I stayed in several apartments in college, but the one I remember for having the most interesting time and definitely the most interesting roommates (or rather apt mates!) was when Erin, Aynne, Patrick and me staying in this beautiful house with a lovely garden at the back, and an attic with a double sized waterbed and a huge, huge aircraft propeller fan as an exhaust. It was one of those creative peculiarities that made the combination so great. It was a five-bedroom house and this fifth bedroom with the waterbed was unoccupied, so was a great haunt for all our get-togethers. Waterbeds are one of the most fun things ever invented and it was kind of sad to see them fade away from mainstream culture. I do wish waterbeds would become more popular again and even though they are a bit cumbersome to install or move, they are definitely worth all the effort.
So, from my last post, you can see that I finally and thankfully got my wireless connection working. Well, the word “I” is used very loosely, since I didn’t really do anything, expect kindof plead with the engineer to somehow, anyhow get it working. And that’s exactly what he did. he connected my laptop to the main broadband connection, found the missing software from the US Robotics site, downloaded the software, extracted it, installed it and, voila! It was working. I’m thrilled to bits, since it’s actually the first time I’m using a wireless connection. I had asked my ISP to install the router so I could use it wirelessly, and for some reason they ended up installing a single user router! I didn’t even know there was such as thing, but anyway since I was so sick of them, I got a second internet connection from a different company as a back up. To cut a long story short, wireless working, me happy, end of story!
Setting up my wireless connection
I’m traveling these days, but as I needed to finish my assignments I needed to be connected at all times. I work using a laptop, so that is not an issue. What the problem was that I did not have the software CD along with my US Robotics Wireless Data Card, so could not connect to the internet. Two other computers with internet connections were available in the house but my data is only stored on my laptop and I need to acces it. Thankfully, I got the ISP provider to send an engineer and locate the software that needed to be downloaded and get it installed on my laptop. It really is essential to know some technical experts who can take care of all this stuff for me.
So, you can see that I’m not really all that great at getting all this computer and internet stuff done on my own. I like to have a professional take care of it for me, some one like the people at Geek Need, who know all the steps to get you working asap. This is a phone-based support site for technical stuff, handling everything from spyware, antivirus, connectivity hassles, email setups and much more. The complete list of applications that they deal with is really quite exhaustive.
I found a fun new site to add to my reading list and it’s called Liam is Big. The topics covered are as varied as internet stuff to video games to fun facts and tech gizmos, which makes for interesting reading. Most blogs are getting quite narrow in their focus but I prefer blogs with a wider topic range like this one, since my interests are varied too and this way I end up finding out about stuff that I normally wouldn’t if I only read blogs that wrote only about a single topic.
Using social networking for business
Social networking sites are being noticed in a big way by companies these days, and are no longer just for friends getting together to chat. According to a survey by The Institute of Corporate Productivity (I4CP), it was found that 65% of business professionals used social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Yahoo360, MySpace etc. to connect with internal staff and employess in other locations, besides connecting with potential clients.
Statistics from the Institute for Corporate Productivity are as follows:-
52% of the survey respondents use social networking sites as a communication channel between internal staff and remote employees connected. 47% of total respondents use the networks to connect with potential clients. 35% say they use networks to assist them in finding a job.Of those respondents who do not use social networking, 37% don’t know what networks to use. 59% are unaware that social networks can assist their professional development. 31% say they already use social networks, and 77% responded that they would use social networks if these networks could aid organizational efficiency.
The underlying fact is that social networking sites help you to increase your contacts, connect with new people and creates opportunities. I’m a member of LinkedIn and have made some nice contacts at LinkedIn and among all the social networking sites out there this is definitely the best one and also the most business like one.
