Popular Science magazine has scanned each issue of its 137 year magazine, and place the entire collection online for free.  Science geeks, head over to PopSci archives here.

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Google is looking to provide 1Gbps Internet access to between 50,000 to 500,000 people.  They are encouraging cities and communities to respond to an RFI, and are also encouraging civic and other organizations to nominate their community as well.

To learn more and nominate your community, go to the Google Fiber for Communities page.

 Is the iPad coming online?  New Macs?  Maybe its just maintenance.  Guess we will see soon.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is preparing to announce, perhaps as early as tomorrow, a push into social media.  The integration with Gmail could be with both Google properties, such as Picasa and Facebook, and 3rd party sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Guess we will have to wait to find out the details, as the details are just rumors right now.

Over on The City Wire, I have an article on why Internet Explorer, particularly Internet Explorer 6 must go the way of the dodo bird and pet rock.  For further proof, take a look at this graphic from Alan Foreman of Poisoned Minds.

This is the day to give your computer some TLC.  Try these tips to get your computer in tip-top shape.

• Use the Disk Cleanup utility in Windwos (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup) to clean up old files you no longer need.
• Clean up your desktop - this will make your computer run faster.
• Remove unused programs using Add/Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and features (Vista Tartare and 7).
• Run Disk Defragmenter (Start -> All Programs -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter) after cleaning up the files and programs to defrag you disk.

Speaking of Windows Tartare, this would be a good time to upgrade to Windows 7.

Other tips:

Clean all vents in the desktop or laptop body of dust.  A well-ventilated computer is a cooler computer.  Cooler computers run faster and last longer.

Go through your floppy disks, CDs and DVDs and throw out what you no longer need.  If you are still holding on to valuable floppy disk, better get those converted over to some other media because floppy drives are going the way of newspapers.

After just posting my Favorite Firefox Plugins, I switched to Google Chrome Beta for my default browser.  Why the Beta?  It takes extensions.

My favorite Chrome Extensions (so far):

Chrome SEO - Gotta keep up with search engine statistics.

Delicious Bookmarker - As I’ve said before, Delicious is a great place to store links to websites for later use – even years later.

Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer - builds in PDF viewing.

Facebook for Google Chrome - Keep up with your notifications from the button.

Google Reader Notifier – shows number of unread items (handy when you subscribe to 250+ feeds)

IE Tab – For those sites that only work in IE (I pity the fools that build these sites)

RSS Subscription Extension – An obvious missing feature.

Send Link – Another obvious missing feature.  This one adds a “mail to:” button.

StumbleUpon – Incredibly useful timewaster for Internet surfing.

TooManyTabs for Chrome – Run with a dozen or more tabs open?  Get lost?  TooManyTabs to the rescue.

Xmarks Bookmarks Sync – Although bookmark sync is available for the Chrome browser, Xmarks kicks it up a notch by storing passwords, too.

Most users that favor Firefox do so because of the myriad of plugins that are available.  Below are the plugins that I currently use.

Classic Compact:  Technically a Firefox theme, Classic Compact tightens up the Firefox user interface to allow for more website real estate.  Every pixel counts!

Delicious Bookmarks:  After searching and surfing the web for years, I’ve some across hundreds of sites that I want to save for later use, maybe a year or more later.  The social networking and bookmarking service Delicious allows you to save these and tag them to be easier to find.  The Firefox plugin adds buttons to the toolbar to make it even easier to tag sites.  Much better than using favorites or bookmarks.

Foxy SEO Tool:  If you are a web professional, or are doing in depth site analysis for you company site, it does not get much better than this.  Traffic, profile, keyword, and other tools are all available.  Probably the best all-in-one SEO package for Firefox

RunDownload:  Like to “run” or “open” a download like in Internet Explorer?  This plugin adds that capability to Firefox.  Since this is an “experimental” addon, be sure to check the box to allow it to be added to your Firefox installation.

ScribeFire:  Although my favorite web posting tool is Windows Live Writer, Scribefire is getting more and more powerful with each version.  Especially great if you have multiple blogs to publish.

SearchStatus: Another SEO tool.  Quickly see the PageRank of a website upon visit.

Tab Mix Plus:  Unbelievable control of Firefox tabs.  Almost overwhelming with features.

Xmarks:  Have 2 or more computers that you want to keep bookmarks and passwords synced between?  This is as good as it gets.

After reading Fake Steve Jobs discussion with about AT&T complaining about iPhone users bandwidth, I wondered if the United States is becoming irrelevant, but Amazon has taken it once step farther:

Here is a little ettiquette tip for proper Internet Communication.  When you get a funny picture, a political outrage, or a religious sentiment you wish to share with everyone on your email list, do 2 things:

Seriously consider whether everyone on your email list really needs this information.  Seriously.  Most recipients probably don't need it, want it, or they have already seen it.

If you feel you must email something to everyone in your email list, at least use the BCC: field so you are not sharing everyones email address with everyone else.

Besides the privacy issues, email harvesters can more easily see the addresses which contributes to more spam.  

Use this site if you need to do an intervention on a friend or relative that forwards too much email to others.

Need Christmas background music for the holidays?  Let your computer do it.

Over at makeuseof.com, they have assembled a list of 8 sites for listening to holiday music.  I haven’t tried any of these for Christmas music, but I know that Last.fm is a great online radio station.

Frank and Karen Taylor spent about a year sailing around the  Caribbean a few years back and enjoyed it so much they decided that once their children had left the nest, they were going to do it more.

Enter the Tahina Expedition.  After selling their home, cars and other belongings “pretty much everything”, they’ve purchased a 50’ catamaran to sail the world for 5 years.

Both of the Taylors have worked at NASA and the computer industry, and Frank is an instrument rated pilot. 

They have partnered with Google, National Geographic, VideoRay (for underwater video equipment), EarthNC (charting with Google Earth), SatWest and Vizada (for video services), ClearPoint (global weather software and data) and Nodal Ninja, 360Cities.net, and PTGui for immersive 3D and panoramic photography.

The Tahina Expedition is making use of a wide range of Google products including: Gmail, Picasa, Picasa Web Albums, Google Reader, and several others.They have partnered with Google to track their expedition with Google Earth, and they are shooting pictures, video and making posts about the journey on their blog.

The expedition is just getting underway.  Subscribe to their blog using your favorite RSS reader.

Here are some sites to assist in your shopping in brick and mortar stores on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and the following Monday when you are in the office supposedly working but instead shopping online.

Blackfriday.info

Black Friday 2009 

Black-Friday.net

Cybermonday.net

Bestcybermondaysales.com