This week’s tasty tidbits from the business and technology front, as well as other recommended links:

• How the Kindle will change the world — I’m an ardent book-lover, but I recognize that my attachment to their paper form is largely sentimental — and increasingly anachronistic. Jacob Weisberg explains why.
• How Samberg and Social Media Saved SNL — How Saturday Night Live’s "Digital Short" features kept them relevant in the days of YouTube and social networking. Includes links to all the classics (Lazy Sunday, D&*k in a Box, etc.)
• Speedtest.net – The Global Broadband Speed Test — Easily the most accurate and easy-to-understand of the tools that measures your broadband connection speed.
• Seattle expected to rise from recession — While not exactly flourishing, the Puget Sound region is likely to less affected than other areas of the country, and will be one of the first to recover.
• Ideas for Embedding Google Spreadsheets in Your Blog or Website — Google Spreadsheets is both free and easy to integrate into your website. Here are some excellent creative ideas for doing so.
• So, You Want to Be an Entrepreneur — The Wall Street Journal asks a series of excellent questions to determine if you have the disposition to be an entrepreneur.
• Le Whif Chocolate Inhaler — Have you ever been accused of inhaling chocolate? Now you can actually do it, and with no calories!

Documentation is a lot like flossing. Done with regularity and diligence, it can stave off a disaster, but it’s immensely tiresome, and the negative effects of neglect aren’t immediate. Unless it’s a deeply ingrained habit, we tend to avoid it.

The most crucial type of documentation is the kind that’s written before a new project even starts: the Project Specifications document, or Specs. A good Specs can save a company boatloads of time and money, and can even be fun to put together. It’s also an absolutely essential step before beginning to build any large-scale programming, design, or other engineering project.

Software developer and entrepreneur Joel Spolsky worked at Microsoft before founding his own company, and has been writing essays at Joel on Software for nearly a decade. He has written a superb series on Painless Functional Specifications that I strongly recommend. It’s in four parts:

1. Part 1: Why Bother? — Joel explains exactly why Specs are so crucial, even though engineers tend to regard them with wariness.

2. Part 2: What’s a Spec? — A look at the document itself, including a fun Sample Specs for a silly application.
3. Part 3: But… How? — By designating (or hiring) a Program Manager! Joel explains how this position works.
4. Part 4: Tips — The task is only as daunting as you let it be. The final entry contains tips to make it painless.

Specs are especially important for non-technical owners and managers whose company is about to embark on a technical project—like a Website redesign, or building a new sales database. Without a high-level Specs that you can both understand and sign off on, you’re just inviting your project team to spend their time—and your money!—inefficiently. Be sure to insist on a Spec from the project leader before any actual development work begins, and you’ll save yourself a guaranteed headache (or toothache) in the future.

This week’s tasty tidbits from the business and technology front, as well as other recommended links:

• Why Small Companies Will Win in This Economy — Harvard Business offers some optimism for entrepreneurs.
• Television Outside the Box — The Atlantic takes an entertaining look at 3D TV: "Like a headache-inducing cicada, 3-D programming shows up on television about once a decade, only to disappear and be forgotten until whenever it appears again…"
• How Spam Saves Libraries with reCAPTCHA — It turns out that those annoying word puzzles on Web forms are actually helping contribute to the world’s expanding pool of digital knowledge. Fascinating story!
• Mobile Skype: The End of Cellular As We Know It — Skype is now available for all Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Google Android mobile phones, threatening to render obsolete the traditional cellular phone business. Meanwhile, Apple is trying their best not to cooperate…
• Risk, Fear, Certainty : The Frontal Cortex — "Given the massive decision-making flaws exposed by the current economic mess, what
  variables should scientists be investigating in the future so that we can better understand how we got here? In other words, what will be the hot topic in decision-making science two years from now?"
• Official Gmail Blog: Undo Send — A new feature in Gmail Labs gives you a five second window to cancel after hitting "Send" on an ill-advised email. It doesn’t sound like long, but it can be a crucial window of time.
• Top 7 Practical Tips For Overcoming Stage Fright — Giving a presentation? Check out these useful tips.
• Celebrity English » Learn grammar and vocabulary with the stars! — Brush up on your command of the language with these funny examples from celebrities.