I don’t think scrapping the whole whois database is a good idea. No matter why you want it scrapped.

Tech industry lawyer Mark Bohannon frequently taps a group of searchable databases called Whois to figure out who may be behind a Web site that distributes pirated software or tricks visitors into revealing passwords.

Like a “411″ for the Internet, Whois contains information such as names and phone numbers on the owners of millions of “.com” and other Internet addresses. Bohannon and his staff at the Software and Information Industry Association rely on the free databases daily in their efforts to combat theft and fraud.

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Nonetheless, some privacy advocates are proposing scrapping the system entirely because they can’t agree with the people who use the system on how to give domain name owners more options when they register — such as designating third-party agents. Privacy advocates say individuals shouldn’t have to reveal personal information simply to have a Web site.

The so-called “sunset” proposal is expected to come up Wednesday before a committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, a key Internet oversight agency.

I always use Domains By Proxy when registering my domain names so my personal information is kept private. What do you think? Is too much personal information required to register domain names? Do you think the Whois database should be scrapped?

It’s funny. Whenever I get a new cell phone, someone releases a new one, and usually I get jealous… This time I’m not. I love my T-Mobile Wing.

The Shadow knows what you want — a simpler smartphone with many capabilities. That’s T-Mobile’s Shadow, announced on Monday as the first in a new product line that the company said “will become synonymous with playful, easier, and richer communications experiences.”

Your actual shadow is one of your closest companions, which is T-Mobile’s reason for the name choice — staying closely in touch with your companions with a “screamingly simple interface.”

T-Mobile president and CEO Robert Dotson said this new device is not a productivity tool, but is “designed for people who have lives beyond work.”

People have lives beyond work? Really? Who would have thunk it?

Now if they can just make it so I can sync my phone without needing Outlook, life would be perfect.

The last time we drove cross country, about 6 years ago, the wife and I stopped near Williams to look at some Arizona real estate. Had conditions been different at the time, I could be blogging from my own 40 acre ranch just minutes from the Grand Canyon. Of course I would have needed miles of network wiring to get internet access, but what the heck.

Today is my last “working day” of vacation. We finished moving my mother across country and she will be settling into her new place in the next week or so.

We didn’t make it to Branson Missouri like I had mentioned before on one of my other blogs, but we did drive through Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee to get her here.

More later.

So all those people hacked their iPhones for what? To get away from AT&T, or to install third-party applications?

If they did it to install applications, I bet they feel stupid now.

Apple Inc. will allow third-party applications on the iPhone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in a posting on its Web site Wednesday.

In a decision that marks a clear turnaround from Apple’s previous desire to control the applications consumers have on their iPhones, Jobs said the company intends to release a software development kit in February that will let people outside the company to create iPhone and iPod touch applications.

“We are excited about creating a vibrant third-party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users,” Jobs said in the posting.

[Source: AP via Yahoo! News]

It’s about time someone at Yahoo! answered for this.

An influential US Congressional panel on Tuesday summoned top officials of Yahoo for a hearing after accusing the Internet giant of providing false information over a case in which a journalist was thrown in jail in China for a decade.

Tom Lantos, the chairman of the House of Representatives committee on foreign affairs, asked the officials to appear at the hearing planned for November 6 to discuss the circumstances under which Chinese journalist Shi Tao was jailed after Yahoo provided user information to Beijing.

Shi Tao, was convicted in 2005 of divulging state secrets after he posted a Chinese government order forbidding media organizations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising on the Internet.

Police identified him using information provided by Yahoo. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Of course, it’s a congressional panel, so I don’t really expect anything to come of it, oh, except a slight increase in my taxes to pay for all the senseless panels that are being held lately. Then again, they lied to Congress. Nothing pisses off a Congressman more than finding out they were on the receiving rather than giving end of a lie.

Just what I need… More phone calls.

News Corp.’s MySpace will offer members of its popular social network free Internet phone calls with a new feature based on eBay Inc.’s Skype service, the companies announced Tuesday.

Users with a Skype account will be able to click a single button in their MySpace profile to call the computer or telephone of another member, so they could reach people in their network even when they’re not online. The service will be available in 20 countries starting in November.

MySpace, the largest social-networking site with 110 million members, will share revenue from the deal with Skype, which allows customers to place long-distance calls using their computers. Skype, the Luxembourg-based division of eBay, has 220 million registered users.

Standard PC-to-PC phone calls will be free, but users must pay for “premium” options such as their own personal phone number, voice mail, call forwarding, and the ability to make calls from a computer to land lines or cell phones.

It’s not like I don’t get enough phone calls as it is. Why would I want everyone on my MySpace account calling me all day? Isn’t the point of MySpace to have an place online to type messages to each other? Heck, I am all for online “community”, I just don’t want people calling me. I have never been a “phone” person.

I’ve been testing Joost during the beta, and well, can I just say I’m not that impressed and leave it at that? Does anyone notice ceiling fans when they walk in a room?

The world’s first TV-quality online television network went on display at this week’s MIPCOM audiovisual trade show offering legal, free entertainment and raising questions about what this will mean for the massive TV business.

The network, Joost, launched this month just ahead of a clutch of competitors that include Italy’s Babelgum, offers legal rather than pirated entertainment for free.

“The Internet will start off showing traditional entertainment but eventually users and content creators will use the capabilities of the Internet to create some amazing entertainment,” said Mike Volpi, who heads up Joost.

I’m not sure what it is, but I just can’t get as much done watching Joost as I can when I watch programs through other outlets.

Yay! Finally. This is the only issue I have with CS3. It’s awesome software, but if you need to print anything, you have to fight it half the time.

Adobe is to release an update to Photoshop CS3 to improve problems with the application’s printing system, the Photoshop product manager John Nack has admitted an entry to his blog.

Nack acknowledges that users have had issues with the new Print dialog box introduced in Photoshop CS3– which was added to try to simplify printing practices– and that the company is trying to address their concerns.

“We know that many people have been unhappy with printing from Photoshop CS3 (overwhelmingly on Windows), and we’ve been working on changes that will make things work better,” he writes. “Unfortunately the process isn’t as quick as we’d like, given the sheer number of hardware, printer driver, and operating system combinations. We’ve made some changes & will be issuing an update to Photoshop CS3, but it’s not quite ready to be shared with the world at large.”

I can hardly wait.