"Word of the Year" top-ten list

Thanks to Meg Weaver of WoodenHorse.com for this concise round-up on the word(s) of the year:

"... the Merriam-Webster dictionary releasing its "Top Ten Words of the Year" is the main event. This year is the first time that it has declared two words as the official Word of the Year: “Capitalism” and “socialism”. “These were looked up frequently together,” an M-W spokesman said. And looked up about twice as many times as last year, probably due to the health care debate.

Other words on the top ten list? Democracy, globalization, marriage and bigot – and “malarkey”, which is what Vice President Joe Biden used in his debate with Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan. Look-ups of malarkey represented “the largest spike of a single word on the website by percentage, at 3,000 percent, in a single 24-hour period this year.”

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So even if we are resorting to online dictionaries, at least people are using technology for a literate purpose, at least now and then...

Microsoft

Mark Gibbs in Network World made my day today, referring to Microsoft as  the original inventor of "ship early, patch often."



Source: Network World 10/08/12

Two more options for managing email

Thanks to John Brandon, in the September 2012 issue of INC magazine for this suggestion.

He has found two options to help you stop the time-drain that is known as email. We've all tried unsubscribing to newsletters, and avoiding getting locked in to daily updates, but still, we waste hours each day plowing through a full mailbox, just to get it down to a manageable number. And then, the next day, we start all over again. Yes, we all know its a losing battle.

John's suggestis are for inbox tools that might help:

Unroll.me  and SaneBox.

Unroll gives you a fast way to unsubscribe to all the sites that have you as a subscriber.

SaneBox is a fee-based service, $4.95/month, that analyzes your messages before delivery, to pre-sort by priority. The low-priority items are then summaried and pavailable for you to scan na single message.

If email continues to waste your time, try these or other resources to keep you from losing productive hours each week.

Tech Gadgets for Retirees

US News has an interesting article on internet usage among post-middle-age people... That's the most tactful way I can say "senior citizens."

The article cites research by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, showing that in 2012, more than half of adults age 65 and older use the Internet, according to a the survey of 2,254 adults.

This technology includes a broadband connection, cell phone, email, computer, tablet e-readers, and reveals a startling percentage of older people are active online.

Social networking sites. Young people ages 18 to 29 are the most prolific users of Facebook, LinkedIn, and similar websites (86 percent), and some 66 percent of adult Internet users are now part of an online network. Retirees are beginning to join in significant numbers. Social networking site use among Internet users ages 65 and older more than doubled from 13 percent in 2009 to 34 percent in 2012. And even 20 percent of people over age 75 use social networking sites.

So, in reaching your audience online, don't overlook the face that over a third of social media users are out there reading, watching, reacting.

The 1940 U.S.Census is now public

Where were your parents in the 1930s? How much money did your dad make back then?
The U.S Census data from 1490 is now public, as of 8 a.m. today, April 2, 2012.