Can social media make you more popular?

We used to measure our popularity and successful relationships by the number of friends we had; those who exchanged birthday cards, met for lunch, sat on the front porch on a summer night. Now, though, our "friends" are measured by the activity in our social media sites.

How many followers are enough to make you popular? If you have more social media traffic, are you inclined to make more frequent posts? Are thousands of online friends better than a few true friends? Is social media an effective way for you to keep in touch with close friends?

A recent Writer's Digest article posted counts for notable pageviews for writers trying to prove they have a decent following for their work.



Notable numbers are high, starting with:

20,000/month for blogs
5,000 followers for Twitter and for your own email newsletter.

By those standards, most of us are lurkers - reading just the blogs and Facebook/Twitter feeds we can scan in a few minutes.

It's summer, and we know where our real friends are - out on the porch, waiting for us.

Evernote ramps up with blogging tool

 

Fans of Evernote's note-taking tools will go nuts over the addition of Postach-io. It converts your online notes into a content management system. Many of you know I'm addictd to Microsoft One-Note, which is a little known feature in Office 2007. But Evernote and Postach-io might be the ultimate in ingformation management.

:Learn more here at TechCrunch. 

"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.”

----

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

A Social Media Rabbit ??? Holiday Gift Idea

Just in time for the holidays -- here's a social media rabbit from the clever Karotz Store...

Add it to your internet connection and it reads your email and social media updates aloud, play online music, and is even a webcam.

Don't laugh Take a look at Karotz Store:  You know you want one!

Visit Laptop Magazine for more holiday gifts for geeks.

Amazon ramps up instant video/movie downloads for $79/year

With all the news about NetFlix changing its pricing structure, looks like Amazon is positioned to become #1...

This from Amazon.com home page today, 9/27/11:

"Amazon just signed a deal with FOX to add a broad selection of movies and TV shows to our unlimited instant streaming service later this fall. The new additions from the FOX library include 24, Arrested Development, The X-Files, Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and - available on digital video for the first time - The Wonder Years. We now have deals with CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony, and Warner Bros, and adding FOX will bring the total to more than 11,000 movies and TV shows available for unlimited instant streaming."

That darn keyboard!

How many times do you hit CAPS LOCK without looking and have to retype your work?

Is your computer's Page Up key in an awkward place? This is especially true on laptops where Delete often interferes with your efforts to page up and down.

Well, I have the answer for you. A cool program called KeyTweak. It allows you re-assign or remap the Microsoft keyboard and works with all current versions of Windows. So if there's a key you never use, give it new life as an easy-to-reach key you frequently use. See the site, linked below, for full details. I've used this for years and hope you enjoy it.

Best of all, its a free download you can find with a web search, or here at the company.

A better way to listen to music: CNET says "five thumbs up"

I've heard three times this week about an exciting innovation for music lovers. Spotify is hitting the U.S. with an outstanding service. YOU can control all your music, and share it freely.

Many are calling this "the new golden age of music,"

The creator is Sean Parker, who was behind Napster, says:

"By making music social, the experience of discovering and listening to new music will be more fun than ever before. While Spotify can be downloaded and used for free on the desktop, users of Spotify will need to purchase content when they want to take music with them "on the go" via their iPod or iPhone.

In this sense, Spotify is the answer to piracy: migrating millions of piracy-based music fans to a legitimate platform where their consumption of music can be monetized, and the artists who dedicate their lives to creating music can finally get paid."

Read more: http://www.facebook.com/notes/sean-parker/at-long-last-spotify-launches-in-the-us/10150260494833293#ixzz1SqBHepQj

What browser do you use? IE, Firefox or Chrome

Please take my one question poll about your web browser. The short poll is right above this post.


Internet Explorer continues to lose market share, I personally think Firefox is superior, and a growing group of clients and colleagues have made the move to Google Chrome.

There are advantages to each, so if you're not happy with your current browser, please explore Firefox or Chrome.
the poll expires April 5, 2011 at noon.   I'll comment on the results here after that date.

Helen Gallagher

Power up for a Snow Day

In Chicago, we are familiar with the routine of a snow day, especially those of us who were here during the 1967 blizzard.
Walking on top of cars the next day was the only way to have fun.

But now, over 40 years later, you have so many more ways to have fun on a snow day. You and your computer can pass the time and catch up on all the things you feel you never have time for:

1. EMPTY YOUR MAILBOX - Sounds drastic but its a great time of year to backup your old email and purge the Sent and Trash folders. Get through your Inbox and either read the messages, reply, take some action, or copy useful information into your calendar or note files. Shovel that clutter !

2. Organize your files

3. Charge all your electronics

4. Clean up your desk to get ready for tax time.

Then take a nap, make a pot of soup, and enjoy your snow day.

How good is your memory?

Today I learned about Superior Autobiographical Memory.

Using your computer well may mean you use it to store all sorts of information, track details, keep everything at your fingertips.
How good would your memory be if you didn't use a computer? Today, on "60 Minutes" there was a fabulous segment on "superior autobiographical memory," and about James McGaugh, who discovered and studies superior autobiographical memory.

One person with this gift is bothered by the volume of all that she recalls,  Imagine if you could remember every single TV show or movie you've seen in your life? If you knew which days had rain in February of 1971? This is apparently a very rare condition, and is a fascinating topic, and there's more information about the research, and video available on the "60 Minutes" website.

Blog Power and Social Media Handbook

It's here and available now on Amazon: the update to Social Media Handbook, including the Blog power secrets you've been waiting for.

About the power of time off

I saw an interesting video from the TED conference today. (TED hosts 'riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world').

Stefan Sagmeister, a New York designer takes a year off every 7 years. Haven't we all though of a sabbatical at some time? Here's the clever reasoning: Sagmeister figures we spend:

25 years learning
40 years gathering (perhaps: information, family, money, skills, experience) and
15 years in retirement.

He decided to deduct some of those 15 years from the end by retiring every few years, for just a year, to recharge and reflect. As he returns to work, he finds that everything he designs in some way came out of that year of time off. Additionally the result of the year off feeds back into the world, instead of becoming time only spent with a grandchild or two in later years.

If, like me, you can't exactly take a year off, we can at least take a weekend to slow down, unplug and do something creative. Even replacing an afternoon in your desk chair with an hour in a deck chair might be enough to recharge, at least for a while.

That's where you'll find me on this beautiful Spring day.

Highlight and save web page text

Have you ever wanted to grab a useful paragraph from a web site, to save?
If you cut & paste, where will you put it, how will you find it?

The answer is WebNotes, which lets you highlight, save organize, preserve links, and retrieve at your own WebNotes page. Think of it as smart bookmarks...

Something of value on YouTube??? It's possible,

I'm not a big fan of YouTube, even if there is good content out there, or very funny content with laughing babies or juggling hippos. Too much consumer-generated content, too slow to wait for video and too much time wasted.

But, reading Hemispheres on United Airlines last week, I learned there is something out in that vast wasteland. YouTube Edu -- here you can listen to and watch lectures and presentations from the academic world... online & free. Just launched in 2009, it contains lectures and coursework from over 100 universities. An interview in The Wall Street Journal states the content just from the Univ. Minnesota contains 200 lecture-based courses in literature, history, law, engineering and other subjects.

I know what I'm watching tonight...

Holiday Gift Idea #1

If you have a techie on your holiday gift list, perhaps he/she is too smart to need Computer Ease, but here's a great gift idea...

For the techie who has everything and no pockets to carry it all....


Acccording to the Scottevest.com web site, this jacket has:
# Patented Personal Area Network (PAN)
# Interior cell phone pocket (connects to PAN)
# Interior iPhone/iPod/iTouch pocket (connects to PAN)
# Travel documents pocket
# PubPocket - typically large enough to hold a magazine, eBook reader or small netbook
# Camera pocket and ID/business cards pocket
# Eyeglass pocket, including chamois with versatile clip
# Magnetic pocket closures

it even has "Clear Touch fabric, allowing a traveler to see and control their iPod and cell phones through the fabric." Quite possibly the coolest way to stay warm this winter!

Helen Gallagher

A New, New Computer

Today is the launch day for Windows 7, the first new PC operating system in about seven years. I was one of the few to buy a new computer today. You know I did it for you -- so I can work with the new system and hep you with yours.

Windows 7 is available as a DVD to upgrade your Vista operating system. Prices for the DVD start at $119. And, I got a 15" laptop with Windows 7 for only $299. So you can see why it was such a good deal.

I'll report back soon on what hardware and software problems crop up, and explore some of the beneficial features. I'm hoping there are at least a few improvements in file management and intuitive interfaces. But for speed and performance... it rocks!

New Tech Gifts for the Holidays

Just when you think there's nothing new in computers, along comes Quirky. Here are just a few of their clever product innovations on the market or coming soon.

Now this is what I call a useful error message

Okay, I admit I've been working lots of overtime the past few weeks, and not taking much time for the lighter side of life. But then I got this error message today, and finally had a good laugh:

The Internet is suddenly middle-aged

The Internet, as we know it, turned 40 - the big 4-0 this week.
Boing Boing celebrates the news and has an interesting video link... something the boys in the lab couldn't have imagined in 1969.

"Forty years ago today, in Leonard Kleinrock's UCLA lab, a group of computer scientists managed to pass bits of data from one computer to another over some some gray cable. In doing so, they created the first node of what we now call (long dramatic pause)... the Internet.

Kleinrock and colleagues were working with the government-backed Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), without which I would not be blogging these words today.

Now, some folks believe the actual "birthday" was October 29, 1969 - when Kleinrock sent the first message between two nodes, UCLA to Stanford. The message? "LO." As in "LO AND BEHOLD, THE INTERNET." Well, okay, not really. It was supposed to be "LOGIN" but the system crashed after Kleinrock typed "L" and "O."

See the video here.