Category: Uncategorized

My good friend Phil’s sister had a second seizure this morning. She had one earlier this year after a car accident — around Easter I believe. She’s in the hospital now, please be in prayer for her.

One of my favorite scenes from the movie Spaceballs is when President Skroob and Lord Dark Helmet are discussing the combination to the air vault surrounding Planet Druidia. What? You haven’t seen it?
Ok better stop what you’re doing and watch the trailer at least.
As the Lord Helmet realizes what the combination is he exclaims, “1-2-3-4-5? That’s the kind of combination an idiot would put on his luggage!”
“Remind me to change the combination on my luggage,” said President Skroob.
Either way I digress.
But The Modern Life is Rubbish weblog lists the 10 most common passwords in the UK – a list that should serve as a good reminder of passwords you want to avoid.
The general ideas behind these passwords are pretty universal. Of the top 10 passowrds, 3 of the are numerical/ordered keyboard inputs (‘123’, ‘123456’, and ‘qwerty’); 4 are popular names (first names or popular sports teams); and 2 are sort of password jokes/gimmes (‘letmein’ and ‘password’).
Thanks to Lifehacker for the tip.

YouTube Inc., the popular online video sharing site, said on Wednesday it hopes to launch a service for wireless devices within a year.
Chad Hurley, YouTube chief executive and co-founder, told an advertising conference that offering video services on mobile phones was a key opportunity for the company.

I’ve been hoping for a Toshiba Giga-beat but the new Microsoft Zune will be released November 14 with a 30 GB player going for $249. That’s a little more high priced than the Creative Labs Zen Jukebox I bought a few years back with 40 GB for $249, but this one does video, pictures and has wi-fi sharing capability.
Awesome. Take a look at what capatalism and competition does for Mp3 players. Apple may finally have some real competition with Microsoft pushing the product.
Click here to watch a review of the product from CNET.

CNET has a new report giving the low down or skinny on solar power.
What used to cost $15 a watt is now $3 a watt and developers are hoping to get the price down to $1.50 a watt within the next $10 years. At that point in time it will be a very competitive alternative to traditional power sources. And hopefully by that point in time I’ll be selling electricity back to the grid with my own solar panels.
Watch the video here.

For those looking to get into journalism, E-Media Tidbits has information on a new study that reveals what skills online newsrooms are looking for.

The Online News Association has released a study of job skills needed in online newsrooms. The research was conducted a little less than a year ago by C. Max Magee during his master’s degree studies at the Medill School of Journalism, where I teach. More than 400 people working in online news, from big companies to blogs, filled out the survey. Managers were asked about skills they were looking for in a job candidate; content producers were asked what skills they use most in their job.
The report is a pretty easy read (10 pages in PDF, about half of which is charts). A few of the key findings:

The most important skills/qualities in online newsrooms are not related to technology or the Web. They are things like attention to detail, news judgment, grammar and style, multitasking skills, communication skills and ability to work under time pressure.

Less than half the producers and managers said reporting original stories was part of the job expectations for online newsrooms.

HTML, Photoshop, use of a content management system and Web usability are the most important tools and technologies for online newsroom workers.