Databank Financial Services here in Ghana has issued a press release apologizing for a political advertisement being shown on several media networks featuring a staff member who introduces himself as the Head of Human Capital of Databank.

I have not personally seen or heard the said advert (I don’t watch TV, and I don’t listen to the radio), but a friend of mine who has seen it tells me it’s an NPP advert, and it almost looks like an official endorsement from Databank. This would be excusable (to me anyway) if it were some newbie junior staff … but a whole Head of Human Capital! What was he thinking?

Is there more to it than the press release portrays?

Anyway, this should be a reminder to everyone that you are indirectly a PR person for your employer even if you don’t have that title on your ID card, and you need to exercise extreme caution with what you say and do in public.

Below is a full copy of the press release issued by Databank Financial Services.

The attention of Databank Financial Services has been drawn to a political advertisement being shown on several media networks in the country which features a staff member in his capacity as head of human capital of the Databank Group. Indeed in the said advertisement, the said staff member introduces himself as the head of human capital of Databank. Additionally, the caption below the advertisement shows his name and position within the Databank Group.

This advertisement has created erroneous impressions in the minds of our esteemed clients and has awakened concerns from our clients. We are greatly embarrassed by this flagrant, vicarious and unauthorized public endorsement by our staff member in this political advertisement. We distance and disassociate ourselves from this unilateral act of indiscretion from this staff member because it was done without our knowledge, permission or consent.

We would like to state emphatically and categorically that while we respect the political affiliations of individual staff members, the company does not endorse the use of the company’s name in any political advertisement. Individuals in the firm are free to have their own political associations, indeed, it is their constitutional right. However, no one is permitted to use the company’s name or their role in the company in any political advertisement.

The said staff member has been requested to have the advertisement modified in line with our corporate position or withdrawn immediately.

We sincerely apologize to our esteemed clients for the unfortunate use of Databank’s name in the said advertisement and assure our clients that Databank continues to uphold the highest standards of professionalism.

As fate would have it, my good friend Ahmed reminded me just in time that 28th of November was my birthday. Actually Ahmed missed by a full day, but his error is what actually reminded me that my birthday was the next day!

That was my 29th year on this planet, going by Ma’s version. This was a very good day. I spent practically the entire day all by myself at the beach (I had the tire beach all to myself!) sleeping, worrying, and occasionally daring to dream.

To all of you who sent in good wishes, a million thanks to you.

And knowing I have one less year to spend on this planet was enough to force me to pull out that old “To Do” book that’s been gathering dust for a long time. Here are the top one hundred (100) things I’d absolutely love to do before I leave this planet.

1. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
2. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
3. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
4. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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6. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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8. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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10. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
11. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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35. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
36. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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40. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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42. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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45. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
46. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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48. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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50. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
51. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
52. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
53. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
54. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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58. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
59. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
60. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
61. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
62. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
63. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
64. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
65. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
66. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
67. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
68. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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70. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
71. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
72. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
73. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
74. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
75. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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85. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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93. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
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99. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.
100. Visit my big brother Matthew Amoabeng and his family at his residence at McCarthy Hill, Accra, Ghana.

What A Woman Says, What A Man Hears

I was going through some old paper notes today when I came I across this joke below. I don’t remember who shared this joke with me or where I read it from, but I laughed out so loud and for so long that, I thought you might enjoy it too. Here we go…

What a woman says:

“This place is a mess! C’mon,
you and I need to clean up,
your stuff is lying on the floor and
you’ll have no clothes to wear
if we don’t do laundry right now!”

What a man hears:

“blah, blah, blah, blah, C’mon
blah, blah, blah, blah, you and I
blah, blah, blah, blah, on the floor
blah, blah, blah, blah, no clothes
blah, blah, blah, blah, right now!”

As you probably know I do provide free tech support services here on this website.

I get lots of requests for help with various issues ranging from installing web applications and using various web services… to fixing computers and other tech tech stuff. I even occasionally receive requests for help with non-technical issues like study abroad programs, scholarship search, information about Ghana, etc.

While I’m always glad to help whenever I can, it’s pretty annoying answering the same questions over and over again. I’ve contemplated running a forum or a proper help desk software but, being the lazy person that I am, I haven’t gotten to doing it yet.

So I was trilled to find that Google’s Gmail service now has a brand new feature designed just to ease my pain… called “Canned Responses”. I jumped right in since the announcement to create a couple of canned messages, and already it’s saving me a whole lot of time!

New Gmail Canned Responses feature

Cannned Responses also work with Gmail’s filters, so you can use the combo as a smart autoresponse tool to automatically reply to incoming messages based on the various criteria supported by Gmail’s filters.

Gmail Filters With Canned Responses

Canned Responses is currently a Gmail Labs feature, so to use it you have to manually turn it on. Click on the green test tube at the upper-right corner of your Gmail screen, scroll through the list for “Canned Responses” and enable it. Don’t forget to save the changes afterwards

Yesterday while writing about WorldSpace’s banckuptcy filing, I had lots of memories coming back to me — from my undergraduate days at KNUST in Kumasi, here in Ghana.

Back then I’d just come into contact with both computers and the Internet for the first time. And my department didn’t have any functional computers, let alone Internet, so I’d often skip lectures and spend hours at one of the Internet cafes on campus then — paying by the minute and reading about technologies and projects that were far more interesting to me.

One of those projects I became seriously interested in was Teledesic, a startup that was building a US$9 billion commercial satellite constellation to provide broadband Internet services around the globe — with backing from high-profile people including Bill Gates and Paul Allen (co-founders of Microsoft), Craig McCaw (founder of Nextel & Nextlink), and Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

I don’t know of a more ambitious satellite communication project do date. In its original 1995 proposal, Teledesic sought to build a global network utilizing a constellation of 840 active satellites with “in-orbit spares” at an altitude of 700 km.

Model of Teledesic's original 840 satellite constellation
(photo from Lloyd’s Satellite Constellations -- link below)

Using low-earth orbitting satellites, small terrestrial antennas could then be used to provide uplinks of as much as 100 Mbps and downlinks of up to 720 Mbps.

But in 1997 the scheme was scaled back to 288 active satellites at double the altitude - 1400 km. And this was later scaled back further in complexity and number of satellites as the projected market demand continued to decrease.

Model of Teledesic's 288 Satellite Constellation
(photo from Lloyd’s Satellite Constellations - link below)

Then what happened? Teledesic officially suspended work on the project on 1 October 2002, and eventually gave up its frequency licenses on In July 2003.

But what really happened? Why did the project fail? Some insights from Lloyd’s Satellite Constellations, Wikipedia. And you can browse archived copies of Teledesic’s website from the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine.