I have recently been having the habit of leaving FireFox running and just hitting ’shutdown’ or suspend when leaving the PC. As a result FireFox retains the tabs that are open, and on restarting it allows you to restore your browsing session.

This has changed my browsing pattern to a left to right cycle, older tabs to the left and newer to the right. I look at the older tabs and when I find something good I click and it gets opened to the right for further exploration later.

Currently I have the following in FireFox:

seo-theory.com - I found this guys blog via a rant about domain names as it seems he has missed the boat a few times and now cannot afford to jump on board. In the current entry on his frontpage he spells ‘Satellite’ Sattelite, but probably if pulled up it would be to catch other peoples typos as well.

summitrestaurant.com.au - The Summit in Sydney. Future project related stuff.

docksidegroup.com.au - Same as the above, another funky Sydney venue related to future projects.

seomoz.org - How a website gained a pile in links in thirty three months. Or in easier words, 2.75 years. That doesnt sound as impressive now though.

Fring.com - How to get Fring on your p990i. Not done this yet as I feel like binning it and slapping Sony, and Sony Ericsson. Their lack of hardware nous is tempting me to become a Apple iPonce.

stonch.blogspot.com - Stonch! Bloke who blogs about beer in the UK. Seems a nice enough chap as well. Have a gander, its great!

howtobrew.com - How to Brew section on priming and bottling. NOB currently has two fermenters on the go (more later) so in a couple of weeks we will be doing some more bottles.

Ebay.com.au - Ebay.com.Auzzy search for Witchery or Cue… posh auzzy clobber - remminants of Amy being on here!

domainnamenews.com -  Very interesting article on DomainNameNews that gives a few ‘real life’ examples of youngsters making cash online. I have been saying this for ages… we have kids today knowing nothing apart from an internet and mobile connected world. Future stuff is going to be great!

robertoalamos.com - Following on from the above link (see how this browsing cycle is working?!) the ‘top 5 youngest bloggers’ . There are lots doing it, and the great thing about the internet is at a 15 year old can be on the same level as a 35 year old.

domainnamenews.com - More of the above about domainers in their 20’s forking out 7figs for domains. I am not quite at 7 figs yet but if its that now… again, where is the future?!

blogtalks.net - One of the blogger kids above showing his revenue for May - $3061.30 ! There you go 17 year old kid on £18k pa off one web property. What are you doing?

genericdomainnames.com - Generic domains and their owners. A good list of big companies with switched on people inside their organisations.

ventureitch.com - Interesting blog style site, I surfed here via the article on there about .CM and Kev Ham, the soon to be ex-owner of *.CM

Conceptualist.com - A great article by Sahar Sarid about domain name offers, interesting enough the current top article is “Your Name = Your Brand” , quite glad I managed to get Rob.co.uk and Taylor.co.uk

mneylon.com - Interesting blog from Michele Neylon. I think I got to this after doing something regarding european names.

spoiltchild.com - Interesting incubator cum Young Enterprise style startup / mini company idea.

telegraph.co.uk - FC Revant will be starting again this year in the annual TFFO fantasy league. I need to work on my team asap if I am going to beat Ben (who came 2nd and won a few grand a year ago!). Did anyone say REVANT IS ACE?

mail.google.com - Gmail link to open email apparently lunch on on Friday somewhere in the city for Amy’s mates birthday.

et voila… a much cleaner browser now that is all closed.

Time for a quick handful of beer views… kicking off with Paulaner Munchen Hell!

Just to kick off, Hell is the German term for ‘light’ and does not reflect on any obscure or satanic fermentation techniques.

The beer looks like a standard light ale, but lacks aroma and tastes quite sweet with undertones of chemicals. We were drinking this with a NOB open as well, and to be honest I would prefer the NOB , a more drinkable beer by far.

Site: www.paulaner.de

Mildura Brewery - Mallee Bull.

I recently went to the excellent ‘bottlo’ behind the Regatta ‘Hotel’ and spotted a selection of the Mildura Brewery offerings from the light ales to the ‘Mallee Bull’ heavy ale.

The head had gone awol before I managed to get a sip, however the rusty colour looked promising. I was expecting a heavier beer in its texture, yet it is a slightly stronger beer at 5.6% which is reflected in the ‘full’ flavour when in the mouth.

The beer is not of the normal heavy ale style in taste or feel which I did expect from the label, yet is a decent crack and very drinkable.

I would possibly stick my neck out and say this is the best ‘british proper pub style’ beer I have had out here in kangerooland and shall get a few more bottles before comfirmation.

Nick and Rob Brewery, Brisbane. NOB Beer No. 1

Oh yes, we opened one!

Look at that nice beer and decent head!

Since the above I cracked one open along side the Paulaner and had another since… tastes decent enough and cant wait until another couple of months time.

Brisbane is a great place, I was planning on making a big post about it however this Queensland goverment page says it all. It was quite an overcast day yesterday but myself and Amy still went out for a picnic to Kangeroo Point (history of the place is here) overlooking the Brissy skyline.

The blog header I have at the time of writing was taken only a year or two ago, yet since then there is at least five new skyscrapers up in with a couple more cranes poking out into the sky. This googlemaps link is centered on where the below picture was taken and if you zoom out you can see the CBD to the top left, and bottom left has the city center beach

‘Overcast’ day in Brisvegas - taken on a W800i with lens flare. ooh er.

Amy’s dad has been kind enough to recommend and lend me “Free Agent Nation - The future of working for yourself” by Daniel H. Pink. Mr Pink used to be Al Gore’s chief speechwriter and while doing this job noticed that more and more of his colleagues were leaving to strike out on their own to become self employed, independant contractors or micropreneurs.

The book drills down into statistics and first hand accounts to illustrate its main point, that is the move away from Organisation Man to the Free Agent. In practise this is a move from the traditional career ladder inside one company or associated companies towards micro or individual enterprise. Handily it gives a per chapter ‘quickie’ summary page, and stats throughout the book, which I will give you the most interesting below:

• The largest private employer in the USA is a Manpower Inc - a temp agency. Historically this was ‘job for life’ companies such as ‘ma’ Bell , IBM, Ford etc.
• Two out of three workers in California do not hold traditional jobs ie. permanent full time. Oddly enough work laws and social assumptions are based around everyone working like that.
• Netscape was formed in 1994, IPO’ed in 1995 and was gone by 1999. A 4 year life span - is that a project or a company?
• In 1982 (recession time) 12% of USA workers feared they would be sacked. In 1999 with a 4.3% unemployment rate 37% feared for their jobs.
• When Roosevelt introduced 65 as the USA’s retirement age the life expectancy of the average American was 63. Today it is 76 and rising.

One further observation in the book is for the Free Agent they often face the lure of expansion, yet the majority find that building into a larger company goes against their strengths. Thus a nanocorp culture is born which fits both a personal philosophy and due to its agility it could be seen as a competative strength.

It is not so much a guide to becoming a ‘Free Agent’, more validation of the growing trends in employment (or non-employment!) and its impact on society. There is a ‘resource guide’ containing steps to getting started and surviving as a free agent but that is not what the book is about.

To use a Maslow quote (the fuller one than in the book) :

“Real achievement means inevitably a worthy and virtuous task.
To do some idiotic job very well is certainly not real achievement.
I like my phrasing, ‘What is not worth doing is not worth doing well.’”

Quite simply make sure you add this book to your next Amazon order or pick up a copy when you are hovering around a bookstore.

Next up on the bookshelf is another Pink book - “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future“. The right brainers are often said to be the more creative and free thinkers and this covers the move from the information age to the conceptal age. All good relevant fun

Roast Pork with Apple and Honey Glaze Recipe
This makes a nice smelling roast - I am writing this while it is still cooking, so hard to comment on taste EDIT: It turned out delicious.
Ingredients:

• 2KG Lump of Pig Leg
• Decent glug of olive oil
• 1 brown onion, diced.
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 apples peeled then finely chopped
• 1/2 cup honey - I used the remains of our manuka honey. Worth a look at ManukaHoney.co.uk and getting some. It is awesome tasting and really really good for you. Just not for the piggy.
• 1 sprinkle of oregano
• 2 spooned dollops of dijon mustard
• 2 squeezes of lemon juice
• 1 glug of worcestershire sauce
• A couple of scrunches of salt and black pepper

How to do it:

1. In a saucepan, add a glug of olive oil so you are setup to saute the onions and garlic
2. Turn your oven on 180C , place a roasting dish in there and a glug of oil.
3. Saute for a few minutes until onion and garlic are soft and translucent.
4. Stir in the sliced apple and turn up to a high heat stirring and then putting the lid on. The aim is to get the apple nice and soft.
5. Add the honey, oregano, mustard, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Keep stirring on a high heat until it is a nice smelling gooey mess.
6. Take the dish out of the oven, it ought to be very hot and have uber hot oil. Get the lump of pork and place it in the dish and then rotate it. The aim is to to sear the outsides where possible.
7. Get the gooey mess aka. apple honey glaze and

It is handy to put 1-2cm slices into the pork before starting as it grips the glaze better and the flavour enters the meat.