Cat 2.0 or … Cyrus Joins Our Corporate Yammer Network!

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Last night I went to a neighborhood party, but forgot to shut my laptop down. Cyrus, our black tabby cat decided he wanted to understand what Web 2.0 and company wide chat via my Fortune 100 firm's Yammer network was all about. Anyhow, Cyrus settled down on my keyboard and invoked some commands … and even took a screenshot via SnagIt (like a dummy … I did not save the screenshot). Four times Cyrus asked (via my profile) … "what are you working on?" Ultimately he received a few responses.  The first response was "writing some reports for root cause investigations"! Thus, if you want to get true value out of company-wide chat … use your cat! Here are two screenshots of our Yammer network responding to Cyrus masquerading as me, and of course, a photo of Cyrus! Click to expand any image to full size.

You need to understand that my cat loves the warmth of my computer, and enjoys walking and sleeping on my laptop … thus his clandestine entries by stepping on various keys!

Yammer-BB Yammer-CC Yammer-AA

A Nerd’s Dorm Rises in China

China, Northern Life

Two days ago I was feeling sorry for myself. A New Year's Eve day cross-country ski injury had left me with a broken bone in my thumb and a torn ligament. I had planned to ski three long distance ski races this Winter (25 to 52 kilometers) to finish raising the money for a dorm my wife Molly and I are trying to build in the mountains of southern China near Vietnam (LingYun).

Instead I was taught a lesson in humility when by chance yesterday photographs of the dorm's construction process arrived . I thought … who cares how fast I ski … one armed cross-country skiing will still get me to the finish line. Thus, broken bones, torn ligaments and all … please sponsor me in my Kilometers for Kids Project. Help me and the dorm reach the finish line! The races will take place in February … and hopefully we can achieve our fund raising goal by March 1st!

Take two minutes and watch the video I created … then donate. Contributions to the China Tomorrow Education Foundation are tax deductible in the USA (full report).

  • Report Date: February 25, 2009
  • Money Raised: $6,067
  • Goal – $7,500

Donate via PayPal … even a $10 donation helps!

LingYun Video (2 minutes in duration)

Lego Engineering

Legos

This post is an excellent way to ease into the new work year. If you want to keep current on the world of technology, subscribe via RSS to Google Tech Talks. However, for those of you with kids involved with First Lego League (or the big kid in you who still loves to program and create robots), link to this recent Google seminar:

Google TechTalks are already indexed in my engineering seminar search engine, and you may browse /search via the Engineering Learning Wiki.
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Tufts

Harvard Hijinks

Northern Life

You may not know this fact (or care), but the Northstar Nerd attended Dartmouth. Even after having spent four years on the Hanover plain, I can still appreciate the Harvard Hooligans! These guys have some great humor, I highly recommend these two particular videos:

Pay particular attention to the "video response" to the iPod video (hint, hint). Click to expand any image. Still on holiday today … back to the real work on Monday. Oh yes, I still don't own an iPod!

Post Update on January 4th: The Harvard Hooligans have offered me advice!  Take a look.

Dartmouth-seal Harvard-sealHarvard-iPodDartmouth-Response

Google Metadata – Narrated Tutorial

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Although I posted the silent animated tutorial earlier this week, I decided many of you would like to have access to a narrated version … thus:

This tutorial reviews how Google indexes common software formats: Adobe pdf, Excel xls, HTML, and Powerpoint ppt. You should link to my earlier post to access the full experiment including sample files and other resources. I've provided below a screenshot of the first slide: (click to expand)
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Metadata