Bookmarks for April 24th through April 29th
These are my links for April 24th through April 29th:
- Let Your Customers Optimize Your Website for You – At the moment, the term “personalization” is surrounded by confusion, mostly because it has evolved far beyond what it once was: product recommendations. It’s now much more sophisticated and can be automated to provide insight at the individual visitor level (which is obviously great for marketers), as well as can integrate CRM data with each visitor’s online experience, in real time.
- WordPress Optimization « WordPress Codex – If you run a high traffic WordPress installation you will want to optimize WordPress and your server to run as efficiently as possible. This article is a general overview of the avenues to pursue. It’s not a detailed technical explanation of each aspect. If you need a quick fix now, go straight to the caching page, you’ll get the biggest benefit for the smallest hassle there. For a quick introduction to WordPress Optimization see the cheat sheet. For all the articles on optimizing WordPress see the WordPress Optimization category.
- The Seven Cs of Social Learning: How Social Learning Technologies Can Meet Today’s Business Challenges – So, in the updated model, there are Seven Cs of social technologies: Content – in the forms of knowledge-based assets, experiences and expertise – this is where it all starts. Consumption – of content, as in usable, reference-able, searchable, tag-able and reusable. Contribution – of content that can and should be user-generated. Conversation – about content – it’s what makes it socially relevant to the business. Collaboration – with others over content – it’s goal oriented and how we get things done socially. Connections – made with others regarding content. In competitive business, it’s not just what you know, but who you know. Once connections are made, vicarious reinforcement follows. Control – this is the most important and relevant “C” enterprises are dealing with today. Social learning technologies should enable customers to govern the continuum of openness and control as it applies to their business. Social technologies should enable providers and users to navigate the Seven Cs while remaining meaningful to the workflow of the business.
- 10 echte Thesen zur Zukunft von Social Media – The Missing Manual für die BVDW-Thesen zu Social Media | Von Kai Heddergott | Kommunikation – zweinull – Social Media ist ständiges ausprobieren: Social Media ist – einmal gestartet – ein kontinuierlicher, zyklischer Prozess, der immer wieder auf Tauglichkeit geprüft und gegebenenfalls angepasst werden muss. Social Media ist keine einmalige Angelegenheit.
- Increase Teamwork Through Better Office Design | Conspire: A Mindjet Publication – Collaborating is challenging enough without having to work in an underperforming work environment. It’s time to step back and take a look at how your workspace is performing and make the necessary adjustments so that it is less obstacle for you and your team to overcome.
- Motivieren unmöglich – Appelle, Boni, Incentives, Motivationstrainings – es gibt viele Versuche, die Leistung von Menschen zu verbessern. Schon lange weiß die Psychologie, dass dies alles fragwürdige Methoden der Motivationsförderung sind. Die Hirnforschung sattelt noch eins drauf.
- Die fünf großen Innovationsfallen – Warum scheinbar hoch innovative Unternehmen plötzlich den Anschluss verpassen – Hochinnovative Unternehmen verstehen es, diese fünf Innovationsfallen zu vermeiden. Sie setzen nicht nur auf eine Verbesserung des Bestehenden, sondern lassen radikale Innovationsansätze zu. Sie versuchen nicht, in übersättigte Märkte Produkte hineinzubringen, die noch überflüssiger sind, als die, die es bereits gibt, sondern sie entwickeln Produkte, für die es noch keine Märkte gibt, Dienstleistungen, die einzigartig sind, und Geschäftsmodelle, die klassische Branchengrenzen sprengen. Unternehmen hingegen, die sich aus den Innovationsfallen nicht befreien können, drehen sich weiter im Kreis.
- Lane Becker On How To ‘Plan Serendipity’ In Tech And Business [TCTV] | TechCrunch – Watch the video above to hear about what “planned serendipity” really is (you can’t plan to win the lottery, alas), how Steve Jobs literally architected good luck into Pixar and Apple, how luck plays into Amazon’s current status as a tech product hit factory, and how even rank-and-file employees can “storm the gates” to make their companies more open to success.
- “Linux Sea” als “sanfte, aber technische Einführung in Linux” – Was ist eigentlich Linux, was der Kernel, was eine Distribution, und wofür steht GNU? Dabei geht er auch auf vermeintliche und echte Stärken und Schwächen des freien Betriebssystems ein: Software, Security, Support, Spiele und mehr.
Bevor er zum Praktischen und Technischen kommt, porträtiert der Autor außerdem noch die Open-Source-Community mit ihren Mailinglisten und Konferenzen und erklärt dem Linux-Neuling, wo er sich Hilfe holen kann. - Things To Tweak After Installing Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin ~ Web Upd8: Ubuntu / Linux blog –
- BetaKit » Startups in the Business of APIs – Instead of starting from bare bones and building everything involved in an app, including news feeds, notification systems and more, application programming interfaces (APIs) allow companies to focus on what makes their product unique. APIs offer a scalable and reliable way to simplify the development process, avoiding rework by using existing tools built by others. They can give developers a massive advantage by shortening the development cycle and helping them be first to market. Increasingly startups are making APIs their business, allowing developers to use their tools or pull from their base of APIs to add functionality to their apps.
- Curriculum – Learn.SFE – Our curriculum has been broken out into three main categories: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Materials may include presentations, handouts, code and whatever else we’ve got!
- A Non-Designer’s Guide to Typefaces and Layout – Before we jump into the specifics, the most important thing you need to know when making any design choices is why. Ask yourself this: “what is my goal?” All elements of design are able to invoke different emotions in the viewer and affect them in various ways. While adhering to general principals is good when you’re getting started, you want to based your design choices on the impact you want them to have. That requires knowing what that impact will be. Do you want your design to attract attention to specific sections? Do you want certain words or phrases to have more impact than others? You make these basic choices like these already. When writing a research paper or a resume, you’ve probably bolded a section header to help with identification. If all the text on that page was the same, it would be more difficult for the reader to navigate or skim. The simple decision of emboldening text and making it larger suddenly adds greater context to the design of a document, and it’s one you’re probably making subconsicously. When you’re thinking about design, you want to move those choices out of your subconscious and into the front of your mind. Think about what you hope to accomplish and then apply the principles you learn in this guide to the design tasks you encounter on a regular basis. Thinking a little more creatively and knowing the right techniques is all you’ll need to add a greater visual impact to the design work you’ll encounter on a regular basis.
- » The war on RSS Cloud Comedy, Cloud Tragedy – Allow me to disagree — and I’m very happy to be able to do so. RSS is alive and well; it just completely failed to get adopted by the mainstream. I don’t think a lot of people would even be interested in subscribing to Twitter feeds and Facebook walls via RSS, so it’s not a big deal that these services have been phasing out support for it. At the same time, a lot of applications, some of them now becoming very popular with mainstream users, make extensive use of RSS behind the scenes (like Flipboard, or now Google Currents). RSS is doing just fine, it’s just ended up in another place than what we all were hoping for.
- Google Python Style Guide – Background Python is the main scripting language used at Google. This style guide is a list of dos and don’ts for Python programs. To help you format code correctly, we’ve created a settings file for Vim. For Emacs, the default settings should be fine.
- Learn the Basics of Electronics Hacking with SparkFun’s Online Curriculum – You’ll be able to learn simple programming techniques, soldering skills, and other basics before moving on to more advanced skills like using an Atmega and Xbee Wireless. The curriculum is simple enough for a child to understand, but interesting enough for an adult to walk away with some good knowledge. The entire curriculum is free and you’ll even get a nice big Intro to Arduino book. If you’ve been toying with the idea of taking on some of the electronics projects we’ve featured here but didn’t know how to start then this curriculum will give you a good understanding of what you need to know.