Just like everywhere else in PR, content is king on Twitter.

In just a few days on July 15, Twitter will turn five. It seems hard to imagine a world without the micro-blogging behemoth, and it is now safe to say that Twitter is mainstream, established – and here to stay. Surprisingly, even after five years and now with 200 million tweets a day, it seems as though Twitter ‘best practices’ still aren’t set in stone.

But it does seem like some things are getting clearer. It is still true that you can’t ignore your audience, and you need to engage them when appropriate. But some new statistics released by Dan Zarella suggest that – as we should have known – content is kind on Twitter as it is everywhere else in publication, public relations and marketing. Continue reading

Will Usage Based Billing kill Google’s Chrome OS in Canada?

As Google hosts it’s I/O conference this week, I can’t help but watch from Canada and wonder what the future of the Chrome OS will be here.

Google appears to be loading the new operating system with innovative new features and functionality that could make it a very useful tool for many Canadians. But it is a true ‘cloud’ OS, meaning that virtually everything you do on your computer goes through the Internet. So the big question for Canadians is, how will we be able to take advantage of these features when our Internet service providers (ISP) seem intent on limiting the amount of bandwidth we can use (or gouging us on our bills if we use too much)? Continue reading

The buying guide for buying guides: Where to start when looking for a laptop or tablet

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Buying guides for laptops, netbooks and tablet or slate computers can be found all over the Internet these days. If you’re looking for a notebook, they’ll point you to a review for a Samsung R590 (one of my favourites). If it’s a netbook you’re after, you can get lots of info on the Samsung N145.

All these reviews and buyers guides will give you great information about notebook computers and the features they have – but they all have one thing in common: they all assume you know what kind of machine you want. But what do you do if you don’t even know that yet?

With such a dizzying array of machines on the market these days, that is actually the first question you should ask. Fortunately finding the right answer requires no technical knowledge at all.

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Reconnect with Facebook Friends: Change news feed settings so posts from all your friends appear

With all the changes that Facebook continues to make to their site and the way people interact with it, there’s bound to be a few slip ups along the way. The most recent round of changes to the Facebook interface had one unintended consequence that a lot of people are complaining about: namely that posts from a lot of their friends are not showing up in their news feed.

There is a simple fix that will allow you to change your news feed settings so status updates from all your friends will show up like they used to, instead of having status updates from some of your friends hidden.

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10 million reasons to protect your web passwords – Simple security tips anyone can use

Password management and computer securityFive hundred bucks. That’s roughly what the username and password you use to log in to your bank website are worth on the open market, according to a new study from Panda Labs. The exact amount will depend on your actual bank balance, but even security credentials for someone with the embarrassingly low balance of my account would be worth about $80.

But you keep your bank username and password safe, right? So you don’t have to worry, right? Well, maybe you do after all.

The odds of your bank website being hacked are extraordinarily low. But most people reuse the same login info on other sites they visit – and the odds of one of those sites getting hacked is much higher. As an example, the website for mobile app maker Trapster.com was hacked recently and now the security information of over 10 million users may be at risk.

So you might have heard that the solution is to use a different username and password for every site you sign up for, and to use passwords that include numbers and symbols. The problem with that advice is that while it is effective, it’s not terribly practical. With more and more sites offering content and features only for members, who can remember a different username and password for every site? So some people write their info down – but what if you want to log in from a different computer, or even a mobile device like an iPhone and you don’t have your note handy?

That’s where password management services like LastPass come in. These services integrate into your browser and manage all your passwords for you, so you don’t have to remember a thing.

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