Subjects:
Spamfest
It appears The Times, an established newspaper, is involved in an extensive campaign to spam social media websites with links to Timesonline.co.uk articles. Now why do I feel, that it'll be excused as the actions of a junior who's going to be fired?
http://www.waxy.org/archive/2008/01/30/the_time.shtml
Open Server CMS
Yet again a widely deployed CMS is widely open. And then people are surprised when reality doesn't meet expectations.
Google Street Close Up
Found a short demo showing how close Google is watching users now.
You're going to be watched
I'm can't get over it how much excitement Google [and other] online apps generate and how easily people hand over their hard earned data, rights to the data and their trust.
Fourth paragraph down: In order for cyberspace to be policed, internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search. "Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation," he said. Giorgio warned me, "We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"
And continued on here, 4th para again: You can see it in comments by government officials: "Privacy no longer can mean anonymity," says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. "Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information." Did you catch that? You're expected to give up control of your privacy to others, who - presumably - get to decide how much of it you deserve.
Your Mugshots all over the Web
And then gazillions of photos that were supposed to be private float all over the web. And not just at Myspace.
Apple's Hints for successful SEO
A lot of people seem to know that the MacBook Air is going to fail. But as Charles Miller says: "Where's the differentiation? Where's the innovation in doing exactly what everyone else does..."
Which should be obvious to anyone running a business, or creating or owning a web site. As long as you do - more or less - exactly what all your competitors do, you're not really special, and there isn't really a reason to prefer your site to any other.
Parent Relief
This year's Christmas is going to be a lot cheaper. A few weeks ago Microsoft received a patent for making wish lists.
The Big Smut Experiment
Sebastian wonders how search engines will treat password protected pages. Do they index references to protected URLs? 'Course they do. As long as there's a page having linkpopularity linking to Sebastian's smut, it'll be made available to searchers. Even though protected pages cannot be requested without a password, they do get Pagerank, and they can show up in searches. The only way to prevent these pages to be indexed is to have not a single link to them anywhere. That's anywhere on the web, not just on Sebastian's site, btw.
How to delete URLs from Google
Browsing Sebastian's Pamphlets I could not fail to smirk when seeing Getting URLs outta Google - the good, the popular, and the definitive way - because once again someone wasted a lot of effort on something that's not going to happen. Even viewing Matt Cutt's short movie on how to remove URLs from Google and following his advice is pointless, and not because he's can't compete with Johnny Depp, but because the deletion itself will be deleted after 90 days, forcing bad URLs to pop up again.
Removing URLs from Google's stock clearly is against its aims, as AdWords can only be presented, as long as there are search results for each and every possible and impossible query. After all, Google differs from its competitors by only presenting ads when a search has results, and not, like certain search engines, that print ads even if there's not a single result for a query. Whether a URL exists at the time it's presented in a result list is, as every one knows, beyond Google's control, even if in reality it's been deleted seven years ago and each request by Googlebot has been answered by an appropriate server response - as long as there's a link somewhere pointing to a duff URL it'll be indexed. Unfortunately, Yahoo apes Google even here.
iOpener Office 2008
If you install Office on a Mac, you'll need a lot of patience, nerves, understanding, and probably Valium, if what Joel Bruner describes, is as bad as he says. Having seen similar problems after installing Photoshop and others, it wouldn't surprise me. Some developers are forever stuck in I'm allowed everything mode.
We Shall Overcome
Microsoft irritated, as usually, a lot of people with its announcement of yet another way to force web design people to chose either its next browser or standard compliance. The WebKit people said eloquently, why getting involved or supporting this is - as usual - a bad idea. And the author of the Acid Test is quite annoyed.
In case this isn't known: "Implementing a standard does not make Microsoft more money, tying people to Microsoft products does".
The Big Squeeze
Microsoft, desperately hoping to screw developers a little longer, announced the introduction of a new META Tag, which can be used when the next version of their standard screwing browser is dumped on the public. What for? To inform their browser that a page is standards compliant.
Del.icio.us at last in Yahoo
After del.icio.us was bought by Yahoo in 2005 their data at last show up in Yahoo search results, writes David Dalka, demoing at the same time how to prevent retention by plastering links like bird food all over copy which almost appears to have been stretched to accommodate lots of links.
Yahoops!
Looks like Yahoo might cut 1,500 to 2,000 jobs within the next two weeks. Although Jerry Yang recently announced his intention to make Yahoo! - yet again - the interweb's start page for almost everyone, he didn't say how he intended to achieve this miracle.
XSS Surprise
If it can be abused it will be.
What an Irony!
It takes Stephen Fry to state: "For what is this much-trumpeted social networking but an escape back into that world of the closed online service of 15 or 20 years ago?"
Bubble 3.0?
First I read that "social" networks such as Myspace or Facebook are only used by teenagers with hormonal imbalances, decorating their profiles with art resembling early My Little Pony experiences. Now I see that people start claiming Twitter is useless. It's qualified by a little advice though, to salvage the situation: all you need is more friends, then you need to mention everything, you publish in your blog also on twitter, and you need to connect your twitter profile with your web site, so your friends can check if what you say here matches there. Twats.
Rejoice
Since I bought an Apple Powerbook just over two years ago I've kept an eye on all things Apple as I like their hardware and the software I bought the hardware for [Final Cut and - over time - quite a few associated bits].
Now I read that the american Writers Strike [I didn't know there are organised writers] could cost Itunes subscribers. How so? Because a season of soap operas might be shortened so Itunes users get fewer shows for a fixed prices subscription term [I didn't know people watch soaps on their Ipods, or anywhere else for that matter].
And now that Apple announced movie rentals for their hardware, people are already complaining that the viewing window of 24 hours is too short; they want 27 hours instead.
Don't people know that with a bit of luck you can still buy books for the price of a movie rental? And books remain viewable for a long time.
Sitemaps rehashed
Susan Moskwa and Trevor Foucher, both part of Google's Webmaster Tools Team, sat down together to create a Sitemap FAQ.
More to Share
Mac users will be able, according to a Techcrunch Posting, to share their photos using Picasa for Mac, which is supposed to be in development.
Linkbait Demo
Being somewhat interested in photography I found another example of useful and unusual linkbait. I find it strange that professionals fail to produce something similar and have to resort to buying links when it's so much easier - and rewarding - to provide a bit of heart and soul.
Spacebook for an !Elite
Why are "social" networks so popular? To be found at Google or Yahoo you have to have either a not so common combination of first and last name, or you have to be important. Because Myspace, Facebook and similar sites have a very much simpler search geared solely to find names, nearly everyone who has an account there is found almost immediately.
Headlines uber Alles
It's amazing how so called Pro's can throw every restraint overboard just for the sake of a few headlines.
Wikia Search Quality
As usual Seth Finkelstein nails it: "For a search engine, a certain level of quality has to be reached for everything before it's usable for anything."
How Big is Big?
How Big Big really is becomes apparent when one looks at the numbers in detail.
Believing in Oneself
Sometimes it's not a good idea to believe one's own PR speak: Apparently "Beacon makes Facebook less commercial." Ah, well.
Doesn't Time Fly?
Donald Knuth was 70 yesterday. Many happy returns to the man who created typesetting with boxes and glue in order to have his books on Computer Science look proper.
Web Two Zero Construction Aid
A tool for those engaged in website construction which doesn't involve Javascript, Ruby, Rails, Social, Pastel Colours or Rounded Corners. Instead it deals with something fundamental.
Safe Delegation
More and more commercial sites seem to sport a "Hacker Safe" logo, proclaiming to be tested for holes by some authority which claims to know it all. Apart from the fact that it's utter rubbish - they would have to check the complete code running on your server under the microscope - it demonstrates once more, that it's aimed at those who either don't know better or don't care. Unless you know your code is correct and your server is locked down you'd be a fool to say your site is safe.
As an aside: most people still don't know the difference between a hacker and a cracker, and that's why they sign up to silly schemes like this. Some people call it washing their hands.
Social Redefined
Creating content, instead of consuming it, and engaging with people instead of gawping at them, that's all you need to become "socially acceptable". Language evolves apparently.
Tree Fiction
A lot of what's written on the web is fictive, the truth detector notwithstanding. Protagonize has an interesting angle on it.
Dell against Domain Tasters
Where one should have expected I-CANN or Verisign to step in or at least throttle greed that has become too blatant Dell now takes on that role. According to the Washington Post Dell filed suit claiming trademark infringement, unfair business practices and more against a group of undesirables, who have a portfolio of 1.8 million domain names, and have probably abused many more.
Impersonation Aid
Compared to Facebook, Myspace and other so called "social" networks aimed at the lowest common denominator Bigsight appears rather classy, attracting a more professional type of user to upload everything, those engaged in "identity theft" will ever need.
Booting
Netscape is abandoned [no longer supported] by its current owner, you may have read over the holidays. Nostalgia led me to start a very old version of Linux under Qemu to see what early Netscape looked like.
Which led me to attempt to find out what Mosaic looked like even earlier, at version 2.7.
Sadly, Mosaic fails to load most modern pages because it doesn't know, apart from many other HTTP header strings, Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1. I did, however, find a site it could handle, just:
Mobile Web
An easy way to avoid coding mobile web pages is to ignore the iPhone and any other web enabled mobile devices and let Google handle the problem. Google already lends a helping hand - unasked - if your pages don't include code for handhelds and a query comes from a handheld device.
There are better ways, though, once you have seen one of your own pages on Google and an alternative.
No Comment
Steven Heller points out why blog comments, forum entries and many other voices on the web are no more than noise which was never tolerated when people were accountable for their actions.
http://www.designobserver.comärchives/030925.html
Spam Waves
If you didn't know you can now read an explanation, how new pages receive a very short lived artificial ranking boost, and how this has been abused by some for some time.
Google by Numbers
Numbers published by ComScore show that Google's Froogle Products
Shopping Search had 73% fewer visitors than last year. Is Google really that inept
when it comes to competing with the many price comparison sites, or is it that there's
more money in having these pages in the main index?
How Very Brave
Wikia Search is alive. For now. If you rewind about ten years, when AltaVista was the leading search engine, none of the second or third tier engines, long dead and long forgotten, would have dared to go public with a data set resembling anything like what Wikia offers now. Does Jimbo really think there are enough well intentioned people to take on the spammers?
© Copyright 1998 - 2008 Klaus Schallhorn.