Quick answer: There’s no single “first” social media platform, since the idea evolved in stages. SixDegrees.com, launched in 1997, is usually credited as the first site to combine the core features we now associate with social media: personal profiles, visible friend lists, and the ability to browse a friend’s connections. But the roots go back […]
Technology
How AI Tools Like ChatGPT Will Affect Libraries and Librarians
ChatGPT is a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that has been getting endless buzz online due to its potential not only to improve our lives but also to disrupt established practices and institutions. One such example is its ability to almost instantly generate well-written essays on just about any topic, which is forcing a radical […]
How to Create Your Own Website: Free and Self-Hosted Blogs
Resources mentioned in this article: GoDaddy (domain names/web hosting) Bluehost (web hosting), WordPress (blogging platform), Studiopress (premium blog templates) One of the most important aspects of today’s web is the ease with which people can create and share their own content. This marks a major shift from a culture in which an elite group controlled the publication […]
Is it Better to Take Notes By Hand or Digitally? (And Why You Should Do Both)
Today we can take notes using tablet and stylus; we can lug laptops to meetings; we can snap pictures of slides and whiteboards; we can even employ voice assistants like Siri to take down notes for us. But despite these new conveniences, many argue that note-taking by hand has certain benefits that we lose when […]
Why You Should be Careful Before Installing that WordPress Plugin
Plugins are small pieces of software that allow your WordPress website to do new things. Since the WordPress core is by design very lean, these third-party tools are required for bloggers to accomplish a variety of popular tasks. We often see blog posts that talk about the best WordPress plugins that you need to be […]
Is the Internet of Things Secure? Can My Car Get Hacked?
Charlie Miller has been hacking computers and phones for over a decade. His ends aren’t nefarious, however: he’s a security researcher working to expose vulnerabilities that will ultimately make our systems safer. In order to raise public consciousness of the issues at stake, he’s been hoping to hack something less techy and abstract that would […]