Project OrielEmbracing Change

Links to round off 2006. Enjoy!

* Google Zeitgeist: See what people were searching for in 2006. “A year’s worth of search speaks to our collective consciousness, and 2006 is no exception. To compile these year-end lists and graphs, we compared frequent queries this year against 2005 to see what sorts of things were top of mind. Click on all the tabs to learn something new — or confirm that you too reflect the spirit of the times.” http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2006.html
* At the end of the year everyone seems to come out with top-10-for-2006 lists. Here is a list of those lists. http://www.fimoculous.com/year-review-2006.cfm
* “Interruption is being mistaken for collaboration. The are drastically different things. Interruption is productivity’s biggest enemy. It sounds counterintuitive to many, but we should be working harder on staying apart and less on getting in touch too much. A healthy dose of physical and virtual distance is a good thing. If we want to be highly productive we need more alone time.” http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/getting_in_toomuch_touch_interruption_is_not_collaboration.php
* How accurate are the different weather websites? Find out here: http://www.forecastadvisor.com/Minnesota/CottageGrove/55016 on a well designed weather forecast site.

Good Friday!

Below are my picks for the week. The phone links are for Kristy, the web design is for Tim, and I’d like to welcome Wayne to the list. I believe this is episode #6, and is a bit longer than usual for the holidays. Enjoy!

Peter

* Are you ever in a situation where you need to give out your phone number, but want that person to forget they have it after a week? http://www.privatephone.com/ will give you a voicemail number that can email you and text message your phone whenever you get a new message. It is a free service. Feel free to try it on my private number: 651.967.7719. Custom messages and everything.
* You can also try http://www.craigsnumber.com/ which will connect the caller directly to your phone (no voicemail), but works much like calling collect. Try my number @ (415) 234 5400 x640 which expires in 1 week. I’ll get a call with a “do you want to accept a call from “.
* David Pogue, NY Times reviews Microsoft’s new operating system Vista. Available today for business, and expected to be released for home users in January: http://tinyurl.com/wd5b7
* Web 2.0 design guide: http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfm It would be nice to include some of the principles into Pivotal some day…
* No link, but a quote I enjoyed this week: “[Work] below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.” [Pablo Picasso]
* Picture: 5MB Hard Disk in 1956 http://www.popular-pics.com/pictures.aspx?photoid=422

For your Friday…

* Virtualization: abstracting a full computer onto another computer. It is much like Citrix where you can work on a second computer while on your primary computer, except that with virtualization there is only one piece of hardware running both computers. Using Parallels Desktop for Mac, this week I tried running a virtual image of my work laptop on my home iMac. The results? It worked great, and my work computer ran faster virtualized on the iMac than on it’s own hardware. Nice! http://www.parallels.com/
* Avonelle bought a new workstation this week for her Visual Studio .NET development (including Field Force Automation) – she bought a Mac http://www.coolbits.nu/1089.aspx
* So you have tried ta-da for your lists – take it to the next step and add collaborative writeboards, online notes, a calendar, etc with www.backpackit.com All in the Web 2.0 style with AJAX. My favorite feature: set a reminder on the site that will text message your cell phone at a preset time so you don’t forget about something.

* So you already know about http://maps.google.com. Did you also know they have an online map of Mars and the Moon? Try http://mars.google.com and http://moon.google.com Hint: zoom all the way in on the moon
* Avonelle Lovhaug, the contractor who has developed FFA has her own blog: http://www.coolbits.nu/
* Ta-Da List: http://www.tadalist.com is a simple online to-do list organizer. It sounds silly, but it is the first electronic to-list manager I’ve ever found that works for me. It is Web 2.0, uses AJAX, is RSS-enabled, and you can share to-do lists with others (read only or editable) see http://www.tadalist.com/theater for a short video on how it works (QuickTime required).

Enjoy!

A couple fun things for your Friday:

* RingFo: Call RingFo from your cell, enter a book/cd ISBN number and get the latest price and review from Amazon.com. Great for comparison shopping when your and Barnes and Nobel or Borders. http://ringfo.com

* Gas prices: Where is it the cheapest in the country? In the twin cities? http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

Enjoy!
Peter