The Authentic Eccentric

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of celebration and blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology so that tomorrow’s women in technology have visible and celebrated female role models in math and science.

Choosing just one woman to spotlight was a challenge - there are many women in technology who have inspired me, but after pouring over histories of Admiral Grace Hopper, Betty Holberton and Ada Lovelace herself, I found myself drawn to one of the early women technologists whose blog I followed, Claire Giordano.

From her about page: Claire Giordano most recently served as the Director of Product Management and User Experience at A9.com, an Amazon.com subsidiary, managing an online advertising service. Prior to Amazon, she worked with Sun Microsystems for 16 years, most recently as the Group Marketing Manager for OpenSolaris, where she was responsible for all outbound and community marketing efforts. Before marketing OpenSolaris, she directed the engineering effort to open source the Solaris operating system. Ms. Giordano has a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Math/Computer Science from Brown University.

I hope you’ll take some time to read through the many posts celebrating women in technology today, but if nothing else, take some time soon to encourage a young woman to explore the vibrant history of women in technology.

Cult of Done

Originally uploaded by spatulated.

I did it - I went and joined a cult, that’s why I’ve been so quiet! Now, this is done too.

I’m taking the holiday off to recharge, relax and eat tasty food, but I wanted to leave you with some good articles to dive into when you feel the need to escape:

Terry Heaton explains why survival isn’t a strategy and asks “What if the old model is gone for good and it doesn’t come back?” We’ve helped a few of our clients answer that question this year, but I’m not sure enough businesses have made the switch, yet.

Dale Dougherty at the O’Reilly Radar votes for Bill Gates as Person of the Year and gives some compelling reasons for his vote.

Enjoy, be safe and merry.

Laura at Pistachio Consulting is asking her readers and Twitter followers to help her save 35,000 children between now and Christmas by donating $2.00 to the CharityWater.org clean water campaign. Every day, 4,500 children die because they lack access to clean drinking water.

She’s lined up some generous sponsors to match up to $10,000 of whatever she raises. I know everyone’s funds are tight at this time of the year, but your $2.00 is genuinely money well spent.

Can you help? If you can’t spare the funds, Laura has a list of 10 free ways to help here.

While I’m not personally enamored of cell phones, I’m aware of their growing popularity, so testing out Mofuse’s new Wordpress plug in was an easy choice.

Mofuse makes setting up a mobile feed for your blog or website simple; I was able to use the new plug-in installer to add it without difficulty, and configuration took knowing the RSS feed address and URL. In other words, easy! The system also offers QR codes and automatic redirect.

If you’re looking to offer increased channels, give it a whirl! You can access our page on your mobile here. I’ll add a widget to the sidebar once I’ve finished customizing all of my options.

iPhone image courtsey of Flickr member William Hook. Used under a Creative Commons license.

I’m running in and out of meetings today, but I wanted to share a couple of good lists that have popped up on my radar lately.

Qui Diaz, director of strategy at Livingston Communications took the time to compile 50+ ways to give to charities this holiday, including options for those folks with more time than money.

Sean Aune at Mashable has an awesome roundup of 100+ websites for job listings, resume reviews, networking and more. Companies are still hiring, so if you’re looking, one of these might be a good fit.

An oldie but goody - Cyan Ta’eed at Freelance Switch pulled together a mega list of freelancing sites in case you’re thinking of picking up some extra work or going solo for the new year.

If you’ve spotted other great round ups, share them in the comments section!

Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising campaign hosted by Pim Techamuanvivit and a revolving cast of food bloggers around the world.

Five years ago, the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia inspired her to find a way to help, and the very first Menu for Hope was born. The campaign has since become a yearly affair, raising funds to support worthy causes worldwide. In 2007, Menu for Hope raised nearly $100K to help the UN World Food Program feed the hungry. Each December, food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering a delectable array of food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle.

Anyone – and that means you too - can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. For every $10 donated, you earn one virtual raffle ticket to bid on a prize of your choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

This year, my clients at Personal Chef to Go are joining in the fun!

One lucky winner will receive their tasty Family Favorites menu, sure to please all but the most finicky of eaters. Each week their chefs create a delicious, four entree menu complete with side dishes to compliment the main course. From tender and moist grilled chicken to savory seafood pastas, it is sure to be a family favorite any night of the week! Each weekly menu is delivered to your door and because it is always fresh and never frozen, it is ready to eat in minutes. Prize package includes two servings of each meal (eight dinners in all).

How to donate and enter to win:

1. Go to First Giving , the site that manages this campaign, and make your donation. For every $10 donation, you are eligible to win one raffle prize.
2. If you’re interested in winning the delicious meal package we’re giving away, when you are prompted to enter a “personal message” enter code — the codes associated with this prize. If you are eligible for more than one prize — for example, if you gave $50 — you could apply two tickets to one prize and three to another. Simply write 2xUE28 + 3xUE28, or whichever combination of prizes you’re hoping for.
3. Not the prize you wanted? Check out the master list of prizes to see what else is being offered.
4. Finally, check the box that follows which says that you are “happy for the page owner to see my email address” — very necessary so we can contact you if you won!
5. The winners of each raffle prize will be announced in early January. The last day to give is December 24.

Hanging ‘Round the Water Cooler
Originally uploaded by foundphotoslj .

Every Tuesday I can be found at the NTEN Watercooler dispensing helpful advice on printing, Wordpress, blogging, twitter and general communications issues , but this week , I’ll be there from 2:30 - 4:00 pm providing free assistance to anyone who wants to upgrade to the latest release.

Not an NTEN member ? That’s ok - office hours are now open to the general public. I have to say, though, that you’re missing out on working with some awesome people who are all working to make the world a better place .

Boy, was the wait worth it! The new 2.7 version of Wordpress (aka Coltrane) was just released, and upgrading AE took just about 6 minutes not counting the full server backup.

Some of the fun stuff to look forward to in 2.7 includes:

• Automatic one click upgrades (admin privileges required)
• One click plugin installation from Wordpress.org (suspect this also requires admin privileges)
• Customized drag & drop dashboards
• Quick posts from the dashboard
• Word count on new posts

For more information on the new Wordpress goodies, I highly recommend checking out the following posts:

Aaron Brazell lays out the 10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress 2.7 and an additional post roundup.

Taylor Pratt at MarketingPilgrim.com has video and a quick overview of new features.

Sean P. Aune has a timely wrapup of 20+ plugins already compatible with 2.7 - since this has slowed upgrade times in the past, this was a welcome post.

Rick Turoczy at ReadWriteWeb takes a look at how Wordpress listened to their raving fans to build a better release candidate that should be required reading for all software developers.

Last but not least, don’t Robert Scoble’s interviews with Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg on the future of blogs.

Sixty years ago, the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) set about their task of enumerating the rights all humans were entitled to as citizens of the world. Led by the visionary Eleanor Roosevelt, they drew upon a host of sources - from philosophers to revolutionaries to religious leaders and from every part of the world. They also drew upon a document that had already been in existence for almost thirty years – the Constitution of the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted as part of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles which ended World War I.

Much of my work with Active Grey Matter revolves around article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family”, as well as article 23, which affirms the right to work, as well as to “equal pay for equal work” and “just and favorable remuneration.”

The right to work and access to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of all is sorely needed for people with chronic or disabling conditions, many of whom fall into poverty as a result of limited employment options. People with chronic or disabling conditions face the largest unemployment percentage of all minority groups, and declining economic conditions have reduced or eliminated workforce supports to facilitate their return to work.

I hope you’ll join with us in working to change that in 2009, because every human has rights worth fighting for.