Dienstag Mai 31, 2005

"Easily Store and Manage Your Bookmarks"
"Weta Software has released NetMarks Manager 3.0, a bookmark manager for Windows that lets you keep multiple bookmark databases and offers a choice of interface. Browser extensions add a toolbar button and menu option to Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer, so you can easily open or add new bookmarks to your collection while browsing the web."
The full article can be found here.
( Mai 31 2005, 08:39:04 AM CEST ) Permalink

"Firefox about to get IE on its knees"
"According to W3schools, a site known amongst web developers, Firefox reached a market share of 25%, while Internet Explorer plummeted to 64.8%."
The full article can be found here.
( Mai 31 2005, 08:37:56 AM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

Building your own (business) network
In the comments to my past MBA related blog entries, the majority of people listed "the network" as one of the main reasons why people should try to get an MBA from a top business school. Unfortunately, these people did not mention who (i.e. what kind of people) is in their business school network. Are all of them directors, VP's and CEO's today? Is another Bill Gates or country leader among them? Are they all making a fortune? Or are they product managers and senior product managers?

In addition, it would be interesting to know how people have been benefiting from their business school networks so far. Did the network help to find new jobs, or the right job? Did the business school friends help to gain knowledge or insights into other business areas? Did the network make it easier to get in touch with potential customers? Did the MBA friends help to identify new business ideas?

I'm currently not able to go to a top business school for various reason, which I will explain in more detail in future blog entries. However, as I indicated in my last MBA blog entry, I strongly believe that there are alternative ways to get and do what you want.

Since I knew from colleagues and friends who went to Yale, Wharton, and MIT that the business network is an important part of an MBA program, I decided to build up my own network. Thus, shortly after I moved to Hamburg, a bit more than a year ago, I initiated a monthly meeting of marketeers who live and/or work in the Hamburg area. In order to attract the right mix of people I focussed on inviting product managers and brand managers from well-known companies like Unilever, Reemtsma, Europcar, Tchibo, Beiersdorf, Oracle, IBM, etc. I used an online business meeting place to invite the people and to plan the event. The platform that I used is the Open Business Club which is probably similar to Linked in. It is something like a Match.com for business purposes.

The first meeting was a great success! More than twenty people showed up. After a few of the monthly meetings, I transferred the organization of the event to someone else, since I did not have the time anymore at that point. However, I still have good contacts and friends from the initial meetings, including category managers, brand managers, product managers and marketing directors from the companies I mentioned before.

Another way to meet people and to create a network is by just leveraging your hobbies. Most people (with a balanced life style!) have a hobby, and in many cases it is even easier to get to know people via a hobby than via business. I personally do (competitive) ballroom dancing and bird watching. In addition, I like going to classical concerts and operas, as well as watching movies. On my to-do list is also seriously learning sailing and playing golf. Unfortunately the latter is still a bit "snobby" here in Germany.

Finally, one should not underestimate the family network. People get married, get kids, start new jobs, etc. Thus, the network is still in flux, and opportunities to meet new interesting people come up all the time.

One final advice, don't make friends just for business reasons! Friendship should not be reduced to the economical or business value of a relationship!
( Mai 31 2005, 07:55:33 AM CEST ) Permalink

Montag Mai 30, 2005

Italian Automobile Club selects StarOffice
This article is Italian, but from what I can understand (with my extremly limited Italian skills), the Italian Automobile Club is deploying StarOffice on more than 3,200 seats.
( Mai 30 2005, 06:26:56 PM CEST ) Permalink

Adobe joins OASIS OpenDocument TC
As you can see on the OASIS OpenDocument TC membership web page, Adobe Systems apparently just joined the OASIS OpenDocument TC!

This is a great day for the OpenDocument standard and the applications that support the standard (e.g. OpenOffice.org and StarOffice)! Now the technical committee includes three "heavy weights" from the IT and desktop software industry, i.e. Sun, IBM, and Adobe Systems.

I'm wondering when Red Hat and Novell will join, considering that they are shipping OpenOffice.org-based products, too. In addition, it would be cool if for example the French ministries joined the TC since they are probably the largest user of OpenOffice.org.

We'll see!
( Mai 30 2005, 03:05:37 PM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

Freitag Mai 27, 2005

"Detroit high school opens its desktops"
"The functional requirements for an office suite were straightforward: The suite had to include full-featured word processing, spreadsheets with graphs and charts, and presentations. The suite needed to include all of the functions and capabilities being taught in technology classes, be an effective tool for use in school work assignments, and be able to open documents in Microsoft formats for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Ironically, it turned out that OpenOffice.org met the last requirement about as well as Microsoft Office, because the software that students used at home included many older versions of Microsoft Office as well as Microsoft Works, and even Microsoft Office 2000 experienced compatibility issues with other Microsoft office applications.

There was an additional benefit to OpenOffice.org -- because it is free open source software, the school was able to offer the software to all faculty and students. Ultimately, the school provided 30 "library copies" on CD-ROM for students to check out, take home, and install on their own systems."

The full article can be found here.
( Mai 27 2005, 11:52:14 PM CEST ) Permalink

"Indian government gives away productivity software"
"Over 50,000 CDs have been distributed so far, according to Raman, and C-DAC aims to distribute 3.5 million of them. The software can also be downloaded from a Web site maintained by C-DAC, at http://www.ildc.in."
The full article can be found here.
( Mai 27 2005, 10:51:42 AM CEST ) Permalink

Donnerstag Mai 26, 2005

"Integration of OpenOffice With Office Software"
"After AutomateIT! installation office automation software that export data to Microsoft Office will be exporting them to OpenOffice instead, all this without any changes to the existing applications. This fact gives companies an opportunity to reduce office automation costs and serves as an additional argument for switching to OpenOffice and exploring its features. [...]

The solution has been released under GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and this gives the developers and system integrators additional advantages in comparison with GPL, including even the right to not disclose the complete source code of their non-free products that will be using AutomateIT! as part of them."

The full article can be found here.
( Mai 26 2005, 05:12:21 PM CEST ) Permalink

Just switch! - Using Styles in Org Charts
I think, all what I'm showing today, should also work in StarOffice 7. However, the screenshots are from one of the latest build of the upcoming StarOffice 8. In StarOffice it is pretty easy to create org charts using the rectangular shapes and connectors. Here is my little demo document:



BTW, you can find the connector tool in the "Drawing" toolbar:



As you can see in the "Styles and Formatting" tool on the left side, the style automatically assigned to a new shape is called "Default". Now I change the background color and the font color for one of the boxes:



Next, I create a new style by clicking on the modified box, keeping the mouse button down/pressed for 1-2 seconds, and dragging/moving the mouse to the "Styles and Formatting" tool on the left. In the styles tool the mouse pointer should show a little "+" sign, and when I release the mouse button, the following dialog pops up, where I type in the name of the new style ("OrgChartBox" in my case):



Then, I assign the new style to the other boxes by selecting them and double clicking on the "OrgChartBox" in the styles list:



Thus, finally it should look like this:



Since the text in the box at the bottom hits the frame of the box, I decide to reduce the font size. Therefore, I move the mouse pointer over the "OrgChartBox" entry in the styles tool, do a right-click, and select "Modify ...":



This brings up the "Graphics Styles" dialog where I change the font to a smaller size:



Once I click "OK" the org chart looks like this:



Now I want to change the background of my boxes, but this time I use a slightly different approach. I select the top box, do a right-click and select "Area ...":



This brings up the "Area" dialog where I change the color for my gradient from yellow to red:



The result looks like this:



Since all boxes should look the same, I have to apply my changes to the style, so that all boxes are affected. Therefore, I click on the "Update Style" button in the "Styles and Formatting" tool:



The final org chart now looks like this:



As you can see, using styles in org charts and presentation slides makes it much easier to maintain complex documents.
( Mai 26 2005, 04:17:07 PM CEST ) Permalink

"FireFox Gains On Security With New Toolbar"
"Netcraft recently launched its anti-phishing toolbar, for Mozilla's Firefox browser. The toolbar apparently runs on any operating system supported by Firefox and displays the hosting location, country, longevity, popularity, and an abstracted risk rating for each site visited."
The full article can be found here.
( Mai 26 2005, 03:03:53 PM CEST ) Permalink

"Deer Park Alpha 1 Release Candidates Available"
"Deer Park is the codename for Mozilla Firefox 1.1 and Deer Park Alpha 1 is a preview of 1.1 aimed at developers. The builds available today are Deer Park Alpha 1 release candidates."
The full article can be found here.
( Mai 26 2005, 03:02:23 PM CEST ) Permalink

"Oasis sets new standard for Office documents"
"While Microsoft in 2004 also met requests from the EC's Interchange of Data between Administrators initiative that it issue a public commitment to publishing and providing non-discriminatory access to the XML schemas, the company declined the invitation to submit the XML formats to a standards body, citing issues of maintaining backwards compatibility.

The OpenDocument format has already received the support of Sun, OpenOffice.org, IBM, Novell, and Stellent. Whether Microsoft will be added to this list remains to be seen but it would be hard for the company to maintain a commitment to standards if it does not."

The full article can be found here.
( Mai 26 2005, 02:57:16 PM CEST ) Permalink

Entering the house through the window
I started this MBA blog thread in order to better understand what people believe the benefits of an MBA from a top business school are. At the same time I'd like to (try to) prove that the same can be achieved through other means. Just be patient and open to new ideas!

I can't remember who told me this or where I read this, but the following quote is definitely true for my professional career until now:

"The shortest way into the house is probably the door, but the fastest or easiest one can actually be the window."

So far my personal experience has been that real life experience is much more valuable than academic training. Theoretical knowledge is helpful, but only where it "supports" the reality. In many situations, good/common sense is more useful than things learned in school or read in books.

I'm currently not enrolled into an MBA program at a top-business school for multiple reasons. Although you might assume, based on my earlier blog entries, that I don't appreciate top-business-school MBA's, I have to tell you that I would love to get an MBA from Harvard or Stanford. However, I more and more realize that I have to "enter the house through the Window", again.

During the last years I realized that MBA knowledge is useful and that I should get it. However, at the same time I also realized something else. I'm probably not smarter than most of the people with a top MBA, but I'm also not "dumber" than most of them.

Due to the fact that my father was "just" a tailor and my mother "just" a house wife, my family did not have a lot of money. Therefore, I decided to do a three year professional training instead of going to university since I knew that my family could not financially support me in any way.

The three year training program worked in that way that I worked 50% of the time at a company (a large high-end furniture manufacturer in my case) and the other 50% we had to spend on learning maths and programming at a private school. The companies we worked for paid for the school, which by the way was located in a beautiful refurbished little castle. At the furniture manufacturer I worked in the IT department where developed and supported software applications including a business intelligence application used by the marketing folks.

The theoretical training was based on the maths and computer science curriculum at universities, but tried to be a bit more "hands on". Very quickly I realized that still a lot of the stuff taught there was very abstract, theoretic and not of much value in real life. Therefore, I started reading Java books during some of my lessons. I sensed that Java will quickly become more important than Fortran and COBOL. In parallel I carefully studied and collected job ads to understand what skills the job market really requires. Based on the job ads I created my own curriculum. Since unfortunately one of our teachers really sucked, I also used the course material from "distant learning university" (FernUni Hagen) to compensate for the incompetent teacher.

During the three years of my training I also approached a company organizing developer conferences. The company offered me to attend the OOP conference in Munich for free, if I checked the attendee badges and distributed the handouts. I accepted the offer and got to listen to (and to personally know) C++, Java and pattern gurus from all over the world. Based on my experience in Munich I also decided to go to the companies Java conference in London, where I got "promoted" to "Chief Student Helper". In the following years the conference company actually even asked me to organize and manage the student helper work for them, simply because I had more experience with it than some of the employees of the conference company.

With all that extra stuff that I did, I still was among the top 30% of my training class with respect to my test results. However, I had the advantage of knowing quite a bit about Java, object oriented programming, extreme programming and patterns.

This Java knowledge eventually got me into Sun where I started working as a systems engineer doing presales for Sun's software products. As part of that role I focussed on application servers. Through a colleague I quickly found out about the possibility of technical rotations, and just five months later I did my first technical rotation at the headquarter in the US doing competitive analysis "playing" with all kinds of software and hardware.

As you can see already, my professional career has not been a "straight line" so far, but looking back I realize that I have to take a similar approach for my "MBA career". Due to the fact that I do not have a university degree, most business schools do not accept me for an MBA program. I also tried to do the GMAT once without too much preparation upfront, simply because my work did not leave me the time to do so. I realized that the GMAT makes it much harder for people who do not have English as their native-language. Thus, (although I'm in no way suggesting that I'm a genious!!!) non-native speakers have to be quite a bit smarter than their counter parts from the US and the UK to achieve the same results. The GMAT is not just a (business) intetelligence and general language test, it is also an English test. It would be interesting to see, how US/UK students would do on the GMAT if they had to do it in French, German or Spanish!

Going forward I will tell you more about my live and my approach to become a marketing expert including learning the tools, building up a network as well as learning more languages, which from my point of view is critical in today's world!
( Mai 26 2005, 10:35:54 AM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [3]

"Millions in India to get OpenOffice"
This should increase the OpenOffice.org/StarOffice market share quite a bit:

"The government has started distributing CDs containing Tamil-language versions of various open source applications, including the Firefox browser, the OpenOffice.org productivity suite and the Columba email client. It plans to freely distribute 3.5 million copies of the CD to Tamil speakers worldwide, according to R.K.V.S. Raman, a researcher at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, an organisation involved in the production of the CD. [...]

The next stage of the project is to distribute CDs containing applications in Hindi, the national language of India. This stage will be launched on 21 June and is likely to involve more than the 3.5 million CDs earmarked for the current phase, said Raman. Eventually, the government plans to release CDs in all of the 22 official languages of India."

The full article can be found here.
( Mai 26 2005, 10:14:01 AM CEST ) Permalink

"Solaris 10 - UNIX for the people?"
This guy apparently has not really tried to understand what the target audience of Solaris 10 is when he says:

"While Solaris 10 is surely a professional OS for insiders, I can't understand the hype SUN made about it. In many aspects Solaris is an OS from yesterday, from glory days where UNIX Workstations dominated a lot of markets. Those days have passed and the question is, why you should use Solaris instead of a modern operating system, especially if we're talking about the x86."

Yes, for people who are installing Solaris 10 in order to turn their PC into a UNIX-based gaming machine, or a all-you-can-eat-is-installed-at-once box will be disappointed. However, everybody interested in a rock solid administration or development workstation should evaluate new features like containers and DTrace. Although most Linux distros come with multiple different browsers, office applications, and games, most of them do not include the high-end enterprise tools.

However, I have to admit that the author is right regarding the installation process. The installation process definitely could be more user friendly. Also the default configuration of the Java Desktop System could be a little more targeted at or customized for administrators and developers.
( Mai 26 2005, 10:01:58 AM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [4]