Being a frequent blood donor, I decided to write this post to share first hand experiences about blood donation in Malta, its importance and maybe convince some of you to give a little too and save some lives!
Lets start with some facts:
Males can donate blood approximately every three months, females every four.
10 pints: amount of blood in the body of an average adult. You donate approximately one pint.
One unit of blood can be separated into several components: red blood cells, plasma, platelets and cryoprecipitate.
Giving blood will not decrease your strength.
You cannot get AIDS or any other infectious disease by donating blood.
After donating blood, you replace the fluid in hours and the red blood cells within four weeks. It takes eight weeks to restore the iron lost after donating.
Blood Donation Process
The actual blood donation usually takes about 10 minutes. The entire process – from the time you sign in to the time you leave – takes about an hour.
Go to the National Blood Transfusion Center (near St. Luke’s hospital). Parking spaces are allocated for blood donors.
Check in at the reception - you will need to present your ID card.
You will be called by a nurse and your body temperature is taken.
A doctor will then examine you and ask some health-related questions. (This is done in a closed room with the strictest of confidence).
Should you pass all the requirements, you will be asked to drink a lot of water or juice (provided by them).
You will then be be asked to go on bed with an armrest and this is when the blood donation starts.
After donating, you will be given more drinks and food of your choice (including baguettes, freshly made sandwiches and sometimes even cheesecakes!). The great feeling of satisfaction you shall have would be priceless.
Why Donate Blood?
Because YOU want to.
To HELP others.
SAVE a life or two.
Personal Experience
The facilities have just been refurbished. The place is very modern, clean and full of large LCD televisions where you can seat relax and watch while waiting. Moreover, all the equipment is state-of-the-art and kept in a sterile environment. The staff are very friendly and very confident in what they are doing at all times.
Many people argue that they are scared of blood or of the pain. Well, I can honestly tell you that the only pain felt is just a small pinch, no more. With regards to the blood and needles…you can always close your eyes. The point is that if you really want to help, these would just be petty excuses not to.
Do’s
Drink a lot of water prior and after donating.
Eat a healthy breakfast.
Don’t
…consume alcohol or eat Maltese pastizzi and the like prior to donating.
…perform any (physically) stressful work after.
Further information can be found here. The amount of blood stocked at the hospital can be seen here (updated weekly).
I tried not to make it too long and I also hope that I managed to convince you. Any comments or questions are more than welcome.
Yesterday I attended Microsoft’s DevDays 2008 conference held at St James in Valletta were I was simply baffled with the new software development technologies that Microsoft are producing which will definitely ensure more high quality software. We were shown mostly Beta software development tools which are still to be released.
Interactive presentations, live demonstrations, a great environment and good food ensured a pleasant conference and I will definitely attend any future DevDays conferences. We were also given a couple of CD packs which include
Windows Server 2008
Visual Studio 2008 SE
SQL Server 2008
Windows Mobile 6 Developer Resource Kit (possibly in response to Apples latest release of its SDK..?).
I was joined by Matthew and Liam of NIU Media and Mauro of PirroneDesign. We were able to see the demonstrations of the new tools and even discuss some of them with Mr. Tomislav Bronzin (who delivered the speech) and other people from the industry. A full review of the technologies shown to us by Mr. Bronzon can be found on Mauro’s blog. Alternatively, you can download the presentation slides from here which are good enough to get the gist of the conference.
I will definitely suggest, to all software developers, to attend any future DevDays for a variety of reasons including meeting other software developers from different sectors of the industry or maybe even winning a pass for a conference in Croatia !
Thanks for all the comments on the iPhone 3G blog post. I will definitely post another update on that topic in the future. If you wish to submit further information or news regarding the iPhone just let me know!
I have just watched Apple’s new iPhone 3G launch and i am speechless really. Apple have done it again…a great product with amazing features both for the end users and developers alike!!!
Some of the features include:
- Built-in GPS receiver
- A-GPS function
- Google Maps
- Widgets support
- iPod audio/video player
- PIM including calendar, to-do list
- TV output
- Photo browser/editor
- Voice memo
- Integrated handsfree
and the list goes on and on…
An iPhone Software Development Kit has been made available for the developer to create and sell applications specifically for the iPhone.
Having seen the Keynote presentation by Apple held earlier this week, I was quite impressed but i could not help myself from wondering that for all these features there has to be a catch…well….there wasn’t really because the price for an 8GB iPhone is of ONLY $199 (approx Lm54)
I was also surprised (and proud at the same time) to hear Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) mention Malta in his speech…
“we are going to be rolling the iPhone 3G in 70 countries..i am really thrilled with this…the next time you’re in Malta and you need an iPhone 3G it will be there for you…”
…(approx. 1hr 37 minutes into the presentation) - well another reason for Maltese people to buy iPhones
I believe that the iPhone 3G will be network locked the same as the first iPhone and will available to one network service provider within each country (there are already rumours whom it might be in Malta ) - still to be confirmed.
Well it is definitely something we will be seeing a lot later on this year. Another also definative prediction is that other mobile phone companies such as Nokia have some serious competition given the extremely low iPhone’s price and one-of-a-kind features.
Any comments or additional information about the iPhone are welcome.
If you enjoyed PicLens than I have another Firefox/Internet Explorer (limited features)/Safari add-on that you will love. This goes by the name of Cooliris Previews and comes from the same creative developers of PicLens - cooliris.
Cooliris Previews lets you preview links and rich-media without clicking or leaving your current page, so you can browse faster than ever. It is simple to install and use.
The best explanation I can give you is by showing you, so take a look at the following demonstration.
It is very common to download a movie or a video clip only to find out that the file is corrupted (or Codec not available or incompatible types or whatever stupid reason your player might come up with next).
Well there is a solution to this….VLC Media Player. This amazing application manages to play even any damaged files that other players cannot. It can open any type of file whether it is .mov, .avi, .wmv, .wmp, DVD, divX, mp3….and the list goes on.
Other very interesting features include watching the movie as your desktop wallpaper and for the advanced user video streaming over a network.
The only drawback I managed to find is that it does not handle mp3 sound well as for example Windows Media Player does. You can always assign .mp3 extension to open up with Windows Media player or any other player your heart desires.
I will definitely recommend this application since it is light weight, completely free, easy to use, plays most (if not all) of the movie file types and plays corrupted files.
So whenever you open a media file and an error pops-up “file corrupted” of “Cannot open file” give VLC a try
Windows users can download VLC Media Player from here.
Ever wondered how you may obtain faster and better download speeds?
Answer:
By using a download accelerator application you can download your files at three to four times the normal speed!!
Plain English (non-technical) Explanation:
When you click on a link to download a file (mp3, PDF, ZIP files, document, etc..), your computer normally opens one connection to the server and starts downloading. Download speeds will vary between 50kb/s to 150kb/s depending on the connection since the server limits the amount of bandwidth (speed) per connection.
When using a download accelerator application the following happens: the file that will be downloaded is split into 6 or 7 pieces each with a dedicated connection to the server. Therefore, instead of having one connection to the server you have 7 different ones each downloading a separate part of the file you need. Once downloaded the file is re-constructed back together (automatically) on your PC.
Results:
On a normal 4Mbit connection (in Malta) I managed to download files even at nearly 500kb/s using a download accelerator on good servers. Average speed is of 250kb/s to 400kb/s.
Opinion:
I personally use Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) and it can be downloaded from here. It is easy to use, light weight, integrates itself into Internet Explorer and best of all it is free! There are however other speed accelerators available (even for Mac users)- a simple “download accelerator” Google search would suffice.
Screen shot:
The following screen shot shows DAP in action. Here we can see a downlaod speed of 760KB/s (might be possible in Malta with the 10Mb/s connections). As you can see the file “Didge-moo-v_MPEG1.mpg” has been split up into pieces each with a dedicated connection with the server.
Conclusion:
I highly recommend this utility especially when you need to download large files such are videos, movies, mp3, ZIP files and ISO images directly from servers.
It can be used even by the non-technical users: you only need to download the program, install and thats it! Every time you click on a link to download a file, DAP will load automatically and all you need is to hit the “Download” button…
I started using PicLens lately which displays a 3D wall with all the pictures found pinned to it.
It comes as a Firefox add-on and can be used by both Windows and Mac users alike. It is compatible with a variety of websites including Google Pictures, YouTube, PhotoBucket and so on.
Once installed a little blue icon appears on the top right corner of you Firefox browser which activates PicLens when clicked.
I highly recommended this add-on because it not only saves you time when trying to find the image you need but it simply looks amazing (…the screen shot above proves it)!!
This is my first blog/homepage. I am still testing and messing around….
I will add articles relating to anything that might interest me or maybe something new which i have discovered and would like to share. These might include topics ranging from Information Technology, cars, movies and music amongst others.
Please feel free to comment and leave your feedback.
donation in Malta, its importance and maybe convince some of you to give a little too and save some lives!
!
) - still to be confirmed.
