Desktop Wallpapers

It’s the new year and it is time to clean up, start fresh and . . . update your computer’s wallpaper!  Check out Vladstudio.com. At no charge, you can download hundreds of wallpaper backgrounds — even those for 2 and 3 monitors and for mobile phones.

You can also download “wallpaper clocks,” which will refresh every minute to give you the updated date and time; requires software installation.

There is an option for registration (3 months for $10, 12 months for $20, lifetime for $30). In return you will be able to download high-quality, signature-free images, download exclusive content, and support the artist.

Best of the Decade from PC Mag

In addition to the normal “end of the year” articles and predictions for next year, I’m also starting to see “end of the decade” articles — like this one from PC Magazine. What were/are the best products, services, and technologies of the past decade?  Here’s their take:

1. Google
2. Apple iPhone
3. Apple iPod
4. Facebook
5. Wi-fi
6. Broadband Internet access
7. TiVo
8. GPS
9. Windows XP
10. Apple iMac

Pretty amazing to think back just 10 years to a time when these technologies were not around. They’ve certainly made a huge difference.

Quick and Easy OSS

And now I can type whatever I want in the middle.

Another Word of the Year

This year’s “word of the year” for 2009?  The New Oxford American Dictionary says “unfriend:”

To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

Although I understand how popular this word is, it’s a little depressing . . .

[from CNN]

Firefox Turns 5

The Mozilla Firefox browser is ready for school!  It turned 5 on November 9th.  Stop by to wish it a happy birthday!

Free Security Software As Good As Commercial

In the June 2009 issue of Consumer Reports, they compared the best software for protection against viruses, malware, and spam.  Interestingly, in addition to comparing commercial suites, they also looked at freely available software and came up with a “suite” of programs that could protect you as well as most of the commercial products.

The three recommended commercial suites are:

• Eset Smart Security – $90; $62 per year
• McAfee Internet Security – $70; $70 per year
• Symantec Norton Internet Security – $60; $50 per year

The three freely available programs used to create a suite are:

• Avira Antivir Personal
• Microsoft Windows Defender
• Spamfighter Standard

Although using the software is economical, it may not be efficient.  With separate programs, installation, maintenance, and updating can take three times as long. Whether it works for you depends primarily on your budget and resources.

Tweets from Outer Space

Twitter is now “out of this world.”  On May 12, 2009, one of the space shuttle astronauts sent the first tweet from space:

From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!

Mike Massimino had been twittering for about a month about his training.  So, a tweet from space was the next step!

[from ComputerWorld]

Texas Digitization Grants Announced

The Texas State Library and Archives Commission has funded 6 TexTreasures grants. This grant focuses on making special and unique collections of photographs, oral history interviews and historical documents more accessible through digitization.  The winners are:

• Houston Public Library:  preserve and make the videorecordings of significant Houstonians available on the web
• Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin:  create a research tool, called Bexar Archives Online, which joins digital images of the original Spanish documents with the corresponding English-language translations
• Dallas Public Library:  use the photographic records produced by Marion Butts, an African-American photographer and editor of the Dallas Express, as well as other primary source materials such as maps, Negro city directories and oral histories to develop a series of online Texas-focused, TEKS-based lesson plans targeting seventh grade students
• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin:  digitize and provide access to a unique collection of photographs of Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson
• Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin:  preserve and digitize a collection of glass plate negatives depicting local businesses owners and employees in Corpus Christi
• University of Texas at Arlington Library:  digitize and describe 13 oral history interviews from notable Tejanos and Tejanas from across Texas conducted in 1992-2003

This grant is a great resource for Texas libraries looking for funding for digitization projects.

digitization

of special and unique collections of photographs, oral history interviews and other

historical documents, making them more accessible to all.

Phishing Quiz

Want to see how good you are in spotting phishing schemes?  SonicWall created a quiz to test your knowledge — the SonicWall Phishing and Spam IQ Quiz.  Good news?  Test-takers are better able to spot a phishing scam now (86%) versus 2004 (69%).

I got 8 of 10 correct; how’d you do?

[from CNET News]

Twitter Search In Plain English from Common Craft

Common Craft has posted another great video on how to use some of the more popular web 2.0 services — this one on Twitter Search.