If you find you have toruble keeping in touch with coworkers that you used to work with or an old manager you'd love to use as a reference, Mingly is a new webapp that makes it easy for you to stay in touch and up to date with your personal and professional network as major events take place in their lives. It doesn't replace your social networks, but it does help you use them more efficiently.

Mingly is completely free, and available as a webapp, a Gmail plug-in, and an email digest that all serve to keep you up to date on what's going on in the lives of the people you really want to stay in touch with. Sure, you could just log in to Facebook and look to see who has a birthday coming up, or head to LinkedIn and see who's been promoted recently or who'll be in your town on a business trip, but Mingly combines all of that data into a single place that's easy to check—or in the case of the email digest and Gmail plugins, comes right to you instead of forcing you to go looking for it.

To use Mingly, you'll have to sign in with a Google account. Then you can connect the webapp to Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter—whichever networks you'd like to use Mingly with. Once you're set up, you can interact with people right in the Mingly webapp, or go to your networks individually to talk to friends with major events coming up. Best of all, you can customize which people and types of events you want to be notified about. If you'd prefer to use it to stay in touch with your professional network, you can omit birthdays and other personal events, for example. Do you think there's room for social aggregators and assistants like Mingly, or is the access they require to provide their services too high a price for what you get? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Ming.ly

CBS News) The Boeing Stratoliner was an iconic aircraft that practically called out COME FLY WITH ME. So can this new Boeing 787, the Dreamliner, really bring back the good old days of air travel? Our Cover Story is reported now by Barry Petersen:

If you believe the old TV commercials, airline travel used to be amazingly pleasant ! Now we are searched and stressed, and left standing in endless lines.

But Boeing believes its new 787 Dreamliner will bring back some of the good old days.

"Really what we were trying to see if we could trigger again, recapture the magic that flying really is," said Boeing's Blake Emery, who helped design the interior - where even spaciousness comes with a message:

"We really wanted from the moment you crossed the threshold to be able to kind of say, 'Ah, I made it, this is it, this is going to be good from here on out,'" Emery said. "A total psychological moment."

The first night flight in the history of the Lockheed Martin F-35 program was completed on Jan. 19, 2012 in the skies above Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Piloted by Lockheed Martin Test Pilot Mark Ward, AF-6, an F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant, launched at 5:05 p.m. PST and landed after sunset at 6:22 p.m.

There are rumors on the web that Skydrive (Microsoft's online storage service) will support Bitlocker.

As a refresher, BitLocker Drive Encryption is a full disk encryption feature included with the Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows 7 desktop operating systems, as well as the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 server platforms.

It is designed to protect data by providing encryption for entire volumes. By default it uses the AES encryption algorithm in CBC mode with a 128 bit key, combined with the Elephant diffuser for additional disk encryption specific security not provided by AES

Some of the new features coming to Skydrive seem to be Bitlocker support. Windows 8 will support the saving of Bitlocker recovery keys directly onto Skydrive.

There's also a rumored new Skydrive application for Windows and the Mac.

You can see more on Liveside.net

more videos here:

http://mashable.com/2012/02/19/travel-the-world-time-lapse/

The fear of flying is rational, but is all the attention given to airline safety rational?

I understand why there are people who might be afraid to fly. I would be a liar if I said that I have never felt un-easy during a turbulent flight or rough landing. But with all the attention always given to airline safety, one would think planes are falling out of the sky constantly. As most of you probably know, flying is extremely safe. So why is so much attention always given when something remotely related to airline safety makes headlines?

Are there that many deaths in the US each year from airlines to cause such attention? Hmm. Not really (see data below), especially when compared to other deaths. So why do airlines get so much coverage and regulation, when other, more easily preventable deaths do not?

Please note that this post is by no means to trivialize anyone who dies from any of these causes in the US each year, but it is to compare how much attention is given to different kind of deaths each year in the US.

Here are statistics for the number of deaths in the US each year for 2009:
All Deaths: 2,436,682
Heart Disease: 598,607
Alzheimer’s: 78,889
Diabetes: 68,705
All Transportation related deaths: 39,057
Auto accident deaths: 36,284
Deaths from falls: 24,834
Homicide: 16,591
Accidental drowning: 3,539
Hernias: 1,821
Tornado: 550
US Troops in Iraq: 149
Lightning: 34
Dog Attack: 32
Malaria: 5

Now, let’s take a look at airline related deaths in the US:

Airline deaths 2009: 45
Airline deaths 2010: 0
Airline deaths 2011: 0
Airline deaths 1982 to present: 2924

For me, that is amazing. More people died from accidental drowning in 2009 alone versus all the people who have died from airlines in the US since 1982. Now, the big question: why is so much attention given to airline related deaths? What are your thoughts?

Image: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren

Stan Honda / AFP - Getty Images

Things are looking up ... mostly. The General Motors headquarters January 10, 2012 in Detroit, Michigan.

By Msnbc.com staff and wire

Updated at 12:20 p.m. ET

General Motors posted flat fourth-quarter income Thursday but still managed to haul in $7.6 billion worth in profits last year, up 62 percent from the prior year.

It was the highest annual profit ever for the automaker, which emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2009 after a government-led bailout.

The U.S. government still owns 26.5 percent of the company and is waiting for the share price to rise before selling in an effort to recoup the bailout money. GM stock was up 6 percent at $26.43 in midday trading after the earnings announcement.

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"We will build on these results as we bring more new cars, crossovers and trucks to market," CEO Daniel Akerson said in a statement.

Full-year revenue rose 11 percent to $105 billion.

North America led the way with a $7.2 billion pretax profit. But problems surfaced that could hurt future earnings. GM lost $700 million before taxes in Europe, and lost $100 million in South America.

"We obviously have work to do still and a long way to get to the objectives we ultimately want to get to," GM Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann told reporters.

"We clearly have work to do in Europe. We have work to do in the South America business. Frankly, we have work to do all around the company in terms of cost opportunity," he added.

GM'S fourth-quarter profit was flat with 2010. GM earned $500 million, or 28 cents per share. Revenue rose 3 percent to $38 billion. Before one-time items, GM earned 40 cents per share. Analysts expected earnings of 42 cents on revenue of $37.9 billion.

Ammann said GM has not gone far enough in cutting costs in its European operations, but declined to provide a 2012 financial forecast for a unit that the No. 1 U.S. automaker has struggled to return to profitability. Overall, GM expects 2012 sales to top the $150.3 billion it saw in 2011 and its market share to remain flat.

Vote: Do you think the US bailout of GM was wise?

Last year, GM made the bulk of its income in North America, where its pretax profit totaled $7.2 billion. International Operations, which includes Asia, made $1.9 billion before taxes, but that was down.

During the year, GM's global sales rose 7.6 percent to 9.03 million vehicles to help it reclaim the title of world's largest automaker from Toyota Motor Corp.

This year, GM expects to increase its revenue as global auto sales grow and it charges more for models. However, it will make less money per vehicle as the mix of sales continues to shift to cars from trucks, which have bigger sticker prices. It also expects to invest $8 billion on new products and technology, and says pension expenses will rise. The company wants to keep expenses down by freezing its underfunded U.S. pension plan for salaried workers.

GM said 47,500 blue-collar workers in the U.S. will get $7,000 profit-sharing checks in March. The checks are based on North American performance and are a record for the company.

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The company has placed Vice Chairman Steve Girsky in charge of the European management board and is adding executives in preparation for restructuring. Factory closures and layoffs are likely but could provoke a fight with powerful labor unions.

Girsky has said GM intends to fix the European unit, made up of the Opel and Vauxhall brands, and keep it in the company. GM came close to selling the unit in 2009.

Related stories:

Return of third shift brings hope to auto workers

GM ending pensions for white-collar workers

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

 

Overall through the entire year the company has made progress but there is more work to do in Europe and South America, says Daniel Ammann, General Motors CFO, who adds, "The company has more work to do all across the company to get to the efficiency w...

Apple has announced its latest version of OS X for Macs — and like all iterations of its desktop operating system, the latest version is named after a big cat. It’s called Mountain Lion, and it will be more like iOS than ever, as Apple integrates various mobile services and moves to yearly OS updates across all its devices.

Mountain Lion is available for preview today in two ways. If you’re a consumer, you can read about the new features at Apple’s website. If you have a developer account, you can download and install the updated operating system. And anyone running OS X Lion can download and install the beta version of Messages, a new app that replaces iChat for instant messaging, and integrates iMessages, the Apple-only text-message replacement service for iPhone, iPad and now Mac.

Even the name “Messages” helps indicate Mountain Lion’s guiding philosophy. It extends OS X Lion’s “Back to the Mac” approach of pulling ideas and concepts from Apple’s mobile ecosystem into the desktop. There’s no more iChat, iCal or Address Book. You’ll soon be using Messages, Calendar and Contacts — the same names on all products, with no more of the outdated “i” in front of app names. AirPlay, Game Center, Reminders, Notes and Notification Center are all new to the Mac too, looking much like their iOS counterparts.

Funny or grounds for firing? That’s the question Gailen David, an American Airlines flight attendant who posted a series of videos mocking his employer, is posing on Facebook.

“Be sure to comment about whether I should be fired or not for the Aluminum Lady!” he posted this morning.

Gailen told ABCNews.com he used the videos to strike out at management. In one video he reads an actual letter from the airline to its flight attendants. He called the letter “totally insincere” and said, “When I saw all the people they’re hurting, I thought I had to do something.”

According to David, some of his colleagues have been furloughed three and four times. “They get called back and when American is done with then they just throw them back on the street. It’s inhumane,” he said.

The “Aluminum Lady” video series features David posing as the “Minister of Flight Attendants.” In one video, the parodied executive, referring to American Airlines employees, says, “United Airlines is offering their flight attendants a $65,000 cash buyout to go ahead and leave, and they’re also giving them 15 years of travel. I say that we make things so unbearable that they’re going to thank us when we hand them five years of free travel and a year’s supply of premium Chex Mix from first class.”

The video pokes fun at an airline in distress. American Airlines’ parent company, AMR Corp., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Nov. 29, 2011. In more bad news for the airline, it announced Wednesday that it posted a $1.1 billion loss in the fourth quarter.

In an emailed statement to ABCNews.com, American Airlines spokesperson Bruce Hicks said, “We want to discuss Mr. David’s situation with him in-person as our contract with the APFA stipulates. So far he has been unavailable to do so. While we recognize our employees’ right to express their viewpoints, everyone at American Airlines is expected to treat one another with respect. We look forward to discussing these matters when he returns to work and is certified as ready to fly.”

 

David’s blog,  dearskysteward.com, says he’s been an American Airlines flight attendant for more than 20 years.  He told ABCNews.com he’s been on leave for the last two years.

Will he ever go back? “I think I’m going to go back,” he said. “I think I’d have a ball.”

Forget about Notepad++, or any other text editor that you use for Windows. For years, developer on Windows facing a lack of a well designed and feature rich text editor (like Textmate on Mac). If you ever need to do a lot text based programming for web related development then you will know what I’m talking about. IDE is not ideal for such, and a simple text editor isn’t quite enrich your development pace.

Sublime Text is a cross platform text editor for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Currently, the Sublime Text 2 is on beta release, and it’s a free download. You should check it out if you are looking for some feature rich text editor.

So why Sublime Text is so good ? Well, it got some very neat features you might like.

Grid view and Multi Column View

You can re-arrange your workspace, into grid views, or multi column views up to 4 columns. And you can do that all with keyboard shortcuts.

Quick File Find with Sneak Peak

In Windows press, Control + P, to launch the file finder bar, from there it will quickly find and file as you type showing you a real time update and let’s you to sneak peak of what’s inside the file without actually opening it. Notice here, the tab I have a style sheet opened, but it’s showing a sneak peak of the index.php file.

Autocomplete

Who says auto complete can only be alive in IDE ? This awesome text editor automatically detects the language of your file, and it gives you a list of suggestions (autocomplete) as you type. Very smart and very handy.

Method Lookup

Function/Symbol/Method look up. You can press Control + R to launch this quick searching bar to find all the method or symbol or function that you have in your documents. Depending on the language it gives you a list of all the key functions that are in the file, again, another very handy feature to have.

Command Palette

Lastly but not least, the command palette bar. You can launch it by pressing “Control + Shift + P”

This will give you access to all the features and functions Sublime Text offers, including a list of shortcuts for corresponding function. Very easy to look up something without knowing where the feature is located in terms of going though lists of dropdown menus.

Video Overview

If you like me amazed by all of those features, here is a video tutorial to show off some of the features in more detail.

The nation's largest airlines had one of their best years for getting passengers to their destinations on time in 2011, despite unexpected snowstorms and Tropical Storm Irene, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported Tuesday.

Airlines were on time 79.6% of the time during 2011, the fourth highest for any year in the 17 years with comparable numbers. That was slightly down from the 79.8% on-time rate of 2010.

But December, a month typically fraught with delays and cancellations because of weather and high passenger volume, was a particularly good month for airlines.

Airlines were on time 84.4% of the time in December, the highest percentage for any December during the 17 years the department has collected comparable data and the best fourth-quarter performance ever. That was significantly up from 72% in December 2010, but down slightly from November 2011's 85.3%.

The carriers also had the lowest December cancellation rate in the last 17 years, according to the department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Only 0.8% of flights were canceled compared to 3.7% in December 2010.

No domestic flights remained on the tarmac for longer than three hours in December. Neither did any international flights stay on the tarmac for more than four hours. Federal law prohibits airlines from keeping passengers in planes on tarmacs for longer than that.

The Transportation Department has been paying closer attention to tarmac delays this year, and has so far fined one airline —American Eagle— for exceeding the time limits. Two airplanes sat on the tarmac for longer than the government allows in November and 18 did in October, when an unusual snowstorm pummeled the East Coast.

In 2011, airlines also did a better job of handling baggage. Carriers posted a mishandled baggage rate of 3.39 per 1,000 passengers. That was down from 3.51 in 2010. That also was an all-time low for any year, and translates into 99.7% of U.S. airline passengers having their bags delivered on time.

Fewer passengers were bumped from their flights last year. The rate for bumping passengers was 0.81 per 10,000 passengers, down from the 1.09 rate in 2010. In the fourth quarter, just 0.71 per 10,000 passengers were bumped, down from 0.8 the same period the year before.

Despite the airlines' better performance in 2011 on those fronts, the Transportation Department received 5.1% more complaints about their service in 2011 than it did the year before. For all of last year, 11,545 complaints were logged. Nonetheless, complaints were down for the month of December compared with the same time the previous year.

In December, the airlines with the best on-time performance were AirTran Airways, which is merging with Southwest Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, which benefits from favorable weather, and Delta Air Lines. The carriers with the worst were Frontier Airlines, ExpressJet Airlines and Continental Airlines, which is merging with United Airlines.

This month marks the end of an era in NASA computing. Marshall Space Flight Center powered down NASA’s last mainframe, the IBM Z9 Mainframe. For my millennial readers, I suppose that I should define what a mainframe is. Well, that’s easier said than done, but here goes -- It’s a big computer that is known for being reliable, highly available, secure, and powerful. They are best suited for applications that are more transaction oriented and require a lot of input/output – that is, writing or reading from data storage devices.

They’re really not so bad honestly, and they have their place. Things like virtual machines, hypervisors, thin clients, and swapping are all old hat to the mainframe generation though they are new to the current generation of cyber youths.

In my first stint at NASA, I was at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a mainframe systems programmer when it was still cool. That IBM 360-95 was used to solve complex computational problems for space flight. Back then, I comfortably navigated the world of IBM 360 Assembler language and still remember the much-coveted “green card” that had all the pearls of information about machine code. Back then, real systems programmers did hexadecimal arithmetic – today, “there’s an app for it!”

But all things must change. Today, they are the size of a refrigerator but in the old days, they were the size of a Cape Cod. Even though NASA has shut down its last one, there is still a requirement for mainframe capability in many other organizations. The end-user interfaces are clunky and somewhat inflexible, but the need remains for extremely reliable, secure transaction oriented business applications.

One of the things we often take for granted from our mobile devices is the ability to quickly transfer files between any Bluetooth-capable devices. iOS doesn’t really play ball, though, leaving iPhone users to look for other means to share audio, video, and image files.

There have been a few attempts from Cydia purporting to allow Bluetooth file sharing, namely Celeste, which released last year. Unfortunately, not only did it not actually work particularly well, but it was limited to iOS devices only. What happened to universal sharing by default?

Well, enter AirBlue Sharing; the answer to the prayers of those looking to share files with local devices. Unlike Cesleste and the other solutions available, it gives you back your freedom by allowing you to send/receive from any Bluetooth device – even Android.

more:

http://www.redmondpie.com/airblue-for-ios-5-iphone-ipod-touch-ipad/