Jason Meserve

If you still think Facebook is for twentysomethings clinging to their college years and Twitter is for people with too much time on their hands announcing what they had for breakfast, think again.

Slideshow: Top 12 Twitter tools

If you still think Facebook is for twentysomethings clinging to their college years and Twitter is for people with too much time on their hands announcing what they had for breakfast, think again.

Watch a slideshow of the top 12 Twitter tools.
Read about private Twitter alternatives.

File this under don't we have bigger things to worry about: Reports are that the US "Camera Phone Predator Alert Act" would require a cameraphone to produce an audible "click" whenever a photo is taken -- even if the camera is in silent mode. Really? This is a plague on society?

I've never been stalked, so I don't know the horror that could bring to one's life. But it seems to me we're getting along just fine while our pictures are taken a million times a day via security cameras and the like. Do those cameras need to have a click too? And, what about those times when it pays to be discrete, such as when witnessing a crime. Do you really want your camera phone "clicking" away as you photograph the perpetrators?

Normally, in a time of crisis, an "amateur" is not the first person you might call. But when communications networks go down, amateur radio operators -- or hams -- and their gear can get communities connected to the outside world via the radio waves.

During the recent Field Day activities hosted by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), ham operators and clubs across North America spent 48 hours demonstrating their communications abilities. After a 24-hour setup period, groups had a second 24-hour window to make as many contacts as possible around the world using voice or Morse Code (knows as Continuous Wave in ham parlance) over varying frequencies. In the case of the Nashua Area Radio Club (NARC), which set up camp at Wasserman Park in Merrimack, N.H., a group made some 1,165 contacts over the 20m band, one in Australia.