Archive for January 2009

Cameron Chapman at Mashable puts together a giant list of productivity applications in GTD Toolbox: 100+ Resources for Getting Things Done. I would add the Remember the Milk to-do list application because it has great mobile capabilities which really come in handy. This helpful list is organized into the following categories:

• Complete Solutions
• Collect and Process
• Organize, Review and Do
• Mobile Apps

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has published a new report titled Generations Online in 2009 which breaks down online activities by generation. After defining the scope of the generations, the study goes on to summarize that Teens and Generation Y are the most likely to utilize the Web for entertainment purposes while older generations use the Internet primarily for conducting information searches, email, and online shopping. However there are some universal activities that span the generation gaps such as downloading videos, online banking, travel reservations, and job searching. The report has an excellent chart which breaks down each activity type by generation.

Blending the Mix presents a mega-list of the 100 Most Popular Twitter Applications. The list is based on each program’s popularity on the social bookmarking website delicious, and the total number of users who have bookmarked each program is provided in parentheses. These are the top ten:

1. twittervision (4282 overall)
2. twitterfeed (3867 overall)
3. twhirl (3319 overall)
4. tweetscan (2655 overall)
5. twistori (2631 overall)
6. twitter-search (2500 overall)
7. tweetdeck (2439 overall)
8. twitpic (2244 overall)
9. hellotxt (1979 overall)
10. twitterrific (1729 overall)

Ravit Lichtenberg at ReadWriteWeb discusses the evolution of social media in 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009. This thought-provoking post suggests ten areas to consider in the coming year, here are his top five:

1. It’s About People
2. Creating Meaning and Value
3. Enabling Convergence
4. Building a Truly Cross-Platform Experience
5. Creating Relevant Social Networks

Encyclopaedia Britannica now allows readers to suggest edits to encyclopedia entries which are then inspected by the resource’s editors for approval. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Britannica aims to turn around edits within 20 minutes. Many of these changes/additions will appear in the print edition of the encyclopedia.

Kevin Rose, founder of Digg the social news website, guest-posts on TechCrunch in order to recommend 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers. Rose has over 88,000 followers on Twitter and is the second-most followed person using the microblogging application after President Obama. Here are his top five suggestions, check out the full article for more:

1. Explain to your followers what retweeting is and encourage them to retweet your links.
2. Fill out your bio.
3. As @garyvee says, “link it up.”
4. Tweet about your passions in life and #hash tag them.
5. Bring your twitter account into the physical world.

Those of you who are interested in government efforts with Web technology will want to check out this article from the Wired Epicenter blog titled The Best Government Tech of the Bush Years. The post mentions several online initiatives such as the CIA’s Facebook page, the State Department’s Diplopedia wiki, and the FBI’s Most-Wanted widget and also links to a comprehensive list with even more.

Two weeks ago Google announced that they would stop development and support for their Google Notebook, leaving users concerned, (Google received over 700 comments on their January 14th announcement), about their ability to continue to take notes online.  However, Sean P. Aune from Mashable has put together a post suggesting 17 Noteworthy Alternatives To Google Notebook. The applications are divided into the following categories:

• Notetaking for Business
• Classroom Notetaking
• General Purpose Notetaking

Learn how to create a custom Twitter background image by using PowerPoint or Keynote such as the one that I made by checking out this post from Closet Entrepreneur.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper is compiling a mega-guide to 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read. Over seven days their writers will recommend the very best novels in the following categories:

• War & Travel
• Science Fiction & Fantasy
• State of the Nation
• Family & Self
• Comedy
• Crime
• Love

Johnny Karp of Freeware Mission posts about the 70-plus free programs he has installed on his PC. He divides the applications, ranging from audio-editing apps to antivirus software, into program-types and suggest alternatives as well. Karp has also put together a mega-pack consisting of all the programs for everyone to download.

Josh Peters of Shuaism.com has put together a guide to 30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook on Mashable. This annotated list identifies over thirty Facebook applications which can be used to help run your business online using the social network. They are divided into the following categories:

• Blog Promotion
• Business / Self Promotion
• Communication
• Networking
• Collaboration
• Audio/Visual
• Miscellaneous

The New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) has published the 2009 Horizon Report. This annual report identifies six emerging technologies which will have a significant impact on teaching and learning and will be adopted over the next 1-5 years. This year’s key technologies include:

• Mobiles (i.e., mobile devices)
• Cloud computing
• Geo-everything (i.e., geo-tagging)
• The personal web
• Semantic-aware applications
• Smart objects

Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO of Red Hat, writes about Open Source software and higher education in the latest issue of Educause Review.

“Open source is an increasingly important skill set that many of today’s computer science graduates are lacking. This is not because students aren’t interested in open source, but because very few colleges and universities currently offer open-source classes. In addition to eager students, there are many professors who are very interested in teaching open source in their classrooms and labs.”

New York Times columnist David Pogue offers novice microbloggers some Twittering Tips for Beginners based on his recent foray into the popular communication channel.

“I’ll admit that, for the longest time, I was exasperated by the Twitter hype. Like the world needs ANOTHER ego-massaging, social-networking time drain? Between e-mail and blogs and Web sites and Facebook and chat and text messages, who on earth has the bandwidth to keep interrupting the day to visit a Web site and type in, “I’m now having lunch”? And to read the same stuff being broadcast by a hundred other people?”