I've discovered the YouTube leanback function - Sweet!

The system is great for reviewing YouTube subscriptions quickly - to be honest I couldn't be bothered with looking through the subscriptions at all before (a bit like Twitter in fact). I've used the free Android YouTube Remote app - which is very intuitive to use. 

Screen capture of leanback host machine controlled by phone - Panther's Dash - the go! Team

Subscriptions
The German subscription channel Deutsche Welle is particularly good and there is always something well produced and interesting (http://www.youtube.com/user/deutschewelleenglish).
The main Deutsche Welle website is also great and has free online language courses. I suppose the British Council does something similar but somehow it didn't seem as industrious as D-W!? The British Council's presence on YouTube seems to have more of a country focus for example http://www.youtube.com/user/britishcouncilhk and http://www.youtube.com/user/BritishCouncilUK

...I'd almost forgotten that feeling/sound - icradio // Android radio streaming

I also discovered that the Android TuneIn Radio app from RadioTime is excellent not only for streaming this radio but also various BBC live radio stations that my otherwise brilliant Dolphin Android browser won't let me listen to.  

Bridge of the Month Quiz - click this link to go to original website -

Runkeeper - the place to log sports

I'm impressed with this site, even if I don't own an iPhone or any other Apple gadgets.
1) It allows you to add in all types of activities

2) then you log details
3) and you can compare to previous matched or similar activities

Kerb Games has many viral games - including one for Construction Industry Training Board (CITB)

The Construction Industry Training Board game is at this link CITB Blocsmart viral (puzzle) game. It felt quite difficult to me but then I am not very experienced in playing games. 

ConstructionSkills

There might be alternative viral games I would go for before this ConstructionSkills one - see Move on Up (below); I've inserted this as it doesn't make too much noise up front!
NB all the links in this post will result in a Kerb Games sounds being heard!
RAF Global Rescue (Royal Air Force - Be Part of It)
Bat Out of Hell
Killawatt
NB Clicking on Read More >> below will bring up an embedded flash game, Move on Up, and play 2 seconds of Kerb Games sound. The sound can then be toggled on and off from the flash picture.

Smartcodes - experiment

Reads easily on SE W995 and I've reduced size of picture significantly.

Virgin Brand Values - aide memoire

based on information available on the group's website

The Virgin brand revolves around delivering 
- value pricing, high quality, fun, great customer service and innovation 
whilst at the same time being 
- authentic, people-oriented and hip 
and associated with 
- Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson and his personal reputation.

Virgin Group Brand Values

Fun = enjoyment and humour, not offensive and incompetent

Value for Money = simple, not cheap

Quality = attention to detail, not expensive for the sake of it

Innovation = challenging convention, not different for the sake of being different

Competitive Challenge = responding to consumer needs, not being irrelevant

Brilliant Customer Service = empowered, not unprofessional people

sounds great - what can I do to help...

Learning - chinese proverb

"Tell me and I'll forget;

show me and I may remember;

involve me and I'll understand."

Alternative ....in terms of Personal Learning Journals

I hear and I forget

I see and I remember

I write and I understand

NTNON Gramophone (not quite SPIN selling - click here))

......What do I do with my old 78s?

SPIN stands for Situation, Problem, Implication, Needs

NTNON = Not the Nine O'clock News

Thinking

A great many people may think that they are thinking; however, most are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Brilliant Quotes Of Management

extract from http://www.hftonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1937

Recently, a magazine ran a contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life managers. Here are some of the submissions:

1. As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks. (This was the winning quote from Fred Dales at Microsoft Corp in Redmond, WA.)

2. What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. (Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

4. This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it. (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

5. Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them. (R&D supervisor,
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

6. My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected. (CIO of Dell Computers)

7. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say." (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

8. "How About Friday?" My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me." (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

9. "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees." (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

10. We recently received a memo from senior management saying:
"This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject mentioned above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

11. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!" (New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards.) (Note: He must be related to my boss!

12. Speaking the Same Language: As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body of the memo one of the sentences mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used by one of the training manuals.

The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director's office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for "perverts" (pedophilia?) working in her company.

Finally he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired - and the word "pedagogical" circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary, and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it.

Two days later a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation) roflmao

13. This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally-circulated memo from a large communications company:"(Company name) is endeavorily determined to promote constant attention on current procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on
innovative ways to better, if not supersede, the expectations of quality!" (Lucent Technologies)

Smile and the whole world smiles with you.

A smile costs nothing but gives much.
It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give.
It takes but a moment but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.
None is so rich or mighty that he can get away without it, and none is so poor but he can be made rich by it.
A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in business and is the countersign of friendship.
It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and is nature's best antidote for trouble.
Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away.
Some people are too tired to give you a smile.
Give them yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.

Fame at last

Container ship capacities

Emma Maersk is world's biggest ship; 397m long, beam 56m and 21 storeys between bridge and engine room and capacity to transport 11,000 containers.

Bananas -an interesting perspective on volume and product.
Single container can carry 48,000 bananas - in theory container could hold 528 million bananas in a single voyage. Everyone in UK could have banana for breakfast for almost 9 days!

• Atmospheric pollution
• Energy efficiency
• Container dimensions
  

Owed Two a Spell Chequer

Eye halve a spelling chequer, it came with my pea sea;
It plainly marques four my revue miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word and weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong or write, it shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is made it nose bee fore two long.
And eye can put the error rite, it's rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it and I'm shore your pleased two no
It's letter perfect awl the weigh,
My chequer tolled me sew.

Adam Wood
Senior Trainer
Hitec (Laboratories) Ltd.

A peau hem

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod
are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the
rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it
wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I
awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt