Google is riding high these days. Its stock price is up over $600 a share and it holds a commanding lead in the Internet search engine wars. And thanks to its customizable homepage, users can manage virtually every aspect of their lives via Google RSS feeds, email, stock quotes, weather, etc.

But all those Google tools have a downside. Scanning my monthly copy of Wired magazine last night, I came across this piece by Seth Mnookin. Needless to say, I can relate to Seth’s problem, and I’m betting many of you can, too (emphasis added):

So I set up a Google homepage. After that it seemed silly — stubborn, even — not to put a Google Toolbar on my browser. And since I had a Google Toolbar, I figured I might as well use Google Bookmarks and add on Google Reader. Oh, and Google Scholar. And Google Books. I set up a Google Calendar, ignoring the fact that it doesn’t sync with my Treo (at least, not without some kludgy third-party app). I quit using del.icio.us and started using Google Notebook.

When my fiance came home from work each evening, we’d ask each other how our respective days had gone. She’d describe the small frustrations and victories that punctuate office life. I’d say something along the lines of “Today I spent three and a half hours organizing my Google Bookmarks” or “You’d be amazed at what you can turn up if you play around with Google US Government Search.” Then we’d both laugh. It took a couple of weeks before I finally noticed the concern in her eyes. Then she asked: “What else did you do?”

That’s when I realized I wasn’t actually accomplishing anything. My campaign to increase productivity had become yet another distraction — and a significant one. Suddenly I needed to time-manage my time management. So last week I installed a timer on my desktop (and, no, it’s not a Google Timer) to help me limit how long I spend on Google-related sites. I allot myself a half hour a day; after that, I force myself to quit optimizing how I get things done and start actually getting things done. Of course, I still check the Links to Google Services tab on my Google homepage every day. How else will I know when one of the whizzy new tools will be just the thing to make my life easier?

Thanks, Google. You’ve turned me into the most efficient time-waster ever.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go check my Google homepage for Bart Simpson’s Phrase of the Day. Then maybe I’ll add a language translator or a currency converter to my page. The possibilities are endless. Damn you Google!

 This story pretty much speaks for itself, but here’s a brief setup.

Jammie Thomas was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for sharing a couple of dozen songs she illegally downloaded. Thomas’ defense in court was that someone spoofed her IP address and it was actually that person who downloaded and shared the songs.

CNET News Blog picks up the story from there:

In the interview with Wired’s David Kravets, [juror Michael] Hegg, a steelworker, said that during deliberations, the jury concluded after only five minutes that Thomas was guilty … “Spoofing? We’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, you got to be kidding.’ She’s a liar.”

Needless to say, Thomas is appealing, hoping to draw a slightly more tech-savvy jury next time around.

In defense of the tech-illiterate juror, the IT industry does have a lot of ridiculous terms and acronyms that you can’t expect nontechies to understand. But still, couldn’t Hegg just have looked it up on the Internet? I guess the jury room didn’t have wireless access.

I didn’t need a survey to tell me this.

Sixty-four percent of Americans say they spend more time with their computers than they do with their significant others. I have two laptops. One belongs to my employer and the other belongs to me. And I spend entirely too much time with both of them.

SupportSoft Inc., an IT service management vendor, is thinking of expanding into the consumer space, so it conducted a new consumer survey about how people interact with their computers.

I’m not sure why SupportSoft wanted to know if people get the urge to throw the computers out the window when they crash. But it did. And apparently 19% of people feel that way sometimes. Nine percent said they feel stranded and alone when their computers crash, and 11% curse at their dead machines.

And apparently 84% of people feel more dependent on their computers than they did three years ago. This also makes sense to me. Nowadays, whether I want to know who directed the movie Poltergeist or whatever happened to the makers of ColecoVision, I go online. What would I do with myself if I couldn’t look up this trivial information? I’d probably spend more time with my significant other. And with that in mind, gotta go!

The computer virus celebrates its 25th birthday this year! It seems like only yesterday it was in diapers, but now it’s all grown up and still wreaking havoc. From the Machinist:

“The computer virus conception story begins in 1981, when a tech-savvy 9th grader named Richard Skrenta got an Apple II for Christmas. Over the following few months he began cooking up ways to trick his friends using the machine. “I had been playing jokes on schoolmates by altering copies of pirated games to self-destruct after a number of plays,” Skrenta once told the tech news site SecurityFocus. “I’d give out a new game, they’d get hooked, but then the game would stop working with a snickering comment from me on the screen.”

When his friends realized his tricky ways, they banned Skrenta from their machines. And that’s when he had an epiphany: He could put his code on the school’s computer, and rig it to copy itself onto floppy disks that students used on the system. Thus was born Elk Cloner, the world’s first computer virus.”

My, how time flies. Read the rest of the Machinist’s musings on the computer virus hitting the quarter-century mark here.

The IT industry is well-known for its myriad acronyms and euphemisms, all virtually unintelligible to nontechies. CRM. SaaS. TCP/IP. The list goes on and on. And when a new word catches on, it seems to pop up all over.

One of the latest IT buzzwords (and a frequent topic of this blog), of course, is Web 2.0. It is the accepted name of the developing collaborative technology movement, as I’m sure you know. 

Now, I have no problem with the term Web 2.0 itself. I even rather like the term Enterprise 2.0, coined by Harvard Business School’s Andrew McAfee to describe the use of Web 2.0 tools and techniques in the enterprise. 

But I have to draw the line somewhere. Scanning the wires today, I came across a press release announcing the first annual Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco later this year. What is Sales 2.0, you ask? 

“Sales 2.0 simply means integrating the power of Web 2.0 technologies with proven sales techniques to increase sales velocity and volume,” we’re told. At the Sales 2.0 Conference, attendees will learn “how combining next-generation Web technologies such as Web conferencing, social networking, prospect databases and Web site-tracking services with innovative sales processes can dramatically accelerate the sales cycle.” 

OK, I get it. Salesmen just realized that blogs and wikis can help them sell more stuff, especially to the so-called “MySpace Generation.” Good for them. It’s the American Way after all. 

But you can’t just slap a 2.0 at the end of every occupation and discipline out there and think you’ve invented a new term! Sales 2.0? What’s next, Farming 2.0? Candy-Making 2.0? How about Web 2.0 2.0, applying Web 2.0 techniques to the discussion and promotion of Web 2.0? 

Please, let’s stop the madness now before it gets totally out of hand. No more fill-in-the-blank 2.0. If you can’t come up with a more creative, graphic term to describe whatever technological movement it is you’re trying to name, it probably isn’t a movement worth naming. Or even a movement at all. 

Who’s with me?

What are you doing tomorrow? Well, I can tell you what 54,300 won’t be doing: turning on their computers. 

Dubbed by its creators as “one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the Internet,” this Saturday, March 24, is Shutdown Day. The idea is that for 24 hours, those brave enough to accept the challenge will abstain from sending email, checking their NCAA brackets online and engaging in any other activity that involves a computer. 

I know, it’s a scary proposition. A whole day without my trusty laptop. How will I find out the results of Anna Nicole’s baby’s paternity test! Oh, the humanity! 

I for one am going to give it a shot, though. Are you up for it? Send me an email and let me know. I’ll get back to you on Sunday.

Do you plan your vacation spots around where you can check your email? Do you send yourself email just to get some during a slow period? If so, you are an email addict. But never fear, there’s now a 12-step program available just for you, designed by an executive coach in Pennsylvania.

The first step? Like most other 12-step programs, it’s admitting you have a problem.

Some other steps to email management success include “commit to keeping your in-box empty,” “establish regular times to review your email” and “deal immediately with any email that can be handled in two minutes or less, but create a file for mails that will take longer.”

We’ve been covering email for much of this month, so for more help, check out our most recent tips, guides and news on the subject.

Oh, and there won’t be face-to-face meetings in the 12-step program, but participants will be in communication with their leader … by phone.

Have you been to a spa lately? If your thumbs are aching from typing on your BlackBerry or your face is breaking out from being pressed against your cell phone all the time, you may want to book an appointment at one of the many spas offering services to remedy these new workplace maladies. At Completely Bare Salon in New York, the Purity Plus facial includes an herbal mask, steam treatment and massage to clear clogged pores and clear up cell phone acne. Graceful Services, another NYC-based spa offers massages to relieve “BlackBerry thumb” and “tech neck.” I wonder if they have a treatment for those itching for an iPhone.