Anyone who has ever crashed a computer without a backup knows the painful and arduous process required to restore the machine to its previous state. As such, many of us keep regular backups of the data on our systems, just in case. But there’s another vast set of data many of us are creating on a daily basis that has little to no backup at all - beyond the services that host that content: our lifestreams. Now, a new service - named appropriately enough, LifestreamBackup - aims to provide the peace of mind that your lifestream data will always be just as accessible as the backup of your (Read the full post about ‘LifestreamBackup: Keeping a Copy of Your Posts, Tweets, Photos, and More’…)

Smoking kills 300 times more people than crime. Smoking kills 40 times more people than fire accidents. Smoking kills 30 times more people than poisoning Advertising Agency: 1pointsize, Chennai, India Executive Creative Director / Photographer: Sharad Haksar Creative Director: Anantha Narayan Art Director: Vel Copywriter: Prakash Source: www.holgerappel.com

When it comes to Web design and development, one thing trumps the latest technology and cool features: usability. Why? Because all of the features and functions in the world are completely worthless if a human user is unable to figure out how to use them. But testing against human factors, creating use cases, and observing focus groups can prove to be a costly endeavor for even the largest of companies. Now, there’s a cost-effective means of seeing how usable your pages are: Userfly, a simple way to test your site’s usability for free - with one line of code. Simply add the Userfly code to (Read the full post about ‘Userfly: Get Usability Insights with One Line of Code’…)

Web 2.0 is pretty cool - so cool in fact that it’s got its own buzzwords and lingo that not everybody knows. Everybody has a lot to gain from participation in this new cultural phenomenon, though, so there’s no reason why everyone shouldn’t know the background on the lingo. We did a little research just to cover our own bases! We thought we’d share it with you. digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/odd_stuff/WTF_Origins_of_5_Popular_Web_2_0_Terms’;digg_bgcolor = ‘#ffffff’;digg_skin = ‘normal’;Think you know where catchwords like FTW and Fail! came from? Think you know who came up with the phrase Web (Read the full post about ‘WTF? Origins of Five Popular Web 2.0 Terms’…)

Contrapunto had the task of creating a campaign with little budget to make women aware of the need to collaborate with the Association of Women Against Genital Mutilation (AMAM). With that objective,they produced hygienic protectors for women’s swimming costumes with an image of a razor blade (as used in genital mutilation practice) and text saying: “Every year two million girls worldwide are unable to avoid genital mutilation” During the activity, a 72% web visitors increase was registered, along with a parallel increase in phone calls to the association. Advertising Agency: (Read the full post about ‘AMAM: Razor’…)

Jing, one of our favorite free screenshot and screencasting tools, just received a major update. Besides adding a new look and feel, TechSmith, Jing’s parent company, also announced a new Pro version of Jing, which, for $14.95 a year, allows users to record their screencasts in HD H.264 video, directly upload them to YouTube, and remove the Jing logos that appear at the beginning and end of videos produced with the free version of Jing. The free version also got a major face lift. While there aren’t too many new features, one new function we definitely like is the ability to customize (Read the full post about ‘Jing Goes Pro: One of Our Favorite Screencasting Tools Just Got Better’…)

It’s called suicide because it’s your choice. Give up smoking: 0 8008 700 700 Advertising Agency: Mercury 360, Bucharest, Romania Art Director: Andrei Nedea Copywriter: Cristian Scurtu Photographer: Ola Bell Creative Group Director: Liviu Turcanu Published: December 2008 Source: www.holgerappel.com

Internet search and advertising giant Yahoo! has been a household name almost from its inception in March of 1995. During the dot-com bubble, Yahoo! shares sold at a record $118.75 a share. Thirteen years later, Stanford alumni and Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang has lost his position as the CEO, over a thousand employees have been laid off, and the company missed its opportunity for a great exit. In order to survive and restore its position in the market, Yahoo! must now undertake drastic measures and survival tactics. Yahoo! has seen a deep corrosion of its core business over the past few (Read the full post about ‘What Yahoo Must Do to Survive’…)

Only half of all woman take a proactive approach to detect breast cancer early. Advertising Agency: Scholz & Friends DialogGroup, Frankfurt, Germany Executive Creative Director: Martin Pross Creative Director: Hendrik Halstenberg Art Director: Toyanna Visavachaiwat Copywriter: Karsten Zeber Production: Marit Erb/Pina Arciuolo Source: www.holgerappel.com

In the midst of the current US economic slowdown it is clear that the good old days are over. At least for some chunk of 2008, more likely for the whole year, we are in for some gloomy times. Companies are being forced to cut costs and let people go. Some smart people aren’t sitting around waiting to be downsized - instead they’re jumping ship and hopping aboard another. Editor’s note: Looking back over 2008, there were some posts on ReadWriteWeb that did not get the attention we felt they deserved - whether because of timing, competing news stories, etc. So in this end-of-year series, (Read the full post about ‘Are YOU Replaceable?’…)