What people are saying about our webcasts: "Content superb of course. But I also loved its "personality" - friendly, casual, expert, geeky: perfect!"
-- Heather Young

Our upcoming webcasts include:

• DRBD and MySQL - An HA Match Made In Heaven
• Cloud Security & Privacy
• Cloud Security Deep Dive
• Using ICT (Information & Communications Technology) to Create a Sustainable Business
• Tour the Top 10 Treats in Entity Framework 4
• The Science of Social Media Marketing

Check out our Webcast page for on-demand videos of past webcasts and more upcoming live events!

Just over three years ago, Bre Pettis and I threw a geek night in our home town. We called it Ignite Seattle. Since that first amazing night in 2006, Ignite has spread to over 60 cities, bringing together thousands of geeks and generating hundreds of videos of Ignite talks. This March, it gets much, much bigger. O'Reilly is launching the first-ever Global Ignite Week, to bring together as many local Ignites as possible. Read more.

• How to delete online accounts?
• How to enter common symbols and punctuation on a Droid quickly
• How to build and test an iPhone app that uses the accelerometer
• James Paterson demos how he uses Flash and ActionScript to animate his drawings
• What is the best web authoring tool for Mac OS X?

Share knowledge, ask questions on O'Reilly Answers today.

With only a few weeks left until we close out the 'naughts and move into the teens, it's almost obligatory to take a look back at the best and not-so-best of the last decade. With that in mind, I polled the O'Reilly editors, authors, Friends, and a number of industry movers and shakers to gather nominations. I then tossed them in the trash and made up my own compiled them together and looked for trends and common threads. So here then, in no particular order, are the best and the worst that the decade had to offer. Read more.

Foursquare is the new Dodgeball. Which is to say that it is my (and many other people's) method for tracking where we go (and in most cases our social activities). On a daily basis I use the iPhone app to announce some of my whereabouts to friends. I share specifics selectively, but in aggregate my information is shared publicly. (Disclosure: Foursquare is an OATV investment) Read more.

I'm totally gaga over Jackson Fish Market's new site, A Story Before Bed. This might be one of those things that parents and grandparents will flip out with happiness about while everyone else scratches their heads, but as a new parent, finding it made me feel like a special delivery had arrived expressly for my daughter. The idea of the site is to make it easy for people far from kids they love -- grandparents in another city, parents on a business trip, soldiers in training or deployed -- to read a story to a child. But you really have to watch a demo video to see what a jewel of a product they've made. Read more.

What men daily do, not knowing what they do!
The Internet provides minimal information about us when we go online, but compensates by providing immediate, dynamic exploitation of that information. This post in the identity article series shows what we tell others just by connecting to the Internet. Previous posts in this series explored the various identifies that track you in real life. Now we can look at the traits that constitute your identity online. A little case study may show how fluid these are. Read more.

See Bacteria-Powered Micro-Machines. This and more in today's Four Short Links.

Reading this morning's New York Times story, Mobile Phones Become Essential Tools for Holiday Shopping, I was reminded again of the fundamental shortsightedness of so many of our economic decisions, that flaw in human nature that makes us seize on temporary advantage without thinking of the long-term consequences. The article focuses on the use of applications like ShopSavvy and RedLaser to do comparison price checking while in the store. On the surface, these are great tools for consumers (and there are other applications besides price comparison.) But remember, cutthroat pursuit of the lowest price will hasten the demise of many retailers, while strengthening others (usually, the biggest and most efficient, who can make money on the slenderest margins.) But what happens once those mega-retailers are the last one standing? Prices are likely to go up. Read more.

'Twas a night during the holidays, when all through the house
Everyone was connecting and using their mouse.
The screens were alight and holding their stares,
While holiday music from iTunes loudly blared.

The children were chatting and texting their friends,
Searching for YouTube clips they just had to send;
And Daddy with his iPhone and I with my RIM
Were synching our calendars to meet at the gym.
Read more.

Holiday Gift Guide — Need a gift for the hard-core geek in your life? How about the DIYer or digital photographer? O'Reilly has something for every techie and crafter on your list, from hobbyist to pro. Check out our Gift Guide to see our new titles, and pick up some great gifts for the holidays. Give O'Reilly.