chorn

Goodbye Evernote.

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:06:27 -0400

I just opened this support request:

Please, cancel my premium account and refund the balance.

I have great luck if I update notes from the os x app, and terrible, horrible frustration and failure when I update from my ipad/iphone. Evernote and I have reached the end of our relationship.

Thank you,

-Chris

BarCamp Rochester 2010

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:42:00 -0500

In Rochester, BarCamp day is one of my favorite days out of the whole year. If you don’t know what BarCamp is, let me summarize:

O’Reilly hosts an invite only event called FooCamp.
Geeks love the format and make their own, called BarCamp.
Foo and Bar as IT jargon are explained here.
The next BarCamp Rochester is April 3rd.
The basic format is that everyone who attends either helps or presents.

I have my own perspective on BarCamp:

Originally for IT, you can give a talk about anything you are interested in, and hopefully passionate about.
You don’t have to be an expert presenter, this is not TED. We like BarCamp because we’re all in the same boat exploring and learning new things. No judgement and no scathing criticism.
BarCamp is not focused on IT or even expertise, it’s a chance to express why you’re passionate about something.

Not only is BarCamp fun, it is also important.

As a professional, you should be able to give a good presentation. This is a fantastic low pressure forum to give a brief talk and get feedback. If you want, you can give multiple talks.
As a life-long learner, it is important to maintain your interest and passion for topics that challenge you. Share that!
As an employer, you need to be able to find and attract exceptional people. The nature of BarCamp is that only people with the courage and the passion to present something contribute to the event. That is a huge differentiator. Don’t send managers or HR, go yourself and take notes. A lot of the presenters are thought leaders, and might be looking for a co-op or a full time job.
As a business owner, it’s time to take a critical look at your team. Where is the passion in your company? Is there any? If your knowledge workers don’t seem to belong at this BarCamp thing or worse, don’t even want to attend, then I’d say this is a good time for a panic attack.
As an educator, RIT basically owns the event; other schools are represented very poorly. If I still taught, I think I’d be drumming up support for this at my school and arranging some buses. This is a “street cred” crisis for all the other schools in our area, which they don’t know they need to address.
As a smart person, this is a place where fun, interaction, and education meet. As an adult that is rare, embrace it.

BarCamp needs your money and I’ve had a great reason why:

Western New York & Rochester have “brain drain” groups focused on keeping talented people in our area. This is the forum you’ve been looking for. The majority of presenters are under 25. Do you want to keep them here? Show them their professional life can be fun. Money does not motivate most people. Show them there’s a part of the job which is just about being awesome. Show them you don’t need to be Google to value the passion they have.

Go to BarCamp Rochester to:

Attend. We need your t-shirt size and what your presentation is about.
Give money. Details on the website. This might be the year we become a non-profit. To date no one finds accounting and legal paperwork very exciting. Any amount is welcome.
Give your old and current conference swag. At the end of the day we have a big drawing for all of the donated stuff.

More questions? E-Mail hosts@barcamproc.org.

-chorn

60 Educational Game Sites That You’ve Probably Never Seen « Tech:-)Happy

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:27:49 -0500

Ok, so you’ve probably seen some of these, but I needed a snazzy title. I recently compiled two lists of sites from Richard Byrne’s Blog – the site is an amazing resource, and I’m pretty certain that Richard doesn’t sleep. These aren’t in order of greatness – they all have their own specific applications for education. A few of these appear on my Sites for Kids (and Teachers) page.
Enjoy!

XP Math is a good place to find math games, math videos, math worksheets, and math e-books. The games section of XP Math offers games for basic arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and probability. Create an account on XP Math and you can keep track of your scores.

Word Twist is an online version of the popular board game, Boggle. Word Twist comes in two versions a four by four grid and a five by five grid. The purpose of Word Twist is to identify as many words as possible using the letters in the grid.

Super Text Twist is a simple word game similar to Word Twist which asks plays to identify words from a set of jumbled letters. The Super Text Twist game be played online or downloaded for use offline.

Parade of Games in Powerpoint was developed by faculty at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Parade of Games in Powerpoint provides teachers with games and game templates for classroom use. The games and game templates are available for download in Powerpoint format. Some of the games and game templates that teachers can find on Parade of Games in Powerpoint include Bingo, Jeopardy, and scavenger hunts.

Arcademic Skill Builders offers a collection of twenty-one quality games for sharpening math and language arts skills. All of the games can be played online and six of the games are even enabled for play using a Nintendo Wii remote.

The Problem Site is loaded with great games for students. Some of the games are traditional “hang-man” style games, some of the games are traditional games with a twist, and some of the games are completely new. Each game is designed to help students develop problem solving skills. The games are categorized as word games, math games, or strategy games.

Ghost Blasters is designed to help students learn to multiply and divide quickly in their heads. To play Ghost Blasters select a multiple of which each “bad” ghost will have a value that is a multiple of that which you chose. Students then use their mouse to blast every “bad” ghost. For example, if I select “5″ at the beginning then all bad ghosts will display a multiple of 5. I then have to blast all of the bad ghosts to gain points, but if I blast a “good” ghost (a ghost that does not have a multiple of 5) I lose points.

Learning Games for Kids offers games for mathematics as well as many other content areas. Most of the games on Learning Games for Kids can be played directly on the website although some do link out to other sources.

Learn With Math Games is a site that I like because it offers online games as well as PDF templates for games that teachers and students can play in their classrooms. Learn With Math Games is organized by grade level and by mathematics topic.

Gamequarium developed by Diana Dell (a great person to follow on Twitter by the way) offers an excellent catalog of mathematics games and video demonstrations of mathematics functions.

Primary Games offers a collection of mathematics games as well as games for other content areas. You can grab some of the games on Primary Games and embed them into your own blog or website.

Grammar Ninja is a fun game for students to play as they develop a working knowledge of the parts of speech. Grammar Ninja has three levels for students to work through. As long as you answer questions correctly, they continue through the game, but answer incorrectly and the words explode.

Mad Libs offers a widget that you can install on your blog to allow visitors to play Mad Libs. I’ve always thought that having a “fun element” on your classroom blog is a good way to keep students actively visiting the blog without prompting from you. If you’re an English teacher, the Mad Libs widget might be something to consider adding to your blog.

The World Food Programme’s website offers students a large selection of educational online games and activities. The games are categorized by age group. Some of the games, like Food Force, are about world hunger while other games are more general in nature.

Taking it Global, an organization for youth interested in global issues, has a small games section that includes a game based on the flags of the world. Flags of the World asks students to match flags to their respective countries. After matching each flag to its country students can click the “learn more” link to find more information about that country.

Shape It Up is one of many good educational games and activities on Kinetic City. Shape It Up is an activity that would be good for use in an elementary school Earth Science lesson. The activity presents students with “before” and “after” images of a piece of Earth. Students then have to select the force nature and the span of time it took to create the “after” picture. If students choose incorrectly, Shape It Up will tell the student and they can choose again.

The Houghton Mifflin Company produces Grammar Blast. Grammar Blast offers 35 interactive grammar activities for students in grades two through five.

The Grammar Practice Park produced by Harcourt School Publishers provides 12 games for students in grades three, four, and five.

The British Council’s Learn English website offers 69 interactive activities for learning the rules of grammar. The activities are not listed by grade level so you will have to preview them to determine which activities are best suited for your students.

Scholastic Inc. has a page for elementary age students called Maggie’s Learning Adventures. On Maggie’s Learning Adventures visitors will find five grammar activities as well as activities for learning Spanish, Math, and Science.

The BBC’s Skillswise website is a great resource for a wide variety of content areas. On the grammar and spelling page there are 21 activities suitable for students of middle school and high school age.

Playing History is a collection of 128 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.

Think About History is a fun trivia game on History.com. The object of the game is to cross the playing board by correctly answering a sequence of history trivia questions. The game has multiple levels that get progressively more difficult throughout the game. The questions on Think About History are a mix of video-based and text-based questions. The game can be played as an individual game or a two player game.

Fling the Teacher is a website containing 68 history quiz games. All of the quizzes have at least fifteen questions and a few of the games have more than 100 questions. The average is 30-45 questions per quiz. Prior to starting each quiz game students can create their own custom game character.

Scavenger Hunt Through History is a game designed to be played by students in junction with Freedom: A History of US produced by PBS. Freedom: A History of US contains is an overview of US history containing videos, documents, and pictures. In addition to the resources previously mentioned, there are quizzes for students to test their knowledge.

National Geographic Kids has a wide variety of games, puzzles, and activities for students of elementary school age. National Geographic Kids has nine games specifically for developing geography skills.

Learning Together offers four activities for learning about the geography of the United States. Learning Together also offers a game about world geography and a game about European geography.

Owl and Mouse Educational Software offers nine, free, interactive maps for students. The maps cover every continent except Antarctica.

Traveler IQ Challenge has 14 interactive geography games. The activities can be embedded in a blog or website.

Geosense is a fun way to use and improve your knowledge of world geography. Players can play against the computer or challenge another player. Geosense can be played anonymously or you can register and have your scores recorded for you. There are four Geosense maps (US, World, Europe, or advanced) that players can select from.

Smarty Games features games for developing basic mathematics and reading skills. There are six mathematics games covering basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The reading section has two alphabet games and nine animated stories. In addition to the mathematics and reading activities, Smarty Games offers activities for learning to read a clock, puzzles, mazes, and coloring activities.

Planet In Action is a fun website that features three games based on Google Earth. All three games utilize Google Earth imagery and navigation. The three games are Ships, Places, and Moon Lander. In “Places” you navigate, from a helicopter view, five popular places including the Grand Canyon. In “Ships” you become the captain of a fleet of ships to navigate famous ports of call. And in “Moon Lander” you take control of the Apollo 11 moon lander and guide the “Eagle” to touch-down.

The National Center for Education Statistics hosts a collection of games and tools for students. Dare to Compare is a quiz section of Kids’ Zone where students can test their knowledge of civics, economics, history, geography, mathematics, and science. After taking each quiz the students are shown the correct answers. Dare to Compare also allows students to see the national and international average rate of correct answers.

Brain Bashers offers visitors a nice selection of word games, logic games, and puzzles. Brain Bashers is updated regularly with many games that change daily and new games added every week. Brain Bashers was developed and is maintained by Kevin Stone. Kevin Stone is a mathematics teacher in England.

The Discovery Channel website lets you test your trivia knowledge while playing the same quizzes the contestants on Cash Cab play. Play the Cash Cab quiz game and earn fictitious money for every question you answer correctly. Answer three questions incorrectly and the game is over.

Kids Spell provides eight free games that help students learn to spell more than 6,000 words. Kids Spell is a part of the Kids Know It Network. The Kids Know It Network provides educational games for all content areas taught in grades K-6.

Spin and Spell has been featured on a number of blogs over the last year. Spin and Spel l asks students to select a picture and then spell the name of the item. Alternatively, students can have word select for them and then identify the correct corresponding image.

GamesGames.com offers sixteen free spelling games. Most of the games seem to be designed with grades 3, 4, and 5 in mind.

Spelling City not only offers games, it also offers the capability for students to type a word and hear it pronounced.

Catch the Spelling offers more than two dozen categories of spelling games. Each game has the same format; as words fall from the top of the screen, players have to “catch” the appropriate letters in the correct sequence to spell the word displayed at the top of the game. Players “catch” letters by moving a cursor at the bottom of the page. In some ways it reminded me of a cross between Tetris and Frogger.

Read, Write, Think offers a crossword puzzle builder as well as pre-made crossword puzzles designed for all grade levels K-12.

Just Crosswords has a new puzzle maker with which you can build crossword puzzles, save them, print them, or embed into your website or blog. Just Crosswords also has more than 300 categorized, educational crossword puzzles.

Variety Games hosts a free crossword puzzle maker. You can select the dimensions of your puzzle or allow your puzzle to be auto-formatted. To use the puzzle in your classroom you will have to print the puzzle.

Armored Penguin has a very flexible crossword puzzle builder. You can select from a simple puzzle maker or large puzzle maker depending on the number of clues that you want to include. Armored Penguin’s program also gives you the option of including or excluding an answer key.

Ed Helper has a basic crossword builder that accepts up to thirty words. Ed Helper has other basic puzzle builders for free. To use the more advanced options, like larger puzzles, you will have to subscribe to the service.

Quiz-Tree provides a wide variety of free educational games and activities for students and teachers. Most of the Quiz-Tree games and activities are web-based. Some of the games and activities are available as downloads for Windows operating systems.

Multiplication.com has four pages of games for kids to use to practice the multiplication tables. (There are also addition, subtraction, and division games). I played a couple of the “car wash” games today and they were quite enjoyable. After playing the games I can see how kids would get addicted to the games in a good way.

Fit Brains is a collection of free games designed to strengthen five areas of cognitive brain function. While the website seems to be targeted toward an older audience there are some games on Fit Brains appropriate for students at all grade levels above the third grade. Reading through the background information about Fit Brains you do get the impression that the games are grounded in sound neuropsychology. The Fit Brains blog has a number of interesting articles about brain science that teachers and parents will find interesting.

Math Cats is a website full of short math activities and math games. The activities and games are based on word problems. What is nice about the games is that they are fairly straight-forward and easy for students to self-start. Math Cats is appropriate for students in elementary and lower middle school grades.

Handipoints: Remember those “star charts” you had a kid, the ones where you earned stars for good behavior or doing your chores? Handipoints has taken the star chart concept and built a website on it. Here’s how it works, parents (or teachers) create a list of items for their kids to do. The kids then check off each task as they do it. For each task or behavior goal completed the child earns points. When the child reaches their goal they can cash in their points toward playing the Handiland game. Parents/ teachers can also print the completed charts and provide offline rewards.

Novel Games provides a large list of fun, simple, educational games. The list of games includes numerous math and word games. All of the games are free and are available in multiple formats. All of the games on Novel Games are easily embedded into your class blog or website.

ABCya is a great place to find all kinds of free educational computer games for elementary school students. The games do not require any special plug-ins or downloads in order to play. ABCya also does not ask for users to register. ABCya is divided into grade levels (K-5) then subdivided based on subject area. The categorization system ABCya uses makes it quick and easy to find an activity appropriate for each student.

Starfall has many free teaching resources including pdf files of handouts to use with students. For students Starfall has numerous online games designed to teach reading and writing skills. Starfall.com includes a page for parents discussing activities that they can do with their children to help them learn to read and write.

Sheppard Software has a fantastic collection of free web-based educational games. Sheppard Software’s free games cover Science, Math, Social Studies, and Language Arts. Most of the games are appropriate for elementary and middle school students, but some games are appropriate for high school students. The geography games are particularly good.

Decimal Squares provides simple games for students to use to develop their math skills. The games do not require an account to play and they work on any web browser that has current Flash plug-ins installed. The games are best suited to middle school students, but could be used with upper elementary grades or with high school freshmen.

Rice University has partnered with CBS, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and the National Science Foundation to produce web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are three cases or levels to the CSI web adventures. Unlike a lot of educational games, the CSI Web Adventures are created with the highest quality graphics and navigational features.

Shedd Aquarium in Chicago has a great collection of interactive learning activities. The activities are categorized according to grade level and vary in format. Some of the interactive activities are like video games (Squish the Fish for 1st graders) while others are more like virtual scavenger hunts (Conservation Investigation). The games and virtual scavenger hunts could easily take students an hour or longer to complete and the students would learn something new throughout the activity. In addition to the interactive activities, Shedd Aquarium provides a host of great Marine Science lesson plans for grades K-12.

Pest World for Kids is a fun educational website for students in elementary school grades. Pest World for Kids has a great index of pests which includes information on what they look like, where they are found, and how to prevent pest infestations. The Pest World for Kids website has four fun educational games that students will enjoy playing as they learn about insects and rodents. In the teacher section of Pest World for Kids, teachers will find lesson plans to accompany the educational games.

MSNBC offers a gallery of online games related to the news. The gallery is called the NewsWare Arcade.

Kids Past offers an easy-to-read World History “textbook” for kids. To accompany the textbook Kids Past offers five history games to which students can apply the knowledge they gather from the textbook.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Sites for Kids
A KidSafe Educational Games Site
Maths Moves U
probably the coolest game you’ve ever played

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 10:02 pm and is filed under websites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

via techhappy.wordpress.com

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Don't Quit Your Cozy Corporate Job and Go Out on Your Own Until You Master These Seven Truths : Marketing :: American Express OPEN Forum

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 11:03:23 -0500

Dec 22, 2009 -

Not so fast, Jerry Maguire.

Before you make a scene in the middle of the cubicle farm, grab the company goldfish and storm out of the office screaming “Good riddance, losers!” you might want to consider these seven truths first:

1.     Chatter is the cheeky culprit of failure. There’s a classic country tune by Toby Keith called “A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action.” Here’s how it goes: “I was getting kinda tired of her endless chatter. Nothing I could say ever seemed to matter. So let’s get on down to the main attraction. With a little less talk and a lot more action.” Know anybody like that? Are YOU like that? All lip service and no foot service? I hope not. Chatter accomplishes nothing. Trust only movement. Are you talking or walking?
2.     Discipline is the unsung hero of moneymaking. I start work at 5am. (When I’m on the road, 4am.) And I write between four and seven hours a day. EVERY day. That’s discipline. Now, I don’t take any credit for this. It’s my mom’s fault for instilling this value in me. She’s a thirty-year veteran of the fitness, aerobic, weight training and nutrition industry. She actually bench presses more than I do. Anyway, the cool part is, she never “taught” discipline. She just WAS discipline. So, that’s my secret. That’s how I made an entire career out of wearing a nametag everyday. Discipline. And sadly, that’s the unsung secret of success (and moneymaking) that most people don’t talk about. Because discipline is hard. And it’s too simple to make excuses for. What areas of your life would benefit from taking the stairs instead?
3.     Error is the untapped wellspring of wisdom. Mistake is the mentor of man. If you’re not screwing up, you’re screwing up. In fact, every morning I spend a few minutes journaling lessons learned from yesterday’s mistakes. Been doing it for years. I suggest you try it for a week. It’s a humbling form of reflection. Plus it makes you smarter quicker. Remember: We learn not from our experiences, but from intelligent reflection upon those experiences. What will your mistakes teach you this week?

4.     Focus is the solitary suggestor of success. Spraying is the enemy. Focus is mobilizing. Therefore: Take your index finger, cover up the tip of the hose, and shoot out a frozen rope of focused effort. Otherwise you’ll spread yourself too thin, the result of which will be a diffusion of energy investment. This is not good. Your challenge is to constantly ask yourself questions like: “Is what I’m doing RIGHT NOW consistent with my #1 goal?” and “What consuming my time but doesn’t make me any money?” Remember: William James was right when he said, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” How much time are you spending on things that diffuse your focus and hamper your goals?

5.     Inexperience is the immediate disqualifier of credibility. Not age, but inexperience. Two different things. So, if you’re young in age and concerned about your credibility, search your life for the relevant experience you DO have. Then reflect upon the lessons learned FROM those experiences, and how those ideas inform your ability to excel in your current role. Who would give their right arm to acquire the valuable expertise you now realize you possess?
6.     Quitting is the constant companion of winners. In Seth Godin’s life-changing book, The Dip, he reveals the truth about quitting: “In a free market, we reward the exceptional. Everyone picks the best one when given a choice. And the people who are perceived as the best get rewards that dwarf the people who are third and fourth and fifth.” So, I guess winners DO quit, after all. Remember: Average is for losers. Quit or be exceptional.” Do you quit when it’s hard, or quit when it’s right?

7.     Ceaselessness is the common constitution of champions. If you dissect the demeanor of any great champ of sports, music or business – famous or not – here’s what you will discover. Each individual, from an early age, had something that they never stopped doing: Free throws. Scales. Self-promotion. Whatever. That’s the definition of “ceaseless.” Without stop or pause. Unending. Incessant. What are you prepared to never stop doing?
REMEMBER: Before you take the plunge and go out on your own, just be sure you know what you’re up against.

Become a master of these seven truths and you’ll be on your way to making a name for yourselfLET ME ASK YA THIS…

What truths do you need to master?

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This looks valid for any job, solo or not.

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Comcast, NBC oh my?

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:17:31 -0500

When GE bought NBC, I recall some very interesting discussions about how it was a bad day for energy diversity or alternative energy sources because GE was going to undermine it. Although my tinfoil hate wearing days are behind me, it’s not at all difficult to picture examples of how and why this would happen.

The doom and gloom of the sale to Comcast is going to be the Net Neutrality issue. They’ll own the content, transmission and consumption. The question is not if they will use this power to their advantage, it’s when.

TEDx Rochester 2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:56:00 -0500

Yesterday I attended the first TEDx Rochester, which I mostly disliked. The event was not terrible, I think most of the presenters failed to deliver “Ideas Worth Sharing.”

Here are my notes for each presenter:

Adam Frank on science vs. religion was the best presentation. He seemed to completely understand what TED was about, and who it was for.

Larry Moss on community building with balloons could have been good. It looked like being a part of a super balloon art-build-event would be fun, but Larry failed to convincingly present any ideas.

Marla Schweppe presented her resume and the classes she teaches at RIT. Her message appeared to be “come take some classes with me.”

Thomas Warfield on virtual dance classes. I don’t know what technology was being used, but it felt like the dance equivalent of lip synching. It might have been kind of cool if it was a tele-presence demo, but it wasn’t.

Scott Eberle on the Strong Museum of Play. For being a huge, huge fan of the museum itself, Scott’s presentation was ok, but needed fewer slides, less detail and more glue to make the topics feel they belonged together.

Peter Kodzas with a guitar performance. No ideas here, just a helping of not my cup of tea in screaming capital letters.

Eric Wheeler on the National Center for the History of Electronic Games. If you’ve never played video games, I don’t think you would have liked this presentation much. I understood that saving old games to play them is fun, but not that it was important.

Deborah Stoiber on film conservation. Definitely a great presentation, and exactly what TED is all about. I would suggest that she speed up the slides and her delivery and get through a narrative of 2 movies not one.

Luis Martinez on What drives you? Luis’ answer is guilt. That’s right, guilt. His whole story is a swan dive into the wading pool of guilt.

Todd Kraus on nanotechnology. Not so good. Exciting, important technologies shouldn’t feel like a laundry list you’re bored with.

Geomantics Dance Theater. Seriously? If the talking presenters had the good sense to assume the audience is ignorant about their topic, why doesn’t the sweaty guy in the nude speedo? Not an idea worth sharing.

Ali Yapicioglu on some architecture project his company did for somebody. This could have been a great TED presentation. Ali speaks in monotone and plods through slides. Someone next to me fell asleep.

Geva Comedy Improv performance. I had the sense that they were good at what they did, but that they needed another half hour to warm up and get to the point where they would be awesome. No idea why this was at TEDx.

Overall the event wasn’t bad. I thought Geva did a wonderful job and the event itself seemed very well coordinated. No one cared about any of the little technical glitches. The attendees seemed good natured and friendly. I think it had a good representation of the Rochester social networking crowd as well as academia.

It looks like there were no auditions. I think the organizers tried to find noteworthy academics in Rochester and hoped for the best. I think next time they have got to appeal to a broader base of local presenters, and ask for previews of the presentations.

Most of the presentations could have been great with the right feedback early on. ”TED” started as Technology/Entertainment/Design and has evolved into “Ideas Worth Spreading.” For starters:

Having an idea isn’t the same as presenting an idea.
Love your idea. You don’t have to be Tony Robbins crazy, just engaging.
Your goal is to make me care about your idea.
Get some critical feedback!

I’m not an expert, I’m not normally a critic and I’m not normally so negative. If you’re a presenter and I’ve offended you, I’m kind of sorry, but not so much.

-chorn

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code..."

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:27:56 -0400

“Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

- Brian Kernigan

Ongoing denial-of-service attack

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:01:14 -0400

twitterstatus:

We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly.

Hey, it’s not me!

Restructuring news media

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:35:00 -0400

I have given up on the news. I don’t buy the paper, watch the nightly news or frequent news websites. Even google news custom searches contain too much noise. Without treading upon the semantic too heavily, I think every news item should have at least 3 consistent features:

GPS coordinates for the location of the news item.
A GPS range for the domain of the news item.
A list of tags associated with the content.

For #1 and #2, I want to choose feeds that might affect the people and things I care about, wherever they are.

Consider this list of pseudo criteria:

+current_events -sports -entertainment -fluff
+crime +{within 1 mile of my house}
+politics +{where I am now} OR +{my home town}

Those are just a few examples off the top of my head. If those mechanisms worked, I’m sure we could come up with some really, really interesting stuff.

It might also look like I’ve got my head in the sand, and in a way I do. It’s not that I lack the desire to stay abreast of the news, it’s that I lack the time and the will to filter out the garbage. If we had the ability to easily and accurately filter for only the content we want, think of all the sensationalist nonsense we could ignore. I can hope.

I desperately want a live feed from the regional EMS center for all 911 calls. Who doesn’t want to know about +911 +{where your family members are}?

I don’t read the obituaries, but I would like to watch for +death +/people in my addressbook/ +{where they live}

I would gladly pay for this. Eventually, we’d all learn that it’s worth paying for the content we want, as long as the choices we make allow us to add value.

Get off the Internet - Episode #4

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:52:05 -0400

I’m impressed! These gentlemen continue to post nice and brief video segments about living as a modern professional on the Internet, and I’ve yet to disagree with a single thing they’ve said. Good work, and please keep it up.

rockthejob:

In episode 4 of Rock the Job, Nick and Rob show you how to get off the Internet and out into the real world.

Ask us your questions on Facebook or @reply us questions on Twitter and we’ll answer them, or even feature them in a future episode!

Rock the Job

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:33:32 -0400

Rock the Job:

Great stuff on controlling your Internet presence and its impact on your job.

Use “Johnson” to test your javascript from inside...

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:57:00 -0400

Use “Johnson” to test your javascript from inside Ruby.

25 things to never put on your resume

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:42:08 -0400

25 things to never put on your resume

The 3 trust models within LinkedIn

Thu, 14 May 2009 12:23:00 -0400

If you’ve used LinkedIn for a little while, you are probably familiar with the recommendation process. I’ve said some inflammatory things about recommendations before, because I think it fails at its intended purpose. The intent was to build a web of trust that was valid across the entire LinkedIn network, and acted as a kind of currency. I’m leery of that, and I see someone with a lot of recommendations a lot like someone with a lot of professional certifications. It’s fishy, and looks to me like they are trying to make up for something.

Before you explore trust models in LinkedIn, you should attempt to connect with everyone (yes everyone!) you’ve ever worked with. After you’ve done that, I think you should be using the LinkedIn recommendations to build 3 separate trust models.

Build a web of trust:

From your oldest professional experience forward, write recommendations for your contacts who are exceptional. This should define the list of people that you would trust to do a great job. These are the people on your “short list”, or the people you’d like to find a way to work with again.
Don’t ask for a recommendation back! Even though LinkedIn facilitates this, I don’t think its a good idea. It’s cheesy and puts people in an awkward position.
Follow your own web of trust. Try and meet the people recommended by the people you’ve recommended. You’ll probably find that they are 1st tier professionals as well.

Identify the web of indifference:

LinkedIn has really done us a disservice with the “ask people to recommend me” stage of setting up your account. It puts peer pressure and politeness on the forefront of the process, which is more or less worthless.
Look for people who have recommended dozens of other people. If they ran their own company would they immediately try and hire all of those people they’ve recommended? I find that very unlikely. In this case it’s someone who is probably a good networker and just being nice. No harm, no foul, but also no value.
Also look for intra-company recommendations. In an average company this is just peer pressure. I completely ignore these.
Look for lots of recommendations to and from consulting/sales organizations. It might be one of the above cases, or it might contrived. Most people are not aware that the web of trust is tainted, and some people are trying to use it to their advantage. It’s not that I don’t trust sales/marketing people, it’s that I don’t trust sales/marketing people.

Build a web of distrust:

Make sure you’ve connected with everyone you hate and would rather die than work with again. It’s seems crazy, but this is no Facebook and you are not here to share pictures of your kids. These are the people who are not good at their jobs, and make things worse for everyone.
Keep an eye on “the bad people.” Where do they work? Who do they work with? Do they work for the competition? Worse yet, do they work for a client?
Look for people who recommend anyone in your web of distrust. Mark them down as suckers and/or idiots. Stay away from them, their companies and their products if it seems appropriate.
Be wary of any recommended by toxic professionals. On LinkedIn you have to approve the posting of a recommendation. What kind of person posts a recommendation by someone in your bottom 1% of the working world? Stay away.

This probably sounds like a lot of work, particularly if you’ve done a lot of networking. It’s not the type of thing you’d check on every week. If you are ready to hire or be hired, I don’t think you can safely skip these steps anymore.

-chorn

Get ready to get hired

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:48:00 -0400

You need a new job. Maybe you’ve got one and are looking to switch, maybe you don’t. Either way, you might not be aware that the job hunting world has changed.

Your career probably revolves around IT, even if you’re not an IT person. If you struggle with your personal IT, then put the time in now and learn it. It is always a differentiator, and it’s probably a big one.

LinkedIn is probably the most important task to set for yourself, if you do nothing else, follow this part.

Sign up, create a complete profile. It’s very much like a terse version of your resume or CV.
Connect with everyone you know, especially people from past positions you’ve held.
If you’ve made some connections via social networking, ask to connect with them as well.
Keep working with your profile until LinkedIn says you’re at 100%. That include recommending people you have connected with.
Recommendations in LinkedIn are kind of a scam. I would never use them as a trust metric. The problem is that in a lot of organizations you can see the “recommend me” peer pressure sweep through a whole organization. If you were to watch LinkedIn every day, you can see it roll right through departments, it’s creepy.
That’s why I suggest only recommending people you no longer work with. Start with ancient history and work your way forward. When it comes right down to it, you probably only want recommendations from the people you most respect because that is the real intent, to build a web of trust.
Jobless or not, it is important here (as on your resume) to show that your skills are current and you are actively doing something. You don’t have to be incorporated or anything that requires a big investment, but you should clearly look like you are not sitting on your hands and that you are available to work.

Next, be ready for the job search once you’ve pulled the trigger and started applying. You can expect the following things from everyone your resume reaches:

You are going to get googled. If someone out there with your name is making your search results look scary, put it in your resume and in your cover letter. “I am not the Chris Horn who made headlines in 2008.”
You are going to get stalked on Myspace. Delete your myspace account, it is lame and not the sort of thing highly skilled professionals have. If you are tempted to argue with me on this one I understand, it’s just too damn bad.
You are going to get stalked on Facebook. Make 120% certain you have all of your Privacy settings locked down so that only people in your best friends forever list can see what you have posted. Facebook privacy Facebook friends list
If you have been social networking on twitter, digg, reddit, etc… make sure it doesn’t make you look like a jerk, like me. @chorn
If you are not currently social/professional networking at all, it is time to start. You don’t have to look like you are the foremost authority in your field, but you should at least look like you are paying attention. If people can see that you are involved in your field, it is a big differentiator.
If there is any other ugly content from you or about you on the Internet, you’d better have your talking points ready now because it’s probably there for good.

Build a presence on the Internet. You don’t have to be social networking whiz, but you really can’t afford to avoid it. Your goal in social networking is to find a balance between fame and reputation. You can work your way to having thosands of followers in all of the major networks, but if they don’t know what you are good at, and that you are looking to get paid to do it, you aren’t really helping yourself.

Here is how I would get myself on the Internet:

Get a domain name. For me, chorn.com is great, scrapbooking-for-life.com would probably not be a good choice. That’s probably because scrapbooking in general sounds like kryptonite to me, some other cool sounding hobby might be ok.
Use GoDaddy as your registrar and for DNS, not for hosting your e-mail or website.
Use Google Apps for your domain for e-mail. They have good directions on how to set it up with GoDaddy. If you can afford the $50/year for the premium level, it’s worth it for the added support and features. E-mail addresses like resume@{my_domain_name_goes_here}.com look professional.
Use Tumblr to host your main webpage. They’ll host the A record for your domain for free. That piece is important!
Tumbr is also a great place for you to start blogging, vlogging and aggregating the rest of your social networking related activity that makes you look like an Internet professional.
In addition to Tumblr, Google Apps for your domain includes some free web page hosting with the Sites feature. Not only should you have your resume here as a PDF, but you should put it up as HTML too. If you don’t know what a PDF or HTML is, learn now. Then you can share your resume as something like http://resume.{my_domain_name_goes_here}.com, which is a really nice touch.

Don’t forget the standards you probably already know:

Have a polished resume. Experienced and skilled people do not have a 2 page resume.
Tell everyone that you are looking for a job and what you are looking for. If you are just pushing your resume around you are just a list of buzz words and a price.
Hopefully your area has a professional networking group or two you can attend and meet potential employeers at.
You can work with placement agencies, but your success there is primarily driven by the number of openings and which buzz words they match up on your resume.

The job market is pretty grim right now. Depending on your skill set it might always be grim if you’re choosey, I don’t know. I do know some top notch people who are without a paycheck right now, and looking for some ways to outshine the rest of the pack. Hopefully this helps, but then again maybe it’s just worth $.02.

-chorn

Buying products or services for your business

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:11:00 -0500

This is the time of year where implementing my 2009 budget is in high gear. That means I’ve been making lots of calls to produce and/or service vendors, talking about solutions and asking for quotes. This time around I’ve also implemented a new rule:

A sales organization that does not return your call within 24 hours does not deserve your business.

I’m not a salesperson by trade, but I would argue that in an agressive market that time frame should be closer to 2 hours. I am more than a little amazed at how often this rule is factoring into the early rounds of weeding out vendors. If their sales organzation isn’t responsive, imagine how the support will be!

How to ask your vendor to do something.

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I’ve worked directly with more than my share of commercial vendors, and the majority of the time things did not go well. I’ve made foolish assumptions such as:

They care.
They know what they are doing.
They tell the truth.
What they’ve said they’re going to do is really what they’ve done.
They realize that I’m the paying customer.

It’s not too difficult to imagine any or all of your ISP/Telephony/Hosting providers in that list. Residential vendors probably fall into this list, more or less every time. I’ve tried to define a process, and follow it. It’s my goal to minimize the time I spend doing other people’s jobs, and increase success overall.

How to make the request:

First and foremost, talk to your rep, your tech contact and make sure they can actually deliver on your request. Hopefully they have request forms and/or a process of their own.
Document the complete detail of the request as if you had to do it yourself.
- Don’t assume that any standards or jargon you use is defined the same way by the vendor. Culture trumps facts.
Include all technical details.
- Assume that the work will be done by someone who could care less whether or not it is done correctly, and is not qualified to to the work.
Include any necessary timing.
- Unfortunately you really can’t make anyone work faster than they want to, but setting timing sets expectations.
Include the tests required to verify correctness.
- If you don’t define success, the vendor will define it for you, to their advantage.
E-Mail the request to the account rep, CC: liberally.
- Include any and every previous e-mail thread even distantly related to the request.
- Assume that the person doing the work is not privy to any conversations you’ve had with the rep.
Ask for an update every 2-5 days as appropriate.
Once you are notified the request is complete:

When you are notified the request is complete:

Run the tests yourself and verify that it is correct.
If any tests fail:
- Let the account rep know immediately.
- Ask for a new, appropriate time line.
- Ask for an escalation path, including names, phone #s if you don’t already have a list.
- Escalate early and nicely.
- Failed tests put you back to the beginning of the process.
- Escalate higher and a little less nicely each time you iterate because of failure.