JUTC’s Quiet JA$6.47 billion Scandal – Why Outamani and Tivoli Gardens Enquiry are Sideshow Distractions

It’s December and the year 2014 is ending. This is a rather sad Christmas in Jamaica as scandal after scandal rocks the nation.

And a silent scandal is developing within the JUTC (Jamaica Urban Transit Company) as it relates to taxpayers funding the JUTC to the tune of JA$2.9 billion dollars as reported in the article “JUTC Bailout”, published Wednesday November 26, 2014 Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter, The Jamaica Gleaner.

The GOJ National Budget had already loaned the JUTC some JA$450 million in April 2014. Now apparently taxpayers are being asked to pay for the following:

1.      JA$48 million to help clear third-party deductions from employee salaries

2.      JA$70.9 million to help clear salary arrears of 7% and public-sector workers payments

3.      JA$177.1 million to cover Tax Administration Jamaica for PAYE and education tax for the period April 2014 to March 2015

4.      JA$231 million for import duties

5.      JA$1.1 billion for special compliance fees

6.      JA$1.3 billion for general consumption tax payable to Jamaica Customs for the period January 2014 to March 2015

This list of expenditures adds up to a total of JA$2.97 Billion dollars.

Combined with the JA$450 million in April 2014 from the GOJ Budget, that comes to a total of JA$3.37 billion dollars. Add that total of JA$3.37 billion dollars to the JA$3.1 billion for the purchase of new JUTC Buses and the grand total comes to JA$6.47 billion for the Fiscal year 2014-2015.

JUTC’s quiet JA$6.47 billion Scandal – Outamani and Tivoli Gardens Enquiry are Sideshow Distractions

This sad yet quiet scandal, as the JUTC has already received a fare increase in August 2014 as reported in my blog article entitled “JUTC SmarterCard Rollout and Fare Hike Postponed – Why I'll be boycotting JUTC Buses anyway as they're not trying to Save Money”.

This after they’d raised the fares when on Sunday November 10^th 2013 the JUTC suspended Bus Transfers as stated in “Bus Fare to Double for Many When JUTC Ends Transfers Sunday”, Published Thursday November 7, 2013 by Arthur Hall, Senior News Editor, The Jamaica Gleaner.

A Quiet Scandal indeed!

Apparently we the Taxpayer are to bear the brunt of supporting this State Run Bus system for the KMTR (Kingston Metropolitan Transport Area) whose debts and lawsuits are accumulating at a phenomenal rate as noted in my blog article entitled “JUTC and Rubis Energy Fuel Lawsuit Silver Lining - Why AVL Commuter Tracking of JUTC Buses and SmarterCard Heralds Cashless Society in Jamaica”.

I’m still walking, wearing my little Green Hat from my home in Swallowfield to New Kingston and then on to Half-Way-Tree in my one-man protest against the JUTC. I’m still not taking the JUTC as I’ve still not purchased a JUTC SmarterCard. Especially as they’d recently uncovered a SmarterCard fraud after doing an Internal Audit as noted in the article “JUTC Sees $3m Revenue Increase Since SmarterCard Fraud Uncovered”, Published Monday November 3, 2014 11:11 am, The Jamaica Gleaner.

The Tivoli Gardens Enquiry is a “Scandal” as clearly there will be no justice for the people of Tivoli, merely point scoring for the PNP (People’s National Party) against the JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) before General Elections in 2016.

Lloyd D'Aguilar, Tivoli Committee convener, was kicked out of his OWN Enquiry which would have never begun in the first place had he not agitated for it as reported in the article “Tivoli Enquiry: Simmons Finds D'Aguilar's Reentry Request Strange After 'Kangaroo Court' Comment”, published Monday December 8, 2014  by Livern Barrett, Gleaner Writer, The Jamaica Gleaner.

Truly, the Tivoli Gardens Enquiry is indeed a Kangaroo Court if the very person who started lobbying for the Tivoli Gardens Enquiry isn’t a part of the proceedings, his “Kangaroo Court” commentary notwithstanding.

An even bigger scandal is the NHT purchase of the Outameni , which is now turning out to be an embarrassment for the PNP , as it now appears that the DBJ (Development Bank of Jamaica) was the one that had suggested that the NHT (National Housing Trust) bail out Outameni Property as reported in the article “Development Bank Suggested That NHT Buy Outameni”, Published Wednesday December 3, 2014, The Jamaica Gleaner.

Perhaps it because only the Lower Classes of society take the Bus. Thus it’s convenient to ignore, as JA$100 is trifling to the wealthy meanwhile the millions involved and the Soap Opera –esque political intrigue of these scandals is more to our liking.

So while the PNP distracts us with the Outameni Scandal and the Tivoli Gardens Enquiry Scandal, the JUTC’s quiet JA$6.47 billion Scandal is a silently growing monster that will come back to bite the PNP come General Elections in 2016.

@globalwebindex indicates @Snapchat is King - Why @Tumblr and @Pinterest on the rise as @Facebook has higher engagement levels

“Facebook has some major challenges to face. Firstly, people are growing tired of it, with 50% of members in the UK and US saying that they’re using it less frequently than they used to (rising to 64% among teens). Since the start of 2013, we’ve seen behaviors like sharing photos and messaging friends fall by around 20 percentage points.”

Head of trends and author of the Global Web Index report, Jason Mander, commenting on the GWI Social Report Q3 2014

Tumblr isn’t just tumbling along anymore and Snapchat isn’t just an uber popular Mobile Social Network to Nude Selfies.

Now comes the news from the Website Traffic Analyst GWI (Global Web Index) that point to Tumblr as the fastest rising star in Social Media with 120% growth in their  active user base and Snapchat being the Fastest growing Mobile Social Network, growing 56% in the last six months as reported in the article “Tumblr Overtakes Instagram As Fastest-Growing Social Platform, Snapchat Is The Fastest-Growing App”, published Nov 25, 2014 by Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch.

This is a big shift from earlier in January 2014, when Instagram was the fastest growing Mobile Social Network as reported in the article “Instagram Is The Fastest-Growing Social Site Globally, Mobile Devices Rule Over PCs For Access”, published Jan 21, 2014 by Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch.

The older Social Networks had their start on the Web and are still largely access via computers, making their Apps afterwards. The most popular Social Networks from this era that began when Facebook exploded onto the scene in 2005. GWI (Global Web Index) stats for Monthly Active User are based on interviewing 170,000 users across 32 markets for the past six months.

1.      57% increase for Pinterest

2.      45% increase for Tumblr

3.      36% increase in Instagram

4.      27% increase for LinkedIn

5.      18% increase for Twitter

6.      13% increase for YouTube

7.      12% increase for Google+

8.      6% increase for Facebook

The graph below illustrates this clearly. 

It also shows that Pinterest has had the largest increase in Membership overall for the past six months of the Global Web Index survey:

1.      111% increase for Pinterest

2.      120% increase for Tumblr

3.      64% increase in Instagram

4.      16% increase for Google+

5.      54% increase for LinkedIn

6.      26% increase for Twitter

7.      25% increase for YouTube

8.      2% increase for Facebook

However, Facebook is still king when it comes to engagement, with more people using Facebook more than once a day as shown in the graph below:

Their kingdom, however, still hasn't expanded much into China which is mostly ruled by Local Social Networks. In China, they're ranked 8^th behind Google+

Snapchat rules the Social Mobile Networks roost with 56% increase in their active user base over the past six months! Social Network were born purely on mobile computing Devices i.e. smartphones and Tablets I refer to as Mobile Social Networks.

Most of them began as VoIP and IM (Instant Messenger) Services, but eventually morphed into Mobile Social Networks as their popularity increased. The once featured in the Global Web Index are as shown in the graph and clearly Snapchat is out front.

Good to note that Skype, strictly speaking, isn't a Mobile Social Network but is more of a VoIP Platform that Microsoft owns and is transitioning towards Web-based calling as reported in my blog article entitled “Skype for Web Beta allows Skype Calling in Google Chrome - Skype for Business replaces Lync as Skype for Web Beta finally allows Chromebooks to use Skype”.

GIW indicates Snapchat is King – Tumblr wants Youtubers and Pinterest has private Pins

This renewed Growth for Tumblr may partly be because Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has big plan for Tumblr, possibly involving snagging YouTube Celebrities to host their videos on Tumblr in exchange for higher payouts as predicted in my blog article entitled “Marissa Mayer's Yahoo Tumblr Partner Program - 30-70 Split to attract YouTube Stars, Value Brands and Grassroots Fans as Youtube's Kingdom Crumbles”.

Pinterest continues to grow within the US of A, especially among women and is proving to be more popular than Instagram or even Twitter according to the Social Media Report from The Pew Research Center as reported in the article “Pinterest adds the ability to chat privately about a specific pin”, published August 7, 2014 By Mike Flacy, Digitaltrends.

Their latest feature that allows you to have private chats about a particular pin suggests that they're tapping into the trend among Americans concerned about privacy and a desire to circumvent NSA or CIA monitoring of their conversations.

As for Snapchat, their the new Mobile Social App Sensation, recently launching their SnapCash Mobile Money Platform in partnership with Square that's really an expansionary move for Square into the Millennial (ages 18 to 28) market as predicted in my blog article entitled “Snapchat rolls out Snapcash - Teenagers and Millennials Mobile Money Catalyst for Digicel Jamaica's Mobile Money Platform going Global”.

Facebook has higher engagement levels – 1/3 of the World is on Facebook but 8^th in China

As far back as December 2013, Whatsapp had Facebook on the ropes as noted in my blog article entitled “Facebook is Trailing Behind WhatsApp in Social Messaging - Teenagers and Millennials wooed by Mobile Social Networks on smartphones and Tablets that have Snapchat-esque Privacy Controls”.

Now they're on a comeback trail in 2014 having first gobble up WhatsApp, then Oculus Rift as noted in my blog article entitled “Facebook buys Oculus Rift for US$2 billion - Facebook Social Virtual Reality Future as Smartwatches and smartglasses herald the death of the smartphone in 2015”.

Then launched a series of Mobile App versions of their various services, from Friends Nearby, Slingshot, FB NewsWire to their latest, the anonymous Facebook Rooms as noted in my blog article entitled “Facebook launches Facebook Rooms - The 90’s Return as Facebook faces competition from Anonymous Mobile Social Networks”.

Their latest app, Facebook Groups, allows you to log into your various Groups on Facebook as described in the article “Introducing the Facebook Groups App”, published November 18, 2014, FB Newsoom, is my next article on my personal blog.

Facebook now has some 1.35 billion monthly active users as of September 30, 2014 based on the stats as displayed on FB NewsRooms Company Info Page. That’s almost 1/3 of the estimated 3 billion that the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) states is online as noted in their article “ITU releases annual global ICT data and ICT Development Index country rankings”, published 24 November 2014, ITU Website.

But it's clear that Facebook's Mobile strategy has paid off, just not in China.

How to Mass Download Pictures from Website – How a Bulk Image Downloader can DownThemAll and SaveAllImages in the Cloud with Syiwe

There are a number of ways you can download pictures from a website. In a previous article, I focused primarily on downloading pictures from Facebook as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to download Photo Albums and Videos from your Personal and your Friend’s Profile on Facebook”.

I also gave away, in great detail, how one can download pictures from Twitter as explained in my blog article entitled “How to Download Twitter user Pictures as Twitter makes Facebook Timeline changes”.

Once downloaded, you can uploaded them to Picasa and use them in your Blogger article or even as slideshows, which I detailed in my blog article entitled “How to embed Picasa Photos, Albums and slideshows for Advertising on your Website or Blog”.

But how do you reliably download pictures in bulk from a Website e.g. Tumblr ? I realized that none of the above software I recommended would work, as they’re specifically targeted at one type of website. So the search began anew for ways to download pictures from a website.

How to download pictures manually – Inspect element is a powerful tool

That’s right folks! That little used option can allow you to download pictures from a website, albeit individually. It’s especially useful if the pictures are embedded and are hard to download using the common Right-click “Save as” option method is disabled by the website.

For this example I’ll use my Tumblr Blog, which is still unnamed and which is still in the process of launching. However, as part of pre-launch, I’m building up traffic by following other blogs and seeing how they’re structured. So here goes my first DIY (Do It Yourself)

Simply right click on an image and select Inspect element.

Once selected a Windows pane will appear that breaks down the Webpage into code and elements that make it function.

Go to the top of this Window pane and click on Resources.

Select the Frames Folder and click opens the next folder below it. Scroll down until you see a reference tag for “Images”. Note that you can adjust the position of the Window pane by pulling it up if you need more space.

These are the images that are used to make up the website. Scroll through until you see the one you want. This may take awhile.

Right click on the name of the image. You’ll see choices between “Open Link in New Tab” or “Copy Link Address”. To make this easier on you, select Open Link in New Tab.

Once opened in the new tab, inspect the URL (Universal Resource Locator) in the Address Bar. It should end with either “.jpg”, “.png”, “.tif” or some other file format your computer can handle. If not, simply backspace from the end and delete until you see just that URL plus the file extensions I just mentioned.

Then right click, select “Save as” and download the picture.

That’s basically how you download images that are difficult to access with an even more excellent explanation being provided in this YouTube video.

But what about mass downloading of images from Websites? It may surprise you, but those options basically follow this same procedure, multiplied as many times for as many pictures but without opening web pages.

How to Mass download pictures from Website – Add-Ons, Cloud and a Web App Downloader

I’ll show you the three (3) easiest to download images in bulk with an added extra software program as a Kitchen sink Bonus in case the other three aren’t to your liking.

The first one is DownThemAll. Please not that this is a Mozilla Firefox Browser Add on which you can find by Googleing “DownthemAll add on” or clicking on Tools, then selecting Add ons and then select Get Add ons Tab to search for “DownthemAll”.

This video below explains how DownThemAll works.

Once downloaded and installed by clicking on the link, using it is as simple as right clicking on a blank space beside the image in my Tumblr blog and selecting “DownThemAll” to download everything on this page.

If you're unable to download the computer you’re on due to administrative restrictions e.g. as in the MICO University College’s e-Learning Lab, you can download them directly to your Cloud Drive, be it Google Drive or Dropbox using the Syiwe Website.

Once you set up a 30 day free account with Syiwe, you can select where you're downloading from using their website interface and just like that, all images downloaded are sent to your Cloud Drive for access later. After that, you’ll have to pay for the use of this service. The video demonstrates this clearly.

Then there is my perennial favorite is SaveAllImages. This Website works by canvassing all images you give the website, compressing them into a *.zip file and then downloading them to onto your desktop.

Its only limitation is that it only allows you to download a maximum of twenty (20) images on any given website. The option is presented to you to pay, so you might wanna try that option in the future if you frequently download lots of images!

The final option, which I call the Kitchen sink, is a software called Bulk Image Downloader. It's not freeware but you can get it from Kickasstorrents cracked using the procedure as laid out in my blog article entitled “How to download High Quality Music via torrenting - The Mortal Instruments City of Bones used to get Free Music”.

It works excellently, once you disconnect the Internet and crack it properly. You’ll get a lot of duplicate images though and everything else including the kitchen sink thrown in for good measure, but that's BID being real nice and thorough

So have you used any of these methods? Have a particular favorite or a suggestion for better options. Leave your comments below and thanks for reading my blog post.

Here's the link

SaveAllImages

Syiwe Website

DownThemAll

Bulk Image Downloader

@Statista projecting Vinyl Records to breach 7 million Sold due to Renaissance by Hipsters

First Polaroid was set to make a comeback as noted in my blog article entitled “Polaroid Comeback as Analog Photography back in Vogue - US Millennials taking Polaroid Pictures as Privacy-loving Fappening Celebrities go Retro”.

That and Bell-foot or Bell-Bottom pants, a trend blamed on the latest Trendsetters from America and Britain to infect Jamaicans; Hipsters. See the video below for an explanation.

Now it's Vinyl Records, which are selling like crazy on BOTH sides of the Atlantic as noted in the article “Analog Trends: Vinyl Record sales on pace to exceed 7 million, but at what cost?”, published December 3, 2014 By Keith Nelson Jr, DigitalTrends.

Good to note the more modern equivalent of Vinyl Records, Physical Digital Music Purchases i.e. CD's DVD's, is still on the decline as Streaming is raking in the big bucks and is on course to make US$1 billion for the Music Industry Moguls as noted in my blog article entitled “RIAA Stats on Music Streaming – Why 4G LTE and Cheaper Cloud Storage means downloads extinct”.

On the American side of the Atlantic, the Stats according to analyst Statista for Vinyl Record Sales from 1993 to 2014 are quite compelling:

1.      6 million Vinyl Albums sold in 2013

2.      4 million Vinyl Albums sold in the first six months of 2014

At this rate, sales of Vinyl will easily reach over 7 million before the end of 2014.The graph below from Statista illustrates this clearly.

After perusing the Graph above, the following can also be concluded:

1.      Vinyl Album sales stayed below 2 million units from 1993 to 2008

2.      Vinyl Album sales have exceeded 2.5 million units since 2009

Then around 2011, two (2) years later, Album sales began to rise by 1% as I'd noticed in my blog article entitled “Nielsen Soundscan 1% Rise in Music Album Sales - Greg Sandoval's FireStarter”.

Could it have been because of the upward trajectory of Vinyl Albums which began in 2009 but whose sustained effects weren’t felt until 2011?

Vinyl Records to breach 7 million Sold – Boom time for Vinyl Record Pressing Companies

Maybe. But my focus is on the here and now.

The stars of this renewed boom in Vinyl Album sales are a noteworthy bunch led by the venerable Third Man Records founder, Jack White. In less than 7 days, White’s Lazaretto Album, released on Tuesday June 10^th 2014, sold more than forty thousand (40,000) copies.

In less than two (2) months,  it sold over sixty thousand (60,000) copies with skyrocketing sales of over one hundred thousand (100,000) copies as noted in the article “Pressing plants feel the strain with Vinyl Records back in the groove”, published September 26 2014 By Mark Guarino, The Washington Post.

This beats out Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy‘s 20-year Record for most Vinyl LPs sold in one calendar year!

Globally, they're No. 2 in terms of sales of Records based on the article “Sales of music on Vinyl hit 18-year high”, published  Thursday 27 November 2014 19.16 GMT by  Alexandra Topping, The UK Guardian as the trend is also huge in United Kingdom:

1.      Arctic Monkeys’ AM

2.      Jack White’s Lazaretto

3.      Pink Floyd's The Endless River

Third Man Records thus contracted the services of United Record Pressing in Nashville, Tennessee to make their Vinyl Records for them. Since May 2014, they’re not stopped pressing Records.

In fact, United Record Pressing, which has been in operation since 1949, sunk an additional US$5.5 million to host an additional 16 Record Presses in a new building to add to their 22 already running 24 hours a day, six days a week to produce some forty thousand (40,000) Records per day.

According to Bob Roczynski, president of Record Products of America, a 38-year-old company in Hamden, Connecticut, that'll wear them down twice as fast. But as long as the money keeps coming, the few active Vinyl Record Pressing companies that exist are determined to ride out this trend, retooling, retraining and re-hiring old hands to keep pressing Records to satisfy this strange surge of interest in Vinyl Records.

Vinyl Record Pressing Renaissance - Newfound love for owning all things Luddite

Those 6 million Vinyl Albums sold in 2013 have netted sales of US$218 million. With the year drawing to a close and sales set to surpass 7 million units, there not telling how much of the US$898 billion in sales from Physical Digital Music Purchases i.e. CD's DVD's, may have actually been Vinyl Albums.

So will this trend continue into 2015? The Vinyl Record Pressing companies certainly hope so!

Polaroid Cameras and now Flip phone Cellphones due to Celebrity Privacy concerns as stated in my blog article entitled “Celebrities Return of the Flip Phones - Flip-Force Awakening Thanks to Fappening Herald Smaller Smartphones and Smartwatch phones”.

Everybody is slowly becoming hipster, sporting their skinny jeans and a Newfound love for owning all things Luddite, Vinyl record included as noted in the article “Vinyl record sales hit 18-year high”, published 27 November 2014 By Dave Lee, Technology reporter, BBC News.

Vinyl Record Pressing companies may be feeling the strain but are singing the Sweet song of Profitability and renewed vitality as Vinyl Records are Growing Strong towards 205, the Year the Sheep, thanks to a Hipster groove!