The Lifelong Learner
:: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are -Roosevelt ::
The Lifelong Learner
:: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are -Roosevelt ::
This is cool stuff. I always wanted to know how popular a particular name has been. Now, I need to more than ever. Why? My wife is eight months pregnant! It’s exciting. We still have not settled on a name, though. We both like Jacob (or Jakub), but I think it’s just too common. It was number one in 1995, according to the chart. I like the name Fabian and I’m trying to convince my wife to go with it. It’s a unique name, but it’s usage, looks like, has spiked in recent years.
Anyway, a fun tool to play with. Especially when you are in a stage you need to pick a name. 
Some good information how to have a better blog.
Question, Guy Kawasaki: What can a blogger do toascend the Technorati 100—or simply write a better blog, forthat matter?
Answer, David Sifry, the founder and CEO of Technorati: There are no hard and fast rules, but Ican provide afew guidelines that seem to have worked well for the preponderance ofthe blogs on the Top 100:
Post often and post at regular intervals.Ideally at least once a day, or even more often.
Figure out what kind of blogger you are.Are you a blogger wholoves to collect links? Are you an essayist who loves to argue pointsof articulate new ideas? Are you a storyteller? Are you morecomfortable with video, audio, photos, or text, or all three? Try stuffout and see what you feel most comfortable doing, and then try to stickto it.
Link prolifically. Give yourreaders the benefit of youpreparing all of the source materials for them. Also, if you arerebutting or commenting on someone else’s idea or point, itis a signof respect to link to them. The hyperlink is becoming a new form ofsocial gesture used between people. Tools like Technorati also help youto find out who has linked to you, so when I see a blogger who haslinked to me recently, I’m more inclined to discuss his orher ideasand link back to them, driving traffic and conversation.
Be honest. There are very fewpeople who can get away with building up personas, and you probablyaren’t one of them.
Write about what you know. It makesfor much more engaging and interesting reading. I love blogs like EnglishCut, because he knows so much about the world of Saville Rowand he writes about it.
Be Passionate. Nobody likes boringwriting about boring subjects. First find your passion, then express iton your blog!
Practice, practice, practice. Yourwriting or podcasting or videoblogging—whatever will getbetter as you do it more. Keep it up.
Get a Technoratiwatchlist for your blog and for your name.Know when people are talking about you and be able torespond—either incomments on their blog, or even better, on your own blog, with a linkto the other blog.
Get a full-text RSS and Atom feed.Make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog. I’drecommend a service like Feedburner tomanage those feeds for you and get you stats.
Use tagging. Tags are an easy wayto create open categories, andthey help to make it easier to find your blog. You can get a tutorialwith tools here.
Claim your blog and put in blog tags.This puts you into the world’s largest blog directory, Blogfinder,which already has over two million entries. And it means that if youwrite authoritatively about a certain topic, you’ll show uppretty highon the list for that topic. Which means you’ll get moretraffic and newreaders and links.
ReferenceTen Questions with David Sifry, Guy Kawasaki
Do you want to be more productive at work? Use breaks to your advantage! (Good advice, right? 
)
Seriously, I heard this a number of times already (I talked about it as part of the review for The Power Of Full Engagement book). I actually started taking brakes every 90 to 120 minutes at work and I think they’re helping me. I know that sometimes I don’t take them because something that I’m working on is urgent (ie, I have a bug to fix), but I suffer as a result, because it takes me longer to find the bug (fatigue almost always kicks in).
Breaks really work. Take a 5-10 minute break at least every two hours.
There is even more support for breaks now, I just discovered. Researchers at MIT found that regular breaks are key to better memory. While testing rats, they found that your brain will replay the information that it recently gathered during break time. “This repeated rewind gives other parts of the brain time to process and store the information.”
Reference
Coffee Break Brain, ScienCentral News
If you’ve never seen, like me, what North Korea looks like, take a look. Great stuff.
North Korea – Military Photoshttp://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82755
An interesting question and an interesting answer.
Guy Kawasaki: What will the demographics of the US look like in 2050?Dr. Joseph Chamie (Demographer): Later this year, sometime in mid-October, the US population is expected to hit the 300 million mark. The growth of the America’s population is expected to continue throughout the 21st century. By 2050 it is projected to grow to about 420 million; and by the century’s end, the projected US population is approaching close to 600 million.The age structure of the population is also expected to become older. For example, the proportion of the US population sixty-five years or older is expected to rise from 12 percent today to 21 percent by mid-century. Furthermore, Americans are expected to be living longer in the future, with many reaching 100 years or more. Also, today there are about five people in the working ages for every person sixty-five years or older; by mid-century this number will likely be cut in half.
The population will also be more urbanized, with large movements to outlying suburbs and smaller cities, and significant regional shifts to states in the South and West. Over the next twenty five years, for example, the five fastest growing states are expected to be Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah. In contrast, states in the Northeast and Midwest regions, such as North Dakota, West Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, are projected to experience negative or close to zero population growth over the next quarter century.
America’s population will also likely continue to experience major shifts in its ethnic composition. According to the 2000 census, for example, the top five countries are no longer of European origin as was the case in the past; they are now Mexico, China, Philippines, India and Vietnam. In addition, greater proportions of Americans will have their ethnic origins from countries south of the U.S. border, especially from Mexico, which now represents close one-third of the foreign born residing in the US.
During the coming decades, America’s population is expected to remain around four to five percent of the world total. However, its demographic standing among developed countries as a whole will increase from one-quarter today to close one-third by 2050.
All in all, America’s population is expected to undergo major demographic changes during the 21st century. Given America’s dominant social, economic and political role in the world, these demographic changes will no doubt have significant and far-reaching consequences and repercussions for the country itself as well as for other nations.
ReferenceAddendum to Ten Questions with Dr. Joseph Chamie, Guy Kawasaki blog
RelatedTen Questions with Joseph Chamie, Demographer, Guy Kawasaki blog
I like college towns. There is something about them that interests me. It must be the young people — plenty of them — looking to learn. Or it must be the “education” smell. I’m not sure. I just like college towns.
State College is the home of Penn State. It has a nice, lively downtown adjacent to the college. It is filled with young people. Beatiful girls. It feels rich. It feels safe. It’s very clean.
What more can you ask?
My college experience was different. I went to NJIT. It’s a technical school. We had 80% of guys (or even more). Not too many nice girls. College guys like to have fun. We tried. After visiting Penn State, I wished I had gone there. It would have been a lot of fun.
All students seemed to be proud of Penn State. You can feel it. It’s great.
We went to Providence, RH, home of Brown university, last year. It has a different feeling. It seems smaller. It also seems that people study a lot more at Brown. Really, everybody was studying there. At Penn, it seemed that people were just enjoying themselves.
In any case, State College is a nice place. Worth visiting for a day or two. Plenty of food choices, a lot of hotels. You can walk around the university — it’s huuuuge. Well worth a second visit for my wife and I.
After some thinking, I’m going to change my web strategy.
I realized, after reading some good books lately, that I am a Lifelong Learner and that’s what I want to be remembered as. I also realized that my blogs need more focus, more to-the-point. Plus, I feel like a change is needed.
Thus, the first change, I’m going to rename this blog to “Lifelong Learner.” I’m going to concentrate on the “things I learn” and things I want to learn. It’s going to be a learning blog. For that, I’m going to borrow and feed from entries from My Learning Log, which I started writing to everyday before I go to sleep (5-10 mins).
The second change: I’m renaming all of my blogs. I’m going to rename my second, software blog, to “Pragmatic Craftsman.” I think that’s who I am, or at least that’s what I want to be (come). More than anything I want to keep learning, keep getting better. I want to be a learning, pragmatic professional. Maybe I should call it “Learning Craftsman.” Maybe, but that’s too much “learning,” . I registered PragmaticCraftsman.com and that’s the direction I want to go. I’m renaming my investing blog to “Programmer’s Investing Notebook,” and my polish blog (have to practice it so I don’t forget ) to “Polska z Ameryki,” which means “Poland from America.”
Third change is a structural one. One the main page, I’m going to aggregate all of my blogs and show excerpts from the top entries. I think that will enable you to take a “peek” at my other entries and see whether you’re interested in reading it in more detail.
Quite a few changes. More than anything, I feel that’s what I want to do.
If you have a website, make sure you don’t commit these usability mistakes. These come from Jakob Nielsen, the expert in the field.
I don’t think I commit any of these:1. No Author Biographies2. No Author Photo3. Nondescript Posting Titles4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
I still have to work on the following:5. Classic Hits are Buried7. Irregular Publishing Frequency8. Mixing Topics
ReferenceWeblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, October 17, 2005
RelatedTop Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005, Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, October 3, 2005
If you liked the above article, you will find more valuable info from Jakob at his Alertbox Columns
Wow! That’s all I have to say. Amazing.
A building boom in the emirate has led to a whole host of chart breakers, in categories including highest apartment, biggest mall, and one of the world’s most unique resorts.
Take a look at what’s cooking at the world’s oil giant, Dubai’s World-Beating Buildings slide show.
The expression “Web 2.0″ has been floating a lot lately. What does it mean? Paul Graham, one of my favorite authors, has an interesting article about it. He explains what “Web 2.0″ is, what application use it; what successful applications are out there that are using it, and more.
In addition to the excellent explanation, I was able to discover some of the popular community sites: Reddit, and digg. He mentions others, which you might not be aware of but that are “hot.”
Very interesting and valuable read. I recommend it.
ReferenceWeb 2.0 by Paul Graham
