This little post to mark my 500th post in about 18 months…

[via BetaNews]

New version 2.1.1 of Konfabulator has been launched since some days now….

(Some of the) Latest changes

• Fixed problem with determining night time with other timezone names in TheWeather
• Make sure to remove handlers when passed an empty string or null
• Fixed issue where animations now make sure that the object they are animating can’t get garbage collected during the animation
• Fixed problem where windows were getting chopped off after a display change.
• Fixed bug where popupMenu could crash if the popup items were garbage collected too soon

[via vowe & NASA & NASA again]

Self-Portrait

Astronaut Steve Robinson turns the camera on himself during his historic repair job “underneath” Discovery on August 3. The Shuttle’s heat shield, where Robinson removed a pair of protruding gap fillers, is reflected in his visor.

Unprecedented Vista

Discovery’s underside floats over the Earth in this first-of-its-kind view, taken during astronaut Steve Robinson’s dramatic August 3 spacewalk. Riding the International Space Station’s robot arm, Robinson ventured under the Shuttle to remove a pair of gap fillers sticking out between tiles on the orbiter’s heat shield.

Earth in Perspective

The STS-114 crew captured this view of Earth from the Shuttle-Station complex on day nine of the mission.

Knowledge@Wharton released a good article about the difference between manager and leader (typical discussion ;-) and how far you have to be an optimist guy to be a leader.

The good manager knows that not all employees work the same way. They know if they are to achieve success, they must put their employees in a position where they will be able to use their strengths. “Great managers know they don’t have 10 salespeople working for them. They know they have 10 individuals working for them …. A great manager is brilliant at spotting the unique differences that separate each person and then capitalizing on them.”

It may sound elementary, but a quick glance around the business world indicates that many companies have yet to grasp this simple concept of putting people’s strengths to use, Buckingham said. That’s because the business world — and the world at large — is obsessed with weaknesses and finding ways to fix them. Buckingham cited a recent poll that asked workers whether they felt they could achieve more success through improving on their weaknesses or building on their strengths. Fifty-nine percent picked the former.

“I do think there is a rather keen and distinct difference between managing and leading,” Buckingham said. The chief responsibility of a leader, for example, “is to rally people for a better future. If you are a leader, you better be unflinchingly, unfailingly optimistic. No matter how bleak his or her mood, nothing can undermine a leader’s belief that things can get better, and must get better. I believe you either bring this to the table or you don’t.”

Along with that optimism, great leaders can also bring big egos — and that’s not a bad thing. While some have blamed the business world’s recent string of scandals — Enron, WorldCom and others — on bloated executive egos, Buckingham disagrees. It’s not ego that ruined Ken Lay, but rather a lack of ethics. There’s a big difference, Buckingham said. And considering the responsibility facing business leaders to build a future for their companies, a big ego might be what is needed.

Hi all! Back from the beautiful Corsica. Very restful time there, as expected :-) Regarding the weather, it seems that we should have stayed in Calvi (Corsica) a little bit longer…