[via Heiko]

Top 10 Downloads of the past 10 years

When CNET Download.com opened its doors in 1996, it was home to 3,000 small shareware and freeware applications. Online software distribution was still in its infancy. What a difference a near-decade makes! Since 1996, we’ve watched the rise of instant messaging, digital audio and the MP3 format, file sharing, spyware and antispyware, and the open-source movement, just to name a few. And we’ve watched as online software distribution has gone from pipe dream to reality. These 10 applications best represent the top trends in downloading over the past decade.

1. ICQ
2. Winamp
3. Napster
4. Firefox
5. Winzip
6. iTunes
7. Ad-aware
8. Skype
9. RealPlayer
10. Adobe Acrobat Reader

Top 10 dot-com flops

The most astounding thing about the dot-com boom was the obscene amount of money that was spent. Zealous venture capitalists fell over themselves to invest millions in Internet start-ups; dot-coms blew millions on spectacular marketing campaigns; new college graduates became instant millionaires (albeit on paper) and rushed out to spend it; and companies with unproven business models executed massive IPOs with sky-high stock prices. Of course, we all know what eventually happened to this world. Few of these companies actually made enough money to recoup that cash, and when their investors fled to the hills, these start-ups died dramatic deaths. These are the celebrity victims of the new-economy bust.

1. Webvan (1999-2001)
2. Pets.com (2000)
3. Kozmo.com (1998-2001)
4. Flooz.com (1998-2001)
5. eToys.com (1997-2001)
6. Boo.com (1998-2000)
7. MVP.com (1999-2000)
8. Go.com (1998-2001)
9. Kibu.com (1999-2000)
10. GovWorks.com (1999-2000)

Top 10 tech of 1995

Let’s stroll down memory lane to 1995. William Jefferson Clinton was president of the United States, and you were probably getting acquainted with six new friends (Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, and Joey)–unless you were hanging out in the coffee shop, brooding in your grunge gear. We were stunned and saddened by the Oklahoma City bombings, and the “trial of the century” ended with O. J. Simpson’s acquittal. Heck, the San Francisco 49ers were Super Bowl champs (see, they were good at one point). All in all, 1995 was jam-packed. To kick off our anniversary, we have rounded up the 10 technologies from 1995 that helped shape the present and moved us into the future. Drumroll, please.

1. Sony PlayStation
2. IBM ThinkPad 701c
3. Digital cameras
4. Sony DCR-VX1000
5. The Web
6. Java
7. USB Standard
8. Flat-screen plasma display TVs
9. CDMA (Qualcomm)
10. eBay

So, after some months, I wanted to change the design of my blog. You see the first version…if you are not using a RSS/atom reader ;-)

If this is the case, may I suggest you to haver a look at www.didierbeck.com with your “usual” browser? Please, let me know if you have some issues with the new design (specially for my Safari’s readers, I have no chance to test the CSS with this browser).

Feedback generally speaking welcome ;-)

Finally, Google News supports Atom and RSS….. Have a look here.

Feeds: You can receive various sections of Google News or Google News search results as a RSS or Atom feed. When you subscribe to a feed from Google News in your favorite feed reader, youll be provided with updates from Google News.

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…

Dear Readers,
Do not expect any updates here till August 7. We are flying to the beautiful Corsica to rest ourselves a little bit ;-)
Take care!

[via letterJames]

[via Jeremy via Gretchen]

My latest tirade revolves around Hiring Managers (and I’m referring to Microsoft Hiring Managers … but I know this problem exists in other companies) not “getting” the talent landscape. Not only do they not seem to understand that brilliant software engineers don’t grow on trees (you don’t, do you?) … but they can’t seem to get it through their heads that 1) Microsoft isn’t the only place hiring, 2) Working at a big company isn’t everyone’s dream, and 3) Redmond is not the first place people say they want to move when they wake up in the morning. (Unfortunately, I don’t think the slogan ….”Where do you want to go today? Redmond, of course!” would fly.)