Got the Election Blues? Trying to Cope?

October 29, 2008 By Leave a Comment
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There are six days left in the longest U.S. election campaign ever. We’ve been through primaries, caucuses, conventions, and one nasty Fall campaign.  By now you probably like one candidate very much and possibly can’t stand the other. How does one cope?  The Huffington Report highlights Election Anxiety: 5 Ways to Cope. Here’s three of them:
  • Step away from the computer, TV and newspaper, and avoid vicious political arguments, says Gretchen Rubin, New York-based author of the forthcoming "Happiness Project."
  • Take care of yourself by getting enough sleep, eating right and exercising. You'll feel better while recognizing those things you can control, says Wilmette, Ill.-based psychologist Nancy Molitor.
  • When all else fails, change the subject, says Lisa Miller, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University Teachers College in New York. "Turn to those things which are more eternal and more important, such as nature and family," she says. "It's a great time to go into nature. Go camping."
When you get back from camping, read the Enquiringmimes presidential endorsement this weekend! See all five on TheHuffingtonPost
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Big Boy Competition for Google Docs and Zoho Office Coming from Microsoft

October 28, 2008 By 3 Comments
mslive-logo Microsoft announced today that the next release of Microsoft Office will include online versions of the main components of Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.  The online versions will be “lightweight versions”, that is, not contain all of the features of the desktop products. Good for consumers, Microsoft is going to support the Firefox and Safari browsers in addition to Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer. The online applications will be available to end-users through the Microsoft Office Live service which has ad-funded and subscription options. While a survey done on ReadWriteWeb earlier this year showed that the majority of that site’s visitors still used the Microsoft Office desktop application for their word processing and spreadsheet needs, there has been growing online competition to the behemoth office suite from the free online suites by Google and Zoho. We’ve written about the Google and Zoho offerings repeatedly.  It will be interesting to see whether Microsoft will be able to compete online, in the arena they have owned for so long, with the more nimble Zoho and Google. via ReadWriteWeb
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Now’s the Time to Follow the U.S. Election

October 22, 2008 By Leave a Comment
whitehouse_photoThe U.S. General Election is soon upon us, and if you haven't been following it, now's a great time to start.  Whether it’s right or wrong, the occupant of the White House does much to influence the quality of life around the world. Depending on your interest level here are some online resources beyond the news sites to keep you informed. Since the real answer as to who wins a U.S. Presidential Election is who gets the most electoral votes (ask Al Gore about that), not who gets the popular vote – many of the resources are variations on U.S. maps colored by which candidate appears to be getting the winner-take-all electoral votes for that state. Your choices are fivethirtyeight.com, www.electoral-vote.com, realclearpolitics.com, and pollster.com.  They are all pretty similar and at least this year are fairly consistent (see below).  Our favorite is pollster.com because we like access to the updated poll information and news that is included on their homepage. Whether you love or hate Barrack Obama and just want to know how’s he doing – go for the very simple display of howisobamadoing.com which literally answers the question  -- how’s he doing and how long before this is all over. hod-screen A useful website just released by Google gives you basic polling information about your own situation.  You get this by supplying your address to a special version of Google Maps.  Information like the location of your polling place and the last date absentee ballots need to be received by is provided.  (Can you believe it?  I vote in a bowling alley)google-locations To see today’s versions of the electoral maps, follow the jump. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="370" caption="fivethirtyeight.com"]538-screen[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="495" caption="electoral-vote.com"]electoral-vote-screen[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="495" caption="realclearvote.com"]realclear-sceen[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="495" caption="pollster.com"]pollster-screen[/caption]
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See I Told You — Web Surfing is Good for You

October 15, 2008 By 1 Comment
[caption id="" width="218" caption="Areas of the brain stimulated by Web Searching"]brain[/caption] A recent University of California at Los Angeles study provides some good news both about withstanding the results of aging on our brains and using the Web. The researchers found that for middle-aged and older people, at least, searching the web stimulated centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning and may even help counteract the age-related changes that cause our brains to slow down. This study is consistent with the concept that we've writing about before that playing certain mental computer games will increase brain activity and keep the brain functioning. So it would seem that just doing our day-to-day work if it involves the use of the Web is good for our mental stimulation and our brains. From the UCLA press release:
For the study, the UCLA team worked with 24 neurologically normal research volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76. Half of the study participants had experience searching the Internet, while the other half had no experience. Age, educational level and gender were similar between the two groups. Study participants performed Web searches and book-reading tasks while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, which recorded the subtle brain-circuitry changes experienced during these activities. This type of scan tracks the intensity of cell responses in the brain by measuring the level of cerebral blood flow during cognitive tasks. All study participants showed significant brain activity during the book-reading task, demonstrating use of the regions controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities, which are located in the temporal, parietal, occipital and other areas of the brain. Internet searches revealed a major difference between the two groups. While all participants demonstrated the same brain activity that was seen during the book-reading task, the Web-savvy group also registered activity in the frontal, temporal and cingulate areas of the brain, which control decision-making and complex reasoning. "Our most striking finding was that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading — but only in those with prior Internet experience," said Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.
The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Read the UCLA Press Release and the BBC Story.
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Does Beta really mean Beta? Maybe not at Google

September 25, 2008 By 4 Comments

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Coming from a software background, to me, the definitions of the development stages of pre-release software are significant and not to be trifled with. To me, alpha tests mean really beware – bleeding edge software – we guarantee it’s going to break on you. Beta software means – still buggy watch out – we’re going to let our users find our bugs for us.

Here at the old Enquiring Mimes factory we tend to look at plenty of software that is described as beta, and we frequently recommend software and sites that are still theoretically in beta – but always with the caveat reminding you to be careful of possible glitches.

What we’re finding more often is that software and web sites never leave the beta stage and the publishers even in many cases may start charging for use during beta.  This leads us to believe maybe a new definition of beta has arrived.

As I’ve mentioned before one of the most puzzling still-in-beta sites is Google’s Gmail which was launched in 2004 and has been used extensively by (me included) zillions of users who seldom encounter any semblance of a bug (spam yes, bug no).

This mystery is explained, at least a bit, in an article on NetworkWorld’s Buzzblog where a Google spokesman explains why a recent study by Pingdom finds that 45% of Google’s products still wear the beta tag.  They tell it like this

"We have very high internal metrics our consumer products have to meet before coming out of beta. Our teams continue to work to improve these products and provide users with an even better experience.  We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web, where people expect continual improvements in a product.  On the Web, you don't have to wait for the next version to be on the shelf or an update to become available.  Improvements are rolled out as they're developed.  Rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we're moving to a world of regular updates and constant feature refinement where applications live in the cloud."

If you break it down, ths seems to mean that the new definition of beta means more changes/features are coming.

Microsoft adds new features to Outlook every couple of years in a new release.  Google can add new features and adapt to changing market conditions -- daily or monthly by adding or changing Gmail.  If that's true maybe beta is a good thing.

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