Blogging Till You Drop
From the NYTimes.com:
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December…
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
The emergence of this class of information worker has paralleled the development of the online economy. Publishing has expanded to the Internet, and advertising has followed.
Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.
…All that competition puts a premium on staying awake. Matt Buchanan, 22, is the right man for the job. He works for clicks for Gizmodo, a popular Gawker Media site that publishes news about gadgets. Mr. Buchanan lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, where his bedroom doubles as his office.
He says he sleeps about five hours a night and often does not have time to eat proper meals. But he does stay fueled — by regularly consuming a protein supplement mixed into coffee.
But make no mistake: Mr. Buchanan, a recent graduate of New York University, loves his job. He said he gets paid to write (he will not say how much) while interacting with readers in a global conversation about the latest and greatest products.
“The fact I have a few thousand people a day reading what I write — that’s kind of cool,” he said. And, yes, it is exhausting. Sometimes, he said, “I just want to lie down.”
Sometimes he does rest, inadvertently, falling asleep at the computer.
“If I don’t hear from him, I’ll think: Matt’s passed out again,” said Brian Lam, the editor of Gizmodo. “It’s happened four or five times.”
80 Useful New Media Tutorials
Here’s a list of tutorials for those who want to get started in new media:
SEARCH
01. Google Advance Search Tips
02. 10 Most Amazing Google Search Tricks
03. Top 10 Obscure Google Tricks
04. 7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing
05. 4 Google Tricks
ALERTS
06. Customize Google Alerts to your email box
07. How to create a Yahoo Alert
RSS
08. RSS In Plain English
09. How to use Google Reader
10.How to subscribe to feeds in Google Reader
11. How to add feeds to Bloglines
12. iGoogle Set up by Ryan Wade
13. Using RSS 101 by Alex Barnett
14. Netvibes Tutorial
15. Yahoo Mail RSS Reader
SOCIAL BOOKMARKS
16.Social bookmarks in Plain English
17.Digg basics
18.Del.icio.us Tutorial
BLOGGING
19. Blogs in Plain English
20. How to set up a blog on WordPress or Blogger
21. How to set up and install WordPress
22. How to install WordPress
23. Chris Abraham WordPress Tutorial
24. 3-minute intro to WordPress features
25. How to add a photo to your WordPress post
26. Create a blog with Blogger
27. How to customize your blogger header
28. Adding photos in Blogger.
29. The five types of blog posts
30. 25 types of blogs
DIGITAL PHOTO
31.Picasa tutorials by Chris
32.How to download and install Picasa
33.How to import photos from camera to Picasa
34.How to Use Adobe Photoshop
35.How to use Picasa
36.Editing photos with Picasa
37.How to use Flickr
DIGITAL AUDIO
38.Audacity Tutorial for Podcasters by Jason Van Orden
39.How to download and install Audacity
40.Audacity: Recording set up
41.Audacity: Editing tools
42.Audacity: Basic editing and trimming
43.Audacity: Adjusting levels
44.Importing audio and exporting the MP3
45.Audacity: Saving your project
46.Basic Audacity 1.2 Tutorial
47.Mixing with Audacity
48.How to embed an MP3 audio player
PODCASTING AND VIDEO BLOGGING
49.How to podcast by Jason Van Orden
50.Podcast hosting
51.Where to upload videos for podcast.
52.How to set up videoblog from Freevlog
53.Free video hosting companies
54.How to use Feedburner for video blogs
55.How to submit videos to iTunes and Fireant
56.How to set an account on YouTube
57.How to upload video to YouTube
58.How to easily create video on Windows Movie Maker
59.How to make a good quality video for YouTube
60.Windows movie maker tips for YouTube
AUDIO SLIDESHOWS
61.Getting started with Soundslides
62.Preparing photos in Photoshop for Soundslides
63.Create first photostory using Microsoft Photostory 3.0
64. Jake’s Photostory Tutorials
SOCIAL NETWORKS
65.Social networks in Plain English
66.Customizing your privacy in Facebook
67.How to post photos and notes on Facebook
68.Adding photos to Facebook
69.How to upload videos on Facebook
70.MySpace set up tutorial
71.How to upload photos to your MySpace profile
MICROBLOGGING
72.Twitter in Plain English
73.Ten Ways to Use Twitter
74.How reporters use Twitter
75.Twitter: A Beginner’s Guide
76. Download and Install Adobe AIR and Twhirl, a Twitter client
WIKIS
77.Wikis in Plain English
78.How to edit a wiki page
79.PB Wiki – Getting Started
80.Add and edit page in MediaWiki
Malaysian open source provocateur gets punk’d
My friend Dinesh sauntered into his office on April Fool’s Day to discover he was a victim..
His entire room was wrapped in tin foil – including his desk, chairs, wastepaper basket, PCs, notebook, mouse, picture frames, awards, files, in-tray, mug, ashtray, lighter, every cable, socket and plug – even the loose change.
The floor, walls and window frames were covered in brown paper and, later, he discovered, his car had been done the dishonour as well.
Read the story by Leslie Lau on The Malaysian Insider – The day Malaysia’s No 1 hacker got punk’d and the account by the plotting rebel “Sith minions” and watch their Star Wars’ inspired Youtube video.
Hilarious.
Motorola insider reveals the mess
How does an industry icon stumble so badly?
Numair Faraz, personal adviser to Motorola CMO Geoffrey Frost, gives an insider view in a letter to engadget.com on Frost’s untimely death, his wife’s suicide, former CEO Ed Zander’s extravagances, including a fleet of private jets and US$30m golden parachute, and the ineptitude of current CEO Greg Brown who insists all his emails be printed by his secretary and replied to by dictation.
Numair to Brown:
…instead of merely being inept, you’re actually actively killing the company. Your lack of understanding of the consumer side of Motorola doesn’t give you a valid reason for selling the handset business; moreover, publicly disclosing your explorations of such a move, in an attempt to keep Carl Icahn off your back, shows how much you value the safety of your incompetence.
You clearly have no interest in fighting the good fight and attempting to mold Motorola into the market leader it can and should be.
