We live in a wonderful world

How many talents are hidden within the routines of our life?

How to help the earthquake victims if you are not in Peru?

Well, here I found some places where you could visit to donate:

1. Red Cross: (English)This one accepts payments from 5 US$ and is good because all credit cards are accepted.
2. Direct relief international: Here you can also use online payments.
   
3. Caritas Spain: (Spanish) This one is not using online payments but there is information on accounts where to deposit money.
4. E-Wong: (Spanish) This is a online store for food and other supplies. They accept Visa credit cards and they prepared special packages for helping the victims of the earthquake.

Here there is a post with much more information than mine: click here
Please only make donations to organizations you trust.

--- UPDATE ----
Care is now also offering help and receiving donations from their web site.

Peruvians helping eachother

All the media covered information about the earthquake in Peru and that's the reason why I will not explain about it. Even thousands of persons are still in pain and recovering from physical and emotional distress there are many wonderful things going on that are important to talk about.

First of all I'm Peruvian but I live in Slovenia. Many people called me or contacted me to show they care and to ask for my family. I was very happy for that and also for being able to report that my family and friends are scared but healthy.

After the shock and communication problems the information started to arrive to the media, and like that I started to realize the magnitude of the disaster. But at the same time 10ths of messages, posts in forums, emails, videos on YouTube started to appear. Yes, the telephone network (Managed by Telefonica) crashed but the internet was working! Hundreds of families started using internet technologies to communicate. The Peruvian newspapers online offered tools for communicating and connecting members of the family living in different areas. Internet is definitively one very important media of communication capable of saving lives and release distress.

After all that I was asking to myself how to help? I hadn't any clue but it looks like many Peruvians living abroad started making the same questions and many of them contacted me to join their efforts. Wow! I didn't know there are so many hidden leaders all around the world! Soon many companies offered themselves to collect money and send it to bank accounts opened all around the world for the purpose of helping to the victims. Now the Red Cross, Caritas and many other organizations are collecting resources. A connected World started to organize itself to help. That is wonderful!

Talking with my mother I found out that in Lima, there is a mass movement for offering help. The municipalities are receiving donations, the private sector is organizing their employees help and providing additional resources, the stores are collecting founds from each of their customers and many trucks are going each day full of good intentions and brotherhood. In the meantime the political organizations are solving problems in the infrastructure and security. They are facing challenges and making mistakes but it is also true that they are reacting fast and focusing in what matters the most. Individuals are discovering that each one can help, that each one is powerful enough to organize support activities. It is great to see that the people stops making their routines to help.

In the "Plaza de Armas" or main square in Lima more than 500 persons started donating blood. Thats great but it is event greater because tourists participated as well! authorities, members of the army and police department helped and gave the good sample.
Thanks! to all the heroes that are investing their time to help so much. Heroes from all the world and from many different nationalities that took the opportunity to make a positive mark on our history.

Nature is wild and powerful and we, Humans, are experts to adapt. There was never a moment in history with so much people living and using our planet's resources, we need to start thinking where is best to live to avoid nature's dangerous behavior.

Yahoo Green!

Yahoo green is one more great idea of Yahoo! There is a calculator that will tell you how much CO2 you are producing and it also helps you to plan how to reduce that. The only problem is that you need to choose a North American state, thats a problem if you live somewhere else...
There is really good information and facts and also a filter of the questions and answers from Yahoo Answers. Don't loose the take action section, there you can see creative ways making our planet better; I like the advise about cleaning chemicals based on petroleum.

The right colors

Well, once I've heard that there are no wrong colors, and I think that's right. Actually what we need to learn is how to use the colors and play with them. But colors are part of our live and part of what we are able to control, at least this is what we would like.
We use colors to paint our house, to decorate our home, to dress, we define which color we want on our car and at work we use colors for our advertisement, letters, logos, messages.
Well, in case you would like to use good color schemes I advise you to use a great tool called: Kuler. You can use it online or download it to your computer. There are some great technological characteristics that are on the back of the tool but this is not the right place to talk about it.
The most interesting thing is that now you can get fantastic color schemes for everything you can ever imagine. Just give a check on Kuler!
You want a good sample? fine, here you have a professional using Kuler for his business. See the images. His name is Andrew Martin.
If you wish to have it on your computer then first you need to install Adobe Air and then download and install the Kuler Desktop.

Ask.com is greener

I just saw on News.com that Ask.com is changing their equipment (servers and computers) to more efficient machines able to save 30% in energy. But not only that, they are also planting trees like part of an initiative called "Plant a tree for me".
Actually that is a great think to take in consideration the next time you will buy a computer: how much energy does it spend (fully loaded). Looking for more efficient equipment will help saving resources and will motivate the industry to produce more and more eco-friendly machines.
You can read the article clicking here.

My first article in "Small Business IT, does IT Really Matter?

Since the microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver I've met very interesting persons, one of them is Stuart Crawford, he is the owner of the Blog: "Small Business IT, deos it Really Matter?". He kindly invited me to participate and write some articles there. So my first article is already published!
For all of you interested in small business I think Stuart's Blog is a good source of information.

Quotation: fixed!

On a previous post I mentioned a quotation that was not exactly right. So after searching and searching I found it within the lines of a great book named "The Heart of a Leader". There Ken Blanchard comments this quotation by Ichek Adizes:
"Managing only for profit is like playing tennis with your eye on the scoreboard and not on the ball"

Good news for small business and Microsoft small business specialists

Some days ago I have posted a message regarding the Microsoft PAL denomination. Since then many things are going on and the PAL community. I must say that I am one of the PALS and that is why I feel the need to share more information about it with you.

If you are the owner of a small business

1. There is a group of qualified companies, all of them are Microsoft partners, ready to help you finding solutions to your business challenges regarding information technologies.
2. The group of small business specialists (SBS) are not necessary small businesses. There is a great range of SBS and most of them with very interesting expertise.
3. You can find solutions and partners visiting the Microsoft Solution Finder. Click here. First you will see a page like the first image, after selecting the country and typing in the search space "small business specialist" you will be able to select partners or solutions. In the section of partners you will see the complete list.
   

Above: Picture 1

Above: Picture 2

If you are a Microsoft Small Business Specialist

The PALS are actually for helping you. They are very active community leaders and actually they have the responsibility of taking your feedback to Microsoft.
Actually Microsoft is very concerned about improving the capacity of SBS for making better business and attending each time better the requirements of their customers. If you have suggestions you just need to contact the PAL in charge of your area or region and that's it! Find your local PAL here.
You can also listen to a really good interview from Vlad... it is actually a "Vladcast". There you will listen 2 Microsoft Partner Area Leads Vijay Riyait and Dean Calvert talking about the PAL program goals and objectives.