Getting rid of it all!!!

Wanna get rid of all your credit cards and the accompanying anxiety and stress?

Just watch out this video carefully! It should give you an excellent idea to start with!

Landing a new job: Behind the scenes - [3]: The networking

In order to land a new job nothing can help you as much as networking. Fortunately or unfortunately, no matter what university your degree was earned in, how many years of job experience you possess or how many skills you have acquired through the years, it is much much easier to appoint a job interview through one of your friends or acquaintances.

This is why once down and out the first thing you should do is call your friends and acquaintances and let them know you are on the lookout for a new job. Nothing to be ashamed about.

Furthermore, it is very important no matter what the circumstances of your disappointment, downsizing, laying off etc. that you keep a working relationship [even if this is limited to new year's wishes] with as many people as possible. You may as well do the following:

• Buy an agenda and keep it for life. Note down everyone you meet and write his job, phone and position with a pencil. After all, you are not the only one whose details change over the course of life!
• You may achieve the same result as above by using an address book software such as Microsoft Outlook or the Mozilla Thunderbird address book or even the Windows Address Book. CAUTION! Before you pledge allegiance to one software you like be sure you know how to back it up and transfer the data in case of a format, software data migration etc.
• You may also use some networking website such as LinkedIn.com. I will provide an overview of LinkedIn.com soon. For now, a YouTube video on LinkedIn may be found by clicking here.
  

Yahoo! Mail Beta [80/100]

Very good are my impressions of the new Yahoo! Mail, recently in beta. Making use of the latest rich-content technologies offers in-site tabs, drag and drop files and folders organization plus a handy timeline on the bottom of your inbox so you can rotate over your calendar without leaving a message.

What it lacks however is a color scheme changer and some more innovation, because no bad feelings but these things have been incorporated into other webmails long ago...

Blogger Beta [86/100]

My first impressions of the beta version of blogger I would state to be very good. The new template and page design drag & drop manipulation are an excellent help for everyone who does not want to spend hours over HTML hard coding.

Yet, please be aware that all of your adjustments will be lost and that should you want to enter something by hand you cannot do it on the template HTML any more but only by adding special HTML/JavaScript snippets.

Another thing to notice is that eversince I joined Blogger Beta I cannot seem to post a comment on many blogs! All I get is an error message about some technician that will fix the problem so that I will be able to comment again...:

Error

We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.

The most probable reason for this that I could come up with would be my using of the Blogger beta because I can post on beta users' blogs without any hassle.

Regarding how to tell beta blogs from old ones, just look at the archive links. Old blogger uses text links whereas blogger beta uses expandable links [like the ones on this blog].

Photo Album Update

Some 13 new photos have been uploaded to my photo album on Picasa Web. Please feel free to give them a look and leave your comments.

From Still Life

Pandora Internet Radio [77/100]

Blogging around lately I checked out a link by a lady's blog's links, reading "The Best Internet Radio". The only thing I can tell you is that it is indeed the best. I have tried several of them [not to say all of them] since their very first days back in 1999 and all I can say is give it a try.

What I especially like is the really great automatic personalization and the really cool feature of mix stations, i.e. you can create as many stations as you like and choose some of them and listen at a mix of their songs.

Mentioning should go as well to the exceptional sound quality which comes to your PC without all the "What's your connection speed?" hassle.

Yet, I think that their gizmos for connecting Pandora to your home stereo selling for $249 is not a great idea.

On the downside, there is the common found limitation of track skipping [not more that 7 per hour] but you can always switch to another station of yours or create a new one and bypass it.

Also note that [at least for now] variety is limited compared to, say, Yahoo! Radio.

Landing a new job: Behind the scenes - [2]: The interview negotiation

I cannot point out how commonplace this is but should you be having a job and looking for a new one the most important card up your sleeve is exactly this: That you already have a job.

Going to an interview as an out-of-market fella does just one thing: Tear down all your negotiating power, because let us face it: no matter how good you are, no matter how experienced you are, your future employer [or the representative of your future employer] sees you as yet another supplier of their company.

That is, they will try to buy your services on discount. And by being out of the jobs marketplace you give them a pretty good reason to ask for that discount and insist on it.

Landing a new job: Behind the scenes - [1]: The cover letter

Almost everyone [ok, EVERYONE] specialized on interviewing, personnel recruiting and selection and HR will most definitely tell you to accompany your resume with a cover letter when you send one for a position you are interested in.

Well, guess what! I have sent over 250 resumes in my life and no email accompanied by a cover letter was answered but one! And guess what this one cover letter was stating: "I am willing to work very very hard"!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, do not lose time writing this pathetic type of letter just to state your goals, your skills etc etc.

Should you be good enough for the job they will call you and give you a try. It is that simple. OK?

P.S. And for those of you out there who just had the thought crossing their heads: NO, I am not a lousy cover letter writer at all!

Nameday Greetings...

Today I thought [and I was certain about it for days now!!!!] that all Nick's and Nicole's in Greece celebrate their nameday. So I opened up my cell phone in the evening full of bad feelings because I left my sms wishes to be sent too late.

I sent 3 sms messages only to be called back by a Nicole and be taught that this nameday is actually a month ahead on December 6th!!!

What a shame!