Read more about this at data.worldbank.org.

Two influential thinkers Hans Rosling and Beth Noveck cover these open data initiatives in a presentation titled “The Changing World — A New Mindset for a Multipolar World”.

I too have to switch very often between multiple machines and I don’t want to duplicate nor carry around my own files, (email, calendar, …) applications, preferences, bookmarks, … The answer is SaaS (software-as-a-service), greatly enabled by Google, Gmail, G-Talk and many other Google Apps. Another part of the answer is Firefox, which has many useful add-ons that make life a lot simpler.

This article from TheAppleBlog describes some of these add-ons, of which I am now using Gmail Notifier, TwitterFox and FoxyTunes, but still have to try out Scribefire for blogging (now using Blogger’s BlogThis and Sage for RSS feeds) and Meebo for instant messaging (now using Google Talk).

You comments about very useful add-ons are greatly appreciated. The problem is that there are so many add-ons (as you can see on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox) that trying out every blogging-related tool is a lot of work.

Well, Microsoft has responded this question by announcing its “open source, standards compliant, and highly extensible content management sample that can run anything from blogs to big web sites” (this is how Microsoft describes it), called Oxite. You can read more about it at http://visitmix.com/Lab/Oxite and download it from http://www.codeplex.com/oxite. It is version 1, so it will probably be more suited at this moment for blogs than for the “big Web sites”, but we all know the capabilities of Microsoft developers, now assisted by a large number of open source developers. It is built using ASP.Net and will probably run best on Windows, although it can also run on Linux and Mac using the Mono work by Novell and Microsoft.

Maybe Microsoft had read this: “While the large closed vendors struggle to steer their supertankers through increasingly unsettled waters, open source looks all the more attractive to budget constrained businesses looking to maximize their cost effectiveness.” in the article Open source thrives in downturn. It is indeed going to be interesting to see what kind of momentum open source vendors like Alfresco, Intalio and many others get during this recession.

Or this: “As the recession puts pressure on tech spending, many companies are turning to open-source software to handle more IT tasks” in the BusinessWeek article Cost-Conscious Companies Turn to Open-Source Software

That really means “back to basics”, back to the really important things in life

See also: No Outsourcing Here: Jobs That Are Staying Put

Of course, many companies see this moment as an opportunity to bring bad news and to lay off temporary or excess workers. But in the end nobody knows how deep the recession will strike, and more importantly for how long. Meanwhile, fear reigns, budgets are cut, projects are postponed, and training and education of employees are put on hold.

Who dares to break this negative trend ?

- Adopt business intelligence smarts: Get a business intelligence system that allows for easier data collection and consolidation, and reports management.
- Consolidate technologies: Maybe it’s time to let go of some of your clunky systems that take too much time and effort to maintain, update, and consolidate.
- Go virtual: SaaS, cloud computing, and virtualization can trim IT budgets without necessarily trimming operations and lowering the quality of their services.
- Standardize processes; adopt agile methodologies
- Outsource, and outsource intelligently: Look for long-term benefits from service provider(s), whether offshore or nearshore, from a combination of cost-savings, technology savvy, methodologies, consulting skills, and management culture of the vendor.

It is probably no surprise that I.T. Works offers seminars and workshops on all of the above topics ?

- visually similar to the Mac OS X dock
- why wasn’t this in the pre-beta Windows 7 software released last month ?
- see also: More taskbar details from Microsoft itself

The answer:
- Storage: disks and storage management software
- Business intelligence: Niche analytics
- Virtualization: Optimizing resources
- Security: Data and end points
- Cloud computing: Business solutions

This is an interesting summary of what to do in a tightening economy. By continuing to invest wisely in IT during a downturn, an organization strengthens its long-term future.

The article has various tips for IT cost-cutting–both big and small–including outsourcing, staffing, consolidation of data centers and storage and server virtualization.

Mike Butcher of TechCrunch came to Belgium (actually he came to Gent, and wrote this about the most pleasant city in Belgium: “Gent is quickly becoming one of the main places to startup in that country, as it’s a short drive from Brussels (which has the main airport and the excellent Eurostar), but Gent is cheaper, somewhat prettier and is a big university city with lots more potential talent to draw from.”).

The real reason he came here was to do a writeup on the Web 2.0/Mobile startups here in Belgium.

You can find his report at http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/21/techcrunch-euro-tour-08-yes-even-belgium-has-startups/