Learning WP…

OK, I’ve spent the entire evening reading dozens of blogs about WordPress, and have found a ton of interesting information.  Last night I set up a Win2k3 server and installed XAMPP with WordPress 2.0 (now upgraded to 2.0.1).

I’m doing a little research on how to install themes, plugins, manage the system and so on.  My plan is to find a host (any experience with GoDaddy?) and manage my own WordPress blog so I have more customization options as I want to grow.  That of course is not to say I don’t like the service on wordpress.com, but I do want to have complete control of my blog, so hosting my own is the way for me.

 WordPress is very impressive!

Risk Aversion

Here is an interesting post about risk-aversion and how it impacts individuals and organizations.  Great read, highly recommended.

via: Scobleizer

Company’s Mid-Winter Party

We just had our company’s mid-winter party tonight. What a blast! I thought it would be dull and boring – another corporate event. I was wrong. The company went all out, it was a fantastic dinner with a great band afterwards. I’ve not had this much fun at a corporate sponsored event in many many years. The company has made its 9th record year of growth, and I’m proud to have been a part of that – whether I made a big difference or not. Many of my co-workers in IT made it to the event, quite a surprise to all of us! We ended up shutting the place down at midnight (we live in Minneapolis, MN) and it was a great time without being “wild”.

To everyone who attended tonight, we’ll see you Monday – try to rest up tomorrow!

To the party planning commitee, who was made up of about 4 people, all I can say is Thank You for a great time and a well thought out and executed party.

New Links Page…

I’ve added a ‘Links’ page, but it does not seem to be showing up at the moment. I’ll update when I get it working. Strange…

Another post on the Me2 Revolution

Here is another article regarding the “Me2 Revolution” and how deep the thinking goes so far. This is interesting stuff, as it really is a fundamental change in how things can work. Just like the Internet bringing a revolution in communication (email) and commerce (online shopping), blogs bring the power of the press, the power of advertising, the power of community, the power of research, the power of common interests into the hands of the general population.

A quick thank-you to mathewingram.com for this link, also check out his post about this as well.
via tech.memeorandum.com

How can I encourage corporate blogging?

So after one of the IT Cheifs asked about blogs and wikis, I’ve been looking for more information about corporate use of these tools. How can a rather conservative egg, potato, and refridgerated goods distributer understand and then leverage the power of communicating through blogs to both employees and customers? I’ve run across a good article called “The Me2 Revolution” (thanks to Tech Memeorandum) which talks about this very issue quite nicely. I recommend reading this article, as it describes a new growing perception in readers today.

[Update]
Corrected the link to the article.

Smartphone Summit

How fun it would be to go to an industry conference like this one – I’m in IT, but mainly go to dull, boring Windows, Microsoft, Server, or Exchange focused conferences that have little new excitement in them. I miss the excitement of a GUI environment when it was new, or the concept of every computer being connected together, then connected to the internet.

Geekzone has a post about discounts on registration for the summit.

Right now, mobile communication along with smart devices like smartphones and connected PDAs are where the excitement is, and soon will simply be in the services accessible anywhere, anytime – its real close, trust me.

Patience

You know, one of the things thats been bothering me the last few weeks, is the lack of patience in the world today.  Everybody is rushing to “do” something, as if they are going to miss out on some part of life.

Well, it makes things miserable for those of us that like to stop and smell the roses, as it were.  As if getting to “the gym” 3 minutes early is going to provide some miraculous increase in the hours of the day.  Ugh.

PC Rebuild

The time has come to rebuild my home laptop.  Only got started at 9pm so I have not gotten very far.  I’ll be using some different software this time around for AV and Firewall – since I’m participating in the MS OneCare beta, which is actually a good piece of software.

 As many know, the worst piece of a rebuild is the patching – at least MS has automated that part quite well.

Changes

Change is occuring again at work.  People moving from one position to another, and I’m wondering how some of the staff is taking it.  Since I’m not a manager/supervisor, I’ve got no direct reports and am able to really get a feel from talking to a number of people.  It will be interesting – that’s for sure.  Also wondering when the salery increases will be communicated to everyone.  That is a frustrating thing – management should have that done by now as they are supposed to take affect in the first payday of February.  If they don’t have it together by now, then they really don’t have it together if you know what I mean.  In the mean time, I’ve got more work than I now what to do with, and minimal assistance.

 As usual, hurry up and wait!