Just a few hours ago we launched a new website for Firefox add-ons to help folks looking to customize their browser discover new add-ons they might like. Whether you're just starting to try out add-ons or have been using them for years, Rock Your Firefox will feature several top add-on reviews each week to help you find your next favorite.

Did you observe The National Day of Unplugging? It was a nondenominational, apolitical, and free holiday. Sorry, I missed it. I found out about the Digital Day Off from the YouTube (video embedded below) two days too late.

The US Food and Drug Administration has recommended that administration of the Rotarix vaccine, which protects against rotavirus infection, be suspended. This action comes after an independent research group found that the vaccine contains DNA of porcine circovirus type 1. Rotaviruses are the single leading cause of diarrhea in infants and young children. Each year rotavirus gastroenteritis causes over 1,250,000 episodes of diarrhea and 527,000 deaths, mainly in developing countries.

For years makers of many kinds of goods and services have provided means for them to monitor how things are going. Now they need to include us in on the action, for the simple reason that we can do it better than they can.

The release of the iPad in a few short weeks is going to be a BIG deal for literacy, communication, and digitally powered learning-- not only because it will offer an amazing experience in media consumption, but because the iPad will herald the tipping point of a new era of literacy.

Friends our worries regarding online gambling is soon going to be over with states one after another looking to legalize online and brick-and-mortar casinos in the states. The next in line is Iowa.

A friend called this week to see what I thought of adding the word process to his tag line. He has a rock-solid process to help his clients and he is very proud of it. But as we talked, he realized that there is no way to convey what his process really offers without a lot more words and in a tag line, that wasn't practical.

This weekend I watched Shark Tank. I had avoided it because it sounded so goofy and so many other bloggers were on the band wagon. But what I saw happens all the time in real life too so it was worth discussing. Over and over people came in with their ideas that they held onto like children. But when questioned, they were so focused on the person asking the negative question that they ignored the fact that others were still interested!

If you are a Web developer, or run a Web site, you might be interested in a couple of free software tools that have recently been made available by Google. One of the key trends on the Web in recent years has been the greatly increased use of JavaScript on Web pages. Probably the best known site that makes very heavy use of JavaScript is Facebook.

I submit to your interest two speeches that challenge acceptance of status quos by which our collective frogs are slowly boiling. First is Freedom in the Cloud, by Eben Moglen, given at the Internet Society in New York on 5 February. Second is Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity, by Danah Boyd. Given on 13 March at SXSW.

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