This is why Cisco is leading the IT industry.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 06/28/08 at 12:06:55 am

A subject that I can talk about from personal experience is the importance of including Cisco based training into your education if you’re considering a profession in the IT field. Over the years Cisco Systems has radically expanded its certification lineup, they have training for everything from basic networking fundamentals to creating an enterprise-class VoIP infrastructure - and getting certified isn’t nearly as hard as you’d think.

Cisco has become the clear leader in technology training because they are a leading innovator and manufacture of IS equipment. Cisco can give IT professionals the skills needed to perform their jobs because they created the tools that countless businesses and organizations depend on for networking and communications. In fact, Cisco certification courses are so big that many High-Schools around the country now offer students the opportunity to get certified even before they graduate.

Cisco Systems recently launched a brand new website called The Cisco Learning Network. The website offers in-depth information about the certification courses and it helps people find the right track for the technology careers they’re interested in. This new website is a big improvement over the old Cisco Academy website because it has a whole community aspect that allows students to network with each other and become more involved with the company and its developments which could make the process of getting certified that much easier.

I can honestly say that my Cisco training played a big part in getting the job I have today and I utilize the skills I’ve learned from the CCNA course for my everyday functions with the company. If you have any interest in an IT career and for some reason haven’t looked into Cisco training, I highly recommend checking out the new Cisco certification website.

Sponsored by Cisco

Returning back to life, hopefully soon.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 06/19/08 at 03:06:49 pm

These past few weeks I’ve barely had a chance to do anything outside of work. I miss hanging out on my favorite websites, I miss chatting with friends, but more then anything I miss blogging.

The new SCI Broadband.com successfully launched yesterday afternoon in-between the meetings we had going all day. This project was a chapter of my immediate career that I’m proud to have finally finished. The company needed a new web presence - in fact, “needed” is an understatement. While my revamped design could be better, I think it turned out nice and it will be a solid addition to my little portfolio.

Just because I finished this website doesn’t mean I can return to how it used to be. The list of projects at work that need to get finished this year is endless. Just to explain how endless it is, I started messing around with website ideas a couple months after I started with the company. That was almost 2 years ago.

I’m trying hard to efficiently manage my time so I can fit in more things that I want to do, I need more time for myself and my own projects. For example, some of the things I’d like to accomplish in the next month on this website alone include a brand new design and a couple big product reviews. If I plan to get this stuff done I need to figure out where my time is going and how I can reclaim some of it.

Productivity Tip: Grilling At Work (Morale Boosters)

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 05/09/08 at 12:05:41 pm

Grilling at Work

I haven’t come up with a good productivity tip in a while but I think this one is important. I mentioned grilling at work in the title but it could be any fun thing that you can do to help break up the time at your day job.

Now that Spring has finally hit Minnesota I had purchased a cheap $10 charcoal grill at Wal-Mart. We have this nice cement patio area out back with picnic tables and everything and it’s never used by any of the businesses in our complex. Up until recently we have only used it for storing e-waste and cardboard boxes that we need to get rid of. Over the last few weeks we have been randomly picking days where we will bring in some brats or burgers and our lunch hour will be spent firing up the grill and cooking them to deliciousness.

The best part about grilling at work is you get a level of freedom that makes you feel at home. It’s the same reason that I sometimes walk around in my socks at work and I have a growing collection of desk toys that I can play with, not because I want to just slack off but because I’m in the office for 9+ hours a day and if it were a more strict environment I wouldn’t be able to stand the monotony. I think that alone plays a big part in why I job hopped so much when I was younger, I’ll get bored or I’ll stop liking or even caring about my job and I want to move on to something else. My tasks here are just as stressful if not more then any other place I’ve ever worked at but because of the relaxed environment I’ve been with this company for almost 2 years and I’m just as content with coming into work today as I was when I started.

Some companies will have morale boosters set up for their staff; they will do drawings or have little random perks that will get people excited about doing their work. With my company it’s a little different, everyone has their own work load and we’re so busy that if we want that sort of thing we need to create it ourselves. The sad part is I think there are plenty of other people that are in the same situation and they are too afraid to pin a colorful poster on the wall let alone launch a screaming monkey at a coworker. The point is morale boosters can make all the difference.

Create an online portfolio with Carbonmade.com

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/20/08 at 09:04:51 pm

CarbonmadeMy project for this weekend was creating a new portfolio that shows off some of my recent web and graphic design work. While I doubt I’ll actually use the portfolio to gain freelance projects it’s nice to have a spot online to show off a few samples, just like it’s nice to have a resume on hand to outline my work experience.

I stumbled across a portfolio somewhere last week that was using this service called Carbonmade and I guess the cute logo struck my interest because a few minutes later I was working on creating an account for myself. Carbonmade is an innovative concept that allows people to create professional looking portfolios with no HTML or programming experience necessary. It works similar to a photo gallery, you’re able to upload your works and add comments to describe it. Carbonmade offers a free option called the “Meh. Plan” that restricts the user to 5 projects and 35 images. Otherwise the “Whoo! Plan” allows for 50 projects, 500 images, and 10 videos for $12 a month.

The way that this system is set up I could see it being used in a few different ways such as a presentation or a dedicated gallery for family photos and such. I’m not quite finished yet, but you can check out my Carbonmade portfolio here.

Productivity Tip: I had a To-Do List.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 03/10/08 at 09:03:18 am

For some people weekends are reserved as a time to get rest and downtime from the work week, they might go out and do something but for the most part it’s spent at home in front of the TV. For others the weekend might be used for hobbies and things they enjoy like spending time in the yard gardening, in the garage making a bird house, riding a bike, going skiing, golfing, whatever.

Then there are people like me who use the weekend for a combination of things but there’s a set of goals in mind. Goals that need to be accomplished because once we’re back in the work week they can’t and won’t get done. The goals can be anything, playing a game, working on a project, getting sleep, going to the bank before it closes because it’s open for like 5 minutes on Saturday, anything. It may sound like I have too much structure for simple tasks but I feel that if you plan things out the time and resources can be used more efficiently and that makes all of the difference.

Here’s an example, these are some of the ambitious goals that I had for this weekend –

  • Fix the broken handle on my nightstand.
  • Clean up my bedroom.
  • Wash and clean my minivan.
  • Get an oil change.
  • Get a hair cut.
  • Play a game.
  • Watch or go out and see a movie.
  • Update software on my desktop.
  • Work on my new advertising project.
  • Label DVD’s.

While I didn’t get everything on my list accomplished I still managed to have a very productive yet relaxing weekend. I purchased matching replacement handles for my nightstand and the TV stand. I spent a few hours essentially detailing my vehicle and I got most of the salt stains and other misc. winter damage cleaned up. I got an oil change and haircut yesterday. I played a game of WarCraft III with a friend and I updated my Adobe and Microsoft Office software on my desktop like I wanted. I cleaned up my bedroom yesterday afternoon and last night I seen No Country for Old Men despite it coming out on DVD tomorrow. To top it all off I watched an entire season of Ice Road Truckers on The History Channel.

Unfortunately, I only had a chance to work on my new project for a few minutes, and I didn’t have time to label my growing stack of DVDs. But still, I accomplished most everything I wanted because I knew how to use my time.

I think as far as productivity tips go this is a big one. Making a list of things to do in a set period of time, especially low-priority things that would otherwise be ignored will increase the chance of them getting done.

Syncing with Google Calendar just got easier.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 03/06/08 at 10:03:07 am

I recently wrote about a guide to sync your Outlook calendar with Google Calendar that was honestly somewhat complicated and takes a while to set up. What Google needed was a single application that could do the whole process quickly and easily, and yesterday that application was released.

The new Google Calendar Sync is a godsend for anyone looking for synchronization between Outlook and Google. It takes less then a couple minutes to set up and it can do 1 way syncing both ways (for backing up or instant migration to or from Google) and complete 2 way syncing between Outlook and Google Calendar. The best part for me is now that I want to use my Outlook Calendar on multiple computers this little application can also use Google Calendar as a medium for seamlessly transferring my events between my various Outlook installs. Very cool.

More information and the free download is available here.

Making the switch to Google Reader.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/31/08 at 04:01:41 pm

Up until today I really didn’t put a lot of thought into my RSS reader because well, I didn’t have one. Everyone has a reader right? At least everyone should, for the past year or so I’ve been putting all of my feeds into a dedicated tab on my Google homepage. While this method worked just fine it was far from convenient and very cumbersome when I actually wanted to read the articles.

I’ve played around with Google Reader before but I never really got into using it. I was just poking around today and I found that Google has made a widget for the Google Homepage that collects and displays all of your unread entries just like as if it were a single feed. I knew at that moment that I was completely sold.

I’ve only tried a couple other RSS readers but Google has to be one of the easiest to navigate. The tagging/folders feature is nice, it works a lot like the labels in Gmail and it allows for my growing collection of subscriptions to be easily organized. The ability to share feeds with your GTalk friends is also very cool. Another feature I stumbled across is the ability to use the reader in conjunction with Google Gears to create an offline RSS reader which could be nice for people that travel or are ‘disconnected’ from the outside world long enough to miss updates.

I’ve spent the better half of the day customizing and moving everything over, now I just have to get used to reading all of my favorite blogs through the minimal Google interface.

Sync Google Calendar with Outlook Automatically.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/19/08 at 02:01:04 pm

Here’s a little productivity tip I found for people like myself that want complete calendar synchronization between Outlook, Google Calendar, and a Windows Mobile Smartphone. I’ve come to rely on my smartphone to remind me of my everyday business, expenses, meetings, events etc. but at the same time I wanted the ability to access the same information in my Outlook at work and online with Google Calendar. Now when I have an appointment coming up my cell phone, iPod, Outlook software, and Google Calendar will all alert me to it, simultaneously!

By following this somewhat easy to follow guide and using this piece of open source software you too can enjoy schedule synchronization bliss with Google Calendar.

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