Thanks to the 12% rule: on average, your news feed only shows you 12% of the items that your friends post. (Yes, that figure was originally reported as 16%, but now it’s down to 12%.) This means that Facebook is no longer a reliable way of sharing information. Instead, it’s turned into an information-consumption site: a place where you can giggle over the 12% of the stuff your friends posted that your other friends and Facebook’s algorithms are most giggle-worthy, but you can’t actually maintain meaningful contact with your real friends.

via http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2012/06/facebooks-long-term-problem/

Tumblr to WordPress Migration Complete

A little over a month ago I decided to adopt tumblr as my primary blogging platform. About three weeks into that experiment I realized I didn’t like not having full custody and control over the content I posted. The lack of functional site search and the impending arrival of advertisements on tumblr pushed me back into the self-hosted WordPress camp. I imported my tumblr posts into this WordPress blog and adopted a microblogging theme that support custom post formats. Mahalo!

Dropbox + KeePass = WINNING

Do you wish you had a way to sync a secure database of your passwords across multiple computers/browsers without entrusting your data to the browser itself? Wish no more!

You can easily accomplish this level of nirvana by combining the synchronized folder technology of Dropbox and the power of the free, open source, light-weight, and easy-to-use password manager KeePass.

Step 1: Open a Dropbox account, and install it on each computer you want to synchronize passwords.

Step 2: Download and install KeePass. You can even use the portable version and save it to your Dropbox too.

Step 3: Create and save your KeePass Password Database File anywhere you want in your Dropbox.

From now on, you simply use KeePass with the Password Database File saved on your DropBox and you’re good to go no matter what computer you are using.

#winning

My experience with Zicam

A pernicious cold has been making its way though my family. First, my 11 yo son developed a cold and cough about 4 weeks ago. Then about 2 weeks ago my wife developed a severe cold with sinus infection and a hacking cough. So when I woke up last Thursday with that feeling in my throat, I knew what was about to happen.

I’ve never been able to catch a cold in the earliest stages before because I always just think it’s temporary stuffiness, but I knew I was about to be slammed with a nasty virus. I went to the corner drug store and picked up a bottle of Zicam RapidMelt tablets. My father once reported a good experience with a Zicam product a few years ago, so I thought I’d give it a try.

After taking the first tablet and waiting the required 30 minutes before eating or drinking, I immediately noticed a change in my sense of taste. Virtually all of my sense of taste was gone. I had a cup of coffee, and it tasted nothing like coffee. I googled Zicam and loss of taste and found some horror stories of people who had permanently lost their senses of taste or smell after using the nasal swab versions of Zicam (which have since been taken off shelves), so that made me feel a little better that I might not have permanently neutered my tongue.

The writing on the package claims Zicam “reduces the duration of cold symptoms when taken at the first sign of a cold”. This is what I was hoping for, and I can happily report that it is what I experienced. My first symptoms appeared on Thursday, Friday the virus ramped up pretty well but subsided on Saturday, and I took my last RapidMelt on Monday. Some extremely minor symptoms linger, but nothing I can complain about. I’m also extremely happy that my full sense of taste returned within 36 hours of taking my last tablet!