For future reference:
How to write white papers.
Category: General
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on writing white papers
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TV Sunday
I just zapped into the making of Vitus on Swiss TV:
A film I really enjoyed. If you get a chance, go see it esp. in dialect…
It’s raining cats and dogs in Basel. I hope this rainy weather will not result in floods and landslides in the mountains.
Yesterday I saw War of Lord* at the open air cinema on the Muensterplatz. I was lucky: it didn’t rain! It’s a good movie and realistic. And the movie definitely brings its message across. Category: Must see.
update:
*an offline commentator pointed out that I got the film title wrong. It’s Lord of War, starring Nicholas Cage. -
PR 2.0
while I was blonking about the future of communications, some PR agency has come up with a press release template suggesting how to integrate Digg, del.icio.us, RSS feeds, as well as audio, and video links.
source: MarCom Blog
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Future of Corporate Communications?
just stopped by at Techcrunch a few minutes ago and stumbled across this Yet Another Corporate Blog entry. From what I gather this blog was started by the Director of Corporate Communications at Yahoo.
I’m just wondering how long it will take until you need to show up with a blogging reputation to get yourself a regular communications job. All you need is 15 people to get the news out. Says Scoble.
But there is a downside to it all: the more PR agencies and communication departments start using blogging as an instrument, the more we’ll lose the personal voice aspect. And it’s already turning that way. Just look at the sheer volume of posts.
This Tim O’Reilly quote in the link I posted yesterday sums it up:
Blogging is migrating towards this whole attention economy vein. It’s people who are effectively working on deadline to be the first to notice something. It really has become a very specialized job that you have to devote full time to. I can’t afford to do that, so I blog on things that matter to me. And sometimes I don’t do it for two weeks.
Adding Google Calendar
Anyway, it’s nice to know that all of my WordPressing here at the Headquarters of Chiperoni.ch isn’t futile. Talking about WordPress, I’m currently investigating how to add future events to a WP site I’m working on. I’ve found this post discusssing the Firetree plugin. But there’s also the possibility to add a public Google Calendar via XML, iCAL or HTML and display it on your website.
How to add Google Calendar:
- Select your Google Calendar page.
- Click Settings
- Select the public calendar you’d like to add. BTW, I don’t recommend this for private calendars 😉
- Select the format (XML, iCal or HTML).
- Copy the feed, code or link.
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business blogging
for future reference:
CIO on business blogging
via Anil Dash
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Fare il ponte
Long weekend: It’s the Swiss national day on Tuesday and I’m taking Monday off. I haven’t decided what I’ll do yet… for suggestions, leave a comment below 😉
Here are a couple of links that have been lingering in draft status:
- Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School – IMHO you can take this and apply it to other work situations as well.
- and then there’s Kathy’s posting on How to be an expert – and heh, it’s not too late to become an expert. If you strive to learn, you create new brain cells at virtually any age…
I’ve found that if you commit yourself to doing a task regularly and keep working on it, even really boring topics become fun and interesting once you cross a certain threshold. Even if the time slots are tiny to begin with. Never ever give up!
Mlle. A reminded me that today is sysadmin day. Yeah, that’s the guy that deletes your entire site to move you to a “better” server. Thank you so much!
Cool air is seeping in thru the open window… looks like the warm weather is taking a break. We’ve had a warm July here in Basel, apparently the warmest since the meteorologists started storing relevant data. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the Badi and enjoying the African temperatures.
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Sling bag for digital nomads
This looks like a neat idea:
a sling bag with flexible solar cellsvia bloggerli
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Chongoni Rock Art Area
The Chongoni Rock Art Area has been added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites:
Situated within a cluster of forested granite hills and covering an area of 126.4 km2, high up the plateau of central Malawi, the area features the richest concentration of rock art in Central Africa on 127 sites. They reflect the comparatively scarce tradition of farmer rock art, as well as paintings by BaTwa hunter-gatherers who inhabited the area from the Late Stone Age. The Chewa agriculturalists, whose ancestors lived in the area from the late Iron Age, practised rock painting until well into the 20th century. The symbols in the rock art, which are strongly associated with women, still have cultural relevance amongst the Chewa, and the sites are actively associated with ceremonies and rituals.
Other World Heritage sites in Malawi: Lake Malawi National Park (which is truly beautiful).
On the Tentative List: Nyika and Mount Mulanje
Source: a work colleague that will not reveal their blog address to me
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Mount Mulanje Porters Race
The annual Mount Mulanje Porters Race takes place tomorrow for the 10th time.
The race starts at Likhubula Forest Office and goes up to Chambe Plateau, about 2500m above see level, before proceeding (via the plateau) to Lichenya Plateau and back to Likhubula. Last year’s winner ran this tiring 25km race in 2 hrs and 21 min.
A couple of related links:
- Mount Mulanje Conservation Trust
- Apparently this blogger organized the first race.
- The Nation on this year’s event (link no longer available)
And if you have photos, don’t forget to upload them to the Malawi group at Flickr.
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Writing Copy
Couple of writing tips I found at MarketingProfs.com:
- Begin with a story
- Use short words
- Write shorter sentences
- Remove clichés
- Use bridges or connectors
- Use concrete examples rather than concepts
- Pay attention to your verbs
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MarComm Writing Tactics
Can technical writers be good marketing writers – and vice versa?
The above presentation notes are old (from 2002 i.e. definitely Web 1.0), but the question is interesting…
what’s your opinion on this?
(update: unfortunately the site seems to be down. Note to myself: write a short summary of the main points for future reference.)
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Sunny Days
Summer sports program in Basel from 10th July to 12th August:
Sunny Days … they haven’t updated the pdf file with this year’s list of courses yet.[update] The pdf is up now!
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trying out Google Desktop
I’m currently evaluating Google Desktop. And I must say so far I’m fairly impressed… There’s little things like opening up the corresponding email in Outlook 2000 which blow me over. The install hasn’t affected performance. But this is only day 2… I’m going see how it goes for the next couple of weeks.
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Flickr photos on Malawi
There are currently 5592 photos on Malawi at Flickr.
The photos really show how beautiful this country is. An ongoing tourism campaign.
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Great Mistakes in Technical Leadership
some good points in this list of typical mistakes:
via Scott Berkun
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experimenting with WordPress plugins
yesterday evening I started playing around with some WordPress plugins I’d found.
I made a small code change in wp-config.php. Everything was working fine… I thought. But this morning I got this error message (please skip the next paragraph if you’re a wp/PHP geek, you’re probably going to throw your hands up in utter exasperation and unsubscribe from my RSS feed for ever and ever and ever):
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/chiperon/public_html/wordpress/wp-config.php:65) in /home/chiperon/public_html/wordpress/wp-includes/pluggable-functions.php on line 247″
Turns out that the editor I was using added a couple of empty lines to the end of the file; quickly resolved with the help of the WordPress Codex.
So far I haven’t been using many WordPress plugins. SlimStats looks promising. But why add more stats if I already have Webalizer and co? So far the top benefit is that I can see the stats directly from the wp admin panel… saves me 2 to 3 clicks!
This Day displays old postings I’ve made on the same day in previous years. That’s a bit of a lottery for my readers… ‘cos the old postings will only be visible on days where I’ve posted something in the past.
I’ve started reading the book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” and, I think, my continuous use of “…” would be listed as an example of bad, bad punctuation!
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yet another Flickr tool
stumbled across Flickrmap.
An account costs 5 $ per annum.
I like this:
If you want to blog about Flickrmap or you’re not able to use Paypal, email us your sob story and we’ll send you a login.
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Don’t Blame the Web When Newspapers Die
John Dvorak: Local papers have become cookie-cutter products loaded with syndicated material, mostly from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Filling space in the San Francisco Chronicle with New York Times articles saves money, but many people now just get the Times instead.
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Famous Blog Dogs
If you’re a bit like me, you’ve also contributed your part to the Internet’s dog and/or cat content.
But there are some dogs out there with a really large fan base. Right at the top of the list are:
- Chuck of dooce.com
- Oliver and Hugo of textism.com
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chip update
It’s drizzling a little bit in Basel but still beautifully warm… time to catch up with the blogging world.
2 weekends ago I took the Postauto to the Passwang tunnel and walked up to the Passwang (about 1200m). On a clear day you can see the Alps from here. I walked to Reigoldswil and then took the bus back into Basel. Very enjoyable, very close. Category: Must repeat.
Remember the Volvo ad with the car full of different sports equipment? That’s a bit what I feel like… A couple of weeks ago I bought new takkies, then I bought my first pair of hiking boots, and yesterday: new swimming togs and goggles.
I like Europe in summer…
A couple of interesting links that caught my eye this week:
- International dialects of English – MP3 files of various English dialects.
- Mozilla World Cup Plug-in
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blonk… blonk…
Blonking along? Apparently this is what it means…
To blog without notable creativity, inspiration or merit; covering the same ground trod by countless others in the echo chamber; blogging as an alternative to thinking.
“I was going to write a considered piece about climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, but I’ve just been blonking pictures of my cat.”
via ballpark.ch
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PR for tech and software
i stumbled across this article describing how PR for tech. and software companies is changing.
The new rules of press releases:
- Don’t just send press releases when “big news” is happening; find good reasons to send them all the time.
- Instead of just targeting a handful of journalists, create press releases that appeal directly to your buyers.
- Write releases replete with keyword-rich copy.
- Create links in releases to deliver potential customers to landing pages on your website.
- Optimize press release delivery for searching and browsing.
- Drive people into the sales process with press releases.
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Malawi Blogroll at Technorati
Soyapi has set up a list of Malawi blogs at Technorati.
