I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really.

A nice little piece about taking a regular break from email, blogs, cell phones, PDAs, etc.: Mark Bittman, I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really., N.Y. Times, March 2, 2008.

Nathan Zeldes, a principal engineer at Intel (employees there read or send three million e-mail messages daily), is running a couple of experiments, one in which people spend a morning a week at work but offline, another in which people consciously reduce their e-mail output. Though he’s not reporting results, he’s encouraged and he says people are participating.

School officials unite in banning Wikipedia

School officials unite in banning Wikipedia, Seattle Times, Nov. 21, 2007.

Video: RSS in Plain English | Common Craft - In Plain English

I love this video: Video: RSS in Plain English | Common Craft - In Plain English.

Online Users Spending More Time Reading Content

Internet users are spending nearly half their online time visiting content, a 37% increase in share of time from four years ago, according to the Online Publishers Association (OPA). The OPA today announced a four-year analysis of its Internet Activity Index (IAI), a monthly gauge of the time being spent with e-commerce, communications, content and search.

Web Users Now Spend Half Their Time Visiting Content, Far Outpacing Time Spent With Search, Communications And Commerce, Online Publishers Association press release, Aug. 13, 2007.

12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally «

I want to save this link to tips for Facebook users: Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally «

Myspace is the Press's Space

The editor-at-large of the Seattle Times comments about the press use of social networking sites.

Make no mistake, reporters should and will utilize these sites for news-gathering purposes. People who post profiles, pictures and blogs in public places on the Internet are volunteering information about themselves, much of which never would before have been available to strangers, even those in the press.

Mike Fancher, Social-networking site post ethical concerns, Aug. 20, 2006.

NY Times Investigates Pedophiles on the Web

The New York Times has two long articles about the community of pedophiles on the Web. Editors' Note - New York Times, Aug. 20, 2006; Kurt Eichenwald, Dark Corners: With Child Sex Sites on the Run, Nearly Nude Photos Hit the Web, NYT, Aug. 20, 2006; Kurt Eichenwald, Dark Corners: On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach, NYT, Aug. 21, 2006. Interesting, and creepy.

AOL Search Histories Made Public

AOL published on the Web millions of search queries. The users' anonymity was protected by numbers -- sort of. The article looks at one woman whose identity was determined based on her searches and discusses the privacy issues. Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr., A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749, New York Times, Aug. 9, 2006.

Court says FBI should use Google

The FBI didn't want to release documents under FOIA because it wasn't sure whether named parties were alive. The DC Circuit said: geez, try Google. Robert Ambrogi, Court: Government's Got to Google, Law.com, Legal Blog Watch, Aug. 22, 2006.

Putting the White Back in Strunk and White - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design

Great commentary on style in writing and website design: Christina Wodtke, Putting the White Back in Strunk and White, Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design, July 5, 2006.

Turn Web page into a PDF Document

WisBlawg - From the UW Law Library: Turn Web page into a PDF Document This is a cool service. The demo is neat -- but the FAQ says that the number of free renderings is limited, so one can't count on being able to use it forever without subscribing....

Later, a colleague pointed out that Adobe Acrobat does this (not the free reader, but the licensed version). And there are free sites:

http://www.go2pdf.com/product.html

http://www.pdfpdf.com/pdf4free.html