Thursday, January 24, 2008
Get a Job During a Recession
3:00PM Adam Pash | Blogger extraordinaire and tech evangelist Robert Scoble offers a handful of excellent tips for finding work in the midst of a recession. The main takeaway: Make yourself as visible as you possibly can. Scoble suggests blogging your knowledge and finding ways to highlight your skills, whether that’s through volunteer work or by creating something that exemplifies your skills (i.e., if you’re a programmer, build a web site or software). Yesterday we asked how you recession-proof your career, but if those measures don’t do the trick, Scoble’s advice is measured and intelligent. If you’ve been through it all before and have your own suggestions, let’s hear them in the comments. What to do if you’re laid off in 2008 recession [Scobleizer] More »
Save time by trimming your online reading habits
2:54PM Sarah Stokely | There are a number of ways to manage the time you spend web browsing, amongst them trimming the number of blogs you subscribe to. I realised today that one easy way to do this would be to define your ‘Must Read’ blogs. I’m considering creating a new folder in my RSS reader (Bloglines, still) called “Must Read”. Every morning when I open my RSS reader, I skim through the full list of my subscriptions looking out for the handful of blogs I always want to read first. These blogs will go into my “Must Read” folder. The others in my list will need to impress me in order to make the “Must” list – and if I can go a while without checking in on them, they can be deleted.So what’s on your “Must Read” list? Mine includes Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. One of the reasons I like it is that it’s low volume (usually a post every couple of days, from what I’ve observed) and I feel like none of it is ‘filler’ – every post feels worth reading. And while I don’t always agree with the points she makes, I often want to reread her posts, or share them, or follow some or all of the links she includes. To me, these are all signs of a blog worth subscribing to. In fact, I’ve gotten so much out of her blog that I’m picking up a copy of her book today, and I’m really looking forward to reading it.So how do you choose your “Must Read” blogs? Care to share a few of them? More » Reddit debuts personalisation with customisable ‘Reddits’
2:43PM Sarah Stokely | Social news site Reddit has announced a new feature which will let users create their own individual ‘Reddits’. According to the Reddit blog they’re going to keep this feature – which lets you create public, restricted or private Reddits – in private beta for a week or so before making it public. If you’re a Reddit user keen to get in on the beta, email feedback@reddit with the subject, “omg me please”.They’ve also added language translation support for English and German.
New Features [Reddit blog] [via Wired Compiler blog] More » 
Aussie Bloggers site launches to support local blogging community
2:10PM Sarah Stokely | A new community website has been launched this week to provide a meeting place for Australian bloggers. The Aussie Bloggers sites features a group blog as well as user forums.
The aim of the site is to “empower, encourage, support and promote Aussie Bloggers and the Australian blogosphere in general” – so if you’d like to get some help honing your blogging chops – or you think you could lend a hand to newer bloggers, check it out.
Congratulations on the launch, guys. :) More » 
Create Business Cards Online with Deyey
2:00PM Adam Pash | Build your own attractive business cards online with free webapp Deyey. The site’s built-in templates are attractive, simple to use, and easy to customize (just check out their demo to see how easy), and when you’re finished you can save the card at Deyey or download it to your computer to print off there. If you’ve always needed a good business card but didn’t feel like shelling out for professionally designed or printed cards, Deyey’s a nice alternative. For another free business card alternative, check out previously mentioned Businesscardland. Deyey [via MakeUseOf] More »Blackberry
1:34PM Sarah Stokely | RIM has announced some updates to Blackberry are on the way including some improvements in how the device handles email and productivity apps. The update, expected in the first half of the year, will include HTML and rich text email support, remote message search for finding even deleted emails, and a calendar lookup function.The full feature list is here. More » Which online share trading broker do you trust?
1:22PM Sarah Stokely | The plunge in the stock market on Tuesday took its toll on online share trading brokers – the increased traffic flooded the sites and created access issues. The Australian reports that leading site CommSec was offline for half an hour. That’s a huge no-no in stock trading, where up to the minute information and accessibility is a must. I don’t trade stocks online, but I’m curious to hear from readers who do – which online share trading broker do you use and trust? And did you notice how it performed under the strain on Tuesday? More » Better Gmail
1:06PM Gina Trapani | Just uploaded a minor update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension that adds composing email links in Gmail back into the mix. Download it now or update in Firefox’s Add-ons dialog box. More »
Inventory Your Home or Office with StuffSafe
12:00PM Adam Pash | Inventory all of your home or office furnishings and bolster your theft or disaster recovery plan with web site StuffSafe. The obvious idea behind the service is that any on-site inventory is no good, since you’ll very likely lose the inventory materials in the event of a disaster or theft. StuffSafe asks for pictures, descriptions, serial numbers, and even allows read-only access to your account for your insurance agent or other third parties. Finally, you can create a backup of your account and cancel it at any time. I can’t say how acceptable a method like StuffSafe would be to your insurance agent, but it seems like a wonderful way to document your stuff in case of theft. If you know more about it or have your own preferred methods, let’s hear about it in the comments. StuffSafe [via 43F] More »
