As Stephen (Orientation Programme) and Karlitos (Feeling more oriented???) have explained, we have been oficially oriented. Great three days, great speakers, challenging exhortations and, the best part by far, getting to know my classmates.

My classmates, from all around the world, are amazing

During the “international game citizen”, when a group of students from a country explained how to work with them I had an “aha! moment”. I saw amazing displays of creativity, funny ways of explaining the british sense (or lack of) humour, how chinese give away gifts, japanese exchange cards and german girls pick up their boyfriends (the german engineer was priceless!).

But my aha moment had nothing to do with their obvious talent, although I had a great time. I though to myself: “This international experience, ONLY HERE!”. This is what makes London Business School unique. In no other top MBA, a student can access such a broad array of countries and experiences. This is what makes this school unique and this is why I wanted to be here.

I know you have read this stuff in the brochures, I had too. Being surrounded by it, mate /dude that’s a completely different story!

USA schools, as good as they can be, cannot deliver the international perspective with a body of students of at least 70% of USA students and US Centered cases (Has anyone outisde the USA ever heard of wheaties?). Trust me, I’ve seen that too!

If you are a prospective student, want to be international, and believe that being a global citizen is key for you and for the future, London Business School is the place for you.

Dear readers,

As I arrived in London, my free time vanished. Has anyone seen it? Maybe my time has gone to the same place where the sun hides, who knows?

In any case, the updates on this blog will become scarcer with time, as I get more and more engaged in the program. I’d better be upfront and not disappoint anyone. Managing expectations is always a less traumatic path than damage control.

Of course this blog is not dead, so I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feeder to get updates on it.

See you around!
Patxi @ London Business School

PS: The RSS feed is here http://www.commitment.es/mba2008/feed/

Warning: This is a post for internal consumption.

Nowadays, the browser is one of the most important pieces of software I use. Of course, I use Firefox for all the advantages it has both on security and endless possibilities of setup. So endless, in fact, that I just made a list of all the plugins, extensions and themes I use, because otherwise I will not be able to remember it. And I publish it in my blog, as it is very easy to reach.
SOFTWARE

http://portableapps.com/
(This is where I get my Firefox and install it on a thumbdrive)

A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug, none of your personal data is left behind.

Apps Hosted Here (all can be installed in a thumbdrive)

* AbiWord Portable
* ClamWin Portable
* FileZilla Portable
* Firefox Portable
* Miranda IM Portable
* NVU Portable
* Sunbird Portable
* Thunderbird Portable
* VLC Media Player Portable
* Portable Gaim
* Portable GIMP
* Portable OpenOffice.org

FIREFOX CUSTOMIZATION

(Greasemonkey is the KEY Extension that allows to experience GMail at another level, see scripts below)

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension which lets you to add bits of DHTML (”user scripts”) to any web page to change its behavior. In much the same way that user CSS lets you take control of a web page’s style, user scripts let you easily control any aspect of a web page’s design or interaction.
http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
A minimalistic, dark-colored theme. Although PitchDark is a dark theme, it is designed with visibility in mind. It also uses smaller toolbars and icons to maximize screen real estate. (I like a dark browser)
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1529/
The Copy URL+ extension enables you to copy to the clipboard the current
document’s address along with additional information such as the document’s
title, the current selection or both.
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/129/

Add TinyURL to your browser’s toolbar. (Generates short URLs for emailing.)
http://tinyurl.com/
GmailThis! is an easy way to make a Gmail email without visiting mail.google.com. Once you add the GmailThis! link to your browser’s toolbar, emailing will be a snap. Or rather, a click. Clicking GmailThis! creates a mini-interface to Gmail prepopulated with a link to the web page you are visiting, as well as any text you have highlighted on that page. (useful to send stuff I find online to other people)
http://contrapants.org/blog/2005/07/gmailthis.html

Showcase is an extension thought to easily locate and select any open browser window in Firefox.
(like MacOSX expose F9 utility for Firefox. Priceless if you tend to open one too many tabs for browsing)
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1810/

SCRIPTS For Grease Monkey
http://userscripts.org/

Userscripts.org: Mailto Compose In GMail
“Rewrites “mailto:” links to GMail compose links”
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/595

“Gmail Macros adds additional keyboard shortcuts to Gmail. Some are obvious (and have been done by other scripts) such as “t” for move to trash and “r” for mark as read. However, I strove to provide a bit more functionality. For example, “p” both marks a message as read and archives it, when you really don’t want to read something (the “p” stands for “purge”). Additionally, the shortcuts can be easily customized by editing the HANDLERS_TABLE constant. More than one action can be chained together by providing a list of action codes (which are contained in the script and were extracted by looking at the generated “More Actions…” menu in Gmail). The other novel feature is for label operations. Pressing “g” brings up a Quicksilver-like display that allows you to begin typing in a label name to go to it (special names like “Inbox” and “Trash” work too). Similarly, pressing “l” allows you to label a conversation with the label of your choosing.”
http://persistent.info/archives/2005/12/23/greasemonkey

“The other script is Gmail Label Colors. In the much-quoted Walt Mossberg article on Gmail and Yahoo Mail, he claims “Gmail doesn’t allow folders, only color-coded labels.” Ignoring the folders vs. labels debate for now, this sentence is not actually true, since labels in Gmail cannot be color-coded. This script adds that functionality, since it turns out to be very useful (if used sparingly, otherwise too many colors can get overwhelming). To specify a color, simply rename a label to “Labelname #color” (e.g. to make the label “Foo” be red, use “Foo #red” and to make the label “Bar” be orange-ish, use “Bar ##d52″). It works in a similar way to the conversation bubble script, in that it overrides the JavaScript function through which Gmail receives data. It has to jump through some hoops to avoid the HTML escaping that Gmail does; intrepid Greasemonkey hackers may want to look at the source.”
http://persistent.info/archives/2005/12/23/greasemonkey

Userscripts.org: Gmail attachment reminder v2.2
“This reminds you to attach a file to your Gmail if it appears that you have not, based on whether you have the word attach(ed, ment, etc) in the body.”
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2419

Userscripts.org: Mailto Compose In GMail

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/595

Userscripts.org: All scripts tagged gmail

http://userscripts.org/tags/gmail

Userscripts.org: All scripts tagged buttons

http://userscripts.org/tag/buttons

Userscripts.org: GMAIL Delete Button - RED Color

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2685

Userscripts.org: GMailSecure

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/1404

Userscripts.org: GTDGmail Macros

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6362

Userscripts.org: Gmail + Reader Integrator

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6298

Userscripts.org: Gmail Colorizer

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2241

Userscripts.org: Gmail Macros

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2432

Userscripts.org: Gmail Spam-count Hide

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2210

Userscripts.org: Gmail attachment reminder v2.2

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2419

Userscripts.org: Gmail: hide Invites

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/673

Userscripts.org: Wikify

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4138

After thousands of requests, here you have a scanning of my new ID. Cool, isn’t it?

Ok, Ok, it is true, I admit it: I am procrastinating with paint. I’d better get back to my statistics exemption exam, but it’s been years since I had to deal with Student’s t distribution… No worries! I am an almighty Ingeniero de Caminos with an intensification on Computational Engineering, therefore it should not be that much of a challenge, only a matter of rust removal!

No man or woman will ever make a success of life or find happiness by blaming their misfortunes upon others - W.D. Gann

Quote just seen on School and the City, and it has reminded me about five years ago. When I was studying TQM (total quality management or six-sigma) there is a lot of emphasis on trying to ask for the reasons of the problems, on asking at least five times Why has this happened? and, on avoiding as muchs as posible the sessions of blamestorming that most of us have been involved in at some time in our lives.

The TQM sensei gave us another old saying, useful to keep in mind our share of responsibility whenver something does not go wrong. I loved it, and I try to live by it:

When you point your finger at someone, three of your other fingers are pointing back at yourself.

While finger-pointing may be a mildly effective strategy for getting rid of feelings of shame, blame or guilt, its collateral damages are terrible! Blaming others deprives the person of a chance of self improving! When you face a master at blaming others, you are looking at a person who is not evolving at all.

I have my London Business School ID! It is not activated until tomorrow, but it is soooo cool! Tomorrow I wil probably go to the gym and the computer room, just to check it out!
Flathunting news: London is expensive, but some properties are really nice. However, I came in early to have choice, and I am going to excercise my right to pickiness! We spent the WE choosing the right area where we want to live and deciding on the specifications. Today, I have been visiting 4 flats and contacting agents. I am making progress!

After Galapagaos Island (amazing!) here I am, in mighty London. I am flathunting and completely jetlagged (why flying east crossing 9 time zones is always so difficult? Westbound is ok, but eastbound it kills me!).

As soon as I have a place to rest and a reliable internet connection I will be able to post some more details for my adventure.

In the meantime, if you know of a cure to jetlag or of a 1 bedroom appartment between Baker St. Station and Paddington, just let me know!