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Wallpaper contest winners from microsoft NZ. Mostly dramatic NZ scenery, opt. for wallpapers
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From tripwire mag. we're going to spicing things up.
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Several useful command lines
Filed under: delicious
March 21, 2009 • 3:02 am 0
links for 2009-03-20
March 20, 2009 • 3:06 am 0
links for 2009-03-19
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In January 2007, the Sunlight Foundation launched the Open House Project, a collaborative effort by government and legislative information experts, congressional staff, non-profit organizers and bloggers to study how the House of Representatives currently integrates the Internet into its operations, and to suggest attainable reforms to promote public access to its work and members. John Wonderlich, program director for the Sunlight Foundation, leads the project. The operating principle of its work is known as Paving the Cowpaths. Its recommendations include some very unobtrusive ways to open up the House, low-hanging fruit where the Internet and congressional procedures come together, though its report of recommendations also contains several more high-reaching aspirations. The potential of this project lies in the possibility of experts and citizens from all fields to come together and identify areas where Congress can open up and allows all of us to have more information and access.
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Welcome to the Open House Project Google Group.
We're a non-partisan group working to enhance public access to Congressional information.
Also check out the Open House Project blog.
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Conferences are expensive. Let’s face it, the economy is suffering and not everyone has the money these days to attend. Budgets are being scaled back and often conferences and events are the first thing to get the axe.
However, conferences are extremely important for networking, learning new strategies, and having fun. What should you do if you or your company don’t have the budget to attend conferences? Here are a few tips to help you save money and still attend
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With CEOs facing unprecedented challenges ahead as businesses struggle with the realities of dealing with the economic downturn, Gartner, Inc. has identified the seven greatest concerns for CEOs in 2009.
"The tumultuous events of the past 12 months have shocked the world. CEOs are confronting reduced revenues and profits and need to restructure their businesses accordingly," said Mark Raskino, vice president and Gartner fellow. "As a consequence, CIOs should plan for extraordinary requests in 2009 for work and changes."
"Today's CEO concerns provide an advanced look at what will become CIO priorities in six to 18 months," said Jorge Lopez, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "We've identified these conclusions based on more than a dozen sources of CEO insights, our own analysis of business and economic trends, and changes in the IT landscape."
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I've titled this post with the clearest, most simple phrase imaginable. In fact, if you google the phrase future of intranets you'll see that it has been spoken about for ages.
Why have corporate intranets held so much promise for so long? Since the web came to our desktops and workstations, most HTTP activity on corporate LANs and WANs has headed straight to or from the gateway.
Many corporate applications have moved their UI to the browser, but there is still loads of potential for some clever knowledge integration in organisations of all sizes.
Filed under: delicious
March 19, 2009 • 3:06 am 0
links for 2009-03-18
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After a while we came to realize that we were spending way too much time on revisions and the revisions that we were making were far more complex. Not only did we have to adjust layout, but all of the corresponding graphic treatments as well. This was frustrating for us, worrisome for the paying client, and disastrous for the project schedule. However, it didn’t take us long to realize that we needed a new approach. We decided to account for more time in our schedules to do gray box wireframes and added it to Step 1 of our process. The end result was that while we added another step to our design process, we actually saved time in the long run because we were addressing problems early and not waiting to resolve problems during full color phase. After implementing this new method, we certainly noticed an improvement in our projects.
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The European Commission last week called on the IT industry to step up efforts to cut emissions, announcing plans for a wide-ranging green IT strategy designed to ensure economy-wide emission reductions of 15 per cent by 2020.
Announcing the new strategy, which is to be formally adopted in the second half of this year, commissioner for information society and media Viviane Reding said that while the IT sector had already made significant commitments to reduce its environmental impact, it still had "enormous untapped potential for saving energy right across the economy".
"I would recommend to the IT sector to show the way for the rest of the economy by reducing its own carbon footprint by 20 per cent by 2015," she said. "I see from the response of European IT companies to the Commission's ongoing work that Europe is already well ahead in using IT for greening the economy."
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March 18, 2009 • 3:05 am 0
links for 2009-03-17
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includes glossary
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Shirky, like many Internet enthusiasts, is future-positive. For him, it’s time to get on with the revolution. Forget about saving newspapers. Instead, experiment with new ways of doing journalism in the digital era.
There is one possible answer to the question “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” The answer is: Nothing will work, but everything might. Now is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments, each of which will seem as minor at launch as craigslist did, as Wikipedia did . . .
Any experiment . . . designed to provide new models for journalism is going to be an improvement over hiding from the real, especially in a year when, for many papers, the unthinkable future is already in the past.
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March 17, 2009 • 3:03 am 0
links for 2009-03-16
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The site, which compiles and sorts the reviews and blog posts of more than 750 professional shooters, hobbyists, and photography web sites, doesn't make you do any sorting, sifting, or weighing of whose opinions matter more. You check off boxes to indicate what you like to photograph, choose a size (fits in jacket, pants, or doesn't matter), and then slide to a price limit.
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March 16, 2009 • 3:03 am 0
links for 2009-03-15
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David Stephenson, a lead expert in public digital technology and co-author with Kundra of a forthcoming book, Democratizing Data, cites Kundra’s insistence for strict accountability on the success — or problems — of new information technology systems.
Stephenson noted that in Kundra’s D.C. office, he had mounted big displays with real-time data gauging each major project as if it were a stock — showing spending, goals, dates, milestones and what’s been accomplished, including indication of the client agency’s satisfaction. The clear message: Lagging projects would be terminated or restructured.
Can such approaches actually lead to a new form and image of government? The mission is a daunting one.
But clues for rejuvenating federal service come from Kundra’s approaches for Washington.
Filed under: delicious
March 14, 2009 • 3:04 am 0
links for 2009-03-13
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We have started the upgrade process, and are rolling the service out to new users on an ongoing basis. When your account is ready to upgrade, you will notice an "Upgrade" message at the top of your GrandCentral inbox.
Once you choose to upgrade, you will automatically get all the great new features (transcription, SMS, conference calling, cheap international calling, Goog411 integration, etc.), and new voicemail and SMS messages will begin appearing in your Google Voice inbox.
After you upgrade, any new voicemail messages will appear in your inbox at http://www.google.com/voice, and all of your prior voicemail messages will still be available through your GrandCentral account at http://www.grandcentral.com.
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Pogue on the shift from Grand Central to Google Voice. "The early adopters, several hundred thousand of them, were able to keep using GrandCentral’s features. But as time went on, their hearts sank. In January, Salon.com summed it up in an editorial called, “Will the Last One to Leave GrandCentral Please Turn Out the Lights?”
As it turns out, the joke was on them. Google was quietly working on GrandCentral all along. Starting Thursday, existing GrandCentral members can upgrade to Google Voice. In a few weeks, after debugging the system, Google will open the service to all.
Google Voice starts with a clean, redesigned Web site that looks like an in-box, à la Gmail. It maintains all of those original GrandCentral features — but more important, introduces four game-changing new ones.
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Gartner, Inc. has revealed its key predictions for identity & access management (IAM) between 2009 and 2011. Speaking ahead of the Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit 2009 in London, analysts have identified forward-looking assumptions around smart-card authentication, identity-aware networks, hosted IAM and out-of-band (OOB) authentication.
“There is a continuing need in this time of economic uncertainty and budgetary constraints for cost-effective, risk-appropriate IAM methods,” said Ant Allan, research vice president at Gartner. “This includes growing demand for identity-aware networking, host- and service-based IAM offerings and the search for protection from increasingly effective malware attacks against consumer accounts.”
Filed under: delicious
March 13, 2009 • 3:01 am 0
links for 2009-03-12
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US CIO: "when I talk about modern [society] being powered by technology, we also need to recognize that we need to secure it. As you know, the president has charged Melissa Hathaway to conduct a 60-day review of security across the United States – not just limited to the federal government but the public and private sectors because we recognize that the majority of the infrastructure is in the private sector anyway."
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Take Advantage of Open-Source Tools and Improve Software License Management
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Thank you for including "Question: So, what makes you an expert?"
I was a Twitter early adopter in early 2007 and currently have over 35,000 followers. I’ve been quoted in Forbes, CIO Magazine Zdnet, CEOs told BusinessWeek they follow me, featured in the upcoming TwitterVille book, and I help the world’s largest brands try to understand social tools like Twitter. I’ve met with Twitter executive team, review products by third party developers, and use the tools. I’ve experimented with advertising, research, marketing, events, and have organized tweetups with hundreds of attendees around the globe. In fact, I’m officially an industry analyst at Forrester Research covering Twitter and other social technologies, this is actually part of my day job. (yes, I get paid to be a Twitter expert)
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March 12, 2009 • 3:04 am 0
links for 2009-03-11
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Shedroff is the Design MBA chair at CCA and also, many years ago, invented the term "experience design" which is obvious when you look at the domain name he secured probably sometime in the 80s (nathan.com). He has a vast list of resources that he will have ready for us to absorb so we can jump in feet first Monday morning. And thank goodness; he said we don't have to take notes because he's going to post everything for us online. Okay, okay, I'll still take notes.
Can we even be sustainable? And what does sustainability really mean? In 1987 it meant: "Use and development that meets today's needs without preventing those needs from being met by future generations." But today, Shedroff thinks it means "Don't do things today that make tomorrow worse." And if you have more stubborn people you have to convince, add "…for your kids."
Filed under: delicious
March 11, 2009 • 3:04 am 0
links for 2009-03-10
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We've reviewed a number of collaboration tools including Canadian-based ConceptShare and Scotland-based Colaab. Today I took a look at Argentinian-based CreationFlow. CreationFlow is a Flash-based collaboration and project management suite.
You setup tasks inside of projects and then assign users to the tasks. The users can create reviews which is where you can draw (as shown below) to add notes to a review. I found the service a bit more difficult to get comfortable with than ConceptShare/Colaab, but once I got the hang of it, it is well designed. You can also switch the language to Spanish.
CreationFlow is more than just "stick up an image and get feedback" – it's more like a team-based visual project management tool. It would work well for design agencies and other teams where client reviews are needed to approve tasks to continue with a project. I like the tracking component which makes it easy to confirm that a user accepted a design or other piece of creative.
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How do you learn to be a Program Manager? Mostly, becoming a program manager is about learning: learning about technology, learning about people, and learning how to be effective in a political organization. A good program manager combines an engineer’s approach to designing technology with a politician’s ability to build consensus and bring people together. While you’re working on that, though, there are a few books you should read:
As far as I can tell, Scott Berkun’s book Making Things Happen is the only book that’s been written that pretty much covers exactly what a program manager has to do, so start with that.
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Proposals for presentations due April 28, 2009. “But the task of reinventing government is too important to be left solely to the government. Gov 2.0 Summit, a new government technology conference co-produced by O’Reilly Media and TechWeb, capitalizes on the momentum for change and broad engagement, creating a non-partisan forum for addressing the monumental challenges our nation faces. Gov 2.0 Summit is a place for technologists to rise to the call of public service, offering up their internet expertise to its best and highest purpose. Gov 2.0 Summit will bring together policy-makers, elected officials, upper management in city, state, and federal agencies, technology leadership in all levels of government, private-sector internet business leaders, contractors, and consultants to establish high-level thought leadership across the spectrum of stake-holders.”
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riverrun research | beta 