WorldCAD Access

9 Lessons for Would-Be Bloggers

Joshua Porter writes "9 Lessons for Would-be Bloggers: A few lessons learned in 7 years of blogging" -- and I disagree with every one of his lessons, based on the experience that comes with 20+ years of writing and editing, and running three blogs and two e-newsletters and 30+ ebooks and ... 1. It’s only an initial fear. The problem with blogging isn’t just the writing part, writes Mr Porter. It’s also the putting-myself-on-public-display part. If you have fear of writing, then don't write. Blogging is just a fad, so why force yourself into wearing that pair of white bellbottom... Read more →

Opera Mni Browser for Palm TX, etc

You can now use a mini-version of the Opera browser on these models of the Palm: TX Treo 600 Treo 650 Tungsten C Tungsten T3 Zire 72 Make you model selection here [opera.com], and then download the .prc file. The software is free. You will need to install Java 2 Micro Edition, if it isn't already on your Palm. New Features Irritatingly enough, Opera keeps refering to all these Palm models as a "phone." * Download images, MP3s, etc. directly to the phone. * New skins. * Select extra search engines for the home page. * Bookmarks are assigned a... Read more →

I Installed Opera 9

When Opera 9 first came out, I installed it, and then quickly went back to v8.x -- too many bugs! The company has since come out with some "service releases," and so I tried 9.02, which works fine -- for the most part. Perhaps the most-appreciated feature is the ability to selectively block content. When I am reading a deep thinkpiece on some Web page, I don't want bleeping Flash ads jumping around in my peripheral vision. Opera 9 lets me shut it down, as follows: 1. Right-click the offending ad, and then select Block Content. 2. A toolbar appears,... Read more →

Free, Trendy, and a Pain to Maintain

Always be wary when the number "millions" is used, whether deaths in Dafur or the number of NASA Web site hits or the population of MySpace. These million-based numbers hang around, because most journalists don't do math -- that's why they became journalists. Large numbers helps their profession; it's more impressive when "million" can be used in a headline for their stories, such as "the earth is this year the hottest in a million years." Not just journalists. Organizations benefit financially from the untested claim of "millions", whether charitable groups looking to increase donor income, NASA looking to increase government... Read more →

Yuck: Decoupling Data from the Desktop

Microsoft, Google, and other tech companies are racing to design tools that can uncouple data from PCs and store it on servers accessible by multiple users over the Web. So writes Aaron Ricadela of InformationWeek in Google Discloses Plans For Long-Awaited Office Suite, First Components Due This Week. For those of us who have been around since punch cards, this is a scary thought: big computer companies want to hold our data captive -- again. I recall my dad waiting a month to get the monthly month-end reports from his firm's data center -- they were always a month late.... Read more →

Telecom Double-speak

siliconvalley.com reports how Verizon imposes a "new surcharge on high-speed Internet service just as customers were set to receive lower bills thanks to a [US government] decision last year to deregulate the service." Techdirt chimes in, "Verizon and the other telcos have a long history of misleading doublespeak when they try to explain their actions — and we have yet another example today." Reminds me of our local telephone monopoly, Telus. A number of years ago, they got the regulators to boost local telephone rates from $121 to $324 a year -- the service includes calling two adjoining towns toll-free.... Read more →

Category Killer Killed

Boeing has shut down its in-flight Internet service, Connexion. A step back for the pervasive Internet, but I am not surprised. Here's why: Insufficient Distribution Very few airlines used the service, and then provided it only in business class. For example, I have flown Lufthansa a couple of times. I would have gladly paid the $25 (or whatever) for Internet access on the 9-hour flight between Canada and Germany. But the service was limited to business class, cutting off 90% (or so) of the potential customers. Now it could be that airlines were nervous about outfitting their airplanes with all... Read more →

Network Cards

A reader asks: "54g 802.11b/g WLAN with 125HSM, speed booster support 10/100RJ- 45 Ethernet LAN. Is this equal to a network card with integrated 10/100 Base- T Ethernet Lan and 802.11b/g WLAN wireless?" In general, yes. Let's split apart the specs: 54g 802.11b/b WLAN with 125HSM speed booster support vs 802.11b/g WLAN wireless Most of the spec is the same for the two systems, which refers to wireless networking: - "54" refers to the network transmission speed (54mbps). - "801.11b/g" refers to the networking standard. - "WLAN" is short for wireless local area networking, aka WiFi and Wireless networking. The... Read more →

Statistical Games

Technorati tracks Web sites, and so releases reports on Weblogs. There are 50 million, and the number is growing exponentially, enthused the blog-tracking company last week. Kevin Burton's Feed Blog examined the numbers, found them lacking, and then created his own numerical problem. Here's how: He noted Technorati's statistic that 1.6 million Weblogs are updated each day. He then defined active blogs as those that post once every 1 - 7 days -- meaning there are about 6.4 million blogs that "exist" by being active, about 12% of the total. Those of us who experienced the Web site explosion last... Read more →

92,615,362

Wolfgang Gruener reports: The Internet to a new record number of websites, which now stands at 92,615,362 websites. Read more →

Sorry, but Opera 9 is Too Buggy for Now

As much as I support non-Microsoft software, I've reverted on Opera 9. It's just too buggy. And bugs in v8.x haven't been fixed. And I'm not using any of the new features (yet). This morning I reverted to Opera v8.54. The Web browser is one of my three most-used tools -- besides email and word processing. So it has to work well. Opera 9 adds too many annoyances that I can't use it. Here are some of the problems: * The blank menu bug (noted earlier). * The strange spacing of words on buttons, droplists, and input fields -- makes... Read more →

Opera 9 Flaw

I've used Opera ever since version 4, back when its main selling point was that it fit on a floppy disk. I had been using Netscape, but development stalled, and there's no way I would use software from a convicted monopolist if a good alternative exits. I've upgraded Opera over the years, even as it got fatter with add-ons I never use, like email. There's just so many nice little features that save so much time, like righ-clicking a word and selecting "Go to URL." I installed Opera 9 this morning, and it has a major flaw: following installation, all... Read more →

Google Press Day 2006

Here are notes I took from the Google live Webcast of their Press Day, a day where executives are available to the media. The Q&As are all paraphrased. Innovation: Many Shapes, Many Sizes Jonathan Rosenberg Marissa Mayer Google is about helping people find things, and has 3x as many Web pages indexed as anyone else. Much comparing of themselves with "the competition" and the gap (of how much further Google is than competitors). Moved data centers closer to users (a.k.a more?) Most new features will be around the user interface and search. Google sees four components of search experience: -... Read more →

Screeds

You all have "friends" who pass along warning screeds. Y'know, the kind that in very large type yell, "THIS IS IMPORTANT. Pass this along to everyone you know!!!!" Like lemmings, they do. A reader passed along a screed, but with a more thoughtful attitude. He wrote, "I was sent the following, if you care to read it. I wondered if it was correct but might be limited in content and reasoning." It was taken from the Georgia Strait, a left-wing free weekly published in Vancouver. The author, Braun Mcash, starts off like this: Let's imagine that one morning you awake... Read more →

Blogger Stars Suffer Setback

Amazon.com's Werner Vogels challenges Shel Israel and Robert Scoble in "All Things Distributed: Naked Answers". The pair are advocates firstly of their book Naked Conversations, and secondarily of corporations and CEOs blogging. (The use of the word "naked" is in the context of corporations not hiding behind spin, etc. But then I wonder if this whole naked-conversation business is spin by Microsoft's pr firm to make their client appear more huggable.) I wanted them abandon their fuzzy group hug approach, and counter me with hard arguments why they were right and I was wrong. Instead they appeared shell-shocked that anyone... Read more →

"I Don't Go on the Internet"

Nick Farrell of The Register writes on computing-ignorance: One of the problems Ross has spreading Firefox is that many people don’t even know what a browser is... I think the problem is of even deeper ignorance. I exchange emails with a family relative several times a week. Yet the relative claims that he never goes on the Internet. (His reason? "Becauase it's not safe.") It doesn't matter how many times I tell him that (1) emailing means he's on the Internet; and (2) emailing is the most dangerous Internet activity. It just doesn't sink in. I think the problem is... Read more →

Cute Subjects to Make You Frown

My mother-in-law has a friend, whose only email communicatation consists of forwarding cute emails. Not only is the impersonal communication irritating, but look at the size of some of those emails -- several are over a megabyte. Talk about clogging the system! Here's the list from the last two months: Fw: Hotel Key Cards - Potential ID theft 3/11/2006 11:37:41 am 37457 Fw: Fwd: Should have gone to church 3/8/2006 11:27:11 am 21599 Fw: Virus alert 3/1/2006 10:04:13 am 14734 Fw: Important information 2/28/2006 10:10:16 am 15594 Fw: Friendship Prayer 2/28/2006 10:06:53 am 44728 Fw: 10 Things 2/26/2006 10:11:28 pm... Read more →

Falun Gong

What to think of Falun Gong... Are they victims of religious persecution? Or benevolently evil, like Google? Richard Morais of Forbes writes about China's Fight With Falun Gong -- although "Falun Gong's Fight with China" would better reflect the article's content. For example: "...a Falun Gong practitioner in Washington traced the denial of service hacker attacks through an Asia-Pacific Internet registry, to No. 14 East Chang'an Street, Beijing, where China's Ministry of Public Security is located." Or is he just claiming to have traced the attack to China? Morais doesn't test the claim. I try to trace IP addresses of... Read more →

Opera 9 Beta 2

Further to the previous item. I had to chuckle sardonicly at this statement: "One caution: Previews are not free of bugs. "This is for advanced users who want to get a taste of our technology, and they expect there will be some issues with it," Ford said. He's talking about beta 2 of Opera 9, but it's spin. Released software is free of bugs? I've been using Opera since version 4 (when the marketing spin was, "It's so small it fits on a floppy disk!"), and the most recent released version -- 8.51 -- is the buggiest I've ever used.... Read more →

Opera to Add Widgets -- Why?

Another beta of Opera 9 Web browser is finally out (previous beta came out like last October or something) and it features support for widgets -- small apps that run on the desktop, providing info like the current weather in Oxford or the lastest headlines from the "unbiased" Reuters. "Even if it is a Web page, people don't have to go to the browser to see it," says an Opera spokeshuman in a CNET article. I don't get widgets. I've scrolled through the list of widgets available from Yahoo, and found zero widgets of interest. This isn't new, of course.... Read more →

Avoiding Dog-Friendly WorkPlaces

I like cats, but can't own one due to my wife being alergic. I'd like a gray cat. I like that cats mind their own business, but once in a while demand to spend time purring in my lap. I can't stand dogs. Dogs are uber-friendly, contantly imposing themselves on anything and anyone. Our neighbour's dog barks the entire time they're gone. Headache+. Now there's a site that warns you ahead of time about dog-friendly companies. Ugh! Can you imagine having to work in an office with snuffling, whiney, barking dogs running around all day? Reminds me of a job... Read more →

Why "Nobody" Reads Your Blog

Clay Shirky explains why nobody reads your Weblog. In short: the more choices in society, the greater the inequality. (Quick contra example: with few choices in Communist Russia, everyone was equally poor.) More "scientifically," however, Mr Shirky describes the Power Law: the second most-popular Weblog draws 1/2 of all visitors, the 10th most popular draws 1/10 as many, etc. This results in seeming inequities, leading to the "It's Not Fair!" feeling by writers whose blogs are ignored: - As the number of blogs rise, the power curve becomes steeper, increasing the gap between #1 and the median. - Power curves... Read more →

When Corporations Persue Evil

It's sad to see corporations persue $$ for any reason. Microsoft, Google, Cisco Systems, and Yahoo have been helping the communist government of China abuse human rights. "We're only following the laws of the country we operate in," whine the mealy-mouthed capitalists. They have willingly shut down Web sites and censored words like "democracy," "freedom," and "human rights." Try this lame excuse from Google for blocking specific news sites from the Internet in China: "Some sources were not included because their sites are inaccessible and therefore their inclusion does not provide a good experience for our news users who are... Read more →

Ask an Internet Question; Get an Internet Answer

Toronto's Globe&Mail newspaper asks its online readers to answer a "survey" question each day. I find the questions poorly worded most times, and most time the overwhelming response is predictable left-leaning. One of last week's questions had a predictable result. Which medium do you rely on most to keep abreast of the news? From the 11,177 Internet-using respondants responding to the question over the Internet, after reading the Internet edition of the newspaper, the following results were tabulated: Internet -- 59% Newspapers -- 17% Television -- 15% Radio -- 8% Magazines -- 0% If the same question were asked of... Read more →

On the Internet Ra-di-o

mobilemag.com is showing a stand-alone (wireless, or WiFi) Internet radio from Acoustic Engery for US$350. Says the Web site, "it can stream Real Audio, WMA and MP3 music which will cost you about zero dollars per month. The system will access over 10,000 stations..." Zero dollars per month? Hardly. You need the Internet connection, which costs at least $25/month for a DSL line -- unless you plan to steal the bandwidth from your neighbour's unprotected wireless network. Listening to Internet radio at reasonable quality also costs in terms of GB/month. Some months ago, I recorded 24 hours of music from... Read more →

Democracy Has No Place in Editorials

I waited a day too long to make this post. Through Ditherati , I read this quote and wanted to comment on its wikifutility: "It may be a complete mess but it's going to be interesting to try. Wikitorials may be one of those things that within six months will be standard." The quote was from Michael Kinsley talking about his plan to have readers revise the opinion pieces printed in the 'Los Angeles Times'. I was going to opine that the wikitorial would not work. It is the job of editors (like Mike and me) to filter the dreck... Read more →

Monopoly See, Monopoly Do

Both the government of China and Microsoft are monopolies. Neither likes concepts like "freedom" or "democracy" because customers (citizens) then have a choice -- and choice kills monopolies. Yet, both would become better organizations from having to compete. Microsoft is in the news for word-banning in its China-based blogging business, but Yahoo and Google similarly censor search results. Reporters without Borders lists some of the banned words: freedom democracy Dalai Lama Falungong 4 June China + corruption human rights During a recent episode of The Simpsons, the family visits China. The large cartoon sign on Tiananmen Square reads, "On this... Read more →

The Difference in Headlines

Two headlines from AP Tech illustrate the differnce between the two most important countries in the world: China Orders All Web Sites to Register United Airlines to Offer [Wireless] Internet Access One headline is the result of a country run on the communist principle of conformity, the other on the capitalist principle of competition. Just the other day I was musing that a concept like FedEx would never have launched in a Cuba or USSR. Read more →

More Blogs = More Rubbish

Greg Hruby of Minnesota USA writes I read a local newspaper article about student athletes spending far more of their time playing in traveling leagues, regular leagues, special tournaments -- to the point that coaches and parents were beginning to wonder if the students spent any time learning and practicing the fundamentals of their sport. Then I find myself reading your article on blogging. It got me thinking: how often have I read a blog that was rife with succinct analysis, articulate detail or a rational coherent argument? Rarely. It's more like the 'F' in Strawberries. Some time ago, I... Read more →

Opera's Might Forward Button

Only recently I became aware of the power of the Forward button on the Opera Web browser. It changes, depending on the content of the Web page. Login Like other Web browsers, Opera can memorize passwords and usernames. When I go to a password-protected site, the Forward button changes to Login. Clicking Login fills in the data. (When a site has more than one password, such as our family's banking site, then I still need to use the Wand button to select the password.) Next On Web sites with collections of photos, such as the Photo Albums on my Typepad... Read more →

Tech Journalist Under Suspicion

The Associated Press leaked details early of a freelance journalist writing for Wired News, whose dozens of sources could not be located. The New York City writer had quoted dozens of people who had common names and occupations, and lived in large metropolitan regions. AP Technology reporter Ted Bridis quotes the writer defending herself: "I don't understand why my credibility and career is now hanging solely on finding minor sources that contributed color quotes to stories I filed months and years ago." Update Wired News posted its report at Wired News Releases Source Review . Summary: The tech writer also... Read more →

Hands Off that Cookie!

A new industry group wants to reduce the rights of consumers over files on their computers. The organization, at this point with only 150 "interested" members, has given itself the spin-doctor'ed name of "SafeCount." "The idea for Safecount.org followed research that showed an increasing number of consumers were regularly deleting cookies from their Web browsers, which greatly diminishes the advertisers and publishers ability to monitor the effectiveness of online advertising or how visitors are using a particular website," reports Antone Gonsalves on TechWeb. Advertisers are upset that consumers don't want to be tracked. Anything that diminishes a group's ability to... Read more →

Automated Spam Filters Must Die!

I send out an e-newsletter every Monday evening. It goes to about eight thousand subscribers in 70 countries. Automated anti-spam filters hate people like me. I send newsletters by email that contain suspect words, such as "pen?s" -- which appeared in a sentance reading "...open something...". Too clever by half. But today I got fed up, and I am declaring that automated spam filters must die! A server blocked my e-newsletter from arriving at a subscriber's Inbox at wgriffiths-glass.co.uk for the following reason: reason: 550 Error: So you think you can hide a URL in your spam? Think again! (When... Read more →

Sad Job, Canada

The same week that Google releases the satilite-image version of maps.google.com, the Canadian Geographic origanization unveils its new Canadian on-line map. What a difference! Google maps - update in nearly real-time - zoom within a half-km (i am guessing) - although the new sattilite images are old CG maps - take nearly a minute to update each view change - zoom within the nearest 20km (12 miles) - it can't even display my street - although available in both official languages (French or English) Read more →

Ditherati

Some people sign up for daily jokes delivered by email. Back in Nov 2000, I signed up for Ditherati. Every work day, Owen Thomas sends along a clever (or not-so) quote made by someone in the technology industry who should know better. Here's a sample, this one being the first one that arrived in my In box after I signed up: - - - - POWER TO THE PEOPLE "I mean, do people have a clear view of what it means to live on $1 a day? There's no electricity in that house. None.... They're not going to sit there... Read more →

Google Duz a Miss Step

Google does screw up once in a while. The presumed successor to Microsoft has a program that lets publishers posts the entire content of their books on "Google" (the new term for the Internet). Paper books are scanned (in India, I am guessing, because that's where drawings are scanned into CAD) and digitized. Upon searching Google, books with related keywords are listed. The seracher can then read a few pages of the book. My books are in PDF format, so digitization is not necessary. I'd've thot it would take no time to have my e-books posted. But it's been two... Read more →

Google Under-technologizes Microsoft

I'm reading Paul Festa's story in CNET how Google is under-technologizing Microsoft. About ten years ago, I came to understand that Microsoft gained its monopoly by two methods. One of the methods was revealed through its court case with the US Department of Justice: Microsoft forced hardware makers to only pre-install DOS and, later, Windows on their computers. The other method was more subtle, and did not come up in the famous court case. I came across the tactic during my participation in the VRML [virtual reality markup language] mailing list. The mailing list was looking for a specification to... Read more →