Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Penelope Trunk launches Brazen Careerist blog network

5:12PM Sarah Stokely | Career advice blogger Penelope Trunk has launched a career blog network called Brazen Careerist. The network of 50 young bloggers will focus on Gen Y professional and entrepreneurial issues.The headline story over there at the moment is “Improve your life with video games” and I spotted another story about how to use entrepreneurship for social change – both in keeping with the ethos of Penelope’s own blog: “advice at the intersection of work and life”.I’m a little older than Gen Ys but I recently read Penelope’s book Brazen Careerist and found a lot of the things she identified as important to Gen Y are important to me too – ie work life balance, having fun and learning on the job and feeling like an important part of the team. So I don’t think the “Gen Y” label should put older careerists off reading. I look forward to reading more from their blog network. :) More »

How to print your own business cards

3:50PM Sarah Stokely | When you run an online business you don’t have much call for business cards – your URL is your business card. However two days before I had to attend a real, live ‘networking’ event I thought I’d better get some business cards organised. Leaving it to the last minute meant that I had to do it myself. Hit the jump to read how I did it. More »

Pioneer lets you take your in-car Sat Nav system anywhere

3:04PM Sarah Stokely | Pioneer may be about to achieve Sat Nav nirvana with its new AVIC-F500BT, according to Nick over at Gizmodo AU. It’s come up with an in-car Sat Nav that you can pop out and take with you. “When it’s in your car’s dash, you can use it not only as a satnav, but as a control system for your iPod, MP3 player, Bluetooth handsfree kit and, with the right connections, even as a screen for an installed reverse camera.” Hopefully if they’re making it a portable device as well, they’ll optimise their maps for pedestrians (have you ever noticed how useless Google Maps is for getting walking directions anywhere?). Price and launch date are yet to be confimed. More »

How Many Hours Do You Sleep at Night?

3:00PM Adam Pash | Wired News reports on a recent survey of 1,000 people in which the participants reported getting an average of six hours and 40 minutes of sleep on weeknights. The same participants estimated they would need around 40 more minutes of sleep to perform their best at work, and almost one-third of the participants admitted to falling asleep or becoming very sleepy at work at some point in the last month. We all know how important sleep is to increased productivity at work and all-around happiness and well-being, so clearly many of us are facing some serious sleep debt. We’ve asked this once before at the end of a related post, but in light of the findings reported on in the Wired article, we’re curious: More »

Chat Across IM Platforms with Pidgin 2.4

2:00PM Adam Pash | Windows/Unix: Free, open source instant messaging application Pidgin has just released a significant new update, chock full of bug fixes and some snazzy new features—among them more file transfer support, interface improvements, and improved customisation. For more details on the changes, check out the official ChangeLog. Pidgin is free, open source, works on all Windows and Unix platforms. If you’re new to Pidgin, check out the ten must-have Pidgin plug-ins to get even more out of the killer cross-platform app. If you’re a die-hard Pidgin user, let’s hear why you love Pidgin in the comments. Pidgin More »

Remind Yourself Where You Hid Stuff via Email

1:29PM Gina Trapani | Blogger Jenny says that when she puts an important item in a “safe place” so she won’t lose it, she usually winds up forgetting where it is and, well, losing it. Her solution is to make a private, searchable database of locations via email: I put my passport back where I found it and then I emailed myself: Subject: Passport Message Body: In your backpack in the closet. I also copied my brother on the email and applied the label “Stuff.” This way when I lose my passport next time I can simply pull up my email and see where it is located. Looks like a good way to “index” stuff when you’re defragging your home. Quick Tip: Never Lose Anything Again [hackaddict.net] More »

Track Your Unread Gmail Messages RSS-Style

12:00PM Adam Pash | We’ve already highlighted how to subscribe to RSS feeds of your Gmail labels, but the Google Operating System also points out how easy it is to subscribe to a feed of all your unread email using the built-in unread label. In essence, you’d just add the following URL to any feed reader that supports authentication (of which Google Reader is not one): https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/unread/ The really cool part of this feature is that you can open the email directly in Gmail from the item in your newsreader. Just remember, if you’re subscribing to your Gmail unread feed in a newsreader that makes feeds public, be sure your privacy settings are properly configured so you don’t end up sharing any of your private email messages. A Feed for Unread Gmail Messages [Google Operating System] More »