May, 2008

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May 08

Redux

I posted about these items once, and more than a year later I still think they are every bit as interesting and relevant as when I first posted them. If you missed them then, perhaps you’ll enjoy them now.

REDUX POSTS FROM MARCH, APRIL, MAY 2007

On Movie Renting:

If you rent more than one movie a month, Netflix is an amazing way to do it.  The thing I like most about this new rental-movies-by-mail business model is you queue all the movies or tv shows you want to see, and when you send one in, you automatically get the next on your list.

On Open Source / Free Alternatives:

59% of all public web servers run open source software (March 2007)

MySQL AB, a company whose core business is developing and supporting the open source database software, MySQL, hit $50 million in revenue in 2006 – a 50% increase from 2005.

There are alternative (and compatible) products to Microsoft Office Suite. My favorite is Google Docs - Google’s version of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. They work amazingly well and having your documents available anywhere, easily searchable, and shareable has me hooked. Best thing is they are 100% free.

On Productivity, Agility, and Projects:

“Agile is the ability to react faster than the changes that are occurring” — Steve Adolph, Agile International Conference 2006 (see Wikipedia for more)

“The speed of the project is the speed at which ideas move between team members” – Alistair Cockburn

The Gentle Art of Saying No. “You can never be productive if you take on too many commitments – you simply spread yourself too thin and will not be able to get anything done, at least not well or on time.”

“If a major project is truly innovative, you cannot possibly know its exact cost and its exact schedule at the beginning. And if in fact you do know the exact cost and the exact schedule, chances are that the technology is obsolete.” – Joseph G. Gavin, Jr., discussing the design of the lunar module that landed NASA astronauts on the moon.

 

 

 

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30
May 08

Changes in Progress

Apologies for the lack of posts. (Did anyone actually notice?) I’ve been busy

  • converting the site from blogger to WordPress, 
  • relocating from the old blogspot.com address to the new http://www.edstrom.net/blog site, and 
  • dealing with a suspended nouri.sh account (this is the awesome service that delivers the email … it is really top of it’s class, but has terrible support).

In any case, I’ve also got a more refined purpose for the blog which has taken some time as well. I’ll be sharing soon, and think you will appreciate the focus.

Thank you all for your patience, continued interest, and switching your RSS feeds around!

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21
May 08

Quotes: Haste, Delete, Touchy-Feely, Corp Culture, Principles, Fear, Change

“Haste is a form of violence” Sarah Hatter

“With my patented “Ignore for a Week, Then Just Delete” system, you’ll get through your email faster than with any other system, guaranteed.” John Gruber via Twitter

“Let’s just have some ridiculous touchy-feely resolution.” Merlin Mann MacBreak Weekly #42

Aaron Mentele via Twitter

“A great way to think about what your principles are is to complete this sentence: “I would give others totally free rein to do this as long as they …” – what?” Getting Things Done by David Allen p66

“Fear, in other words, is a tax, and al-Qaeda and its ilk have done better at extracting it from Americans than the Internal Revenue Service…Never before have so few terrorized so many with so little.” Here’s How America Looks to the World By Josef Joffe

“everyone can be measured by his adaptability to change.” Robert Rauschenberg

“A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.” George Patton


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19
May 08

Warm Sunny Day

Now that we are reliably having warm days, I find We The Robots strip “Warm Sunny Day” to be quite fitting for those of us stuck in an office. At least I have a very nice big window for when I can’t get out to work on the garden.

While I’m talking about weather, I’ve discovered that the National Weather Service has a hourly forecast page. Pretty pictures and useful info too!



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16
May 08

Tom Friedman on Education in the ‘Flat World’

The School Administrator published a discussion with Tom Friedman, author of The World is Flat, in regards to education. Since I just recently linked to him, I thought why not do it again? I read his book last year and have been amazed at how many times I find reason to reference his thoughts and insights in conversation.

Here is a snip from the interview:

Daniel Pink: Tom, in the newest editions of The World Is Flat, most of the additions have to do with education. Why is that? [...]

Friedman: It’s really several things. In the latest edition, I added a whole section on why liberal arts are more important than ever. It’s not that I don’t think math and science are important. They still are. But more than ever our secret sauce comes from our ability to integrate art, science, music and literature with the hard sciences. That’s what produces an iPod revolution or a Google.

—

Pink: [...] Are we asking too much of schools?

Friedman: Absolutely. My wife and I talk about this a lot. Someone asked her the other day if she were to write a book on education what would it be about? And she said: It would be a book on parenting.


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