You're all probably familiar with speedtest, well their newest website is called pingtest. It has a pretty similar interface and if you've ever used speedtest it shouldn't be to hard to figure out. It can be used to calculate packet loss, ping, and jitter. After your test is complete it gives you a grade, describing the quality of your connection. I think its pretty cool, and I'm glad that they've stayed with the same great interface. Just another cool website to keep in mind!

I know I'm a little late, but Firefox's birthday didn't occur on a diigo class day. But anyways, this is a little article that LifeHacker did about Firefox and its history. It starts at Netscape, moves to Mozilla, goes to Firefox (and all of its versions), and ends with today! It also has a nifty and well done video promoting Firefox. Anyways, I think Firefox's birthday is worth celebrating. Its such a great browser and it really promotes the spirit of the internet; freedom, sharing, connecting for a greater good. Its addons are a perfect example. There is a great creative community that displays a wide variety of needs and wants. It creates a customizable browsing experience for everyone, which is one of the best parts of Firefox and why its truly worth celebrating.

This article discusses a popular opinion poll discussing the possible repercussions of texting while driving. Although this article doesn't contain much scientific backing, its still extremely surprising to see what people think about texting while driving. I was incredibelly shocked when I read that 97% of those polled thought that texting while driving should be illegal. This number is so surprising to me because the act seems to be so prevalent these days. It feels like whenever your walking down the street, on a bus, or driving everyone around you has there eyes down as the stare at and type on the cell phone. I understand that some people are confident in their abilities to multitask, but lets face it some of the same confident people are just being delusional. I don't think everyone can handle this multitasking, as is evident by the amount of time I spend dodging around people that don't even notice me walking towards them. Beyond that statistic there are also several others that are worth taking a look at. Especially that 50 percent of those polled believe that texting while driving should have similar repercussions to drunk driving. To me this seems to be going a bit to far, but I do agree that there should probably be some punishment. But then again, I almost never use my cell phone, what do all of you think about this poll?

And my second article -- http://gizmodo.com/5046345/a-complete-guide-to-watching-your-favorite-shows-legally-without-paying-a-dime I'm not sure if these articles are exactly disagreeing since there is such a time lag between when they came out, but there certainly is a difference in their theme. The first article is about Hulu's current situation in which it is inevitably heading towards payment requirements for its service. The second article is about Hulu's past, involving the free television that everyone has come to know any love. Personally, I wonder how Hulu can hope to exist with such a drastic change in its purpose. Before, its popularity was created by its free service and convenience. Will it really still have a niche when it introduces fees, even if they are competitive? Well, I guess the most that the average man can do is light a pyre in remembrance of a fond friend and go back to illegally downloading the things that Hulu allowed you to stream legally.

Hey guy/gal reading Gizmodo instead of working: We're hiring a tech writer in NYC. You need some experience, but more importantly you should be able to write like mad and know and love/hate/understand technology. I'm posting again because...

This is Google's preview page for Google Wave. Google wave is an up and coming collaboration technology that is being developed by Google. It allows for conversations to occur and grow in a nonlinear fashion. Conversation members can converse and add information to the wave as if they were instant messaging. They can also add images, links, and videos to further enrich the content. Then members can go back to old content and edit or correct it. This is just the basic premise behind Google Wave, there is a lot more information on this website. Personally, I think this is the future of conversational technology and will soon become the new standard. It appears that this will just be another phase in the evolution of human literature. Because of this it seemed natural to include this page on my Diigo bookmarks. I'm looking forward to seeing how writing and human speech adapts to this new technology.

Oddly enough, this article is about another article that will be displayed in entertainment weekly. This article is unique because it is going to contain "embedded" video ads. What this boils down to is an awesome video recording in the middle of your magazine displaying what otherwise would have to be read. This is a bold leap in technology and media displays. I know that I am personally waiting for the day when magazines are just a collage of floating images. This use of technology gets me psyched because it means that people are still trying to be innovative in this form of media. I hope everyone likes the idea as much as I do... maybe then it will become more widespread!

As far as literature review sites go SparkNotes is one of the best. When placed in the hands of the lazy, this website, and the convenience it brings, can lead to a quick and painful academic downfall. However, if used merely as a study resource SparkNotes can substantially increase a students grades. For example, You've just finished reading The Lord of the Flies and you've been assigned an essay on symbolism due next class. You don't particularly remember any symbols from your reading, so you check spark notes which gives you a few examples and leads you in the right direction. Add a little of your own synthesis and some specific incidents that support your statements and your essay will be done before you know it! This also works with hard to follow Shakespearean plots and deep character development. Along with being able to help you learn, SparkNotes can also help you study and remember old books that you've read just in time for your final. Or it can help you study for your SATs. In fact, SparkNotes has a lot of sections designed to help high School and College students succeed. SparkNotes is a great tool as long as you remember to do the real work yourself!

I chose to share this link after reading an article that our class was assigned as homework. The article, Ernest Hemingway's Top 5 Tips for Writing Well ( found at http://www.copyblogger.com/ernest-hemingway-top-5-tips-for-writing-well/ ), quotes an extremely short story by Hemingway that I thought might confuse most of our class. This story is simply, "For sale: baby shoes, never used." This new link introduces another of Hemingway's short stories with a similar theme and a lot more detail. I hope that by linking this story I'll be able to give the class a little bit on insight on Hemingway, Hemingway's great writing style, and the previous short-short-story. However, because Hemingway is the author your going to have to read into what the characters are talking about to truly discern the emotional depth of the conversation. Consider this a further introduction to Ernest Hemingway if you haven't read any of his work already, I hope you enjoy.

Time magazine is a great display of how multimedia and advertising has taken over writing. Just on the main page alone you'll find videos and podcasts, which are completely different from Time Magazine's old periodicals. In addition articles are rated and views can be counted giving readers instantaneous information about the popularity of an article, which wouldn't be feasible with a printed magazine. In addition, there are also polls, apps, facebook pages, and RSS feeds displaying the degree in which technology has become a part of Time's product. Time is a perfect example of how new technology can be implemented to improve a user base.\n\nI think this site relates to our course work because it is such a fine example of how multimedia can be used in almost any situation. Formerly, Time focused completely on its magazine and viewed any form of internet news sites as competition. This is because they offered Time's product for free. But, by adopting multimedia and the internet Time has been able to stay mainstream and maintain respect instead of slowly wasting away like many other news papers and magazines are in this new internet age.