Monthly Archive for August, 2007

Half of Web time spent viewing content: study

From Reuters:

Content online is king. Internet users spend nearly half their time online viewing news or entertainment content, surpassing activities such as sending e-mails, shopping or searching for information, according to a study released by the Online Publishers Association on Monday.

The four-year study, conducted by Nielsen/NetRatings, tracked a 37 percent increase in amount of time spent viewing content such as online videos or news, surpassing a 35 percent rise in using search engines like Google Inc..

Dr. Google and Dr. Microsoft

From the New York Times:

In politics, every serious candidate for the White House has a health care plan. So too in business, where the two leading candidates for Web supremacy, Google and Microsoft, are working up their plans to improve the nation’s health care.

By combining better Internet search tools, the vast resources of the Web and online personal health records, both companies are betting they can enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care.

Watch your Elevations - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

This weeks tip is a very simple one. Watch your elevations. Simply, if your subject sits at a higher elevation than the camera, place the subject in the top half of the frame. If the subject sits below the camera, place it in the lower half of the frame. Following this simple guideline can help preserve the natural feel of your photograph.

Until next time, happy shooting.

25 best free high-quality fonts

I found this on Download Squad

Freelance web designer Vitaly Friedman has put together a listing of his choice of the best 25 free fonts available online, and it’s very hard to argue with his choices. He plainly states that his bias is towards fonts that are useful in a business setting, rather than those that would be more at home “on a colourful teenager’s homepage”.

“At the Movies” review archive

At the Movies was the name of the show that Siskel & Ebert did where they reviewed movies. The name has changed over the years, and the critics have also changed, but the show has continued on. This week they opened up their archive on the web and they have archived reviews of over 5,000 movies! Roger Ebert announced it this way:

The various incarnations of Siskel & Ebert & Roeper represent more than 1,000 TV programs, on which the three of us, and various guest critics, reviewed more than 5,000 movies. And now at last an online archive exists with all of those reviews.

Starting Thursday, Aug. 2, visitors will be able to search for and watch all of those past debates, including the film clips that went along with them, plus the “ten best” and other special shows we did. The new archive will be at www.atthemoviestv.com, and will be the web’s largest collection of streaming reviews.

Check it out at AtTheMoviesTV.com

Poll Shows Growing Number of ‘Cyberchondriacs’

From PC World:

With easy online access to up-to-date medical information and reference materials, more adults in the U.S. are using the Internet to find out about their health, then talking to their personal doctors about what they find.

In fact, according to a new telephone poll by Harris Interactive Inc., about 160 million of the 225 million adults in the U.S. have looked online for information about their health, up 37 percent since 2005.

Two years ago, 117 million adults used the Web to access health information. Last year, that number had risen to 136 million adults. In fact, the latest figures show that the number of U.S. adults searching the Web for health information has more than tripled from 54 million in 1998, when the first Harris poll on the topic was conducted.

Read the full results on the Harris Interactive web site.

Is Geek Squad Now the ‘Peek Squad’?

From NewsFactor:

When Best Buy Co. Inc. bought the Geek Squad five years ago, the two companies pledged to “protect the world from the assault of computerized technology Relevant Products/Services.” Geek Squad “agents” even wore badges and drove vehicles resembling police cars.

But as this squadron of techno-nerds has mushroomed into the largest collection of computer troubleshooters in the world, it has become increasingly difficult for the firm to police its own employees.

In recent months, allegations of agents copying pornography, music and alluring photos from customers’ computers have circulated on the Internet. Some bloggers now call it the “Peek Squad.”

Britain ‘failing’ net speed tests

From the BBC:

There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual speeds users can achieve, research has shown.

A survey by consumer group Which? found that broadband packages promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved far less.

Tests of 300 customers’ net connections revealed that the average download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps.

Which? has called on regulator Ofcom and Trading Standards to launch a fresh investigation into UK broadband.

I would assume that the same complaints could be made wherever there is broadband. My cable company advertises 7Mb, but when asked about it, that is only between your computer and their main switching location. But of course I’m not downloading anything from their switching station, am I?!

Teachers call for closure of YouTube

From Vnunet:

UK teachers said yesterday that the only way to tackle cyber bullying in schools is to close websites such as YouTube, which encourage such behaviour.

Speaking at the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) annual conference yesterday, Kirsti Paterson of the Highland & Western Isles Federation SEC Committee, said that bullying had transcended the playground and moved into the digital realm.

Microsoft’s Gates Plans Leave Amid Great Change

From the New York Times:

Microsoft is beset with competition from all sides, unlike any it has seen in decades, and Bill Gates, who co-founded the company 32 years ago, still intends to step away next year as planned.

But so far, Mr. Gates, Microsoft’s 51-year-old chairman, shows no sign of fading away.