Saverin will pay U.S. taxes after all

Shared on May 18, 2012 at 6:04am via www.businessinsider.com – Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, could have saved at least $67 million by renouncing his U.S. citize
hip and moving to Singapore, where the capital gai
tax is 0%. According to CNN’s Dana Bash, Saverin might pay those taxes after all. “He intends to pay all taxes he owes on us investments, despite renouncing us citize
hip,” she tweeted. Earlier today, ……

TED Finally Posted The Income Inequality Speech You Weren't Supposed To See

Shared on May 18, 2012 at 5:52am via www.businessinsider.com – Let’s work backwards with your comments. About the lack of healthcare — it did not seem to bother those immigrants and othe
who fed their families, educated themselves, prospered and went on to found major enterprises that employed othe
. About that sweet tax rate: I will give you that the wealthy are able to hire lawye
and accountants to protect their ……

4 Ways to Generate Potential Customers

Shared on May 17, 2012 at 8:52pm via www.lifehack.org – Most small and mid-sized businesses have joined the content marketing chariot to further reach potential custome
. Ironically, some business entrepreneu
are still in their comfort zone. They don’t want to take respo
ibility for growing their business. They don’t want to take action to expand their business. The Internet has ……

I Am The 1% (Why Self-Coaching Matters) (Ed Batista)

Shared on May 17, 2012 at 8:36pm via www.edbatista.com – No, not that 1%. But I am the the 1% in another way: My coaching clients and students typically talk with me for 60 to 90 minutes every two weeks–approximately 1% of their working hou
. So 99% of the time they’re managing interactio
, making choices and responding to situatio
on their own. While those actio
may be influenced by our coaching conve
atio
, ……

Here's The Most Embarrassing Part About TED Silencing That Report On Inequality

Shared on May 17, 2012 at 8:06pm via www.businessinsider.com – The TED Conference is an annual event held where leading thinke
like Bill Gates and Malcolm Gladwell present “Ideas Worth Spreading” to an elite, curated audience that pays $6,000 to attend. The knock on TED is that it egregiously pats the backs of the elites in attendance, as the sub-text of every presentation is that its the rich tech elites that are saving the world ……

Apple rumored to increase iPhone screen size to 4-inches

Shared on May 16, 2012 at 8:52pm via www.imore.com – Apple looks set to increase the next generation iPhone’s screen size to at least 4-inches according to information coming from people familiar with the situation. According to the sources, Apple has already placed orde
for the larger scree
from its Asian supplie
and they are bigger than the scree
used on the current iPhone. Production is set ……

The Truth About Why Yahoo's CEO Got Fired

Shared on May 16, 2012 at 8:36pm via www.readwriteweb.com – What’s the takeaway from Yahoo’s recent CEO fiasco? Don’t lie on your corporate bio, for one, and make sure no one else has lied on your behalf. But the real lesson has nothing to do with falsified credentials. Sure, the world will remember Scott Thompson as the Yahoo CEO who got fired over a fake computer science degree, but the context is ……

Why the iPad Works for Writing

Shared on May 16, 2012 at 8:06pm via www.readwriteweb.com – When the fi
t iPad launched in 2010, critics were quick to lampoon the device for being geared too heavily toward content co
umption. The criticisms weren’t entirely without merit, especially co
idering that the fi
t-generation iPad didn’t even have a camera, and external media slots are still nowhere to be found. Over time, the iPad has evolved into ……

Keynote: Three Future Trends of Social Business (Slides) | Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Shared on May 16, 2012 at 7:42pm via www.web-strategist.com – Posted on May 16th, 2012 in: Speech I’m presenting here at Webcom in Montreal, sharing the State and Future of Social BUsiness. In fact, I think the Cluetrain as we know it, while right for many yea
, needs modification to represent how the social web is changing. I took the fi
t three theses of the mainfesto ……

Automated Home – Sonos Dealers Sign NDA

Shared on May 15, 2012 at 9:12am via www.automatedhome.co.uk – It’s almost seven yea
ago that we fi
t tried the Sonos system and gave it our coveted ‘Top Tech’ award. Since then it’s only grown in our affection and got more affordable too with the latest Play:3. We heard last month that Sonos are going to announce something new to their deale
in the next week or two. So what could it be? Here are some thoughts on what Sonos may have in ……

How to Persuade and Influence People to Achieve Personal Power

Shared on May 15, 2012 at 8:29am via www.briantracy.com – Pe
onal Success | May 14th, 2012 | 3 Comments » Your ability to pe
uade and influence people to help you get the things you want in life is one of the most important skills you can develop. By learning how to pe
uade and influence people, you can achieve greater pe
onal power and get more of the things you want faster than anything else you do. It ……

Twitter Launches Stories Digest Email With Summify Tech

Shared on May 15, 2012 at 8:09am via thenextweb.com – Twitter has announced its new weekly email digest, which looks a lot like the Discover tab in the new ve
io
of Twitter mobile and web. The digest is using the technology that Twitter acquired when it grabbed social-feed summary tool Summify back in January. We fi
t reported a redesigned email being sent out to some use
late last month that had ……

Amazon updates CDN for dynamic content — Cloud Computing News

Shared on May 14, 2012 at 8:52pm via gigaom.com – Amazon is updating its Cloudfront content delivery network (CDN) to handle dynamic, interactive web content. CDNs help web sites e
ure that use
get the web pages they want faster, typically by caching popular pages closer to likely use
. Over the yea
, CDN provide
like market leader Akamai have moved on from static pages — collectio
of text and ……

Apple to Announce Photo/Video Services for iCloud at WWDC

Shared on May 14, 2012 at 8:36pm via thenextweb.com – Apple is planning on adding photo-sharing features, as a part of an upgrade of the service, reports the Wall Street Journal. The services, which would be announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference on June 11th, would allow use
to share sets of photos and comment on those photos. These photo-sharing services would allow for other albums or ……

8 Ways to Solve Prospects' Problems Through Your Marketing

Shared on May 14, 2012 at 8:06pm via blog.hubspot.com – 8 Ways to Solve Prospects’ Problems Through Your Marketing . You’re in business because you provide solutio
. You’ve got a
we
. You’re the (wo)man with the plan. Let’s take a look at some of our custome
, for example. AmeriFi
t Home Mortgage helps home buye
find the right mortgage for them. In The News helps businesses memorialize ……

Key Google Algorithm Changes made in April 2012

Shared on May 14, 2012 at 7:42pm via www.seminhouse.com – What it is: Each month Google announces some of their latest updates, a few good SEO gems are always included. Key Google April 2012 Changes to Note: The index went up 15%, this mea
there are 15% more documents in Google’s index. New index tier, codenamed “cantina”. There are tie
of different documents, each tier gets indexed at ……

Overexposed? Thanks to SceneTap, San Francisco bars are now profiling you

Shared on May 13, 2012 at 7:13pm via venturebeat.com – Imagine this. You and your girlfriend walk into a neighborhood bar, order a cocktail, and, unbeknow
t to you both, a camera above is scanning your faces to determine your age and gender. Your deets are combined with data on other bar patro
and then spit out to looky-loo mobile application use
trolling for a good-time venue with the right genetic make-up. ……

LinkedIn May Make A Monster Acquisition Soon

Shared on May 13, 2012 at 9:31am via www.businessinsider.com – Summary Mo
ter.com is one of the largest employment websites in the world, owned and operated by Mo
ter Worldwide, Inc. Mo
ter is one of the 20 most visited websites out of 100 million worldwide, according to comScore Media Metrics… More »…

Don't Buy A New Windows PC Until After June 2

Shared on May 13, 2012 at 9:12am via www.businessinsider.com – If you buy a Windows 7 PC after June 2, you’ll be eligible for for an discounted upgrade to Windows 8, reports CNet. But there’s a catch. Unlike Microsoft’s past upgrade offe
this one won’t give you Windows 8 for free. That’s a risky move for Microsoft, but an interesting one. Typically Windows PC sales die right before Microsoft releases a new OS. The ……

iOS 6 “Sundance” And The Sunsetting Of Google Maps

Shared on May 13, 2012 at 9:01am via techcrunch.com – For Google Maps, winter is coming. Potentially. As you’ve undoubtedly seen by now, with the upcoming iOS 6 software, Apple intends to replace the Google Maps aspect of their default Maps application with their own, in-house ve
ion. Mark Gurman of 9to5 Mac was the fi
t to report this news, and dives into more of the detail behind it, including the 3D ……

Consolidation Hits UK Local Sites: Zoopla Buys UpMyStreet, Folds It Into Its Own Property Pages

Shared on May 11, 2012 at 8:09am via techcrunch.com – The UK housing market has been on shaky legs for a while now — with tight lending conditio
, unemployment and general co
umer confidence all playing their part in slowing things down — and that is having the inevitable knock-on to sites built up to serve that sector: today brings news that Zoopla, one of the UK’s bigger property sites, is buying up a smaller ……

Bing’s Biggest Redesign Yet Puts Pure Algorithmic Results Up Front, Sticks Context and Social In The Sidebar

Shared on May 11, 2012 at 7:26am via techcrunch.com – Bing today begi
the rollout of a major redesign that separates search results into three panes: pure, algorithmic, text-focused results in the center; context like maps, reviews, and actionable input fields to the right; and social assistance like friends and experts who can help on the far right. The redesign is Bing’s a
wer to “Search Overload” — the ……

7 Ways Links Cause Search Rank Changes

Shared on May 11, 2012 at 7:03am via searchenginewatch.com – Based on the happenings over the past few weeks, and especially given that Google is sending warning messages about unnatural links to webmaste
, it seems almost inevitable that the next great link building business scam will be promising to clean up linking messes for websites, so those sites will have a chance to get back in Google’s good graces. ……

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There are a number of celebrities now on Instagram and I am sure that the list will grow now that Facebook have acquired them, but here are some accounts to get you started.  Most of these are relatively active and as far as I can tell, are using it themselves (instead of their PR agency).

I’ve added a full list of “celebrities” at the bottom – some of which are clearly managed by agencies, some are pretty inactive, and some.. frankly I am not even sure who they are.

Real Users (appear to be anyway).

Jamie Oliver – @jamieoliver

Kelly Brook – @iamkb

 Tony Hawk – @tonyhawk

Taylor Swift – @Taylorswift 

Zooey Deschanel – @zooeydeschanel

Alicia Keys – @AliciaKeys

Jason Mraz – @Jason_Mraz

Lucy Hale – @LucyHale89

MC Hammer – @MCHammer

Active, but probably uploaded by PR/PA

• Britney Spears – @britneyspears
• Ryan Seacrest – @ryanseacrest
• Dane Cook – @danecook
• Ian Somerhalder – @IanJSomerhalder
• Cat Deeley -> CatDeeley
• Rihanna – @BadGalRiri

If you find any more, please comment.

No related posts.

Zappos, for example, created its 10 core values as the foundation for the entire company – their culture, their self-image, the benchmark against which each employee is measured.   Values become the collective morale compass for a business.  But its important that they are not owned nor defined by the marketing department.. the goal here should be to define how you and everyone behaves.   They are, after all, what you “value”.

The same is true for you personally.  What do you believe?  What do you represent?  Like I mentioned in my “You are what you do” post, you are not what you “say you are” – you are the sum of your actions.. but also of your beliefs.

Guilt is one of the most powerful emotional responses and occurs when you violate your personal values.  Set the bar low, and you won’t feel guilty.  But you won’t get far in life and you will undoubtedly run into trouble down the road if you do.  Creating a set of values in which you truly believe and are bound to live up to is what forms your character.  And character is the essence of who you are – the morale compass.

I recently came across The Farmer’s Creed.  It was first published in 1915 and was traced back to a farmer named Frank Mann. These days – character, values and purpose seem to be more about your Facebook or Twitter profile and less about what you stand for and so I thought it is pretty powerful, perhaps even more so now.

THE FARMER’S CREED

I believe a man’s greatest possession is his dignity and that no calling bestows this more abundantly than farming.

I believe hard work and honest sweat are the building blocks of a person’s character.

I believe that farmers, despite its hardships and disappointments is the most honest and honorable way a man can spend his days on earth.

I believe my children are learning values that will last a lifetime and can be earned no other way.

I believe farming provides education for life and that no other occupation teaches so much about birth, growth and maturity in such a variety of ways.

I believe many of the best things in life are indeed free: the splendor of a sunrise, the rapture of wide open spaces, and the exhilarating sight of your land greening each spring.

I believe true happiness comes in watching your crops ripen in the filed, your children grow tall in the sun, and your whole family feel the pride that springs from their shared experience.

I believe that by my toil I am giving more to the world than I am taking from it, an honor that does not come to all men.

I believe my life will be measured ultimately by what I have done for my fellow man, and by this standard I fear no judgment.

I believe when a man grows old and sums up his days, he should be able to stand tall and feel pride in the life he’s lived.

I believe in farming because it makes all this possible.

You may not be a farmer, I’m not either — but I appreciate the resonance of pride in your work, a long-term view-point, hard work, giving back to society, and above all else – character.  Perhaps we all need to our own creed –  bankers, marketers, salesman, entrepreneurs, engineers, and so on.   To be able to “stand tall and feel pride in the life” you’ve lived – who wouldn’t want that?

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What do you get when you combine a PDA with a phone…

Today, we just call them “smart phones” – but before the iPhone, they were a separate device.  One for keeping yourself organised – address book, task/to-do list, calendar, etc.  And one to make phone calls.  They started to merge long before the iPhone of course, but it is still somewhat surprising how long it actually did take.

Anyway, here’s my personal history of the PDA devices that I have used over the years.

1988-1996: Daytimer / Filofax.

OK, not a “device” but this is where it all began.  I used to take my burgundy leather personal organiser everywhere.  It was the original “second brain” and my first step into the world of personal productivity.  In Dallas, I used a Day-timer.. but here in Europe it seems that Filofax were the dominant brand.  Either way, it would be my wife’s preference even today given the choice.

1997: PalmPilot Professional

This was the breakthrough device.. the iPhone of its day.  Where the Apple Newton failed, the PalmPilot succeeded.  It was my first “true” PDA and started the “lock in” to Palm products for the next 10 years.  It had a whopping 1Mb of memory and worked on 2 AAA batteries!  The app ecosystem was pretty limited originally, but it quickly developed – in a similar way to Apple, but without the walled garden.

1998: Palm III

Now pushing 2Mb of RAM and an infrared port – the Palm III was a nice improvement.. with a more “futuristic” design.  Upgrading was simple and I never lost any data in the process.

1999: Palm IIIx

A year later and we get 4Mb of built-in RAM plus the opportunity for a storage slot/card that could expand it further.  It was also faster.  Amazing how you want or need something so monochrome and basic to go faster.. hard to believe that it could ever have been slow.

2000: Palm IIIc

We have colour..  wow, welcome to the new millenium.  The IIIc offers the new Palm OS 3.5/4.0 and 8Mb of RAM.

2003: Tungsten C

Hard to believe that it took this long to add… wifi to these devices.  But here we are in 2003, with a new design and the ability to surf, email, etc directly on the device (without sync).

2004: Treo 650

At last, the “smart phone” exists.  Palm finally builds in proper mobile phone tech and two devices can finally become one.

2006: Treo 750

I waited.. hoping for something better, but nothing was coming out.. and this was the model that Palm ditched its OS in favour of Windows Mobile.  It also marked the end of Palm for me.. I found this device to be all the things that Palm wasn’t – confusing, slow, unstable.  It is the reason I won’t ever buy a Windows Mobile device.. and it is probably one of the reasons I love the iPhone so much.  After 10 years, Palm killed my brand loyalty with this device… and it seems like I wasn’t alone.

But, I didn’t move that quickly..  and tried lots of variations.

2008: iPhone 3G

Heaven.  This phone was everything the Treo (and Windows Mobile) wasn’t.  This was my first Apple device.  I am not a Mac user and was possibly even resistant to Apple at one point in my life, but it seems I can resist no longer.  The iPhone is still one of the greatest gadgets ever created.

2009: iPhone 3GS

Had to have it.. didn’t matter why.

2010: iPhone 4

I wasn’t sure about the 4 at first, I originally preferred the 3G styling – but now I look back and think how “dated” the 3G looks.

2011: iPhone 4S

I had high hopes for Siri.. but meh.  Siri outside of the USA is particularly average at the moment.  It’s a shame really – this is a post about how my PDA’s have evolved over the years and the 4S with Siri should have been a major breakthrough – and it might still be one day.. but currently, in the UK – I say it again, meh.

OK – this was an interesting trip down memory lane.. and one thing really stands out – man, I changed my phones/tech pretty often.  I had thought that was only a recent “condition” – obviously not.   Anyway, thanks for coming with me on this journey.

No related posts.

Keeping emails in your inbox longer than they “need” to be there is the equivalent of having papers spread around your messy desk..  you brain has to either consciously or subconsciously scan those items every time you look at it and keep reminding yourself why you have it there.  This approach will lead to lower levels of productivity and increased stress.

Many people seem to think that “InboxZero” is some sort of mythical beast or perhaps even an asymptote.  The reality, however, is that it can be achieved more easily than you may think – with a pretty simple approach:

1. Do not use your inbox as a to-do list.

You need to change your attitude towards your email inbox and the first place to start is with its purpose.   Your email inbox is a temporary location for incoming email.. email, as in communication.  It is not a to-do list.  I’ve written on personal productivity before, you need to start using a dedicated task management / to-do list system – and not use your inbox for this purpose.. it is not designed for it.

2. Perform inbox triage.

Pretend that everything in your inbox will be deleted – automatically – in 24 hours..  so when emails come in, deal with them in a GTD sort of way and  ”do it, delegate it, defer it”.  In fact, I would expand and add “delete it”.

• Do it.  Respond to the email.  Answer the question.  Once you have done this.. get rid of the email.  File it or Delete It.
• Delegate it.  If you are not responsible for the email – forward it on to the correct person.  Once you have done this, ask yourself if that is the end of the matter – can you abdicate the contents of that email to someone else and now forget it?  Or did you simply delegate the contents to someone else, which means that you may now need to follow up with them at some point in the future.  If you delegated, then you need to add a reminder to your “to-do list” system (Toodledo, Outlook, etc) to remind yourself to follow up on the email (in the task – reference the email – including date/time if you need to).  Once you have done that – file it (if delegated) or delete it (if abdicated).
• Defer it.  Sometimes, you just don’t have time to look at something.  But that doesn’t mean you need to keep the email in your inbox.  File the email into a folder – either one dedicated to “deal with later” emails or even better, file it into something more permanent – employee folder, customer folder, etc.  Then – this is the important bit – create a task in your to-do list to remind yourself to deal with the issue (reference the email if you need to).
• Delete it.  Sometimes the emails just need to be read and digested and require no further action; simply press the delete key.

3. Empty every evening.

Just like I discussed in my “Three rules for a Productive Life” post with respect to managing your to-do list, don’t go home without emptying your inbox.  Apply the triage above once again to your inbox at the end of everyday.

The American Management Association recently reported that the average US worker spends 107 minutes (almost two hours) on email every day – I bet that most of this wasted time is down to poor email management.  As I hope you can see, achieving InboxZero is possible and can be an incredibly powerful method to improve time management and lower stres.

No related posts.

Consolidation Hits UK Local Sites: Zoopla Buys UpMyStreet, Folds It Into Its Own Property Pages

 

Shared on May 11, 2012 at 8:09am via techcrunch.com - The UK housing market has been on shaky legs for a while now — with tight lending conditions, unemployment and general consumer confidence all playing their part in slowing things down — and that is having the inevitable knock-on to sites built up to serve that sector: today brings news that Zoopla, one of the UK’s bigger property sites, is buying up a smaller ……

7 Ways Links Cause Search Rank Changes

 

Shared on May 11, 2012 at 7:03am via searchenginewatch.com - Based on the happenings over the past few weeks, and especially given that Google is sending warning messages about unnatural links to webmasters it seems almost inevitable that the next great link building business scam will be promising to clean up linking messes for websites, so those sites will have a chance to get back in Google’s good graces. ……

What Might Be Next For (not provided)

 

Shared on May 11, 2012 at 6:57am via www.distilled.net - On May 7th, Mozilla announced that Aurora (Firefox’s public beta) is beginning to roll out their HTTPS-by-default Google search behavior. It won’t be long before this is default in Firefox. As their announcement states, the user will be none the wiser (save for that tiny ‘s’ after http, and the secure lock icon). Webmaster’s on the hand – let’s just say ……

Microsoft search guru outlines big Bing changes — Tech News and Analysis

 

Shared on May 11, 2012 at 6:44am via gigaom.com - Microsoft’s top search guy took to the Web today to show off a refreshed interface for Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s Online Services Division, said the design better incorporates the user’s social media contacts in a new sidebar which brings in their Facebook and Twitter contacts’ relevant posts. According to ……

Can an Algorithm Write a Better News Story than Humans?

 

Shared on May 10, 2012 at 3:08pm via spinsucks.com - My dear friend Carmen Benitez sent a story to me a couple of weeks and I’ve had to take that long to really absorb it. You see, it’s about algorithms becoming better storytellers than journalists, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. A couple of months ago, I was speaking to a group of business leaders and one of the attendees told me he pays $50 ……

Do we really want SEOMoz’ Rand to decide what is and isn’t spam? – Shoemoney

 

Shared on May 10, 2012 at 2:48pm via www.shoemoney.com - Ah, Rand. With one simple Google+ post (but worth noting that he didn’t put it on the official SEOMoz blog) he sets off a firestorm about whether he should be deciding what is and isn’t spam, and effectively, whether he should be giving webmasters the ability to put a big rubber stamp of “Hey, our SEO tactics are Rand & SEOMoz approved!” It is ……

Developer Bootcamp Teaches Regular Folks To Code

 

Shared on May 10, 2012 at 2:16pm via www.readwriteweb.com - Learning to code is becoming the key skill for anyone who wants to launch a tech startup, or even just get a job working at a hot tech company. That may seem intimidating, but programming is not some monumental skill that only specially gifted people can learn. Really, it it isn’t all that different from learning to speak another language. If you can pick up the ……

Does Quality Score Transparency Just Show More AdWords Data Problems?

 

Shared on May 10, 2012 at 2:07pm via certifiedknowledge.org - Google recently changed how they displayed the Quality Score tips inside AdWords. The biggest change is that some of the fact will now be relative to your competition. While this is a huge, and very welcome change, it also opened Pandora’s box to show where quality score might not make much se
nse How Much Does Landing Page Matter? Fi
t off, ……

Yahoo Stole Their Logo From MAD Magazine 1968

 

Shared on May 9, 2012 at 8:52pm via www.seroundtable.com - Tim Moore shared a picture on Google+ from a story on startupgrind.com where they show shocking similarities between the Yahoo logo and a 1968 Yahoo logo in MAD magazine. It is as if Yahoo stole it from the magazine. This with all that is going on with Yahoo’s new CEO’s resume cannot be fun. What do you think happened here with Yahoo’s ……

Kindle Sales Plummet, And That Sucks

 

Shared on May 9, 2012 at 8:36pm via www.readwriteweb.com - Paulo Santos (who is short AMZN) has a great post on Seeking Alpha about the nasty secret hidden in Amazon’s otherwise-strong Q1 earnings. The reason Amazon’s razor-thin margi
look just the tee
iest bit better is that sales of the break-even Kindle have fallen off a cliff. Is e-ink doomed? We sure hope not. Amazon never, ever talks about how many ……

4 Step SEO Action Plan for Small Business Marketing

Shared on May 9, 2012 at 8:06pm via theinboundmarketingcompany.com – 4 Step SEO Action Plan for Small Business Marketing Posted by Stacie Chalme
on Wed, May 09, 2012 @ 08:14 AM In recent months Google has introduced changes to their algorithm to penalize sites trying to “trick” the search engines, and reward the sites who are focused on the customer experience and publish quality sites. ……

What is this board waiting for? — paidContent

 

Shared on May 9, 2012 at 7:42pm via paidcontent.org - Appointing a committee to look into how another committee did its job was like throwing red meat at Daniel Loeb, the dissident Yahoo shareholder who has moved from wanting seats on the board to demanding CEO Scott Thompson’s head on a platter. Loeb wants an interim CEO appointed now, suggesting either CFO Tim Mo
e, who was interim CEO between Carol ……

What Marketers Need to Know

Shared on May 8, 2012 at 2:48pm via blog.hubspot.com – Google+ Launches Hangouts on Air to the Masses: What Markete
Need to Know . With new social networks like Pinterest popping up on the scene and stealing the spotlight, it seemed like Google+ had been falling by the wayside over the past several months. But a new announcement may help put it back on the radar, at least for markete
. ……

Yahoo Employees Are ‘LIVID’ Over Thompson’s Resume Scandal

Shared on May 8, 2012 at 2:16pm via www.businessinsider.com – Yahoo employees are angry, disappointed, and feeling pushed to the limit because of CEO Scott Thompson’s resume scandal. For at least eight yea
, Thompson allowed people – employe
, employees, and shareholde
of eBay and Yahoo – to believe that he had a computer science degree from Stonehill College when he did not actually have one. The scandal started ……

The Guardian suffers as user numbers for Facebook’s social readers nosedive

 

Shared on May 8, 2012 at 2:07pm via econsultancy.com - Print Posted 08 May 2012 11:50am by David Moth with 3 comments If you’ve ever seen a presentation by a Facebook exec, you’ll know that they hold up The Guardian as the poster child for building an audience using a timeline app. After launching its social reader last September The Guardian reported 4m i
talls in just two ……

How To Create Loading Spinners Using CSS3 Animations – The Daily Egg

 

Shared on May 8, 2012 at 1:56pm via blog.crazyegg.com - Giving feedback to the visito
is a massive part of the user experience, if the user clicks a button they would expect to see something happen. An example of this is uploading an image to a website, it may take some time for the server to upload the image, but when the user clicks the upload button they would expect the page to do something. ……

SEOmoz To Build Search Spam Detection Algorithms

 

Shared on May 8, 2012 at 1:11pm via www.seroundtable.com - SEOmoz’s CEO, Rand Fishkin, announced on his Google+ page that his company is working on project that they hope will “classifying, identifying and removing/limiting link juice passed from sites/pages.” In short, SEOmoz is working on software to add to their toolset to help SEOs determine if their pages or competito
pages are spammy in nature. If SEOmoz ……

Google Just Put Microsoft In A Headlock: Pay $4 Billion A Year Or Stop Selling Xbox

Shared on May 7, 2012 at 7:13pm via www.businessinsider.com – The game Google is playing in court agai
t Microsoft is absolutely brilliant. Today a judge will hear a case between Motorola Mobility and Microsoft, reports Reute
. Microsoft says that Motorola Mobility wants to charge it $4 billion A YEAR in royalties for patents Motorola holds on WiFi and video technology. Microsoft says those fees are unfair. ……

Apple Releases iOS Version 5.1.1 — AppAdvice

 

Shared on May 7, 2012 at 6:44pm via appadvice.com - Apple just released iOS ve
ion 5.1.1 this afternoon containing improvements and bug fixes. Here’s the complete changelog: This update contai
improvements and bug fixes, including: Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut Addresses ……

Why Android Can’t Monetize – Business Insider

 

Shared on May 7, 2012 at 3:18pm via www.businessinsider.com - A ve
ion of this note appeared last week on Business I
ider Intelligence, BI’s market research service on the internet industry. If you were a subscriber, you’d already know this! Click here to find out more and sign up for a free trial ? Android has a monetization problem. According to a report from Flurry, for every dollar of iOS revenue, ……

Google Rolling Out Hangouts on Air to All Users

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Evernote Acquires Popular Handwriting App Penultimate

 

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I use Google Reader to primarily control and centralise my subscriptions.  I also use Google Reader to read these blogs when I am on my PC, but I prefer reading them on my iPad using the Reeder app.

Social media in its “firehose” format is a terrible way to keep up to date with blogs in my opinion.  Someone can write a blog, announce it and then post a tweet (or whatever) about it and unless you constantly have your eye on your feed, you could miss it.  For blogs that I want to read each and every post, I prefer RSS and Google Reader.

Social media, however, is excellent for “content discovery” – especially if you use apps like Flipboard or Zite.  You follow people on Twitter (or whatever) who you think will share interesting and relevant information and so it makes sense that if they share some content, you would be interested to see it.  Flipboard is perfect format for consuming these shares.

There is another method for “content discovery” that I’d like to introduce – especially if you are interested in specific, relatively narrowly defined topics – and that is Google Alerts.

I’ve been using Google email alerts for years – and they are so helpful.   They are great for brand monitoring, being alerted about local events, etc.  But did you know that you can also get these alerts delivered to Google Reader as an RSS feed.  I’ve only recently discovered this feature, and have found it really useful as a new “content discovery” mechanism.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to the Google Alerts site – http://www.Google.com/alerts  (or http://www.google.co.uk/alerts in the UK)

2. Type in the search phrase that you want to monitor (i.e. look for new sources for your RSS feed)

3. You can select the type of results (e.g. Blogs only), how many results you want, and where you want it delivered — here you want to select “Feed”

4. Press “Create Alert” and you’ll see this screen:

5.  The next step is to simply click on the “Deliver to Google Reader” link and you will automatically subscribe to this new feed.

Now, when you are reading your blog feed on Google Reader or Reeder you will receive new blogs that you currently don’t subscribe to – but could be relevant / interesting to you.  You can then decide to fully subscribe to these new sources of information.

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My preference is to listen to non-fiction books – business, personal development, etc – and read fiction.  One of the reasons for this is that non-fiction can be delivered in a scientific or somewhat unexciting way.  It takes a great deal of commitment to sit down and read something when most of your energy is being spent on trying not to drift off.  With an audiobook, you can do other things – walk, run, drive, chores.   I’ve found this the most effective way of absorbing some amazing content.

The problem is that some audiobooks are just as dry – if not more so – than the material they are written about.  It sounds like this is such a chore and that I don’t enjoy it – the opposite is true actually.  But here’s this book containing all this information and knowledge that I would like to learn and understand and it then gets delivered by a voice actor with a calm, relaxing, soothing, regular, …. zzzzzzzzz.

So there are two ways to get the most out audiobooks and extract this awesome information in the most effective, least coma-inducing way.

The first is what I mentioned above – do something else while you are listening.  Walk the dog.  Listen on your commute to work.  Riding the bike. etc.

The second is… speed it up.

The Audible app has an option to change the speed of the recording.  You just tap on the cover design and a sub-menu appears.

If you then tap on the “Speed” icon, you get another submenu which allows you to change the speed.

You can select from 1/2x (slower than recorded), 1x, 1.5x, 2x and 3x.

Here’s the thing, the speeds faster than 1x naturally sound faster, of course they do.  But once your ear adjusts, you won’t notice the difference.  Do you know someone who talks really fast?  At first, you don’t understand a word they are saying – but then you adjust, and you don’t notice it any more.

Here’s a sample from a book I am currently listening to (by the way – just in case the author reads this, it is a great book and not one that I would consider “dry” at all).

This is normal speed (press play and listen):

This is 1.5X speed:

This is 2x speed:

This is 3x speed:

Now for me, 3x speed sounds way too fast.. and it pretty much always is.  But 1.5x and 2x are now my standard settings for most books.  They don’t affect the content in anyway and but it eliminates the pauses and makes the who thing more interesting (almost forcing me to concentrate at times).  And interestingly, once you get used to listening at the faster speed, the slower versions sound almost too slow.

Listen to 3x speed again.

And now listen to 2x speed

Listening at 1.5x speed reduces a 6 hour recording to 4 hours and listening at 2x speed reduces a 6 hour recording to 3 hours.  So you can get more information, faster.

There have been books that I just couldn’t speed up, it ruined the content.  But the next time you are listening to an audiobook and it feels a bit slow to you, speed it up – you may never go slow again.

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We all know people who go through life as victims – perhaps you are one of these people too?  I’m not referring to true victims – victims of crime etc – but people who never seem to associate their own actions or behaviour (cause) with the results, the outcome  (effect).  Everything seems to happen to them.  It was never something that they did; they are simply unlucky.  If they are not accountable, if it is not their fault – then they have not failed, life failed them.

Personally, I find this sort of attitude unpalatable and the reason is that it is simply a state of mind.  It has nothing to do with ability, intelligence, social background or education.  It is a mental habit that can be changed and once done it will be the most liberating experience of someone’s life.  You reap what you sow.

No one is looking out for you, but you.  If you keep playing the victim, you will never be in control of your own life.   You see, there is a direct relationship between the amount of control you feel you have over your life and your personal well-being, your happiness.  The more out of control you feel – at home, at work, or both – the less satisfied you are with your life; the lower your job satisfaction.

In order to take control of your life, you have to start to accept responsibility for it; you must become accountable.  You can’t change the behaviour of others, you can only truly change yourself.  Simply step up.  If anything goes wrong – accept responsibility.

I believe that it is impossible to achieve anything worthwhile in life without becoming personally accountable. It’s not about others holding you accountable, it is about holding yourself accountable.

This is your life; take control and be responsible and you will achieve more, be happier and never be a victim again.

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If you have both an iPad and an iPhone and have configured the iCloud on both devices, you’ve probably noticed that photos taken on your phone will appear in the “Photo Stream” on your iPad (and vice versa).  But how can I get those photos – my Photo Stream – on to my Windows PC too?  The answer is with some free software from Apple called the iCloud Control Panel.

Don’t install it yet!

I couldn’t get it to work properly at first and after several failed attempts, I finally found the solution – and it requires a little configuration ahead of time.

You’ll be creating two folders on your Windows PC.  One of these will be the “Downloads” folder (aka “Photo Stream” folder).  This will mirror the Photo Stream on both your iPad and iPhone.  The second folder is for “Uploads”.  This will be similar to the “Camera Roll” on your iPhone.  Anything you place into this folder will be copied to your downloads/Photo Stream.  Notice that it will be copied and not moved.. just like your camera roll, you will have two copies of the photo and will have to delete from the “uploads” folder manually.

You need to create these two folders ahead of time, because you will have to set some permissions on them in order for the “upload” sync to work properly.  I’m not 100% sure why, but I tried every other option before finding this solution — and there appears to be hundreds of users hitting this same issue (at least at the time of writing this post).

OK. So, here are the steps to get this installed and working:

1. Create a Photo Stream folder.  You need to create a folder into where the download and upload folders for Photo Stream will live.  For me, I keep all my photos in “\Photos” and so I created a folder called “Photostream” within that.

2. Change the permissions of the PhotoStream folder and give full permission to “Everyone”.   This, it appears, is the critical step in order to make the “Uploads” part of the sync to work.  I was able to consistently get Photo Stream downloads, but it wasn’t until I did this step that uploads started to work.  To do this:

• Right click on the new PhotoStream directory that you created in step 1.
• Select “Properties” from the menu
• Click on the Security tab.
• Click on “Everyone” (which should be at the top of the “Group or user names:” list)
• Click on the “Edit..” button below that list.
• When the new window pops up, click on the Allow option next to “Full Control” (at the very least click on Modify).
• Click on the OK button to accept those changes.
• Click on the OK button to close the “Properties” dialog box.

3. Create two folders – “Downloads” and “Uploads” within the PhotoStream folder.  This where your Photo Stream images will be kept and synchronized.

4. Download the iCloud Control Panel.  You can download the iCloud Control Panel software here.

5. Install the iCloud Control Panel.

6. Configure Photo Stream Options.   Once it has finished installing, you will run the control panel.  First login to your iCloud account and you will be presented with

That’s it.  You should start to see your Photo Stream loading into the “Downloads” folder and if you copy a photo into “Uploads” you should see it appear on your iPhone and/or iPad.

Perhaps with time, Apple will fix the problem with this software so that you don’t have to make the permission changes..  but this has been the only way that has worked for me and I hope it works for you too.

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