Firefox reaches 1 billion downloads
Congratulations are in order to Mozilla following their announcement that
Firefox has been downloaded 1 billion times in total and that market share is now around 31%. Now onwards to 2 billion!
The full story can be found
here.
Labels: Technology, Web tools
Google's "Wiping data 'hits flu prediction'" excuse
According to
this BBC article Google is claiming that if they are forced to delete user data after 6 months as the EU desires then they will not be able to predict pandemics.
I don't know about you, but that is the single lamest justification for keeping data / infringing privacy I have ever heard. They could easily have said that the data enables them to offer improved services and had a degree of credibility.
Instead they've spun a tall tale which makes me worried. When a company or government tries to cover up its data retention and usage practices then it suggests we wouldn't like what they are doing with our data.
In regard to spotting pandemics, just because people are searching for swine flu or indeed flu symptoms, this does not necessarily mean that people are infected with it. They could have regular flu or simply have heard something on the media and decided to do some research (as I do all the time). Also if Google is going to rely on data older than 6 months to tell people that a pandemic might be near then its probably a little late.
Moreover I am pretty sure health officials around the world can spot and measure pandemics far more
accurately than Google could.
I'm not convinced. Are you?
Labels: Politics, Privacy, Web tools
Mozilla firefox nagging
I've been a long term fan of Mozilla, back when Mozilla was the name of its browser and I think it is still the best browser. However today I discovered several problems with firefox and the community websites which were frustrating.
I'd been playing around with a beta version of Firefox, and decided to uninstall it and revert back to the stable release. Firstly I ended up with a duplicate Firefox entry in my add/remove programs list. Then I opted to remove my preferences whilst uninstalling the beta version and lost my preferences for the stable version of firefox I also had installed. Doh!
So I went about setting up my browser again. I wanted to add some less common searches (such as youtube) to the dropdown list within firefox which are not available on the main addon site, so I had to hunt around for
mycroft.mozdev.org. Then I wanted to installed a "paste and go" addon, but discovered because it was "experimental" I would have to register. Normally I'd download it from another site, but it seems the alternative download locations are drying up.
Then I tried to re-install Adblock, and found that a hash key error meant I couldn't, even after I tried a manual installation. Then for some reason I wanted to connect to https://addons.update.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10 and got a "Secure Connection Failed" warning. Eventually I found a second install location and got it working.
All in all, Firefox today was a pain. But I still love you.
Labels: My philosophy, Technology, Web tools
Massive Google error
Today as I searched for information on "environmentalism" on Google, I recieved a page of results where every link had a "this site may harm your computer warning". I did a search for Internet Explorer and Microsoft and the same error occured. Come on Google, you could try being fair. Then I did a search for Google and the same message came up. Back to Yahoo I guess. ;)
News articles:
Google BreaksGoogle taking security a little too seriouslyUpdate 1: The problem has been fixed.
Update 2: The cause of the problem was a "/" in Google's list of harmful sites according to
The Register.
Labels: Technology, Web tools
Online verification to post comments
How often have you attempted to post a message online and been met with a frustrating "online verification" box. Now this is an important measure for site owners to prevent spam messages being published, however the text messages should be reasonably easy to read. Increasingly however I'm finding the verification methods hard to read/decode and the disabled sound clip options resemble bleating sheep watching terrestrial tv in Wales - *krzzBAAkrrzzzz* - and they are set to become increasingly more difficult to decipher as spammers become more sophisticated.
Things websites could try:
Easy random IQ tests.
Pictures of things and users have to describe what they see e.g. cat, boat, car.
A word with all the characters split in half in two separate images. The user then simply matches them together.
Gah. I don't know. How can a computer create something which is random, easily readable to the public, but not other computers?
Please send your solutions to the problem to Yahoo, Google and all the others using such verification techniques (once you've patented it) because it could be worth quite a bit of money and make things easier for the rest of us.
Labels: Miscellaneous, Technology, Web tools
Blogger won't let me log in on Opera
Alas I've been trying the excellent new
Opera 9.6 but sadly blogger won't allow me to log in using it. Annoying. Though I can understand why it might be commercially difficult for Google. Ah, back to Firefox I guess.
Labels: Web tools
Filtering content by IP location *sigh*
How often have you been trawling through the net, only to find yourself blocked by a message reading something like "this is only available to citizens of ..." or "this is not available outside ...". Now obviously I can understand some of the restrictions. The BBC for example prevents access to Iplayer to non-UK IP addresses on the basis that the people in Britain pay a tv license for the content.
Nonetheless there are quite a few examples of instances where it is unnecessary. For example during the 2004 presidential elections, George Bush's campaign website was not accessible to people outside the US. Why? It isn't as if there are eligible voters outside the US or even some interest from the rest of the world as to what the president's policies might be. Also Google believes it is being helpful when it automatically forces people who visit the .com site to go to their local site, yet clearly they have not requested local content. Access the language translation of numerous government pages and you'll normally find an entirely different version of the site, targeted at overseas citizens. Even youtube has started blocking videos on the basis of location - and speaking of youtube - I don't think the number of views a video receives is particularly accurate, but perhaps that is a rant for another time.
Regardless localised content is great when it is asked for, but websites which force it upon users or restrict access purely for nationalist reasons are going against the spirit of the internet.
Labels: My philosophy, Web tools
Wikihow: advice for all
I've recently become rather impressed with the website
Wikihow. It is based upon the simple idea that people from all over the internet can write advice for other people in the form of "how to" manuals. There are loads of excellent
categories and the search function reveals all kinds of gems. For example try
"write a book".
Some key points to remember are: 1) As the content is not necessarily from experts, not all the advice is good (some is even inaccurate or damaging) and 2) there may be more than one "Wikihow" that deals with a topic you are interested in from different authors.
Enjoy!
Labels: Entertainment, Web tools
Should Microsoft buy Yahoo? I don't think so.
Across the net I've heard numerous advocates of the proposed deal between Yahoo and Microsoft. Here is why I think it is not a good idea:
1) Yahoo is fantastic the way it is - Yahoo Answers, Yahoo Email, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Games, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, My Yahoo, Yahoo Geocities, Yahoo Briefcase and hundreds of other services are all good to outstanding. It has developed an awesome internet culture.
There is a reason it is the world's most popular page.
Of course the reason Google is currently more successful than Yahoo is because of Yahoo's failure to create a proper advertising service like Google. That is Yahoo's single biggest weakness and it has prevented it from really cashing in.
2) Web competition
Currently there are three major services, Google, Yahoo & MSN/Live. Would two be better? No. No it wouldn't.
Of course from a shareholder business perspective this is not the case - big cash deal - better prospects for Microsoft - great. Well no actually - if Yahoo stood alone it could monetize far better rather than be absorbed by a cumbersome giant which hasn't had a good idea in a long time.
Furthermore do we really want one giant company ruling the entire technology field? Wasn't the internet concept based on different ideals.
3) Privacy
None of the current three powerhouses have anywhere close to reasonable privacy policies for user data - the Americans lack a data protection act - Reducing user choice means it is highly likely these companies will be able to collect more about people - for Microsoft this means complete control over a large number of users' computing experience.
4) Corporate culture
Microsoft has traditionally built up a reputation of being against free markets and fair competition - Google too - for all those people who argue this will improve the net, I suspect it will actually restrict innovation in the long-term. What if the two agree on certain standards for websites? How will issues like file sharing and copyright management be addressed? Will search results be influenced? How many people will migrate from Yahoo to Google?
Ultimately though Microsoft is being lazy here. The way to success on the internet is to win the hearts and minds of the users - like it did with MSN messenger or too a lesser extent Hotmail for example. It should stop following and start leading again.
If it has the services and people aren't using them, then after ensuring their product is suitable and getting some
customer feedback, perhaps it should spend some of its $40+ billion on some marketing and regaining the trust of the public by committing to respecting its users.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
Labels: My philosophy, Technology, Web tools
Keep your internet experience fresh
I often find myself just visiting the same ten sites more than any of the others. The
BBC news site is a good example of one which I just spend a load of time on, even when the quality is not great. It has become habitual. The same could be said about many people's devotion towards
Google. The problem with this approach however is that from a web perspective it threatens the diversity of the internet and also affects users because they are then forced to rely on fewer sources.
So recently I've tried breaking such habits.
Yahoo for example (assuming Microsoft doesn't get control of them, is an excellent search engine and
Ask often gives a different set of results (useful for research purposes.
Clusty is another excellent search service which provides an innovative way of narrowing down results. In regard to news did you know that
Aljazaeera runs a pretty comprehensive English website. Nobody is saying its going to be unbiased, but surely it can't hurt to learn a different opinion or get a fresh perspective?
Also of course its important to support bloggers and small scale operators. So try breaking some of your mainstream habits and you might find your web experience becomes a lot more exciting. :)
Labels: Miscellaneous, Web tools
Yahoo answers has become very useful.
When the web was in its infancy the only "answer" service was from
Google, who got people in the web community to act as researchers. Question setters set a price they were prepared to pay for an answer (from $2.50 - $200) and this indicated the level of detail required. Google took a percentage and the researchers got paid when they answered satisfactorily. Great model, with one problem - what if people didn't want/couldn't afford to pay? Enter
Yahoo answers. Not only can you ask anything at all, but anybody can reply and then the best answer is selected either by the question setter or by the public who can vote for their favourite. I was sceptical at the start that the quality of answers would be too low, but I think on most questions where enough people respond the selected answer is usually very good. For instance I found a question about sheep asking "
Will my sheep be lonely?". There are more academic questions too. Check out this answer to: "
Is Pluto a planet" I think this is a very good idea and I bet there are people at Google annoyed that they didn't think of it first.
Labels: My philosophy, Web tools
Wikimedia: More than just wikipedia.
Everybody on the internet today seems to know about
Wikipedia (of course I knew about it about when it was fresh and exciting). So today, whilst the mainstream population uses Wikipedia, I am going to explore some of the other features/services of Wikimedia. Consider it my service to internet or something like that. :)
Wikitionary:A free dictionary - a fair idea, but I doubt it will catch on because we need to know when we look up words we are getting a definition from an authorative source.
Wikispecies:This site aims to list the world's species. I think it has potential, but may only appeal to a small proportion of the population. Also inaccurate information could easily start to propagate.
Wikinews:News everyone can write and edit. This means you get stories not covered by the national press by people who may have first hand accounts of events, however also that facts may be inaccurate.
Wikicommons:I think this site really has potential. The aim is to allow people to upload content for the general public to use such as clipart. Beneath each item is the license the author has assigned to it.
WikisourceThis service is very useful to anyone interested in literature as it contains published books which no longer have copyright restrictions. Although other websites have attempted this, I think Wikimedia has the server power and capacity to make the project very successful.
Wikiquote:Looking for a good quote? Here is one place where you can find plenty of good examples. A word of advice however is to remember that anybody can edit the pages, so proceed with caution. (I suggest typing quotes into a search engine to find out if any other sites have them)
Wikibooks:Instead of collaborating to write an encyclopedia, how about books? That is the mission of this site. Whenever you are researching a well known topic, stopping to check whether a book exists in Wikibooks is a good idea as it offers lots of good information.
Happy researching!
Labels: My philosophy, Web tools
Blogger beta
Today blogger.com has released a new beta version. If you are a blogger however the transition is somewhat frustrating - as they merge the blogger accounts with the Google accounts database (a privacy timebomb?). Despite this several of the
new features are good ideas, however you are forced to "upgrade" you template to get access to some of these, so do not be alarmed if the page design changes drastically; blame Blogger.
Update: The upgrade template feature does not allow users to edit the raw html. A rather large oversight I think. Apparently support for that will be coming soon.
Update 2:
A validation check using the new template produced over 650 errors! However editing the new template has grown considerably easier with their more user friendly interface.
The "Labels" feature will only work if you "upgrade" to the new design.
I have decided to keep the current template for now.
Labels: My philosophy, Web tools
