hrmageddon: is this how mergers should be done?

I’ve been a cubicle dweller several times, although all of them short-lived. Corporate vets may be more amused at Thup Games’ HRmageddon, a Flash game which puts the gore in merger. What? Anyway. HRmageddon’s “story” starts when your company, Gray Solutions, merges with Beige Dynamics. The problem? The number of openings remain the same, but the number of employees have doubled. The higher ups’ solution, delivered to you via an attached PowerPoint presentation:

Battles take place tactics-style. To win, you must kill all of the rival employees, or capture more cubicles than the opposing team. Employees consist of managers, receptionists, IT guys and salesmen, with varying specialties and attack ranges. Before each battle, you choose which of these employees and how many of each type to hire, as long as you spend within the budget. There are power ups on the field too, all of them office related as well, e.g. “Holiday Bonus”, which heals a unit and bestows a temporary attack bonus.

The game is kinda slow-paced, but the animations made me stick with it, especially the salesman’s attacks and the manager’s moves. Check out the HRmageddon at Adult Swim. While you’re there, be a kind soul and check out My Lil’ Bastard for me won’t you? I wanted to play it but I didn’t have the time. And also Robot Unicorn Attack; and Dungeons and Dungeons; and Death Vegas.

http://bit.ly/cfDxnE

Windows Mobile 6.5.x Development to Continue Longer Than Expected?

We know by now that Microsoft will have two mobile platforms in the market at the same time: Windows Mobile 6.5.x will remain for professional devices and for phones that have interface skins, and Windows Phone 7 Series will be around for consumers and in some cases, business users as well. Well, at the below email from HTC customer service ... Read More

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• Review - Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional 

Comments [10]

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Make Sure You're Not De-Motivating Your Team [Career]

It should come as no surprise that money is a pretty powerful motivator for workers, but an article by researchers at Harvard Business School says it takes more than cash to keep employees happy and productive.

Photo by crschmidt.

The article suggests that managers spend too much time trying to figure out how to motivate employees—something most workers are perfectly capable of doing themselves. Instead, team leaders need to get out of the way and stop de-motivating employees with mindless policies and poor management strategies.

The authors say people have three main goals at work: 1) to be treated with respect and equity, 2) to take pride in a job well done, and 3) to have good relationships with fellow employees. If even one of these factors are missing, workers are three times as likely to be unhappy at work. Surprisingly, not even a better paycheck will make up for the loss of one of the three biggest motivators.

Inane company policies and procedures often do the most damage to employee motivation, and there's often little middle managers can do about it:

Satisfying the three goals depends both on organizational policies and on the everyday practices of individual managers. If the company has a solid approach to talent management, a bad manager can undermine it in his unit. On the flip side, smart and empathetic managers can overcome a great deal of corporate mismanagement while creating enthusiasm and commitment within their units. While individual managers can't control all leadership decisions, they can still have a profound influence on employee motivation.

The most important thing is to provide employees with a sense of security, one in which they do not fear that their jobs will be in jeopardy if their performance is not perfect and one in which layoffs are considered an extreme last resort, not just another option for dealing with hard times.

Check out the article for a list of ways managers can help workers achieve their goals, feel a sense of pride in their work, and build camaraderie with fellow workers. What keeps you motivated at work? Is it the companionship of your colleagues, cold, hard, cash, or something else? Share what revs your motivational motor in the comments.

Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation [Harvard Business School]

http://bit.ly/drZqJc

I Knew That Tin Foil Would Protect My Actions

Submitted by: dunno source via Submission Page

http://bit.ly/a1tpsJ

Silverlight/XNA confirmed as developer frameworks for Windows Phone 7

Documents leaked to the XDA-Developers forum reveal that Windows Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend are the primary tools for developing applications for Windows Phones.

Developer frameworks

The documents show that there are two frameworks available for developers to create applications. The first is the Silverlight UI framework for "event-driven, XAML based development." The platform provides developers with the full features of Silverlight to develop mark-up based user experiences.

The second is Microsoft's XNA UI framework. This is primarily for loop-based games and allows developers to use the full power of the XNA gaming environment. XNA is a set of tools provided by Microsoft that allows game development. Announced in March 2004, the runtime is available for XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Xbox 360. XNA games can run on any platform that supports the XNA framework with little to no modification required.

Multitasking confirmed

In another document leaked to XDA-developers, Microsoft confirms that multitasking will be operational in Windows Phone 7:

"As a preemptive multitasking operating system (OS), Windows Phone OS 7.0 supports multiple processes running simultaneoulsy on the system. There is no limit to the number of processes that can run on the phone. The only limit is the amount of available system resources."

Microsoft demonstrated the Windows Phone 7 UI earlier this week at
Mobile World Congress. Company officials will speak more widely about features and development at the MIX 2010 conference in March next month.

SOURCE

Attached Thumbnails

 

http://bit.ly/aubLKm

More Hands-on with Windows Phone 7 Series

Here's a more intimate hands-on with Windows Phone 7 series taken by WMExperts at Barcelona. From the video, we learn a few new things: 1. You can tap and hold anyone from the People hub and "pin it" to the Start screen 2. When asked about Twitter support in the People hub, the Microsoft rep remarked that "Windows Live aggregates about 80 social ... Read More

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• MWC: Windows Phone 7 Series Intra-Program Menu System

Comments [6]

http://bit.ly/bnebXo

zaTunnel

Summary: zaTunnel is SSH tunnel and port forwarding for Pocket PC. -- more on freewarepocketpc.net



Found in: Communication, Network, telnet, SSH, tcp, internet, port

Download zaTunnel

Mobile friendly download

http://bit.ly/ceKmbz

TeleKast

In a former life I directed and produced television commercials. I quit and then edited news for a while as I tried to figure out how to get the media monkey off my back. Now I teach guitar for a living and while I’m much happier, I still have the urge to produce consumable media once in a while. I also have a great fondness for open source software.

One of the things that helps me satisfy both itches is a program called TeleKast. It’s an open-source teleprompter software. For those of you not familiar with teleprompters, they’re devices used to make TV hosts, newscasters and politicians seem as though they’re looking right at you as they speak, when in reality they’re reading from scripts rolling up on screens, right underneath the camera’s lens.

TeleKast lets me do the same job at a fraction (as in 0%) of the cost of a professional teleprompter package. TeleKast provides a Script Editor window to type in my script. Another window called Segments allows me to organize my script into scenes. While I’m working on a script, I can see it in the upper-right hand Segment Preview window. I can also add cues for camera, audio, video, talent and one for other.

When I’m ready to roll, there’s a pop-up window that scrolls up my text to read while I record my on-camera or voice-over work. I can adjust the text size and scroll speed and the text background and cue colors. I can start and stop scrolling with the space bar. It’s simple, flexible, powerful.

It pretty much keeps me from sounding stupid when I have to do a read of some sort. While reading my lines on my monitor, I can look directly at my webcam and appear to not in fact be reading my lines, just as the transparent screen of a teleprompter allows speakers to look at an audience and appear as though they're not in fact reading from notes -- even though they are. It's very useful for webcasts. It looks like the software has been in an alpha state for a while, but I’ve been using it for more than a year and like it very much. Works with Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/Vista and Linux.

-- Jeff Bragg

Here's Jeff's illustration of TeleKast in action.

TeleKast
Free and open source

Available from SourceForge

http://bit.ly/bX9xvY

25 Microchips That Shook the World

IEEE Spectrum’s article presents the most inovating microchips that engineers inspired the last decades. Presentation includes famous chips like NE555, PIC 16C84, μA741 etc.. take a look at this great article. [via]

25 Microchips That Shook the World - [Link]

http://bit.ly/cUpQVe

Oh, Joy

Submitted by: Lindsey via Submission Page

http://bit.ly/bH5DXm