Technology Resume Gaffes to Avoid
Nimish Thakkar, Computerworld
Nov 12, 2008 6:15 am

From tech-support professionals to CIOs, almost everyone is consumed by the perception that the effectiveness of the resume is somehow linked to the length of the document. A one-page resume is not going to improve your chances, nor is a 10-page document indicative of super-employee status.

Candidates, even senior-level IT executives, often use microscopic fonts, leave off important information, use 0.1-inch margins, and resort to myriad ill-advised practices -- all in an attempt to curtail resume length. Many well-meaning college counselors advise their students to be concise and limit their resume to one page. That may be important for students with little or no experience, but why subscribe to the same wisdom after rising to higher ranks?

Read more at PC World

Defending Your Machine 2

This Blog identifies some steps to take and various Internet locations and software that may be useful in protecting your computer system from "malware" and in cleaning it up if you become infected.

Read more at http://defendingyourmachine2.blogspot.com/

What Makes a Good Boss

When you're looking for work there are also key traits that you are looking for in the person you want to work for. While the expectations you have for an employer will vary a little by industry, there are certain elements that make a good boss.

A good boss....

Listens: This is a key skill in an employee, but it is also essential for an effective manager. The responsibility for office decisions is ultimately up to the boss, but a manager who can listen will base decisions on the abilities, needs and limitations of staff, resources and time frame. Also, the more you feel heard, the more you feel appreciated, something everyone deserves on the job.

Communicates: This is a continuation of listening. A good manager should not only hear what you say, but be able to tell you what they want from you in a manner that is clear and professional. A boss shouldn't be too vague in their directions, nor should they speak to you in a patronizing tone. A manager should never yell, make personal comments or use humor as a put down.

Delegates: A manager is responsible for the overall workplace or project. This can lead some to try and control every aspect of the work flow to make sure no one else "messes" things up. This, in turn, can lead to a stressful work place with an overworked boss who is resentful of staff and a workforce of people who feel unappreciated and bored. A good boss will recognize that you are the best person to do your job and will provide you with clear direction that allows you to do it without watching over your shoulder.

Empathizes: A manager may deal with a variety of staff, of all ages and in all stages of life. A good manager can acknowledge the need of the parent of three to stay home with her sick kids, while also recognizing that the single colleague shouldn't always have to stay late to compensate, or that sometimes you will miss the train and be late for work, but that someone who is late all the time causes work flow problems for the rest of the staff.

This is not the same as the boss who tries to be everyone's friend. It is a person who believes a little courtesy makes for a healthier workplace.

Supports: A good boss will recognize that employees want to better themselves and further their careers. They should not be threatened by this. Good managers will help you find professional development opportunities and allow you to take part in new projects when it is applicable to your talents, time and career goals. Within a company, a good manager will also not pass the buck down to staff members when dealing with upper management and will make sure the concerns of staff are known to the powers that be.

Instructs: Very few people like to be micro-managed, but it can be even more frustrating to be given no clear direction and end up in trouble with your boss for not meeting expectations. A good boss makes it clear what they want, and tells you promptly and professionally if you are not providing what they need. They will also be frank and fair about concerns surrounding performance, attitude and behaviour -- there should be no surprises in your performance review.

Encourages: A good boss is one who is always willing to acknowledge a job well done.

Respects: This is a big one. A lack of respect is one of the main reasons people feel unfulfilled at work. What is respect? Respect means appreciating the people who work with and for you.

Respect is not offering a shiny plaque for doing three-times your workload. Respect means sincerely trying to help employees through crunch times and acknowledging that having limitations does not mean being inferior. Respect means understanding that people have different cultural and religious holidays and traditions. It means acknowledging people have different learning styles and ways of presenting themselves.

Sees the Big Picture: Finally, a good boss should always have their eye on the final product or deadline. Staff can sense when an employer has a handle on things and when they are letting something slip. This can be stressful since it puts staff in the awkward position of possibly offending their boss by mentioning oversights, or not saying anything and jeopardizing a project.

source: http://www.poss.ca/book/print/787

http://www.allprodad.com/playbook/viewarticle.php?art=183

The Big O in happy marriages
WELL-BEING By Mylene Mendoza-Dayrit
Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The following is a common scene in a lot of households with both spouses working. Wife arrives stressed from the traffic, fetching the kids, and a boss who never appreciates her work. She drops by the kitchen to give instructions to the help regarding dinner.

The husband arrives after a very stressful board meeting. Exasperated, he sinks into the couch in front of the television, a can of cold beer in hand. He turns the TV on, zapping from news to sports channels and back. Wife sits in front of husband and starts talking about her day, giving a litany of things she had and has to do.

Husband never looks at wife, seemingly lost in what he is watching. Wife gets hurt, feels more rejected and alone. Happens all the time and before they know it, a thick wall is already built between them.

A wife who feels unloved and unappreciated, and a husband tired of what seems to be endless nagging. Love lost? Irreconcilable differences? No common interests? Grounds for divorce? Stop those thoughts, a study from UCLA on the differences between male and female responses to stress may just save your marriage, as revealed by Dr. John Gray, author of all the Mars & Venus book series, the latest of which are Why Mars & Venus Collide and Mars & Venus — Diet & Exercise Solutions, to the delegates of the Department of Tourism’s “Embracing Health & Wellness in the Heart of Asia,” held recently at Sofitel Philippine Plaza.

Read more at Philippine Star

What are the Best Tools for Removing Spyware, Adware, and Malware?

If you have been on the Internet for any length of time, you've probably ran across the topic of spyware, adware, or malware. This is software that has installed on your computer, many times without your permission, or accidentally by clicking on a popup ad, etc. The problem with these programs is they will slow your computer down, make changes to your desktop, homepage, search page, load programs into your taskbar tray and otherwise get in the way. In the worst cases, they will even transmit information from your computer to servers on the Internet. So the question becomes, if your computer is infected with these problematic programs, how do you get rid of them. In most cases, you can run a free removal program to remove these infections, in more serious cases, you may have to download a specialized removal program to free yourself of these problems.

Read more at PC Hell

From design to meaning: a whole new way of presenting?

My favorite book of the summer is Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind. A simple book in many ways, and a most profound and well-researched one as well. At 267 pages (in paperback), it's a quick read. In fact, I read it twice, the second time underlining, highlighting, and taking notes as I went along. "The future belongs to a different kind of person," Pink says. "Designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers — creative and empathetic right-brain thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't." Pink claims we're living in a different era, a different age. An age in which those who "Think different" may be valued even more than ever.

Read more at Presentation Zen

A Blog Posted by Singapore ’s Youngest Millionaire
By Adam Khoo In Money

Some of you may already know that I travel around the region pretty frequently, having to visit and conduct seminars at my offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Suzhou (China). I am in the airport almost every other week so I get to bump into many people who have attended my seminars or have read my books. Recently, someone came up to me on a plane to KL and looked rather shocked.

He asked, ‘How come a millionaire like you is travelling economy?’ My reply was, ‘That’s why I am a millionaire.’ He still looked pretty confused. This again confirms that greatest lie ever told about wealth (which I wrote about in my latest book ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires’). Many people have been brainwashed to think that millionaires have to wear Gucci, Hugo Boss, Rolex, and sit on first class in air travel. This is why so many people never become rich because the
moment that earn more money, they think that it is only natural that they spend more, putting them back to square one.

Read more at Jean's Blog

The Cause of the Crisis People Won’t Face
From the Nov/Dec 2008 Trumpet Print Edition

Experts are feverishly crunching numbers and punching out calculations to see if the economy can last. They should be analyzing something else.
By Joel Hilliker and Robert Morley

If not for speedy and sweeping government intervention, America’s economy would have tanked in September. The trouble is, their solutions—the most radical federal intercession in the economy since the New Deal—in the long run will not prevent systemic meltdown. Why? The reason is simple. These remedies are failing to address what caused the problems to begin with.

Read more at The Trumpet

What is good PowerPoint design?

Occasionally, I'm asked by colleagues or clients to send samples of "great slides" or "good PowerPoint." I usually hesitate to send examples of slides since my answer to the question, "what does a great PowerPoint slide look like?" is "...it depends." In a world which often thinks in terms of absolutes — "this is good, that is bad" — "it depends" is not the most popular answer.

Read more at Presentation Zen

A Scary Kind of Love
Why fully devoted followers can be really threatening.
by Gordon MacDonald

While hiking in Switzerland this past month, I came to a town in which one of my favorite hotels is located. It's a very Swiss hotel, not overly expensive, with a wonderful view of the mountains. I stay there at least one night every time I go to Switzerland. And last month I intended to stay there again.

But the man at the desk turned me away. "You have no reservation," he said, "and the hotel is full for the night."

I tried to coax him to find a way to let me in: "I come here every year … you've always had a room for me before … I only have this one night … this is my favorite hotel." Most New England inn keepers would have caved in to my efforts at charm, but not the man at the desk of the Swiss hotel.

When I realized his mind was made up, I was really piqued. But not so that he would have noticed. Christians, after all, act nice. But inside I felt rejected and disappointed. I really wanted to say as I went out the door, "I never liked your stupid hotel anyway. I only stay here because it's cheap." But the truth is that I did like it. Strange, the conflicted attitudes that breed like bacteria in the human heart when one feels rejected.

Read more at Christianity Today

What is "Righteous Anger"?

How can I know whether I'm feeling that or just being a hothead?

Lisa Harper

Q: What is "righteous anger"? How can I know whether I'm feeling that or just being a hothead?

A. I grew up believing anger was a "bad" emotion. So I've needed several years of Christian counseling even to admit I get angry, much less to learn I can express those feelings righteously! Thankfully, God's Word sets clear parameters for getting peeved.

What does God say about this?

The bad news for hotheads is that Scripture contains many more verses warning believers against blowing their cool than verses advocating such behavior. The writer of Proverbs connects anger with foolishness: "Fools quickly show that they are upset, but the wise ignore insults" (Proverbs 12:16, NCV). And the apostle Paul recommends letting our heavenly Father fight our battles: "My friends, do not try to punish others when they wrong you, but wait for God to punish them with his anger. It is written: 'I will punish those who do wrong; I will repay them,' says the Lord" (Romans 12:19, NCV).

Read more at Christianity Today

The Stranger

"A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family.

The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. In my young mind, each member had a special niche. My brother, Bill, five years my senior, was my example. Fran, my younger sister, gave me an opportunity to play 'big brother' and develop the art of teasing. My parents were complementary instructors -Mom taught me to love the word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales.

Read more here

The Modern 23rd Psalm

The TV is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
It maketh me to lie down on the sofa.
It leadeth me away from the scriptures.
It destroyeth my soul.

It leadeth me in the paths of immorality,
For the sponsors' sake.
Yea, though I walk in the shadow of my Christian duties,
There will be no interruptions,
For the handheld TV is with me.
Its cable or wireless controls,
They comfort me.

It prepareth a commercial before me,
In the presence of my carnality.
It anointeth my head with humanism.
My coveting runneth over.

Surely laziness and ignorance shall follow me,
All the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the house of TV forever.

-Author Unknown

Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands by Paul David Tripp
review by Tony Reinke (4/30/07)

"This is the comfort we offer people. We don't comfort them by saying that things will work out. They may not. The people around them may change, but they may not. The Bible tells us again and again that everything around us is in the process of being taken away. God and his love are all that remain as cultures and kingdoms rise and fall. Comfort is found by sinking our roots into the unseen reality of God's ever-faithful love" (p. 152).

Read more at Monergism.com

Digital Photography Tips - Lighting
By Steven Boudreau

Advances have been made so much in technology surrounding photography over the years with in introduction of digital photography. There is so much to be learn about photography, even with all of the point and shoot cameras available on the market today. Point and click cameras lead us to believe that all we have to do is pick up a camera shoot the picture and presto a work of art has been captured. Boy is that ever wrong. While these point and click cameras do offer so much in the lines of ease of use and convenience, capturing a high quality photo does require a bit more work than that.

Read more at Ezine @rticles

The Megapixel Myth
by Ken Rockwell

Introduction

For normal 4x6" (10x15cm) prints, even VGA (640 x 480 or 0.3MP) resolution is just fine. Digital cameras did this back in 1991!

In 1999 when digital cameras were only 1.2 or 2 MP, each megapixel mattered if you were making bigger prints.

Today, even the cheapest cameras have at least 5 or 6 MP, which enough for any size print. How? Simple: when you print three-feet (1m) wide, you stand further back. Print a billboard, and you stand 100 feet back. 6MP is plenty.

Sharpness depends more on your photographic skill than the number of megapixels, because most people's sloppy technique or subject motion blurs the image more than the width of a microscopic pixel.

Even when megapixels mattered, there was little visible difference between cameras with seemingly different ratings. For instance, a 3 MP camera pretty much looks the same as a 6 MP camera, even when blown up to 12 x 18" (30x50cm)! I know because I've done this. Have you? NY Times tech writer David Pogue did this here and here and saw the same thing — nothing!

Read more at kenrockwell.com

A large proportion of the readers of Digital Photography School classify themselves as beginners - so we thought it might be helpful to have a page set up that collates some of our Digital Photography Tips for Beginners.

Below is just a selection of some of our digital photography tips and tutorials aimed more at the beginner photographer. We’re always writing more beginner tips - so subscribe to DPS today to get all of our updates.

Read more at Digital Photography School

Cebuano Bible in MP3 - Free Download

The Cebuano Audio Drama New Testament is a unique presentation of the Audio Bible with approximately 180 different characters and a digitally recorded sound track with full sound effects. This language is spoken by more than 20 million people. For a list of other available languages go to our website at http://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/. (N2CEBRPV)

Read more at Cebuano Bible

Real Learning Happens at Home
By: Derek Maul

Every Sunday evening, I meet with a small group of parents. There are about twelve of us, one of several such groups for parents of teens that gather every week at my church. We spend a little more than two hours together; listening, sharing stories, learning, and praying for one another. Recently I asked them where they had learned the most, growing up. The answers were varied, and included The Dining Room Table, The Kitchen, Wherever My Dad Was, The Front Stoop, and Sunday Afternoons. Nobody, interestingly, mentioned school.

Even with perfect attendance, the average Middle School student spends less that fifteen percent of a given year at school. The rest of the time, a whopping eighty-five percent of the year, is time elsewhere, under the supervision of their home.

Read more at All Pro Dad

The Attack of the Big Phish
Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:52AM EDT
Gina Hughes: The Techie Diva

Are you familiar with phishing scams? I get several in my inbox every day, and I bet you do too.

Phishing is a one of the fastest-growing cybercrimes, according to the FBI, and one that costs consumers millions of dollars each year. These scams have one purpose: to get as much personal information from a user as possible. This includes login information, Social Security numbers, date of birth, and other identifiable information that can help scammers open up bogus accounts under your name or steal from your existing ones.

You can identify a phishing scam by its urgent tone asking you to immediately update your account. There are many other telltale signs, which I'll cover later, but the smartest thing you can do is to resist the temptation of opening this dangerous email and instead delete the bait immediately.

Read more at the Yahoo Tech Blog

The Use Of Images In Worship
Is It Biblical
by Ernesto Florendo

Introduction

One of the issues that have divided Catholics and Protestants concerns the use of images in worship, termed in Catholic circles as the veneration of images. To Protestants, this is plain and simple idolatry which is condemned by God in Scripture, notably by the second item of the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, teaches that such veneration is part of a new economy of images that is now permitted by God in view of the truth of the Incarnation of Christ. According to Catholic theology, icons of Christ (as well as of Mary, the angels, and all the Saints) do not violate the intent of the first commandment.

A Question of Numbers

The reader might have noticed that Catholics and Protestants number the ten items of the Decalogue differently. To Catholics, Exodus 20:4-6 is part of the first commandment and is basically an expansion of its meaning. To complete the ten commandments, Exodus 20:17 is split into two: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house." [IX] and "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." [X] In contrast, Protestants have traditionally understood Exodus 20: 4-6 as the second commandment and the prohibition of covetousness as the tenth commandment. There is no need to discuss the merits of either approach here, except to mention that in Catholic summaries of the Decalogue, Exodus 20:4-6 very often is missing.

In this article, I employ the traditional Protestant method of numbering the Ten Commandments. Having made this clarification, let us now look at the first two commandments.

Read more at Scripture Thoughts for Christian Thinkers

VirtualDub vs. Avidemux - Comparison and Review - Full Text
Posted on Tuesday, January 30 @ 13:45:55 MST by Kurt


In addition to writing open source software, I use a lot of it. Even just using the software is a form of contribution, which is why when I go looking for programs to fulfill a specific need, I will even take a hit on usability in order to be able to use open source. This is why I am going to start writing reviews for different open source software projects. For my debut, I am venturing into the realm of digital video processing.

This review will attempt to compare two excellent open source video editing products. Anyone who has transcoded a video in Windows has heard of, and probably used Avery Lee's ubiquitous Virtualdub. Less well known in the Windows circuit is the Avidemux project. This is because it comes to us as a port from Linux. It has recently come on my radar, and I've been giving it a go fot the last few weeks. Read on for my impressions of both products, and a comparison between them.


Introduction

Being a fan of watching videos on my PC, I've have also had to become a fan of transcoding them. Whether it's an AVI video I want to play for the whole family on a DVD player, or it's something I want to trim down to play on my Pocket PC, I've always had a need to move videos between formats. And let's not forget the ever popular video you download where whomever encoded it got the aspect ratio completely wonky.

I will say at the outset, that I am not a power video editor. My need for this software is pretty much that of transcoding between formats, with perhaps some cropping, deinterlacing, and other filters thrown in for good measure. Thus, some of VirtualDub's and Avidemux's (perhaps best) features are not being covered here.

Read more at Excelsia.org

Enhance your wife’s beauty
All Pro Dad

Author Jack Hayford writes, “I can always tell when a woman is loved by her husband because she gets more beautiful as she ages.” I would concur. Your wife has five love languages which, if spoken to, will make her radiate. They are: words of praise, receiving gifts, physical touch, helping with chores, and spending time with you.

That’s a lot to work on all at once, so to get started, just choose the one you think your wife would appreciate most, and make it your duty to enhance your wife’s beauty.

Where did the human races come from?

According to the Bible, all humans on earth today are descended from Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives, and before that from Adam and Eve (Genesis 1-11). But today we have many different groups, often called "races," with what seem to be greatly differing features. The most obvious of these is skin color. Many see this as a reason to doubt the Bible's record of history. They believe that the various groups could have arisen only by evolving separately over tens of thousands of years. However, as we shall see, this does not follow from the biological evidence.

The Bible tells us how the population that descended from Noah's family had one language and by living in one place were disobeying God's command to "fill the earth" (Genesis 9:1, 11:4). God confused their language, causing a break-up of the population into smaller groups which scattered over the earth (Genesis 11:8-9). Modern genetics show how, following such a break-up of a population, variations in skin color, for example, can develop in only a few generations. There is good evidence that the various people groups we have today have not been separated for huge periods of time.¹

Read more at ChristianAnswers.net

What Do We Mean by Sola Scriptura?

by Dr. W. Robert Godfrey

There are two main issues that divide Protestant Catholics from Roman Catholics. Both groups claim to be catholic, that is, part of the apostolic, universal church of Jesus Christ. Roman Catholics believe we Protestants departed from that church in the sixteenth century. Protestant Catholics believe they departed earlier.

The theme of this opening chapter is one of the issues that still divides us: the source of religious truth for the people of God. (The other main issue, that of how a man is made right with God, has been dealt with in the book Justification by Faith ALONE!, published by Soli Deo Gloria in 1995.) As Protestants we maintain that the Scripture alone is our authority. Our Roman opponents maintain that the Scripture by itself is insufficient as the authority of the people of God, and that tradition and the teaching authority of the church must be added to the Scripture.

This is a solemn topic. This is no time for games. We must be searching for the truth. God has declared that whoever adds to or takes away from His Word is subject to His curse. The Roman church has declared that we Protestants are accursed (“anathematized”) for taking away the Word of God as found in tradition. We Protestants have declared that the Roman church is a false church for adding human traditions to the Word of God. Despite sincere debates by fine apologists over the course of nearly 500 years, the differences remain basically as they were in the sixteenth century. I will not say much new here, but we must continue to pursue the truth.

In spite of the difficulty of this undertaking, I am eager to join that historic train of Protestant apologists to defend the doctrine that the Scripture alone is our ultimate religious authority. I believe that it can be shown that this position is the clear position of Scripture itself. And I hope that, by the grace of God, those committed to the Roman doctrine of tradition will come to see the tragic error of denigrating the sufficiency and perspicuity of God’s own inspired Word.

Read more at The Highway

Five things you should know before hooking up your wireless network

Let's face it, wireless networking is everywhere and, in most cases, it is insecure and out of control. To the average household user, they assume that it should always "just work" and just "be secure". To IT Pros like you and I, we know that while wireless networking has become a fact of life, it will always be a source of concern. So, the next time your boss asks you to put up a new wireless network, I hope that you will take pause and consider the 5 things you will learn about wireless in this article.

Read more at Petri IT Knowledgebase

Music and Sound Effects in Horror Films
by John Hübinette

Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of films in general (and horror films in particular), is the soundscape. It is quite easy to forget that the fear factor of almost any horror film would decrease dramatically (if not completely vanish) if the auditory features were removed or altered to something not befitting a horror film. This might sound a huge exaggeration, but it is most definitely not. All you have to do is turn down the volume on your TV during a dramatic scene in a horror film to realize the enormously important role that well-composed music and striking sound effects play in creating a complete and truly frightening horror film experience.

I have a great interest in sound and music. Composing has been one of my hobbies for several years now and I have recorded sound effects and composed music for non-commercial computer games. In this essay I will focus on describing the structure, purpose and style of horror film music and sound effects.

Read more at Monsters - Who, What and How

Reports: You should have no trouble finding IT work
Posted by Deb Perelman @ 9:44 am

The employment situation in the U.S. may be shaky right now, but techies are on stable ground, find two new reports.

Though the national unemployment rate was 5.5 percent last month, the NACCB (National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses), a trade association representing IT staffing firms and solution-providers, reported this week that U.S. IT employment was at an all-time high in June, or 3,907,800 strong.

Culled from Bureau of Labor Statistics listings of IT-related jobs, the NACCB found that U.S. businesses have added almost 90,000 techies to their payrolls in 2008–while the national workforce lost 438,000 jobs. Coming off a lackluster 2006 and 2007, NACCB CEO Mark Roberts praised the “continued resilience of IT employment.”

Read more at ZDNet Careers

Win the ‘Battle of the Bulge’

By Kendrick Go

Since time immemorial, women have been engaged in the “Battle of the Bulge,” the quest for that perfect trim figure has led women to try out all sorts of ways to shed those excess pounds. Methods like taking diet pills, starving themselves with diets, tiring themselves out in the gym and just going under the knife, women have been obsessing for a way to slim down.

Unfortunately, most of these methods are either boring (working out lifting all those weights), expensive (liposuction, thermage) or just downright dangerous (diet pills and extreme diets). So one would think, why bother slimming down, right? But in a society that prizes beauty and physical perfection, looking good is not only a nice thing. It is a necessity.

That is why those who would like to lose weight in a safe, interesting and enjoyable way should try dodgeball.

Read more at Manilatimes.net

Poll: Family Ties Key to Youth Happiness

AP/MTV Poll: Happiness for America's Young People Often Means Family Ties, Faith, Belonging

By JOCELYN NOVECK

The Associated Press

NEW YORK

So you're between the ages of 13 and 24. What makes you happy? A worried, weary parent might imagine the answer to sound something like this: Sex, drugs, a little rock 'n' roll. Maybe some cash, or at least the car keys. Turns out the real answer is quite different. Spending time with family was the top answer to that open-ended question, according to an extensive survey more than 100 questions asked of 1,280 people ages 13-24 conducted by The Associated Press and MTV on the nature of happiness among America's young people.

Read more at All Pro Dad

A taste of Ultimate Frisbee
INQUIRER.net 05/20/08
Posted under Sport, Ultimate Frisbee, Videos By Erika Tapalla


I HAVE to admit, for the longest time, the first image that usually enters my head whenever I see a Frisbee would be a topless stud flicking the disc to his beautiful golden retriever named Lassie, trained to, yes, “retrieve” that disc for a rewarding rub on the head on a warm day out in the park. But recently, I realized that image was completely off for two reasons. One: the Frisbee, or “disc” as they call it, isn’t just for the Lassies and their masters. And two: It actually takes skill to catch those plastic discs as they soar and trick you as to which direction they’re actually headed. Believe it or not, it’s not as charming as it looks. I should know.

Read more at Inquire.net Blogs

It takes a village…
MOMMY TALK By Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

When I was growing up, my mother taught me how to differentiate people by observing them during times of trial and victory in life. She said that it is during those times that I will be able to determine their genuine character. I know she’s right because as I have observed, difficult times allow a person to strive and overcome his hurdles in life by either losing control of himself or gathering his composure and striving hard to surmount his difficulties. In times of victory, a person may either turn out to be self-centered, which can be self-destructive, or thankful for his blessings that he then pursues to help others as he climbs up the ladder of success.

Read more at Philstar.com Mommy Talk

Thinking Biblically About... Abortion
by J. David Hoke

In 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States legalized abortion. Since that time, more than thirty million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out. This is sixteen times the total number of Americans lost in all of our nation’s wars combined. Every day, more than 5,000 unborn lives are aborted in their mother’s wombs.

Today, abortion is legal in all 50 states right up until the time of birth. As we speak, the "Freedom of Choice Act" is now before Congress, which if passed would permit no limits on the killing of unborn babies.

To say that abortion is a controversy is a gross understatement. That people are polarized with this issue is painfully evident. The abortion war has finally begun to live up to its name, sadly, but predictably escalating from hostile words to violent actions. In this year alone, we have seen two abortion doctors shot — one killed. Others are regularly hauled off to jail as they protest in front of clinics. It divides our country.

What can we do? What should we do? With all the rhetoric and slogans surrounding us, what are we to think? Is abortion a moral issue, or just a matter of personal preference? Are there any real answers, or is the issue so confusing that we ought to simply ignore it?

Abortion is certainly one issue about which we need to think biblically. If we do not, we will easily fall prey to the convoluted thinking of our society. Society, however, is not God and has a rather poor record attempting to function in that role. There is no doubt that there are many in society who would like to make their will supreme. If we would preserve truth, we must not let them. We must declare truth based upon God’s Word. Frances Shaeffer said, "If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute." Unless we boldly speak the truth based upon God’s Word, we will be guilty of giving aid to society in its endeavor to become the supreme arbiter of truth.

Read more at Sermons by J. David Hoke

Sola Scriptura

Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church and father of the Protestant Reformation, was publicly rebuking the Catholic Church for its unbiblical teachings. The Catholic Church threatened Martin Luther with excommunication (and death) if he did not recant. Martin Luther's reply was, "Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning, - unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, - and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the Word of God, I cannot and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other; may God help me! Amen!"

Read more at gotQuestions.org

The World’s Easiest Guide To Understanding Retirement Accounts
by Ramit Sethi

I want to be clear about something: I’m sincerely interested in doing less and less work as I go through my life. That’s why I’m always puzzled when I meet people on a career path that will have them working more, not less. That’s like being a real-life Mario Brother, where every progressive level you beat means your life gets harder. Why would you do it?

This is why retirement accounts are one of the best investment tools I’ll write about on this site. I’ll go into the details in a minute, but first let’s dispense with some of the reasons that most of us haven’t done anything about our retirement accounts yet:

• “Retirement is too far away”
• “I don’t have any extra money to save right now”
• “I don’t have time right now
• ” ” (haven’t thought about it at all)

Read more at I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome
The Abandonment of Sola Scriptura as a Formal Principle
By Bob DeWaay

The February 2008 edition of Christianity Today ran a cover story about evangelicals looking to the ancient Roman Catholic Church in order to find beliefs and practices.¹ What was shocking about the article was that both the author of the article and the senior managing editor of CT claim that this trip back to Rome is a good thing. Says Mark Galli the editor, “While the ancient church has captivated the evangelical imagination for some time, it hasn’t been until recently that it’s become an accepted fixture of the evangelical landscape. And this is for the good.”² Chris Armstrong, the author of the article who promotes the trip back to the ancient church, claims that because the movement is led by such persons as “Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and living and practicing monks and nuns,” that therefore, “they are receiving good guidance on this road from wise teachers.” This he claims shows that, “Christ is guiding the process.”³

Read more at Critical Issues Commentary

Here’s how I set up my financial accounts
by Ramit Sethi

Ok today I’m going to break down how I’ve structured my bank accounts. If only that sounded cooler. Anyway, I have 3 main accounts:

Read more at I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Cook at home, you lazy bastard
by Ramit Sethi

Every time I do a summer internship, I lose my mind and start eating out every day. Then about halfway through the summer, I realize I have no money saved up, only fond memories of that taco truck down the street.


Read more at I Will Teach You To Be Rich

The fool sees only foolishness in God's wisdom

"He who trusts in his own heart is a fool...." Proverbs 28:26

"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness'; and again, 'The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.'" 1 Corinthians 3:19-20

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools..." Romans 1:20-22

Read more at Kjos Ministries

Pharaoh's chariots found in Red Sea?
'Physical evidence' of ancient Exodus prompting new look at Old Testament
By Joe Kovacs
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com

One of the most famous stories of the Bible is God's parting of the Red Sea to save the Israelites from the Egyptian army and the subsequent drowning of soldiers and horses in hot pursuit.

But is there evidence that such an event did in fact happen – and if so, precisely where did it take place?

The issue is surfacing some 3,500 years after the event is said to have taken place with reports of Egyptian chariot wheels found in the Red Sea, photographs to document it and new books by scientists that could lead to a whole remapping of the Exodus route and a fresh look at ancient biblical accounts.

Read more at World Net Daily

Help for Workaholics
By: Robert Shannon

Are You At Risk for Workaholism?

When I was assigned the topic of workaholism for this column, I knew immediately who to turn to. My close friend just happens to be a successful senior executive for a Bay Area consulting firm. He's also a consummate workaholic and one of the savviest professionals I know.

"It's how you get ahead that matters," he says. "Working late, putting in the extra time, getting things done, making a difference. It's the quickest way to the top."

For this story, he prefers to remain anonymous. Let's call him "Steve". Despite all Steve's career and financial success, I wouldn't trade places with him. To me, the cost of all that achievement is too high, and the work/life balance is-to put it mildly-out of whack.

Read more at All Pro Dad

75 Skills Every Men Should Be Able to Do
Written By Tom Chiarella

A man can be expert in nothing, but he must be practiced in many things. Skills. You don’t have to master them all at once. You simply have to collect and develop a certain number of skills as the years tick by. People count on you to come through. That’s why you need these, to start.

Read more at bspcn.com

16 awesome image editing tools

Written by Aviary

One of the most fantastic things about building a suite of tools around a community, instead of the other way around, is that users are always willing to pitch in and help out others with tutorials and forum assistance. It’s our plan to build our applications with a very deep set of community tools, built around forums, wiki-documentation, chat, user-made tutorials and sharable workspaces.

Aviary super star Meowza has already begun paving the way with more than a dozen “photo-phixing” tutorials for other users of Phoenix. Got a specific question on how to make a technique in Phoenix? Ask and ye shall receive.

Read more at bscpn.com

Marital Interaction
By: Ken Canfield

One of the best things a father can do for his kids is love their mother and build a strong marriage. The effort you put into your marriage is worth it to your children.

Read more at All Pro Dad

Say goodbye to business analysts
By Michael H. Hugos • Published: Tuesday, 13 May 2008

As the pace of change accelerates, business people want more than analysis; they want workable solutions to their problems.

Is there a place for business analysts in IT today? Not if their primary function is just to analyze business needs. As the pace of change accelerates, business people want more than analysis; they want workable solutions to their problems.

Analysis is only part of the job that needs to be done. It can clarify situations and trends, identify problems and make recommendations. But most analysis serves only to educate the business analyst. Business people who live with the situations being analyzed already know 98% of what the analysis will tell them.

Read more at MIS Asia

Strongest Dad In The World
Article was originally written by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a Wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and Pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back Mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes Taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick Was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him Brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him And his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an Institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes Followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was Anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a Lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed Him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his Head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the School organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want To do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran More than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he Tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore For two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly Shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a Single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few Years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then They found a way to get into the race Officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the Qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he Was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick Tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud Getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you Think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with A cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best Time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world Record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to Be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the Time.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a Mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries Was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' One doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

More links to the video and Sport Illustrated page and the Team Hoyt website

Life After the IT Department
By Deb Perelman

If you didn't work in IT, where would you go? What could you do?

Though IT employment is at an all-time high in the U.S.--some 3.8 million employed residents in the U.S. consider themselves IT professionals according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, a record high--and is expected to climb even higher--computer and mathematical sciences jobs expected to grow faster than any other professional occupation through 2016, nearly a 25 percent increase--there are those that work in the field that no longer think it's all it's cracked up to be.

Read more at eWeek Careers

Budget Cutting

What do you do if the government's Expected Family Contribution is just too high or you can't manage the unmet need in your financial aid package? This page provides a few tips on finding the necessary resources.

Read more at Fin Aid

Dump the insurance on your car

Don't squander money on full coverage for an older car. Instead, consider dropping everything but liability insurance and using the savings for your next auto purchase.

If you're paying for collision and comprehensive insurance coverage on an older car, you're probably wasting your money.

Yet many people I talk to are reluctant to drop this coverage, which pays for:

• The damage you do to your own vehicle when you cause an accident.
• The loss you suffer when your car is stolen or damaged by something other than a crash (such as a falling tree squashing it flat).

Collision and comprehensive coverage are two of the three major components of car insurance. The third is liability coverage, which pays for the damage you do to other vehicles and people.

Read more at MSN Money

Auto Insurance - When Should You Drop Collision and Comprehensive Coverage?

Lenders require car owners to carry collision and comprehensive insurance coverage on their vehicles as long as there is a lien against them (meaning, while they are being paid off). Then, once the vehicle is paid for, it is usually up to the insured to choose whether or not to carry the extra insurance. I’m blogging about this because our Buick will be paid off in June, which means there will no longer be a lien against it and we will be free to drop our comprehensive coverage and collision insurance.

Read more at All Finance Matters

50 ways to trim your budget

You don't have to give up the things you love to save money. You just have to be willing to look hard. Start with your fixed expenses, then review your discretionary costs.

Lou knows his family is in a vicious cycle with credit cards. He's just not sure how to get out.

Bills and credit card payments eat up most of the Mansfield, Ohio, family's income, leaving them little left over to pay for groceries and other basics. So they wind up charging more.

"My family has about $12,000 in debt to credit card companies," Lou wrote in an e-mail. "We want to stop using these cards and get this fixed. But we are 'bridging the gap' with credit."

Like many families, Lou's clan already has trimmed some of the obvious expenses, such as eating in restaurants. But really getting your budget in line may require rethinking just about everything on which you spend money.

Read more at MSN Money

Easy Savings Tips

The following savings strategies provide advice on how to make it easier to save. You may also find the investment strategies helpful in this regard.

How to Make It Easier to Save

1. Save early and often. Start saving the day the baby is born, if not earlier, and save as often as you can. The sooner you start, the more you can take advantage of compounding to watch your savings grow. It will also help you get into the habit of saving.

2. Save as much as you can. If you don't think you can afford to save, start small. You will find that you will adjust your spending habits, and can gradually increase the amount you save. Don't worry too much about starting small, since the compounding of interest over time will help your savings grow. The first step is to get into the habit of saving.

3. Save regularly. Rather than save money at random intervals, try to save a little every month. The more frequently you can save the better, but at the very least save once a year. If you can save with the same frequency as you receive your paycheck, you will find it easier to get into the habit of saving.

Read more at All Pro Dad

Adobe Photoshop Tip: The Lord of the Rings Tutorial

In the land of MacMerc, in the fires of Mount Dude, the Dark Lord RickMacMerc forged in secret a master Ring tutorial, to control all others. And into this Ring tutorial he poured his custom shape, his layer effects and his methods to bring the Ring to life. "One Ring Tutorial to rule them all." The Tutorial stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and you will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the user is true.

Read more at MacMerc

Using social networking safely: tips from security pros
By Katherine Walsh • Published: Tuesday, 6 May 2008

Despite the well-publicized security and privacy risks of social networking, it's possible to reap the benefits of social networking and stay safe at the same time.

Howard Schmidt was reluctant to hop on the social networking bandwagon--a byproduct, he says, of the paranoia he internalizes a security professional. Eventually, though, Schmidt--the one-time cybersecurity adviser to President Bush and itinerant CISO turned consultant--decided the positives outweighed the negatives. He joined not just one social network but three: Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

"My response to those in the security business lamenting the existence of Facebook and MySpace is to ask them if they've ever been on it," says Schmidt.

Read more at MIS Asia

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

There are a lot of great freeware products out there. Many are as good as or better than their commercial alternatives. This list features our pick of the "best of the best."

Almost all the utilities in this list have featured in past issues of the free monthly newsletter "Support Alert" More freebies are published in each new issue. If you are interested in great utilities and freeware you really should consider subscribing. It's free.

This list is currently being upgraded to a community-based list with different sections of the list maintained and updated by volunteer editors.

Listed below are 46 different freeware categories with our selections of the best products in each category. The list is ordered by program function rather than merit so you'll get the most out of it by browsing down this page at leisure. The pathologically impatient can consult the index below.

Read more at Tech Support Alert

The extend list can be found here

Selective Boycott of Shell and Caltex

I got an email encourage me to boycott Shell and Caltex and buy Petron. This will supposedly force the price of gasoline to go down to P20 or P30 according to the latest email I got. (Wow, this paragraph is original content :-) I don't want to reproduce that chain email here, but I do want to post a few responses that I got from the Internet validating my suspicion that the email is a hoax. Here they are:

Selective boycott of oil firms will work only if...
By Federico D. Pascual Jr.

BOYCOTT FAILS: What ever happened to the idea broached by disgruntled motorists to boycott Shell and Caltex and buy fuel only from Petron or the small players to force the foreign oil giants losing sales to lower their prices and thereby foment a price war? I have asked around and I want to report that, for whatever reasons, the idea apparently has not caught on. Why would it work when most people are not even aware of the action plan? The boycott proponents were mostly campaigning by email in the Internet. And how many motorists have email and Internet?

Read more at ManilaMail.com

The folly of forcing a price war on oil
by Bong Austero

The e-mail that’s currently clogging up networks is yet another hoax entitled Gas Out. It’s a pseudo campaign with a noble objective—to lower prices of oil by forcing a price war with the two major oil companies in the country. It is an e-mail that seems to be generating steam. Friends in the industry have asked me to comment on it since they have noted that many people seem to think that it would work.

It’s one of those pseudo campaigns with a huge potential to hook people in simply because it perpetuates the truism that many people continue to hold sacrosanct: When people come together in unity, nothing is impossible, even slaying a corporate giant. In this particular case, oil companies. Very few are able to resist the temptation to join something so seemingly righteous.

Read more at Manila Standard Today

On boycotts and lower gas prices
posted by Sacha Chua

I received a forwarded e-mail exhorting Filipinos to boycott Shell and Caltex in order to force the two companies to lower their gas prices, and thus affect gas prices everywhere.

Something about that approach strikes me as wrong.

First, it ignores the law of supply and demand. If all the faithful boycotters get their gas from independent gasoline stations (of which there aren't that many, especially along the highways), what's to prevent those gas stations from raising _their_ prices?

Second, it feels like a solution from the wrong side of consumerism. Let me quote a segment from the e-mail:

Read more at Sacha Chua's Wordpress blog

Quick Ways to Trim Your Budget

Looking for some quick and easy ideas on how to trim those extra expenses from your budget? Here are some tips from financial advisor Larry Burkett:

Save on utilities:

Keep the faucet turned off as much as possible while brushing your teeth or washing dishes. Run the dishwasher only when full. Keep the refrigerator turned down to the lower settings. Turn your water heater down. Instead of keeping your thermostat at extreme temperatures, keep your heater or air conditioning at practical levels, then dress accordingly. (Most utility companies recommend keeping your heater below or at 70 degrees and your air at or above 75 degrees in order to save money.) Turn the lights and TV off in rooms when not in use.

More at AllProDad.com

Gutsy Guilt

Don’t let shame over sexual sin destroy you.

John Piper | posted 10/19/2007 08:27AM

The closest I have ever come in 26 years to being fired from my position as a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church was in the mid-1980s, when I wrote an article for our church newsletter titled "Missions and Masturbation." I wrote the article after returning from a missions conference in Washington, D.C., with George Verwer, the head of Operation Mobilization.

Verwer's burden at that conference was the tragic number of young people who at one point in their lives dreamed of radical obedience to Jesus, but then faded away into useless American prosperity. A gnawing sense of guilt and unworthiness over sexual failure gradually gave way to spiritual powerlessness and the dead-end dream of middle-class security and comfort.

In other words, what seemed so tragic to George Verwer—as it does to me—is that so many young people are being lost to the cause of Christ's mission because they are not taught how to deal with the guilt of sexual failure. The problem is not just how not to fail. The problem is how to deal with failure so that it doesn't sweep away your whole life into wasted mediocrity with no impact for Christ.

More at christianitytoday.com…

Why Kids Tattle and What To Do About It
By: Elaine M. Gibson

When we bring an adult perspective to this process of tattling, or telling on someone, we fail to understand what is going on for the tattler. As adults, we aren’t sure what to do about tattling and we convey our ambiguity to our children.

On one hand, we USE the information the child gives us to correct another child’s behavior or prevent damage to people and property.

But on the other hand, we tell the tattler that tattling is wrong. ‘Don’t be a tattletale.’

Children can’t cope with such double messages.

More at All Pro Dad …

All That’s Good in Sports

The NBA is as good a place as any for working out one’s salvation.

A Christianity Today editorial | posted 9/04/2007 08:51AM

July was, without question, the worst month in recent memory for professional sports. Each one of America’s big three got its own black eye.

• Barry Bonds pursued baseball’s most hallowed record, the career home run mark, amid suspicions of steroid abuse—and a pesky perjury investigation.
• Michael Vick, the NFL’s second-highest-paid player, was arraigned in federal court on charges of illegal dog fighting.
• And, most damaging, Tim Donaghy, an NBA referee, was accused by the FBI of betting on games in which he’d participated—the cardinal sin in all sports.

Overshadowed by these negative headlines was a noble decision made by Utah Jazz guard Derek Fisher: He asked to leave his team.

More at chistianitytoday.com…

Toyota Headlamp Wiring

I found this site when searching for help for my Toyota Tamaraw FX headlamp wiring kit. I got a standard wiring kit so that I could put in higher wattage bulbs. But Toyota apparently wires their headlamps in a weird way. When I switch to high beams using the auxillary wiring, BOTH low and high beams come on, and the high beam indicator on the dashboard does not.

Here’s the site -> http://www.4crawler.com/4×4/CheapTricks/Headlights.shtml

Many thanks to the author for sharing. Haven’t tried it though, but will do as soon as I find the time. :-)

Here’s another site with car wiring diagrams:

http://pdftown.com/Toyota-Supra-1995-Wiring-Diagram.html

10 Ways to Communicate More Effectively with Customers and Co-Workers

We all know what happened to the Titanic. Clearer communications could have prevented the tragedy and the loss of more than 1,500 lives. Communications plays just as important a role in your careers. When asked to name the top three skills they believed their subordinates need, 70 percent of the readers of CIO magazine listed communications as one of them.

Here are some tips on how you can communicate more effectively with people at work, be they customers, co-workers, subordinates, or superiors.

More at techrepublic.com…

The Forbidden City of Terry Gou

His complex in China turns out iPhones and PCs, powering the biggest exporter you've never heard of

By JASON DEAN
August 11, 2007

Shenzhen, China

Past a guarded gate on the outskirts of this city sits one of the world's largest factories. In dozens of squat buildings, it churns out gadgets bearing technology's household names -- Apple Inc.'s iPods and iPhones, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s personal computers, Motorola Inc. mobile phones and Nintendo Co. Wii videogame consoles. Few people outside of the industry know of the plant's owner: Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. With a work force of some 270,000 -- about as big as the population of Newark, N.J. -- the factory is a bustling testament to the ambition of Hon Hai's founder, Terry Gou. In an era when manufacturing has been defined by outsourcing, no one has done more to shift global electronics production to China. Little noticed by the wider world, Mr. Gou has turned his company into China's biggest exporter and the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics. Hon Hai's revenue has grown more than 50% a year in the past decade to $40.6 billion last year. It is expected to add $14 billion in revenue this year. That is roughly the equivalent of Motorola's adding, within a year, the sales of CBS Corp.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal

How to prolong lithium-based batteries (BU34)

Battery research is focusing heavily on lithium chemistries, so much so that one could presume that all portable devices will be powered with lithium-ion batteries in the future. In many ways, lithium-ion is superior to nickel and lead-based chemistries and the applications for lithium-ion batteries are growing as a result.

Lithium-ion has not yet fully matured and is being improved continuously. New metal and chemical combinations are being tried every six months to increase energy density and prolong service life. The improvements in longevity after each change will not be known for a few years.

A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges.

Read more at batteryuniversity.com

What Would Lance Armstrong Do?

August 1st, 2007 @ 10:49 am

Managers can line their shelves with books on collaboration and not get as much actionable information on teamwork as they would from watching one week of competitive cycling’s annual gauntlet of pain, Le Tour de France.

Football, baseball and basketball have always been fertile ground for team-building chestnuts - but none of those pursuits hold a laser pointer to the Tour, one of the most striking displays of teamwork in all of sports. Here are just a few of the ways that the almost two-dozen nine-man teams that compete in the twenty-day July race are an exemplar of collaboration.

Read more at the BNET Business Network

Forget What You Learned in Grade School: Five Teamwork Myths

August 1st, 2007 @ 9:00 am

Since we were all knee-high to a whiteboard, we’ve been told that we need to work well as part of a team, that the team trumps the individual, that every leader is only as good as his team. Team team team team team. Who didn’t ride the pine in Little League so everyone could get a few minutes of playing time?

But now that we’re adults, cynics — many of us full-blown skeptics — can we really believe that this idea of team is the holy grail of productivity and success? Anyone whose days are spent trying to squeeze in work between all of their meetings can tell you that team unity can sometimes be counterproductive. And it seems that the only people who get anything out of you and your officemates catching a backward-falling coworker is the consulting company that charged $5,000 to show you how to do it.

So just as we adults have learned that you can, in fact, drink too much milk or water, we also must question the grade-school wisdom we’ve always assumed to be true about teamwork.

Read more at BNET Business Network

12 IT skills that employers can't say no to

Have you spoken with a high-tech recruiter or professor of computer science lately? According to observers across the country, the technology skills shortage that pundits were talking about a year ago is real (see "Workforce crisis: Preparing for the coming IT crunch").

"Everything I see in Silicon Valley is completely contrary to the assumption that programmers are a dying breed and being offshored," says Kevin Scott, senior engineering manager at Google and a founding member of the professions and education boards at the Association for Computing Machinery. "From big companies to start-ups, companies are hiring as aggressively as possible."

Many recruiters say there are more open positions than they can fill, and according to Kate Kaiser, associate professor of IT at Marquette University in Milwaukee, students are getting snapped up before they graduate. In January, Kaiser asked the 34 students in the systems analysis and design class she was teaching how many had already accepted offers to begin work after graduating in May. Twenty-four students raised their hands. "I feel sure the other 10 who didn't have offers at that time have all been given an offer by now," she says.

Suffice it to say, the market for IT talent is hot, but only if you have the right skills. If you want to be part of the wave, take a look at what eight experts -- including recruiters, curriculum developers, computer science professors and other industry observers -- say are the hottest skills of the near future.

Read more at networkworldasia.com

Bluetooth ActiveSync Guide for i-mate Smartphone2

In this article we show how to configure and use your desktop or notebook as a Bluetooth ActiveSync partner for your i-mate Smartphone2. The Windows Mobile Smartphone based i-mate Smartphone2 is also known as XPhone or SPV E200 in other markets.

To make this guide we have used a desktop running Windows 2000 Pro with a TDK USB Bluetooth (version 1.4.2.18) as the client.

Check out other Geekzone Bluetooth Guides for more step-by-step pages!

This guide is based on Windows 2000 machines. The dialogs for Windows XP might be a little different, but the configuration will be the same.

Read more at Geekzone

No More Big Ideas

Six years ago, Phil Vischer revolutionized Christian family entertainment by selling 30 million Veggie Tales videos. He was running the largest animation studio between the coasts, and had dreams that his empire, known as Big Idea Productions, would become the next Disney.

But by 2003 his dream was over. After a heartbreaking court decision, later overturned on appeal, Big Idea declared bankruptcy, and Vischer sold the company’s assets, including his computer animated characters Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber. His new book, Me, Myself, and Bob (Nelson, 2007) tells the story of Big Idea’s rise and fall. We sat down with Vischer to talk about what he’s learned.

Read more at CT Leadership Journal

"Ghost" Windows XP for free

If you have ever had the pleasure of re-installing Windows XP from scratch, you know what a hassle it can be. The idea of endless tweaks, patches, driver hunts, reboots, and scouring the web for software does not exactly fill me with glee. Did I mention the reboots? For me, the worst part is the sinking realization that when I finish the endless tweaks and software installs, I may end up doing the entire process over again from scratch six-to-eight months down the road. Why? Masochism may be one answer, but a more probable answer is an unexpected bout of spyware, a rogue virus, or a bloated registry that is causing the system to behave erratically.

Read more at TipsFor.us

Killing the Crapware Problem on PCs

As many readers know, I'm not a fan of the Apple ads, but this one was spot on and not to mention funny. Poor old PC looked like a balloon and his dangling arms almost made him look like Jabba the Hutt.

One of the things that bother me the most about the PC industry is the inclusion of all that crapware (or crapplets) PC makers put into their computers. The same thing extends to the software industry as a whole. Every time you download some software, you're prompted (often the default setting) to install some kind of add-on for your Web Browser. By the time it's all said and done, we're looking at a computer that spends three to five minutes booting up and a Web Browser that's so jacked up that half the screen real estate is taken up by utilities that people never use. Of course, this isn't entirely unique to the PC industry, and I've seen Macs loaded with lots of junk during the startup process as well, but at least you don't get all that crap in a brand new Mac.

The first thing I do whenever I get a PC from any computer maker is format the entire hard drive and start with a clean slate. This isn't feasible for most people, so I'll usually resort to my second option, which is to clean out the startup with the MSCONFIG utility you can run from the start - run prompt (run prompt not needed with Vista).

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