“Ninety percent of technology marketing targets 10 percent of the population: the young, the cool, the perceived digerati. A few niche companies address the senior market with products so simplified your cat could use them. What almost everyone misses is how the growth of mobile, social, and local applications is colliding with two decades of Internet acumen to create a new social phenomenon: the long tooth of technology.”

Take a read…as usual, John doesn’t disappoint.

The Geeks Are Graying

AARP and Microsoft conducted focus group dinners in 4 cities and produced a report that shows boomer technology habits are in a state of flux. That means they’re still looking for more and better. And THAT means opportunities in this rich market for smart technology marketers.

NY Times Article

That’s just one interesting fact found in a Chicago Trib article about techno boomers, those teaching their kids about living in the digital age. The reason? Boomers have more time and more money…and a burning desire to connect with the grandkids.

Quick, interesting read: Techno Boomers

Put your glasses down and try Spezify. It’s like my buddy over at Digital Curator said: if Google and CoolIris got together for a casual affair, the love child would look like this.

VibrantNation.com, the online destination for women 50+, released new research that reveals that the niche they’ve termed “Vibrant Women” is the first generation of women in history whose social networks are continuing to expand at midlife and beyond. Defying the stereotype of increasing marginalization as they age, this study confirmed that not only are their networks growing, they are growing online.

The VibrantNation.com study of 1,000 Boomer women with household income greater than $75,000 showed:

— The personal networks of women 50+ are large and growing.

— They are in personal contact with at least 46 people each month.

— 65% share information online with others in their network.

— They are comfortable relying on referrals from strangers online if the source is knowledgeable/experienced. They rely on references on websites like Amazon.com (70%), eBay.com (54%) and TripAdvisor (27%).

— Vibrant Women are open to trying new brands and experiences, and are motivated to make particular purchase of goods and services by a variety of psycho-social factors including:

> Financial status (even with the recession, Vibrant Women continue to have discretionary income)

> Life stage transitions (such as the last child leaving home,
starting a business, losing a parent or spouse)

> Physical changes (menopause, aging, surviving breast cancer)

> New family roles (grandparent, caregiver)

> Social Awareness (travel and volunteer-work)

Now, if you use Craig’slist or Ebay or any other site that requires telephone contact info, you can maintain your privacy with LetsCall.me. At sign-up you get a special vanity URL and the option to have it direct callers to whatever number you provide. People who have your URL and want to call you can simply enter in their phone number and it will call that number to connect them to yours. It also prevents them from blocking their caller ID info, which means you know who is calling.

You can also choose to reveal other info, like an email address, on your page. But that feature is pretty limited at this point. Still, this is a pretty smart way to protect your privacy, and it’s as easy as embedding or sending a URL link to those who want to call you.

LetsCall.me

Check out Vlad Studio’s Wallpaper Clock (Chameleon Clock for Windows.) It embeds a clock and the date in some of the coolest desktop wallpapers I’ve seen. This guy’s art is simply amazing, and ranges from whimsical to sophisticated, with holiday themes available as well. Most of the clocks/dates become part of the art, which makes the look even better.

On the mac, you get a menubar drop-down that lets you change the wallpaper at will and download more clocks. Works on multiple monitors as well, although it doesn’t stretch the image across both…you set a wallpaper for each. I haven’t tested the Windows version, but I assume it’s the same.

Best part? IT’S FREE!! If you donate $20, you get lifetime access to some special stuff but I did it just because this guy deserves the support. Give it a look…it’s kinda like wallpaper crack: one taste and you want more.

Vladstudio Wallpaper Clocks

What? Those young pups don’t believe what you’re telling them? Prove it: send them the evidence in a “snapshot” you took of the newspaper story. OK, so maybe they don’t know what a newspaper is, but it sure looks official. And you can always tell them it showed up on Dlisted.com first.

Newspaper Clipping Generator

Adults of a certain age often begin to look for greater fulfillment and deeper meaning in life.

Me? I’m just trying to figure out my new cell phone.

Until last month, I’d survived with the most meager of wireless communication - you know, the phones that wireless providers give away with a two-year contract. But when the cheaper next-generation iPhone started generating buzz in June, this Luddite began to look with disdain at her poor, old cell phone. It’s little more than a tin can with a string, I convinced myself.

So I now own a BlackBerry. (It’s no iPhone, but it was cheaper with the plan I chose.) The phone has lots of bells and whistles, and joins a growing list of technology-related stuff I try to use but don’t fully understand - Wi-Fi, Facebook and Twitter to name a few.

A book floating around the newsroom recently summed up my predicament: “Too old for MySpace, too young for Medicare.” The book offered helpful insights such as, “You remember when video games consisted of two paddles and a square ball” and “You’re convinced that iTunes lacks the timeless sweet karma of the mix tape.”

I use iTunes, but I miss albums and mix tapes. I have a MySpace page. But the 20-somethings populating the vast majority of MySpace haven’t exactly been beating down my door, asking to be my “friend.” Mostly, I’ve gotten offers of friendship from local bands and spammers.

I bought the BlackBerry but began to wonder if a Jitterbug is more my speed. The Jitterbug is a new Samsung phone aimed at seniors: “Bigger, backlit buttons. Bright, large text. Powerful speaker sounds loud and clear,” according to its Web site.

Demographers and marketers make a living out of these sorts of generational gaps, creating sweeping statements like this one in a recent news release: “Baby boomers consider themselves open-minded and evolving. This is core to their identity and key to their purchasing behavior.”

But generational differences really do seem to matter when it comes to technology. For the record, I’m officially at the tail end of the baby boomers, but I’m really in some netherworld between baby boomers and Gen X. (I’ve dubbed it the “Brady Bunch” generation.) Either way, I didn’t grow up with a laptop in my bedroom.

I’ve had some success with Facebook, because it’s more straightforward than MySpace, and I’ve been able to catch up with friends I’d met while working in Asia but lost touch with over the years. But I still don’t understand how Facebook makes money when I throw Paris Hilton or Britney Spears at one of my friends. (It’s a Facebook thing.)

And let’s say your boss has a Facebook page. Suddenly, there’s something Orwellian about social networking, when your boss - or the police or the government - is able to get a glimpse into your personal life.

Millennials, born between about 1980 and 1995, don’t seem to care. They’ve grown up on computers, cell phones and video games, demographers remind us, and they seem to delight in making their every thought and movement public.

Twitter was made for them. It’s the latest, greatest social networking tool that lets users update friends, family and strangers about what they’re up to every minute of the day, via cell phone, instant messenger or the Web. They “microblog” in “tweets,” or entries that are limited to 140 characters or less.

I don’t want to be left in Twitterers’ technological dust, but do I really care that someone I don’t know “is chillin’ on the couch” right now? Or contemplating the gum he bought at Walgreen’s? Or pondering her navel?

Yeah, I’m old. But I just don’t get it.

That brings me back to my cell phone. I don’t really think I need a Jitterbug, but does anyone have a copy of BlackBerry for Dummies I could borrow?

hdraper@express-news.net

There have been ad blockers for FireFox and other browsers for months, and I posted about them. And actually, this one has been out for awhile, but I haven’t posted about it because it was giving me problems. Looks like either Safari has grown into it or they’ve made peace with the new Safari code.

Here’s what your page looks like BEFORE AdBlock:

And here it is AFTER AdBlock:

Us adguys don’t like to see our work blocked, but us browsers likey likey.

Safari AdBlock

Yes, I’m on a jag…finding simple or at least clear explanations of some of the technology subjects we hear so much about. Here’s one about the Creative Commons license that replaces traditional copyright on so many web-based properties. It’s from Jon Phillips, Business and Community developer at Creative Commons.

BTW, this is embeded using Scribd, a new site that is purported to be the YouTube of documents. You can view the PowerPoint by clicking the arrows in the graphic above, as well as zoom, share and go to the original file. Check it out…pretty slick.

Creative Commons Overview

I admit, the attraction of Twitter is still beyond me. But at least this video lays out its appeal to the ultra-connected, minutia-obsessed crowd that as made it a “killer app” in many eyes.

The best thing about this video is that it lead me to CommonCraft, a site that specializes in simple explanations of a variety of subjects. Lee LeFever narrates and explains everything from blogs to zombies. The presentations all use the same charming paper cut-out technique and take a couple of minutes. Here are a couple of examples…

Wikis in Plain English

Social Networking in Plain English

Adobe launched Photoshop Express Online today, and I’m impressed.

It offers just about everything you need for quick image manipulation and has a host of connections and ways to share, post, embed and generally move photos around. You can upload from your drive (2gb storage free) or connect to other photo storage sites like Facebook and Photo Bucket and manipulate those photos.

Give it a shot…if nothing else, it’s fun!

Photoshop Express Site

NY Times article

More and more are free for ALL their capabilities. Here’s the latest round-up from Mashable.

7 Great Online Image Editing Apps

Just fill out their template with your handwriting, scan it and upload it to them. Pay your $9 by credit card and, if Webware’s experience holds, you’ll have your new personal font almost instantly.

Pretty cool…I’m going to try it as soon as I get off the road. I’ll post my new font then.

Fontifier on Webware

PERSONAL NOTE: Sorry about the long lag between posts…I’m in travel hell right now with limited time to post. I promise to get better!!

All About Ning (DIY social networking)

Flock’s Future (social browser)

LinkBunch (like TinyURL)

Picnik (free online photo editor)

Blippr (like Twitter for reviews)

Senduit is as simple as it gets. Simply select the file with the browse button (yes, there is a 100mb limit,) select when you want it to expire (30 minutes to a week and then it’s gone) and hit the upload button. Senduit posts the file and gives you a unique URL address where it can be downloaded. Send that to your intended recipient via email and that’s it. They click on the link and downloading goodness ensues.

Best of all? It’s free. I mean, totally free.

It should come as no surprise that this bit of elegant capability comes from some of the same guys that brought you the Tumblr blogging service. More on that soon.

Give it a try…makes sharing ridiculously easy.

That’s what you’ll hear if you can score one of these before next holiday season.

On Valentine’s Day, Fisher-Price introduced Elmo Live. His mouth opens and closes as he speaks, he waves his arms, sits, stands, laughs, sings, tells stories…he’s, well, Live! Watch the video…pretty amazing technology.

Supposedly available the middle of October, but we’ll see. In the video, you can see that he’s being run on a cable from a computer. So, there’s still a lot of chip work to be done. But if I were you, I’d start looking for pre-order opportunities.

You wouldn’t want those other grandparents to beat you to it, would you??

Now, Germany’s data protection commissioner is defining an IP address as “personal data.” That means adherence to EU privacy laws, and that means big trouble for just about every major internet service. It could cripple search engines’ basic worth of returning relevant information. Or any site that uses geographic IP info as a primary sort for relevancy.

Something to keep an eye on. Maybe over a glass of French Burgundy.

IP is personal: Yahoo

Your IP address is private: Next Web

Lifehacker has a nice list of their favorite free apps and online services. They have a list of 20 categories of common computing tasks, with links.

Check it out: Lifehacker’s 2007 Guide to Free Software and Webapps

Remember when 30 was the magic number for distrust? Now, for copyright holders, it seems the opposite is true.

David Pogue, NY Times technology guru, has a really interesting column today about copying CDs or DVDs and file-sharing. It appears there is a major generational divide between older consumers who believe it is only OK under certain circumstances and a younger group that thinks it is OK under, well, ANY circumstance.

Even when presented with a clear-case scenario of stealing via file-sharing, only two people out of 500 college students saw it as wrong. Call it further evidence of moral decline. Call it another manifestation of the “entitlement” generation. Or simply call it what it is: disturbing.

I almost feel sorry for the RIAA…no, not really. They’re a bunch of jerks. But for the artists and creative people who need protection of their work, the road ahead will only get more complicated and adversarial between creators and consumers.

Looks like, in the future, you can’t trust to commonsense morality.

The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality

UPDATE: Apparently it’s not just a generational divide. There’s also a major difference based on what computing platform you use. 50% of mac users paid for music, while only 16% of PC users paid. Here’s the report.

And I don’t mean “ho” as in the Santa expression of mirth.

If you’re looking for a video game for the kids or grandkids (and that’s probably what they want this year,) it’s pretty easily to go astray. Many of the games heavily promoted are full of violence, sex and digitally-reproduced profanity. Frankly, many of them will make you choke on your eggnog.

CNET posted a list of naughty and nice games. It’s fairly limited, and many of the nice games will have older kids yawning while the naughty ones are the highest on those same kids’ wish lists. But it at least gives you a reference point for making a decision.

It reminds me of a Christmas long ago when an errant grandmother gave her grandson George Carlin’s “Seven Words” LP…and he played it for the family over dinner.

Now THAT was cool…

DOs and DON’Ts of Games

Clipmarks has introduced an interesting, if curious, new feature called Clipcast. You bookmark things you’ve been reading online, add them to an embeddable slide show and put them on your site for all to see what you’ve been doing. Works on Facebook, MySpace, etc. as well.

At first I really wondered why you’d want to do this. But then I remembered that I had just sent out an email to several friends who always bug me for interesting links. If I kept this updated, maybe I could save myself a few keystrokes.

Take a look at Clipmarks. Sometimes a bit clunky, but they’re trying to evolve the whole bookmark thing. I, for one, like what they’re doing. Just takes a little getting used to…like every new tool.

What hasn’t been so good is that many of the more advanced online apps can crash your browser. Or more common, a non-compliant site will crash it WHILE you’re doing something else in another window or tab. For instance, you’re writing in Google Docs and surf over to a site for reference…bang. The site crashes the browser and your doc goes away with it.

Mozilla Labs has an answer: Prism, the app formerly known as Webrunner. Prism lets you split out web applications from your browser and run them on the desktop. So, online apps become integrated into your desktop experience and can be launched, manipulated and used almost like any other app. Anything that runs in a modern standards-compliant browser works…which means java, flash, CSS and other popular technologies.

Want your email window open while you browse? Launch your Gmail app. Editing a photo while searching for clipart? Open your FotoFlexer app. Keeping tabs on your social buddies while on the company intranet? Launch your Facebook app. You get the idea.

You really have to try this to see the possibilities. Learn more about it and download Prism for mac, windows or linux here. Get a few more takes on Prism here, here and here.

On a mac? Get a mac-OS specific version called Fluid here.

There are almost countless default start pages out there. Most have the capability of being customized to the point of unreadability. And many of them try to present too much information on the page, when all I want is a directory.

Well, here’s one solution: Symbaloo. Like many earlier start pages, it’s really just a bunch of links but with a nice graphical interface. You can start with their suggested links, add from a directory of dozens of others they suggest, or add anything you want to link to. You can even add icons to your custom links.

Many of their supplied links open in a reduced box right there in the middle. So you can enter your search terms and then launch to a new page. Custom links can be set to a new page or the existing one.

You can also vary the size of the grid, and add additional desktops. You start with two desktops: one populated with many of their suggested search links, and one that is news and contains photos linked to current stories. One unfortunate thing: you can’t add news sources other than the ones they offer.

Regardless, I’m playing around with it as a start page. It’s clean, simple and might actually help me get rid of my monstrous bookmark bar…wouldn’t that be special???

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that this is a Flash interface, so it doesn’t work on my iPhone…bummer. Now THAT would have been useful!

Symbaloo

A Nice Lifehacker Review

Another from Webware

More traditional start pages

Traditional TV will continue to be the dominant advertising medium over the next five years, although broadband will continue to make significant headway, according to a survey of 270 media executives, conducted by Myers Publishing and underwritten by video monitor Teletrax.

Take a quick read of the Hollywood Reporter article here.

Not that I totally disagree, but I have to wonder: this was a survey among those heavily vested in traditional broadcast, and sponsored by a broadcast tracking service. Hmmm…anybody else hear the faint sound of a fiddle through the smoke?

Lately, you can’t turn on the microwave without seeing something about Amazon’s new Kindle ebook reader. Now that I have more time for pleasure-reading, and being the geek I am, I was sorely tempted to buy one. I’ve had a variety of ebook readers over the years, from the Franklin to my current Sony Reader…suffice to say I like ebooks. So, why do I like these new readers?

One, unlike my old Franklin or PDA reader, these actually look like ink. Really. Ink on slightly dirty paper, but still ink. Easy on the eyes, no backlight eye-strain, like reading a real book.

But what I really like is that they let me read twice as fast. How’s that? Because you can enlarge the type by pushing a button (no glasses needed…maybe) and you have a de-facto speed-reading column width. You can scan and absorb a page at a true Evelyn Woods pace, and work through that list of “books I should have read back in school” a whole lot faster. (Best of all, you can download most of those books free from a variety of sites.)

So, did I buy that Kindle? Hell no. Their pricing model, if it remains unchanged, will kill this device. And it’s not the $400 initial cost, nor the $9.99 for a book. It’s the additional charges for “converting” blogs, feeds and even your own PDF or doc files. The only way to get files into the Kindle is wirelessly through Amazon, and they charge you for every file. Oh, and want the New York Times on your Kindle instead of your laptop? That will be $15 per month…in black and white.

I’m sticking to my Sony Reader. It ain’t perfect, but it’s practically open-source compared to Kindle. But hey, maybe you’ll feel different after you compare the two. Here are a few links to get you started…happy reading.

Sony vs Kindle vs Iliad

CNET’s take on the two

Wired Blog (read the comments)

OK, here’s a little holiday fun. TelevisionTunes.com has the best archive of old television theme songs I’ve found, plus a really fun “name-that-tune” game.

Can’t remember what that “bar” line was in “The Ballad of Davey Crockett?” Now you can…have fun. Just be careful with your ego: this has a lot of 70s and 80s themes, too, and my daughter beat me 2 out 3 times!

TelevisionTunes

Name That TV Tune

Theme Music for Your Game!

Ever sit in a meeting with 20 people when only 3 were really needed? Ever wonder what that “all hands” meeting actually costs? Ever wish you could stick it to one of those know-it-all 20-something MBAs with a dose of their own number-crunching medicine?

Yeah, me neither. But just in case you’re curious about the cost of that touchy-feely “ideation” meeting, the folks at the Seattle-based compensation research firm PayScale can tell you. They have a nifty little tool called MeetingMiser that will keep a running “time-is-money” calculator that tells you what you’re spending, based on job titles. PayScale uses its database of 8.5 million salary profiles to calculate it by the minute.

Nice use of a browser tool to draw interest to your area of expertise or prime selling point. And a good way to quantify one of the hidden wasters of corporate efficiency.

Give it a shot…hey, at least it will give you an excuse if you ditch another useless a meeting. You can always say you were just trying to save the company 39 cents a minute.

MeetingMiser

Still looking for that TV fix, when you want it? Can’t find the show you want? Try Sidereel.

This is a slick site with links to online viewing of just about every popular show, plus movies, music and more. Some are legitimate links to network streams, others are, well, not so legitimate. But the streams are pretty good to excellent, with fullscreen options on most. There are even RSS feeds (you know, automatic alerts when a new episode comes in) and a great archive of previous seasons.

The best aggregation of a wide range of shows I’ve found yet. Plus, you can join the wiki if you want to join in conversations about those shows.

Just be careful. You could end up spending hours and hours here…just like Saturday mornings as a kid.

Sidereel

if you’re looking for a good investment, maybe you should be looking somewhere else than the Dow for long-term performance.

This study has been around a year or so, but it clearly shows that companies performing well in the American Consumer Satisfaction Index outperform the DJIA, almost doubling the return.

So let me see if I can translate this rocket science: A company makes good products and takes care of its customers, so it does well and its stock prospers. Duh.

But using the ACSI as an investment tool is a pretty cool idea, and now there’s some actual academic proof behind it.

Here’s the link to the study: Customer Satisfaction and Stock Prices

You probably heard about them first in conjunction with Second Life. But avatars are everywhere right now, and getting lots of buzz. They’re also getting serious consideration as both marketing tools and potential targets. See this Harvard Business Review article.

If you’d like to get a quick, one-stop look at where people are making these things, and how they’re using them, Mashable has put together a great overview. Some are intriguing, and some are just plain silly. But the desire to have a physical representation of a virtual “me” is growing well beyond Second Life.

Avatars Everywhere

Remember when you wanted to be a pirate? Now, it’s only a few clicks away…argggh.

Now, there’s a re-awakening. More and more boomers are beginning to think about how they can once again change the world, or at least make it a little better for our kids and grandkids.

PC Mag has a few ideas of how we can indulge both our geek and give-back sides. They’ve put together 10 ways we can each make a difference using the technology we love. Take a look here:

10 Ways Technology Can Make A Difference

Good tech…good deed…what could be, well, gooder?

Seems that “personal convenience” and “avoiding commercials” are the primary reasons…duh.

Consumer Internet Barometer

So, what are they watching? Well, more of us will be watching The Daily Show episodes now that 8 years of shows are available…free. Here’s the NY Times article:

Daily Show Archives - New York Times Blog

And if you just want to watch an episode, head straight to the archives. Includes a pretty slick search function.

Yeah, me too. Makes me long for the days when we’d actually run to the mailbox, HOPING to find the Sears Christmas catalog. (As we got older, we looked for other kinds of catalogs…;-)

Our digital accessibility has led to a lot of good things, but also a flood of interruptions in our lives. Not to mention huge questions about privacy. But there are ways to correct some of this.

The World Privacy Forum has published a list of resources (phone numbers, links, addresses) that allow you to opt-out of calls, junk mail, spam, credit checks, etc. Give it a shot:

Top Ten Opt-Outs

And while you’re at it, give your mail carrier a break and opt-out of those catalogs you really don’t want:

Catalog Choice

He or she will love you for it…their chiropractor will not.

That said, I find myself relying on the internet side of of the equation more and more. (Probably because I move around so much, I never have the same driveway for the carrier to miss.) So, where do you find the best alternative to your paper?

PCmag.com has put together a pretty nice list. Pity they left off the NY Times online, my favorite and pretty much the gold standard. But Google News is also a good source.

Take a look. I’ve bookmarked all these into one folder so when I want to read the newspaper, I just rub a little ink on my finger and start clicking.

The Newspaper Killers

Take a look at the site as well as the full review done by PCmag.com. You might learn something.

Oh, and for the real college experience, remember to drink beer while you read.

The farther we move forward in life (AKA get older) the more we look back. We suddenly feel the need to take all those photos out of boxes and put them in albums, or edit the 400 hours of video we have piled in the closet, or actually organize our family history into something more than stories around the holiday table.

There are a variety of sites now that can help tell our stories. One interesting approach is OurStory. Previously known as Wisdom Ark, it allows its users to tell their life story with photos, videos (through VideoEgg) and other media placed on a timeline. Plus, you can embed your timeline in a website, blog, MySpace or Facebook page, wherever.

OurStory’s application is browser based and collaborative. Every time a user creates a new event or adds new media to their timeline, an email is sent to any interested parties; family and friends generally. These people can then add their own stories or comments to the newly posted media. Additionally they can add their own media where appropriate and begin the email process again.

Give it a try…it’s free for your first timeline, $40/year for multiple timelines. (Or just keep creating new accounts.) If it’s not to your liking, here are a couple of others to try: Story of My Life, MyFamily, and Dandelife.

Just dial 1-800-GOOG411…1-800-466-4411. Any phone, anywhere.

Google Voice Local Search is based on voice recognition, offers to place your call and/or send you a text message (which on my iPhone was a link to my selection on Google Maps in the form of a “pin” complete with phone number, address and website). Google has been working on this experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone since last spring.

Using this service, you can:

* Designate your area by city and state

* search for a local business by name or category.
You can say “Giovanni’s Pizzeria” or just “pizza”.

* get connected to the business, free of charge.

* get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
Just say “text message”.

And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. (Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.)

Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. They’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.

Give it a shot. It’s a big improvement over, “No, operator, I don’t know the name but I think it’s on Broadway somewhere…”

So, here’s the Saturday Night Live video all the news guys are talking about.

No longer. There are now DVRs to record shows for viewing whenever we choose. But what if you forgot to record it? Ahhh, fear not, oh tech-savvy boomer.

Today, almost every network will let you stream your favorite show to your PC, wherever and whenever you want. Some are very good, even HD quality. ABC sets the bar on that one. But others range from pretty good to almost unwatchable. And a lot depends on your internet connection.

There are even a bunch of new, non-network sites like Joost that are delivering a TV-like experience. So, what’s what? The recent issue of MacWorld Magazine did a pretty good job of sorting it out. (Their points apply to PCs as well as Macs.) Take a look at this article and give them a try.

Just try not to spill your TV dinner on the keyboard.

A new site called wakerupper (www.wakerupper.com) let’s you schedule reminder calls with custom messages. I’ve seen these before, and it’s always a question as to how they’ll make money at it, but this one is pretty slick. Just set a time and number for the call, type in a custom message that will be read to you by a text-to-speech system and that’s it.

They promise no spam, telemarketing calls, etc. but I can’t verify that yet. Still, give it a try. Like to call you on your cell when you return from a trip to tell you where you parked your car at the airport. (A new theory of relativity always pushes that one out for me…)

But I use both mac and pc…some stuff just demands that Windoze thing. So, what are you using? Take this quick poll…

Well now, they’ve collected all those useful things. At least, all of them since May…and that’s 5,000 of them. Blogging, photos, communication, videos, tools for life and work, and on and on. Finally getting around to editing all those camcorder tapes of the kids? How about 150 video tools, a click away.

You could spend a week with this list. Maybe I will. Maybe you should…it will drive your kids crazy when you know better sites than they do.

Click and Do

So now, here comes Samsung with a “new” phone designed for the senile set. Wrong thinking. My 80+ year old mother would laugh at this. Actually, she prefers VOIP and video chat.

I’m sure there is a segment of the population that would like a dial tone (ohh…it’s a REAL phone!) and a great big 911 button (never know when that walker will collapse.) But that market is dying…literally. Maybe Samsung and Jitterbug would be well-served to check the stats on boomer adoption of everything tech. We’re one of the largest, fastest-growing and well-heeled. Which means we pay to go forward, not back.

OK, so maybe I’m cranky. Must be Polygrip cramps. Gee, think they’ll take my Princess rotary set in trade???

STORY HERE:

Video Games: More Than Just Fun for Over 50 Crowd

by GeekSugar

The release of the Nintendo Wii gaming console seems to have reminded everyone that it’s not just pimply-faced teenage boys that love video games. There are girl gamers, guy gamers and even gamers that can get a senior citizen discount when they go to the movies.

To me, it seems obvious that video games will always be fun for the whole family, but I was rather shocked and intrigued to learn that so many older gamers say they get an actual workout and mental stimulation from games. I hope I say the same someday. PopCap Games, a developer of casual games, recently conducted a survey involving more than 2,000 casual game players, and found that:

* 47 percent of all casual game players are 50 or older, and nearly 20 percent are 60 or older

* “Seniors” play casual games for longer periods of time, and more frequently, than younger players. 65 percent of players age 50 and up say they play the games on a daily basis, compared to less than half of younger players

* Of players 50 or older, 74 percent cited cognitive exercise (mental workouts), 86 percent noted stress relief, and 62 percent chose memory strengthening as benefits they experience from playing casual games

*Fully 32 percent of respondents 50 or older said the games distract them from chronic pain/fatigue, and nearly one in ten said they derive actual relief from chronic pain/fatigue when playing

* As the single most important reason for playing, subjects age 50 and up chose “stress relief/relaxation” (39 percent) and “mental workout” (21 percent)

* 86 percent of older survey respondents said that they felt playing casual games offered them physical and/or mental health benefits, compared to 74 percent of under-50 respondents

And here it is with it on:

This type of technology makes Tivo ad-skipping look hard…here, you never even see the ads to skip. Trust me: this has media, clients and every ad-supported site out there very nervous. Keep an eye on it. It could change the revenue models and end up forcing sites to actually CHARGE us for content. That would suck…

From ADOTAS

Firefox has put out a free addition to their browser that is raising some eyebrows and pulses. Adblock Plus is a new service, that once implemented deletes advertisements from web sites.

While Firefox is not the biggest browser, and many other companies are choosing to ignore the development, this technology could potentially do a lot of damage to an industry that was built on a revenue model dependent on advertising to support the exorbitant costs of some sites according to the New York Times.

When searching the internet using this new program, all ads cease to appear. Developer of the software, Wladimir Palant commented in an email to the Times that although the number of users is still small, “The numbers are rising steadily,” adding that his figures don’t “show exponential growth any more (luckily, the server has limited traffic), but there are still 300,000 to 400,000 new users each month.”

There is much debate on both sides of the coin on this issue. While consumers may opt to not see flashes of light from a direct response ad or rich media ads they continually roll over by accident, by taking away the ads themselves the service is technically committing theft since the space is paid for by advertisers.

Advocacy groups of smaller sites have been forming to speak out against Adblock Plus. Many have been blocking Firefox users to protest.

Microsoft was the only larger company that commented on the development to the Times, stating, “It would not be appropriate for Microsoft to comment on the merits or demerits of a specific add-on, or group of add-ons. Provided they have not been designed with malicious intent and do not compromise a user’s privacy or security, Microsoft is pleased to see new add-ons that add to the range of options that users have for customizing their browsing experience.”

So, we come from the generation that reads newspapers. Real newspapers. But if you’re like me, you have to get up at 4 AM and drive 6 miles to get a NY Times…if you’re lucky. I read it online instead. And now, I can make the front page read the way I want. This isn’t new tech…actually, it’s early 1990’s tech. But still it’s nice to see. And the best **hidden** part? You can adjust the size of the type…so you don’t have to wear your wife’s Eartha Kitt glasses cause you can’t find your own…!!!!

MYTIMES

Eons.com

If you’ve played with, or (OMG!) actively participated in social networks, you know MySpace is the 800-pound gorilla. But if garish graphics and lack of organization isn’t your thing, check out Facebook. Anyone can join now (not just students) and it is evolving into a true social app. My guess is you’ll like it A LOT better. Plus, now it’s easy to move your MySpace profile over using this new Facebook application. Then, you’ll be on the social site most are betting will be the eventual winner.

From valleywag.com

“It’s either News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch’s worst nightmare — or his wet dream.Two recent college graduates, Jess Martin and Drew Chen, have launched, as we predicted, SpaceLift, an application on Facebook that takes a chaotic, ugly MySpace profile page and displays it in Facebook’s spare, blue-and-white layout. For Murdoch, who’s voiced admiration for Facebook, even though News Corp. owns social-networking rival MySpace, this could be disastrous.

“Why? If users are able to port their MySpace pages to Facebook, friends and all, then Facebook could gain further momentum in its battle for users. On the other hand, if the application gains popularity on Facebook, it could just provide more proof of MySpace’s unassailable top spot among social networks.

“Of course, SpaceLift is not that sophisticated. It allows anyone to pull any MySpace page into their profile, without performing any kind of check to see if they actually own that profile. And it doesn’t match up MySpace friends with Facebook friends, as proponents of social-network portability, like LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick, would like to have happen. Still, SpaceLift illustrates the potential of the idea — and it points to a phenomenon that bears watching.”

Click here to use Spacelift on your Facebook