We don't ride in horse buggies any more, we don't use hurricane lamps to light our kids homework and nobody appears to find that a problem, but for some reason a new technology like the Internet or txt messaging creates all kinds of moral panic and dark warnings that we are on the glide-path to hell unless we revert to our previous behaviours of, well, being couch potatoes.

Fortunately, we are collectively not only smarter than that, we are vastly more adaptable than we are given credit for by the guardians of the status quo. Technology hasn't made us hermits: study

Contrary to popular belief, technology is not leading to social isolation and people who use the internet and mobile phones have larger and more diverse social networks, according to a new study.

"All the evidence points in one direction," said Keith Hampton, lead author of the report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project released on Wednesday. "People's social worlds are enhanced by new communication technologies.

[...] The authors said key findings of the study - "Social Isolation and New Technology" - "challenge previous research and commonplace fears about the harmful social impact of new technology."

[...] "It turns out that those who use the internet and mobile phones have notable social advantages," Hampton said. "People use the technology to stay in touch and share information in ways that keep them socially active and connected to their communities."The study found that six per cent of Americans can be described as socially isolated - lacking anyone to discuss important matters with or who they consider to be "especially significant" in their life.

That figure has hardly changed since 1985, it said.

Almost certainly those who were socially adept before have remained socially adept, and those who are less so may even have gained some benefits from being able to socialise without the often unfair advantages held by those who are louder, more physically commanding or more articulate.

The old adage of the Internet was that nobody knew you were a dog, but more importantly, nobody knows that you are small, quiet, have a speech impediment or take twice as long as average to think through your statements. The Internet provides a level playing field for the first time in history and most of us will benefit from that.

Those who are used to having control of the message or the medium and who have taken personal or organisational advantage of that are the ones who are making the most noise about how the net is not fair on them.

It reminds me of the research done in coed classrooms where teachers pay strictly equal attention to every member of the class. The ones who are used to getting the lion's share of attention feel highly discriminated against. So it is with the Internet and it applies at every scale; governments who can no longer control public discourse, corporations who can't "market" half truths and individuals who find bullying so much harder when everyone has the same voice and the same volume.

Its not perfect and wont ever be, but it is different and it is more equitable and it will take a while for us all to get used to the idea that this is just the way we do things now.

Those who suffer will not be those who dive in, but those who refuse to play in the new playground. Which label best fits your organisation? Gory details, arguments and alternative data always welcome in the comments.

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Engaging with the world via online media is a great idea, its also a hazard. Actually, it doesn't matter whether your have a website, a twitter account, a Facebook page or jot, your organisation could easily find itself being talked about, and criticised, online anyway so keeping an eye on what is being said matters.

But when someone starts to unload on you, and others pile on as well, what do you do? Don't panic for a start, we all need a bit of thick skin anyway and it may not be more than a few pinpricks. But be aware, and read this from Kate Hennessy at NETT.com. How to: deal with negative comments

According to Crebar and O'Byrne, negative or aggressive comments are the biggest fear for small business owners who foray into social networks. And for good reason.

But if it happens, don't panic, says Crebar, and try to ignore your instinct to pull the comments down.

1. Step into their shoes
   As with campaign hijacking, Crebar first advises to judge the comments as a passive consumer. They're not insulting you, they're just venting a little anger towards your logo. In many open forums you'll find people will stick up for you.

   If it is a negative comment, O'Byrne advises you to honestly ask yourself if it is correct and valid. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion and sometimes a negative comment is based on truth or someone's real experience. If the comment is correct then - depending on who made the comment and where - acknowledge their opinion and use it as consumer insight.

2. Respond and assess
   If you need to respond immediately, be short and passive, then take some time to assess the damage, Crebar advises. If it's serious, respond to let people know you've seen the comment, you're addressing it, and give them a timeline: a week or a day.

   O'Byrne believes there are times when you don't need to do anything. "Brands trying to shut down negative comments will be seen as controlling, while brands that allow users to have their own opinion are playing in the spirit of social media," he says.

3. Monitor the results
   Continue monitoring comments, even after they're resolved. If the comment is based on incorrect information the brand is entitled to enter the debate with its side of the story, adds O'Byrne.
   Preferably this should be done privately, over email with the commentator. Ask them questions, discuss their experience, be proactive. If they don't respond and if it's appropriate, leave a public comment clarifying any incorrect information.
   Brands can also outnumber negative comments with positive ones by approaching key influencers with the correct story or fact, he says.
   "Whatever you do, don't try to bury negative comments with fake posts; you'll be caught," says Crebar. #

Another, pre-emptive, approach is to make sure that your broad community of interest feels they have a stake in your organisation and its success, that they are an active part of your operation; something you can do very effectively online.

Not only will that give you some fire-fighting resources to call on when trouble hits on your own site, it will also be more likely that they will fan out into their own networks to put out fires there as well.

Make sure, though, that they get the messages above, facts, respectful language, understanding others' positions. You don't need loose cannons.
Have youi had this kind of experience? How did you handle it? What were the results?

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One of the things that is most likely to keep me using my existing system, apart from the fact that it works perfectly well and does everything I need, is that moving to a new Windows machine is SUCH a pain, and yes, I know Apple makes it easy.

I use many programmes, many of them free, but even so, finding the downloads and installing them all takes a huge amount of time. Wouldn't it be good if we could have just one tool that let you select all the software you usually use and install it in one hit?

Courtesy of How-To Geek, Tadaaahh! Ninite Makes Installing Software Incredibly Simple

Ninite is a cool new service created by two programmers in San Francisco who believe that installing software shouldn’t require work.

It’s simple to use and has a large selection of popular freeware and open source applications. Just pick the apps you want to install, download the Ninite installer, then walk away and do something fun while it does all the work for you. The service installs the software with default settings and says “no” to any extra crapware (like browser toolbars) the installers might try to sneak in. Ninite isn’t even installed on your system, you just use a stand alone executable to begin the install process.

As we see fewer and fewer machines with CD/DVD drives installed and more and more network-centric applications anyway, the day of buying and installing a specific programme on your machine may be going away steadily.

But in the meantime, we could all do with a halfway step that lets the machine do the donkey-work; isn't that why we got them in the first place?

How do you manage your software reinstalls? I tend towards the "swearing about losing the disc, then swearing about losing the product activation code, then swearing about having to set up my preferences again from scratch" model.

And you? Comments are open.

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I had this recommended by my friend Lee Thorn who bumps along the bottom when it comes to actual ICT use. Actually, the team at Makeuseof.com make the point that these are learning tools, not just informational. 15 Free Guides That Really Teach You USEFUL Stuff A bit like an e-Engage Your Community workshop really. No sign up need, downloads are free, no strings attached, all they ask is that you spread the word.

1. Internet Guide for the Movie Addict
   Whether you want a quick heads-up, are looking for download and streaming possibilities, or even want to fix broken AVI’s — you’ll find it in there!
2. Internet Guidebook for An Audiophile
   Internet listening to music, streaming audio to your computer, and free download music sites... Learn how to share music with others and track a band’s performance and album releases.
3. The Incredible Free Manual for Every Mac User
   Based on Snow Leopard – the latest release of the Mac OS X operating system. Tips, tricks and free applications. Get the hang of the interface and discover what your Mac is really capable of.
4. The Underground Guide to the iPhone
   From basic user interface to a ton of lurking features.
5. Twitter: Best Practices & Tips
   Every Twitter feature and tips and tricks you can think of. Learn to work the interface, to Tweet from your desktop, cool Twitter bots and more.
6. The Ultimate Guide to your Windows Mobile Phone
   These devices are basically mini-computers and have endless possibilities — and thus endless possible difficulties. (re)discover the most basic features and applications of your device, extend it with new applications and tools.
7. A Computer Geek’s Smart Productivity Guide
   The most common productivity mistakes, as well as a number of applications to improve your touch typing, your time organization, and your global workflow.
8. Building a Media Center for your Home
   Read all about the different hardware components, software candidates and media extenders, in this manual for geeks AND the techno-deprived.
9. The Only Easy Guide To Computer Networks
   33 illustrated pages of networking knowhow, from Adapters to Zimbabwe-proxies. It’s a great place to start off as a newbie, or to pick up as an already more advanced user.
10. The Big Book of BitTorrent
    Saikat Basu takes newcomers by the hand and guides them in their first steps while more experienced users get their fair share of information.
11. A Newbie’s Getting Started Guide to Linux
    In this free ebook you’ll be introduced to the basics of the Linux operating systems. Get to know what it is all about, and familiarize yourself with the practical side. Basically, if you’re a complete Linux newbie and looking for a quick and easy guide to get you started – this is it.
12. The Idiot’s Guide To Photoshop
    This guide starts right at the very bottom, assuming no knowledge at all, and walks you through all basic aspects of the application. Comes with three full pages of shortcuts and cheat sheets covering all the application’s possibilities.
13. The Big Book of iTunes
    50+ pages of iTunes tips and tricks with illustrative screenshots.
14. The Idiot’s Guide to Building Your Own PC
    With the complete amateur in mind who has no technical knowledge whatsoever, this guide ‘holds your hand’ every step of the way. Nearly 50 pages full of screenshots, links to video demos and easy how-to instructions for every step involved.
15. Laptop Buying Guide for 2009
    A 20 page guide with an abundance of screenshots and links to video reviews to help buyers make an informed choice regardless of previous computer knowledge.

If you know of any other free resources for the total beginner that are as good or better, or if you want to rate this little lot, let me know in the comments

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Eric Taub at the  NYTimes pulls togehter an excellent review of the potential, and increasingly actual value that older people can gain from effective use of ICT in their lives.

My mother, born in a Belarussian village before the advent of commercial radio, was by her late 90s using a cellphone, receiving e-mail messages from her family and asking me “what is this Twitter thing anyway?” ... Contrary to stereotypes, computers, social networks, e-mail and even video games are becoming essential parts of older peoples’ lives.

Some of the highest growth rates in broadband use are happening among the elderly. The Pew Research Center found that broadband use for those 65 and older increased from 19 percent in May 2008 to 30 percent in April 2009. Since 2005, broadband use has tripled in that group.

Although challenges remain for many older people, any number of products can help them become more involved in the digital age. Here’s a look at some of the most popular ones.

• IT ALL STARTS WITH THE PC While many digital devices like cameras or cellphones don’t require a PC, their use can be enhanced with a computer by helping users transmit photos or easily update a mobile phone address book.
• For those concerned that Microsoft’s Windows interface is too daunting for elders, Big Screen Live simplifies the standard interface, .... Changes like fewer buttons, color-coded commands and larger type ease the Windows experience.
• Video chatting has become a popular way to ease the isolation experienced by many older people with limited mobility. Free programs like Skype and iChat, and the built-in webcams on many computers, make it easy to do.
• [...] In addition to online chats, Internet-connected digital picture frames from companies like Ceiva, D-Link and Kodak allow friends and family to continually send new images, helping older or less mobile people keep up with events.
• PawPawMail takes the complexity out of [email]. For $5 a month, users transmit and receive mail through PawPawMail’s Web site, which features simple graphics, large type and real names rather than potentially confusing e-mail addresses. [This is also cool] The account manager, typically a younger family member, sets up the account, creating a list of approved e-mail senders; spammers and phishers cannot get through.

While imagining your elderly uncle using high-tech devices to keep in touch might at first seem far-fetched, it’s only a matter of time before it is second nature. Just remember: today’s Web jockeys are tomorrow’s grandparents

As we move into a world where there are many more elderly people and where to cost (both financial and physical) of travel are rising, ICT is being increasingly touted as essential to maintaining connections, be they for business or family.

But are those organisations who work a lot with older people getting with the Kaupapa? Do you assumer that they won't have, or want to use, electronic communications just because of their age?

What attempts do you make to check that? How do you adapt your own use of ICT to meet older people's needs in their use of it?

Stories of success and failure in the comments please.

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Disclaimer: as a trustee of the 2020 Communications Trust I am trying to find a way to scale up this conference and workshop programme to a national level.

Wellington IT Trust is mounting another E-engage Your community event in November for non-profit organisations to make better use of their IT investment. This is a great way to gain some practical knowledge about the role of IT in meeting your real-world objectives and mixing with a bunch of smart people who have the answers to almost all the questions you might have that start, "how the hell do we .....?" Engage Your Community - a web conference for community organisations

• Date: Thursday 12 November and Friday 13 November
• Location: Massey University, Wellington,
• Programme: a full-day main conference plus a full day of hands-on workshops.

Including

• a keynote from Colin Jackson - The Internet: empowering your community
• Nathalie Hofsteede - Givealittle - Opportunities in the long tail of charity
• Chris Brown - communication strategy on the internet
• Andrea Walker - Oxfam New Zealand - Social media for non-profits on a shoe-string budget

Sign up here, tell them I sent you. No, there's no discount for that, it would just be good to know.

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Ryan Naraine at ZDNet has the full technical details, but for most of us, the short form is that Mozilla’s flagship Firefox browser is vulnerable to at least 11 “critical” vulnerabilities that expose users to drive-by download attacks that require no user interaction beyond normal browsing.. Firefox hit by multiple drive-by download flaws

The open-source group shipped Firefox 3.5.4 with patches for the vulnerabilities, which range from code execution risk to the theft of information in the browser’s form history.

One of the critical issues affect media libraries introduced in Firefox 3.5 when audio and video capabilities were added.

The Firefox 3.5.4 update will be distributed via the browser’s automatic update mechanism. It should be deployed within the next 24 to 48 hours. Alternatively, users can use the “Check for Updates” tool to manually apply the update.

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According to Mark Milian of the LA Times, Geocities was perhaps the first mainstream example of an open, participatory and personal Internet, its been there longer than I have been connected and, for years, any search of the web produced at least a couple of Geocities sites. It still attracts 10 million site visits a month but now, as Chris Crum writes, it is over. R.I.P. GeoCities: A Community is Killed

Yahoo has officially shut down Geocities.The company has said that it did not count the property among its priorities, so it is simply getting rid of it. Yahoo has shut down about 20 services in less than a year.

[...] Ok, so there are other options for GeoCities users, but is just shutting down a community that still attracts so much traffic the right thing to do? Yahoo's way of going about it has been widely questioned. According to Compete data, GeoCities has still been seeing over 10 million unique monthly visitors as recently as last month. Why would Yahoo want to just shut that down?

[...] It seems unwise from a business perspective, but what about the users? Does Yahoo have an obligation to its users who may have spent years using their GeoCities site only to have it pulled from the web? Should Yahoo provide a forwarding web address for GeoCities users?

MySpace isn't exactly at the peak of its popularity, but there are still tons of people who use it.

What if they just pulled everything? What if Google bought Facebook and decided to kill it? What if your Tweets vanished?

Sure these things seem unlikely now because these services are still fresh. Well, GeoCities was once the "it" thing too. Granted, most GeoCities sites I have seen are not much to look at now, but that doesn't mean people aren't getting use out of them. They're obviously getting page views.

OK, I accept that Yahoo! might have a commercial or operational reason for doing this, but shifting a site that may have been up for years, with all its files, is a huge job and not to offer some kind of simple migration to a blog for example is just bad PR.

Then there's the issue of millions of links to Geocities pages that will now vanish, again, an automated tool could set up forwarding to the new address for every page, but once Geocities closes, all that we'll have left is dead links.

This isn't the first such event, nor will it be the last, but as the internet ages, it will happen more often, hollowing out the whole system from the inside even as it grows at the edges. Yes, search engines will soon enough find those files that are transferred, but those that are not will mostly disappear, to be found only in google's cache if you really want it or in the wayback machine.

As the net becomes increasingly the memory of our collective mind, will it also be subject to an equally collective amnesia - or worse, Alzheimers?

Meanwhile, I'll continue to promote the many free tools available, from Facebook and Twitter to Ning, PBWorks, Flickr, YouTube, MyCommittee and so on.

Just remember that your rights under a free site are very limited and it can disappear tomorrow, don't keep irreplaceable material only where its free and preferably use tools that enable you to download the entire content to your hard drive in a single operation.

That may mean getting familiar with the old guys like FTP or finding tools with downloads using XML, but the moral will always be - backup!

What's your experience? Did you have a Geocities site? What free online services do you use and how do you rate them? In a pinch, how could you recover all the material you have posted there? Comments are open.

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New Zealand is going through the throes of trying to figure out how to deliver real broadband internet access to all of us. despite the fact that 1.1 million of us have existing levels of broadband, the real deal is a different thing altogether. While we worry about how to spend a billion or so on the technology, one country at least is starting somewhere else. Finland First Country to Make Broadband a Legal Right

Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications announced today that from July 2010, every person in the country will have a legal right to at least 1Mb of broadband connection. Finland is the first country to guarantee broadband access and has already initiated plans to increase the 1MB minimum to 100Mb by 2015.

Communications Minister Suvi Linden says the universal service and Internet connections at the specified minimum speed will help improve the quality and availability of connections in sparsely populated areas. This will in turn contribute to maintenance of rural vitality, increase business opportunities and e-commerce.

Meanwhile, internet entrepreneur Rod Drury has a pretty simple approach - Broadband really is the silver bullet

Broadband and connecting New Zealand digitally to the rest of the planet IS the biggest silver bullet for turning New Zealand around that I've seen in my business career. Let me explain why.

New Zealand is one of the most isolated countries in the world. Any business that wants to talk to a market size of more than four million needs to send the founder away on planes (often), learn to export, as well as have the funding and governance to be a sophisticated international entity. That's a tall order.

[...] Adding digital channels to business reduces international trade barriers. You can have a website in many languages. You can show video of your product. You can do seminars to thousands of people all over the world from your home office. You can video conference local phone numbers in your markets.International broadband levels the playing field for the 400,000 New Zealand small businesses, to get amongst it, with minimal upfront costs.

Already thousands of New Zealanders are doing this from all over the country. They've worked out how to get around the technical obstacles and constraints and are building little export businesses. Ultrafast international broadband mainstreams this opportunity. Any one of our two million working people can participate.

While there will be a few high profile businesses that will be successful, getting mainstream small businesses sending invoices every month to the US and beyond, is the productivity step-change that world class international broadband can create.

It's not just about pushing New Zealand services out. It's also about attracting investment in. If New Zealand is connected super fast to the US West Coast there are countless opportunities to attract very connected knowledge workers and investment down here.

[...] How do we pay for all this? Well it's actually free. International broadband can fund itself - we just have to get organized.That'll be welcome news to a Government wondering how it can finance a $10 Billion reality with a $1.5 billion stake.

[...] Older New Zealand investors got used to augmenting their income with high interest rates in recent years. Where they used to get 8+ per cent on their money they now get 3 per cent. Consquently there's plenty of demand for higher coupon bonds.

Income for those investors is the cost of capital required to connect New Zealand internationally. A billion dollars of investment may only require $80m per annum to fund.

[...] As a rough back of the envelope calculation, that $80m, divided by 2 million users who access the internet via their phone, home account and at work, is about the cost of a cup of coffee a month. So, connecting New Zealand to the rest of the world, and the resulting step-change in opportunity only requires coordination - not cash.

Everyone, even the incumbent telco's, can win with this model. There has never been such an opportunity to step-change New Zealand's productivity and connect our many small businesses directly into global markets. Here is a real silver bullet. They don't come along often. Let's not waste the opportunity

What Rod is talking about is real broadband, fast enough to move an entire movie in a few seconds, both ways; not only would we be able to download a movie in a flash, we'd be able to make movies collaboratively across the net and share them with the same technology.

What kind of difference would it make to your operation, to your life, to ahve that kind of connectivity? What would you do with it?

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I always take the "hair on fire" approach to these issues with a grain of salt, especially when the reporter has something to gain from it. But writing off the latest from IBM X-Force Security Report Calls Web Insecure would be a mistake.

Web insecurity. That's the two-word summary of IBM's X-Force 2009 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report. ... Web client, threats are converging to create an untenable risk landscape.

IBM recorded a 508 percent increase in the number of new malicious Web links discovered in the first half of 2009 -- and the problem is no longer limited to malicious domains or untrusted Web sites. The X-Force report points to an increase in the presence of malicious content on trusted sites, including popular search engines, blogs, bulletin boards, personal Web sites, online magazines, and mainstream news sites. The consequence for victims is attackers gaining access to private data.

The X-Force report also discovered evidence that suggests attackers are getting more sophisticated. Veiled Web exploits, especially PDF files, are at an all-time high. PDF vulnerabilities disclosed in the first half of 2009 surpassed findings from all of 2008.

Note, however, that last week saw a flock of patches. Adobe Fixes 29 Vulnerabilities in Acrobat and Reader

On Microsoft's Patch Tuesday, Adobe Systems rolled out patches for 29
critical vulnerabilities in Acrobat and Reader. The combination of
massive patches from Microsoft and Adobe are likely to cause headaches
for some IT administrators. Adobe said the vulnerabilities in Acrobat
and Reader could give hackers control of a PC.

Of course, getting away from pretty formats and separating content from the document would help as well. But I digress.

Safe Browsing Extinct... said X-Force Director Kris Lamb, "there is no such thing as safe browsing today and it is no longer the case that only the red-light district sites are responsible for malware. We've reached a tipping point where every Web site should be viewed as suspicious and every user is at risk. The threat convergence of the Web ecosystem is creating a perfect storm of criminal activity."

When someone with an axe to grind starts talking about the "perfect storm", my pocket starts to cramp up. Nevertheless, exercise a little common sense.

Install the protection, backup the data, update every day and remember, even in the wild west, fewer people were killed in gunfights and barroom brawls than were gored by their own oxen or drowned in their own pond.

I'm not sure what that might mean, but I like to end on a positive note. How are your security antennae at the moment? Where 1= complacent snooze and 10=blind panic, where are you in the spectrum?

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The launch of a new operating system for your computer is always a fraught business.  Microsoft especially has hit many a rock with undercooked releases such as WindowsME which was a disaster and Vista which really wasn't much better.

We get very used to existing systems and their idiosyncrasies, change almost always involves cost - either in time to learn new ways of doing things or in cash as we find that the old machine wont run the new software or there are other compatibility issues. And since Windows 2000 there has been a lot less urgency to upgrade because in those days upgrading really did mean getting rid of behaviours and problems that constantly beset previous operating systems. No more.

So what's the story with Windows 7? David Flynn from the Sydney Morning Herald has the checklist. Windows 7

• IT'S THE BEST VERSION OF WINDOWS YET
  Windows 7 is faster and more stable than the overhyped yet underdone Vista and ... there's almost no learning curve when you shift to the new OS.... you'll quickly discover some simple yet very intelligent changes ... designed to make it easier to manage and juggle the myriad windows on your screen and desktop, which is an area of frustration for most users.
• 3 YOU WON'T HAVE TO BUY A NEW PC
  It'll run OK on later-model Windows XP computers, as long as the PC is fitted with at least 1GB of RAM and the chip has a speed of 1GHz or higher.You can check whether your computer is up to snuff by running Microsoft's Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor program (tinyurl.com/mnmj8u).
• WINDOWS 7 IS AN EASY UPGRADE FROM VISTA BUT NOT XP
  Windows 7 won't recognise your existing [XP] software or hardware settings, email and folders such as My Documents. Windows 7 includes an Easy Transfer wizard to help import the old documents, email and such from a back-up file.But you'll still need to reinstall all your software from scratch - and then download and install all the updates and patches released over the years.
• YOU PROBABLY WON'T NEED NEW SOFTWARE
  Software that works on Windows Vista should run on Windows 7. The sole exception may be some anti-virus and security programs but free online upgrades are already available for most of the better-known brands, such as Norton.Most Windows XP software will also run on Windows 7. For those few stubborn programs that won't play nice, Microsoft has built a new ''XP Mode'' into 7 to trick XP software into working as it should.

  The catch is that your PC must use an Intel or AMD processor that includes special ''virtualisation'' technology, which tends to be found only in the latest PCs.

• WINDOWS 7 DOESN'T COME WITH ALL THE PROGRAMS YOU NEED
  Windows XP and Vista came with inbuilt programs for handling email and instant messaging, along with digital photo manager and home movie-maker programs plus some basic computer security software.Microsoft has removed these from Windows 7 in favour of promoting its free online versions of the software under the Windows Live brand. So before you can use Windows 7 to fetch email or share your holiday snaps, you'll need to download these programs, most likely as part of the integrated Windows Live Essentials pack.

On balance, as an XP user, I probably wont make the shift till I find the existing machine failing. I have all the software I need and with applications increasingly becoming browser-based, cloud/SaaS shareable tools on the network, as long as I can run a current browser I'm happy.

What about you? How do you make that decision? Or do you wait till the old machinbe collapses and just suck it up and buy the next model that comes with the latest system installed?

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We are all guilty of it, we treat email as a casual, flicked-off communication that our colleagues and friends will understand. The body content is bad enough but the subject line can be completely irrelevant.

How many times have you received an email that is the reply to a reply to a reply of an email on a completely different subject? Among close-knit groups it doesn't matter, but when you are trying to connect with a community of interest, clients or subscribers, its a completely different matter.

The folks at Network for Good are focused on that subject line again

How many times have you decided to read an email (or not) based on the subject line alone? The subject line is your first chance to make an impression. Pack your subject lines with details about what's inside, emphasizing why the reader should take a few extra seconds to see what's in the body of the message.

• Change It Every Time.
  Your subject line should change with every edition. Don't waste space with dates, edition numbers, sender information, etc.
• Lean toward personal value.
  For example, "Where Your Best Friends Will Be Dancing All Night Long" will work better than "Register for Our All-Night Dance-a-thon Fundraiser." (I must be getting old, but that just sounds cheesy to me, we can all do better than that)
• Describe the Candy, Not the Wrapper.
  Tell us what goodies are inside the email, not about the packaging. Forgo wrappers like "Parenting Workshops" when your readers are craving candy like "Dinnertime and Bedtime Routines that Preserve Your Sanity."
• Keep It Short.
  Somewhere around 35 characters seems to be the ideal now. You can play with subject line length and see what works for you, but do try to keep it between 20 and 60 characters tops.

I'd like to add another two,

1. Don't announce that this is "The organisation x monthly email newsletter", your "From line should tell them who sent it and, frankly, we don't care that its your newlstter, wnat we care about is whether it has anything sueful in it.
2. If there are multiple items in the newsletter, liost the headlines for each of them in that part of the email that will be visible in the "Preview" pane, then use the headline to link to the actual content further down the page. If you don't know how to do that, you probably shouldn't send any more email newsletters till you learn how.

Before an email can be read, it has to be opened. Make your subject line so irresistible, your supporters won't be able to help themselves.

Do you send email newsletters? What's your method for getting your recipients to open them?

If you receive email newsletters, who produces the one that you are most likely to open? Give them, a plug in the comments.

BIG question. Do we have to send regular informational emails anyway? Woudl you rather get an email once a month even if it doesn't have anything really interesting in it? Or would you rather hear fromn the same organisation only when there is really something solid to talk about?

Hidden agenda questions.

• Are we, as organisations, afraid that our supporters will forget that we exist?
• Do we really only use the emails as a way to regularly tap the recipients for donations?
• How well does that work?

Comments open for any and all of that, and ay other take on the topic you have.

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Its one of the perennial fears voiced by people who don't really want to try these new fangled computing machines. "Oh, but if I do tyhe wrong thing it will delete everything or it might blow up"
Scott Adams and Dilbert finally "go there".

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The other day someone commented on the post about the Firefox Browser Yoono social networking sidebar, saying that it was doing things that annoyed her/him and wanted to know how you uninstall it.

This raises another couple of points about the level of understanding we bring to the use of these tools that increasingly concerns me.

It is deadly easy to install software or add-on applications like YooNo, but they have little interest in you being able to remove them which so often results in people becoming permanently annoyed by these tools or abandoning them altogether when another option arises, like Google Chrome's browser which I mostly don't use because it can't install the add-ons. Of course that then results in even more sioftware loaded on your system and, being unused is also unpatched so that when, at some later date you use it again, you also expose yourself to the unpatched vulnerabilities.

Maybe we should pay a lot more attention to teaching not 'how this bit of software works" as to "how common tools on your system function".

One that I use a lot when something appears confusing is the "right click" on a Microsoft mouse.

If I right-click on this post as I write it, I get this dialogue.

That gives me some options about the content of the field I am working on in my browser. But if I select some text and right click, I get an expanded set of options, like this

Two of those options refer me to other add-ons in Firefox called Scribefire (which i use to post most of these blogs) and Zotero (which I use to organise content for posting later or that I want to keep copies of).

So to change my YooNo settings I just right click YooNo and get this

And then left click "Options" to get this.

And I can change how YooNo responds to new new content by checking or unchecking when it should display an alert popup. Sometimes I just right click stuff to find out what is there, its often worth the 10 seconds to find out.

Oh, and In Firefox, if you really do decide to uninstall an add on, use Tools/Add Ons and you get this window.

And click "Uninstall"

Three questions, answers in the comments please.

1. Did you already know this stuff?
2. How did you learn it?
3. Why are there NO keyboard shortcuts for any of these functions?

OK, the last one isn't compulsory, but as a keyboard afficionado, it annoys me no end.

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We here, and many others, constantly push the value of online tools and resources for communicating with your stakeholders. But how do you know they are doing any good? For some ideas on how to measure that, PRWeb has a free online seminar that you, or your PR or comms people might like to check out.

If you’re still lugging a clip book around to demonstrate that your online news programs are successful, you might want to bring your strategy into the 21st century. With so many marketing channels available today – blogs, social media, SEO, and RSS feeds – you can’t continue to rely on measurement tools like press clippings.

Join guest speaker Greg Jarboe, president and co-founder of SEO-PR, for an hour long webinar on Measuring the Success of Your Online News Releases. Learn how you can:

* Use current analytics to measure your online news efforts
* Apply SEO results to improve your search rankings
* Measure the impact of your social media networks and blogs
* Build an effective PR plan and strategy using what you’ve learned

Event Date: October 21, 2009 2:00-3:00 PM EDT (New York)

Cost: This Webinar is FREE

I'm going to be tied up with a bunch of meetings over that time but a 7-8 am NZ time for it isn't too bad. if you decide to take it in, let me know how it goes.

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This is such a rarity that it bears reporting anyway, but for Apple users who are so used to their systems being bullet-proof, the days of complacency may be over. Snow Leopard bug deletes all user data (Updated) | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

Several posts on the Apple Support forums (1, 2) dating back to 12 September indicate that some users have been losing all their data due to a nasty bug in Snow Leopard, a.k.a. Mac OS 10.6.

On Saturday iTWire reported on the bug which rears its head when a user logs into their Mac’s Guest account and then tries to log back into their regular account.

In some cases, users have reported finding their regular account empty of data, as though it were a brand new account… The home directory still exists under “/Users/username” but is completely empty.

Affected users report that data is unrecoverable and cannot be found on the hard drive. The only way to recover is from a backup on external media. You do make regular backups, right?

Right?

What makes this worse is that it appears to be inherent in the code rather than someone hacking the Mac OS, Apple is usually impeccable when it cokmes to their own code so this is new.

I'm interested to know how you backup? I've had an occasional fling with automated backups, including to online servers, but these days I just wait till I'm going out for a couple of hours and use SyncToy to backup to an external hard drive. What's your practise?

You do have a practise, right?

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There is so much talk these days about the most6 recent flock of online tools that the old ones, although they keep on ticking along, can easily be overlooked. Until somneone suggests that the new will supplant the old altogether such as this piece in the Wall St Journal The End of the Email Era - WSJ.com

I'm not convinced that the WSJ is the place to go for cutting edge understanding of ICT developments, In one paragraph it makes a nhimber of poor assumptions.

Why wait for a response to an email when you get a quicker answer over instant messaging?

The speed of the response depends on the size of your network and its resources plus the availability of those resources. If I ask a question on twitter at 11am NZ time and the probable respondents are my mates in the UK, US or Holland, it will take about 8 hours to get the reply under any circumstances. If the repsiondents are local it may be faster but it wont be insant unless all the planets align, twitter isn't magic, its just a connection tool.

Thanks to Facebook, some questions can be answered without asking them. You don't need to ask a friend whether she has left work, if she has updated her public "status" on the site telling the world so.

And if she hasn't? Of course, if she can automate her status updates usign the GPS from her phone, fine. If she wants that level of scrutiny by the world in general.

Email, stuck in the era of attachments, seems boring compared to services like Google Wave, currently in test phase, which allows users to share photos by dragging and dropping them from a desktop into a Wave, and to enter comments in near real time.

I love the idea of the wave, but its not there yet. And as for uploading photos by dragging? I can do that with Yoono already, but mostly I don't.

So, is email dying? Here's a pretty good summary of why its not ready for the box yet.10 Reasons Social Media isn't Replacing Email

Reasons Email Isn't Going Away Anytime Soon

1. People still send hand-written letters via snail mail, even though they could instead make a phone call, send an email, text message, or status update.

2. Nearly all sites on the web that require registration require an email address. Some are starting to integrate social media into this process (through things like Facebook Connect), but that is still a very small fraction, and they typically still allow for email information as well.

3. Email notifies you of updates from all social networks you are a part of (provided your settings are set up that way).

4. We haven't seen any evidence yet that Google Wave really is the next big thing and will catch on on a large scale.

Email Button on Keypad

5. Email is universal, and social networks are not. Nearly everybody on the web (while there are no doubt some exceptions) has an email address. Many places of employment give employees email addresses when they begin working there. Meanwhile, a great deal of them are banning workers from even accessing social networks.

6. There are plenty of people who have no interest in joining social networks. Frequent news stories about security, privacy, and reputation issues do not help convince them.

7. Email is still improving. It hasn't screeched to a halt with the rise of social media. There is still innovation going on, and integration with social media. Look at how Google is constantly adding new features to Gmail. Look at the new Yahoo Mail.

8. Even social networks themselves recognize the importance of email. Never mind that they update users about community-driven happenings via email. MySpace (still one of the biggest social networks) even launched its own email service recently.

9. More social media use means more email use. Look at these recent findings from Nielsen. The people consuming the largest amount of social media are also the people consuming the largest amount of email.

10. As far as marketing is concerned, email is doing pretty well, as many companies continue to struggle to find the right social media strategy to suit their needs.

Its good to know that the 15 years worth of archived emails that I tote around wont finally have to be deleted. What about you? Would you drop email tomorrow for a better alternative?

What would that5 alternative look like? Comments open now.

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Keeping your security up to date is always a good idea, making sure you have time to deal with the biggest ever set of patches from Microsoft counts as an essential. Patch Tuesday Will Be Biggest Ever with 13 Bulletins

Microsoft Relevant Products/Services is preparing for its biggest-ever Patch Tuesday next week -- and analysts said IT administrators should do the same. The software giant will issue 13 bulletins to address 34 security vulnerabilities across a wide range of products. Eight of the bulletins come with critical ratings, including two for vulnerabilities that are already being exploited.

The patches cover Office, SQL Relevant Products/Services Server, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft developer tools, as well as all currently supported versions of Windows, including the yet-to-be released Windows 7. The previous largest Patch Tuesdays were 12 bulletins in October 2008 and November 2007.

No software is ever perfect, MS, having the biggest user base makes the biggest target for scammers and hackers and this week the solutions have ganged up on us. make sure your systems are patched.

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This is a sort of test for a piece of software called Jing that lets you record how you are using your computer. This is also a way of demonstrating training tools that can be used online for pretty much anything about computers.

This demo is how to set up your Windows start menu so that you don't have to use the mouse to start your regular programmes but instead you can launch your favourite software with only two keys, your Windows key and a single letter key.

The video is here

I came across Jing a while back when I was looking for a screen capture tool that did video. There's a free version which is not bad, but it only allows you to save videos in Jing's own format. By forking out the $US15 for the annual subscription you get Jing Pro which will save files in MPEG4, a much more portable, and compressible format, meaning you can host the content for download anywhere and you get smaller files.

The other benefit of Jing is that they will host your material on their own servers at Screencast.com, saving your own hosting costs. While that may not make a huge difference in the short term, if you start using it regularly, you might be glad of the extra storage.

How do you train your staff to use their software? Have you tried a screen capture tool? How does that work for you? Let me know in the comments.

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I've been using Secunia as my software security monitor for several months now and, after a couple of weeks of ever reducing alerts that this or that application was not secure, it has settled down to monitor the system and let me know on the rare occasion when I need to take action.

I also recently tried CNET TechTracker but it turns out to be a pain. It keeps alerting  me that this or that programme has not been updated, even if it doesn't create a security risk, but some of those programmes I've had for years, I'm completely happy with and don't need to spend more money to get the latest version. I don't need a bit of software getting in a tizzy about that, I'm quite capable myself thanks.

So when, this morning, I received an invite to try another Secunia in Beta I'm well disposed. In this case I can't use it myself anyway, but I'm happy to pass it on.

They are offering the Public Beta of their next-generation scanning tool for businesses, the Secunia Corporate Software Inspector (CSI) 3.0.

The Secunia CSI is designed to scan multiple computers that are connected through a local network, whereas the Secunia PSI... is designed to scan a single PC at a time.

Should you manage a Windows network at your work place, then we'd like to invite you to download and install the Secunia CSI 3.0 Beta, scan a couple of computers, and then post your comments and feedback in the designated Secunia Community Forum

Any feedback is greatly appreciated and we are looking forward to hear what you think of our internal vulnerability scanning solution for businesses.

Read more or Download the Secunia CSI 3.0 Beta

If you decide to try it on your network, I'd like to see the report as well, post it here any time.

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