Presenting, the Canon Lens Mug selection!

It’s a 1:1 scale of the actual EF lens, only it’s a mug. They were originally giveaways of Canon during the Vancouver Winter Olympics and are now available for Canon fanatics to purchase. The quality is good according to those who have bought it. The shipment is free anywhere you are in the world according to the merchant’s website although the cost is in the pricey range of the spectrum. Even more expensive than what Starbucks sells.

The EF 24-105mm sells for  $39.99 and the 70-200mm Thermos at $45.99.

When you’re already using one of these mugs, just remember not to pour coffee into your real lens as they can get confusing when juxtaposed with each other.

The first is “How to Get Rich” by Felix Dennis, the founder of Dennis Publishing (publisher of Maxim, PCWorld, MacUser, and The Week). Felix is one of Britain’s best known self-made entrepreneurs with an  estimated value of between $400-$900M before tax.

Reading so far, it’s an honest and no-nonsense romp of Dennis’ life and the wisdom that he has gained from his experiences. it’s honest enough to say that getting rich may not necessarily make you happy but kids around that reading his book may improve your sex life.

Reading so far, he outlines what it means to be rich and how motivation and not necessarily intelligence that will move you to reach your objective. The ferocity of one’s motivational drive is the secret of many rich people is what he is espousing in the chapters that I’ve read so far.

The road to financial success may be lonely and it even comments that our traditional notion that teamwork is the key to  success may only be true to those who aspire not to be rich -“Teamwork is the glue that binds losers together.”

Anyway, I’m still halfway to reading the book and I will give my review of it after I’ve finished.

New features for this release that caught my attention includes:

• Multi-site support – Can support multiple sites in a single installation. Merged with MU.
• New default theme – After 4 years, they are now replacing their default to one they called “Twenty Ten” to take advantage of the new features of this release. They named it as such so they will remember next year that they have to update it again and the 4 year waiting period will be avoided.
• Custom menu management facility – allows creation of custom menus combining posts, pages, categories, tags, and links for use in theme menus or widgets.
• Support for shortlinks – Generate tiny url for your article
  
• Bulk upgrade of plugins – Time saver for us who manage it
  
• Custom taxonomies and post types

Here’s a video tour of the version 3 release

Video tour of the new release

If you have enough time to watch, see also the video below. It’s Matt Mullenweg’s (founder of WordPress) speech at the WordCamp San Francisco. It’s a good experience to listen direct from the people who created our favorite things and to be like in the same room with them.

Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word speech at the 2010 WordCamp San Francisco

Ours is a society where polite small talk takes the form of inquisitions about body weight, oftentimes the spirit of levity masking impoliteness. But ours is also a culture that finds nothing wrong with wanton inquiries into our marital status, sexual preference, and other things that would make a foreigner faint. Ours is a culture that finds fault in fat (check out those short but brutal Lesofat ads). Granted, that’s what you get from too much Häagen Dazs and  double cheeseburgers, but your dining habits aren’t to blame, are they? Yes, it’s hormonal imbalance. Bad hormones!

So in the spirit of fighting fire with fire, we present 20 snappy retorts to that evil phrase “Uy, tumataba ka ‘ata.”

1.    “Bagong promo ng Belo Clinic.”
2.    “Hindi, baby fat lang ‘yan.”
3.    “Nagsarado kasi yung Fitness First sa amin.”
4.    “A sure consequence of increasing personal wealth kasi yan. Ikaw mukha ka pa ring dukha.”
5.    “That’s because I’m joining The Biggest Loser.”
6.    Rep has auditions for Falstaff.
7.    “Maganda nga abs mo, pero bobo ka pa rin.”
8.    “I know you meant no malice, but you have no idea how much you hurt my feelings.”
9.    “Fifty percent off on Thai Jasmine rice at Hi-Top Supermarket!”
10.    ‘Ever heard of the East Beach Diet?”
11.    Alam mo, sabi dati ni Roland Barthes, “Steak is part of the same sanguine mythology as wine. It is the heart of meat, it is meat in its pure state; and whoever partakes of it assimilates a bull-like strength. The prestige of steak evidently derives from quasi-rawness.  In it, blood is visible, natural, dense, at once compact and sectile… To eat steak therefore represents both a nature and morality.”
12.    “I mean, that’s just your opinion, man.”—Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski
13.    “Bakit ikaw mukha kang floorwax?”
14.    “Nagbasa ako ng Preview. Yan daw ang uso in the next six months.”
15.    “Which is why I’ve been taking Xenical. And I’ve got this nice, moist feeling inside my pants.”
16.    “Idol ko si Ate Shawee.”
17.    “Ah, but the curve is the most beautiful of all the lines.”
18.    “May sale kasi sa Tubby.”
19.    “Does the phrase ‘Dove Beauty’ mean anything to you?”
20.    “Tangina mo rin.”

I dropped by earlier to Canon to bring my less than a month old dslr to the service center after it plunged into sea water for a good 20 minutes when our boat sank in Quezon. I am literally living on my 2nd life after the incident when we almost drown. I’m thankful that it’s just camera that that took the hit instead of me.

Luckily, I was able to save the data from my SD card and still have our pictures to show proof of how a wonderful location Quezon is and it’s worth the travel to visit it.

Reflecting from this experience, it made me realize how short life can be and I ask myself, what would I do now that I’ve been given my second chance to live..

• Acuatico Resort
• La Luz Resort
• Kabayan Resort

If you are looking to search for more and want to go to  Laiya specifically, below may be a good list to start:

• Acuatico Beach Resort
• Balai sa Laiya Beach Resort
• Blue Coral Beach Resort
• Kabayan Beach Resort
• Laiya Coco Grove Beach Resort
• Laiya White Cove Beach Resort
• Laluz Beach Resort
• Palm Beach Resort
• Porto Laiya Beach Resort
• Sabangan Beach Resort
• Sigayan Bay Beach Resort
• Tivona Beach Resort
• Triple G Beach Resort
• Virgin Beach Resort

But I was more excited when I saw the site about  Pundaquit (a town in Zambales) together with the list of attractions and activities that it has to offer. Credit goes to “Me” (that’s how he calls himself. can’t find his real name, lol) and Amy for putting up a great site. I also love their photography

The attractions of this town namely are:

• Camara Island
• Capones Island
• Anawangin Cove
• Nagsasa Cove

Rates are very reasonable and they even put up their skipper’s contact number. Directions are also very clear. I’m looking forward to visit one of the islands soon. See you soon Pundaquit!

After the elementary class mini reunion, I dug some of my old pictures in my files and here are some of the souvenirs that I found of my early school days.

Classmates nakapublic to ciempre para makita ng lahat, Hahaha!!!

These goals are generic to all industries and all types of projects. Regardless of your level of experience in project management, set these 5 goals for every project you manage.

Goal 1: To finish on time

This is the oldest but trickiest goal in the book. It’s the most difficult because the requirements often change during the project and the schedule was probably optimistic in the first place.

To succeed, you need to manage your scope very carefully. Implement a change control process so that any changes to the scope are properly managed.

Always keep your plan up to date, recording actual vs. planned progress. Identify any deviations from plan and fix them quickly.

Goal 2: To finish under budget

To make sure that your project costs don’t spiral, you need to set a project budget at the start to compare against. Include in this budget, all of the types of project costs that will accrue, whether they are to do with people, equipment, suppliers or materials. Then work out how much each task in your plan is going to cost to complete and track any deviations from this plan.

Make sure that if you over-spend on some tasks, that you under-spend on others. In this way, you can control your spend and deliver under  budget.

Goal 3: To meet the requirements

The goal here is to meet the requirements that were set for the project  at the start. Whether the requirements were to install a new IT system, build a bridge or implement new processes, your project needs to produce solutions which meet these requirements 100%.

The trick here is to make sure that you have a detailed enough set of requirements at the beginning. If they are ambiguous in any way, then what was initially seen as a small piece of work could become huge, taking up valuable time and resources to complete.

Goal 4: To keep customers happy

You could finish your project on time, under budget and have met 100% of the requirements—but still have unhappy customers. This is usually because their expectations have changed since the project started and have not been properly managed.

To ensure that your project sponsor, customer and other stakeholders are happy at the end of your project, you need to manage their expectations carefully. Make sure you always keep them properly informed of progress. “Keep it real” by giving them a crystal clear view of progress to date. Let them voice their concerns or ideas regularly. Tell them upfront when you can’t deliver on time, or when a change needs to be made. Openness and honesty are always the best tools for setting customer expectations.

Goal 5: To ensure a happy team

If you can do all of this with a happy team, then you’ll be more than willing to do it all again for the next project. And that’s how your staff will feel also. Staff satisfaction is critical to your project’s success.

So keep your team happy by rewarding and recognizing them for their successes. Assign them work that complements their strengths and conduct team building exercises to boost morale. With a happy motivated team, you can achieve anything!

And there you have it. The 5 goals you need to set yourself for every project.

Of course, you should always work smart to achieve these goals more easily.

Jason Westland has 15 years experience in the project management industry. From his experience he has created software to help speed up the management process. If you would like to find out more information about Jason’s online project management software visit ProjectManager.com.

Take these top tips to improve your writing skills:

Keep it simple
Great writers can cover whole topics in just a few short paragraphs. To do this, you need to remove any surplus content, clutter and jargon and write in simple, plain terms that everyone understands. That way, your documents will be quick and easy to read.

Make it focused
To create a powerful project document, you need to focus purely on the topic. This will make your document more persuasive and inspiring to read. So think carefully about the content that your readers expect you to cover. Then list your topics and stick to them. Never write off the topic. If you need to go off topic, then put the content in an Appendix at the end and refer to it.

Have a clear structure
You also need to think carefully about your Table of Contents. Your readers need to be able to scan the Table of Contents to get a quick feel for what your document contains. The Table of Contents should be simple and easy to understand. In your document, you should also:

• Use tables to make it easier to read
• Insert diagrams to explain difficult topics
• Use short paragraphs to accentuate points
• Make use of bolding, italics and underlining
• Use bullets, as they are easily scanned.

Always tell a story
Everyone loves a good story. So write each document as though it was the best story in town. Start with the beginning by introducing your topic and telling them what they are going to learn by reading your document. Then write the main body of the document and end with a conclusion.

Make it flow
Write your document so that each of the sections flow from one topic to the next. This way, the user never has to pause to work out where they are. So before you finish each section, introduce the next section. This helps keep the reader motivated.

Just the right amount
Give your readers “just the right amount of information” needed to make a decision or take an action. Keep it short, but informative and helpful.

Be inspiring

Great writers are passionate about what they are writing. If you are positive and inspirational about your documents, then your reader will catch the excitement and your document will be enjoyable to read.

Jason Westland has worked as a project manger for 15 years. He has a great enthusiasm for project management and which is shown by the books he has published and the value of which his information contains. You can get more information on Jason or his project management templates at method123.