I'm picking up some serious NetVibes

NetVibes is one of those under-appreciated apps that does one thing amazingly well - namely, sets up a tabbed homepage full of live widgets and streaming feeds. Next to a cup of coffee, it is the best way to start the day.

Put your email, facebook, flickr, weather, news, live tv, podcasts and more in your face.

Rick Broida of LifeHacker, wrote how to trick it out...

Cheers...

Step-by-Step Plan for Networking Your Next Event

[ from CIO.com ]

Virtually everybody is nervous and anxious about meeting new people at conferences and events. But networking at such events, especially during our troubling economic times, is crucial for giving your career a boost.

That's where etiquette comes in, says Judith Bowman, founder of Protocol Consultants, an etiquette advisory firm, and Jacqueline Whitmore, author of Business Class: Etiquette Essentials for Success at Work. They say that good etiquette engenders goodwill and trust from others, and makes it more likely that others will want to work with you. "Etiquette is really about the golden rule," says Whitmore.

Perhaps the best part of focusing on etiquette is that you'll be so busy concentrating on following guidelines and making others feel comfortable that you'll have less time to remember your own nervousness.

Checkout the slideshow here.

Cheers...

What Have You Seen, Florence Nightingale?

[ from Science News ]

Florence Nightingale: The Passionate Statistician... Nightingale created many novel graphics to present statistics that would persuade Queen Victoria of the need to improve sanitary conditions in military hospitals.

When Florence Nightingale arrived at a British hospital in Turkey during the Crimean War, she found a nightmare of misery and chaos. Men lay crowded next to each other in endless corridors. The air reeked from the cesspool that lay just beneath the hospital floor. There was little food and fewer basic supplies. By the time Nightingale left Turkey after the war ended in July 1856, the hospitals were well-run and efficient, with mortality rates no greater than civilian hospitals in England, and Nightingale had earned a reputation as an icon of Victorian women. Her later and less well-known work, however, saved far more lives. She brought about fundamental change in the British military medical system, preventing any such future calamities. To do it, she pioneered a brand-new method for bringing about social change: applied statistics.

Cheers...

If I had more time...

Okay so time does speed up as you age - everyone knows that. But what they don't teach you in school is how to account for this phenomenon. Leo Babauta of Zen Habits fame provides a list of "20 Ways to Find More Free Time."

The one I have found most effective and yet most elusive?
No. 12 - Do your Biggest Rock first. Of the three Most Important Tasks you choose for the day, pick the biggest one, or the one you�re dreading most, and do that first. Otherwise you�ll put that off as much as possible and fill your day with less important things. Don�t allow yourself to check email until that Big Rock is taken care of. It starts your day with a sense of major accomplishment, and leaves you with a lot of free time the rest of the day, because the most important thing is already done.

It's right up there with eat better, move more. Common sense but hard to practice.

Cheers...

Power Nap Dali-Style

This summer while in Trinidad, I honed my practice of power-napping to keep up with the young ones in the tropical heat. Whenever we had at least 15 minutes of downtime before the next activity, I'd dash off to the air-conditioned swamp, flop on my bed and listen with my eyes closed to a 10-15 minute ambient song like a stream or rain or crickets. Anyway, when the song ended, I'd wake up feeling rejuvenated.

The artist and napper Salvador Dali had an interesting nap technique, based on the idea that your body benefits from just getting to sleep as much as a couple of hours worth of dozing. He purportedley used a spoon to wake himself up just as he lost consciousness.

Here's how:
Sit in a comfy seat holding a spoon in your fingertips. You should be holding it in a way that when you lose consciousness (fall asleep) you drop it... the clatter (put a big metal bowl under your hand) will wake you.... and you're woken up JUST as you enter the best "dreamy" bit of your sleep. Then paint whatever you were dreaming about, I guess.

Cheers...