I’ve come to the proverbial cross-roads in my life now. I have to make one of those big and scary decisions in the coming days, and that has kept me away from working on this site for some time now, especially during the past three weeks.

Today I took a look at my stats and found that a lot of people have checked the website for the first time. Last Monday, the 14th of July, was the most active day ever for this website. Many new people have also subscribed to the companion newsletter (which I’m yet to send the first edition).

I can only say “Thank You” to all of you wonderful people. You give me so much motivation to go on with this work. And you deepen my conviction that there are many young Ghanaians out there who are tired of all the loose talk out there disguised as “news”, and want something new to help them grow.

And I’m going to work harder and smarter in the coming days to help you grow indeed. I have many thought-provoking articles at various stages of completion, which I’m sure you’re all going to love.

You’re also going to see many new features pretty soon that will allow you all to share your particular expertice to help all of us grow together. Just a little more patience, like these friends of mine who are patiently waiting at the traffic light

Today is the first day of July. For fellow Ghanaians, that means it’s our Republic Day — a public holiday marking our dear nation becoming a constitutional republic.

What are you doing today?

You certainly deserve a break: have some fun, take a long walk, read something new and interesting, pamper your mind with some meditation, and by all means … give a little extra T.L.C. to that special person in your life, if you’re fortunate enough to have one.

And when all the fun and excitement is over, before you retire to bed tonight, spare a few quiet moments and reflect upon the fact that…

The Cup Is Half Empty!

July 1st, apart from being our Republic Day, also means we’re done with half of the year 2008 already. From the faint recollection I have from my nursery rhyme (“30-days-hath-September…”), we have already spent 182 days out of the 366 days in the year, 2008 being a leap year.

The question that begs asking is: what have you accomplished so far this year? How are you getting on with your New Year’s Resolutions (if you’re one of the people who practice this annual ritual)?

It’s only you who can sincerely answer these questions. But whatever it takes, spend sometime tonight and reflect on your personal and professional life during this past 6 months.

Your Half Year Personal Assessment

You’ve certainly chalked some successes, however small in magnitude they may be. I’ve come to a personal realization that little successes can provide so much motivation to push ahead to move greater mountains.

Were you such a great custodian of time during the past 6 months? Many people, without hesitation, will say that time is money. Yet it amazes me how we often waste, and willingly giveaway, this money. 4,368 hours worth of money gone … how much of this did you convert into real money or some other form of wealth?

Are you building the right bridges… while burning the ones that can’t help you cross over to where you’re heading? Sure, we live in an inter-dependent world, and the relationships we build are as important as the actual widgets we crank. But I am convinced that a budding musician cannot achieve any great success, if such a person spends all his time with friends who only play, eat and sleep football.

If you can go through these deep and personal reflections and finish with a smile on your face, kudos to you. But you’re certainly the exception here, and not the norm.

But for most of us, if we could be really sincere with ourselves, we’ll come to terms with how wasteful we’ve been for the the past 6 months: the time and money we’ve wasted, the opportunities we’ve let slip by, and oh… our New Year’s Resolutions which we forgot even before January was gone.

Upon this realization, many people who are genuinely seeking personal growth will almost come to tears. But save those salty tears for now. After all…

The Cup Is Still Half Full

We’ve still got half of the year ahead. That’s 6 months, 184 days, or 4,416 hours. That’s a heck lot of time — many times more than other people’s entire life-time on this planet.

The past 6 months are gone, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to bring those months back. But whether or not this year will be the year you made a major breakthrough in quest for wealth and abundance… or not… depends on the 6 months ahead, not the 6 months that have just passed.

So what are you going to do? Share your thoughts below.

Recently I wrote about an issue I had with the display of this website in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser versions 6 and below.

I had already spent several hours trying to fix the problem, and not being successful, I reckoned my time would be better spent writing useful articles than chasing Internet Explorer’s wanky bugs.

But I promised to find time to fix the issue later.

While it was easy enough for me to rationalize that writing useful content was more important than fixing browser bugs, being the perfectionist that I am, I couldn’t really put the problem down.

So the least time that I had, I’d fire up my text editor (I use Textmate) and start coding… albeit in my mind. And this morning, I was finally able to fix the problem.

So what was amiss? The problem was the search form at the upper-right corner of the page. Apparently Internet Explorer, by default, adds some extra vertical space below forms!

And the fix was really simple, as is often the case after one understands the problem at hand. For those of you who speak Cascaded Style Sheets (CSS), all I had to do was add an inline style to the form tag as follows:

<form action="" id="" style="margin:0;padding:0">

Simple huh? Sure. But there’s still a tiny little … 1px … problem. If you’re reading this page in Internet Explorer 6 or earlier versions, you’ll see a tiny white line below the highlighted top menu item “The Journal”. This shouldn’t be the case … or at least, it’s not the intended behaviour.

In all versions of Firefox (and all other browsers tested here), there’s no white line between the darker blue and lighter blue backgrounds (ok, now you know I don’t know color names ).

I’m still looking to fix this, so if you’ve got any suggestions, don’t hesitate to drop them in. And if this website displays in a wanky way on your computer, please send me a screenshot along with some information about your computer setup (especially operating system and browser versions).

Date: 8th July, 2008
Host: Self Search (Gh) Limited
Contact: Programs Coordinator
Tel: 021-774898 or 024 4423564
Email: info@selfsearchghana.com
Web: http://selfsearchghana.com

GAP YEAR ENRICHMENT PROGRAM For Senior High School Graduates

All too soon another batch of our final year students have ended their Senior High School program.

Are you a parent, worried about what your child will be doing for the fifteen – sixteen months period they will be staying at home waiting for their turn to enter the University?

Worry no more!

SELF SEARCH (GH) LTD., the nations leading provider of quality Educational, Career and Family Support Services is organizing a GAP YEAR ENRICHMENT PROGRAM to assist Senior High School graduates to use their Gap Year period constructively. It is designed to equip them with requisite Skills and Competencies needed before they enroll into the tertiary institutions or make Educational and Career related decisions.

The Gap Year package consists of ten (10) programs to be offered over a period of twelve months from July 8th 2008 to June 2009.

The package content is as follows:

1. Personality and Career Profile Assessment
2. Work Shadowing (Career mentor program)
3. Skills for success
4. Talents Discovery
5. Educational Field trips/ Excursions
6. Skills Development
7. Character Development
8. Work Experience
9. Public Speaking (Presentation Skills)
10. Preparing for University

At Self Search we unlock your child’s potential to make him/ her an asset. Your child will not be the same after this rewarding program

REGISTRATION: Registration commences from 1st June 2008 to 26th June 2008 (deadline)

For further details and registration contact: SELF SEARCH (GH) LTD. on 021 – 774898 Or The PROGRAMS COORDINATOR on 024 442 3564.

SELF SEARCH (GH) LIMITED: “UNLOCKING POTENTIAL”!

The Ghana Book Publishers Association is pleased to announce the 7th Ghana International Book Fair under the theme: Enhancing Education through Publishing: a reading nation is a winning nation.

Date: 4th November, 2008
Venue: National Theatre
Fee: Free
Contact: Stephen Brobbey
Tel: 021-912764 / 024-4605253
Fax: +233-21-810641
Email: info@ghanabookpublishers.org
Web: http://www.ghanabookpublishers.org

Deadline for Payments: Early Bird Booking: 31st July 2008; normal booking:

Categories of Exhibitors: Publishers, Booksellers, Printers, Stationery Dealers, Computer Companies (Resellers), Paper Merchants, and Allied Companies of the Book Industry.

There will be other allied programmes like seminars, a publishing workshop by Oxford Brookes University, APNET’s buyers and sellers meeting, a national reading competition, CLiF/Toyota best children’s illustration-story book awards etc.

There are strong indications that the Book Fair will be over-subscribed, so early registration is the only means of ensuring a stand at the fair. You also get the opportunity to select your stand on a layout at the point of payment.

For more information and to register, e-mail, fax or call the contact information given above. Find out more about Ghana Book Publishers Association from our website.

Africa Health Research Organization — in collaboration with L.U.dES University, Lugano, Switzerland and Afro-Asian Institute of Medical Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan — present a 3-day training program for Medical Doctors, Nurses and Radiographers dubbed “Basics Of Clinical Ultrasound”.

Date: 10th November, 2008
Venue: British Council Hall, Accra
Fee: GH¢90.00
Contact: Dinah Osei Tutut
Tel: 024-9333677
Email: ahro@atmph.org
Website: http://www.atmph.org.

This is a 3 days training which will include the following:

• Basic of ultrasound
• Knobology and Probe manipulation techniques
• Ultrasound of the uterus
• Ultrasound of the Ovaries
• Ultrasound of common fetal anomalies
• Ultrasound of ectopic pregnancy
• Obstetrical ultrasound
• Ultrasound of the Gall bladder
• Ultrasound of the liver
• Ultrasound of the Spleen
• Ultrasound of the Pancreas.

This training program is being held in collaboration with L.U.dES University, Lugano, Switzerland and Afro-Asian Institute of Medical Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan.

This training program is intended for Medical Doctors, Nurses, and Radiographers; and there’s place for only 30 participants. T book your place call or email using the contact information above. For more information about the Africa Health Research Organization website, visit our website.

Do you need a little laughter to brighten up your day? Or do you really feel you’re too “high” and need a little de-motivation to give your some reality check?

Here’s help for you … just in time! Head over to the MarcoFolio blog for the Top 40 Demotivational Posters.

What’s that you ask? Why am I talking about de-motivation here? Here’s a great quote from Despair Inc., a company that produces “soul-crushingly depressing Demotivators® designs”.

MOTIVATION. Psychology tells us that motivation- true, lasting motivation- can only come from within. Common sense tells us it can’t be manufactured or productized. So how is it that a multi-billion dollar industry thrives through the sale of motivational commodities and services? Because, in our world of instant gratification, people desperately want to believe that there are simple solutions to complex problems. And when desperation has disposable income, market opportunities abound

Here’s my personal favorite of those posters:

(Do you get the gist in the above poster? All the people going to a “24 Hr Fitness” gym are using the escalator, instead of running up the stairs!)

Got some cool poster … motivational or de-motivational … to share with the CediWISE community? Drop them in the comments form below.

Despite the many hours I’ve spent tweaking this website to ensure a consistent look and feel across all the major browsers out there, it looks like I’ve failed where it matters the most: Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.

For the records, I’m a Mac user, and I use Firefox most of the time … and occasionally Safari. Which doesn’t mean I don’t care about the experience of people using other browsers on other computer platforms.

Here’s a screenshot of the home (index) page of CediWISE in IE6 (as of this writing) — look at the top, horizontal navigation:

And here’s what you see when you view the same page in Apple Safari 3, as well as over 60 other browser and Operating System combinations (thanks to Browsershots) including Firefox, Camino, Epiphany, Opera, Flock, Navigator, Galeon, K-Melon, SeaMonkey, Iceweasel, Iceape, Konqueror, Kazehakase, Minefield, Mozilla, and even Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer versions 7 and 8 (I bet many of you hadn’t heard of most of these browsers before ):

Now I’m not the best of web designers there is … but given that the site looks the same across all these other browsers including Microsoft’s own newer browsers (Internet Explorer 7 and 8), it’s obvious that someone is not playing by the rules (web standards) here.

I’m still searching for a fix for this.

What is Wealth? What is it not? What about money? Who is a rich fellow? And a poor person?

Is wealth creation a zero-sum game? Or can one accumulate wealth without taking from others?

These and many other thoughts are examined in a spanking new article I just publised.

Please note that this is just me putting my thoughts in writing — thoughts which I cannot claim to be coming from my own intuition, but ones that has been distilled from many sources of Wisdom I’ve encountered over the years in my quest for wealth and abundance.

Go read this article, and come back here to share your own thoughts on these subjects.

Laysia Info Consult is pleased to invite your organization to attend a practical and informative two-day workshop in Records Management For Secretaries.

Date: 26th — 27th June, 2008
Venue: Osu, Accra
Fee: GH¢250.00
Contact: Maxwell
Tel: 024-4480077, 020-8149990
E-mail: info@laysiainfo.com
Website: http://laysiainfo.com

Workshop Overview

Secretaries today face unprecedented Records Management challenges. Managers, who want their secretaries to remain competitive and profitable, therefore, rely on good records keeping.

With the massive shift from an entire “paper-driven” environment to “electronic-driven” environment, the management of electronic records has emerged as a challenge to most secretaries.

The Secretary’s ability to store and retrieve information is vital for efficiency and continued high performance in the workplace. If the secretary is unable to quickly access information from other departments or his/her own desk, valuable time and energy may be wasted as he/she searches for documents and attempts to duplicate lost work.

Why should secretaries labor under paper load and also mismanage their PC files when they can learn the tips, techniques, and strategies that make filing and management of their records easier?

The topics are in three sections – Electronic, Paper Records and Office Administration - Time Management, Managing your Boss, How to reduce workload and work Smarter.

Who should attend?

This workshop is recommended for all categories of secretaries or any other staffs who create and handle records.

Benefits Of Participation

• Participants will learn how to manage Electronic Records and appreciate the need for their preservation.
• Determine how long to retain records and develop legally valid records retention programs and manage these records according to the laws of the land.
• Plan, design and implement quality filing systems for electronic and paper records.
• Understand electronic imaging applications in Records Management
• Clean out and manage inactive records
• Learn how to identify and protect vital records.
• Manage their in-coming and out-going mails

For more information and registration, visit the official web page for the Records Management For Secretaries workshop.