Alas, fair Orkut, we barely knew ye. Or barely used ye, something like that. Either way, Google has decided to retire Orkut, it's first foray into social networking, after ten years. Ten years is an eternity on the Internet, but Orkut has clearly been superceded by Google Plus, into which Google is investing increasingly important amounts of time, energy, and code.

From the announcement:

Ten years ago, Orkut was Google's first foray into social networking. Built as a "20 percent" project, Orkut communities started conversations, and forged connections, that had never existed before. Orkut helped shape life online before people really knew what "social networking" was. ...
Orkut, the service, may be going away, but all of those incredible communities Orkut users have created will live on. We are preserving an archive of all public communities, which will be available online starting September 30, 2014. If you don't want your posts or name to be included in the community archive, you can remove Orkut permanently from your Google account. Please visit our Help Center for further details.

Ed note: Anyone still using Orkut is requested to close their account and open up something at AOL, Geocities, or Myspace as soon as possible.

There's been tremendous evolution in the programming language space, as new coding philosophies and paradigms change over time to address old problems or new visions. But how to decide where to invest your time and energy?

Apple's new Swift language is the newborn on the block, and iOS developers seem to be impressed. Infoworld recommends nine languages that make writing Javascript a joy, if that's possible (coffeescript, gorillascript, typescript, and others). Venturebeat recommends you start with Javascript before moving onto something like Python or Ruby. The Google engineer who invented Dart, Gilad Bracha, deplores the dearth of viable programming languages that would allow the Web to compete with native code. CIO also recommends Javascript, but also suggests budding web designers also look into Opa, Scala, and Erlang, among others.

Or should you just throw in the towel, and have a little fun with something totally useless like Brainfuck, or the Arnold Schwartzenegger programming language?

Well, World Backup Day came and went on March 31. If you hadn't already spent some time and energy in a solution for backing up and archiving your personal digital resources, you've hopefully been inspired by this now annual event and cobbled together a solution that fits your needs. So, what is it?

There are now many competing solutions for local backup, no matter which operating system is your preference. Throw in the periodic burning of optical media, a dedication to offsite media and it gets more complicated. Add a NAS or SAN to the system and it gets thornier, since your typical NAS can now help you amass far more digital "stuff" than you can possibly archive without a second NAS.

No matter what you design, dedication, organization, and anticipation remain an important part of the mix.

How do you do it? Share your thoughts on our new, Monday poll.