About 6 months ago, I got a call asking how long it would take to download a series of briefs from a legal library. Now, I’d be able to get them a better answer than “Probably quite a while.” Check out this File Transfer Calculator

Tech Republic ran a little poll the other day asking what your company’s plans were for migrating off of XP. Their results show a pretty definite trend to no move off of XP anytime soon. The results can be seen here and show some rather interesting patterns. My first reaction was simply, “Wow!” and then I realized that this data jibes with what I’m hearing from all the folks I’ve been talking with over the last six months.

With the proliferation of personal tracking software like Navizon and Google Latitude the ability to run accurate location tracking is no longer cost prohibitive. Help Desks can use these new services to track their staff who make site visits to have real-time information to find who is closest to the next call. Add this information into your ticket tracking software and you can now dispatch staff more efficiently and provide your customers with better response time. You can improve your repair time by coordinating the location of your spare equipment so that the employee knows of the closest resource.

Again, you don’t need to spend exorbitant amounts of money of fancy systems. Integrating this technology can be as simple as setting up a few Google accounts and downloading the software to your team’s smartphones.

the recession has us all saving money left and right. For those of you needing to replace desktops cheaply, the FIT PC 2 may be just the thing you need. Smaller than a Mac Mini, strong enough to be a main PC for basic users, this little tyke is taking the assumptions of what a desktop need be and throwing them out the window. Take a minute to read this review and then another to do a little math. Not only can this mighty-mite save you considerable costs, it will clean up your user’s desktops.

You could mount it to the back of the monitor. Make desktop placement a piece of cake.

I saw this today and decided immediately that I need to get this app for my iPhone. I remember the Great Debates that raged in college as to which version was better. The debates can continue today in the latest version of the Best Pocket Computing Device.

Students at Warclaw Technical University set up a light show at their dormitory to emulate KITT, the car from Knight Rider. Cool.

The Netflix Prize may have just been won! earning two teams a combined $1 million dollars. The goal of this competition was to increase the computing efficiency for the analytical tool used in predictive computations. Set up similar to other technological prized like the X-Prize, it proves once again that Prized based motivations can succeed where normal business needs fail. Space travel, high mileage engines are two other objectives that have been achieved via prized based competitions.

So why don’t we see more of this kind of motivation internally? This is a question I’ve been pursuing for years and it seems that everyone I’ve approached with the question has a similar answer. They just don’t think about implementing it. The idea is to push development into areas in which your normal channels of discovery are failing. The keys to a successful competition are simple:

• A clearly defined goal
• A clear set of metric to measure success
• A reward big enough to make it enticing
• A problem hard enough that it will challenge the best minds

Take an issue your organization can’t seem to solve. Offer up an appropriate reward, say an extra week of vacation. Decide if you wish to set a deadline. Publish the rules widely. Don’t be afraid to reach outside of your normal group. Remember, your normal team has so far failed at this.

You’ll be amazed at what can be accomplished.

While many of you are still suffering the losses of layoffs, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be looking at what it’s going to take to build your staff levels back up as business moves forward. Regardless of what the economy is doing, baby boomers are still aging and will be leaving the workforce in droves over the next handful of years. Generation-X – the smallest generational population – is moving into management and the following generation is nearly the size of the boomers. They all want jobs and they want different things when it comes to benefits.