Eubie's notes

Wired News: Loves Linux, Runs Windows — Europe is struggling to kick the Windows habit. Eurocrats make a lot of noise about moving to Linux, but the actual migrations are few and far between.

MercuryNews.com: Web news opposites: Newstrust.Net, Digg.Com: Two Visions Of What Online Readers Want

Two years ago, the inspiration for creating a Web site for news junkies hit two men with vastly different ambitions. One hoped to make boat-loads of money. The other dreamed of enriching American democracy by identifying trusted news sources hidden in the deluge of information available online.
Fabrice Florin, a successful technologist and a veteran of Apple Computer, launched the beta version of NewsTrust.net last month after turning 50 and deciding it was time to give something back to society.
Meanwhile, Kevin Rose, 27-year-old host of an obscure cable TV tech show, lost no time in launching Digg.com in October 2004. Rose’s site lets people give a thumb’s-up or a thumb’s-down to stories other users had found on the Web and submitted to Digg.

USA Today: Scared about saving enough for retirement? Chill, author says

Fear not, financial guru Jonathan Pond brings glad tidings of great joy just in time for holiday shopping season.

The man best-known for dispensing money advice on PBS stations nationwide has a new book, You Can Do It! The Boomer’s Guide to a Great Retirement. His book attempts to reassure boomers spooked by the specter of living out their retirement years in abject poverty unless they meet their much-ballyhooed “number” — the magical sum of cash, usually $1 million or up, they’ll ostensibly need before calling it quits in the workplace.

Stop the hand-wringing, says Pond. The “number” is largely a creation of members of the financial services industry, who have a vested interest in scaring you into sending them more money.

NY Times: 04 Income in U.S. Was Below 2000 Level — The income Americans reported to the tax collector in 2004 totaled $7.044 trillion, down from more than $7.143 trillion in 2000.

Since 2004, the Census Bureau has found, the income of the typical American household has grown along with the rise in average incomes but at a slow pace that, until recent months, had barely kept ahead of inflation.

Christian Science Monitor: Facebook: A campus fad becomes a campus fact — The social-networking website isn’t growing like it once did, but only because almost every US student is already on it.

USA Today — Vets get help starting their own businesses: More than 200 companies nationally are providing benefits, discounted fees or special financing to help honorably discharged U.S. military veterans purchase franchises and receive training to operate their own businesses.

NY Times: The Media Equation: Not Boasting, Even Though He Could — Donald E. Graham?s financial engineering has allowed The Washington Post Company to remain invested in journalism in a way that few other media companies can afford.

NY Times: Small Business: In Life?s Second Act, Some Take on a New Role: Entrepreneur — More retired people are rejecting unfettered leisure in favor of starting up small businesses.

A majority of 800 workers surveyed last year for the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University indicated in their responses that traditional retirement was obsolete. Two-thirds expect to work after 55, and about 15 percent wanted to start their own business after they retired, the survey found.

NY Times: At Lunch With Sid Kirchheimer: Calling All Cheats: Meet Your Enemy — From a working family, with no tolerance for a swindler.