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Make Money Being a Geek. Geek Tips, Geek Culture, and GTD from Geekpreneur.com

Rules for Helping Friends Find JobsSeptember 3

Photography: wili_hybrid

It’s the real reason we join. We might end up swapping a few emails with someone we haven’t seen since high school (before remembering why we lost touch with them in the first place.) We might sneak peeks at how exes are doing, then beat ourselves up when we discover that they’re now billionaires married to supermodels. And we might spend far too long looking at silly videos on Fun Walls then wonder why we bothered, but when we enter a password on a site like LinkedIn, Facebook or even MySpace, we like to tell ourselves that we’re really networking to advance our careers.

Of course, it might happen. With everyone only six degrees away from everyone else, anyone should be able to follow the dots to find someone who can give them access to their dream job.

But what happens when you’re that someone? What do you do when a friend asks if you know of any jobs going in your company? And should you really offer help when a pal gets a pink slip and starts looking for a bolthole?

It’s always nice to lend a hand but before making the connection, it’s a good idea to know

Joint Ventures Versus Venture CapitalAugust 19

It might be the first goal of many a budding entrepreneur: to find someone with more money than he knows what to do with, explain why your idea can make him richer than Beverly Hills and accept a seven-figure check from him in return for a tiny little stake in your company — one that’s now worth several million dollars. Whether the business ever makes a dime, you’ll always be able to say that you were worth a mint and that you ran a large corporation.

In practice of course, it’s never that easy. While venture capital may well provide the sort of launch pad that’s sent many a business into the stratosphere, finding the money can be as laborious as building the foundations of the business in the first place. Time that could have been spent talking to potential customers, perfecting the product and developing new service ranges will be spent creating business plans, contacting investors and creating Powerpoint presentations to land the capital.

The chances of success are fairly small too, although they depend on the industry. Entrepreneurs with an idea in the healthcare field, for example, are said have just a 3 percent chance of landing an investor. Those odds may well be higher for entrepreneurs with Web ideas and based in Silicon Valley, especially if they have a proven track record, but even they can expect a long wait, lots of meetings and plenty of responses that begin “We think it’s a very interesting idea but….”

The Price of Inve

The 15 Second PrincipleAugust 11

Photography: jek in the box

What could you do in fifteen seconds?

Watch a slow-motion replay of the 100 meter Olympic final?

Describe in full all of Microsoft’s contributions to the advancement of computer science?

Get the idea behind Phillip Glass’s “4′ 33″”?

Or achieve all of your life’s goals, find perfect contentment and live happily ever after for the rest of your days?

According to Al Secunda, a motivational speaker and author of “The 15 Second Principle,” it is actually possible to do the last one. (He didn’t mention Microsoft.) Dedicating just fifteen seconds each day to a goal you really want to achieve will remove the blocks, build the momentum and provide enough power to get you exactly where you want to go, he argues.

Fifteen Seconds… More or Less

There is some method in his madness. The actual amount of time dedicated, he explains, doesn’t matter. The fifteen seconds is a minimum, an amount that no one could possibly begrudge. What is important is that it gets you moving. A goal stops being a dream when it’s acted on – if only for fifteen seconds – and starts

Using Google Docs to Run a Group BlogAugust 5

Group blogs have become very popular in the last year or so. After all, they do have  many advantages opposed to a single user blog. One I can think of right away is the many varied voices readers can sample while reading through a group blog. Google Docs is an excellent platform to manage, share and publish information to such a group blog. While most of us are familiar with the actual running of Google Docs, many don’t realize this options even exists.

I will go into details on how you can do this quite comfortably. Instead of just listing all the features I’m going to explain in a little more details on possible work flow to help you get started with your own Google Docs group blog administration. You as the administrator will hold ultimate control which assists you with peace of mind I guess.

Google Doc Group Blog Work Flow - Getting Started

To be able to run a group blog through Google Docs you will first need to have some collaborators. To collaborate with ease, simply choose the documents you want to share with others in your group blog.
We know the best way to run a business is to run it in organized measures. After all, time is money and the more time we waste trying to email between participants, the more money it’s going to end up costing us.

Work smart and share your work through Google Docs instead. A great way to keep the group blog work flow flowing is for the administrator to schedule all upcoming posts with his grou

Computer Screens in MoviesJuly 30

Photography: Dale Gillard

After reading an article on Film UI Bloopers I really wondered what goes through the minds of a movie screen maker when they design their computer interfaces for movies? I wanted to go behind the scenes to find out what makes these software genies tick and why computers for movies are often designed with unrealistic user interfaces (UI’s), opposed to the real thing.

A typical example is Jack Bauer’s PDA from the popular series 24. Magically, he is always able to download anything directly to his PDA without having to use complicated conversion software or tools. In real life, applications aren’t always as straight forward than in the movies. Especially between the various operating systems on the market today. Movies often use unrealistic tools which we of the normal kind would love to own but probably never see launched in our lifetime.

To find out I went undercover and to see what I found, please read on.

Interview with two industry experts

I wanted to find out why we keep seeing fancy gadgets (think Bond 007) and not the stuff people use e