Subjects:
Javascript and Round Corners aren't enough
Now it's quasi official. Web 2.0 is - or was - no more than hype, a rhetorical bubble, not based on a technical specification, something tangible, but just promises of good times. And promoted by those who have outed themselves as nothing but promoters before.
Google Diagnostics
Google now offers a summary about possible security risks for each known site using easy to remember syntax: http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=domainname. Here's an example.
Identity Theft
People fear identity theft. And those concerned and responsible are negligent as never before. Just today we see:
- a new massive wave of SQL injections
- remotely installed trojans because of yet another hole in Adobe's Flash player
- the resignation of the German Minister for the Interior - although it only takes place in the browser, because those responsible for his site are clueless or disinterested - or both.
Some entities seem to have real problems grasping the concept of security. And anyone who highlights the issue, gets fired.
How to influence your Google Results
Matt Cutts demonstrates how by spending a few minutes you can create Google Subscribed Links that show up in your results whenever you enter one of the keywords you want the link to show up for. It's almost like going directly to the site you want to pop up in your results, just a little more convoluted.
XSS Vulnerability at Facebook
Facebook is ranked the 7th most popular site on the web according to Alexa. Xssed highlighted yet another XSS vulnerability that put 70 million users at risk. But then - what are friends for?
For Pity's Sake!
Microsoft really would like for someone to use their Live search once in a while. They're even willing to pay again if you use it.
The Ultimate Search Engine Comparison
If relevance would matter, some search engines would not be. What really counts, is numbers. Hard numbers. Here are some up to date ones I just found:
| Query | Yahoo | Microsoft Live | |
| Error 404 | 2,360,000 | 45,100,000 | 15,300,000 |
| Linux | 517,000,000 | 1,120,000,000 | 306,000,000 |
Google Ranking
Udi Manber details some of the issues Coders have to tackle when trying to improve search result quality and ranking. Obviously he doesn't share any secrets, but it would help some people to understand the process, to see it more than a sequence of HTML tags paired with purchased links and blog spam.
Calling a Kettle Black
Who would have thought that Google worries about privacy.
Can You Trust Google?
Sure it's quicker to ask Google for an image than to wait for Apple to send you a product shot. But it helps, if you know what you're doing.
Not For Sale
Mark Cuban, a guy with more money than brains, proposes to pay the top 100,000 sites for blocking Google in their robots.txt, so that Google is deprived of quality results.
Won't happen. Everyone and their sister know that Microsoft is perceived to be evil. For this reason Maciej Ceglowski, who used to publish the Idlewords blog, asked site owners in 2003 to block Microsoft in their robots.txt files to deprive MSN good content.
The action generated instant publicity support, lots of reporting, praise even. But very few changed robots.txt files. Site owners don't want to lose a prospective visitor, even if some know that visitors coming from MSN are almost never qualified, having searched for something irrelevant to their site.
The $1,000 Cuban proposes won't make a dent. The idea needs a lot more zeroes before the decimal point, before it would even become considerable.
Cannibalising Yahoo
Because Yahoo seems to have lost focus a long time ago, drifting into this direction and that, some people are rolling up their sleeves to strip the best bits off the slow moving giant. Although Yahoo is still a major destination for net users according to some marketing statistics, its search could never convince.
Paypal XSS Vulnerability
According to Netcraft a security researcher found an XSS Scripting Vulnerability on Paypal's site. The problem is doubly embarrassing, because Paypal just a few weeks ago aired the opinion that browsers which don't support Extended Validation SSL Certificates would be banned, forgetting that security begins at home.
Reciprocal Fun
Matt Cutts make fun of a reciprocal link exchange offer he must have been tipped off about. Some people seem to be unwilling to accept that things have changed.
Logfile Burning
Phorm is an Advertising crutch, sniffing the user's data stream directly at the provider [who gets a cut] in order to insert advertising into html pages the user requests. Those who notice and disagree can
- change their provider
- trust those people to obey an opt-out [you have to know about this first, though]
- install AntiPhormLite, an application that simulates a browser by requesting html pages across a large variety of subjects continuously [which are discarded without anyone ever looking at them], all in order to confuse the sniffers with meaningless data.
Your accesslog files are even less relevant now.
Noise vs. What?
When I first employed networking - sometime during the mid eighties - you needed cables that were quite often rather cumbersome, transceivers, connectors and other bits of hardware. Today it seems all you need is the ability to string words together.
Quote of the Day
I've never come across this phrase before. Hits the nail on the head.
Google Doctype
Some people at Google are pleased to introduce Google Doctype, a collection of Javascript code and documentation with an "open license" which I've not read because, as some people know, Javascript cannot be trusted [one of countless examples] and is therefore not tolerated here. The collection is not finished and requires helping hands, unpaid of course: when corporations ask the crowds for help they don't pay.
All Dressed Up
Without anything to say tarting up in itself won't create meaning.
PHP 6 in the Making
PHP gets an overhaul: some new things, some fixes, and some code removals. A few problems are still not addressed.
Semantic Toddler
Powerset is a new search engine with big plans and, as yet, not so big a data set. I like the phrase quoted in several press pieces: "they aren't indexing the entire web yet".
Well, they made a start: their data contains Wikipedia and Freebase pages only. Queries are interesting though, because they process a corpus of documents of a known quality only. The Google syntax for a query would be somewhat uglier. Fast though. Lots faster.
They must be trying to succeed, because they spell facts with a 'z'. Nobody is perfect. If you use their new spelling of facts, you're asked if you mean the dated one.
Instant PR Stunt
A campaign promoting a new small car from Italy in Germany looks like its press release points to a URL occupied by a domain squatter: http://www.500wantsyou.com/.
Instant Linkbait
Two geeks, two nights, and the result is this. Somewhat longer the development of the [first?] online font editor must have taken. Whereas Steve Roberts spent the last twenty five years creating mobile computing devices, and, for those interested in such a life style, enough reading material for a long weekend.
Bloody Foreigners
I can still remember using 7 bit ASCII, long before I switched to ISO 8859-1. Now Google, who have been using Unicode internally for a while, report their switch to Unicode 5.1. They also mention that in December last year Unicode overtook both ASCII and Western European [ISO] encodings within 10 days of one another.
PR 10 Domain for Free
It's not a perfect ten yet. But then, we all have started somewhere.
Size Does Matter
I believe, a headline that's 10680 characters long is unreasonable. And it looks like crap when it's not hidden because Javascript is turned off in your browser.
Google Street's New View
After Maps was changed Google Street View looks new too.
Google Maps grown up
Google Maps is grown up. Works without Javascript now.
Why You still need Microsoft's Browser
Even if you don't use Microsoft's Internet Exploder as your main browser you still should test each new design thoroughly. Turns out that it handles <base href=...> different than any other browser I have access to. If the address declared as your base is valid, all's well. If it's not, it's not. But whereas the majority of browsers handle such a slip up gracefully, the browser used by the majority of people doesn't.
Negative Feedback
If negative feedback causes an offer of a bribe to have it edited into something more palatable, it's going to stick.
How secure is your Server?
Peter Gabriel's Server has been nicked from the provider's premises. The Register mentions Rednet Ltd, owned by Opal Telecom owned by Carphone Warehouse. Rednet had very poor connectivity some years back. Carphone Warehouse staff have been accused of confusing customers in order to get them pay extra cash for insurance last year.
Human Touch to Outsmart Google
Amazing how many people still believe that human powered search result ranking can outsmart an algorithmic solution. Wikia is by far not the first attempt at creating a search engine which employs the subjective opinions of the crowd in order to rank things. Maybe it'll be the last, though, because, as Seth Finkelstein highlights, this one gets so much publicity, maybe some of the realities will stick in the end.
Google Idea Factory
A Business Week article latches onto Google's ability to produce stronger than expected results despite the economic downturn, and apparently all because of Google's many ideas. Fact is, Google is still a business with only a single profitable product. All the others just promote it's coolness.
Trevithick Day
Last week Camborne celebrated Trevithick Day. Here are some photos I took, including a "Trevithick" and a McLaren.
© Copyright 1998 - 2008 Klaus Schallhorn.