Outdated Tech Terms

The following 12 tech terms are now considered outdated.

1. Intranet
   
2. Extranet
   
3. Web Surfing
   
4. Push Technology
   
5. Application Service Provider (ASP)
   
6. Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
   
7. Internet Telepony
   
8. Weblog
   
9. Thin client
   
10. Rboc
    
11. Long-Distance Call
    
12. World Wide Web

To know what terms to use instead of them, read this article by Carolyn Duffy Marsan.

The 50,000-Dollar Question

Patricia Heaton finds it hard to answer a very easy question because of math anxiety.

South of Broad: Conroy's Latest Novel

Pat Conroy talks about and reads from his new novel, South of Broad.

The First and Last Freedom

This is excerpted from the third chapter of The First and Last Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti.

"What you are, the world is. So your problem is the world's problem. Surely, this is a simple and basic fact, is it not? In our relationship with the one or the many we seem somehow to overlook this point all the time. We want to bring about alteration through a system or through a revolution in ideas or values based on a system, forgetting that it is you and I who create society, who bring about confusion or order by the way in which we live. So we must begin near, that is we must concern ourselves with our daily existence, with our daily thoughts and feelings and actions which are revealed in the manner of earning our livelihood and in our relationship with ideas or beliefs. This is our daily existence, is it not? We are concerned with livelihood, getting jobs, earning money; we are concerned with the relationship with our family or with our neighbors, and we are concerned with ideas and with beliefs. Now, if you examine our occupation, it is based fundamentally on envy, it is not just a means of earning a livelihood. Society is so constructed that it is a process of constant conflict, constant becoming; it is based on greed, on envy, envy of your superior: the clerk wanting to become the manager, which shows that he is not just concerned with earning a livelihood, a means of subsistence, but with acquiring position and prestige. This attitude naturally creates havoc in society, in relationship, but if you and I were only concerned with livelihood we should find out the right means of earning it, a means not based on envy. Envy is one of the most destructive factors in relationship because envy indicates the desire for power, for position, and it ultimately leads to politics; both are closely related. The clerk, when he seeks to become a manager, becomes a factor in the creation of power-politics which produce war; so he is directly responsible for war.

What is our relationship based on? The relationship between yourself and myself, between yourself and another - which is society - what is it based on? Surely not on love, because if there were love there would be order, there would be peace, happiness between you and me. But in that relationship between you and me there is a great deal of ill will which assumes the form of respect. If we were both equal in thought, in feeling, there would be no respect, there would be no ill will, because we would be two individuals meeting, not as disciple and teacher, nor as the husband dominating the wife, nor as the wife dominating the husband. When there is ill will there is a desire to dominate which arouses jealousy, anger, passion, all of which in our relationship creates conflict which we try to escape, and this produces further chaos, further misery.

Now as regards ideas which are part of our daily existence, beliefs and formulations, are they not distorting our minds? For what is stupidity? Stupidity is the giving of wrong values to those things which the mind creates, or to those things which the hands produce. Most of our thoughts spring from the self-protective instinct, do they not? Our ideas, oh, so many of them, do they not receive the wrong significance, one which they have not in themselves? Therefore when we believe in any form, whether religious, economic or social, when we believe ... in ideas, in a social system which separates man from man, in nationalism and so on, surely we are giving wrong significance to belief which indicates stupidity, for belief divides people, doesn't unite people. So we see that by the way we live we can produce order or chaos, peace or conflict, happiness or misery."

For an electronic copy of the book, just click here.

Facebook Use and Productivity

Only a few months after one study found that Facebook users tend to get lower grades in college, another study has found that the social networking site might not be earning good grades in the workplace as well.

Companies that allow users to access Facebook in the workplace lose an average of 1.5% in total employee productivity, according to a new report from Nucleus Research, an IT research company. The survey of 237 employees also showed that 77% of workers who have a Facebook account use it during work hours.

And "some" employees use the social networking site as much as two hours a day at work, the study found. Nucleus Research did not say how many workers fit into that category, but did note that one in 33 workers surveyed only used Facebook at work.

Of those using Facebook at work, 87% said they had no clear business reason for using the site.

"If your company is facing tight margins and low profitability, as many are now, then how can you accept any work distractions that drain your overall productivity?" asked Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research for Nucleus Research, in a statement. "While it won't make you popular, restricting Facebook can reclaim lost productivity. If your profitability is say 2%, this could be the difference between staying open or closing shop."

In April, a study released by Ohio State University shows that college students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grades than students who don't use the popular social networking site. And which students were more likely to use Facebook? Well, they're the future systems administrators and CIOs.

Facebook, which logged its 250 millionth user earlier this month, has been showing tremendous growth.

Last week, Nielsen Online reported that people spend more time on Facebook than any on other Web site. The study also noted that 87.25 million U.S. users visited Facebook from home and work during June, and each of those people spent an average of 4 hours, 39 minutes and 33 seconds on the site during the month. And early last month, Nielsen reported that Facebook saw a 700% increase from April 2008 to April 2009 in the amount of time users were spending on the site.

Source: Computer World