CHRISdotTODD

LinkedIn is a social website that is used to manage professional connections. Take for example the guy you worked with 3 years ago. Perhaps you're looking for a new job, and you remember he started his own company. Through LinkedIn you can find out if he has any job openings or perhaps one of his clients or friends does. Or, perhaps there's another colleague or former colleague that you though was just great to work with. You can write a recommendation for them on LinkedIn, to help them out the next time they're looking for new employment. With LinkedIn's new RSS feature, you no longer have to login to the site to see what's new with your colleagues. Just add it to your RSS Reader, and you can view a headline of all their activity. Perhaps a current contact that you have in LinkedIn connects with a former colleague. Now that you see the former colleague has a LinkedIn account, you can send them a request to add them to your list of connections. If you want to enable

The BBC has a great site about the Human Body & Mind . I found it a lot of fun to complete two different tests: (1) Brain Sex and (2) Face Memory . As you likely know, both men and women are considered to be intelligent, yet they think differently. "The reasons for these brain sex differences, if they exist, are not known, though there are a number of theories that offer possible explanations." The Brain Sex test will score you against the average men and women and relate it to generalities about each sex. The Face Memory test is part of information on Sleep. "Are you too tired to remember? 'Executive skills' such as memory are the first to go when you're tired. See how you score." Also included is a sleep quiz on"the top ten most fascinating and weird sleep facts." I found each of the tests to be easy to complete and without much surprise. For example my right-side of the brain is more dominant. "Some studies theorise that as a ri

I found a couple of new Firefox extensions; the first is used to indicate whether a link on a web page is safe for work (SFW) or no (NSFW). You simple hover over a link on a web page and in the lower-right of your browser you will see SFW, NSFW, or Unrated. If you're on an existing web page, you can send your own rating; the extension uses user votes to determine SFW or NSFW. Go to No-NSFW to get this extension for yourself. I found another, not so useful Firefox extension, RefControl . With RefControl you can change the referral page in your browser. As you may or may not know, when you visit a web page, it gets various information from your browser, including the page you were on previously. With refControl, you can change this to be what ever page you want it to be. In fact there are multiple options: Normal - send the referrer as it would normally be sent without interference from RefControl. Block - send no referrer to this site. Forge - send the root of the site as the r

Living in an apartment, I found that many of my neighbors have not secured their wireless network. For example, one neighbor has a nice music collection. I think this is a clear indication of how the computing environment is still too difficult for the average user. With that in mind, I recently ran across an article on Ars Technica, The ABCs of securing your wireless network , that helps explain the differences between the various networking options. The short answer is use WPA protocol to ensure adequate security. For that matter, I recently threw away a wireless print server because it didn't support WPA. So, if you're running a wireless network, be sure to change the default password on your router and use WPA communication protocol.

Industry pundit John C. Dvorak recently release an article on Vista's 11 Pillars of Failure . John makes some good points including the code bloat, missing drivers, and the confusion around the number of versions. On the other hand, Robert Strohmeyer of PC World in his article 18 Features Windows Should Have (but Doesn't) , covers items as if the shortcomings are because it's not a Mac. Where John points out valid issues, Mr. Strohmeyer uses the Mac as an example instead of identifying real issues. So if you you want a refresher on why you should stick with XP until Microsoft releases the next Windows version, read John C. Dvorak's article ; If you want to see what features you're missing by not having a Mac, read the article by Robert Strohmeyer .

I originally started out this post with the idea of making a simple movie on how to track changes and delete those changes in Word. Realizing that I have Word 2000 and many others have moved on to Word 2003 and Word 2007, I decided to begin with some research to see what the differences were. In that research I found a great site to help with Word, so I'll point you there instead, Shauna Kelly's Making the Most of WORD in Your Business . If you are still reading, you might have been asking yourself, "Why making a movie on something trivial like this?" Well, Shauna has captured some specific examples for that too. In fact, she's listed 10 real examples where not minding those tracked changes has led to embarrassment (or more). Finally, if you just want to know more about tracking changes and versions in Word, here's the link to the article on Shauna's site.

Did you know that many colleges and other educational institutes have made audio and video content free through the iTunes store? iTunes U was created in collaboration with colleges and universities that were looking for ways to expand and enrich their curricula with digital content. Standford University lists 13 different categories of materials from Science and Technology to Health and Medicine to Personal and Professional Development . There is also commencement addresses from 2005 - 2007. MIT has used iTunes U as one of the delivery channels for their OpenCourseWare initiative . This is a big investment; take for example the Electrical Engineering & Computer Science category, where MIT offers 161 tracks. If you move outside the classroom, there are offerings from the New York Public Library , PBS , and others. You can find over 20 Jazz oral history video interviews and 13 audio presentations in the Small Business category at New York Public Library. I have just scratched

LifeHacker , one of my favorite sites for little tech hacks has posted a top 5 list of DVD rippers. This list is based on their reader's input, so you know these programs really work. If you're looking to rip your DVD collection, then checkout LifeHacker's article . I will say that I have successfully used 1 of the 5.

Are you still unsure of how Comcast is playing unfair with your Internet access? Remember they paid people to fill seats in an open forum with the FCC where they would scrutinized. Comcast also released a "Bill of Rights," [which] is really about informing the consumer that their Internet traffic could suffer delays. Read all about it in a recent article, Will the feds get it in gear on Web traffic? , from Therese Poletti in MarketWatch. Don't just sit back and let your geek friends try to fight this... if you or your company depends on the Internet for doing business, then you need to get involved too. Want to get another perspective? Larry Hardesty of MIT's Technology Review has also released an article on this subject . Specifically , he has information on a middle-ground proposal that will be coming from Mung Chiang, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University.

Patrick Schmid posted Is Fast Memory Really Worth It? on Tom's Hardware recent research that concludes what I have suspect all along. Unless you are a hardcore gamer building a computer to get out every last ounce of power, there's no reason to buy the more expensive, faster memory. Many of us know that to extend the life of your computer, investing in more RAM is often a very good way to improve performance (instead of buying a new). What Mr. Schmid has shown us is save your money and don't invest in the faster, more expensive RAM. ...only significantly faster (and significantly more expensive) memory can deliver a tiny performance advantage. ... Quicker timings (low CL values) are favorable, but you shouldn’t fork out considerably more money, as the differences are small. So if you're looking to extend the life of you sluggish PC, try some additional RAM -- but don't waste your money on the more expensive stuff. On a related note, if you are looking for ways to