Original post: http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/9-things-that-motivate-employees-more-than-money.html   Author:  Ilya Pozin

Be generous with praise. Everyone wants it and it’s one of the easiest things to give. Plus, praise from the CEO goes a lot farther than you might think. Praise every improvement that you see your team members make. Once you’re comfortable delivering praise one-on-one to an employee, try praising them in front of others.  

Get rid of the managers. Projects without project managers? That doesn’t seem right! Try it. Removing the project lead or supervisor and empowering your staff to work together as a team rather then everyone reporting to one individual can do wonders. Think about it. What’s worse than letting your supervisor down? Letting your team down! Allowing people to work together as a team, on an equal level with their co-workers, will often produce better projects faster. People will come in early, stay late, and devote more of their energy to solving problems.  

Make your ideas theirs. People hate being told what to do. Instead of telling people what you want done; ask them in a way that will make them feel like they came up with the idea. “I’d like you to do it this way” turns into “Do you think it’s a good idea if we do it this way?”  

Never criticize or correct. No one, and I mean no one, wants to hear that they did something wrong. If you’re looking for a de-motivator, this is it. Try an indirect approach to get people to improve, learn from their mistakes, and fix them. Ask, “Was that the best way to approach the problem? Why not? Have any ideas on what you could have done differently?” Then you’re having a conversation and talking through solutions, not pointing a finger.  

Make everyone a leader. Highlight your top performers’ strengths and let them know that because of their excellence, you want them to be the example for others. You’ll set the bar high and they’ll be motivated to live up to their reputation as a leader.  

Take an employee to lunch once a week. Surprise them. Don’t make an announcement that you’re establishing a new policy. Literally walk up to one of your employees, and invite them to lunch with you. It’s an easy way to remind them that you notice and appreciate their work.  

Give recognition and small rewards. These two things come in many forms: Give a shout out to someone in a company meeting for what she has accomplished. Run contests or internal games and keep track of the results on a whiteboard that everyone can see. Tangible awards that don’t break the bank can work too. Try things like dinner, trophies, spa services, and plaques. 

Throw company parties. Doing things as a group can go a long way. Have a company picnic. Organize birthday parties. Hold a happy hour. Don’t just wait until the holidays to do a company activity; organize events throughout the year to remind your staff that you’re all in it together. 

Share the rewards—and the pain. When your company does well, celebrate. This is the best time to let everyone know that you’re thankful for their hard work. Go out of your way to show how far you will go when people help your company succeed. If there are disappointments, share those too. If you expect high performance, your team deserves to know where the company stands. Be honest and transparent.

This appeared on the right side of the window.

The funny thing is that if you click on Apply Now you see that actually the ad is location dependent.

This job was in Germany (where I live) and actually relatively near me (Munich is 200 KM near me).

No, I didn’t apply

1. Passwords
2. Gmail settings
3. Security tools
4. Malware
5. Phishing
6. Secure sites
7. Safe networks
8. Mobile security
9. Family safety
10. Shopping safety

Improve your security #5: use dedicated accounts for each user

Improve your Security #4: Update your Software often

Improve your Security #3: Online Protection

Improve your Security #2: Securing your notebook

Improve your Security #1: Complex passwords aren’t always better 

The article starts at page 43 and is 7 pages long (incl. pictures).

Here are the screenshots:

The VB2011 - the 21st Virus Bulletin International Conference took place between  5-7 October 2011 in Barcelona, Spain.

The city of Barcelona is a wonderful place to be. Pity that I didn’t have enough time to see all of its wonders.

Here is the article about the Opening of the conference.

Here are the reports from the three days of the conference:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

The source is an article I wrote for the Avira press release : http://www.avira.com/en/press-details/nid/528/news/consumers-concerns-online-shopping-safety

Here are the tips:

I recommend that consumers watch for a few things in order to not become a victim of the online fraudsters:

• Always check that the connection to the online store where the payment is done is secured. This can be observed first if the URL is starting with “https” and second if a small lock is present in the top left corner of the browser in the URL field (in Chrome) or the name of the website is written in a colored rectangle(in Firefox,IE). If the web browser gives any warnings about the security certificate of the website, then do not proceed to purchase anything from that website.
• If you don’t know the website you plan to buy from, always check its reputation first. Search for comments from other users about that website. Searching for “<website> reputation” usually gives good and relevant results.
• Give your financial details like credit card data only if the website is properly secured and its reputation is good.
• Try to choose payment methods which don’t require payment upfront. If PayPal is an option, choose that whenever possible. Otherwise, if you’ve ensured the safety of the website you’re on and you feel good about its reputation, then pay with a credit card.
• Always double check your bank accounts to make sure the amount you spent is the amount that was charged. If there is a discrepancy, contact the website where you made the purchase.

The definition of cyberterrorism is since the 90s highly debated because it is not easy to define how devastating the damages of a computer attack are. However, according to many sources in the Internet, it appears that the definition of to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is the one accepted by many people. According to the FBI, cyberterrorism is any “premeditated, politically motivated attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which results in violence against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.”.

Unlike virus or computer attack that results in a (distributed) denial of service, a cyberterrorist attack is designed to cause physical violence or extreme financial harm. Possible cyberterrorist targets include the banking industry, military installations, power plants, air traffic control centers, and water systems.

This definition is quite narrow because it compares cyberterrorism with traditional terrorism.

There are several other definitions which define it much more generally as any computer crime targeting computer networks without necessarily affecting real world infrastructure, property, or lives.

Do you think the threat of cyberterrorism is real?  Why or why not?

It all depends about which definition of Cyberterrorism are we talking about.

If we talk about the one of FBI, then this is only hypothetical since there are no known examples of such a devastation produced by such an act.

If we talk about the more broader definitions, then we have seen many examples of DDOS, attacks against various institutions (governmental or not), website defacements.

Where do you think the threat of cyberterrorism is based? 

The word “Cyber” in “cyberterrorism” says actually everything. A cyberterrorism is in the cybernetic space, in the Internet, so it can be anywhere in the world. It only needs an Internet connection.

What is the profile of a cyberterrorist?

Again, it depends on the definition of cyberterrorism.

It can be a group of people which tries to achieve its political goals by means of disrupting the computer systems but it can also be a disgruntled employee who seeks only revenge on the company or governement.

What would a cyberterrorist attack look like? What do you think the primary targets will be?

Again, it depends on the definition of cyberterrorism.

Our lives depend more and more on the inter-networks connections such as that between a institutions and banks, computer systems which control facilities important for us (electricity, water supply, etc), and convenience facilities such as mass-media,  and last but not least the Internet.

If any of these connections don’t function anymore we will experience from a discomfort (in case of mass-media, Internet)  to serious threats to our lives (in case of critical facilities).

In the more broader definition, the targets of cyberterrorism might suffer from the annoyance of a defacement, the temporary loss of business created by Denial of Service attacks, to serious business losses if servers are hacked and critical information is stolen.

What steps can be taken to prevent an act of cyberterrorism?

I don’t think that there is a golden rule or rule set which can prevent cyberterrorism.

As we have seen in the past, there is a very thin difference between the fear cause by the real terrorists and that caused by the law enforcement people which try to protect citizens against terrorists. It is very hard to keep the right balance.

In general, it is good to keep the eyes open, monitor any suspicious network activities and be prepared for the worse. However, the definition of “worse” can vary quite a lot: from a simple backup to extremely complex monitoring and spying systems.

Preventing cyberterrorism is *everyone’s* responsibility, including the home users.

The article is called “The Complete Guide To Freemium Business Models” and it is located here.

Here is the first post: Part 1

In Facebook, there is a way to hide the post from certain people to reach your News Feed, without stopping being friend with them.

How can you hide the posts from someone in G+?

You can exclude them from a circle and to block them. But they can find out that you removed them from a circle.

So, not the same effect.

G+ has still to improve here.

The extent of speed up depends on a variety of factors such as content on your pages, browser, geographic location of access, bandwidth, etc. You can run tests to measure the speed up of your site in a few minutes. At this time, Page Speed Service is being offered to a limited set of webmasters free of charge. Pricing will be competitive and details will be made available later. You can request access to the service by filling this web form.

Now the reality check

Where are the 60% ?

Page Speed Service Comparison for mustaca.com

	Original	Optimized	Difference
Page Load Time	3.109s	3.406s	+0.297s (9.6%)
Start Render Time	2.432s	2.191s	-0.241s (9.9%)
Repeat View Page Load Time	2.549s	2.644s	+0.095s (3.7%)
Repeat View Start Render Time	2.188s	2.159s	-0.029s (1.3%)
Full Test Result	view test	view test

Page Speed Service Comparison for avira.com

	Original	Optimized	Difference
Page Load Time	6.303s	6.687s	+0.384s (6.1%)
Start Render Time	4.270s	4.578s	+0.308s (7.2%)
Repeat View Page Load Time	5.657s	5.809s	+0.152s (2.7%)
Repeat View Start Render Time	3.571s	3.912s	+0.341s (9.5%)
Full Test Result	view test	view test

Since G+, Picasa is receiving  unlimited online storage.

When I created my G+ account, I was asked if i want to merge my Picasa Web Account with G+.
I said yes, and since then, the counter of the pictures doesn’t work anymore.

I have 94 albums with a lot of pictures and movies and it says  that I have used 0% of my account.

If you’re signed up for Google+, photos up to 2048×2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes long won’t count towards this free storage limit. And Google will automatically resize photos for you when you upload them to Google+, so they stay under the free size limit.

That means only photos uploaded directly to Picasa Web Albums over the 2048×2048 size will count towards the 1 GB of free storage, explains Google. And when that limit is reached, photos will be automatically resized.

Meanwhile, for non-Google+ users, there are slightly stricter rules: photos up to 800×800 and videos up to 15 minutes won’t count towards free storage. Again, when the 1 GB limit is reached, larger photos will be resized down.

Simply put, this means that whether you’re on Google+ or not, Picasa offers unlimited free storage for photos and videos (under 15 minutes). The difference is that Google+ users can upload higher resolution photos to Plus/Picasa without being penalized.

Read more here.

I always wanted to build a computer in order to solve these problems:

• to be there for the entire family at any time, even if I am not at home
• my and Mihaela’s calendars are merged,
• common appointments are automatically added to both of us,
• remote access is possible
• direct access to the entire videos (all possible formats including ISOs and MKV), photos (all formats including ORF), music collection(many formats, including AAE) is possible. A prerequisite for this is

• have a mediacenter software which

•  simply works without patching it every week
• compiling weeks packages in order to hope to make it work and render all formats mentioned above

and last but not least

• I can record cartoons from TV for my son without having to be in front of the TV! A prerequisite for this is

• Have a TV-Tuner (either internal or external via USB) which can receive the programs via cable or via satellite
• Have drivers for the operating system I have chosen
• Be able to control it from that operating system and mediacenter software

So, these are my requirements which are not so easy to fulfill (I found out this only later !!!!)

Sooooooooooooooo… you think is easy ?

No, as a matter of fact, I recommend to NOT do this.

Simply go into a hardware store and buy a mediacenter, let the experts configure the hardware, install Windows with Mediacenter, install a TV-Tuner, and you are done !

You will avoid countless hours of reading hardware specifications, looking for best prices, praying that the shop delivers the pieces as promised, praying that the hardware is not defect, that the memory works, that all pieces of hardware are compatible with each other, that the cables are correct, that the power supply delivers enough power, that you don’t fry the motherboard or other pieces, that the case is big enough for all devices, that the entire construction doesn’t burn out and so on…

Advice :

DON’T DO IT !!!

It is a waste of time, energy and money ! Honestly !
You can do 1000 other better things instead of wasting so much time.

Did I convince you ?

I guess not … then read on.

You need these pieces of hardware to do a mediacenter:

(All links are from Amazon Germany and the prices are those from Amazon.de – they are only provided through my personalized shop for hardware)

- Motherboard with processor which is powerful enough to render the movies, pictures and run also an operating system

- Powerful video card which can render HD (it has an HDMI port)

- Gigabit network card, wireless is a nice to have, especially if you don’t have cables

A nice to have is a processor which doesn’t eat to much power. The perfect candidate for this is an Atom processor, but since you need also a lot of CPU power, you need a dual core Atom processor. This reduces everything to the Intel Atom D525.

-> There is actually a motherboard which has all these on it:  

Zotac Mainboard (Intel D525, DDR3-800, Next Generation NVIDIA ION 512MB, PCIe-X1, WLAN, USB 3.0, HDMI, DVI-D, PASSIVE, Mini ITX) von Zotac

- Minimum 4 GB of fast RAM (DDR3)

Kingston KVR1066D3S7/2G PC3-8500 Arbeitspeicher 2 GB (1066 MHz NON-ECC) DDR3-So-Dimm

- Large HDD to record and host movies

 Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB interne Festplatte (8.9 cm, 5400rpm, 8.9ms, 64MB Cache, SATA)

- Case to host everything

LC-Power 1300MI Gehäuse Mini-ITX/M-ATX 75W

Hint: switch the cables for Power LED with the one for HDD LED. You will get interesting effects when the HDD is working. The blue leds will show the HDD activity while the red led from the power button remains always on (while the box is powered on).

From Mediacenter

- TV Tuner with PVR (programmable video recording) function in order to receive video from Satellite or Cable and record it on the mediacenter and display it on TV

TechnoTrend S2-3600 DVB-S2 USB Box mit HDTV Unterstützung

Warning: the software is pure crap ! The remote control is working only with its software which can’t be really used !

As a software, I have a Windows 7 which has a Mediacenter. Any version from XP Media Center Edition above will work perfectly.

The result is a good and solid PC (it is in the end a PC) which consumes between 30-40 W when recording, which plays a lot of media formats, can record series on a schedule.

In the next article i will tell you how to configure it.

I will not comment about this service because a lot has been written, but I will comment on its usability.

Here are the most nerving issues which the Product Managers from Google seem to have not understood:

I want to write to a friend a direct message without having to create a circle with only 1 user.

I click on the name and I expect to be able to interact with the user.

And surprise… there is no way to do this …

To compare it with Facebook, if you click on a username, you can write on the Wall of the respective person.

Will write more here

Dropbox encrypts data on the servers, but not to individual accounts, notes Sorin Mustaca, a product manager with security firm Avira. Anyone with admin access to the server can read all of its data. In addition, data on the servers of external services have lesser legal protections, Mustaca says.

“I always advise our users to be very, very careful what they put online because if they put anything online, then the data does not belong to them anymore — it belongs to the cloud,” Mustaca says. “This is the most important lesson that needs to be learned by anybody. If you put it online, you lose control of the data.”

1. Introduction to C Programming by Rob Miles

2. The C Book by Mike Banahan, Declan Brady and Mark Doran

3. How to Think Like a Computer Scientist C++ Version by Allen B Downey

4. Thinking in C++ 2nd edition Vol. 1 and 2 by Bruce Eckel
Volume 1 as ZIP archive
Volume 2 as ZIP archive

5. C++ Annotations by Frank B. Brokken
Zip archive here

Other resources:
About.com 1
About.com 2

notify.me delivers notifications that interest you in near real time. It eliminates the need for you to constantly check on classified listings, blogs or social networking sites. Notifications are pushed to your destinations of choice such as instant messenger, mobile phone, email, desktop or web application. Check out our wiki for examples of how people are using the service.

Sounds good… I always wanted to have something like this to filter my pages.

But it doesn’t really work… for some reasons.

Send via IM doesn’t even authenticate.

Adding an URL ends up in a disaster:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@notify.me and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

---

Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at www.notify.me Port 80

I sent them an email to webmaster (what a useless action) and to their gestsatisfaction.com forum.

Let’s see if I get a response.

By Richard Adhikari, TechNewsWorld

“Once you’re in the cloud, information doesn’t belong only to you but also to the provider of the cloud service,” Sorin Mustaca, a data security expert at Avira, told TechNewsWorld.

The risks involved in moving to the cloud include the possibility that the cloud provider could be hacked by external cybercriminals or rogue employees. There’s also the risk of the cloud provider going bankrupt, causing customers to lose their data, Sorin pointed out.

“The cloud is a generic concept which can’t actually be used without personalizing it,” Mustaca said.

Enterprises and government agencies should only move to the cloud after they have identified what they need and expect from the cloud service, and have set security and privacy policies.

“People think that if they move their computers and services to the cloud, they make the problems disappear,” Mustaca remarked. “But the problems don’t vanish; they simply move to the cloud.”

Cloud service providers must guarantee a minimum level of security and privacy, but the differences between vendors’ offerings “are sometimes significant,” Mustaca warned.

Going to a big provider doesn’t necessarily mean you’re any safer than if you went to a smaller one.

“It doesn’t matter how big the provider is; it can still be hacked if the correct security policies aren’t set up,” Mustaca said.

The software comes from EasyBits Media, a company from Oslo, Norway.

The Skype users have started to complain  yesterday afternoon and the drama seems to continue, without Skype officials to comment on this. The entire thread is here: http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=821491&st=0

A user writes in the Forum:

I clicked “deny” when skype asked for permission to install this on my computer, but it still went ahead and installed anyway. Can somebody from Skype confirm ASAP if this is a virus which has gotten into the Skype network or if this is something they have pushed out with a very dubious installer. Not impressed.

 

 

One and a half hours later, the user called EasyBitsMedia has posted a copy/paste from their website mentioned above:

EasyBits Media is dedicated to providing a world class Game channel to the expanding global Skype community.

In 2006, in collaboration with Skype, EasyBits Media created the Skype Extras framework – one of the world’s first ever Apps store.

Skype Extras are Apps that allow users to extend Skype functionality. For example, our Skype Extra is called “Play Games” which is bundled with the Skype client for Windows and installed on over 100 million PCs. It allows users to play a host of free classic and cutting edge games with friends and family through Skype.

Over 30% of Skype Extras users play games. Given the popularity of our Skype Game channel, EasyBits Media is currently expanding this service by launching the GO Games platform which will add more features and games to satisfy the growing demand of our gaming community!

To learn more, please visit http://www.easybitsmedia.com

Currently, it is unknown if this software is malicious or not.

Apparently, an uninstallation is not possible, according to the affected users and here .

On the website of EasyBits Media, there is a link to an uninstaller of EasyGames Pro: http://www.easybitsmedia.com/support/RemoveGO.exe

However, how good it is can’t be estimated at this time.

I will update here if there is something new.