scroll down to row 766 you see a whole list of repeated sizes. I remember seeing this before, if I remember correctly it is only the first entry, actual row 766 not the many that follow, that should properly have the sizes.

So, in all these instances should I take the data out of the lingering columns (it happens with "mouldings/moulding stock" too) and at one point "landscape timbers" is misspelled as "lancscape timbers" (column CJ) with a whole list of 1 starting at row 1587. So this should be moved to the first instance of "landscape timbers" (column AO) correct?

and etc., because there is an occurrence of "OTHER", I guess one of the

all caps got away from me.

2) in terms of continuing to babyfy, I see what you mean, there is no point in an entire column for "mining timbers" if there are only two entries. Besides, I remember that already being in "other" for a bunch of other mills. So I can add "mining timbers" to "other" for those mills then delete the "mining timbers" column? and etc because I am sure to find more?

3) I'm not sure how this is going to work because of the repeating thing. now when i look down a column, lets pick "MDF", then I see a whole blammo of 1 in a row (starting at row 103) I wonder if they are all supposed to be there or just the first one? I vaguely remember this happening before, and you told me a specific way to clean up the file but I can't remember what it was. I don't want to go deleting entries that belong there, but I sure don't want to attribute a product to a mill that they do not do!! Oh I remember, you were colouring changes orange and I was colouring them yellow, we were leaving comments to each other. Do you want me to flag what seems to be repeating for you to look at?

4) ah, one more question. does your fancy script REQUIRE that anything appearing in the column be a 1? does your script pick up anything else? because I am seeing a few instances of some sizes appearing in the column instead of just 1 (EX: baby squares, column AJ, row 1584) I suspect I will have to put 1 there, and move the sizes to "other" (making it Baby Squares (4x4, 6x6).

5) Ok this now brings up another question (oh man), or idea. I see that some mills just checked "Shakes & Shingles", so their listing will be babyfied, but others put a whole list of dimensions after "Shake" and "Shingle" so those are now in "Other". I am going to want to have both "Shake & Shingles" clicked 'yes' AND the sizes in "Other" for those that gave them. Do I do that now? I was thinking I would go through the database once its done and wherever I see a description in "Other" I would click the corresponding button. But maybe it's better/faster to do it now?

lalalalalal

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cau dude, responding from my mobile (typed this on the computer) so will check out your links later when at the internet. My vision is that the site can be easily translated (presumably by volunteers) into any language (I think I could use my translation software to make that process easy – so you wouldn't have to create some special language modules), and that individual categories could be created by the users (possibly/probably subject to moderator approval). By categories it could mean the US, the city of Vancouver, a particular suburb of Los Angeles, or a particular street in Tokyo. There are certain or many things I feel a capital city should not have the right to dictate. If people in a village want to walk around naked and smoke dope, it is their decision, their lives, their bodies, and bureaucrats in some city 2,000 km away shouldn't have the right to dictate these personal choices. That is how I envision a real democracy.

So I wouldn't focus on some small European village but push the concept across the board and globe. If it is set up well I could approach such sites as democracynow.org (check it out – there is also a downloadable live videos and that chick is totally eye opening re all the crap that is going on), Noam Chomsky (who actually responded to me positively, which is very cool I think), znet.org (think that's the address), and anything else. Promotion on a grass roots level. If enough people in a particular region start using it, eventually it could lead to a mass protest where 2 million people from around Czech gather in Prague and stand around the parliament buildings, essentially shutting it down. If people can't get into the buildings, governments cant function. A peaceful but effective protest. The transition to this system will essentially require a revolution, as the bureaucrats will not want to give up their power and livelihoods, or all the kickbacks they get from the lobbyists, which essentially turns this democracy into a practical farce (would suggest you listen to democracynow.org in the background while cooking etc to get a rough idea of all the crap that is going on right now). But such a revolution would only happen sometime in the future. In the meantime, I'd focus on the grass roots level, hit all these sites, and I'm sure we would get tons of support from Code Pink, moveon.org and tons of other social/environmental organizations like greenpeace etc who are constantly fighting against the government in power for society's and nature's benefit. The rest would be by word of mouth, and would require some catchy domain name like directdemocracy.org or something.

Essentially it would be a great goodwill project and think that it could give a good reputation boost for monster. Of course anyone using this site could always be interested in looking for work, so I think it could be good promotion overall.

Would be great to kick off this project. I'll try to use my limited internet time to research what's already out there. I did some searches before and nothing seemed out there so much, but will definitely check out your links.

Have a good one bro!

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OK, I have everything, I am looking at everything. I will answer easy

questions first:

First of all, looking at the file, the second row shows: Dimensions<tab 1 while on about row ten we have: dimension<tab "(rough & dressed,2x3,2x4,2x6,2x8,2x10)" How is it possible that the dimension field for a particular mill can have the response "yes" (1 will be converted to "yes", otherwise "no") while for other mills it has more detailed data like in line 10?

This is because I am stuck with what they fill out on the forms. I sent you a zipped file called Listing Forms way back in the beginning, and this is part of the fun you will have with babyfication. The way the form is done, they can check just the basic products they do (dimension, boards, beams, studs, blah blah blah) and then they CAN but they don't have to, go to the next section and fill in sizes (1x4, 1x6, 2x4, 2x6, 2x8, 2x8). So sometimes the final listing for a particular company will just say "dimension" while sometimes it will have a whole bunch of stuff in it. First, I want to make sure we understand each other, rather than just bumbling ahead with what I THINK you want me to do then having to go back again, this stuff is so finicky I don't really want to do it twice, *ow ow*.

. . . .

Um, now I'm not so sure we are on the same page, I have a Word doc on my PC called Product babyfication1, which means it is stage 2 of the product babyfication project (going by the way we were naming files) and is significantly advanced over the Excel file. Good thing I decided to open it, or I would have done all this work twice! I am going to send it to you in a second from the other computer (from my hotmail account I guess). For sure the issue of "Other" "Other" "Other" is solved. It starts like this:

Nameofmill:fart,dimension: 1,mouldings: 1,dowels: 1,S4S turnings:

1,handrails: 1, laminating: 1, cabinet and furniture components: 1

Nameofmill:fart,boards: 1,dimension(rough &

dressed^2x3^2x4^2x6^2x8^2x10),export blanks: 1

Nameofmill:fart, . . . . etc.

I am beginning to remember now:

- there are no spaces in the entries except before 1 (as in

dimension: 1), you had a reason for this in your script

- I had to convert all the commas (2x4, 2x6) into ^ again for your

script

- the quotation marks we discussed but did not come to a resolution, you said you were going to look into a way to get around that. I am not against using in. (inches) but prefer the symbol if at all possible only because it looks better (I know, I know, that's not a good reason).

Going back to the top, your first question, you had said that the way your script works is it looks for "something after the entry, either a 1 or the description". You were specific that I was not to put a 1 after the (rough & dressed^2x3^2x4^2x6^2x8^2x10) or it would find it twice or some such reason. The Product babyfication1.doc Word file on my computer is dated March 17, 2009. I will send it to you in five minutes after I switch cables for the internet. I expect I will get back from you the next set of instructions and also how to handle the " symbols. Some are inches " some are feet ' so I need to do that carefully but I didn't see a huge amount so it should be fast.

I think we're a lot more ahead than we thought this morning!

When I look at the Excel file it has two sheets, Product and Species, so I think actually our next job was babyfying the species which you said would go much smoothly that's why we started with Products. The Species had the complication of sometimes just being 1 and sometimes having a percentage. I have no Word file for Species babyfication so am quite sure we didn't get that far.

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Okey smokey banana. In terms of babyfication I remember exactly where we were. That stuff is easy for me to visualize, its the other part I find confusing. I did add a few companies to the db, plus I added those two fields remember? Am making progress on the SQL thing, feeling more confident; it really is logical as you said. Would like to complete that and send you everything I have done for you to check for errors if thats OK. That way when I add Transporters and other major info later I dont have to bug you. Part of your chores before was to make room for that stuff; new sections to add, Transporters, Agencies, something else I cant remember right now (its 8:30am still drinking coffee). Dont bother right now, pretty sure I will do that. For babyfication I dont think Postal Code was one of them. There was something for you to do, on the search form, if you want something to do right now until I turn the big computer on. I was wrong to make Postal Code one of the search fields, no one cares about that. It should be Town instead. If you look into that I bet your memory will be jogged about the other stuff. The only other thing we totally left dangling was that wierd character/symbol thing that happens when someone searches Cedar in the Species field. Also quite often when I do a search it comes back "230 entries found" but when I click "next" to see the next 100 it comes up blank "no entries found" which can be very frustrating. The search form needs to function properly because thats how most people will be using the info. Maybe you could start with that? So you had a total break hey? Right on. I was at Whistler with Marie last week, only four days boo hoo but felt like a good break for both of us.

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yes it was not as fast as I thought it would be. plugging away. when looking at the studs (I would like to get as much of this done as quickly as possible), should I merge the Others into one Other as well? Or does that need to be handled differently? and about the Species, the difference here is that instead of 1 there are often percentages. So if it goes other pine 50%other spruce 50% should I make it Other Pine/Spruce 50/50% or another example other pine 20%other fir 60%other balsam 20% should I go Other Pine/Fir/Balsam 20/60/20% ? or will that be too confusing for people to read? How do you think we should do that. prefer to have all instructions at once rather then sending you bits and pieces then waiting a day, due to time difference, for your next instructions.

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now just in case that Excel file I just sent you is indeed completed per your last instructions I am sending you the latest database. I'm not going to do anything with it in the next week or so anyway so you may as well have it now. What you'll find is that there are two or three new mills entered at the very end. Also you will find that there are two new fields, which have not yet been incorporated into the SQL stuff. The two new fields are at the very bottom in Table view. ("Mill Status" and "Last Updated") In terms of entries, I have made changes within, to postal codes or phone numbers, people's names or even company names I think somewhere. You said before that as long as these are within existing fields these kind of changes don't matter. We had an issue just before we left off, when I sent you my updates, you said there was an extra space coming in the SQL thing, that was messing you up. I told you that, from the very beginning, when the database changes category (Mill to Panel Mill to Shake & Shingle Mill to Wholesaler etc etc) in between each category is a blank line in the Table view, or an empty entry in the actual database. We were discussing how to handle this (you said I had to delete them, I said they were always there so asked you to confirm, you said you'd look into it but had other work to do first). That's where we stopped. I didn't delete anything at all, no deletions at all because I was scared. Apart from that the Access file is not changed from the last one you sent me. Remember you had to save it down so I could open it, that's why it's called mills_97 We'll muddle through this somehow! I'm going to have dinner now, may be thinking more clearly once I'm fed.

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OK you're going to think I'm retarded, and this may be why I'm not sure what you're talking about; when you emailed me in the dark recesses of yesterday morning and I looked at the Excel file I have it didn't look like what you were describing. Now you say to "merge" all the Other so they are together. You say "shift one row to the right" which in my Excel file they are. The Word doc I send you yesterday looked more advanced to me for reasons I can't explain. It's 6:30pm, I was planning to chug through the boring Excel thing this evening. After I eat I am going to look at your instructions again to see if I really am out to lunch. For now I am sending you the Excel file I have, Processing1.xls You may have gone forward in one of your instructions emails, telling me this was the next step. Once my brain is back on track after I eat I might realize what you mean, if not I guess you will tell me tomorrow. Sorry man, once I totally know what I am doing I can get it done no problemo.

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hey dudes, so according to Ray, I can write to this address and you'll both be checking it.

How about we start talking about price.

Website: 3,000 Kc

          - includes php script for sending emails, a few pages - will be adding more as part of the SEO, included in the SEO price

Logo? - I could piddle around with it forever, so it depends on how much you want to spend. If you go to kenax.net/travel, it should take you to a page where I have a spinning kenax (top right – or http://001yourtranslationservice.com/travel-Europe/cheap-travel-europe-tour-guide.html). That took me maybe 4 hours, as I had to slice out the letter part. It's not very clear but if you look close you can see the detail. That was done in some gif animator program, composed of many pictures. So you're essentially making a little cartoon film, always adjusting certain objects within the frame. In this way you can draw a flame, for example. So pretty well anything is possible. I use Corel Draw (essentially the same as PhotoShop) to make the individual pictures, and I can get real fancy in Corel Draw. I would charge something like 3,000 Kc for 8 hours, or a percentage of that if you want to spend less.

Flash: I'll include a bit of this in the Website cost but I can also spend forever on this, so for the extra we can charge the same as the Logo price above. I believe the LA Flash I showed you on YouTube took me about 3 hours. The sound track would be separate and can also take time. Perhaps an hour for some music, my voice dubbed in (like my LA one).

Pictures: if you have any pictures that you like, send them my way. For example by doing a search on google images using particular keywords relating thematically with your website/what you're trying to sell. You can even send pictures of nature that feels good to you two. Reflecting the feeling you are trying to project. I can then just slap them into the webpage to make it look pretty, and perhaps surf around for some pics myself. This would all be included in the website price.

SEO: Best is if you explain to me what you are trying to sell and do, and most importantly what keywords you want to get to the top of google. This has to be carefully planned. I guess I would charge by the level of competition. Because the more competition there is the more work has to be put into it. For example, "translation service" or "cheap travel Europe" may get up to 25 million results, yet I'm high in both of them. I'd suggest we talk about this first so that I can get an idea how much work will be required. It's also good to ask all your friends what kind of keywords they might use if they wanted to find your service on the web. Ask as many varied people as you can, and build up a good basket of keywords. We can then start moving forward from there. This type of work is rather cumbersome and time consuming. If your keywords are not that competitive I think I could do it in 8 to 16 hours. I can also give you tips to help the site etc, saving costs.

Webhosting: I have my site at a2hosting.com. I believe that should be it because I can't find the address now. I have unlimited space and can point as many domains to it as I want. If you want to buy a domain it should cost 10 bucks a year and you can just point it to a folder on my account. You would have your own FTP access to that folder and it would be your own reserved space. The domain would simply go there and no visitor would know where it's hosted. I can offer you the space for free, and in exchange all you would have to do is put a link from your page(s) to mine (such as "SEO Search Engine Optimization and Web Design by KENAX", in small print at the bottom right or something).

So I'd say that this would be a preliminary start. Feel free to make further suggestions and we can slowly move forward. Does 3,000 Kc per a full day's work at 8 hours seem okay to you? I work pretty fast, but sometimes I get slowed down if I wander into new areas and experiment – but usually I wouldn't charge for that, considering it as research.

Anyway, lets just start communicating and see if we can agree on something.

My only concern is that the last time I did something for you Ray I believe you said you were going to give me 1,300 Kc, but ended up only giving me 500. Overall I was glad for it, with the food and beers, but for me it's important to stick to something once we agree on it.

Okay, over to you and lookin forward to such a project! k

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OK - my take regarding Monster is to wait - I know you're not saying approach them now, but I don't have much to input at this point (still trying to figure out how this would work). I think I see some possibilities though. Monster arguably helps economies (and people) by promoting jobs. You help people by freeing them from the govt. There's some synergy in that. About the programmer thing, I was thinking hiring someone to do the work. Saying I could probably get a couple ppl hyped up on the idea to throw money at it with us to get the site up and running so we can focus on the expansion. But we can get to that. I'm still trying to figure out how this would expand. I understand the website part - can you tell me more how you'd actually get the word out. I said Europe just because we're here and have to start somewhere, but agree - this is a world concept - beauty of the internet. Can you help me think through what the general promotion strategy is once you have the website. Btw - how did the Croatia trip end up - cook up a storm and cause salivation syndrome for miles around? :-D

See ya,

Jens

By creating categories and different language modules it can be promoted anywhere. Promotion can be focused on a particular city/cities, or across the board as I suggestd - I cannot see any conflict between them and think the more the merrier. I am not aware of Monster's interests so you would have to judge that, but worst case they could just resort to a banner ad and I would hope that they wouldn't get in trouble for that - it's just advertising in that sense. Personally I wouldn't depend much on the government but more on a grass roots from bottom up approach, but if some people in government are for the idea, the more support the better. I wouldn't consider this some project stretching out Monster's interest but more like paying for a banner ad. If you dedicate a few programmers to whip this together, as you proposed, I could guarantee free advertising forever, and then I'll take care of the rest (promotion etc - unless it would like to get involved on other levels as well). K

Hey,

When you say this could be a good thing for Monster, how do you envision this working? Monster has its fingers in certain govt interests, my new boss for example is responsible for the US govt relationship. On the other hand, I know they are trying to interested in streamlining their business around job products only. They had a lot of lost efficiency from being spread too thin. I think key in these things is that you have to somehow partner with govt. Not everyone in govt is good, but there are good ones in there. The question in my mind is how to unite these various parties. I'm thinking strategy that is open to all things good and once it gains enough momentum, it will be a force that govts, good or bad, need to reckon with. Imagine the craigslist open-source mentality gaining momentum in the public space in a country like Venezuela. What I'm still trying to wrap my head around is this gets from being some website, to a website that gains real momentum. What do you focus on first (that was why I suggested focus on Europe, just because we're here - obviously the website can be anywhere but you have to start somewhere). Help me out on this.

Jens

Ok dude, response is attached. Please confirm receipt as last time to my

sister I don't think she got it. Getting excited!

Subject: RE: Democracy project

Hey man,

Hope you're doing well. I had some time to research this a bit now and found this on the net: http://www.geocities.com/[email protected]/indepelc.htm When I type things like independent voting into google, there's a lot out there - some of it like project style (trying to help the poor uneducated class in the US) others like the above. I can imagine building some software/system themed around independent organization for the greater good or something like that and starting with smaller towns here in Europe or who knows what - public opinion service portal that feeds on itself kind of thing. Craigslist.org style. Practically, how do you see making this into something and building momentum?

Jens

Subject: Democracy project

Hey dude, am so excited about the possibility of doing this that I thought I'd remind you of it and it occurred to me that I could make it more worth Monster's investment by offering to permanently have a link to them from the site. I would plan to set it up so that it could be easily translated into other languages, so it could serve Monster's global plans. It could end up having a LOT of traffic. Was fun hangin out and right now picking up a bunch of films so u can copy more. Adio!