ZoomIn to Australian Social Mapping Software

Here is a really really cool new tool, ZoomIn, thanks to Cam & Rich from G’Day World for the pointer. ZoomIn is an Australian mapping solution that is mashed up with social networking and a photo sharing site. Users can create places, upload photos and add comments.
The mapping software is very good, personally I find it better than whereis I am planning on using it from now on.

Some thoughts on usage:-

  • Cool places to eat and drink
  • Pictures and places for tourists to visit
  • An Australian version of the New York Google Maps junk collection mashup GarbageScout (background info here, here)
  • Information about your local area
  • Online neighbourhood watch
  • Some smart cookie might even look at using it as a dating site

The list goes on, if you are in Australia have a look at the tool.

A couple of suggestions include RSS feeds of places or photo tags, and maybe allow users to enter the URL of a photo instead of having to upload it, or being able to email in photos with the address as the subject.

Cranky Middle Managers

Ok we all know that they exist, we all either work for one, have them reporting to us or are one yourself.  If you fit into any of these categories, or you are a consultant that has to deal with them you should check out The Cranky Middle Manager podcast hosted by Wayne Trumel.

Wayne’s latest show is on the DNA of Leadership, a fascinating interview with Judith Glaser, author of The DNA of Leadership.  Either listen to the show directly from the site or subscribe using your favourite pod-catcher.  I would recommend that you subscribe as in June has will be speaking about managing multiple generations in the workforce, a very relevant topic today.

Job update

If you have been following my blog for a while you will know that I was finishing with BHP Billiton (ex-WMC) during April.  This time has come and gone and I am now moving on.

I am going to Nortel, yes the company that seems to have had a lot of trouble filing its financial returns over the last couple of years and the CEO has changed more times than I can count.  During the 1990’s I spent almost 9 years at Nortel and decided to go back there into a very different role.  I will be taking up a role in the Service Delivery group primarily looking after the Nortel Melbourne office, the role is pure IT no HR or HRIS.

I plan to continue to blog, but I predict that the content will become more technology focused than HR focused but given my interests I will continue to post of HR.  This will not change hrblogs.org or community.hrblogs.org these will continue as services to the HR Blogging Community, I even plan to add some more features.

Movement in Job Search

Over the last couple of weeks there has been some interesting developments in the job search arena on both sides of the global. Firstly in Australia we have had the very flashy launch of jobs.com.au and in Canada there has been the launch of Eluta a Canadian specific vertical search site.
jobs.com.au claims to not be a job board but a “fully automated online recruitment service”. In an online twist jobs.com.au only charges employers when they hire a candidate, not to advertise. They are also providing several services to candidates. Firstly a monthly email report detailing jobs in the system that match your skills, how many jobs you have been shortlisted for, companies you were introduced to and discount vouchers along with the typical resume advice.
Eluta is a vertical search engine just for the Canadian marketplace, they have the typical features that you expect to see, Advance Search, RSS Feeds, Email Alerts with a couple of new ones. A map of the where the employer is located to help the candidate in their decision making and a similar link displaying related jobs to the one shown, very nice.
It is good to see movement outside of the US marketplace in the job search arena.

Site move completed

I have finished moving hosting providers with only a few small issues, this means ity is back to our regular program of posts.

(The only issue I have is a wiki I created no longer runs, I hope to have this fixed in the next couple of days.)

HR Blogs Community Update

Over the last couple of days I have had two bug reports on community.hrblogs.org, both have been killed.  Thanks to Glenn and Gautam. I have also added another 4 sites to the list, including a couple from India.

One feature I have been thinking about is the ability to categorise by country.  I am yet to do this as I think a majority of the sites are US-specific.  I will see how things go.

Once again if you find any bugs or missing sites just let me know.

Google Calendar Update

Google has released a set of APIs for developers to integrate their Google Calendar with other web applications.

But a number of other problems still exist when running Norton Internet Security.  I am running NIS 2003 so I am not sure of the settings in other versions.  I spent a while trying to isolate why I could not edit events on my home PC.  It seems that in the NIS Options on the Firewall tab if you uncheck the “Stealth blocked ports” check box then you can edit events in Google Calendar.

Based on the help provided with NIS “Stealth blocked ports“:-

Blocked and inactive ports do not respond to connection attempts. Active ports do not respond to connection attempts with incorrect source or destination information.
To me this seems a good setting to have turned on, although I am not sure what it does, hence I will continue not to use Google Calendar.