Forgetting that some individuals won’t network with you on a “personal” space like Facebook without knowing who you are, even with the proper introduction. If you’re looking to establish a professional relationship with someone, consider LinkedIn. Otherwise, consider building up a rapport with an individual before randomly adding them as your friend. Some people require face-to-face meetings before they invite you into their private lives. After all, Facebook was a tool that college students were using before it was open to the public, and some still use it as a purely personal and not a professional tool. LinkedIn is still seen as the more professional of the two.
I am one of these strange people, so please don’t try and initiate a business relationship with me on facebook. However I’d be delighted to consider a professional connection on LinkedIn
So far I have removed accounts on Orkut, Jaiku, Plaxo and Vox. I’m waiting to hear back from Dopplr on how to remove my account and I’ve removed as many applications from my Facebook(fb) profile as possible. Depending on Kate’s experience I’ll try and drop myspace as well.
I did de-activate my fb account as my first action, however within 24 hours I had to start using it again as it contained essential contact information and it’s just too hard to keep my local address book updated…
I have decided to start 2008 by cutting out the serious waste of time that is facebook. My first life hack of 2008, I hope there are many more
Well this morning I needed to get hold of someone and realised the only contact details I had were on facebook, so I re-activated my account — AND then I got sucked into playing Star Trek trivia for 30 mins. Sigh….
After giving Facebook the flick yesterday, I have just stopped using last.fm, Wakoopa and Jaiku. Next I shall start trying to get fewer emails by unsubscribing as much as possible.
One of the reasons that it’s been a little quite here recently is that I have been busy with my new job, I ‘m pleased to say that I am now the Technical Manager for Tripwire in Australia and New Zealand. This is an exiting opportunity to bring server auditing and compliance into the local market and I’m looking forward to it immensely.
Expect to see more material on IT Systems Management and Visible Operations, which I see a a another facet of what I have already been talking about (Change management, process and focusing on customer value).
As well as the professional opportunity, I have been given the chance to retool. So I am now using a 15″ Macbook Pro which, when coupled with VMWare Fusion for when you absolutely need Windows, has been a really great experience — UNIX in a really low cut, slinky, dress (and really tight leather chaps as well).
So you can expect to see more material on my experiences with the Mac, including the stuff I think I need to add to make it better.
Originally uploaded by alecclews
Nothing much to do with software, except we did talk about software, however today I got to drink at the Malt and Shovel brew pub (famous for their James Squire beers) for the first time. Most enjoyable, thanks to Michael, Ferdi and Dom.
research suggests those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college. By contrast, MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education.
I have membership of both sites and it’s interesting that in a short space of time I have 14 friends on facebook, most of whom found me and only two on myspace who I sought out.
I also found myspace to be a better user experience (better UI design and more in the default set up).
In both cases I created the accounts to better understand Web 2.0 and how my children might handle it.
Originally uploaded by alecclews
I have been asked, in the interests of balanced reporting, to show my favourite picture of my other child so here it is. The fact that the picture also contains beer is neither here nor there
Originally uploaded by alecclews
I’ve just activated my Flickr account and here is one of my favourite pictures — Jack and I fooling around with my camera phone (which not longer works since I upgraded to Pocket Windows 2003 SP 2) in a restaurant.
I’m thinking up upgrading to a Samsung Blackjack which would allow to take better quality photos (as well as make phone calls)
The NCR History page does not mention ATM’s anywhere in the company’s long 125 years, which is odd considering that they saved the company financial bacon (IMHO).
As you can probably tell NCR ATM’s figured large in my life. I started work in London in 1982 working on the 1780 ATM, which was programmed in a rather bizarre proprietary language called TPL. It had paged banked memory (to fit 256K into a 64K address space). Despite all there limitations the family and it’s successors (I also worked in the 1770, 5080 and 5081) were world class machines – designed and built in Dundee, Scotland, where I was lucky enough to be seconded on a few occasions. I finally left the world of ATMs in 1989.
As I was drifting of to sleep last I suddenly realised that next year it will be 30 years since I wrote my first computer program, a small mainframe BASIC application that printed out the multiplication tables to twelve — no proper loops, just if and goto because that’s as far as I had got in the book. I did this in sixth form at Maidstone Grammar School just as I was starting A level computer science with a new school teacher, Tim Baker, who as you can see has moved onto other things. I owe them, and many other people, a huge debt.
My much used copy of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is wearing out. The CD keeps skipping and the surface looks pitted and worn . It was one of the first CD’s I ever bought. Does this imply that CD’s have a shelf life of about 20 years or do I just not take enough care?
To celebrate my new citizenship Australian are hammering England on the cricket field. Ever since I arrived in Australia eight years ago I made sure I passed the Tebbit Test and much to the surprise of my Australian friends and colleagues I have been a firm Australia supporter.
I also follow the state religion, Australian rules football (footy), and support the Western Bulldogs — because someone told me they were from the wrong side of town and a bit rough. Intrestingly footy is not a popular in NSW or Queensland where they follow the rugby.
Today we had our application for Australian citizenship approved. It’s a pretty painless affair:
Fill in an on-line form
Pay some money
Get someone with a professional qualification to sign a form saying they know who you are
Go to any interview and list the four duties and seven privileges of being a citizen
Attend a citizenship ceremony
We have yet to attend the ceremony, that should happen in the next few months.
The Australians seem very patriotic and attach a lot of importance to the concept of nationhood. However I feel an little uncomfortable about the whole patriotism thing and I have been thinking about it quite a lot about it ever since I came Australia.
I think my discomfort stems from the the fact that I was brought up in Europe where many of us still have group memories of the fascist movement, its promotion of extreme patriotism (I’m being simplistic here) and the misery that brought to the world. If a view is promoted that a certain country is ‘better’ then there is a slippery slope to denigrating other countries and peoples. This issue is discussed with a little more rigour on Wikipedia.
So given all this why I am becoming an citizen?
I want to take part in the political process here
My children can get jobs with the government should they wish
Citizen’s do not need to pay A$125 every 5 years to renew their re-entry visa’s
The queues for Australians are generally shorter at the local airport
In order to make readers in the northern hemisphere jealous about the
great weather, and make it appear that I do really have a normal life,
I thought I would post news of our Sunday here in Melbourne.
First it’s a lovely sunny day today but only 21C so wonderfully cool.
This evening we are having a barbecue after visiting our local butcher
– lamb steaks, chicken and sausages. See the BBQ in the attached
photograph.
All washed down with local beer and wine! Australia — bloody nice one
day, perfect the next.
We also ordered our Christmas turkey which will also go on the BBQ,
which usually means we eat about 4:30 on Christmas day as it takes so long to cook
We went to see the movie An Inconvenient Truth this afternoon. It was a fascinating piece and I had better say up front that I have been a “greenie” for many years (although not a very good one) and fully support the ideas in the film.
I have not been active in the green movement for a long (moving to a new country, having kids etc) and so I am a little out of date on the current research, given that the mainstream press have been fudging the issue for so long.
It is certainly a very uncomfortable thought that we are so far down the ecological disaster path and the film throws into stark relief some unpleasent facts.
I would urge everyone to see the film, make whatever changes they feel able to in their personnel lives (or as the UK Lifestyle movement say Live simply that others may simply live) and use the politcal process to encourage changes over the things that they cannot control directly.
Twenty five years ago we marched against the bomb and apartheid, now it’s time to march again.
My son, Jack, will be moving from primary to secondary education in January (the academic year starts in January here). Today we got the first information pack from the new school, which was very exciting. The next thing I know he’ll be ready to leave home.
I’ve been a little quiet on the Internet over the last couple of days as the recent wind blew the skylight off the roof and smashed it . It is very surprising how hard it is to:
Purchase a replacement skylight — there are no standard sizes
Find someone who can obtain and fix a new skylight
Anyway — I have done a quick hardware hack and hope to get a better solution real soon.
![[FSF Associate Member]](http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/associate/fsf-10505.png)
. It was one of the first CD’s I ever bought. Does this imply that CD’s have a shelf life of about 20 years or do I just not take enough care?
