Weblog | Events | Features | Gallery | Links | Consultants directory | Zine | About | Contact Weblog> January 2003 030129: Wed Time Management: The Pickle Jar Theory Jeremy Wright wrote this cool quick read on how to manage your time more effectively. It's about dealing with the big rocks first and then filling up the rest of the jar with sand, water etc, rather than letting the little things take up all your time and then you find you have no time for the big things. Inc.com articles on fun Employee Manuals The latest newsletter has two stories of management who communicate the company's culture and values through their Employee Manuals. In this case, the Motley Fool and Zingerman - deli in the U.S. have made their manual / handbook into a fun and interesting read to get their points across. Norah Jones article in the SMH Article is titled 'Talk of the town, Jones avoids spotlight'. She's one talented lady and she's just 23! Knowledge Management Forum Evenings - FREE EVENT Got an email about the NSW KM Forum evenings. The next one is on Thursday 6th February. Time: 5:30pm (talk starts at 6pm), finishes at 7pm, and then down the road for drinks and chats. If you arrive after 5:30pm, ring James Roberts 0416 054 213 (jamesr@steptwo.com.au, http://www.steptwo.com.au) and he'll arrange for someone to let you in. Where: Standards Australia, Level 6, 286 Sussex St, (Corner of Bathurst St). Forum details: "Speaker 1: Jan Gardiner ­ 3M Australia ­ Technical Manager 3M is famous in the US for inventing PostIt Notes and Scotchguard but its Australian business has had some great successes too. Come and hear what really goes on in 3M's research laboratories and the success stories of the Australian operation. Jan will discuss what she considers are some knowledge focused characteristics of how 3M goes about doing business. Speaker 2: Dr Carl Rhodes ­ Oval Research ­ UTS Carl Rhodes is a Senior Research Fellow at The Australian Centre for Organisational, Vocational and Adult Learning. He will be speaking on the role of stories in developing new models of learning and work. He will recount some of the insights developed in gaining his PhD and his practical experience in using stories to evaluate a performance management system at Citibank. In particular he will discuss the effect of bias in story methods and challenge the audience to discuss how you might go about detecting which "small signal" stories are important to listen to and which to ignore." Out of the Box - presentation on packaging design - 3rd Feb This seminar is listed on AGDA's (Australian Graphic Design Association) website. It says "A selection of local and interstate packaging specialists unwrap the secrets to their success... Speakers include: John Emery of REB - Perth, Annette Harcus, and Gary Broadbent from Kirby Nolan - Sydney. It says to rsvp to Robyn or Tanya 02 9955 3955 or secretariat@agda.com.au. There's a cost too. Go to the site for more details. Picasso Exhibition Went to see the Picasso: The Last Decades exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW last Saturday. There were lots of works on display. It was great to have the opportunity to see the works up close as opposed to just in art books. I found the last self-portrait one very interesting. Perhaps he was so frail, he just mainly used colours to express how he felt. I found it a very 'raw' and honest painting somehow. Anyway, it's on till the 16th February so if you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a visit! It's open from 10am to 5pm 7 days a week and Wednesday nights until 9pm from 8 January 2003. New 'Bespelled' score Played another game last night. Got 205890. Have now risen to 'Archivist' status! I also found a link to the top scores to 'Bespelled' and the highest score at the moment is at 1963466829 by someone going by the name of Theematrixz. Wow! Just submitted the Chaos Generation weblog to The Australian Weblogs site I've always thought of my site as an experimental site so hadn't really publicised it, though some people seem to accidentally stumble across my site anyway. Have received a few nice emails from such accidental visitors which is really nice. Anyway, I figure it's always going to continue to evolve and will always be a work in progress and so I decided to submit my weblog to the Australian Weblogs site maintained by Anthony J. Hicks. I thought 'Why not!' I basically link to events I'd be interested in attending and articles etc I find useful or interesting so if some of you do so also then that's great! 030127: Mon OptusNet plans Don't know why I thought a 550MB download would last me for a month. I thought I'd try the lite plan as you can always get it upgraded. Well I reached the limit with more than 10 days to go. I plan to do a lot more surfing so I have now upgraded to the 3G plan. Hopefully that'll be sufficient for my surfing needs. ColdPlay: A Rush of Blood to the Head It's now many hours later and I'm now listening to ColdPlay's new one titled 'A Rush of Blood to the Head'. This one's really good too. Bespelled game Went to the MSN site to try and find the Windows Media search tool from the presentation mentioned below, before I decided to just go the links page he set up with the referenced links. Anyway, I don't usually play any online games. But this one caught my attention. It's like solo 'Scrabble'. It really is a very cool game! You make words from the letter tiles and submit the words to accumulate points. They sometimes throw in burning tiles and you should use these up as quickly as possible otherwise, if they reach the bottom before you get to use the tile, the library burns down and the game is finished. Green tiles are good as you can use them to get bonus points. So I've played 3 games so far: 1st game - 15340 points, 2nd game - 82090 (librarian status), 3rd game - 123220 (senior librarian status). I wonder what the highest score is and what title they get given? Library director maybe? Search engines seminar As part of the 2003 Information Online conference, Chris Sherman - editor of SearchDay came out to Sydney from the States to give a presentation. He also gave a separate full-day seminar at the State Library on Search engines and Search engine technology. I went to this and got a lot out of the day! Some of the things he mentioned were: Google's rankings are based on a link popularity idea i.e. supposedly the more sites/pages linking to your's then the higher your one will be ranked. Teoma is based more on a peer review model where it looks at what 'communities' on the topic link to. Alltheweb is a meta search engine and searches numerous search engines from the one engine. Other sites he mentioned which I'll just note here include: Meta search engines: Dogpile, Metacrawler, and Vivisimo Non-text search tools: Images: Google Images, Visoo, Audio: MSN Windows Media, Multimedia: Singingfish, Windows Media You can subscribe to his SearchDay newsletter at: http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday I just signed up for it and looked through some of the archive newsletters. It's worth reading if you want to learn more about this whole area and to keep updated with new developments. He also put the links to his presentation up at: http://www.searchwise.net/p/best-engine.htm Finally, he also co-wrote a book titled 'The Invisible Web'. URL is: http://www.invisible-web.net. It talks about the resources that the search engines don't typically pick up because the information is embedded in databases etc. Google Toolbar He also mentioned a cool thing about the Google toolbar which can be downloaded at: http://toolbar.google.com. The cool part is that there's a button that enables you to search for those keywords on a particular site. I often use my weblog as a way to note down links I want to keep a record of. But sometimes I'm not sure how far back it was when I referenced it. So now I can use the Google toolbar and find things on my own site - like having my own site search engine! Pretty cool! Teoma Toolbar Teoma have also released a toolbar as part of their Teoma 2.0 release. I heard that it would be something to watch out for. So I might download this as well sometime and have a play. I currently have the Yahoo one - which seemed to download itself a while ago. Then I downloaded the Google one. So now I have the top 1/4 of the screen already taken up by toolbars! Information Online conference 2003 This conference is a big event for information professionals. It's held in Sydney every two years. It's an update of what's happening in the areas of knowledge management, meta data, research, libraries, intranets and heaps of other stuff. I wanted to go to this but it was still a bit expensive unless your company is willing to sponsor you to go. Anyway, the great news is that I just found a link to the presentation papers. I'm really happy the organisers did this. Free Information Service The National Library of Australia and the State Libraries have developed a free information service where you can post a question to the site and a librarian will get back to you with some references that answer your question - and it's a free service! Pretty cool! The URL is: http://www.asknow.gov.au/public. Norah Jones Got given the Norah Jones CD 'Come Away With Me'. It's really great. Have listened to it a few times now. It's really soothing, mellow, loungy music. It'd be good to listen to it on an overcast, windy, rainy day or late at night. She's playing at the Opera House, here in Sydney on January 29th. Just went to the Opera House site and found out the show is sold out. I think I need to pick up all the music papers again. I would've loved to have gone to this show. Public Holiday Monday Today's a public holiday since Australia Day fell on a Sunday. Yay! 030126: Sun Australia Day Checked out the Australia Day site for what's happening around town today. Went to Hyde Park around 11.30am. Already heaps of people milling around. Lipton teas were sponsoring the event so they were giving away iced teas. I tried the peach one. It was pretty nice. There were classic, vintage cars on display on two sides surrounding the park. It was a good exhibit. There were lots of food stalls also. Lots of good Aussie tucker on offer like sausages in a bun, steak sandwiches, as well as the more ethnic dishes. Needed to put walk a bit to put more money in the parking meter so decided to just have something else for lunch. Probably should've just bussed in. Went to the local Woolies and got some thick Aussie sausages and made our own hotdogs complete with onions and tomato sauce. It's been a sweltering 30 something degrees today. Not feeling mega productive today even though I had planned to get through some work. Ended up having a huge wedge of watermelon, two Frostie fruits - watermelon and pineapple flavour and drinking heaps of juice and water... 030122: Wed Put your foot down and Walk Against Want on Sunday 23 February 2003 "Be one of the 20,000 people around Australia who will Walk Against Want and raising money to help poor communities overcome poverty and injustice. In remote Sri Lankan villages, just $150 will pay a teacher for three months to educate 60 children. Find out more about how the money you raise supports communities around the world. Raise over $150 and you will have the chance to win two places on an Intrepid group trip in Asia for up to nine days.* Conditions apply" The Ten Second Films Competition Interested in creating a 10 second film with a chance to win $1000 U.S. then enter the Ten Second film competition. Entries can be submitted from February 3rd to March 10. The Way Home - "Champagne Premiere" fundraising event to support the running of the Sydney Asia Pacific Film Festival "Paul de Carvalho & Juanita Kwok, Co-Directors of the Sydney Asia Pacific Film Festival, invite you to a Fundraising "Champagne Premiere" Screening of the Korean Box Office Hit: 'The Way Home' Date: Thursday 6th February Time: 6.30pm for champagne, 7pm screening Place: Min Gyo Art Hall, 6-12 Harbour Street, Haymarket (At Intersection of Liverpool St, Harbour St and Dixon Street - just down from Sussex Street, behind the REGAL Restaurant, see map below ) Tickets: $20 on the night (Including GST) If you wish to pre-book seats please send your requests to rsvp@sapff.com.au All proceeds will go towards the running of the Sydney Asia Pacific Film Festival. Now in its fourth year SAPFF is the only Festival of its kind, dedicated to presenting the best of Asian film in Sydney. SAPFF operates strictly on a not-for-profit basis and is run entirely by volunteers. Your support is greatly appreciated. About the film: Lee Jeong-hyang, one of Korea's most commercially successful female directors, brings us the heart felt film The Way Home. Released in Korea in April 2002, the film outperformed both Hollywood blockbusters and star-studded local movies to land at #1 in the box-office. More accustomed to the luxuries of the modern world, a spoiled seven-year old boy must stay with his old-fashioned grandmother in a small rural village while his mother looks for work. At first Sang-woo rudely rejects his grandmother's way of life. But gradually, through her constant show of kindness and love, he learns to accept and understand the simple pleasures of nature and her lifestyle. Please feel free to forward this invitation onto your friends and colleagues. Sydney Asia Pacific Film Festival gratefully acknowledges the sponsorship of Min Gyo Art Hall and Yalumba. Min Gyo Hall is a new cinema dedicated to showing a regular programme of the latest in Korean film. Yalumba has been a sponsor of the Sydney Asia Pacific Film Festival since its inception." Contact: P: 61 2 9280 2020, F: 61 2 9280 2021, E: info@sapff.com.au, W: http://www.sapff.com.au Creating a Culture of Ideas In an article titled 'Creating a Culture of Ideas', Nicholas Negroponte (who helped found MIT Media Lab and is co-founder and columnist for Wired magazine) discusses ways to develop innovation. These include encouraging and supporting: diversity, collaboration, risk taking, openness, idea sharing, imagination, and listening to the young .... Wiliam Gibson's blog William Gibson - cool sci-fi writer of classics like 'Neuromancer' has got a website and a blog. 030119: Sun Parking ticket costs A number of Local councils now have their own parking officers on their staff to issue parking tickets. I imagine it's a good revenue generator for them and that's why they seem to put quite a few of them on. In some suburbs, you see them everywhere - madly writing out tickets like there's no tomorrow. Anyway, the local councils can download the 'Local Government Council Fixed Penalty Handbook' put out by the Infringement Processing Bureau. So from this site you can see that if you want to park in a 'Loading Zone' then be prepared to be up for $90. If you don't point your car the right way in angle parking e.g. rear to kerb then you're up for $66 and if you park without putting coins into parking meter, you're also up for $66. You can download the whole file in pdf format and read at your leisure if you want. Catch me if you can It was 38 degrees celcius yesterday. I was trying to get some work done but as I don't have air conditioning at home, I found it pretty warm. So I thought I'd go and watch a movie instead. Went and watched 'Catch me if you can'. It's not a bad film. Watching the film made me want to read the book that it's 'inspired' from, if there is one. Jennifer Garner from 'Alias' has a v.small role in it. One of the interesting ideas was that perception is reality. It was funny when Leonardo di Caprio's character Frank walked around the airport with all those 'student' air hostesses and the authorities would be looking right at the girls and wouldn't even notice him. It was cool how he pulled off all those things when he was still a school kid. He should be a special undercover agent or something. Anyway, came out of the movie around 9pm. Decided it was still too hot to feel like cooking so got some local Thai takeaway and got into the work I was originally going to do that morning, except by this time it was 11pm. Got it finished around 2am so that's cool. At least it wasn't hot. 030117: Fri Semi-Permanent Design conference Design is Kinky are putting on a digital design conference on April 11 and 12 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre. They've got a pretty impressive line-up of speakers including k10k, Animal Logic and many others. It's actually affordable at $140 for 2 days if you book before February 15th. It's even cheaper for students and you can book to go just one day if you want. I think I'll try and get to this one. I remember the one run by IdN magazine a while back was really good and this one looks like a similar format. Paper Chase: How To Seem Like You Read Several Newspapers This is a funny piece from Readymademag.com on how to sound like you're really informed on global news, politics etc. Dinner and creme brulee Caught up with a friend from high school last night. We usually go for a nice dinner somewhere and then find somewhere for dessert and hot chocolate. Was going to book 'Eiger' as the write up in the SBS Food Guide 2002 for them sounded pretty good but their answering service says they don't open till Jan 28th. You see, when we catch up, we like to try a place neither of us have been to. Adds to the fun. So settled on one of the regular places I go to - Una's in Darlinghurst. Had the veal scallopine with mushroom sauce, potato rosti and vegies. Don't quite know why but I always seem to order this meal. Anyway she ordered the pork knuckle and that looked really good so I may try that one next time... Then went in search for creme brulee for dessert. I remember seeing it on the Bills 2 menu in Surry Hills so we drove over there. But alas, it was no longer on their menu. Then walked to the Dolphin who also usually have it but last night - they had a panacotta instead. So we went to a place where we knew it was a 'fixed' dessert on their menu. So we drove to Leichhardt and went to Elios. There was a mango one on offer so we settled on that and also had hot chocolate. Yummo. Very rich dinner/dessert combination. Don't think my body can take too many of these types of meals. Walsh Bay apartments I was lucky enough to be part of a group that was taken on a tour of the nearly completed Walsh Bay apartments - down near the Sydney Dance Company. The apartments had standard sized rooms - ie not very big. But the view was pretty awesome. The penthouse apartments had a double height ceiling space. Apparently one buyer bought two penthouse apartments and requested that the common wall be knocked down. So this particular 'apartment' has 6 bedrooms, 2 kitchens, 4 bathrooms, 2 laundrys and the rooms have views to the harbour. The good thing about this one was that it was located on the 5th floor and they had literally 180 degree views, rather than just 90 degree views of one side of the harbour. The owners bought these apartments off the plan 2 years ago. Apparently, you had to pay a $10,000 refundable fee to even be allowed to view these apartments - I guess they would've been display apartments at the time with maybe a tour of the site. If you didn't buy one, they'd refund the fee. I guess they're trying to knock out tyre kickers. Anyway, it was all pretty impressive and the finishes were very nice. Location, location, location and views, views, views. Virgin Blue sale I subscribed to their email newsletter the other day and this morning I got an email saying they are having this massive seat sale till Sun January 19th or until sold out. Travel is between February and April. The prices are pretty unbeatable from $33 one way to Melbourne to $99 to go to Perth one way. Thought I'd try it out for a short break but their system won't let me do any transaction - some server error. I guess everyone's thinking the same thing. Good advertising for them anyway I guess. Would be better advertising if you could actually get on to book tickets. The weird thing was that I was at their site about two nights ago and was thinking of booking seats for a short break to Melbourne. I'll see. 030112: Sun Food photo log New Yorker Adam Seifer takes photos of the meals he has and then puts a brief description to each photo entry. It's a food weblog! The food log is at http://fotolog.net:8080/cypher/. He also has another website which is more on him, beyond the food. I've started taking a couple a few food photos recently as well. They're of meals I've cooked. I think it stemmed from the fact that I'm amazed that I'm cooking and I guess I think of it as a novel concept still and I don't know how long it will last ie how I'll keep this up. So I guess I've started logging some of these meals digitally - after all, once you've eaten the meal, it's gone, so you have to log it before you eat it. Haven't put any of these up yet. I'll have a think about it... Fotologgers There's also an index to other photo webloggers to be found at Fotolog. URL is: http://fotolog.net:8080/ Young urbanites launch journal Two young Yale college mates are going to launch an urban magazine in the States titled 'The Next American City'. I liked reading about the process they took to get this magazine idea going. They basically had an idea of what they wanted the magazine to be and then figured out how to get it to the stage of publication. Downshifters - opting out of the rat race The SMH had this article titled 'No worries, mate'. It's about people who choose lifestyle, flexibility, and freedom over life in the corporate fast lane of high salaries but long hours and lots of stress. These people work on causes that are important to them as well as devoting more time to their families and to doing the things they enjoy. I've always believed that 'Life is the Journey' so you may as well LIVE every moment of it. The Matrix Makers This article from the MSNBC site has a bit of info on the two Matrix film sequels. The Wachowskis brothers are pretty talented! The Tuxedo Saw 'The Tuxedo' last night starring Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt. It was better than I thought it would be. In a bit of a movie going mood at the moment. It was good simple fun. 030110: Fri Winnie the Pooh back massager Wired magazine has this article in their print and online version on 'Desktop Primping' and features some of the cool accessories on Japanese school girl's desktops. I wouldn't mind one of those Winnie the Pooh back massagers which has 4 tiny vibrating motors to soothe your stiff shoulders. It's sooo cute and it's yours for $23 U.S. or 2900 yen. Eight days a week The ABC are currently airing a series titled 'Eight Days a Week' which looks at the world of small business. They look at real small businesses and they also provide these businesses with business mentors to look at their business situation. There's also a theme to each week's episode. There's still a few episodes left. It's on at 6pm on Friday afternoons. Their resources page linked to a couple of useful sources of information. I found the NSW links to: the Small Business Advisory Centres (NSW Government Initiative) and the Home Based Business Development Program (NSW Government Initiative) to be pretty good. Will have to have a more thorough look through these sometime. How stuff works Everyone probably knows about the 'How stuff works' site already but I thought I'd link to it anyway. It's pretty comprehensive and concepts are explained in an easy to read way. They've got everything from how lock-picking works to how to network your home computers to dieting to freelance magazine writing... Google news clipping service I like the Google news search tab. I'm finding it particularly useful - kind of like my own free news clipping, monitoring service. I just type in the search terms on whatever subject I like and then voila, I get the latest articles on those topics from newspapers etc around the world. Pretty neat stuff. 030107: Tue In Praise of Clutter In this article featured in the 'Economist', psychologist Ms Kidd says that clutter on people's desks is a physical representation of what is going on in their heads - "a temporary holding pattern for ideas and inputs which they cannot yet categorise or even decide how they might use". Sounds plausible to me ;-). Late night TV Watched 'The Amazing Race'. You see lots of snippets of Flo being pretty tired all round and on the brink of giving up and giving Zach a hard time throughout it all - makes you wonder how they pull through to actually win in the end. Anyway did a bit of channel surfing on free-air tv and came across some 'interesting' things. Saw bits of the Ruby Wax show. This one sees her visiting American children's paegeants. Scary stuff. Some mothers are pushing their daughters as young a few months old into these things. 2-5 year olds are made up to look like barbie dolls and put through catwalk and singing and dancing routines. Some have coaches who teach them how to pout and point a finger in a seductive and teasing way. eerrgh. It looks like some of these mothers may be trying to fulfil their dreams of becoming a star through their daughters by starting them of very young. Then there was 'The Oblongs' - a bit liken an 'adult', cynical version of the Simpsons. There was also 'Banzai' - some weird Japanese betting game show. Caught a segment where this guy sat in a shopping trolley and was pushed over a ramp and he had to jump over as many cakes as possible. He managed to jump over 8 of them. I guess you lay down bets with your friends before the stunt happens then it's time to collect the money if you won the bet. Two Weeks Notice Watched 'Two Weeks Notice' on Sunday night. It was a very good romance comedy. I wasn't sure what to expect but the script was great. The laugh lines weren't poor cliches. It was actually quite an entertaining film. I'd recommend it! Alternative ending to 'Sweet Home Alabama' I read somewhere that the DVD to 'Sweet Home Alabama' has an alternative ending. Would like to know what that is. So if anyone knows what it is, please feel free to drop me an email to let me know. Does she get together with Patrick Dempsey's character in the alternative ending one? 030104: Sat Saturday night chores night Was thinking of seeing another movie tonight. But ended up buying ingredients for dinner - pork medallion on rice with pineapple salsa, then cooking it, then cleaning up, then washing clothes. Oh, what a way to spend Saturday night. Sweet Home Alabama Saw 'Sweet Home Alabama' last night. Ok romance film. At least it didn't follow the usual cliche where the rich guy is not a very nice guy. In this case, the character Patrick Dempsey plays is a pretty nice guy. Lord of the Rings 3 hrs just whizzes by in this film. Saw it on Boxing Day when it opened in Sydney. The lines were very long. Didn't think we'd get a seat. But luckily we got a pretty good seat in the end. The battle scenes are amazing, the animation amazing. All up, a great film. Wish they would just put us out of our misery and just release the third one so we can just watch it like now. Particularly liked the character 'Legolas'. Had a quick look on the web for more info on the person who plays Legolas. It's Orlando Bloom. He looks pretty good in the elf costume with the long hair and aiming arrows at the bad guys. 030101: Wed Suffering for their Art This article titled 'Suffering for their Art' from the SMH website features people who have decided to pursue their dreams of making films, putting on plays at the Seymour and Newtown theatres, and publishing their own books despite the time, effort and costs associated with the process. They raise the capital any way they can ie selling their home or working hard and saving that money, borrowing money etc to fund their projects. It's a cool article. It's great to read about these people creating their own opportunities and just going for it their own way to realise their dreams. Facta non verba. Artist nets buyers via the web This article titled 'Artist nets buyers via the web' also from the SMH tells how Muriel Moret aged 26 has sold her paintings through auction websites. The cool part is that she taught herself how to paint only a year ago and not being able to get galleries to hang her artworks, she set up a website and posted her artworks up for auction. It's cool to read that she's just gone and done it and put it out there and it's cool to read that people have bought her works. Her website can be found at: http://www.murielmoret.com. Love and Money in 2003 Jessica Adams is an astrologist who writes for SMH. Check out her predictions for your star sign for the coming year. Happy New Year! Had a quietish time with family last night to welcome in the New Year. Watched the fireworks on tele. Saw how the 9pm fireworks got cancelled due to strong winds. They're thinking of letting the 9pm ones off in the next few nights or on Australia Day now apparently. Drove back home at about 1am. Didn't get the usual beeping of the horns or people yelling on the streets or any streamers or balloons or anything. Just a bit more traffic on the road at that time. I guess it's been that kind of a year. I thought it was good that the bridge lit up with a dove flying around and ending with the word 'Peace'. If only John Howard would listen. I guess we can all hope for world peace and do what we can to promote that message in the way we conduct our daily lives. Got up around midday today and just having a generally relaxing day. December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 October 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001

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