Fresh PicksMore Staff Favorites

What engages your interest? Let us know what you're reading or watching, or listening to — in any medium — that you find useful, inspirational or fun, and we'll share it with the ICT community.

Data Centers and Climate Change

Data centers present a unique challenge to those interested in climate change issues. On the one hand, these powerful centers house the servers that allow us to reduce carbon emissions by telecommuting or shopping online, and they are vast repositories of information that help protect our identities and protect our borders. On the other hand, they can be huge energy hogs.

Data Center Journal is an online (appropriately enough) publication that not only delivers news about the data center world and serves as a repository for industry jobs; it's also an invaluable resource for efforts to improve center energy efficiency and a hot discussion forum covering the newest center design issues. Replete with calculators for energy conversion, white papers chronicling the latest research, a glossary and news on data center standards, Data Center Journal is a must-visit site for anyone interested in or involved with this industry.
—Martin Davis

The Art of Globalization

iStockPhoto.com is an excellent resource for photography, illustrations, video and audio, for personal and business use. Starting for as little as a buck and change, iStockPhoto.com has a huge, royalty-free artwork library of surprising quality. The artist's job in researching illustrative material is made so much easier with an extremely strong search tool and a thoughtful system of categorization and cross-linking. For business people who are seeking high-quality, inexpensive images or multimedia to punch up a presentation, Web site or marketing piece, you can't go wrong with iStockPhoto.com. —Brian West

'Go To' Resources for Association Management

The "Publications and Resources" portion of ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership's website is my "go to" resource when I am strategizing about membership and how to provide the ultimate value to my customers. It's full of information regarding Association Management and provides me with the tools to best serve my members. —Lora Magruder

Dutch Treat: A Creative Diversion

Ever wondered about ways to make your website more exciting and unforgettable? One company's site wins our award for most creative, most effective, most cool, and many other superlatives!

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands.

Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch, but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.

Don't click on any of the items in the picture, just watch the show.

This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer. OK, you can go ahead and click now! —Taly Walsh