Neves Taverne: January 2015

Friday, January 30, 2015

Tech Five: Apple CEO's salary doubled in 2014

In case you're seeking confirmation, Apple executives make a lot of money. Let's take a look at the technology stocks to watch Friday:

Apple. Chief executive Tim Cook made $9.2 million in 2014, more than double his compensation from the previous year, the company revealed in a filingwith the Securities and Exchange Commission. Meanwhile, newly-hired Angela Ahrendts, who is in charge of Apple's retail and online presence, raked in a whopping $73 million in cash and stock.

Verizon. Hoping the wireless giant will introduce data rollover plans? Don't hold your breath. According to CNet, Verizon chief financial officer Fran Shammo says they won't follow AT&T and T-Mobile in introducing the option to roll over any unused data at the end of a billing cycle.

Facebook. The social network is planning a package for advertisers that would allow them to quickly target ads at users talking about the Super Bowl. Ad Age reportsadvertisers can purchase ads for Facebook's Super Bowl audience leading up to next Sunday's big game.

Twitter. The microblogging service is testing a feature using Microsoft's Bing that would translate tweets in other languages. Venturebeat reports the option will be accessible from both desktop and mobile products.

Box. The online storage provider unveiled its initial public offering, setting it at $14 per share. Based on IPO pricing, Box is valued at $1.7 billion.

KATY PERRY

In addition to her Super Bowl halftime performance, Katy Perry will also kick off a virtual retail pop-up store to coincide with the game.

The pop singer and Universal Music Group teamed up with interactive commerce tech firm Delivery Agent, which was behind H&M's Super Bowl commercial last year that starred David Beckham. Samsung TV owners buy the Beckham-modeled underwear with their TV remote.

This year's number scales larger, letting fans buy special Katy Perry items including clothing and accessories via Twitter, YouTube, music app Shazam, Roku streaming video devices and on Samsung smart TVs. Visa will handle the electronic payments.

The four exclusive products -- think apparel and accessories -- will be revealed during the halftime show of the Super Bowl online and will be available through Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. Leading up to halftime show, all of the partners including Pepsi will be tweeting or running promotional ads.

During the performance, Samsung smart TVs will be able to shop on-screen during the game and halftime show. Twitter will post "Buy Now" tweets that automatically send you to DeliveryAgent's ShopTV online store to buy the items.

Viewers can also "Shazam" Perry's performance using the Shazam app on their smartphone and be directed to ShopTV.

Roku users can download the ShopTV app from Roku's Channel store and shop during and after the game. Perry videos on music video provider Vevo's Katy Perry YouTube channel will have click-to-buy features.

"It's a really interesting confluence of one of the largest entertainers in the world and the largest television event in the world with an exclusive ecommerce merchandising opportunity," said Delivery Agent CEO Mike Fitzsimmons.

Last year's H&M-Beckham interactive ad really "opened up the floodgates in terms of what is possible as it relates to the new connected living room," he said. "We are upping the ante in terms of enabling consumers to effectively engage and transact from any device or any marketing channel synchronously while they watch."

Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Killer whales (Orcinus orca)

Here is a video of a pack (or packs) of Killer whales (Orcinus orca) hunting fish extremely close to the shore in Northern Norway.

Here is a phone camera picture of one of the killer whales:

Tags: Birds · Coast · Nature · Sea Ocean · Seagull · Winter

Click image for larger view.

For the first time I have gone out fishing on the sea during the polar night period in Northern Norway. And what an experience that is. Even though we got no sunlight the light can be absolutely beautiful with different colors everywhere as you can see in these photos.

Above you can see how the sky looks in the middle of the day, and below you can see when the sky starts to get darker.
The mountain in the picture is called Drangen and is located on the island Rolla. It is a very picturesque mountain.

But the main reason I went out on the sea was to fish. what an amazing experience!

Click image for larger view.

Today when I was out fishing I got a visit from a couple of white-tailed eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla). I had thrown a small fish overboard that they really wanted to catch. In the picture above you can see the majestic bird trying to get this fish. I really wish I had brought a proper camera with me, but the photo from the phone actually turned out pretty good.

The white-tailed eagle is very common in Northern Norway, and we have the biggest eagle population in the world along the coast of Northern Norway. The bird is very big (for comparison see the seagull in upper left corner of the picture) with up to 2.45 m wingspan. The eagle feed on fish, but it can also catch other birds and mammals. Whenever all seagulls take flight at once, you can be sure there is a white-tailed eagle around.

You can see other bird photos here.
Information about the picture:

Camera: Apple iPhone 5
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/695)
Aperture: f/2.4
Focal Length: 4.1 mm
ISO Speed: 50Tweet
Tags: Birds · Clouds ·Nature·Sea Ocean·Sky

The view

Taken with Olympus EPL-1 digital camera

I went for a spring trip to Northern Norway this year, and oh my did it pay off. The weather has been fantastic with temperatures well above 20 degree Celsius, something that is unusual this early in the year.
In the picture above I have photographed the view from my bedroom at midnight on the 19th of May. It is about this time we get midnight sun, but the sun went behind the mountains. Nevertheless, the view was spectacular and making it hard to go to sleep.
The mountains that you see far in the horizon is the second largest island in Norway

Spring is such a wonderful time in the north with all the birds coming back, flowers are popping up everywhere and the boat is finally back on the water.

15 Best Productivity Apps for Business Success

1. Evernote

If you walk away from this article not having Evernote in your pockets, I will not be happy. Evernote is the best tool you will ever come across if you use it right you will gain huge benefits from it. Evernote provides a workspace that allows you to store your notes, information, documents, files, images and much more. It’s a great location for on the go reference information and also has powerful search features. Evernote is the best one of the productivity apps I use.

2. Todoist

Todoist is another super useful service that will allow you to manage your tasks throughout your day. Todoist is a very minimalist service with a great design across all the applications. You can create lists, email in tasks, colour code and manage tasks with friends or assign and delegate business colleagues. It’s a great app for immersion in task management and one of the best unknown productivity apps out there

3. Sunrise

Sunrise is an opportunity to make your calendar look better on all your devices. This app takes your calendar, in my case Google Cal, and makes it beautiful, simple to interact with and syncs in real time effectively. It’s fantastic on web, iPhone and Android. .

4. Casual.PM

Casual Project Management is a great business tool that will simply allow you to be more visual and collaborative as a team. Working on a new project is hard and sometimes you lose strands as they fly off but Casual makes sure that everything is connected and visual so you always know whats going on.

5. Talon

Twitter is a key element for business success, the stock twitter application isn’t fantastic but Talon opens up a more productive and efficient output for your tweets. Things feel much more fluent and easier through this app, I’ve saved a lot of time using it to organize my business at events and on the go. It has a super neat design as well!

6. BufferApp

Again, you need to be on the go with your Twitter account and you need to be tweeting in your sleep. So how do you tweet in your sleep? Well, simply by using the Buffer app. It will help you to schedule your activities in all your networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and more in advance. This is useful for when you are working on a service or even a product design and want to spread your awareness further on the web without doing all the real time work.

7. Wakie

For business success you need to be waking up with purpose. If your purpose is your business, you need to be woken up in the coolest way. Wakie is the coolest way to wake up. In summary, you hear the alarm, pick up the phone and someone from around the world is there to wake you up through voice call, they get 1 full minute to get you out of bed then they are shut off. With this app you can get some awesome people waking you up from anywhere in the world with no charges. You can also repay the favor!

8. Clean Master (Web, Android)

When you have a mid-range smartphone, you need to keep everything smooth and clean. You will need to be productive throughout your day and if your phone is slow and laggy, it will kill your speed. Also you want to seem prepared to potential clients. With this app you can share something fast which makes all the difference.

9. Google Keep (Android, Web)

This is great for quick lists in the office, whether they are shopping lists or short meeting notes. This is a good tool that Google provides directly on your phone or over the internet.

10. Hangouts (Android)

Get your texts and Gmail messages (Hangouts) all in one application. This is super useful when you’re getting lots of messages. Additionally video calls are the king on this. It will make your office much more remote, wether you work from a coffee shop or an open plan office, it doesn’t matter, with this app business success will happen anywhere.

11. Google Drive (iOS, Android, Web, PC and Mac)

When you are bubbling around with lots of employees you need to keep collaborating with others a lot, Google Drive lets you create documents that you can work on together in real time. You can also store all your company’s information such as old documents, images, files and much more.

12. DropBox

This is very similar to Google Drive. With this social and link sharing are super easy. If you have many business documents this is a great tool to have as a sharing feature that others will love. It’s simple and playful as well as being informative and useful.

13. Slack

This is very helpful for teams! It will stop the email flow of your team and annoying attachments on other Chat services. Slack will be your business success for communicating if you have more than 3 and below 50 employees. It is genius!

14. Freedcamp

Freedcamp is another piece of project management software that is very similar to the next app in this list Basecamp but covers a greater range of services. Project management basics and also time management focused features will make your time management a lot easier.

15. Basecamp

Very similar to Feedcamp, Basecamp is a modern and dynamic piece of project management software that really has your client and team in mind when you are using it. It is very intuitive and easy to use. A great way to work with clients and consult with them, especially with the template feature

25 Quotes Every Woman Should Remember

1. Tina Fey:

“Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.”

2. Coco Chanel:

“Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor.”

3. Zooey Deschanel:

“I don’t know why femininity should be associated with weakness. Women should be free to express who they are without thinking, ‘I need to act like a man, or I need to tone it down to be successful.’ That’s a very good way to keep women down.”

4. Sherri Shepherd:

“The best piece of advice someone has ever given me was ‘do it scared.’ And no matter if you’re scared, just go ahead and do it anyway because you might as well do it scared, so it will get done and you will feel so much better if you step out of your comfort zone.”

5. Christian Dior:

“After women, flowers are the most lovely thing God has given the world.”

6. Ellen DeGeneres:

“True beauty is not related to what color your hair is or what color your eyes are. True beauty is about who you are as a human being, your principles, your moral compass.”

7. Anne Roiphe:

“A woman whose smile is open and whose expression is glad has a kind of beauty no matter what she wears.”

8. Audrey Hepburn:

“The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.”

9. Ginger Rogers:

“You know, there’s nothing damnable about being a strong woman. The world needs strong women. There are a lot of strong women you do not see who are guiding, helping, mothering strong men. They want to remain unseen. It’s kind of nice to be able to play a strong woman who is seen.”

10. Nicki Minaj:

“My advice to women in general: Even if you’re doing a nine-to-five job, treat yourself like a boss. Not arrogant, but be sure of what you want — and don’t allow people to run anything for you without your knowledge.”

11. Muhhamad Ali Jinah:

“There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.”

12. Margaret Sanger:

“Woman must have her freedom, the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she will be a mother and how many children she will have. Regardless of what man’s attitude may be, that problem is hers — and before it can be his, it is hers alone.”

13. Marilyn Monroe:

“A wise woman likes but doesn’t love, listens but doesn’t believe and leaves before she is left.”

14. Dick Van Dyke:

“Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them.”

15. Amelia Earhart:

“I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”

16. George Bernard Shaw:

“If women were particular about men’s characters, they would never get married at all.”

17. Calvin Klein:

“I think there’s something incredibly sexy about a woman wearing her boyfriend’s T-shirt and underwear.”

18. Whitney Houston:

“I like being a woman, even in a man’s world. After all, men can’t wear dresses, but we can wear the pants.”

19. Cameron Diaz:

“What we women need to do, instead of worrying about what we don’t have, is just love what we do have.”

20. John Mason Brown:

“America is a land where men govern, but women rule.”

21. Farrah Fawcett:

“God gave women intuition and femininity. Used properly, the combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I’ve ever met.”

22. Yul Brynner:

“Girls have an unfair advantage over men: if they can’t get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb.”

23. Joseph Conrad:

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.”

24. Cherie Lunghi:

“Be yourself — it’s the inner beauty that counts. You are your own best friend, the key to your own happiness, and as soon as you understand that — and it takes a few heartbreaks — you can be happy.”

25. Oscar Wilde:

“Women are made to be loved, not understood.”