Archive for January, 2008

I haven’t used Network Solutions to register a domain name in over three years, maybe four. It’s been so long, I can’t remember.

I first decided to use a different registrar when I had trouble transfering the ownership of a domain. Then I had problems transfering a customer domain to another host, yes, simply changing nameserver information on the registration took several days (we’re talking almost 10 people). In the end, I have saved about $400 per year by stepping away from Network Solutions. I don’t think I made the wrong choice.

A company that sells Internet domain names is facing criticisms for holding some in reserve as a consumer-protection measure, a move that also prevents interested parties from shopping around for better prices.

After weeks of testing, Network Solutions LLC began this week to grab names that people search for on its Web site but don’t immediately register.

The name is locked up for about four days, during which the person who made the search can buy it directly from the company for $35 a year — a few times more than what many of its rivals charge. After that, the name returns to the pool and can be registered by anyone through any registration company.

Spokeswoman Susan Wade said Network Solutions was trying to combat domain name front running — the use of insider information to snatch desired domain names before an individual or business can register them.

But what it’s doing shares similarities with the practice the company says it is trying to prevent, which the Internet’s oversight agency for domain names already is investigating.

Pretty shady if you ask me. I think they have been doing this longer than people think. Earlier this year I used their website to search for a domain, because I was there finalizing a customer’s move to another registrar. I saw the domain was available and decided the next day to register it.

When I went to my current registrar to grab the domain, it told me it was not available, and when I went to the domain, nothing came up. When I checked the registration, there was none. I was upset, because I really wanted that domain. About a month later, I checked the domain and no one had put a site up yet, so I checked the registration again, and there still was none. I checked the availability at my registrar again, and it was available. Go figure. Who knew they were working on something like this.

If you’re looking for that perfect domain for your business, whether you sell cars, furniture, shower chairs, or plumbing supplies, you might not be able to grab the domain because these guys are being such jerks.

That new Eee PC looks pretty sharp if you ask me, and at $400, you really cannot beat it.

Taiwanese computer parts maker Asus obviously didn’t get the memo.

Didn’t Asus know notebook computers need hard drives? Or that they’re supposed to run Windows — and the pre-loaded software must bloat the boot-up process to the length of a long weekend? Don’t they know you don’t just go selling laptops for less than $750 — let alone $400 — unless the hardware has been aged like whisky?

Asustek Computers Inc. went ahead and broke the rules with the Eee PC. And we should all be thankful.

…

The $400, seven-inch Eee PC is a new entrant in a fast-growing market for ultra-portable PCs. All such computers, including the Eee, require sacrifices. Its keys may seem painfully small. For people used to a desktop or a standard notebook, its screen makes you feel like you’ve just moved from a McMansion into a studio apartment.

It comes preinstalled with Firefox and OpenOffice, which is no big deal, because you can download those anyway. The only real flaw I see, is the inclusion of Pidgin, which I don’t really care for because it just doesn’t perform for me as well as other IM clients. This would be the perfect computer for all the fun schtuff, like vehicle comparisons, working out grocery budgets, keeping track of Macys coupons, and so much more.

Here we go again, haven’t we heard about this for years?

For the past fifteen years, Internet service providers have acted – to use an old cliche – as wide-open information super-highways, letting data flow uninterrupted and unimpeded between users and the Internet.

But ISPs may be about to embrace a new metaphor: traffic cop.

At a small panel discussion about digital piracy here at NBC’s booth on the Consumer Electronics Show floor, representatives from NBC, Microsoft, several digital filtering companies and telecom giant AT&T said the time was right to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level.

Such filtering for pirated material already occurs on sites like YouTube and Microsoft’s Soapbox, and on some university networks.

Network-level filtering means your Internet service provider – Comcast, AT&T, EarthLink, or whoever you send that monthly check to – could soon start sniffing your digital packets, looking for material that infringes on someone’s copyright.

I don’t know, but I don’t see this happening anytime soon, and if it does, it won’t last long. What do you think? Should I be purchasing some home theater furniture so I can watch the fights on CSPAN?.

I planned to sit down at the computer tonight and have fun. No day job work, no contract work, no design work. Just play.

As I sat down I saw the flood of ovre 200 comments. They were all from people taking advantage of the “Do Follow” policy I had on the site. “Do Follow” is no more.

It wasn’t an issue before, but all of a sudden every spammer in the world has decided to stop in and put in their two cents on the post below this one. Oh, I am sure the comments are being left by real people because Akismet wasn’t throwing them into moderation, but I don’t need to have my thing enlarged, my breasts are fine like they are, I don’t need any diamond pendants, lucky charms, or good luck pieces. So anyway, no more “Do-Follow” I just “Can’t Take It”.

Anyway, since I had to work by deleting the comments and removing the “Do Follow” blogroll and such, I decided to modify this nifty theme from Jai Nischal Verma. Nice and clean and all that jazz.

Some may think this is great news, others not so much. Me? I am still on the fence.

While it makes sense to let people take their data with them, is the data entered by other people something that others should be allowed to take with them, in every case, in all platforms, at any time?

Yes, I know, you can get people’s names, birthdates, email address, hobbies, and whatever else, and put it in some application or social networking site manually. That’s great. But that’s not my point. The point I am trying to make is where do we draw the line? Which information should be shared? How much information do you really need from me to import into all of your other applications?

I guess those people who don’t want all of their personal data out there for the world to take with them will just have to refrain from using social networking sites. But that defeats the whole point of social networking, doesn’t it? Oh sure, on the outside it sounds great. Everyone can take their data with them, but exactly what part of your name, address, phone number, email, hobbies, eye color, height, weight, driving habits, shopping habits, and bathroom schedule, makes your data “their” data? I know, I exaggerated a little bit, but you get the point.

After publishing an invitation to Facebook to join the DataPortability Working Group January 4, we never thought that Facebook would accept it. Today changes everything you’ve ever thought about social-networking data and lock-in before, because today Facebook, Google and Plaxo have joined the DataPortability Workgroup.

Google and Plaxo joining are a positive, however given that both have previously joined together for platforms such as OpenSocial it’s not that significant, but Facebook is another matter. On January 4 Michael sort of defended Facebook’s stance against Plaxo pulling data from Facebook on the grounds that “Facebook also has a very good reason for protecting email addresses – user privacy.” Today, by joining the DataPortability Working Group Facebook is embracing open standards and open access, and that is a huge fundamental change from its previous stance on being locked in to closed standards.

Many years ago, I was on Q-Link. I loved Q-link. I had a ton of friends on there too. None of them knew where I lived, they didn’t know my phone number, my address, my birthday, my hobbies, my hair color, or even my real name. We still had a great time, and life was good at 300 baud.

After Q-Link, I moved on to the local BBS scene. Because of the local meet ups, people knew my name, they knew what I looked like, what city I lived in, my hair color and a bit more I am sure. But they knew this information because I chose to share it with them. I chose to make that information available for them. They didn’t learn any of it, without me knowing they were getting it (ie, by showing up at the meet ups).

Next came IRC. I only met a couple of people on IRC, my wife being one of them. We’ve been married 10 and a half years now. Pretty awesome if you ask me. Very few people on IRC knew my real name, and none of them, except my future wife, knew my phone number, my address, my birthday, my hobbies, my hair color, or anything else. Again, only those people I trusted could have the information, and only those I wanted to do so could learn anything about me.

The online world is evolving, there is no doubt about that, but I should have the choice whether I want certain information available for others to see, and whether that information should be available to be grabbed with the click of a mouse. I am all for open standards and much that comes with it, but I for one, should be the one that decides what information is made public (and sharable) in any application or social network that I am a part of, and I should know about this BEFORE I sign up.

I know, many people don’t read the terms of service when they sign up at different websites, but it should be made plainly clear to them what is going to happen with their data.

Someone may live in a small town, and not want their information shared because it would be too easy for people to arrive in that small town and show up at their door. Others might live in a big city and worry about the same thing.

The point is, not everyone is going to use this social information with good intentions. That’s just a fact.

Me, I really don’t care, because the only information available to people about me, is information that is already readily available through various places, because I don’t use most if not all of the social networking sites for this very reason.

However, I would still like to know that I have a choice when it comes to what part of MY data is going to be open for sharing to a point where it becomes YOUR data.

Crossposted at: Slobokan’s Site O’ Schtuff & Kooks In Suits

Yahoo is very simple. It’s so simple in fact, that I forget to use it most of the time. Simple is good, but too simple is wasting space.

YahooCEO Jerry Yang today said Yahoo’s goal for being users’ Internet home page is to keep it simple, and his pared-down first-time CES keynote appearance as the company’s top executive reflected that.

Yang’s keynote on the first day of the annual consumer electronics techfest was a far cry from a splashy keynote Yang’s predecessor Terry Semel gave at the show two years ago, in which Hollywood heavyweights such as Tom Cruise and Ellen DeGeneres helped him get his message across.

Using only a few company cohorts to help him, Yang described the Yahoo portal as the starting point for people’s Internet experience, the place that would connect them to a variety of services and devices.

I do, however, prefer to use some Yahoo! features, although the names of which are slipping my mind at this moment. Life is too simple.

Bill Gates says Microsoft is doing fine because soon, Windows will be everywhere. Yikes.

Microsoft Corp. might not be the unbeatable giant it once seemed to be, but Chairman Bill Gates made the case Sunday night that its technologies are becoming even more flexible and powerful as they seep into automobiles, Internet-based TV networks and living rooms.

A few months away from leaving his daily duties at Microsoft to focus on his philanthropy, Gates used his traditional kickoff keynote at the International Consumer Electronics Show to highlight how Microsoft is extending the reach of its software beyond desktops and servers, and incorporating alternative inputs like voice and touch.

“The first digital decade has been a great success,” he said. “This is just the beginning. There’s nothing holding us back from going much faster and much further in the second digital decade.”

All is well and good, until you watch your favorite show and it suddenly blanks out and goes to the blue screen of death. And don’t even get me started on what happens when Windows crashes in the car. What’s next? Installing Windows in baby gifts, to get them started at just the right age. Puh-Leaze.

In an astonishing turn of events, Microsoft has changed course based on user complaints.

Microsoft Corp. changed course on an update to Office 2003 that blocked certain older file types from opening, after receiving a flurry of criticism from users and online publications.

Office 2003 Service Pack 3, a free package of updates and fixes released in September, blocked users from opening files created by older versions of Word, Excel and Power Point — mostly programs launched in 1995 and earlier. The change also kept users from opening some files made in Corel Corp.’s CorelDraw.

Microsoft said opening the legacy file formats poses a security risk, and shut down easy access to the same older file types when it launched Office 2007.

They better watch out, if this becomes a habit, Microsoft Windows might actually be worth using one day.

Is it me or do I see a VHS v. Beta rematch underway here? How many millions of movies will be released before one of the formats officially dies?

Warner Bros. Entertainment said Friday it will release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format, becoming the latest studio to reject the rival HD DVD technology and further complicating the high-definition landscape for consumers.

Warner Bros., owned by Time Warner Inc., was the only remaining studio releasing high-definition DVDs in both formats.

It is the fifth studio to back Blu-ray, developed by Sony Corp. Only two support the HD DVD format, developed by Toshiba Corp.

The score is 5 to 2. The only thing that would make it better is if they came out with sticks flying to determine the winner, yes?