“ON the Internet, things get old fast. One prime candidate for the digital dustbin, it seems, is the current approach to protecting privacy on the Internet.

It is an artifact of the 1990s, intended as a light-touch policy to nurture innovation in an emerging industry. And its central concept is “notice and choice,” in which Web sites post notices of their privacy policies and users can then make choices about sites they frequent and the levels of privacy they prefer.

But policy and privacy experts agree that the relentless rise of Internet data harvesting has overrun the old approach of using lengthy written notices to safeguard privacy.”

Read more at the NYTimes

If you ever wonder how fast your Internet connection is, Cnet offers a good test. They also have a desktop widget to monitor your bandwidth.

Slow Internet connection speeds means that there is a lot of traffic going on in your network. If you’re experiencing slower-than-normal speeds, here are some things you should check.

1. Check any file-sharing programs. Some can be big bandwidth hogs without you knowing it. There is usually a setting in “Preferences” that you can set the upload and download limits. If you have no limits set, especially for uploading, then you have a problem. In some cases, you cannot change the settings (Opera’s built in torrent program) and will have to stop transfers.
2. Check for streaming music or video being played on your network. The more music and videos that are being streamed to computers on your network, the less bandwidth you will have, making for a slower connection.
3. How many programs are you running? This doesn’t directly affect bandwidth, but too many programs running- or even open- can cause your computer to operate at a seemingly slow pace.
4. Have you done a check for viruses or other malware? Some malicious programs are written to utilize your computer and network resources without you knowing. This can definitely have an affect on your Internet connection speeds. And, it’s always good to surf the Internet virus-free.

YouTube, in the beginning, was just a website with videos. It was somewhat organized but could never keep my attention for very long. After years and years of continuous development, I appreciate the website a lot more and find myself visiting it for almost all of my video needs. Two years ago, I visited it so much that I was compelled to create an account and save my favorite videos and start my own playlists.

Thanks for all the hard work, YouTube magic-box-on-the-Internet developers. You’ve brought organized video entertainment to the Internet.

For those of you that would like to work for YouTube, check out the below video and link.

Work for YouTube: http://www.google.com/jobs/workyoutube/

In today’s age, the little things still get the best of us.

1. Using a non-optical mouse that is unresponsive due to the buildup of dirt on the horizontal and vertical rollers
2. Using a mouse without a scroll-wheel or a second button (unless you’re a Mac user)
3. A “slow” internet connection

May God be with us in our darkest hour… (when the power cuts out, leaving us… stranded.)