Dying of boredom?

Yes, evidently you can. Take a look at this Psychology Today article: Science Shows You Can Die of Boredom, Literally

Found via Jonathan Fields' Twitter feed.

Quakin', Shakin' Planet

Earthquakes are, once again, in the headlines. Today's big shakeup occurred along the Chilean coast ... and in Argentina ... and in Oklahoma (a 4.4 to the east of Oklahoma City within an hour of my writing this).  According to one scientist quoted by MSNBC.com, the Earth has become a busier place, lately. Even though the article makes a newsy story comparing the last 15 years to the previous 20 years, it's a fairly meaningless comparison when viewed against the Holocene Epoch.

Holocene?  That's the epoch you and I dwell in.  And as epochs go, at 12,000 years, it's barely a blip in the geological history of this planet.  While earthquakes have tragic consequences for the people upon whom they're visited, geologically speaking, "stuff happens."  (see the library's site for new links on how to help the earthquake victims in Chile, as well as Haiti)

These images are from Google Earth using the U.S. Geological Survey Real Time Earthquakes Layer.  Red dots indicate quakes within an hour, orange within 24 hours and yellow within the last 7 days.  The still images were clipped slightly after 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 27.  To see larger scale images, click the images in this post.

The USGS data displayed as a sequence in Google Earth. The series runs from before the initial magnitude 8.8 event at 12:34 a.m. CST on Feb. 27 to the final magnitude 4.8 "red dot" which occurred at 6:34 a.m. CST on the 28th. You might notice that there's no "warning" earthquake, it just starts with the big one. (Sequence recorded with Jing Pro and edited with Adobe Premiere Elements 8)

Didn't believe me about Oklahoma?  The epicenter was 5.6 miles to the south of Davenport, Oklahoma.

I need to say that the mention of any product here is not to imply an endorsement by the City of Arlington, but is merely to explain which tools I used. This post was updated on the morning of Sunday, Feb. 28.

Don't Come Around Here No More ...

... Give it up! That was the advice Tom Petty's Mad Hatter gave Alice in his 1985 music video. As a web designer, I've lived with the hassle and inconsistencies that plagued designers trying to make sites work for visitors using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. In fact, the City of Arlington stuck with IE6 as the city's official browser for a long time. Fortunately, they have since moved on to Internet Explorer 7, a browser somewhat more consistent with web standards.

Companies with a big web presence are telling their visitors, "no more." Google is ending support for IE6 on YouTube, Google Docs, and Google Sites. IE6 is an unstable, insecure browser which isn't capable of moving forward with the web.

So, for those of you Internet Explorer 6 users who made up 2.7% of the total visits to ArlingtonLibrary.org in the last month, it's time to move on. Upgrade to a better, safer browsing experience with Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.6, Safari 4 or Google Chrome. All are free and each has at least a few unique features. Google Chrome is my personal favorite because of its speed and add-ons, but I frequently have Firefox running at the same time so I can take advantage of some of its features.

References:

Mashable: YouTube to Drop Support for IE6 Starting Next Month

Mashable: IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On

MSNBC/Reuters: Pope says "blog!"

Somewhat like my post on the Vatican's YouTube channel almost a year ago, the Pope has urged priests to get into social media, too. Even the oldest institution in our society has gotten aboard with the 21st Century way of communicating.

Pope to priests: For God's sake, blog!

Haiti Earthquake Imagery for Google Earth

Google, with one of its partners, Geo-Eye has provided an updated post-earthquake imagery layer for the areas of Haiti hardest hit by this disaster.

Google LatLong: Haiti imagery layer now available

Another useful layer is the USGS Real Time Earthquakes Layer for Google Earth

The Official Google Blog has direct links to donate to Care and UNICEF as well as links to other organizations working on Haitian relief.

Official Google Blog: Helping Haiti respond to the earthquake

USGS Shake Map data displayed in Google Earth. Port-au-Prince is the unmarked area near the center of this image.  The epicenter of the earthquake is about 23km WSW of  Port-au-Prince.  Click on the image for a larger version.

More for Small Business from Google

I blogged about Google Local Business Center last summer.  It's a particularly good way for a small business with or without a website to get additional internet visibility. Now they've made it even easier to post to your "place page" and also made it possible to offer coupons via mobile phones. Check out the links below.

Google LatLong: Make Google Place Pages your business' megaphone

Google LatLong: With coupons on your phone, it doesn't matter where you left the scissors

Re-Tweeting

Plato: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." (We never see more than the tip of the iceberg when it comes to others.) - management consultant Tom Peters (@tompeters)

Yes, I know we're not on Twitter, but @richardposey thought it was worth sharing.

Want one! Want one! Want one!

From this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Parrot AR.Drone Quadricopter. No adult male child needs ANY further explanation.



But, you might want some more links:

• The story where I found the above video
• The AR.Drone on the Parrot.com website Watch the videos.

Pay attention Arlington businesses!!!

Google is at it, again.  The search giant made available its "Near Me Now" service for iPhones and Android-powered smartphones on January 7th.  Near Me Now integrates internet-based search with the GPS capabilities of the new generation of phones.  It allows the phone's owner to search within his/her immediate vicinity and get information about a business without even going inside.

Last summer, I wrote about the half of small businesses without an internet presence and one thing they should be doing about it.  The development of services like Near Me Now makes it all the more critical for local businesses to follow through and stop being invisible on the web. 

Game ON for 2010

Don't fake it ... please?

In the late 90's and early years of this decade, prior to working here, I owned and ran a number of employment websites. Their main content was, essentially, classified job listings.

Even though I wasn't a recruiter, I received a lot of resumes. Normally, I would pass them along to people more likely to make use of them. I often scanned people's credentials and was struck, one day, by one of the schools mentioned in a resume. It read, "Trinity Southern University, Plano, Texas." I looked up the school and found it was on Park Boulevard in Plano. Except, I knew there was no such university. I had done a lot of consulting work in Plano and often driven back and forth on Park Boulevard. Had I looked closer, I might have found an office or a PO Box, but I knew there was no such university.

Out of curiosity, I called the resume's author. I asked a few general questions and then asked about Trinity Southern. "Oh, I was just finishing up a few course hours there." I didn't challenge the young man, but wondered about the psychology of faking academic credentials and the risk of being found out.

In an era when people feel a strong need to jazz up and embellish resumes, lying about one's academic background is a high-risk game. There are well-known fake schools and lots of obscure fakes ... Trinity Southern University was a pure diploma mill, i.e. a place to literally purchase a diploma. Try a search on Classmates.com for Trinity Southern University and you'll find 45 people who claim to be alumni.

There are also (unaccredited) schools whose admission standards are non-existent and whose coursework isn't seriously challenging that will issue a degree of dubious value. Even claims about graduation from a bona-fide accredited school are sometimes stretched ... all the way into scandal. The story of Texas Railroad Commissioner Lena Guerrero was one that stood out in Texas politics.

A few days ago, Wired.com posted a story on one man's obsession with pursuing a diploma mill to ground. It makes a great tale, but it also makes you wonder ... who around you, in government, in medicine, in academia, is "real" ... and who isn't? It's a scary thought.

Postscript ... Then, I found this:www.phonydiploma.com/ As I post this edit, it is after midnight. I am just going to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

Inside information ...

100 Job Search Tips from Recruiters free from EMC Corporation.

Found via a tweet from Me 2.0 author and personal branding expert, Dan Schawbel.

This just sleighs me ...

I am so glad someone keeps an eye on these things. Tracking Santa has gotten progressively more high-tech. Check out NORADSanta.org. Santa's even "gone social" with a Facebook page (194,794 fans), a Twitter feed (9,879 followers) and even a Picasa web album with pics of some of Santa's briefing at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command). They want to make sure that nothing interferes with Santa's mission, of course.

Scoot over ...

Looking for a job? You can thank Texas's growth for extra competition ... and for more jobs. According to CNN/Money, Texas has added more people in the last year than any other state and is third in growth behind a couple states with much smaller populations: Wyoming and Utah. During the 2000s, Texas grew by nearly four million residents. Even with all those "extra" people, our unemployment rate, at 8%, is two points below the nation as a whole. Read all about it on CNNMoney.com

What Matters Now - free ebook from Seth Godin

Marketing guru Seth Godin has released a new ebook ...

Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up.

Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I've organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you'll find it worth the effort. (Download here).

Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O'Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.

Every now and then we all need a good think piece. This one's yours for free ... deep thoughts and big thinkers. (pdf format, requires Adobe Reader)

Web to the rescue for the kitchenalogically challenged

While many of the world's great chefs seem to be male, gender is one of the few things I have in common with them. For all the things I've been called, "gastronome," "epicure" and "connoisseur" are not among them. I have an almost adversarial relationship with food. Anything past spaghetti made with Prego or tortilla soup made from a mix and I'm in trouble. When Thanksgiving comes around, I assume my "poor, pitiful me" posture and someone offers to feed me.

The web's long been a great repository of online recipes, but those recipes have never fit my needs. Basically, when it comes to food, I don't have the foresight to go purchase, in advance, all the items in a recipe. Hunger tends to come to me late in the evening and by then I'm loathe to venture beyond my front door in search of food. Simply put, I eat what's in the kitchen. The variety is a bit limited.

I'm tired of eating everything "plain." Fortunately, I've stumbled into SuperCook.com and now I have hope that my life won't always be gastronomically drab. SuperCook searches thousands of recipes based on the ingredients you have at hand. Hallelujah! Salvation for the single guy. I'll leave it to the SuperCook video tour to explain how it works.



Maybe, with a little practice, I can someday advance to RachaelRay.com or Epicurious.com. For a little more adventure, here's a list of cooking sites I found while scouting the web.

I'm feeling a bit hungry now, as a matter of fact.

Browser security

Dennis O'Reilly of Cnet's Worker's Edge blog has provided some worthwhile tips on secure browsing. Worth taking a look to make sure your browser settings are correct.

What does Google know about me?

Most of us use a number of Google products, whether it's Gmail, YouTube, Picasaweb, or any of twenty or more other services. Up until now, it's been hard to get a feel for what Google "knows" about us. Today, Google announced a Dashboard product to allow users to access and manage that information from one place. As is often the case, they've got a helpful video to explain:



Found originally through the WebWorkerDaily.com RSS feed.

How to Google for Jobs

HR blogger (therecruiterslounge.com)and "searchologist," Jim Stroud's video on how to Google for jobs.

Googling for Jobs - How to Use Google to Find a Job from Jim Stroud on Vimeo.

You can run ... but don't bother to hide

RIP "Privacy" - Finally declared dead during the first couple decades after the second millenium.

Very few people are unaware that their privacy is continuously eroding. If you are young enough, you might not even be aware of the concept of privacy, having publicly spilled your entire social and behavioral record across the likes of MySpace, Facebook and other social networks.

Social Security numbers and other government and military records, bank and credit card transactions, corporate databases of buying behavior, public databases scanned by search services, cellphone records and the trail we innocently leave on the social networks are getting close to guaranteeing we can never completely escape observation. A friend may simply tag a photo of you in an online album and your privacy is compromised. Even knowing someone who is on a social network may, in time, constitute a form of public exposure.

Facial recognition software has existed for a long time, but combining that with internet search is a new thing. A benign example of that is the functionality built into Google's Picasa and Picasaweb offerings that allows you to find most of the photographs in a collection that include a particular person's face. In playing with Picasa, I found it could recognize faces that weren't much more than a few pixels in a distant background. Those same capabilities are being turned toward the web so that any image of you can be found.

Truth in Advertising: several of these photos were manually tagged.

One of the latest services being tested by Google Labs is social network searching. The demo video below explains how it works:



I've long given up on the idea of ever disappearing, so much so that I've already disclosed how to find me: just look in the Yukon for someone who looks like me going by the moniker of "Lucky Pierre." Say "Hello," but don't use my real name. OK?

If you want to know more on the challenges of "getting lost," here are two recent articles from Wired Magazine:

Gone Forever: What does it really take to disappear?

How To Disappear From the Corporate Databases: Abandon Everything You Love

Lunch dilemma solved

Suffering from a surfeit of soup, salad, or sandwich options?  Can't make up your mind what or where to eat?  My work group goes through that conundrum almost every day.

Now, it's been made easier by a clever mashup* using data from Yahoo Maps.  The Wheel of Lunch allows you to input your zip code and food choice ... or just "lunch" ... and it will spin a wheel populated with a number of local restaurants.  We gave it a try and, sure enough, it came up with a good local selection.  Then, we went to Taco Bueno, anyway.

Found on Mashable: 8 Awesome Mashups Made Possible by APIs**

The article is worth a look. There are 7 additional mashups that may be more useful to you. They range from "instant viewing" on NetFlix to houses and apartments on Craigslist.

* Mashup - basically, a way to combine or manipulate data from one or more data sources on the web

** API - Application Programming Interface ... a set of specifications through which a programmer can build a software application to get at and manipulate data or other programs.

Will Tweet for Work Revisited

Just an addendum to my earlier post on job hunting on Twitter: TwitterJobSearch.com is a web-based aggregator of job listings on Twitter. Beyond just listing the job tweets, it crawls the job links and brings the information it finds on the source websites into a consolidated job listing. If you've been supplementing your job search with Twitter searches, this might be a valuable tool.

Almost out of brain space?

I know many people who feel like they've just about maxed out their capacity to absorb more information or learn something new.  But, in case you have a few free brain cells, here's a list of websites where you can pick up knowledge or skills and fit them in the remaining tiny niches in your gray matter.

Mashable.com: 10 Sites to Learn Something New in 10 Minutes a Day

Google refines search (and changes the game)

I'll let the pictures the and The Official Google Blog do the talking here.

 

 

The Official Google Blog: Refine your search results with new Search Options

Will tweet for work

With the ongoing upheaval in the economy, job boards like Monster, CareerBuilder, etc. have become inundated with resumes. For recruiters, also swamped with applicants, too much of a good thing (lots of choices) is evidently a bad thing (too many choices). According to the Wall Street Journal (A New Job Just a Tweet Away, Sept. 8), a number of companies are looking for alternate channels, like Twitter, to find prospective employees.

Job-hunters with even modest social media skills can follow companies on Twitter. Recruiting through Twitter is a new thing and the number of jobs isn't huge. Still, if the number of applicants for a position is smaller, a given applicant's chances are better (if they're qualified).

I did a little testing of my own using various "hashtags." Hashtags are keywords likely to be searched for by applicants, for example, #verizon or #jobs or #mechanical. Usually, you find multiple hashtags in a tweet, like #verizon #jobs.

In my attempts at finding openings (just tests!), my #verizon #jobs search yielded two openings in California. When I tried #jobs #mechanical (as in mechanical engineer), I found a lot of jobs, but most of them were openings uploaded from the MechanicalEngineer.com website (funny, I used to own that site). There were only a few listings from other sources ... just one other source, in fact.

Given the nature of the job market, I don't think it hurts to spend a little time exploring Twitter. It's a new thing and, to borrow the language of "Top Gun," it's not a "target-rich environment." Yet, people buy lottery tickets with much longer odds, so it's probably worth a few minutes each day. You never know ...

Some Twitter search results using TweetDeck

Google Sidewiki: sidekick or sidehack?

This morning, Google introduced "Sidewiki" through The Offical Google Blog. Sidewiki allows anyone to annotate a web page. The idea is that user input, like Wikipedia, adds greater depth of information than would be provided by the web page authors alone.

This is a very interesting idea with a lot of promise. Google has built some significant infrastructure around this product, including algorithms designed to bring the most relevant entries to the top of the Sidewiki entries.

Time will tell how useful Sidewiki is, but my main concern is that it will be an opportunity for some of the trolls who cruise the web looking for places to flame and disparage. Every organization will have to watch Sidewiki for unhappy former employees and disgruntled customers. Let's hope those issues don't turn out to be significant problems.

To use Sidewiki, you must install the latest Google Toolbar with Sidewiki enabled. Google has developed toolbars for Internet Explorer and Firefox. They're hoping to have the functionality in their own Chrome browser soon. Here's the link: http://google.com/sidewiki

Happy commenting and don't forget to be nice.

New Life for an old magazine

Google Books has digitized Life Magazine. The collection includes the entire series of Life as a weekly publication from 1936 through 1972. Based on the Google Blog post, I'm assuming they did not digitize the attempted revival of Life as a monthly publication.

Nevertheless, this is a wonderful opportunity to get a feel for the culture of the times. Google digitized every page, including the advertising, which is the part I think makes exploring these old publications fun. While we've got the "real thing" here at the George W. Hawkes Central Library, the magazines are getting progressively more fragile. Google's digitization of the collection means these publications will be accessible for a long time.

A new bennie for some Microsoft employees ...

I haven't been to Microsoft's Redmond, WA headquarters in 10 years, but this interactive display is so cool, it makes me want to go back.

More Facebook privacy tips

If you use Facebook at all, be sure to read this then check your settings for your Facebook page. If your teens use Facebook, be sure to go over these tips with them, too.

10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy

When 4 becomes 2 becomes 4

... four wheels, that is. Since I posted about the electric superbike, I HAVE to include the Swiss-made Monotracer. This post is a public service as it might prevent you from staring too long and having a wreck when you see one ... and I know one of them was imported to the U.S. and uncrated in Grapevine. This is a real-headturner. It even has A/C and quadrophonic sound. Video from Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld on BBC:



Here's another video recorded totally over the driver's shoulder. And one more, if you're so fascinated by the Monotracer that won't mind that it's in German.

I wonder if the A/C can keep up with the Texas sun shining through that bubble canopy.

Re: Still Job Hunting?

As a follow up to my recent post, here are some additional resources:

On Tweetdeck's new directory, under Careers, you'll find a list of some of the most active career experts on Twitter.

From Alltop.com: A large (really large) page of top career blogs

Also, from Alltop, a page of top job blogs (mostly RSS feeds from job databases into blog format)

This is not your grandfather's Harley

The Mission One electric superbike. Up to 161 mph in speed runs at Bonneville, 150 mile range, 2-hour charge on a 240 volt outlet, $68,995. They'll make 300 of them.

Found via the Gas 2.0 RSS feed.

Still job hunting? More resources ...

Boston-area career management consultant and educator Terry Del Percio has some thoughts on the "relentlessness" required in the current job market on her "Uwork Blog." I've added some of my own thoughts in the comments to her post. In another post, Terry reflects on a little book called, "The Four Agreements." I'm a big fan of the ideas therein and it's interesting to see how she relates them to careers.

Again, thanks to Terry, I also stumbled across the Cathy Keates' "Transform Your Job Search Blog."

If you're out trying to find a place in the job market, these two blogs are well worth spending time reading. And, if your job search has been stymied, I'd spend part of every day reading these and a number of other career blogs available to you on the web. There are some very bright people freely sharing worthwhile ideas out in the blogosphere.

Some books relevant to this post:

The Brand You 50 by management consultant/author/guru Tom Peters

Almost any book by Harvey Mackay. I think "Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty" is particularly applicable to Terry's most recent post.

The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz. The main ideas in this book are so basic and simple, that you could get away with reading the inside of the front book jacket. Better to read the whole book, though, even if you dump the Toltec mysticism.

"Irrational Behavior ... not yours, other people's"

More on thinking processes from behavioral economist and author of "Predictably Irrational," Dan Ariely.



The library has eight copies of Ariely's book and it's also available via our Overdrive service as a downloadable audiobook. In a similar vein, you might also find "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt interesting. Freakonomics is available in print and audio formats.

I found Ariely's TED talk via Chris Voss's blog ... or, more precisely, Chris Voss tweeting about this talk, which is also on his blog.

Good Morning Eye Candy

Vancouver (not Toronto) artist, Jer Thorp has produced a slick visualization of Twitter users all over the world saying "good morning" in their respective languages. Thorp color-coded the events by time of day, including those slackers tweeting good morning after noon. Normally, I'd embed a really good video like this, but this one has the high definition embedding disabled. Better you should see it in high-def on Vimeo.com.

For a more in-depth explanation of how the video was created, you'll want to read Thorp's posting about it on his blog.

Thanks to The Next Web for leading me to this one.

Apologies on the "geolocation" error to Jer Thorp. I originally, and for unknown reason, typed in Toronto when it should have been Vancouver. And, yes, I know the difference.

TED.org and Dan Gilbert

I've featured TED.org in this blog before ("Get a bigger brain!" 1/6/2008). TED's collection of short talks by some pretty big thinkers makes for an illuminating, thought-provoking site. It's truly worth spending some time perusing. Try skipping an evening of TV for an evening of TED.org

Research psychologist Dan Gilbert (author of "Stumbling on Happiness") gives a fascinating talk on "our mistaken expectations." It's slightly longer than the usual 20-24 minute TED talk in that it includes some Q&A and the end.



Also, a shout-out to our fan in Tavernier, FL. Thanks for your continued support. Keep on readin' us!

Just taking up Time

When I was in high school, I looked forward to the weekly arrival of Time Magazine. In a pre-CNN era, reading Time was both a symbol of taking-The-World-seriously-adulthood and also a way of seeing beyond the provincial viewpoint of West Texas. I also relied on Chet Huntley and David Brinkley for help with that, too. Midland, while full of well-educated people, was way beyond anything that would nominally be called an urban area. And I was terrified of the prospect of someone thinking of me as provincial.

I don't see Time Magazine much anymore. When I do, it's just a scrawny imitation (page-wise) of its former self. Now it's a website, as much as anything.

Five links from Time.com on work and web

The Way We'll Work (Note the scary image of the engineer high atop the wind turbine in the "Save the Planet" section.)

Thinking Big: Entrepreneurial Heroes

Happiness on the Job How happy are workers in the various professions? Take a look who's at the top of the list. Maybe it's because they have the best long-term benefit package?

Time's 50 Best Websites for 2009

Ten Ways Twitter Will Change American Business

And, yes, we do have Time at the Arlington Public Library.

From Russia, with love

Wow, it's September 3rd, already. That's a bit of a marker date for me ... important birthdays and, basically, how I know Summer's gone. I've got enough going on today that I'm just going to throw this YouTube video at you. When I initially saw it, I thought, "there's NO WAY I'm going to watch over eight minutes of this." I watched it all.



I fudged the title of this post a bit. The video is evidently from Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent" and the artist is Ukrainian.

Normalcy, chaos and not Yogi Berra.

"Things are more like they are now than they ever were before."

I could have sworn this quote was attributed to baseball player Yogi Berra. The correct attribution appears to be President Eisenhower. It doesn't sound terribly presidential, although I guess George W. could have said it, too.

Getting to the substance or lack of substance of the quote, we're living in a time of great change ... things are like they never were before, especially where business and personal finances are concerned.

This week marked the release of Jeremy Gutsche's (trendhunter.com) new book Exploiting Chaos. While I haven't had a chance to get my hands on the book itself, the free preview chapter has me anxiously waiting on Amazon to deliver the whole book. It looks like one of the most visually interesting business books since Tom Peters' 2003 title, Re-Imagine!

More importantly, the book deals with stimulating creativity and identifying opportunity in what has become, for many, a demoralizing environment. The best possibilities will only become clear when we stop looking for the world to return to "normal." Gutsche's book is about finding your way through the noise and smoke to look for new ways to innovate and get ahead. I'm hoping it will be as good as its advance press and celebrity endorsements. And I'm willing to bet it is.

Re-Tweeting Tom Peters

OK, technically not re-tweeting ... from today's Twitter feed:

'Tis a time of "matchless opportunity"--not to "nab customers from ailing competitors," but to behave with decency and grace toward all.

The Twitter Guidebook

From Mashable.com:

http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/

What every female MySpace user should see ...

Frightening behavior from ... well, I can't use the words I'd like to use here. Consider this video a cautionary tale. When you think "someone special" has found you, think about this because maybe YOU'RE not special. Perhaps you're just a "high-value Myspace woman" ready to be harvested by someone like this.



MySpace is, undoubtedly, not the only place where this goes on.

Twitter Risks

As websites go, Twitter is pretty safe. The limitation of 140 characters to a post doesn't allow for much troublemaking. There are the usual account spammers that you find in almost every kind of web environment. Usually, these consist of fake accounts that look real but are there to embed links to weight loss sites, porn, etc. Those are not too hard to figure out. Typically, they follow lots of people (tweeple), but have very few followers and very few tweets (posts) and all of those tweets are over a short period of time.

The bigger risk lies in the external web links that you find in Twitter posts. Because of the 140 character limitation, users take advantage of "URL shortening" from services like http://bit.ly The idea is this: when I want to share a web page like, say http://arlingtonlibrary.org/find/downloadableaudiobooksipod.aspx, the length of the URL leaves me precious little room for remarks. To handle that we have the URL shortened to something like this:http://bit.ly/2flW2t It's the same thing, but it's much more economical against my 140 character post than the original.

The danger in this is that if one of these shortened links doesn't come from a Twitter feed of someone I trust, I'm a bit nervous that the link may take me to a website which I either don't want to see or that downloads a virus or malware to my computer. It takes a little extra time, but I've been experimenting with a free, online service from sucuri.net that translates the shortened URL back to its original form. It also includes a couple automatic checks from Safebrowsing.com and SiteAdvisor.com to help verify the safety of the link. It still takes a little of one's own judgement to decide whether it's right or if the link still creates suspicion, but at least you have a bit more info to try to judge your risk.

Reality

From BusinessWeek - Jobs: Lessons from the Great Recession. In watching the movie Slumdog Millionaire, a well-told story that often depicted people who struggle every day to live, I thought about the degree that people must be entrepreneurial to survive in that environment. If you'll note the last part of this BusinessWeek article, the microentrepreneurship they speak of is in the same vein, even if less desperate.

Honey, we're not in South Park anymore ...

A nice, philosophical video using an audio recording of philosopher Alan Watts. Yes, produced by the guys who do South Park.

Get used to it

"Disruptive technologies require disruptive people." - me

Stunning visual poetry ...

Found via Kevin Nalty's willvideoforfood.com blog. Created by Jeff Smith-Luedke (Azrienoch.com) Enjoy!

Adolescent Consciousness, Class of 2013

Yet another class of freshman college students is about to begin the four-year journey to their bachelor's degrees ... to be completed, if everything is on schedule, in 2013. And, once again, it's time to take the measure of time with this year's edition of the Beloit College Mindset List. The list references cultural and technological changes that the Class of 2013 will not likely have reference to as they deal with their older peers and parents.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here's the link to the MSNBC story and the Beloit College Mindset List

And just to add a little more depth, MSNBC also did a story on the 40 Biggest Technological Losers of recent years. For those of us who have used almost every one of these technotoys, it's somewhat discomforting to look at the pace of change in our lives.

Thinking about Social Media

As we move into the "social media" era on the web, I'm still skeptical about some of the claims made for what it will do. How does this revolution change how people think? How does it change how they behave? It certainly changes how people connect ... professional contacts, jobs, dating, etc. That happened long before Twitter and Facebook. But, aside from just making connections, does it really make people different? Stay tuned for about the next 20 years and we'll see.

Credits: Video originally found (by me) on TheNextWeb.com The video itself was produced by blogger/author Erik Qualman whose video, along with citations, can be found on Socialnomics.net. He can also be found on Twitter as @equalman.

Oh, and you can find THIS library on Twitter as @arlingtontxlib.

Dreams, inspiration and more ...

... from a series of short documentaries by American Honda.



You can see the rest of the films at the end of the video or at dreams.honda.com

Lies, Damned Lies and Photoshop ...

... to paraphrase Mark Twain's remark about statistics ...

Before I was a mass communication student at Texas Tech, I knew something about photography: it always tells the truth. After I graduated from Tech, I knew something different: photography only tells part of the truth. Then, just a few years ago, ... mmmm ... July, 1985, to be exact ... I found something new ... photography could never be trusted again. What was in front of me was a photograph ... a very clear photograph ... of flying saucers over San Francisco. It was on the cover of Whole Earth Review magazine and below the picture was the cover story title, "Digital Retouching: The end of photography as evidence of anything." (cover image used with permission of WholeEarth.com)

A story on the creation of the saucer image went on to tell how million-dollar machines like those from Scitex and Hell (a company name, I promise) could manipulate several images and create the final product in a mere six hours. Interestingly, there was also a mention in the main retouching article of a new, graphical computer: Apple's Macintosh. It's not really news, but now, twenty-five years after the introduction of the original Mac, almost any desktop computer is capable of running a program like Adobe's Photoshop or any of a number of similar image editing programs. Even more importantly, a kid with moderate computer graphics skills can make the unreal quite real ... in minutes.

Unlike in the 1930's when Resettlement Administration (later Farm Security Administration) photographer Arthur Rothstein's placement of a cow's skull on parched ground created a controversy or in the 1980's when National Geographic's tweaking of a cover image created an outcry among purists, manipulation of images has become an all but accepted way of life. It's pervasive.

We can't trust anything we see in print or online or in film or in video. The aim of many images is to either propagandize or to create a better reality than reality itself. In that light, Jaime Cascio has written Five New Rules for the Photoshop Era on FastCompany.com. Basically, treat any image with skepticism. If the image raises questions for any but true believers, then it's worth seeking confirmation through multiple sources and channels. The reality of an image, if there is such a thing, is sometimes hard to come by.

In the twenty-first century, the palette of grays between truth and lie is infinite.

The following two videos are instructive. The first is a great heads up for teenage girls trying to achieve the idealized form of beauty often seen in magazines and television. The second is a great of example of the very basic manipulation that goes on in the process of creating a "simple" magazine cover image.

Cover creation from Peter Belanger on Vimeo.

Postscript: As I was publishing an edit to this story, an ad popped up offering a DVD on "Digital Photoshop High End Retouching Tutorial Videos." Go figure.

Additional Resource: Daily Finance on "Magazines and Photoshop: When looking your best isn't enough."

Facebook Privacy Recommendations ...

... with an emphasis on businesses, but worthwhile for all Facebook users. Most Facebook users don't see the privacy settings and just dive in to the service (I did). Pay attention. From Christine Gallagher's Communicate Value blog. You'll want to watch this in full-screen mode as the Facebook text is tough to read.

Unemployed? You have a job ... in sales ...

Of course, the job is selling yourself.

Selling yourself is tough to do when you can't get yourself in front of a potential employer or hiring manager. Send in a resume and you're not terribly distinguishable from anyone else. One of the dirty secrets of online applications is "NO ONE IS READING YOUR RESUME." Your information, in most companies, simply goes into a database and, unless you've got the right experience ... aka KEYWORDS ... in your resume, your resume will never pop out in a search for candidates. You're invisible. If you're one of those people who has energy and drive, but not a lot of experience, you might as well forget that route.

Susan Smith, a former Arlington reference librarian now living in Florida, sent me this really great example of self-promotion on SlideShare.net. Watch it. It's a lot more than a resume. It gives the potential employer a feel for the kind of person they might get if they hire Mr. Fernandi (the subject of the slides). He tells what he's done, shows he has some background knowledge ... and, maybe most importantly, he shows the kind of creativity, enthusiasm and hustle that most employers would be delighted to have. Take special notice of the phrase "how can I help you?"

Could you do that? Yes, you could. PowerPoint isn't required. The presentation tools are out on the web for free or at least available for very few dollars. Two presentation tools that come to mind are Google Presentations and an even more capable service, Sliderocket. You don't even have to be a great photographer, as there are a number of stock photo services with tons of good images at reasonable prices. Some of the better known services include iStockphoto, Fotolia, and Shutterstock.

If you want to go a step beyond that, there's VisualCV. VisualCV is a bit more elaborate and more work to do well. It probably is best suited to people whose work can be represented/presented in a visual or graphical form.



The lesson in all this? Improve your chances by doing something different. Make sure you stand out.

As always, my mention of any product or service does not imply an endorsement by the City of Arlington or the Arlington Public Library.

Paradox ...

Have you ever felt as though dealing with anti-virus software is just short of the headache a computer virus causes?

Twitter for business

Twitter is the most talked-about and least understood web service in the news today. It's not something you can just look at and understand. Since I've been skeptical about its benefits, I had to dive into Twitter to get a feel for how it works. As of this moment, I think it's a useful service that takes some time to yield benefits. We now have an Arlington Public Library Twitter feed and, after work, I'm also helping an HR-manager friend apply Twitter to her recruiting efforts.

To help businesses understand Twitter and its application, the Twitter staff has put together Twitter 101: A Special Guide. The guide takes the reader from "What is Twitter?" through case studies. The businesses profiled range all the way from Dell to CoffeeGroundz, a Houston coffee shop.

American Express's Open Forum website also has a number of articles on Twitter, but I'd start with "10 Ways to Use Twitter as a Business Tool" and then read "I Don't Blog, I Don't Twitter."

Then, you begin.

(For a bit more circumspect view on Twitter, see Jason Seiden's post, "Twitter - Jumped the Shark Already?")

For job seekers: 50 useful Firefox add-ons

It's a little bit of overkill, but I use three different browsers. At home, I use Google Chrome for its speed. At work, I use Firefox 3.5 because it has a large number of plug-ins. In my case, I use plug-ins like Firebug, Web Developer and YSlow that help me evaluate web page designs. And because some sites just won't work right without Internet Explorer, I use IE7 at work and IE8 at home.

For the job seeker, career website JobProfiles.org has put together a list of 50 useful Firefox add-ons. The add-ons in the list range from applications that help search for jobs to applications that make searching (and other activities) more efficient. You can see the full list on JobProfiles.org.

Wasted days and wasted nights ...

I am about to cause you to waste your entire day ... or evening, if you're at work during the day. The older you are, the more enjoyable this site becomes. Credit Krista for finding this one.

CoverBrowser.com

Is your business invisible on the Internet?

Are you in the HALF of local businesses not on the web? Is your business still in the 20th Century? Are you nuts? 80% of Internet users use web search to find businesses. In my case, finding businesses via the 'net is all but the ONLY way I look up information. Every phone book that arrives at my door goes right into the recycling.

If you're in the half that can't be found because you're not on the Internet, Google wants to help. Google Local Business Center provides a fairly sophisticated set of tools for getting a presence in Google's search engine and evaluating how traffic finds you. It's a way to get more business. It's something that could help your business survive the recession, if it's on the edge. It's free.



Also, another source worth mentioning for small business or anyone who needs to create a website for a group is Google Sites. It's useful for intra-business and intra-group communication, although I don't think it's a good choice for a public website, nor is it intended for that.

Information Maven with Information Overload

Because of the nature of my work, I track all sorts of information flowing from the Internet. For someone who's fairly ADHD, it's a bit of a challenge to try to be consistent with what I track. Fortunately, there are all sorts of tools and technologies to help try to get a grip on what's important to us on the 'net and in day-to-day life.

Ok, I confess to being an inveterate information junkie.

For the moment, my information tracking/management toolkit contains: RSS feeds of blogs and news (and more) all organized through my iGoogle home page, Tweetdeck to keep an eye on Twitter, SkyGrid (in beta, limited availability) to keep an eye on real-time business news from multiple sources, Excel spreadsheets to manage time and tasks between my boss and myself, and a personal organization software application called uOrganized to give me an overall view of my personal and business tasks. I also use a service called Jott Assistant to e-mail myself automatically transcribed reminders and tasks via my cellphone. That's a lot, but life would be harder yet for me without these resources.

There's even more because that leaves out Outlook for work and Gmail and Google Calendar for personal use. So, I won't even mention those. (jk!)

The fact that I use so many different products/services is either an indication of how complicated our lives have become or, maybe, just my ADHD-driven need to track a lot of interests.

In the coming weeks and months, I hope to produce tutorials on how to actually USE these tools. They'll appear here and on the Arlington Public Library website.

My main iGoogle page running in the Google Chrome browser
Tweetdeck displaying my Twitter feeds
SkyGrid Beta running in the Google Chrome browser

Just an FYI, my mention of any product or service does not imply an endorsement by the City of Arlington or the Arlington Public Library.

A little inspiration ...

... for the era of "involuntary entrepreneurship" (i.e. when you can't find a job, create your own).

Going Green: Cyber-Warriors vs. Censorship in Iran

Oppression gets tougher for governments to pull off:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Yet, in spite of "hacker heroes," governments still have the upper hand in controlling the flow of information on the Internet: Red Tape Chronicles

Still, Twitter still seems to work in Iran. Time Magazine also wrote on "Twitter's Moment."

(If you're not particularly familiar with Twitter, this story on FinancialPost.com provides an interesting backgrounder as to how it can be used.)

Meanwhile, in China, their government has required a sort of "v-chip" in new computers that's designed to "protect" (aka censor) their citizens from having access to sites the government doesn't want them to see.

Netflix vs. Redbox vs.Blockbuster vs. Your Library

From Time Magazine's website: What's the best rental deal?

Why phishers love Facebook

Phishing: the process of trying to extract confidential information from potential victims, usually by links in bogus e-mails.

Here are some important things for Facebook users to think about from The Red Tape Chronicles on MSNBC.com. Did you ever notice how the word "think" has a strong association with using the Web?

Something to think about when you share on the web

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!

In light of the economic climate, it can be a bit difficult to find things to smile about some days. Our depression-era forefathers lived in an even more grim black-and-white world, at least in the largely monochromatic press and in the cinema. There were many songs and movies that attempted to elevate the social mood of the time. A fairly literal example of that is the 1931 Merrie Melodies cartoon, "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!"



Digressing a bit, the lead character in this cartoon, Foxy, is an early film example of IP (intellectual property) infringement. Looks a bit like Mickey, doesn't he? Right. It was "Lawsuit Time," even then.

But, it's 2009 and we have the Internet to channel all sorts of information, including about every form of humor, right to us. One of my favorite websites to get a quick laugh is VeryFunnyAds.com, run by Turner Broadcasting. Great television advertising is hard to come by and great commercials with humor even more rare. VeryFunnyAds.com brings together some of the funniest advertising from all over the world. Because commercials are short, it's a great site to get onto for a couple laughs, then get back to work ... bite-sized entertainment. This Fiat commercial from South Africa is one of my favorites. (the direct link to the site doesn't seem to be working, so try searching on "Fiat" in the VeryFunnyAds search box and click the link to the pic of the bicyclist.)

Note: You might find some of the ads a bit risqué, but keep in mind that standards, and humor, in other parts of the world sometimes go beyond generally accepted boundaries in this country. To my way of thinking, that makes them even funnier.

The ultimate reality tv (online)

Thought you had a tough job? Tired of your boss always hovering? Imagine being these guys...

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

http://twitter.com/NASA

NASA provided real time twittering and video feeds of the latest repair mission of the Hubble Telescope. One astronaut, John Grunsfeld, accidentally bumped an antenna causing a small amount of damage and a huge amount of tension for the viewers. NASA reports the antenna is still working, by the way.

RT Grunsfeld said, "Hubble isn’t just a satellite- it’s about humanity’s quest for knowledge."

This is why I love the Internet. Amazing.

The Economy? Swine Flu? Not such a big deal.

If there's not enough for you to worry about in today's news, console yourself with the thought that there are even bigger things out to get you.

A quick list:

• Volcanic eruptions!


• Nuclear apocalypse!


• The end of bees! (seriously!)


• Mass Extinction!


• An unstable planet Mercury!


• Reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles!


• Solar storms!


• Exploding stars!


• Pandemics! (OK, you're learning about that now)


• Man-made black holes!


• Climate change!


• Earthquakes!

Wait! There's more. Check out the original article HERE.

Online Swine Flu Resources

Whether the Swine Flu becomes a potentially disastrous pandemic or ends up as over-hyped as the last visit of Halley's Comet, you may want to keep an eye on what's going on. I've assembled a few resources from the web to give you the big picture.

New Scientist: Swine Flu: What you need to know

Center for Disease Control

Google LatLong Blog: Mapping the Swine Flu Outbreak

Mashable.com: How to Track Swine Flu Online

Mashable.com: Swine Flu on Twitter: How to Filter Out the Noise

Google.org: Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico


Local resources:

City of Arlington

Tarrant County Disease Control and Prevention

Arlington Independent School District

Job losses mapped

If you've read this blog more than a couple times, you have already surmised that I'm a big fan of products like Google Earth and of data mapping. My latest find is a map of (mostly) vanishing employment across the country. It's about as grim as the Google Earth layers illustrating Hurricane Ike's destruction of the Texas coast.

Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, this is Slate.com's illustration of vanishing employment.

Zoho and Google updates and notes

As you might have noted from my previous posts, I'm a fan of online or web-based applications like Google Docs and the Zoho suite of products. While both companies are constantly improving their products, Zoho Writer 2.0 has jumped ahead of Google's offering with a redesign and a few more features. If you don't absolutely, positively need the "corporate" functionality of Microsoft Word, either of these services will save you both money and the hassle of installing software on your computer.

On a largely un-related topic, Google is now hosting the Life magazine photo archive with millions of historic photos now available through Google's image search. To me, this is an absolutely incredible gift to the public and it will be an absolute boon to teachers, students, researchers and history buffs. Most of these images have never been published before. It's a remarkable collection.

COOL new technology from Google!

Check out Google's new artificial intelligence engine, CADIE. CADIE will pave the way for new advanced applications. The GMail team at Google already has a beta (of course) implementation of CADIE in a new feature they call Autopilot. As they say, e-mail has never been easier.

Even cooler yet, CADIE's artificial intelligence even allowed it to generate it's own homepage. Be sure to take a look. CADIE is light years from Google's earlier PidgeonRank technology.

Scandal Mapped

One way to visualize the breadth of the Bernie Madoff scandal: www.madoffmap.com

More Great Video Via the Web

I've previously mentioned video/educational sites like TED.org, iTunes U (via the iTunes media service) and a few other resources. Add MIT World and Academic Earth to your list of places to find mind-expanding lectures and talks.

As someone who works in the public media, I found Keith Weinstein's MIT lectures on copyright law particularly fitting. I expect it will become part of our staff education program here at Arlington Public Library. It could be a useful orientation lecture for anyone in the arts or media.

Facebook vs. Twitter vs. LinkedIn

If you're not sure how some of the social networking sites compare:

A somewhat funny look at the three services (and what to wear while using them) from InformationWeek.com.

And a more serious evaluation from Webb Henderson of NetSuccess, a Dallas web design and web development firm.

Jobseekers and Identity Theft

The Internet multiplies the ability of some of the bad guys to do dirt to desperate people. The scams just keep coming. Worthwhile information from Information Week if you're job hunting: Job Seekers Targeted by Identity Thieves

Social Networking Tales

The most dangerous person on Facebook is the Facebook user. Pretty much the same thing could be said substituting the name MySpace. Privacy issues on Facebook are huge, partly from the company's apparent attitudes toward privacy and partly for the failure of users to take advantage of the privacy controls Facebook provides. If you're a user or know a user of social networking sites ... any social networking site ... these two articles on Facebook and on MySpace should be mandatory reads. The Internet doesn't follow the maxim of "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas." It's more like, "what happens on the Internet may follow you around for a very long time and may prevent you from getting a job or career that you want and may even make it easy for an identity thief to leave you in misery."

Sadly, privacy is pretty much history, anyway.