Google Blog Search: Goodbye Technorati?

Google Blog Search is now up and running being the first major search engine (others like MSN and Yahoo) to offer full-blown blog and feed search capabilities.

Both available in blogsearch.google.com and search.blogger.com.

One of the cool thing is results are also available as RSS or Atom feeds; so if you want to monitor the blogosphere this is the way to go.

Goodbye Technorati?

What-a-Pit-Stop! 

F1 Car displayed in City Centre 

You want some? Hehehe 

Disk Cloning

"I admin a small ISP. In the past few weeks, we have had three Seagate drives bite the dust (all the same model/batch), so the assumption is that the other drives are following soon.

Replacement drives are only about $100 at Fry's, but who wants to rebuild a dozen machines. The new drives are also bigger, so using dd to image the drives would work, but I wouldn't get the benefit of the increased drive space."

Read more...

Successful and Derailed

A successful manager has reached at least the general management level and, in the eyes of senior executives, remains a likely candidate for promotion. The most commonly mentioned characteristics indicating success describe leaders who:

• establish strong relationships

• hire, build, and successfully lead teams

• have outstanding track records of performance

• adapt and develop during transitions.

A derailed manager is one who, having reached the general manager level, is fired, demoted, or reaches a career plateau. In almost every case, a derailed manager exhibits high potential for advancement, holds an impressive track record of results, and holds a solidly established leadership position—until hitting the derailment trap. Five key characteristics have been observed in derailed executives. Leaders who derail:

1. have problems with interpersonal relationships

2. fail to hire, build, and lead a team

3. fail to meet business objectives

4. are unable or unwilling to change or adapt

5. lack a broad functional orientation.

Executives who rise from technical to managerial roles can face challenges in any of these five areas. Fortunately, they can also adopt strategies that take their cue from the descriptions of leaders who enjoy long-term career success. They can avoid the derailment track and work toward long-term success by developing, strengthening, and diversifying their skills among these four leadership qualities:

1. interpersonal skills

2. team leadership

3. achieving business objectives

4. adaptability and openness to change.

None of these success characteristics or fatal flaws is enough to control the outcome of an entire career. Still, most managers who have potentially derailing flaws but the ability to learn and develop can use leadership training, feedback, and developmental assignments to overcome possible career failure and prepare themselves for more senior leadership roles.

Key point summary from Keeping Your Career On Track: Twenty Success Strategies

Focus on the tasks at hand

It's all right to focus your developmental plan on skills you will need down the road, but don't forget that your main job is just that—your main job. Focus on what you need to accomplish each day to move closer to achieving personal, team, and organizational goals. Bring jobs to a close. Tie up loose ends. Challenge and develop your direct reports.

• Don't forget to think strategically and link your daily work to organizational goals and mission.

• Don't allow yourself to become invisible to upper management by burying yourself in your daily work.

Excerpt from Keeping Your Career On Track: Twenty Success Strategies

Goals and Priorities

If you wait for total security and perfection you may paralyze your leadership development. You can minimize risks by defining a clear goal, setting priorities, and getting organized. Make sure you understand how your boss and your organization measure performance and then meet those standards through your actions.

• Putting in long hours and becoming obsessive about your job performance isn't the same as taking action. A balance between your work life and your personal life will go a long way toward making you more productive and keeping you successful.

• Don't put off what needs to be done. Decide what tasks are most important to accomplishing your goal and take care of those first. Remember the old 80/20 rule: 20 percent of your efforts accomplish 80 percent of your goal. Determine what the 20 percent is for you and set your priorities accordingly.

Excerpt from Keeping Your Career On Track: Twenty Success Strategies

Dimpler

Welcome to blogspot!

Me and Princess with F1 car

Heartbeat

Today, I’m very happy as I first heard the heartbeat of my upcoming child. Yes, me and Liezl expecting another one! Thanks God for another blessings.