Sales Guy vs. Web Dude, Part 4
Nov 21, 2009via techcrunch.com
Check out the previous three episodes, too!
Mr. Shut-up
Nov 8, 2009Pro parenting tip, and this is one that was all my friend’s idea but I thought it was brilliant – Meet Mr. Shut-up:
If you ever work out of the home, and you have kids, then you know that sometimes you may need to take a call and not have it sound as if you are working out of your home with kids. That is where Mr. Shut-up comes in. Let your critters know that, when Mr. Shut-up is on, it is time to be quiet or face the wrath of Mr. or Ms. Puts-a-roof-over-your-head.
via minimalmac.com
2009 Halloween Class Video
Oct 30, 2009via youtube.com
That's one of too few teachers that really puts a lot of effort into making learning fun.
Small causes
Oct 13, 2009-
- Image via Wikipedia
Like every self-respecting Mac user, I upgraded to Snow Leopard as soon as Amazon could deliver the package. Since then, I'd been having the worst WiFi experience of my life.
Every few minutes, the Macbook got disconnected from my home network and would reconnect after about 30-60 seconds. Of course that put an end to successful Timemachine backups to the NAS and to fulfilling evenings in the World of Warcraft. But most annoying were the little problems:
- iChat dis- and reconnecting regularly.
- Music played over Airfoil to the Airport Express in the bedroom breaking up every few seconds.
- Marco Polo telling me that there's no evidence of a home network and therefore switching to mobile operation; just to switch back a bit later.
Marco Polo is an utility that checks some predefined rules to determine my working environment and changes system settings accordingly. For example, if a certain monitor is attached or if a certain WiFi SSID is visible, Marco Polo would change the default printer and deactivate the screen saver password.
Everything pointed to Snow Leopard as the cause of my problems. After all, the problems started with the upgrade and the computers running Leopard still had fine WiFi reception. On Google, I found a few other people having similar problems, but there was no indication of a serious bug.
I played with the WiFi settings of my router. No success.
I adjusted the router's antennas and removed devices that could jam the signal. No success.
I purchased an Apple Airport Extreme base station, replacing the WiFi part of my router. No success.
Finally, last sunday, I was working on the Macbook when I noticed that WiFi was working okay for quite a while for a change! But there were some applications that hadn't been started at login time. And as soon as I manually started Marco Polo, the WiFi dropouts started again.
WHAT? THE? FUCK?
Yes, not running Marco Polo any more solved my WiFi problems! Connection to the base station: great. Music transmission to the bedroom: back to normal. WoW performance: fine.
My explanation, purely speculative: When Snow Leopard came out, people found out that Marco Polo's WiFi network detection didn't work any more. But soon, one user put out a patched version that closed that gap. And it looks like that patch somehow disturbs the WiFi driver, causing the dropouts.
Weeks of anger and despair could have been avoided just by quitting a simple application. Into this blog post I put my hope to save another desperate Snow Leopard user's money and mental health.
Stufen
Oct 9, 2009Wie jede Blüte welkt
und jede Jugend dem Alter weicht,
blüht jede Lebensstufe,
blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend
zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern.
Es muss das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe
bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne,
um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern
in and're, neue Bindungen zu geben.
Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
der uns beschützt und der uns hilft zu leben.
Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten,
an keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen,
der Weltgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen,
er will uns Stuf' um Stufe heben, weiten!
Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise
und traulich eingewohnt,
so droht Erschlaffen!
Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise,
mag lähmender Gewohnheit sich entraffen.
Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde
uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden:
des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden.
Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde!
(H. Hesse)
Sources for presentation images
Aug 24, 2009Recently, I gave a talk about "Effective Presentations", giving a short overview how to prepare and hold presentations that offer a concrete gain to the audience.
I mentioned Presentation Zen and slide:ology, my favourite books about transferring insight via presentations, and how they advocate replacing bullet-pointed text by images.
Just in time, Smashing Magazine posted an article about sources for presentation images, so I'll simply spread the link to my participants.
Kompendium zum Internetrecht aktualisiert
Aug 17, 2009Der Münsteraner Jura-Professor Thomas Hoeren hat erneut eine aktualisierte Fassung des Skripts Internetrecht vorgelegt. Integriert wurden die zahlreichen Gesetzesvorhaben der laufenden Legislaturperiode, zum Beispiel die Novellierungen zum Bundesdatenschutzgesetz und das Zugangserschwerungsgesetz. Die neue Ausgabe liegt auf der Website des Instituts für Informations-, Telekommunikations- und Medienrecht der Universität Münster als PDF-Datei zum Download bereit.
via heise.de
Animating architecture
Aug 17, 2009This is a joke, right?
Aug 17, 2009
MacZOT has found a new business model: ripping off inattentive users.
Orwell was an optimist
Aug 4, 2009The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.
They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
via express.co.uk
Twitter: "Vielen fehlt die Medienkompetenz"
Aug 2, 2009Dennoch halten sich die deutschen Unternehmen zurück. "Vielen fehlt die Medienkompetenz für diesen neuen Kanal, deswegen ist eine gewisse Unsicherheit zu spüren", erklärt Ulrike Röttger, Professorin für Public Relations an der Universität Münster.
Das 1×1 für Führungskräfte und Manager
Aug 1, 2009Die wahre Kunst des Führens liegt darin seinen Mitarbeitern und Kollegen Führungswissen und “Werkzeuge” zur Verfügung zu stellen, welche ihnen dabei helfen, sich Gedanken darüber zu machen, wie man die Angestellten führen kann, anstatt sie zu treiben.
via hafawo.at
Grundlagenwissen, aber noch lange nicht selbstverständlich...
Video-Einladung zum Webinar "Getting Things Done"
Aug 1, 2009via youtube.com
Webinar-Homepage: http://www.freistil-consulting.de/webinar/getting-things-done
Freistil-Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freistil
Die gute Tat der Piraten
Jul 29, 2009Kulturpiraten, argumentiert der Musikjournalist Matt Mason in seinem gratis im Netz veröffentlichten Buch „The Pirate’s Dilemma“, sind nicht der Feind. Sie erfinden neue Stile, Technologien und Geschäftsmodelle. Ohne ihre Innovationen wäre die heutige Kulturindustrie nicht denkbar.
Umgekehrt hieße das: Mit ihren Ideen wird die morgige denkbar.
via tagesspiegel.de
Internetsperren
Jul 28, 2009Internetsperren sind der Deckel auf der Bierflasche des Alkoholikers - ein unbedeutendes Hindernis auf dem Weg zum Ziel.
Another adventure of Simon's cat
Jul 26, 2009Do you poken?
Jul 22, 2009When the hype first started, my answer was "I don't think so". But last week, two coworkers sported their new gadgets and as the resident certified social network addict, I couldn't help but join the movement. Now, my Poken profile grows while the wave is rolling through the company.
37signals as an example for working in a virtual team
Jul 22, 2009At 37signals I really feel more connected and current with what is going on than in any physical workplace I’ve been a part of. It is effortless to keep up with what my co-workers are doing and how what I’m doing contributes to the whole. I’m free to keep up with projects and learn new skills as they fit my interests. We collaborate how and when it makes sense, and stay away from each other when that’s the best way to work. That makes for a really effective working environment.
via 37signals.com
I'm impressed how the team at 37signals uses web-based tools (and eats their own dog food in the process) to connect and collaborate.
I know exactly what he means by "Campfire never clicked for me despite a couple of attempts to bring it into a team workflow." I also tried to establish this chat tool at work, but experienced massive pushback twice.