Youtube goes Vuvuzela??

Was watching a very funny movie tonight on Youtube when I noticed a new icon in the bottom. A small soccer ball in the lower right hand corner of the video screen:

Now it is World cup time but this particular video had nothing to do with that at all so I was a bit puzzled. A mouse-over had no result, there was no help text so I simply clicked it. It turned out to dish out a loud recording of the Vuvuzela horns that are so popular right now in the Soccer World cup in South-Africa. No clue why!

Some googling resulted in a lot of similarly confused reactions and a lot of guessing.
I think it could very well be a kind of rebellious act on Youtube's part. With all the television networks filtering out the Vuvuzela sounds from the matches Youtube is doing the exact opposite. They are actually giving you an option to turn it on! Sort of an Reverse-Anti-Vuvuzela-Filter. 

Curious to see what they come up with next!

Nerd humor at its finest!

I'm loving twitter. It's giving me information, contacts but most of all a lot of humor! Check this one out that was tweeted last night (thanks SKellyOnline!).

Ok, yes you need to be an absolute nerd to get the humor of it but then again...... I guess I am! (NerdGirl)

My fifth limb

This week it became painfully clear how much I am attached addicted to my laptop. I attended a training course and as it was all theoretical I didn't have to bring my laptop. In fact they told us not to bring one as the classroom wasn't closed off and they didn't want the responsibility of one being stolen. And so it came to be that I left mine at home.

I felt completely uncomfortable! As if I had run out of the door forgetting to put on my clothes. I felt naked. Now of course I know that that is really unrealistic and slightly 'workaholic' like. But it's the truth. My laptop is the first thing I power on in the morning and the last thing I power down at night. I'm totally addicted to mail and social media and I Google everything. I'm the kind of person that has to deliberately plan active holidays to prevent myself from spending my holiday behind the screen. My worst nightmare? that it is stolen!

Ok, so I've got a problem there (AA for laptop addicts anywhere?) but luckily for me I got a new toy recently to obsess over. After not having a smart phone for two years I finally decided to get a Blackberry again. Now I can even check my mail, twitter, etc. in bed!

Yeah right, even for me that was just a bit to neurotic. So now I leave my Blackberry next to my laptop when I go to bed...... and dream about it being stolen......

I really desperately need a hobby!

Has Google gone beserk?

Yikes! Have you've seen those new background images Google put in yesterday?!? My God, here I was opening my trusted Google page to do a search and instead of the simple white page with search bar and funny but discrete picture I got this:

What the .....?! Do the want to make me color blind???

Now, I don't mind a bit of color but this is insane. It lacks all sense of proportion and balance and you can hardly read the text below the search box anymore because of the white lettering on a multi colored background. It looks as if some starter designer has gone wild and nobody discovered it (He, it's only the most used page on the web.....dôh).

Luckily for my sake this morning they turned of the imagery and returned to the trusted old white page. An option in the bottom (which I only noticed today as it completely falls away against the colored background) still allows you to change it to the image background but the default is back to plain old white again. I really hope they keep that novice designer in check from now on. Change is good but with all the resources and money Google has they should be able to do better than this!

ps. I'm clearly not alone in this.......!  link

Article 'The View'

The article on Document Management I've been working on for the last weeks is finally finished and published. A summary can be found by following the link below.

The Lotus Professional’s Guide to Document Management

For full access you will need a subscription to the View.

Lotus Loves People video