Tuesday, December 15, 2009

iPhone and Snow Leopard Server's failure to communicate (Ars Technica)

With Apple pushing the iPhone as a full-featured smartphone for the enterprise, you'd think it would work perfectly with its own enterprise-focused Snow Leopard Server. You'd be wrong. The iPhone even functions better in an Exchange environment.

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iPhone and Snow Leopard Server's failure to communicate (Ars Technica)

With Apple pushing the iPhone as a full-featured smartphone for the enterprise, you'd think it would work perfectly with its own enterprise-focused Snow Leopard Server. You'd be wrong. The iPhone even functions better in an Exchange environment.

Read more...

Apple walks away with six AdWeek accolades for past decade (Ars Technica)

Apple cleaned up in AdWeekMedia's round-up of some of the best advertising and branding work of the last decade, taking five awards and sharing one with Nike.

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Microsoft investigating B(lack)SODs after Windows patches (Ars Technica)

Microsoft's latest Patch Tuesday has resulted in some PCs locking up and displaying a Black Screen of Death (BSOD).

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Friday, November 20, 2009

Microsoft: Azure to go live in January, for pay in February (Ars Technica)

The Azure platform will have its first paying customers in February 2010, marking Microsoft's entry into the commercial cloud computing market.

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Friday, November 13, 2009

Apple (finally) coming to Philly (Metro)

After years of rumors and wishful thinking, fans of Apple products will soon get one of the trademark, futuristic all-glass exterior shops in Center City.

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SPDY: Google wants to speed up the web by ditching HTTP (Ars Technica)

Google isn't content with providing us with fast search and a fast browser: we need a faster protocol between servers and browsers. The search giant would like us to start forgetting about HTTP:// and learn to love SPDY://. Ars Technica takes a look at the proposal as well as its strengths and weaknesses.

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Monday, November 2, 2009

P2P users may be music industry's best friend after all (Ars Technica)

A new study suggests that P2P users still buy plenty of music—and that "unofficial" sources of music might actually encourage more purchases.

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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Google Forces Web Standards Issue Using Sexy Buttons (TechCrunch)

Google made a very minor but significant change to their search homepage earlier this week. A few Chrome and Safari users may have noticed that the search buttons now have a certain zing to them, a new and pretty look, with slightly rounded corners, a border around them and a cool looking gradient.

Reead more...

Monday, October 5, 2009

Report: Thousands of Hotmail passwords posted (Ars Technica)

Thousands of password details for Windows Live Hotmail accounts may have been posted online for everyone to see.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Google Wave to be released to 100,000 testers Wednesday (CNN.com)

Google Wave, a product that promises to revolutionize online communication, will go out to about 100,000 beta testers Wednesday. The Web application from Google Inc. combines elements of e-mail, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of Internet communication called a "hosted conversation," or a "wave."

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US 'to loosen' grip on internet (BBC)

The US government is expected to relax control over how the internet is run when it signs an accord with net regulator Icann on Wednesday.

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Not an obscene racist after all: 4 flagged for Facebook fake (Ars Technica)

Four teenagers are the targets of a lawsuit alleging that they created a fake Facebook profile to aggressively target another teen. The profile contained obscene, racist, and otherwise questionable remarks, but was apparently authentic enough to convince numerous friends and even college recruiters that this kid was not one to get involved with.

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Opinion: The coming tablet wars (CrunchGear)

Think back to 2001. A young man got up on stage one afternoon in November to announce something new and amazing: an operating system dedicated to tablet computing. That young man was Microsoft’s Bill Gates and that operating system was Windows XP Tablet PC edition.

Chances are that is the first and last time you saw a working tablet computer.

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Friday, September 25, 2009

Call for Speakers - BDPA Philadelphia Professional Development Program Series

The Call for Speakers is open for the 2010 BDPA Philadelphia Professional Development Program Series.

BDPA Philadelphia is seeking presenters willing to share their knowledge and expertise with our membership at our monthly professional development programs.

BDPA Philadelphia members are IT professionals at all levels, from college students and entry level technologists to senior managers and corporate executives. seeking to build IT skills, define career directions, and climb the IT corporate ladder. The monthly programs provide our members an opportunity for challenging learning experiences in Leadership, Professional Development, Project Management, Business Analysis, Technical Development, Networking, Hardware, Software, Leadership, and IT Entrepreneurship.

Speakers are asked to provide a 45-minute presentation with an additional ten minutes of Q&A. Presentations should provide attendees with educational value and refrain from promoting a specific business, product, or service.

If you are interested in participating as a webinar speaker, please submit the following:
  • The title of your presentation
  • A paragraph describing your topic and your experience in the area of your topic
  • Two or three specific points that attendees will get from the presentation that are applicable to their professional development
  • A photo (optional)
  • Contact information, including an email address, phone number, and mailing address.

Your proposal will be acknowledged upon receipt and evaluated along with others that are submitted. You will be notified of available meeting dates. Once your presentation is accepted you will receive a letter of confirmation and any information necessary for preparation. We will also publicize your presentation to our membership.

This is an opportunity to expose your professional expertise or research to co-workers, potential clients, or potential employers. It also lets you hone your presentation skills and articulate the work you do. Seasoned speakers as well as first-time public speakers are encouraged to present. You will receive a BDPA appreciation certificate at your presentation and have the opportunity for continued dialog with attendees.

To submit your proposal or for additional information please email Byron C. Mayes, Vice President of Professional Development at vpprofdev@bdpaphilly.org.

"WhiteFi" could be worth $15bn a year—and fix climate change (Ars Technica)

Running WiFi protocols in the TV white spaces could generate up to $15 billion in value in the US alone, says a consultancy. But who knew it could also cut water use on farms?

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Horrifically bad software demo becomes performance art (Ars Technica)

Live software demos often go awry, but what happens when the mayhem is intentional? The software demo becomes a bit of performance art foisted on an unsuspecting college classroom as students watch a man and his software both implode before them.

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

New Google Plug-in Embeds Chrome Inside Internet Explorer (Webmonkey)

Want to start using all the websites that take advantage of the latest technologies in HTML5, but can’t move away from Internet Explorer? Google has your back.

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Friday, September 18, 2009

Opinion: The unspoken truth about managing geeks (Computerworld)

"I can sum up every article, book and column written by notable management experts about managing IT in two sentences: 'Geeks are smart and creative, but they are also egocentric, antisocial, managerially and business-challenged, victim-prone, bullheaded and credit-whoring. To overcome these intractable behavioral deficits you must do X, Y and Z.'"

Read more...

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Palm Announces the Pixi (PC World)

It's been the subject of rumors for months-including ones that said it was on hold-and now it's official: The second WebOS phone from Palm is on its way.

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Monday, August 31, 2009

Microsoft Lists Top 10 Windows Malware (PCMag.com - Security Watch)

Is it just me or is it tad ironic that Microsoft is now providing a top 10 threats list based on its own malware removable tool? Think about it: those are 10 threats for its Windows OS. Well, at least they're also removing the malware. Check out the list to learn what scary mites are trying to get at your PC.

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Lost or stolen Kindle? Amazon says you're out of luck (Ars Technica)

As the Kindle takes off in popularity, losses and thefts will as well. After hearing one reader's tale of woe after losing his Kindle, Ars Technica discovered that there are not that many options for recovery, though there could be if Amazon really wanted to offer them.

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Friday, August 28, 2009

A Leap Forward With Snow Leopard (NYTimes.com)

"[T]he big story here isn’t really Snow Leopard. It’s the radical concept of a software update that’s smaller, faster and better — instead of bigger, slower and more bloated. May the rest of the industry take the hint."

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GSM, black boxes, and iPhones: the tech that drives Zipcar (Ars Technica)

Zipcar is more than a simple car sharing service—it's a technological explosion that combines the Internet, wireless networks, mysterious black boxes, and now mobile phones to keep the wheels turning. Ars Technica spoke with Zipcar to learn more about the technology behind the system, how the company's iPhone app works, and more.

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Examine the patent that made selling Microsoft Word a crime (ZDNet.com)

What does it mean now that Microsoft is barred from selling any Microsoft Word products that can open XML files (.xml, .docx and .docm), according to a U.S. District Court ruling? For now, not much. Microsoft will appeal and the legal proceedings will continue. But examining the patent, awarded in 1998, may be instructive.

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

FCC enforcing imaginary laws in P2P ruling, says Comcast (Ars Technica)

Comcast comes out swinging in court against the spanking it got from the FCC for BitTorrent throttling. Ars Technica unpacks the ISP's legal challenge.

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Stay Up-to-date on the Best Versions of Chrome for Mac (TechCrunch)

The folks at TechCrunch have made an application that allows you to easily ensure that you have the latest Chromium builds for Mac at all times.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009

Microsoft Word Sales Banned In 60 Days (InformationWeek)

A Judge on Tuesday ordered Microsoft to stop selling its popular Word document creation application in the United States in 60 days, after finding that the software contains technology that violates a patent held by a third party. Microsoft plans to appeal; the court also said the software maker must pay $240 million in patent-violation damages.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Case Against Apple Is Just As Much A Case For Apple (TechCrunch)

Many of the problems the blogosphere is talking about simply aren’t seen as problems by Apple, and more importantly, by the public at large. Until that changes, there is no real risk to Apple.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Google Voice Coming To iPhone As Web App (InformationWeek)

Apple iPhone users may soon have an official way to use Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Voice, as Google is working on a Web application for its calling service, according to an unconfirmed report on David Pogue's blog on The New York Times's Web site. [Actually, you can use it now if you have a GV account--bcm]

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Microsoft stuns Linux world, submits source code for kernel (Network World)

In an historic move, Microsoft Monday submitted driver source code for inclusion in the Linux kernel under a GPLv2 license.

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Blackberry Software For Mac Coming In September (BusinessWeek)

The Blackberry officially speaks Mac. Research In Motion says it will release its first official Blackberry Desktop Software for Mac in September.

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Monday, July 20, 2009

How to Behave: New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans (WIRED)

The editors at Wired asked a group of social scientists to develp "a scientific approach to 21st-century predicaments." Brad Pitt demonstrates in photos.

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Monday, July 13, 2009

Microsoft takes on Google as Office moves to Web (Reuters)

Microsoft Corp will release three versions of its dominant Office software that users can access over the Web, catching up with products that rival Google Inc launched three years ago.

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Thursday, July 9, 2009

Chrome OS: What Is Google's Goal? (BusinessWeek)

Google's announcement that it is working on a lightweight, Web-based operating system for netbooks, to be called Chrome OS, is a surprise only in its timing.

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Facebook's Upcoming Privacy Changes: What You Need to Know (CIO.com)

Think you've already ensured privacy on your Facebook posts? The social networking service is changing the privacy rules again. Here's a guide to the new settings and options.

Read more...

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Sources: Google OS lives (and it's coming to a netbook near you) (Ars Technica)

Ars Technica has learned from two separate sources, one inside the company and one outside of it, that Google is preparing to deliver a Chrome-focused operating system that targets netbooks.

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Michael Jackson memorial draws crowds online (CNN.com)

Millions of people around the world watched coverage of Jackson's memorial service on the Web, although the event appeared to fall well short of online viewership records.

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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Gallery: Low-Tech Computers From Prehistory to Today (Wired.com)

People have built calculating and computing tools for thousands of years. Let’s take a look at a few of the non-electronic predecessors to today’s silicon circuits.

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Friday, June 26, 2009

Michael Jackson Had a Patent (Discovery News)

The news of Michael Jackson's death yesterday caught everyone by surprise. In the flurry of news afterward comes another surprise: Jackson had a patent. The King of Pop was apparently a Prince of Tech.

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Slide Shot: Cracking Open the Apple iPhone 3G S (TechRepublic)

The latest, greatest Apple iPhone has been released and the folks at TechRepublic just had to crack it open. With the help of their friends over at iFixit, take a look at what makes the Apple iPhone 3G S tick.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Warning: Windows 7 beta bi-hourly shutdowns start next week (Ars Technica)

The Windows 7 beta will begin bi-hourly shutdowns on July 1, 2009 and will expire on August 1, 2009.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Google dangles Outlook sync in front of Exchange-using IT (Ars Technica)

If your business is looking to trade running its own Exchange server for Google Apps cloud services, Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook may ease the migration pain for those users that are more comfortable with Microsoft's Outlook client.

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Monday, June 8, 2009

Opera bests iPhone's mobile browser market share—or does it? (Ars Technica)

The latest news in mobile browsers suggests that Opera has surpassed the iPhone as the current king in the mobile browser space. But sometimes there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.

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Friday, June 5, 2009

Thursday, June 4, 2009

GM to Cisco: A momentous passing of the torch (Network World)

It's official: General Motors is off the Dow, and Cisco takes its place. The transition is more than just a dry Wall Street accounting maneuver: From a cultural, economic, and societal perspective, it marks a seismic shift in how our world is organized.

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Dos and don'ts for mixing work, social networks (CNN.com)

Lindsay Spencer was two years out of college and facing one of the biggest decisions of her young life: what to do with those Facebook friend requests from people she met through her job.

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

IT People Are From Mars: Why Your Marriages Are From Hell or Headed There (CIO.com)

CIO asked you, IT pros: What do you wish your spouse knew about your job? Surprise: Your answers spoke more about your communication mistakes at home than they did about your spouse's shortcomings. Read on for advice on how to fix this before a nasty crash.

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Opinion: The RIAA Has Got to Stop (PC Magazine)

The RIAA, whose officers are generally reviled, continues to do a disservice to its members—if research data is correct.

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Palm Announces Pre Price, Ship Date (PC Magazine)

The Palm Pre will be available on Saturday, June 6 for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and $100 mail-in rebate, Sprint and Palm announced today. The groundbreaking WebOS phone will appear that day at a range of retailers: Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Wal-Mart and online, which bodes well for Sprint having a lot of Pres available to sell.

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Web attack that poisons Google results gets worse (Network World)

A new attack that peppers Google search results with malicious links is spreading quickly, the U.S. Computer Emergence Response Team warned on Monday.

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Reinventing Star Trek's VFX (Film & Video)

Director J.J. Abrams demanded, and Industrial Light & Magic delivered -- more story from every shot of the summer blockbuster, Star Trek. Amimation director, Paul Kavanagh reveals how.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Hands on: Windows XP Mode works -- but is it worth the trouble? (Reuters)

Windows XP Mode, one of the most hyped features of Windows 7, was designed to integrate XP with Windows 7 so that you can run XP applications from directly inside Windows 7. Businesses that need to run XP applications but want to upgrade to Windows 7 may want to use it, but for many consumers the problems with Windows XP Mode will likely outweigh its benefits.

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Friday, May 8, 2009

Botnet master hits the kill switch, takes down 100,000 PCs (Ars Technica)

Those behind the Zeus botnet recently decided to press the big red button, bluescreening 100,000 computers around the globe. Security experts aren't sure why yet, although they have some ideas.

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Microsoft, Intel goof up Windows 7's "XP Mode" (Ars Technica)

When news of Windows 7's "XP Mode" came out recently, there was much rejoicing among those who were concerned about legacy support in Microsoft's upcoming OS. But now we learn that Microsoft and Intel have contrived to make XPM unavailable to many Intel users.

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Nokia's Gigantic App Store (Forbes.com)

Nokia is preparing an app store second in size only to Apple's later this month. Though Apple, Research In Motion and Google already offer similar services, Nokia's launch promises to be the biggest app store opening yet and could re-shape the mobile applications market.

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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Citrix embraces Apple with iPhone virtualization, app store for corporate IT (Network World)

Citrix is bringing virtual desktops and applications to the iPhone and has revamped its server virtualization platform with new features that make it more competitive against VMware.

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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Apple plots course for middle of mobile (CNET News)

For years, the PC industry has longed to make a compelling device that's bigger than a phone but smaller than a notebook. They have failed. Can Apple pull it off? Read this blog post by Tom Krazit on Apple.

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Monday, April 27, 2009

Facebook plans to give developers more access: source (Reuters)

Internet social media company Facebook plans to allow outside developers access to core parts of the website so they can build new services, a person familiar with the situation said.

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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Slideshow: 10 Gadgets With Too Many Stupid Features (Gizmodo: TGIF)

There is nothing wrong with offering a feature-packed product, but it is possible to take things a little too far. The following gadgets definitely illustrate convergence at its worst.

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Friday, March 27, 2009

The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500 (Gary Hamel’s Management 2.0 - WSJ)

The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the Web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian bureaucracy.

If your company hopes to attract the most creative and energetic members of Gen F, it will need to understand these Internet-derived expectations, and then reinvent its management practices accordingly.

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Friday, February 6, 2009

F-Script: Command-line Cocoa shell goes beta (Ars Technica)

Fun Script, also known as F-Script, is a command-line based interactive Cocoa shell. The open source system offers a new way to create and interact with Cocoa objects using a simple scripting language and a Smalltalk-like development environment. Recently, the F-Script shell went beta, providing a new way to interactively build Cocoa. Ars Technica takes a look.

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Slideshow: 11 Geek Archetypes in Film and Television (Baseline)

Geeks have had a central role in popular culture since Homer rapped about Odysseus. Modern media is not always so kind. Who are these people, and what does it mean? Baseline explores.

View slide show...

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Thompson top choice for commerce secretary: sources (Reuters)

Software company president John W. Thompson is President Barack Obama's top choice for commerce secretary, senior Democratic sources said on Tuesday.

Hope someone has made him a BDPA member.

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Sunday, January 25, 2009

'Flying Car' Goes to Market (Discovery News)

A Boston-area company plans to begin flight tests this year of a two-seater airplane that moonlights as a car.

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Friday, January 23, 2009

Stanford iPhone class ends, projects and resources posted (Ars Technica - Infinite Loop)

The first semester of the controversial iPhone programming class at Stanford University has come to an end. Students of the class have put together a website to show off their final projects.

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

LinkedIn Clamps Down on Super-Connected Users (CIO.com)

LinkedIn has imposed new restrictions on the number of connections any one person can have, say members of the LinkedIn open networkers, a controversial group that accepts almost all LinkedIn connection requests. The group appears to be walking an increasingly fine line with the social network.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov

At 12:00 pm today, Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States and his new administration officially came to life. At 12:01 pm, the White House's new website, which will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world, made its debut. They didn't waste any time.

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The Top Tools for Tax Season (PC Magazine)

This year, more than any other, you want to save every penny you can on taxes. An accountant (expensive) or one of these three great tax applications is the way to go. PCMag reviews Intuit's stellar TurboTax, the reliable TaxCut from H&R Block, and TaxACT. One of them will guide you safely through the tortuous tax process.

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