Richard Micheal Thomson

Has Facebook fatigue arrived?

Richard Thomson — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:13:25 +0000

This Blog Post Came From

Some of the social network’s 67 million users are bored. But if growth is slowing among older people, the website is essential for those aged 12 to 34, who find that without Facebook, ‘you’re not in the loop’

Mar 07, 2008 04:30 AM

Chris Sorensen
Business Reporter
Facebook status update: Is it over already?

That’s the buzz in some quarters of the Web after a recent report showed the number of people logging on to the social networking site in the United Kingdom dropped by 400,000 between December and January.

The decline, a first for the Facebook-crazed British, was pounced on by critics who gleefully warned that Facebook fatigue had finally arrived.

Perhaps more ominous, at least by Internet standards, is the recent appearance of a music video on YouTube that blares “I’m getting bored of Facebook,” to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire.”

There’s even a Facebook fatigue group on Facebook that encourages people to log off permanently. (Ironically, the group has still managed to attract 36 members.)

But while Facebook’s meteoric growth may indeed be slowing, including in Canada, experts say it’s far too soon to secure a burial plot beside social networking pioneer Friendster.

“I don’t think they’re dead or falling flat on their face just yet,” said Timothy Hickernell, an analyst with Info-Tech Research Group, who tracks the social networking phenomenon in North America.

In the U.K., for example, Facebook still boasts about 8.5 million users. That translates into about one out of every six people in the country.

Globally, Facebook claims to have a user base of 67 million.

Canada, meanwhile, boasts the third-largest number of Facebook users in the world behind the U.K. and the United States, where Facebook originated. Analysts here estimate one of every four Canadians have Facebook accounts.

Kaan Yigit, an analyst at Solutions Research Group, said his own data shows that Facebook’s growth rate has slowed considerably in Canada over the past few months – a finding he attributes to the suspicion that most Canadians between 12 and 34 are already on Facebook.

“The thing about Facebook fatigue is that it’s primarily an older phenomenon,” Yigit said.

He said people over the age of 40 are more likely to find Facebook time-consuming and rife with potential work-life conflicts.

“I don’t see any fatigue in the younger, 12 to 34 age group, because with those people, it’s really not an option not to have Facebook. Otherwise, you’re not in the loop.”

Mark Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old chief executive officer of Facebook Inc., came up with the idea for the website while attending Harvard University.

Zuckerberg launched the original Facebook from his dorm room in 2004 with an eye to helping students keep track of who was dating whom. As the idea caught on, Facebook membership was gradually expanded to other U.S. colleges and universities and, in 2006, opened to the public at large.

Zuckerberg, incidentally, did not bother finishing his university degree, opting instead to move to Palo Alto, Calif., with some friends to focus on developing Facebook into a business. Facebook currently employs about 500 and generates more than $100 million (U.S.) in annual sales.

Notwithstanding recent concerns about fatigue, Zuckerberg so far has been successful in keeping the site relevant for users by offering an open platform for software developers and, for the most part, maintaining a focus on protecting users’ privacy.

While Facebook’s user base still trails that of News Corp.’s MySpace, which has about 110 million users globally, Facebook’s rapid growth has nevertheless attracted the interest of major players, including Microsoft Corp., which last year paid $240 million for a 1.6 per cent stake in the company.

But even if Facebook’s growth is already beginning to plateau, Info-Tech’s Hickernell says, that doesn’t mean people are losing interest in the site.

“The absolute numbers are not as important as the quality of what’s happening on the site itself.”

What’s happening is that tens of millions of users are spending a considerable chunk of their waking hours sharing photos, sending messages and playing online games with one another. According to data supplied by U.S. firm comScore Inc., the average U.S. Facebook user spent nearly three hours on the site in December.

Still, some bloggers were quick to note that December’s average usage – 169.4 minutes – was slightly less than the average length of time that visitors spent on Facebook in October, which was about 195.6 minutes.

That prompted some to conclude that Facebook users were indeed “getting bored” with the site.

But a spokesperson for comScore cautioned that, because the total number of new U.S. Facebook users also grew by about 2 million during the same period, one might expect to see a slight drop in the average length of time spent on the site. That’s because new users need time to build a network.

With so many eyes on Facebook, Zuckerberg and his investors are betting they can transform the social network into an advertising bonanza in much the same way as Google now rakes in billions through Internet search.

So far though, efforts to “monetize” Facebook proved far more difficult than building the site’s sizable user base.

Zuckerberg was forced to apologize last year to subscribers for the way Facebook implemented an advertising program called Beacon, which tracks data about Facebook users when they are shopping on certain external sites and shares that information with their Facebook friends as well as advertisers.

Such public relations missteps have been chalked up to an inexperienced management team, which could be why Facebook said this week it was hiring a top Google executive, 38-year-old Sheryl Sandberg, to be Facebook’s chief operating officer.

Facebook’s success in making the jump from hot Internet start-up to major corporate player is by no means guaranteed, but many believe that the social networking concept it helped popularize has already emerged as a key function of the Internet alongside email and instant messaging.

“Everything in our research points to this as being long term,” said Yigit of Solutions Research Group.

“Now Facebook is just a name, as is MySpace.

“So will there be another social media platform? Sure.

“But I think the fundamentals of social media – staying connected to friends and family and, in some cases, work life – that’s here to stay.

Please goto

Richard Thomson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:33:50 +0000

Please go to emailforhelp.wordpress.com for more E-mail for Help Help

Installing Leopard

Richard Thomson — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:16:41 +0000

I just bought Mac OS X Leopard and did the upgrade. Before doing so, I backed up my very important files but not my photos. After the upgrade, when the computer boots, it hits the login screen and after a few seconds, the busy beachball replaces the cursor and I can’t log in. Nothing responds to clicking; the password field doesn’t appear; I can still sleep the computer and toggle the CAPS Lock. I’ve tried using the disk repair utility which finds no errors. I’ve tried re-installing using the option to backup systems files and preserve user files and preferences. No change. I was going to use my Tiger disk to try to reinstall Tiger, but I no longer have the option to perserve user files. I intend to to a clean install of Leopard, and failing that a clean install of Tiger, but before I do that, I’d really like to rescue my photos. Do you have any suggestions? I’ve considered booting into Ubuntu using the Live CD which I could acquire from a friend, but I’m not sure how I would access my files once I do so. Thanks!

Michael, Ottawa, ON

You’re running a program that’s incompatible with Leopard – most likely a haxie from Unsanity.The good news is that the archive and install option will work just fine. There’s no need to format your drive or delete your photos. Reboot the Mac while pressing C to boot to the Install disc then choose the Archive and Install option.

Sean’s note: All Macs can be booted into “Target” mode by holding down the T key after you press the power button. After you do so, the FireWire logo will appear on the screen of your computer — after that you can use your Mac as if it was an external hard drive by plugging a FireWire cable into your Mac and then plugging the other end of the computer into another computer with a FireWire port. You should then be able to copy your files from your computer to the other computer.

OxygenOffice Professional

Richard Thomson — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:13:59 +0000

windows

OxygenOffice Professional (originally: OpenOffice.org Premium) is an enhanced version of original OpenOffice.org. OxygenOffice Professional contains more extras like templates, cliparts, samples and fonts.

http://www.download.com/OxygenOffice-Professional/3000-2064_4-10772250.html

Sean’s Shinies

Richard Thomson — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:12:23 +0000

ThinkGeek Annoy-o-tron

Product Webpage

$10
Our friends at ThinkGeek.com definitely have an evil streak in them — the Annoy-o-tron is a small electronic doohickey that’s designed to annoy people by emitting irritating beeps at irregular intervals so that it’s incredibly distracting but also incredibly hard to locate. It’s pretty easy to hide, and comes with a magnet for sticking to a metallic surface. The downside is that if your victim ever finds it — they’re probably going to smash it, and you’ll be out $10. Comes with three different annoying sounds.

Shiny
- drive co-workers crazy
- easy to hide
- irregular beeps – hard to locate
Dull
- if they find it, they’ll break it
- may annoy YOU too

Annoy-o-tron
ThinkGeek.com

RAID De-Mystified

Richard Thomson — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:08:29 +0000

Frank Linhares

Co-Host/Producer: www.DigitalUnderground.tv

With technology advancing at lightening speeds what was once only available to higher end users or server based environment is now available to the average user. RAID is the best way to ensure that you have some form of redundancy for your data. RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 1+0 all of this can be very confusing.

RAID (Redundant array of independent disks, formerly redundant array of inexpensive disks) is in short a failover system for hard drives. A certain number of hard drives (2–4) work together as one logical drive. If anyone of those disks fails at any time none of the data is lost, you simply have to replace the failed drive and the system will automatically rebuild the array.

RAID comes in many flavours.

RAID 0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume). This is essentially a JBOB (Just a bunch of disks) configuration and provides no data redundancy and is not recommended for maintaining data integrity. Essentially you add up the space of two hard drives (or more) and it will show up as a single big drive.

RAID 1 creates an exact copy or mirror of a set of data. This is great for ensuring that data integrity is maintained because if any disk fails the other one immediately takes over and is completely transparent to the user.

Raid 5 uses stripping to both provide performance and redundancy. By using a min of 3 disks you can achieve super fast speeds and complete data redundancy, as long as only one drive dies. If multiple hard drives fail you will lose all your data. You generally get 75% of your total drive capacity in order to maintain speed and redundancy.

Pivot Tables in Excel 2007

Richard Thomson — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:07:42 +0000

Bill Jelen

www.mrexcel.com

Create your first pivot table. Summarize revenue by region and product.
• Insert – Pivot Table.
• Verify the data range. Click OK.
• Note the new interface. You now select fields in the field list and arrange them in four drop zones at the bottom of the field list. This is easier than dragging fields into the worksheet.
• Simply checkmark the Region and Revenue fields.
• When you check the Product field, you need to drag it to the column area.

Change the Pivot Table:
• Add Customers as a new row field.
• Notice the expand and collapse functionality

New Features in Excel 2007
1. Formatting a pivot table has dramatically improved. There are now 24K formats instead of the old 14 formats. Remarkably, most of the new formats look good, while none of the old formats looked good.
2. Filtering by row fields; easy to filter dates to a specific month, revenue to above average, or text fields to those containing a value.

I will post show notes at http://www.mrexcel.com/tip154.shtml

When Drives Stop Spinning…

Richard Thomson — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:06:51 +0000

Steve Gibson

Security Expert. www.grc.com

Solid state mass storage is gradually becoming a reality. Though still prohibitively expensive for most applications, non-rotating solid state mass storage “drives” are coming. But with the adoption of this new and very different technology comes many questions: Do solid state drives have a battery to keep them “alive” a motherboard’s BIOS RAM? Do they need to be defragmented? How secure are they? What sort of data recovery procedures might be necessary?

Leo and I will examine the technology of solid state drives and answer all those questions, and more.

desktops

Richard Thomson — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:04:35 +0000

The good: Best HD-equipped all-in-one; 802.11n and Bluetooth for plenty of wireless flexibility; convenient walk-up controls.

The bad: In light of a recent HP SlimLine system, PC vendor HD format allegiances now look silly; not as fast as an iMac, not as home-theater-capable as the aforementioned HP; $2,400 is a lot for a secondary home entertainment PC; no video out.

The bottom line: It’s outclassed as a computer by Apple’s iMac, and as a home entertainment system by a recent HP, but in the weird niche of high-end, digital-media-friendly all-in-ones (of which we know of one other competitor) the Dell XPS One gets our nod. If you’re not shopping in that narrow market, move on.

Specs: Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33 GHz); RAM installed: 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM; Hard drive: 500 GB Standard

Apple MacBook Air (80GB)

Richard Thomson — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:41:10 +0000

this is from cnet.com

Product summary

The good: Incredibly thin yet surprisingly sturdy; new trackpad gesture controls are very useful; remote optical drive makes living without a built-in drive much easier.

The bad: Very limited connectivity; slower than other MacBooks; SSD hard-drive option is ridiculously expensive and standard hard drive is small; battery is not user replaceable.

The bottom line: The design is revolutionary, but Apple’s MacBook Air will appeal to a smaller, more specialized audience than the standard MacBook, thanks to a stripped-down set of connections and features.

Specs: Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (1.6 GHz); RAM installed: 2 GB DDR II SDRAM; Weight: 3 lbs See full specs >>

Price range: $1,799.99

See all products in the Apple MacBook Air series

hide (x)CNET editors’ review

Reviewed by: Dan Ackerman
Edited by: Matthew Elliott

Reviewed on 1/25/08 Updated on: 2/4/08 Release date: 2/8/08 Editor’s note: We have updated this review (2/4/08) with additional benchmark testing.

Apple’s new laptop, the MacBook Air, may not be the true ultraportable that many had hoped for, but it still easily breaks new ground for small laptops. Mimicking the 13-inch silhouette of the current MacBook line, it’s only 0.76 inch thick at its thickest, and Apple calls it the “world’s thinnest notebook.” Some nitpickers say an obscure Mitsubishi laptop from 1997 was a hair thinner, but two of the smallest current ultraportable laptops, the 11-inch Sony VAIO TZ150 and the 12-inch Toshiba Portege R500, are both slightly thicker, and neither tapers to 0.16 inch as the Air does along its front edge.

As we’ve come to expect from Apple, the design and engineering that went into the MacBook Air is extraordinary, but it’s certainly a much more specialized product than the standard 13-inch MacBook and won’t be as universally useful as that popular system. The biggest compromises, which have been well-documented, come in its connectivity: The MacBook Air finds room for only one USB port and doesn’t include a built-in optical drive, FireWire, Ethernet, or mobile broadband. And like with its other laptops, Apple refuses to outfit the Air with a media-card reader or an expansion card slot. Offsetting its sparse connectivity are genuinely useful new features including new trackpad gesture controls and the ability to wirelessly “borrow” another system’s optical drive.

Choosing the Air over the cheaper, faster standard 13-inch MacBook, or the comparably priced MacBook Pro, will depend on your needs. Travelers who want minimum weight, maximum screen real estate, and who live their lives via Wi-Fi hot spots, with little need for wired connectivity, will find the $1,799 starting price a reasonable investment for owning one of the world’s premier bits of high-tech eye candy. And while the MacBook Air’s specs are inferior to those found on the cheaper MacBook, they compare more favorably when you look at other ultraportables, where a price premium is always exacted. For instance, both the Sony VAIO TZ150 and Toshiba Portege R500 cost hundreds more than the MacBook Air and feature slower CPUs and half the RAM as the Air.

Price as reviewed	$1,799
Processor	1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory	2GB, 667MHz DDR2
Hard drive	80GB 4,200rpm
Graphics	Intel GMA X3100 (integrated)
Operating System	Apple Mac OS X Leopard
Dimensions (WDH)	14.2 x 10.5 x 1.9 inches
Screen size (diagonal)	13.3 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter	3.0 / 3.4 pounds
Category	Thin and light

Although it shares a desktop footprint with the standard black and white MacBooks, the first thing you notice about the Air is its aluminum chassis–similar to the one found on the MacBook Pro, and much more fingerprint resistant than the standard MacBooks. Picking it up, the MacBook Air feels a little heavier than you would expect from looking at it, even though it’s only 3 pounds. At the same time, it feels very sturdy and solid, thanks in part to the aluminum construction, and we’d have no qualms about carting it around with us all day. By way of comparison, the VAIO TZ150 features an 11.1-inch screen and weighs only 0.3 pound lighter than the Air, and the Portege R500 is 0.6 pound lighter than the Air with a 12.1-inch screen.

The MacBook Air includes an iSight camera and mic, and an LED-backlit display that works with an ambient light sensor to adjust the screen brightness in response to the light in the room. The keyboard–the same full-size version found in other MacBooks–has backlit keys that are also controlled by the ambient light sensor, although we had to adjust the room lighting a good deal to see any difference.

The revamped trackpad is large, measuring nearly 5 inches diagonally, and it works with new multitouch gestures. Other MacBooks let you do things like use two fingers to scroll through documents–this one lets you use three fingers to go forward and back in your Web browser history, and use your thumb and forefinger to zoom in and out of documents and photos–much like on the iPhone. The three-finger forward/back gesture was immediately useful, and we’re already missing it when using other laptops. Apple tells us these new gestures won’t be available on older MacBooks as a firmware upgrade, as the hardware behind the new trackpad is different.

Another noteworthy new feature is the remote disc function. Since the Air lacks an optical drive, you can instead remotely use the optical drives of other systems, PC or Mac, as long as they’re on the same network. The setup was a little cumbersome for the “host” PC–requiring us to insert the OS X disc that came with the Air, run a small setup program, and then find and turn on “CD and DVD sharing” in the Windows control panel (the documentation could have been a little clearer on what you need to do to on the Windows side). Once we set it up, however, it worked like a charm. You won’t be able to stream DVD movies or music CDs via remote disc, but it’s fine for getting files and installing apps. A matching external USB DVD burner is available from Apple for $99, but any USB DVD drive should work.

The display offers the same 1,280×800 native resolution as the standard 13-inch MacBook, but the Air’s LED-backlit screen means its lid is thinner with an image that was somewhat brighter, at least with both systems set to max brightness.

	Apple MacBook Air	Average for thin and light category
Video	VGA, DVI out (via included dongle)	VGA-out, S-video
Audio	Mono speaker, headphone jack	Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks
Data	1 USB	4 USB 2.0, mini-FireWire, mulitformat memory card reader
Expansion	None	PC Card or Express card slot
Networking	802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth	Modem, Ethernet, 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi, optional Bluetooth
Optical drive	None, optional USB DVD burner	DVD burner

The real key to finding out whether the MacBook Air is right for you lies in its stripped-down set of ports and connections. Those who regularly use more than one USB device, or need FireWire, an SD card slot, or an Express card slot will find the single USB jack too limiting. Likewise, we often say the telephone modem jacks and S-Video outputs on most laptops are a waste of space, but the MacBook Air goes even further, removing the Ethernet jack (a USB-to-Ethernet adaptor will run you $29) and offloading video output to a pair of included dongles (one VGA, one DVI).

If you live on Wi-Fi hot spots, use Bluetooth for your external mouse, and only need a USB port to occasionally sync and charge your iPod or iPhone, these limitations may not be a deal-breaker for you. While most hardware vendors offer a choice of mobile broadband options, Apple continues to offer none, which is disappointing for a system so clearly meant for life away from home and office. Without an Express card slot, your only option would be a USB mobile broadband modem, but with the sole USB jack under a tiny flap on the right side of the system with limited clearance, you may need a small USB extension cable to get a bulky USB mobile broadband modem connected (similar to the problems people had with the iPhone’s recessed headphone jack).

While the 80GB hard drive included in the base $1,799 model may be smaller than you’re used to, the only other option is a 64GB solid state hard drive. With no moving parts, and advantages in heat, power consumption, and reliability, SSD hard drives are certainly the way of the future. The future may have to wait a few years for prices to come down; however, swapping the 80GB platter drive for the 64GB SSD drive is a whopping $999 upgrade. The only other internal hardware option is a CPU uptick, from 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz for $300. With the upgraded CPU and SSD drive, the $1,799 MacBook Air suddenly becomes a $3,098 laptop.

We are pleased to see that the MacBook Air comes standard with 2GB of RAM, but with a processor that runs at a much slower clockspeed than the standard MacBook (2.0GHz or 2.2GHz), plus a 4,200rpm 1.8-inch hard drive (as opposed to the standard 5,400rpm), it’s not surprising that the MacBook Air is not as fast a performer as the $1,649 MacBook we reviewed in December 2007. Do note that the baseline $1,099 MacBook features a slower processor and half the memory of our MacBook review unit.

And as we often point out, any modern dual-core CPU is going to be more than adequate for Web surfing, multimedia playback, and productivity tasks, and we were able to surf the Web, play videos, and work on a document at the same time with absolutely no slowdown or stuttering. We’re currently conducting additional benchmark tests and will update this review with new results as they’re available.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the MacBook Air is the lack of a user-replaceable battery. While most laptops will be obsolete before their batteries wear out, we are sensitive to the desire to occasionally carry an extra battery for extended field use. We’re still conducting our standard DVD battery drain test on the system, and will report those scores shortly, but in anecdotal testing, the Air lasted for nearly 4 hours of mixed use, including video playback, software installation, Web surfing, and productivity tasks. That’s reasonably close to Apple’s 5-hour claims, but may not be enough for a full day of off-site use.

We’re still not fans of Apple’s nearly obligatory extended warranty upsell (so much so that we’ve simply copied this complaint from our last MacBook review). The default warranty for the MacBook is one year of coverage for parts and labor, but toll-free telephone support is limited to a mere 90 days–well short of what you’d typically find on the PC side–unless you purchase the $249 AppleCare Protection Plan, which extends phone support and repair coverage to three years.

Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo 13.3inch – 2.2GHz

545

Apple MacBook Air

960

Toshiba Portege R500

1748

Sony Vaio TZ150

2142

Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo 13.3inch – 2.2GHz

144

Apple MacBook Air

274

Toshiba Portege R500

547

Sony Vaio TZ150

1208

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo 13.3inch – 2.2GHz

184

Apple MacBook Air

251

Toshiba Portege R500

347

Sony Vaio TZ150

415

DVD battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo 13.3inch – 2.2GHz

270

Sony Vaio TZ150

247

Apple MacBook Air

243

Toshiba Portege R500

228

Find out more about how we test laptops.

System configurations:

Apple MacBook Air – 1.6GHz
OS X 10.5.1 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 144MB Intel GMA X3100; 80GB Samsung 4,200rpm

Sony Vaio TZ150
Windows Vista Business Edition; 1.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage U7500; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 64MB Mobile Intel 945GM Express; 100GB Toshiba 4,200rpm

Toshiba Portege R500
Windows Vista Business Edition; 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage U7600; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Mobile Intel 945GM Express; 120GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo – 2.2GHz / 13.3 inch
OS X 10.5.1 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 144MB Intel GMA X3100; 160GB Fujitsu 5,400rpm

To Get more Informtion Please Go to this link

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/apple-macbook-air-80gb/4505-3121_7-32818756.html?tag=promo1