I hope everyone had a great weekend. I can’t believe that it is Monday, again. And, at my university, it is the last add/drop day of the term which means panicked students trying to get signatures all day. But today we have some technology news that will hopefully be useful and/or entertaining, so it’s all good. And, amazingly, we are going to talk about some tech news that is not from Lifehacker. I know, wonders never cease.

First, there is the very interesting list by PC Authority on the Top Ten Most Disappointing Technologies. The authors’ discussion of each product or application is very informative and the reasons for the failure of these technologies are intelligently discussed. If nothing else, it is hilarious to read about the $10,000 price tag on Apple’s Lisa computer–especially now when you can get a fairly powerful PC for under $1000. Ah, how times change.

Speaking of technologies and techniques, here is one I hope will work out–new way of catching spammers. If you haven’t already heard about this study, I suggest you read it. The study looked at emailing habits and found out that people fall into two main groups: those that email mainly during the day and those that are “emailaholics.” By determining the emailing habits of people, researchers hope that they can use this data to distinguish between real emails and spam. I think it is pretty cool and I hope it works. I’d like less spam in my life.

Do you love Wi-Fi? I love using Wi-Fi when I’m waiting in airports, but we all know the risks about using wireless internet. So what can you do to ameliorate those risks? Check out this great article on Wired’s Ho-to Wiki: Secure your Wi-Fi when Traveling. This is a good refresher on how to protect your data when using Wi-Fi.

Enjoy the week. The Waki Librarian will be back soon with more technology and library fun.