Keep Those Keyboards Clean

In my years as an IT professional, one of the things that has always grossed me out are filth infested keyboards and mice. I've often sat at someone's desk who needs IT assistance only to find that their keyboard looks like Thanksgiving Dinner gone wrong. Not only does their keyboard indicate that they eat at their desk, you would think they were using their keyboard as a serving dish. Giant bread crumbs, potato chips, unidentified scum, layers of grey film, hairs (from who knows where), and even a tooth have all been found in keyboards. This article, explains the health risks of having a petri dish for a keyboard. Next time think twice about using your keyboard to pick you teeth, brush your hair, or pick your nose. In the mean time read more.

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Great Paper about SEO and Social Media

While doing some research on Omniture SiteCatalyst analytics product, I came across an excellent paper on SEO and social media. Read more to learn where these two web entities intersect and how you can leverage one to improve the other.

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Do you like Almonds?

Do you like Almonds? Do you eat at least 23 almonds a day? If not you should check out one of SRG's latest creations, shootfor23.com. This is an innovative campaign being launched in conjunction with March madness. The health benefits of eating 23 almonds a day are discussed throughout the site. You can also play a snake like game, or upload your own video of you getting in your 23 almonds in a creative fashion. Check it out!

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Wolfram Alpha: Learn this name now, you'll thank me later

We've all heard it before: Product X is a 'Google Killer'. The idea, of course, is that whatever flavor-of-the-month website will somehow supplant Google as the king of search. We heard it when Micro$oft released Live search, and we heard it again when Cuil came out (anyone even remember that?!). But I'm giving you fair warning now—learn the name Wolfram Alpha.

If you're a total nerd, you may have heard about a program called Mathematica. If you're a scientist, engineer or mathematician, then you view Mathematica the same way priests view the bible. Simply put, Mathematica is the end-all, be-all of math software, and it has changed the way the scientific community interacts with computers. Seriously, if you can understand half the crap mentioned in the software's list of features, I'll buy you a beer.

Anyway, Mathematica was created by Stephen Wolfram, and as you might have guessed, the guy's a genius. Well, in May, he's releasing Wolfram Alpha - A search engine that computes your answer.

Here's what makes it different: When you search Google (or any search engine, for that matter) you get a bunch of pages that may or may not answer your question, based solely on the text you entered. For example, when you go to Google and search for "What was the price of oil on February 3, 2007" you'll get 19 million answers. Ask Wolfram Alpha that same question, and you get one answer—$65.37.

Think about how this could change the way we search the web for information.

Of course, Wolfram Alpha is not perfect - it only answers questions with a factual answer, but if the software's big brother is any indication, Google is, at the very least, going to need to play catch-up.

Check out more details at Twine and ArsTechnica.

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