Techcrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/24/are-bing-users-are-twice-as-likely-to-click-on-an-ad-than-google-users/) is running a story that shows some pretty significant differences in the clicking habits of users of Yahoo, Google, and Bing. It shows that users who arrive at websites via Bing are 55% more likely to click on an ad than if they arrived from Google. This data is based on the Chitika network's study from June 2009.

Wow! Who would have thought that people who would switch to a search engine based on an aggressive marketing campaign would be more susceptible to advertising? This is ground breaking. However, even with Bing's higher click-thru rate, the Google still gets your ad about 13 times as many impressions. Though, not knowing the pricing structures both companies use for ads, I could not tell you the proper return on advertising for both services. If you can quickly gather a user base of easily influenced people, there is nothing stopping the next competitor from doing the same thing and taking those same easily influenced people over to their new product. I doubt Bing's lead will last for long, maybe ask.com should start up the TV advertisements again, and maybe they can get those Bing users.

Download the latest Turbo Memory Driver from Intel's web site at http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2813 or search the internet for INVM19ENU.EXE

• Extract the driver with command line: INVM19ENU.exe -a -p (the files end up in program files in the intel directory - C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel Matrix Storage Manager\winall\INVM\x64\)
• Copy the nvccoin.dll from C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel Matrix Storage Manager\winall\INVM\ (x86 or x64 depending on your OS, mine is x64)
• Paste the nvccoin.dll file in to the C:\windows\syswow64\ and the c:\windows\system32 system folders
• Then double click on the INVM19ENU.EXE and install it as normal ...it should work now.

This was the last bit which was holding me up from having a fully working Win 7 RTM build. FYI Anyone else with a Lenovo system looking for the drivers should look at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/WIN7-BETA.html Hopefully we will start seeing some new non beta drivers from Lenovo soon.

According to this article on CNN Trina Thompson is suing her college because she has not found a job since graduating http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/03/new.york.jobless.graduate/

As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record. But Monroe's career-services department has put forth insufficient effort to help her secure employment, she claims.

"They're supposed to say, 'I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right -- can you interview this person?' They're not doing that," she said.

The best thing to come out of this story is that Ms. Thompson has sent out a nice big red-flag warning to any potential employers not to touch her with a barge pole. After all, if she does this, you can pretty much guarantee she'll sue her employer the moment she gets passed over for a promotion (after all, she shows up for work most days and her last project wasn't a total disaster).

"It doesn't make any sense: They went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald's and Payless. That's not what they planned."

It might not be what they planned, but it is the reality of the job market. The huge expansion in higher education, along with widespread dumbing down of course material and grade inflation, has created a market where many apparently middling graduates just aren't going to have a chance at getting a job that genuinely requires graduate skills. A lot of students who 20 years ago would have been considered middling (but would have gone on to get graduate-level jobs) are now clustered around the top of the class.

At the same time, the self-esteem and all-must-have-prizes philosophies that now pervade much of education have convinced everybody that they deserve to walk right into their dream job, just because they've done nothing more than show up for class and turn in assignments most of the time. The entitlement mentality is right out on show in this story. I have done a fair bit of interviewing for my previous employer and I sew plenty of applicants who seemed to feel the same way, they didn't get very far. I don't give a damn about GPA's or attendance, during an interview you must be able to speak intelligently and answer my questions.

There is an unfortunate side to this. A lot of teens and their parents are still duped into believing that a degree will still lead to a guaranteed "good" job. There's plenty of material out there to counter-act this view and show that in many (possibly even now a majority) of cases, it's a waste of time and money. Unfortunately, this usually gets dismissed as right wing ranting (which I will no doubt get accused of in the replies to this post). The other unfortunate side is that some employers with vacancies that could be filled by a bright high-school graduate seem to feel the need to advertise for a graduate. However I have noticed a slight reversal of this trend recently.

I'd advise Ms. Thompson that with her achievements and attitude, she needs to lower her expectations. She mentions McDonalds sneeringly, but the fact is that they have a general corporate policy of promoting most of their talent internally. If she is as capable as she thinks she is and went to work there with the intention of proving herself (and the attitude to match), she could have a perfectly reasonable career. The same is true of any number of other employers that she probably considers below her social status.