NevOn

Under the weather

'Knocked for six' could be another idiomatic way of describing my state of being this past two days. Since returning from the Manchester conference midweek, I've been out of action with a malaise that kept me firmly in bed until today.

Burning the candle at both ends is unquestionably the reason. So after two days of catching up with sleep with just one break, to produce Thursday's edition of FIR (the show must go on!), I should be back up to speed very soon.

Quite a bit of catching up to do if my RSS feeds are any indicator. But no blogging in pyjamas this weekend! Full service will be resumed on Monday.

If I were an architect

If I were an architect, I wonder what my critical eye might make of the design of Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, through which I travelled yesterday.

It's one of the ugliest airports I've ever been to, a sprawling mass of bare concrete that evokes an absolute air of coldness. As you ride the inter-terminal bus from the RER station to Terminal 2, you feel it's the kind of place that seems to go out of its way to make you feel unwelcome, so oppressive-looking that you feel depressed just going there!

It's the kind of architectural design that you can quite easily compare to the lack of soul typified by drab building design in the post-World War 2 Soviet era that you saw all over eastern Europe. Certainly not inspired by Stalinist classicism architecture.

Inside, though, it's quite a different story. There you have some great imagination.

I took this photo yesterday of the roof in the departure area as I waited for my flight back to Amsterdam. This is a view of the beginning of the gate areas as you come out of the security checks.

I've flown through CdeG quite a few times and it's still a breathtaking cathedral-like vista every time your eyes take in the scale of what you're seeing. It's still all bare concrete inside the terminal building yet, unlike the exterior of the drab buildings, it is a welcoming sight.

As the saying goes, though, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I wonder what Howard Roark would have made of it all.

By the way, I took the photo above with my Nokia N70 - posted the pic and a couple of others to my moblog - with which my love affair is unending.

Listen to your hard drive and weep

Weird noises from your hard drive and you're not sure what they mean? Well, you know they mean something bad is undoubtedly about to happen, but how do you find out what, exactly?

Go to this Hitachi page and check out the .wav recordings there of various noises you might hear that likely indicate a failing hard drive. Listen to them and weep. But at least you'll know

I've experienced the slow spindle motor death sound. The scariest sound - head damage #3!

(Via Digg)

Keep cool with egoSurf

Via Steve Rubel, news of egoSurf, a tool that searches Google and other engines against your name and blog or website, and calculates your ego ranking.

Naturally, I gave it a go. it says my ego ranking is 11,845. Is that good? Can I exchange those points for a free flight to New York? That would be nice.

So why would you need to egoSurf? From the website:

[...] egoSurf helps massage the web publishers ego, and thereby maintain the cool equilibrium of the net itself.

Of course. 'Nuff said.

(Conceptually, it reminds me a bit of Preople which I wrote about last March. Still haven't figured that one out.)

Test your geek quotient

How much of a geek are you? Take the geek test v 3.1 to find out.

I scored 30.17751% which makes me a Total Geek, according to this test. About normal, then ;)

How do you rate?

(Via Digg)

No more email guilt

BBC News: Live8 organiser Bob Geldof has revealed his contempt for e-mails, blaming them for tying up people's time and stopping genuine action. Mr Geldof told a conference in London that e-mails "give a feeling of action, which is a mistake".

Here's the best bit:

[...] He told delegates that what workers achieve each day will be linked to the number of e-mails they ignore. He explained that the "doing part" of a job is proportionate to the amount of e-mails you do not answer. "E-mails get in the way of serious consideration of what you want to do," Mr Geldof said.

Right on, Bob. No more guilt!

An alternative to email catchup

Light posting ahead until the weekend as I'll be travelling, meetings, etc.

Then, a massive email and post-comments catchup.

Do I really mean "catchup"? Comments to blog posts, definitely, but email? My email inbox looks truly horrendous. Boy, do I identify with this:

[...] My email inbox is totally out of control, with more than 8K messages to wade through (that's *after* the spam filter--I might need to just set fire to it and start again!) [...] the usual demands of our accelerating red-shift modern lifestyle means that my email inbox has become obese and should probably be put out of its misery. Does anyone have a match?

Tom Foremski has a way with words!

Related NevOn post:

• Handling the email guilt trip

Remembrance Day

Never forget the victims of 9/11.

Technorati: 9/11

A bit out of balance

Little time this week for posting commentaries to this blog, sorry to say. Trying to balance business and home life is always tricky and especially so this week. Something had to give and my blog was it.

A semblance of usual service will resume at the weekend, and fully back up to speed early next week.

Shari Kurzrok still needs help

Some weeks ago, I posted an appeal for help regarding Shari Kurzrok, a PR professional in the US who urgently needs a liver transplant. PR bloggers throughout the global PR community posted similar appeals.

What's been happening in the ensuing three weeks?

A post yesterday on the Help Shari Kurzrok blog says that her life-threatening condition remains the same. Earlier posts say that she was in intensive care in the NYU Medical Center. Last Wednesday, the blog carried an appeal for blood donors.

If you can help, visit the blog for details on how.