There has been a lot of talk lately about alternative fuels and trying to “green” our energy usage. Some of the big talks during the elections and since have been that nuclear fission is somehow safe and green. Yet it’s clearly not either of those things. Nuclear waste is being stockpiled throughout the country with no safe way of storing or disposing of it. On top of that nuclear fission is far from safe but sometimes we forget. Sometimes we need to be reminded of why we don’t do certain things. I came across two different articles recently that highlight not only why nuclear fission is not safe but also why we should be avoiding adding more nuclear plants.

First let’s take a visual tour of Chernobyl today. Along the way you can take a look at the Geiger counter to see how “safe” it is.

Just follow the link below for a tour. It’s actually a real tourist get away and you can book a tour for Chernobyl today at http://www.tourchernobyl.com.

http://www.grcade.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2217

If you did scroll down the pictures I am pretty sure you are feeling what I am feeling right now. There is a real sense of loss. It’s very sobering. I don’t think words can accurately describe how you feel after you view those pictures.

Some might argue oh but that was in Russia and we are much safer here now. Well that sounds reassuring only if it were true. Here in the United States year after year nuclear plants fail safety tests and most of these are brushed aside. We also forget that a nuclear catastrophe happened right here as well. It wasn’t as bad as Chernobyl but it could have been and that’s the scary thing.

Remember Three Mile Island?

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/03/27/27greenwire-three-mile-island-still-haunts-us-reactor-indu-10327.html

Some argue this was a good thing since it made us aware of the potential for disaster in our own backyard. Since then nuclear fission has been basically put on hold and with good reason. Had Chernobyl happened in our backyard would we even consider nuclear fission as an option? I doubt it. This really feels like one of those things where we have to really learn our lesson. But do we need a gigantic concrete dome in your town USA? I hope history has taught us better and we can truly look to safe, alternative fuels.

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A while back I wrote a post trying to warn everyone that Captcha as a security measure has been defeated. This basically means that anyone who has a blog or any site that uses Captcha for security pretty much has no security. Spammers could easily hit your site with whatever they want and that’s not good. Well it’s good for them but bad for us. So I had a feeling people were scrambling to find a new method of security. Then I saw this article here.

This new technology makes it pretty much impossible for a computer to crack so automated processes like this are eliminated but there is a catch. There was another article that I can’t seem to find right now that basically said Indian firms are hiring hundreds of people to physically defeat the Captcha system. That is they hire out humans to go through Captcha systems by hand and then spam away. Apparently its cheap to hire out this labor and then they can spam websites (you can probably figure out which kind) Want more Viagra ads? Well these are the people that do that kind of crap.

Bummer :(

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Ok at first when I read this my first thought was wow are they crazy or what? Then when I figured out how it works I wasn’t quite so shocked. Apparently they are working on a way or are going to just integrate Twitter into OnStar so that you can Tweet while you drive. Sounds dangerous right? Well it actually works using a voice activation system so that it is entirely hands free. Still sounds a bit dangerous to me but much less so than Tweeting with your fingers. I would think it is distracting though but probably no more so than talking on the phone. But that is dangerous too. Hmm…

Anyways if you just have to Tweet this much then having this setup in your car might be the thing for you. I guess I never realized how much people are in love with Twitter. Apparently it’s so much that engineers are making it even easier for people to do it everywhere they go!

You can read this article to learn more.

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This is probably something that most people don’t think about. I know a lot of people are becoming more environmentally aware or conscious and that’s a good thing. Remember that our resources are limited and putting bad stuff back into the environment is not a good thing. Neither is wasting resources. Think before you print might be a saying that you see once in a while but it’s something that you might not necessarily do. Yet it’s very important to remember that saving trees is important. It’s a big waste of natural resources to waste paper. I realize we can recycle but if we don’t use it to begin with then we don’t have to recycle it.

At the same time ink can be harmful as well to the environment. So at the same time we focus and try to save paper we should be thinking about ink. Think about ink. There that’s catchy. So how can you save ink?

Well how about an environmentally friendly font? I wrote this post about how a company came up with a great idea to reduce the amount of ink used when you print. Reduce the number of pixels and you can still read it but it saves ink. Brilliant. Takes 30 seconds or less to install the font and you can help out each time you use it.

What about a different printer setting? Did you know there are settings to reduce ink?

It depends on which make or model of printer you have as to what specifically you can control. But if you are using a Windows computer if you go to the control panel and then the printer settings you can see some of the more advanced settings there. On my laser printer in my office there is a setting for a toner saver. I would suggest you use this all the time. Sure it’s a slightly less bright font but who cares. You can save the planet right? Each little bit does count contrary to what some people say.

Another setting you can keep in mind is the draft setting. If you are just printing out a MLS sheet for yourself does it really have to be bright? As long as you can read it that’s all that matters. Probably a lot of the stuff you do can be done in a draft setting. This setting should be located in the printer controls as well. The other setting here is to print in grayscale. Go to color management settings and choose print in grayscale and then choose black only. This should consume less ink.

Like I said these are only minor things but the smallest things do help. The biggest thing is to only print if you absolutely have to. Most people are fine with email.

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I wasn’t sure if the title of this post should be “and I blogged to tell about it” or “I lived to blog about it!” Either way I sure had a busy day the other day. I know some people wouldn’t want me talking about their situation so I try to change things up a bit. But this has seriously been one of the busiest weeks just this week and the other day when all that happened was even crazier. I don’t know what else to say about it but it’s been seriously hard to fit everything in my schedule. It’s strange how that works but I can say one thing for sure, if it has been a buyer’s market, with this many buyers out there it might change pretty quick!

I am not sure what is driving everyone out to buy or at least to take a look at what is out there but I have a feeling that the tax credit is playing a big role. In fact I know that is having a big effect and I am glad. It’s a good deal and there’s not much else to think about that. It felt good helping so many people and I know that if I feel good I can make other people feel good as well. It was a nice sunny day too!

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For most people privacy is not only a concern it’s an absolute must. This is especially true when it comes to minors on the internet. Privacy matters as well when it comes to spam because in this day and age no one likes to give out emails because of the inevitable onslaught of spam that ensues afterwards.

While all the above is most certainly true you must be wondering why on earth anyone would want to give up all that privacy. Well for some of us we don’t want anything private. Every bit of information about us is shared on the internet. I don’t mean personal stuff, I mean business related stuff. My email, cell phone number, business address, pictures of myself, and website are all freely shared to anyone on the planet who wants to contact me. Unfortunately that’s the price of doing businesses nationally or globally. The price is no privacy and the payoff is plenty.

So Facebook did some tweaking because it realizes that not every Facebook user wants complete privacy. So now you can actually make your profile even more public and let people contact you even easier. You can read this story here for more information. I highly suggest anyone that is using social networking as a means to compliment their business to check into this.

Oh and while you are at it....

Want to be my friend?! :) 

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So what else is new with Twitter?

Twitter is being taught in UK schools. Can you believe it? I can and I wish it were being taught in our country as well. Not just Twitter but more advanced computer knowledge such as web programming and design and things like that. Why? Because computers aren’t going away and a typing class just isn’t cutting it anymore. Typing is like breathing and Tweeting is like speaking. If you are human you have to learn this stuff, even if it’s just baby steps.

Twitter broke recently. You might not have noticed since apparently it happened at night. I must say for a service that sees exponential growth to only see it go down occasionally isn’t bad. Whoever is behind the scenes does a good job.

Twitter in the news! That is Twitter might start serving up local news. I think that’s a good idea. I can see it being popular and convenient.

Twitter in the news again! Ok this time it really was in the news. In fact it’s been all over the news. If you have been watching you might have noticed that quite a few news programs etc are starting to Tweet and gaining followers. I guess its going mainstream. What it is doing is driving incredible traffic to Twitter.

New Firefox app for Twitter released. This new extension looks rather useful if you are a FF user. It definitely adds quite a bit of functionality.

Twitter starts serving up ads. This was probably inevitable. No one is going to keep pumping money into this no matter how popular it is unless it can make some money.

Twitter serving text ads. This goes with the one above. I guess it’s just a different approach or a solution to the same problem.

Twitter is growing and growing on businesses. How much is a lot of traffic from Twitter worth to you? This is an interesting question but certainly a big reason why so many people are using Twitter and trying to get a massive cult following.

How much is Twitter worth to you for increased revenue? Well here we have an answer and apparently its $250,000! That number seems large but if you read the story you can see that it is quite lucrative to have a big following or at least some are willing to gamble that it will be in the future. 250,000 clams to be a suggested Tweeter to follow might seem hard to swallow but it’s true.

Twitter in the future? As this article points out what better way to find out what Twitter’s future plans are other than looking at who they are hiring! Ahh tricky!

I don’t know if that was a dozen but it was pretty close. I think I could have found a few dozen more. Those stories were just from this month!

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I often write about the importance of backing up all your files. Why? Because it’s important duh! I am actually shocked at the number of people with websites that don’t even know you are supposed to back up the data let alone have a backup! The same goes for any of your personal data. Think of it as a safe with all your most valuable child hood possessions. If you don’t keep them safe they are but a memory. Why take chances?

That’s why I recommend that you have more than one backup solution. If a backup fails then you are just as out of luck as not having a backup. There is no one safe method and the key is redundancy, having many backups. You really can’t have too many. That’s why I recommend trying cloud storage as well because it’s convenient and for the most part safe. But accidents happen and when big companies lose a lot of data really bad things happen like in the case of backup company Carbonite where apparently they lost 7500 customers data. I really hope that wasn’t you and that wasn’t your only backup. It does seem crazy that they wouldn’t have some sort of backup backup and another backup of that but I guess not. From the looks of the updates they deny this happening but then someone says it did. Who knows what the truth is, the point is never rely on one system because you are doomed to failure. Having a backup decreases those odds but not by much especially if time can degrade the source.

Here is a story of a company out of business because of not having a backup. Imagine that.

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It was just announced over at Tech Crunch that there is a new social network in town that works a bit like Twitter. Of course a lot of people are trying to work on things similar to Twitter because if it worked for Twitter why wouldn’t it work for me? Duh! Well that’s not always how things work. You can’t just copy something and expect it to work. That’s why they tried to make Jive.ly a bit different and offer more. That’s the thing that might make this thing take off. The review didn’t seem to put much thought into Jive.ly taking off but who knows. I am sure not many thought Twitter would be where it is today in only 3 years and the same could be said about a lot of networks and sites.

So what’s different about this one? Well you can check it out yourself. They seemed to have sorted out most of the issues with a server overload. It wasn’t too hard to send a message there as you can see from the picture. I think trying it out and seeing if it can work for you is important. The difference is that this lets you work with video and other media formats whereas Twitter really doesn’t let you do that. Jive.ly has a real big emphasis on mobile which with how fast the mobile market is moving you just never know anymore.

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Buy or Sell, I'll Treat You Well!

Ok for the most part I have stayed out of the talk surrounding the bailout(s) and the rest of the fallout. Not that I am not interested but for the most part I have little or no control over what is going to happen anyways. I don’t have stocks and I just have a strong belief in the old saying if it’s something you can’t control then there is no need to worry about it. I prefer to worry about the things I can directly control.

But this AIG thing is really starting to well not starting to it’s just completely out of control. I don’t even know what to think anymore. Literally not just every day but every hour there is a new story out about something else they are doing. It just doesn’t seem like it could get much worse until I just read this story. Apparently the bailout hasn’t been quite enough and now AIG is suing the government for more money. While that doesn’t seem like much on the surface you see the thing is that they are using our money to do it! Yes it’s the taxpayer money that we gave them that now they are using to sue us! I just can’t even believe this anymore. While I think some people have been a bit violent in their reactions to AIG such as threatening to kill them and burn it down, at the same time I can’t feel anything but anger. I don’t even know who to be angry at anymore but I do feel that this is way beyond simply out of control. I don’t think there is a word to describe this anymore.

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Buy or Sell, I'll Treat You Well!