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Business cards as we know them are destined for museums. They'll be encased in glass alongside such business relics as fax machines and PalmPilots.

I mean, I appreciate a nicely designed card as much as the next person, but the reality is they're a waste of paper and a major inconvenience--for both parties.

A much smarter solution: CardFlick InstaCards, a free service that lets you build dazzling-looking digital cards with just a few clicks, then share them using whatever method suits you.

I started with the Web version of InstaCards, though it's also available in app form for iOS. (An Android version is in the works.) Using a simple, attractive browser-based interface, I chose a photo to use for my card's background (an optional step), then applied a theme.

Instacards offers about 30 of them, all very fancy and professional-looking, and all making you think, "This looks expensive. I'm glad I'm not paying to have these printed."

From there I typed in the usual personal details: name, company, phone number, e-mail address, and so on. Every addition or change I made was instantly shown in the main card-preview area.

Once I'd saved my card, I could share it via e-mail, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. Even better, once I'd installed the CardFlick app on my iPhone and signed into my account, presto: there was the card I'd made. I could "flick" it to other CardFlick users in the area, or just send it via plain old e-mail.

Interestingly, anyone who receives your card gets not only the digital image, but also details about where and when you met--complete with a Google Map. How cool is that!

InstaCards is free. It's not "free for the first five cards you send" or "only the ugly themes are free"--the whole thing is just plain free. My advice: stop spending money and trees on business cards and try this instead. It's seriously cool, and practical to boot.

Continued here:
Create and Share Gorgeous Digital Business Cards with InstaCards

Summary: The weekly roundup of Generation Y and student resources you may have missed.

This edition of TeenTech weekly rounds up Generation Y and student technology news that you may have missed. This week weve read about university research budgets, the result of Dharun Ravis webcam case, student monitoring and the future of the digital economy.

1.) Budget: 100m university research pledge for UK. (BBC)

Chancellor George Osborne has announced a 100m fund to boost university research in the UK through private sector involvement. The funding is intended to attract outside investment for universities.

2.) Student found guilty of charges in webcam suicide case.

Former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi, 19, was found guilty of using a webcam to spy on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, 18, in a charge described as a hate crime. In total, 15 charges resulted in a guilty verdict; including 4th degree invasion of privacy, tampering with physical evidence, and witness tampering.

3.) Thousands of student emails exchanged in data breach.

The Student Loans Company, UK, has come under fire after releasing 8,000 student email addresses by accident. SLC staff emailing reminders inadvertently included an attachment that contained the emails of every recipient which was then received by each of the 8,000 to-be students being sent the original message.

4.) Getting their moneys worth. (Inside Higher Ed)

Lasell College wants 100 percent of faculty members to be actively using the colleges Moodle-based learning management system (LMS). Furthermore, it wants usage on every course in every department by the end of the year.

Link:
TeenTech Weekly: Research pledges, digital literacy, student tracking

Jordan Milliken, 12, of Fort Dodge, brought part of his coin collection to the annual Fort Dodge Coin Club show at the Crossroads Mall.

He wasn't trying to sell it. He was looking for more specimens to add to it from the nearly 25 vendors at the show.

He said he began collecting in 2008 and has gravitated towards specializing in coins with errors.

Like many other collectors, he's had the good luck to find collectible coins in change.

"I found a 1943 Mercury dime," he said. "If somebody is dumb enough to spend it, I'll take it."

He also found a another dime with an error.

"I noticed the sharp edge," he said.

When Pete Fritz began collecting coins in 1952, the most difficult part was keeping the collection.

"It was very hard," he said. "Sometimes the coins would come out so we could go to the show."

Fritz said that coin collecting offers many benefits for young collectors.

Read this article:
Collectors seek more than pocket change

Kate Moore is bored.

Every day, she gets her kids off to school, cooks, cleans and shops, occasionally has coffee with other stay-at-home moms, folds laundry. Then she gets up the next day and does it all over again.

All-day domesticity is no life for a former CIA assassin even one who's given up the game to move to Luxembourg for her husband's mysterious new banking job.

Luckily for Kate the heroine of author Chris Pavone's new thriller, The Expats life is about to get interesting. Pavone tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan that while he was never a CIA agent, his life and Kate's have many parallels.

"Both Kate and I left behind careers in the United States that we were no longer that enamored with, and we were ready to make a big change, and ready to do something else and be someone else," he says.

Both Kate and her creator ran up against the difficulties of raising children and making a new home in a foreign country. "Those things are partially exciting and mostly dreadfully boring," he says.

Chris Pavone worked in the publishing industry for nearly two decades. He has also written a wine-tasting journal called The Wine Log.

Chris Pavone worked in the publishing industry for nearly two decades. He has also written a wine-tasting journal called The Wine Log.

But Luxembourg is a great place to reinvent yourself. "If you want to, you can totally just become someone else," he says. "Because the person you're talking to is from the Maldives, or Spain, and you're not. And the things in your life that would get you caught if you were lying aren't there to get you caught."

In The Expats, everyone's lying about almost everything from Kate and her husband to the mysterious American couple who just keep showing up in their lives.

More:
Secrets And Lies Overseas In 'The Expats'

Q Would it be appropriate to honk at a person who is clearly distracted by their cellphone while driving? I saw a person who was clearly texting while driving. He was continuously looking down at his phone as he drifted out of his lane and was going at least 5 mph below the speed limit. I thought about honking at him but decided not to as I didn't want to scare him too much and cause him to suddenly swerve and cause an even greater hazard.

Greg Esch

Santa Clara

A I honked at a young woman who was texting and creeping along Hedding Street when we arrived at a red light not too long ago. To put it mildly, she became enraged -- at me. She gave me the single-finger salute, was mouthing nasty words (thankfully our windows were up) and had the scary "I'm going to clobber you" glare of an NFL middle linebacker.

So I was going to say don't honk and cause a road-rage incident, but then I stumbled across this story from a Washington, D.C.-area radio station:

"I drive around on the weekends in Washington," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, and when he sees what he describes as "my biggest source of irritation" -- somebody on a cellphone, LaHood takes action: "What I've been doing is kind of honking at somebody if I see him on a cellphone."

LaHood says it's his way of "taking personal responsibility" to reduce driver distractions. Hey,

Q I was driving down Highway 85, and I wanted to move into the carpool lane. I look over and there is a guy in a small car staring at his cellphone or iPod or something like that. Either way he was totally distracted. He was changing speeds all over the place while getting very close to drifting out of his lane. The entire time I could see him he was on his phone. He was definitely not paying attention for at least a few miles.

What should I have done? Call 911 or 311 or something like that? This seems comparable to drunken driving. He was endangering his and everyone else's lives on the freeway that day.

Matt Katawicz

Continued here:
Roadshow: Guess who honks at drivers talking on cellphones: DOT boss Ray LaHood!