Sharing my thoughts with the world.
Jesper has an interesting blog post up on some toys he found in Sweden.
It's an interesting idea, taking networking and putting it onto a railroad track... I don't know if I wish I was a kid again, or that I had kids... even though I can't use either of those as an excuse to buy the toys, I may order them just for the hell of it.
Do you ever log into web based email and feel like it's 1995? I do every time I log into OWA on Exchange 2000 with Firefox or 1&1's web based email. And even when I log into GMail. Other than that, it's come a long way... Even Hotmail was pure crap until not too long ago... these days I find myself torn between which account to log into. I think that Gmail had everything to do with that... Until Gmail and the 2GB account, I used Outlook w/ POP3... these days Outlook is seldom open because I don't have to worry about that annoying 100MB threshold being crossed. Everyone followed Gmail... Yahoo! and Hotmail are both offering larger email accounts but they are now taking steps beyond Gmail... Will Gmail catch
up?
I'm very interested to see if Gmail will attempt to play catch-up on the interface. It is the one "sore point" I have right now... it's very basic and clumsy... some may enjoy the minimal feel and I do use it as my primary email but after playing with the new Live Hotmail and the new Yahoo!, I feel like I'm missing something with Gmail. Now perhaps I'd grow irritated of all the fanciness and the flash and I'd desire the minimalistic feel of Gmail. Gmail is definitely usable and fast, however I would like to see it become a bit cleaner... With the "Web Two Point Oh-ee-ness" of Yahoo! and Live Hotmail, you can actually right click to delete files and mark as read, which, even if Gmail kept it's look and feel, I'd like to see added...
Will I use my Yahoo! or Live Hotmail accounts over my Gmail account? Not yet... Why? My Live Hotmail account is old, so unfortunately it's plagued with random crap from high school and Yahoo! is even worse. While a relatively new account (3 years or so), the Yahoo! spam filters suck... Yahoo! provides the WORST spam filtering of any email provider I've seen. On top of that, I watched an HTML Injection vulnerability that I reported to them go over two years without being fixed. I just can't trust them as an email provider. The other reason? Google Apps for Domains... I love it... I think it was one of the best things that Google provided and unlike the Live companion... I don't need to provide a credit card just to sign up for an account.
Why did I write this? Since I didn't seem to say anything... basically to get to this point. I was really impressed with this video, Gmail: A Behind the Scenes Video. I'm impressed that Gmail users would put in such great effort... it shows product backing (like there was ever any doubt)... Also to express my desires for changes to Gmail... little changes that are needed at this point to I) keep it in the game and II) bring it to the top again.
The List:
That's about it... I'm not greedy... I just have a few things I want to say... and since I just lifted my head of the keyboard to type this last line, I'll say g'nite and hope this made sense 
Yes, you read that correctly... the internet is safe. So safe that almost no one is actually taken advantage of, and only 0.08% of kids are meeting people off the internet without their parents approval. At least that's what a National School Boards Association report says. I would say that kids are smart enough not to mention that they are doing it... it's similar to surveys that ask teens if they drink, use drugs, or are abstinent. They give the "right" answer, not the real answer. The report goes so far as to suggest that perhaps social networking sites should be introduced to classrooms, after all businesses and higher education are using social networking sites...
That in itself leads to some interesting questions. Do these businesses know that their employees are using social networking sites for collaboration? Are these institutions of higher education using external sites or internal sites?
Do businesses know that their employees are using social networking sites for collaboration?
This is an interesting question for a couple of reasons. Primarily because social networking is anything but secure. If you are collaborating via public social networking sites you're risking disclosure of private and confidential information. The second issue is ownership. Many Web 2.0 collaboration sites "mention" in their EULA / Terms of Use that they own any work completed on their sites. There are exclusions to this (Google Apps for Business, at least I hope it has that exclusion) but there are others that do include it.
Do post-secondary institutions use internal or external social networks?
When I was in college I could get my grades, my tax paperwork (T2202A) and other confidential items from our internal social network. I don't think that I'd have been very impressed if this information was being passed to me via Facebook or MySpace.
These are questions that the report fails to answer. There are many others as well. They also call youth who excel on the internet non-conformists... essentially insulting the "geeks" and "nerds" and internet-literate people that enjoy the internet and prefer it.
I suggest everyone read the report, it's a sham that was co-funded by Microsoft, News Corp. and Verizon and I can't believe the drivel that was spouted in it. Social networking is the last thing that needs to be introduced to the classroom and I hope the dedicated teachers out there will see this. It will distract from class work, interfere with studies and be an all around hindrance to education. Sure students will know "how to use" social networks, but they are learning that on their own.. in their free time. Why not just provide students with Blackberries and allow their use during class time. That seems to be as intelligent of a choice as allowing them access to social networks.
If you really want to enable students to perform at a higher level in a technology dependent world, introduce them to a wider range of Microsoft products in the classroom. Access, Project, Visio... software that's used in all sorts of business that is never taught, unless you have a specific college class on subject. Schools should have Project and Sharepoint servers... this would benefit students... learning proper document check-in and check-out and "true" collaboration skills... Not throwing them on a social network because only 0.08% of students were honest about their actions regarding meeting strangers and how they spend their time.
How does something like this. It links to a page that will "reportedly" crash IE6 and IE7 (although it fails to crash my IE7) (link here). This page has been picked up and reported by many sources, and has even appeared on Digg and Slashdot. I have to wonder why?!?!? There are tons of IE DoS floating around... why does this warrant appearing on Digg and Slashdot? I could see maybe Digg... given the people that frequent it, but Slashdot? I would expect better from a "geek" site.
There were fatal shootings again in Toronto, a shame for those involved and the after math could affect everyone. As a result of the weekend occurrences, there is once again talk of following the path of banning handguns. Now, I'm not a big gun fan... I'm not like our neighbours to the south in that I don't believe everyone should have a gun under their pillow, and I don't think that the Canadian gun laws are too strict... although I also don't think they're too lenient. Basically I think things are good how they are... banning handguns is like banning prescription drugs because too many people O.D. on heroin.
There are people that say "Guns Kill"... sure they do... but so does insulin. Should we ban insulin and keep it away from diabetics in case they use it to poison others? We can call these people close-minded.
Then you have the people that argue there's no reason to own a handgun. These are the same people that have a 42" Plasma screen, an XBox 360 and a backyard swimming pool. They don't grasp the concept of entertainment unless it's a form of entertainment they are interested in. We can call these people close-minded.
Lastly, you have the people, like Attorney General Michael Bryant, who say:
"There's 215,000 handguns legally owned in Ontario and they are all targets for theft and can end up on the streets of this province. It's not all of the guns that end up in the illegal gun trade, but it's about a third to a half of those guns, and we need to do everything we can to choke off the supply."
Again, we can call these people close-minded... It's the combination of the "close-mindedness" and Mr. Bryant's comments that should concern IT Professionals. Let's think about this for a second... most people don't "get" IT/IS... this leads to a sort of "close-mindedness" and then we have that comment above... That very scary comment. Let's ban the legal use because that will eliminate the 'illegal use'. I love how many people apply this logic and fail to see the problems in it. The people that are illegally acquiring guns will still illegally acquire guns... be it through theft, trunk sales or smuggling. It won't stop it... this will just stop the law abiding people from having access to handguns.
So now you're asking why this is of a concern to IT/IS professionals. Well let's look at France and their restrictions on encryption... or Germany and their "banning of hacking tools". In both of these cases the logic was, "Let's make it illegal and then people will stop using it illegally" WRONG! You are taking tools away from legitimate users, or making legitimate users criminals when they still use the tools and since those using the tools illegally are doing so to break a law... they won't stop. This flawed logic has to stop, it's just a downward spiral that's going to get worse and worse. Why does it seem that no one in positions of authority ever possesses common sense?
So here's how I see it happening:
I hope I'm not the only one that sees the problems with this and the problems with our Attorney General's logic... hopefully this can be stopped before we proceed down the slippery slope.
UPDATE:
I just visited the Ministry of the Attorney General's Contact Page and I was surprised to learn that we're already starting down the slippery slope. In order to provide a comment that will be read you *MUST* provide your name, email address and mailing address. Sure you could provide false information, but we "require" that information? Our government won't allow us to provide feedback and thoughts anonymously? Do they hunt down and kill those that they don't agree with? That's really the only possible reason for requiring that information.
I came across this today (via Liquidmatrix Security Digest) and thought it was good for a laugh.
Three Apple engineers and three Microsoft engineers are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three Microsoft engineers each buy tickets and watch as the three Apple engineers buy only a single ticket. “How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asks a Microsoft engineer. “Watch and you’ll see,” answers the Apple engineer.
They all board the train. The Microsoft engineers take their respective seats but all three Apple engineers cram into a rest room and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the rest room door and says, “Ticket, please.” The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on. The Microsoft engineers saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the Microsoft engineers decide to copy the Apple engineers (as they always do) on the return trip and save some money.
When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the Apple engineers don’t buy a ticket at all. “How are you going to travel without a ticket?” asks one perplexed Microsoft engineer. “Watch and you’ll see,” answers an Apple engineer. When they board the train the three Microsoft engineers cram into a rest room and the three Apple engineers cram into another one nearby. The train departs. Shortly afterward, one of the Apple engineers leaves his rest room and walks over to the rest room where the Microsoft employees are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, “Ticket, please…”
Surprisingly I'm not talking about people who are paid to write blog posts on certain subjects... that's better left for another discussion. Instead I'm talking about people that plaster their blogs with ads. I don't get this, I pay for web hosting and domain registration... I consider it part of being a geek... I currently have about 20 domains @ $5.99 USD/year and a $120 USD/year hosting account. I pay these costs myself, and provide my blog (and other sites) without ads plastered all over them. I even provide hosting (web and email) to friends.
So when I look at other people's blogs I have to wonder why they have them plastered with ads. I've complained about ridiculous blog tagging in the past, and others have complained about the large quantities of scripts that are employed on some blogs. Well now I want to gripe about ads. I don't want to point fingers, but a great example of this is Martin McKeay's blog. There are definitely worse offenders, but this happened to be the one I visited tonight that made me think about it. Why do we need to plaster our blogs with Google Ads, blogging is supposed to be about sharing information... originally personal info in journal form and now it's more journalistic... Is that why? We feel that since newspapers place ads, we should as well?
The only thing worse than plastering your website with ads, is placing them all over your RSS feed. Especially those people that provide "summary" articles in their feed, requiring that you visit the site for the full story, yet still insist on tacking an ad below the summary.
I'd love to know why... Do people really make that much money of their ads or are people really that hard up for the few extra cents that these ads bring in? I can get one ad in the side bar, or across the top or bottom of the page, but placing them between each post is excessive and annoying. I'd just love to know why people insist on doing it, especially when I see such little benefit.
That's right... the United States has had a Do-Not-Call List for 4 years now, and Canada has still yet to launch one, even though the idea was announced 3 years ago.
The Do-Not-Call list, introduced by Bill C-37, is one step closer to becoming a reality as the CRTC announced the rules that will govern the DNC List and began it's search for an operator. Unfortunately, no one will willing to operate the DNC List. The reason? The government expects that money collected via 'subscription fees' collected from businesses accessing the DNC List will be sufficient to pay for the operation of the DNC List. This expectation caused the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) to back out as the expected operator, stating that they can't operate a project with no clear business model. The CRTC will be responsible for handling complaints related to DNC List violations and can levy fines to a maximum of $1,500 per individual and $15,000 per corporation. These dollar amounts are per violation and not total amounts that can be fined.
Even more interesting is the list of "organizations" that will not be affected by this. The largest amount of telemarketing calls I have are from businesses for which I'm already a customer. Bell Canada is a great example, attempting to up-sell current telephone customers with STS (Smart Touch Services) or Rogers Communication with their attempted up-selling of Rogers Home Phone service to customers with Cable TV and Internet through them. Well guess what, they'll still be able to call you... Bill C-37 has an exception for organizations with whom you are already doing business. Two more annoying groups that call repeatedly and refuse to stop calling even after you talk to them: Charities and Newspapers. The Diabetes Society called me 6 times one month to ask if I had any clothes to donate and the Toronto Star calls at least twice a month asking if we're interested in a subscription. Another group that politicians decided should be exempt is, surprise surprise, politicians. That's right... if they are running for office they are free to call you.
The Do-Not-Call List has been rebranded the Do-Not-Hesitate-To-Call List and that may be more accurate in the end... and that's only if we ever see it. Another interesting point is that DoNotCall.ca closed their doors June 23, 2006 because the CRTC would be introducing the government DNC List within the year... that didn't really happen.
While we wait for the official DNC List, the CMA has a Do Not Contact service. You can subscribe here and all customer lists associated with the CMA will have your name removed.
Or at least some of them anyways. It's part of a promotion of sorts and has apparently been done by 7-Eleven and not by Fox.
Not a lot to say on this one... I learned of this via YumSugar.com and took a look at the 7-Eleven Locate a Kwik-E-Mart page. Unfortunately in Canada it seems to only be happening in BC, but I've got my fingers crossed that this will happen in Toronto still.
Those of you near one of these stores can take advantage of mythical food items such as Squishees, Buzz Cola and Krusty-O's
Greetings,
I felt that I should follow up on this, while I haven't heard much else about it (and I'm not a charter customer) based on the continued comments to my last post, I'm guessing that this is still occurring. A number of people who commented have a massive letter writing campaign needs to occur. So this post is my contribution to a fight I'm not overly involved in, to gather the masses of irritated and irked Charter customers. My motivation? If one ISP gets away with this, then others may follow suit.
So I'm suggesting a daily letter writing campaign by Charter customers. I also suggest that those of you that aren't Charter customers write-in... let them know that this is why you won't switch to their server. You don't want to lose your freedom and have your queries hijacked.
Suggested Contact List:
To: abuse@charter.net; dblack3@chartercom.com; anita.lamont@chartercom.com; joe.stackhouse@chartercom.com; mmoehle@chartercom.com; mfawaz@chartercom.com; nsmit@chartercom.com; rquigley@chartercom.com
Tyler.
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