Bunte Mischung

so, noch ein paar Sachen in deutsch…

Der SpON erklärt, wie das neue US-Einreiseformular funktioniert. Und hier ist die ESTA-Seite in deutsch. Ist denn jetzt das grüne Formular, von dem ich regelmäßig 2-3 brauche (ja, bin auch einer von denen, die in das Feld für das Geschlecht immer die Flugnummer – oder umgekehrt reinschreiben) endlich weg?

Wenn der Preis stimmt, könnte das mein nächster Computer sein: Dell Mini 10, auf der CES in Las Vegas im Januar angekündigt. Ansonsten halt ein Samsung NC10, von dem man vielerorts gutes hört.

Ivan Blatter von imgriff.com fragt: Was sind Deine 3 liebsten Hilfsmittel? und bekommt interessante Antworten.

Die Karrierebibel mit einem klasse Tip (nicht, dass ich den brauchen würde…): Arbeitsillusion – Wege, wie Sie möglichst beschäftigt aussehen:

Gut, sicher, klar, die Zeiten sind gerade nicht die besten für Arbeitnehmer. Kurzarbeit, Zwangsurlaub, vielleicht sogar Kündigung – das sieht nicht gut aus im karriereoptimierten Lebenslauf. Was also tun, wenn die Arbeit immer weniger wird und die Chefcontroller mit dem Rotstift durch die Flure wandern?

Nun, eine Alternative ist: Sehen Sie möglichst beschäftigt aus. Engagierte und fleißige Mitarbeiter landen schließlich nicht so schnell auf der Streichliste. Und wer die Attitüde eines Leistungsträgers pflegt, sichert nicht nur seinen Job – er tut auch was gegen die Langeweile, wird aktiv und kreativ. Kurzum: Das bisschen Show muss sein – und macht Spaß dazu.

Holger Schmidt, der Netz-Ökonom der FAZ, mit einem sehr guten Artikel über Twitter: Das nächste große Ding im Netz

Oliver Jungen bespricht auf fazjobs.net “The Big Switch“, das neue Buch von Nick Carr: Arbeitsplätze nur noch für die Internet-Elite?

Saturday night mix

The PersonalMBA on “Experimenting with Delegation and Outsourcing“. Sure he is inspired by Tim Ferriss, isn´t he? But this might be an interesting approach, especially when you want to offload work to free up your capacity.

WebWorkerDaily: 6 Strategies Freelancers Can Learn From Corporate Cost-cutting. Yes, when everybody is tightening the belt, also freelancers have to adjust.

The Crisis of Credit visualized. Excellent.

Mindfuck Movies:

Some movies inform. Some movies entertain. And some pry open your skull and punch you in the brain. MATTHEW BALDWIN gathers up the films that have caused him to clutch his head and moan.

David Pogue shares his greatest hits from TED.

I had a separate post on better presentations a few days ago, but here are Edward R. Tufte´s Presentation Tips – not dependent on a particular tool.

Going for a Netbook? GigaOM with 5 Resources for Netbook Helps, Hacks and How-To’s

Louis Gray asks: Is there room for anyone else besides Twitter? Yes, there is, even though Dave Winer is still looking for Twitter´s WordPress. Look over to identi.ca, folks. I am @arminauth

Quite some commentary on the deal between IBM and Amazon to Deliver Software via Cloud Computing With Amazon Web Services.

Nick Carr: Another little IBM Deal

It doesn’t seem like such a big deal, and it probably isn’t. But you never know. The licensing of MS-DOS seemed like small potatoes when it happened.

Vinnie Mirchandani: Will IBM regret this also?

So, IBM now announces a relationship with amazon for its web services ostensibly to expose more of its software to the lower end of the market.  In the meantime,  it continues to do similar stuff in its own data centers for larger outsourced clients.

The question is will history repeat itself.

Dana Gardner: Who makes most rain from IBM-Amazon cloud deal? Oracle.

So we come to Oracle. Larry Ellison’s entertaining position on cloud is a hedge. He knows the substantial cloud economy is inevitable, and he knows its at least 10 years in the making. And he knows the transition will be ugly and bloody.

…

It’s too soon to tell whether the rainmaker-enabled marketplace approach of IBM (remember Java, Linux, n-tier) will beat out the shoot-for-the-moon strategy of Microsoft when it comes to the cloud. But I like Oracle’s margins better through 2016 as the battle ensues.

Twitter 10 Commandments from @thealmightygod:

I saw God the other day – he had just come down from the mountain (OK, so it was Camelback Mtn) and Tweeted to me in my sleep. He told me he had come to bring me the 10 Commandments of Twitter

The NY Times (Registration required) on Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu: A Software Populist Who Doesn’t Do Windows

Minimalist Desktop Wallpapers

Over at 2Expertsdesign.com.

Simply Beautiful. (Credits: vowe, via)

Free Stock Photos

If you need free stock photos for presentations, websites etc., have a look here:

Freerange Stock was formed with the goal to provide quality stock photos for commercial and non-commercial use. For free. We feel that free stock photos can be good photos. Freerange is an advertising revenue supported photographic community – photographers get paid when users click on the ads that appear next to their submissions.

Simple registration required.

100x less code than Rails…

…claims AribaWeb:

AribaWeb is the Open Source component-based web application development framework for creating rich, AJAX-enabled applications with the
absolute minimum of code (and no hand-coded Javascript).

At least the claim is interesting.

A dog could have managed the ’90s

Says GE CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt to managers at GE:

You were put on Earth for this moment. A dog could have managed the ’90s. Anybody could have, but only the best can do 2009!

Music DRM

xkcd.com, cynical as always:

10 ways to weather the storm

Geoff Colvin has authored a interesting article in the January 19, 2009 edition of Fortune magazine: “How to Manage Your Business in a Recession”  in which he points out 10 ways to weather the current economic storm-

Here they are:

1. Reset priorities to face a new reality.
2. Keep investing in the core.
3. Communicate like crazy, balancing realism and optimism.
4. Your customers face new problems, so give them new solutions.
5. Don´t rush to cut prices.
6. Focus on capital – how you´re getting it and where you´re using it.
7. Reevaluate people – and steal some good ones.
8. Reexamine complensation – what is it offering incentives for?
9. Think twice about offshoring.
10. Be smart about mergers and acquisitions.

Multitasking

is the fastest way to mediocricity. Says Jason Fried of 37signals.

I feel the same at the moment. But, after all, I am in a transition from my old job into the new position and have not yet been able to had over much of the old tasks.

Could be out of my mouth, after all (sorry for the fullquote):

I’ve been buried under a lot of work lately. I don’t know what happened, but in the last 10 days or so I feel like I’m working three jobs. Paperwork, administration work, design work, vision work, writing work, misc. work.

My desk is a mess. My desktop is full of icons. My inbox is overflowing. I have a list of people to get in touch with. I have what feels like a hundred decisions to make.

I’m not complaining, I’m just observing. And the primary observation that comes out of all this is that multitasking is the fastest way to mediocrity. Things suck when you don’t give them your full attention.

I’m not thrilled with the work I’ve been doing lately.

This isn’t a breakthrough, it’s just a reminder. If you want to do great work, focus on one thing at a time. Finish it and move on to the next thing. It means some things aren’t going to get done as fast as some people may want. It means some people aren’t going to get your full attention for a while. But doing a bunch of crappy work, or making a bunch of poorly considered decisions just to get through the pile isn’t worth it.

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