http://webhead.blog.co.uk/Useful information for PC users at home and in small businesses. Contact www.wanderjahre.co.uk for more information. wanderjahre@wanderjahre.co.uken-EUMokoFeed10http://webhead.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/ac/d633c2832ef0585f8a62e28d12593a_160x200.jpghttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/google-wave-7247428/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-10-26:/2009/10/26/google-wave-7247428/Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:00:50 +0100 <p>I've been looking at and watching webinars about Google Wave the next thing from those every so nice people that brought us Gmail and Calendars and other handy little gadget. "The Wave" is the "personal communication and collaboration tool" announced by Google amidst much applause at the I/O conference on May 2009 (see the abridged video below)</p> <p>The Wave is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking. The plan is that it will be supported by extensions that can provide, for example, robust spelling/grammar checking, automated translation between 40 languages amongst others. </p> <p>The preview hit the wild on September 30, 2009, with the initial 100,000 users each allowed to invite up to twenty additional users. If its as successful as Google plan, it could be a major rival to things like Facebook and Twitter providing the sort of real time collaboration and communication that the others have yet to achieve. </p> <p>Watch this space folks!</p> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/google-wave-7247428/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>collaborationimgoogleemailwavehttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/google-wave-7247428/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/07/usa-gives-up-the-internet-7115235/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-10-07:/2009/10/07/usa-gives-up-the-internet-7115235/Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:50:00 +0200 <p>With many countries less than happy about American control of the internet, Washington has said it will allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system. ICANN – the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet, said it was ending its agreement with the US government.</p> <p>Icann has previously been operating under the direction of the US, which dominated as the birthplace of the internet and home of the dot com domain name.</p> <p>The changes will see other countries take a deciding role in the future in the shape of the net. NOMINET - the British organisation that handles the day-to-day running of .uk domain names - said that Icann had started a trend for companies with internet influence to appear more open and accountable.</p> <p>The new agreement, replacing the 1998 agreement comes into force today. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/07/usa-gives-up-the-internet-7115235/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>usacomputersinternetgovernmentcivil-libertieshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/07/usa-gives-up-the-internet-7115235/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/06/conservative-news-fundraising-website-7107781/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-10-06:/2009/10/06/conservative-news-fundraising-website-7107781/Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:37:47 +0200 <p>Strapped for cash or cutting edge technology? The Conservatives have launched a new campaigning website, claiming it the most advanced of its kind since the pre-election Obama site.</p> <p>MyConservatives.com,aims to simplify the campaigning and fundraising process so that members of the public will find it easier to support the party.</p> <p>MyConservatives.com, was developed by web agency LBi, and is run by Sam Coates a speech writer for Cameron.</p> <p>'Micro-fundraising', popular in the charity sector through websites such like Just Giving, will be an important part of the site. Users will be able support local candidates and issues or wider national campaigns. The site will house tools to allow people to set up telephone canvassing systems from home, connect with other supporters, set up campaigns or recruit other activists.</p> <p>The Conserverative overhauled their web site last year for the first time in some years. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/06/conservative-news-fundraising-website-7107781/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>conservativesfundraisingwebsitecivil-libertieshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/06/conservative-news-fundraising-website-7107781/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/pop-mail-or-google-7095247/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-10-04:/2009/10/04/pop-mail-or-google-7095247/Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:41:44 +0200 <p>On a similar theme, what's the feeling about moving to Google's premium services instead running an office server etc...</p> <p>Just to add to this a little a quick vox pop elsewhere has come out in favour of Gmail but added the caveat that there is a lot to be said for Exchange as well. I suppose my initial thought would be does Exchange play nice with Linux and OS X otherwise its a bit of a non starter in the mobile stakes... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/pop-mail-or-google-7095247/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>mobilecomputerswanderjahretechhttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/pop-mail-or-google-7095247/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/windows-7095234/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-10-04:/2009/10/04/windows-7095234/Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:39:47 +0200 <p><em>Now that Windows 7 is out in wild, I would be interested to know what people think - good and bad - of the new OS from Microsoft? Comment to this post and let me know.</em></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/windows-7095234/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>recommendedwindows-7techhttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/windows-7095234/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/data-capture-the-easy-way-7095173/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-10-04:/2009/10/04/data-capture-the-easy-way-7095173/Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:32:28 +0200 <p>If you need a form online, you should give <strong>Jotform</strong> a try. I was a bit wary when I started, suspecting that the java based platform would be slow and clunky. You can imagine my surprise to come face to face with a surprising vestile and easy use form creator. Its drag and drop user interface makes form building doable for anybody that wants to do it. </p> <p> Anybody with an Internet connection can use Jotform and you can link directly to it by email and URL. No need to know anything about web design or HTML coding to use it either! I knocked out the basic layout of a quite complicated form in about 20 minutes.</p> <p> JotForm supports all standard web form field types. Also allows you to use new and intuitive fields in your form such as Date Time Picker, Star Ratings, or CAPTCHA checks. If it has a problem its that you have to work out what you need in advance and with all the features that Jotform presents you can end up with a radio button, drop down field and text fields all over the place. You can make contact forms, document uploaders, surveys and just about any form of data capture you can care to think of. Check them out at <a href="http://jotform.com/"><a href="http://jotform.com/">http://jotform.com/</a></a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/data-capture-the-easy-way-7095173/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>jotformtechonline-data-capturehttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/10/04/data-capture-the-easy-way-7095173/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/08/20/don-t-get-stuffed-6763733/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-08-20:/2009/08/20/don-t-get-stuffed-6763733/Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:44:21 +0200 <p>For those of you that rely on your Google ranking to bring in the trade SEO is more than just an interesting exercise, it's a essential element of your business plan and discovering that Google has penalised you for over use of keywords can quickly move from an irritation to a disaster in terms of visits. I am aware of at least one PC repair firm that which habitually was in the top 5 for certain search strings suddenly vanishing only to reappear 50 entries down from number. For the company involved and given that people seldom search after the first or second page, this was a disaster. This disaster takes on 70s all star movie proportions when the webmaster tries to put things right only to find that they are still way down the lists.</p> <p>Background: The site has excellent content when I looked at it, but past version of the site definitely suffered from more than a degree of keyword stuffing. Competitors were close but could not match this site's content, but on checking out the backlinks, I was surprised to find that there were very few. I trawled through the site pages and quickly found although the company had tried to deal with the key word stuffing, some pages still held examples and urgently needed to be cleaned up.</p> <p>The site's initial reputation was built on some excellent content but the over-optimisation of the site using key words, specifically using the same key word too many times - key word stuffing had resulted in the Google bots taking a dislike to the site which in its turn had caused it to sink down the rankings.</p> <p>Once the site was penalised, the reputation of the site was effectively negated and the next ranking consideration were the site backlinks, the competition had more backlinks and so they rose while our company sank. The practical result of this will be that for an unknown period of time the company's will fluctuate wildly in the rankings - there is no limit for the amount of time this penalty will continue to be imposed.</p> <p>So what do you do if you and your company find yourself with a similar problem?</p> <p>1. Get rid of key word stuffing and make sure you clean the entire site and not just the index page. This will means that that there will be an end in sight to the penalty eventually.</p> <p>2. Build ongoing links, these links will be the foundations of your new credibility, incoming links from quality site will also help.</p> <p>3. Check out Google Webmaster Tools and look at the errors/alerts/warnings for your site, also build a new sitemap so that new content and the lack of keyword stuffing will be clearly flagged.</p> <p>4. Freshen content - write some of the article and add others - this will provide activity which Google cannot ignore.</p> <p>5. Be patient. It could take a while, something to remember the next time you are tempted to do a little keyword stuffing</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/08/20/don-t-get-stuffed-6763733/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>web-20computerssocial-networkstechhttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/08/20/don-t-get-stuffed-6763733/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/05/05/google-hacks-part-6063288/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-05-05:/2009/05/05/google-hacks-part-6063288/Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:12 +0200 <p>Get the local time anywhere - not quite a hack, but a useful little tool regardless. Enter simply 'what time is it to get the local time in big cities around the world, or add the locale at the end of your query, like 'what time is it hong kong' to get the local time there.</p> <p>Flying. Enter the airline and flight number into the Google search box to get the arrival and departure times right inside Google's search results.</p> <p>Currency, metrics and other guffin: Google's powerful built-in converter calculator can help you out, convert measurements, show how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro).</p> <p>Compare items with "better than" and find similar items with "reminds me of". The results will almost always lead you to discovering alternatives to whatever it is you're searching for.</p> <p>Use Google as a free proxy: Google's cache to take a peek even when the originating site's being blocked, with cache:example.com.</p> <p>Remove affiliate links from product searches by using -site:ebay.com -site<img src="/img/smilies/grayrazz.gif" alt=":b" class="middle" border="0">izrate.com -site:shopping.com operator. </p> <p>Find related terms and documents: Adding a tilde (~) to a search term will return related terms. For example, Googling ~nutrition returns results with the words nutrition, food, and health in them.</p> <p>Make Google recognize faces: A special URL parameter in Google's Image search will do the "Add &imgtype=face" to the end of your image search to just get images of faces only. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/05/05/google-hacks-part-6063288/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>recommendedsearch-termscomputersgoogletechhttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/05/05/google-hacks-part-6063288/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/05/01/bad-phorm-6041069/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-05-01:/2009/05/01/bad-phorm-6041069/Fri, 01 May 2009 16:04:12 +0200 <p>Worried about Internet security? But possibly using BT as your provider, after all British Telecom is practically an institution, one to trust right? Er...wrong, with a capital W and a big "rong" attached for good measure. The European Commission has started legal action against Britain over the online advertising technology Phorm. Phorm claims its technology is "fully compliant with UK legislation and relevant EU directives".</p> <p>OK I am guessing readers are saying, all well and good Wanderjahre, but what's this got to do with me. Try this one on for size, information courtesy of those nice people at The Register. BT admitted last year it had tested Phorm's technology on its network with thousands of customers without asking for their consent or informing them of the trials. It later carried out further trials of the service, which it markets as Webwise, with the consent of users.</p> <p>More than ten million customers of the UK's three largest ISPs (BT, Tiscali and Sky) will have their browsing habits sold to a very dodgy company who are rumoured to have kicked off their time on the net as spyware. BT’s servers were secretly passing data on subscribers to its "new" advertising partner as long ago as last summer. At the time, BT and its partners refused to acknowledge any relationship at the time.</p> <p>The Register, usually pretty sound when it comes to matters like this have devoted a big chunk of their websites to have the issues around Phorm have developed. They claim to have the full technical info on what Phorm is up to, check out their site for more information. Anti-virus companies have said that in their opinion Phorm is Spyware pure and simple. Now some users will not be alarmed by this but if the UK's inadequate internet laws permit its existence, do you really want your browsing habits scanned to provide "targeted advertising" For myself I am quite capable of finding what I want on the net without having some company or other throw their ads at me! If I am hooked into a company's VPN what guarantees do I have that Phorm cannot be exploited to enable some unscrupulous type to check out the data I am sending and receiving. Or does anyone including the Phorm truly believe that something like this cannot be exploited by the hacker brigade.</p> <p>From the legal standpoint the issue centre around whether users have given their consent to the technology A spokeswoman from the commission told BBC News that the EC wanted the UK to ensure there were procedures in place to ensure "clear consent from the user that his or her private data is being used". "Technologies like internet behavioural advertising can be useful for businesses and consumers but they must be used in a way that complies with EU rules," the EU's Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement.</p> <p>Phorm's works by "trawling" websites visited by users whose ISPs have signed up to the service and for whom the technology is switched on, and then matches keywords from the content of the page to an "anonymous" profile.</p> <p>Users are then targeted with adverts that are more tailored to their interests on partner websites that have signed up to Phorm's technology. The technology differs from other behavioural advertising systems which tend to use data only from partner websites visited by users, and do not work in conjunction with internet service providers. The service has proved controversial for some campaigners who believe it breaks UK data interception laws.</p> <p>Last year, Phorm received clearance from the Home Office and police closed a file on BT trials of the technology which looked into their legality.</p> <p>The UK government have said thatthe technology could only be rolled out if users had given their consent and it was easy for people to opt out, although its worth bearing in mind that BT went ahead with trials without consultation. The European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications requires member states to ensure the confidentiality of their communications and related traffic data. States must, it says, prohibit interception and surveillance unless the users concerned have given their consent.</p> <p>Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group said: "There are big legal questions surrounding BT's use of Phorm, so we welcome the EU taking the government to task. "BT should respect everyone's privacy and drop their plans to snoop on the internet before they damage their own reputation further. Websites should protect their users and block Phorm now."</p> <p>BT have declined to comment on the EC's actions.<br> Firfox users should check the Phorm addon here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=phorm&cat=all</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/05/01/bad-phorm-6041069/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>techmediarecommendedcomputershastingsweb-20itwanderjahresocial-networkscivil-libertieshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/05/01/bad-phorm-6041069/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/30/google-hacks-part-6035589/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-04-30:/2009/04/30/google-hacks-part-6035589/Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:01:48 +0200 <p>Google Hacks – Part 1</p> <p>Essentially, there are two types of search engines, the first is called the searchable subject index. This type searches only titles and descriptions of sites. The other type is the full text search engine which uses "spiders" pieces of code to index billions of pages across the net. These pages can be searched by title or content, making for a much more efficient search application. Currently, on the Internet it's Google which is the prime exponent of this type of search. </p> <p>The Google search engine is probably one of the most useful tool ever spawned on the Internet and anyone who uses it to simply check on a website based on key word(s) is hardly using a fraction of what it can do. Lets start that exploration with some of the terms you can use to add a bit more power to your search. </p> <p>Google will search for all words in a string the default, but by using the operator OR you can specify one term or another </p> <p>Search: cat, dog generates all the pages that mention "cat and dog" </p> <p>Search: cat OR dog generates all the pages that mention "cat" and all the pages that mention "dog"</p> <p>Search: food (cat OR dog) comes up with the terms Cat or Dog along with the word food in Google OR is often replaced with the programming character “ | ” (called pipe) </p> <p>In addition to simple site search, Google uses a special syntax called “inurl” to let you search the contents of any URL on the net, this will dig down below the main domain into the sub-domains of the site for the content you specify. This is perfect for searching domains with a lot of subs and also perfect for locating useful indexes. Have a look at the examples below.</p> <p>Try typing the following into your Google address bar</p> <p>-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(.mp3|.wma) ""</p> <p>This search term will generate a list of website with indexes of MP3 and WMA files and you can browse and download to your hearts content. But say you want to search for a specific file</p> <p>-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(.mp3|.wma) "Peter Gabriel"</p> <p>To find the file of your choice just replace “Peter Gabriel” with the artist or band of your choice. Looking for applications, try this search</p> <p>-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(.exe|.zip) ""</p> <p>For a specific application try: </p> <p>-inurl: (htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(.exe|.zip) "googleearth"</p> <p>Here we have searched for the GoogleEarth application. </p> <p>Need to find a torrent file? Here I have asked Google to search for all Linux torrents </p> <p>linux filetype:torrent</p> <p>But you can replace the “linux” search term with whatever you want. Google provide a handy search tool which you can download to your own desktop have a look at <a href="http://code.google.com/p/googlehacks/">http://code.google.com/p/googlehacks/</a></p> <p>More on Google Hack next time.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/30/google-hacks-part-6035589/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>mp3computerswanderjahrehastingshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/30/google-hacks-part-6035589/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/27/pclinuxos-come-to-my-rescue-6015324/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-04-27:/2009/04/27/pclinuxos-come-to-my-rescue-6015324/Mon, 27 Apr 2009 09:31:11 +0200 <p class="zemanta-img"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KDE_logo.svg"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/KDE_logo.svg/128px-KDE_logo.svg.png" alt="K Desktop Environment" width="128" height="128"></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KDE_logo.svg">Wikipedia</a></span></p> <p></p> <a>Upgrade</a> <p>Friday evening: OK it was my fault! There I've said it and its true. I broke one of the rules for <a class="zem_slink" title="Ubuntu" rel="homepage" href="http://www.ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu Linux</a> which basically said "Thou shalt not use the upgrade feature in Synaptic." The rule is download the live CD run; see that everything works and then install the OS as a fresh install to the hardware.</p> <p> But for reasons best known to a slightly bored <a class="zem_slink" title="Linux" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux">Linux</a> fan on a Friday morning I decided that the best way to upgrade my perfectly workable Ubuntu 8.04 LTS <span>(Long term support)</span> install was to use the Synaptic function to first upgrade to the next version 8.10 and from there to 9.04 (For those wondering about the numbering scheme in use here, the first digit is the year of release and the digits after the decimal point are the month of release. Ubuntu releases two version year one in April and one in October.)</p> <p> The reason for using the live CD rather than the upgrade is that this reduces the chances of something going wrong, Linux is a tapestry of applications and scripts and its all too easy for the upgrade make a mess of one or other of the many dependencies - using the live CD means you can have a good look at what you have on-screen, before you install. If everything works, you are good to go and if there is a problem, take out the CD and its back to the original OS with no problems.</p> <p> All of which I happily ignored in my quest to have Ubuntu 9.04 on my desktop.</p> <p></p> <a>8.10</a> <p>The first shock was that the upgrade was a full gigabyte of data! This is about 400mb larger than the <a class="zem_slink" title="Live CD" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD">Live CD</a> and should have warned that the was going to be trouble ahead. It would have been quicker to go the Live CD route and by this stage it was pure laziness that was keeping me from backing up essential data and doing the job properly.</p> <p> Saturday afternoon: Upgrading took the better part of the night and installing the resultant download the better part of the morning. By now there was a little voice in the back of my head shouting "Stop now, there is still time! Stop!" But the same dynamic that would alway cause me to, when lost, "go just a little further" rather than ask directions, impelled me onwards.</p> <p> Ubuntu 8.10 looked nice but I had heard on the internet forums that it wasn't a significant step up from the previous release so I ignored it completely and like HG Wells' time traveller propelled myself every forward.</p> <p> Upgrade manager in Synaptic announced that the next upgrade would be - yes, you guessed it, a gigbyte and I had a pretty good idea that it would need another day to download and install. Commonsense would have had me back out at this point and reinstall my trusty copy of 8.04, but no working on the "just a little further" principle I started the next download...</p> <p></p> <a>9.04</a> <p>Sunday morning: I finally had 9.10 on the desktop and glazed at its pristine beauty, it looked lovely and moved with all the speed and grace of Titanic avoiding a iceberg! I quickly that it was significantly less than fast. It may have been touted as "Jaunty Jackelope" but was like "Silicon Sloth" on my hardware. Note to the Ubuntu fan club out there, I am sure that installed on a Live CD and not hamstrung by two gigs of upgrade data it would have been a lot more speedy. It may have even run the .swf applications on my website which despite considerable time on <a class="zem_slink" title="Google" rel="homepage" href="http://google.com/">Google</a> and a not small amount of hair pulling I could not get it to do.</p> <p> One thing it did seem to do well was detect my hardware and just for once I found myself with a half way decent screen resolution. This has been a big issue for me since moving from my old CRT monitor to my TFT. For a more than decent OS I was puzzled as to why a problem with the display could only be resolved by manually editing the xorg.conf file, something calculated to put off all but the most hardened Linux fanatic. Unable to understand the way the file was put together, despite reading copious internet articles, I cheated by copying a workable config file and saving it, reasoning if it worked one time it should work another. Hmmm....?</p> <p> Sunday afternoon: A couple of hours in the company of the Jackelope convinced me that, while it was probably a great OS, the way I had installed it had borked my system to the point of complete instability. Since I had installed it on my work computer and the new working week was looming with all the appeal of a pasty-faced white contestant on "Britain's Got Sod All Talent" about to do a 50 Cent rap song, and because I could not read all the files on my own website, I decided to go back to Ubuntu 8.04 also known as the "Hardy <a class="zem_slink" title="Ubuntu" rel="homepage" href="http://www.ubuntu.com/">Heron</a>."</p> <p> An interesting experiment, thinks I, and now back to my original install and all will be well.</p> <p></p> <a>8.04</a> <p>Sunday evening: Oh..!</p> <p> Getting the Heron back on my desktop was not difficult although somewhere along the line my back up of Thunderbird mail settings and data had been lost and I had to do the mail settings again. I was a bit annoyed about deleting the file but had been wise enough to forward all important emails to a Gmail account so I at least had a copy of anything I was likely to need. Trouble is, the screen resolution was 800x600, a setting so low as to be hardly usable, web pages zoomed off to the right and descended vertiginous downwards and my three pane email display squeezed the message into a space smaller than an estate agents' bijou residence. I hurriedly installed my config file for xorg and restarted.</p> <p> Nothing...the screen was still at low resolution, Ubuntu offered to do something about this but various permutation of sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg and Nvidia front-ends did nothing to solve my problem. Hardware detection was known to be an issue with Ubuntu, but usually an edited xorg file sorted out the problem, this time I was firmly in the low resolution barely usable brown smelly stuff.</p> <p> With the clock ticking and my stupidity coming back to taunt me, I rifled through my collection of LIve CDs and happened upon the latest version of <a class="zem_slink" title="Mandriva" rel="homepage" href="http://www.mandriva.com/">Mandriva</a>, Mandriva 2009, complete with <span>plasmoid</span> widgets and reputedly a look so geogorous that it has turned down proposals of marriage from numerous Linux fanboys and girls.</p> <p></p> <a>Mandriva 2009</a> <p>Sunday night: Mandriva installed and set up and looking good... then looking difficult to configure, then looking broken and then very broken indeed..! What was going on here? Mandriva used the latest <a class="zem_slink" title="KDE" rel="homepage" href="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</a> interface and the simple fact appeared to be that it was broken, whether this was something I had done or some relationship between my hardware and KDE was unclear. I tried to add short cuts and move some icons around but found that KDE was not keen on me making any changes. Initially I assumed this was simply the way that KDE worked as opposed to Gnome, which I was more used to. On Google I found out that the whole desktop was actually a floating widget and I quickly concluded that the desktop was not all it might have been. Armed with a little info on Google I tried to get a half way decent desktop sorted out. But in short order I had managed to bork the desktop to the point where I could no longer login on any graphical interface.</p> <p> It was time for a rethink....</p> <p> I was impressed that aside from the dodgy desktop, Mandriva looked pretty good, it detected hardware with no problem and had it not been for the plasmoid widgets fouling things up, was an OS I might have stayed with. As it was with time pressing I simply did not have time to try and get it all to operate. I needed something that would work "out of the box" as they say and with even trusty Ubuntu unable to detect my monitor I had to come up with another option.</p> <p></p> <a>PCLinuxOS</a> <p>Sunday evening + 2 large coffees: I had started my Linux voyage with PCLinuxOS but move to Ubuntu when it became clear that it would be better able to handle wireless - a function I needed at the time. I had a copy of the latest version so it went into the CD drawer and I rebooted one more time.</p> <p> Sunday evening + 3 large coffees: PCLOS appeared and offered me the chance to install, I clicked the appropriate icon and answered the questions and in fairly short order had the OS on the desktop. I started to configure. First thing was Firefox, I had a list of addons for the fox and the first one to install was Foxmarks (Also called X-marks) here I stored all my booksmarks and with those back I could get the rest of my desktop organised. Having earlier lost my Thunderbird data I had to do that by hand, but if I had retained the file it would have been a simple matter to copy into the ./thunderbird folder hidden in my home file. PCLOS is a KDE desktop but did not seem to have the plasmoid problems that Mandriva experienced.</p> <p> Monday morning: I warmed to PLCLOS pretty quickly, it does indeed do what it says on the packet. By the morning everything up and working and I have to say I am pretty pleased with what I see. Eye candy is Compiz and looks rather better than its Ubuntu cousin. Hardware was, needless to say, detected with no problems. I plugged in a wireless dongle and it was detected, I could connect with no problems. Open Office, Amorak, Kompete and Thunderbird all worked perfectly. I have been using for about six hours now and so far the smile has not faded from my face. Its easy to use, works well and looks lovely. I would definitely recommend it for new and experienced users alike, especially since its saved my bacon</p> <p></p> <p></p> <a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]" href="http://reblog.zemanta.com/zemified/c8ec3400-0b94-448e-9a82-9c3c5a2fb780/"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c8ec3400-0b94-448e-9a82-9c3c5a2fb780" alt="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]"></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><br> <br> </span> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/27/pclinuxos-come-to-my-rescue-6015324/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>web-20hastingstechst-leonardsoperating-systemshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/27/pclinuxos-come-to-my-rescue-6015324/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/23/webmail-and-i-5992100/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-04-23:/2009/04/23/webmail-and-i-5992100/Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:39:51 +0200 <p>There are two ways to handle your email, the first in using POP3/IMAP with an email client like Outlook or Thunderbird. You set up your accounts and download your messages. Read, reply and save or delete as appropriate. Email clients were around when accessing the internet was slow and expensive and one of the things they could do was enable you to download your mail, go off line, reply and then go online once to send the replies. Webmail differs from this in that all the work is done online,(Although Google gears has recently made offline Gmail and calendars possible.) you don't need an email client just a moderate speed connection to the internet and a subscription to one of the webmail providers but like so many thing, not all webmail was created equal. So here's a brief review of the big three. Gmail, Yahoo, and Windows Live Hotmail.</p> <p>All comments are my own and do not reflect the views of any other organization or person...(honest!)</p> <p>Gmail<br> Gmail is an offering from the Google group and in my opinion provides some of the best email organization on the internet. Their pride and joy feature is the interface. Instead of having a threaded list of back and forth emails between you and a friend Messages can be places into labels (folders), started, deleted or forwarded as needed.</p> <p>Gmail also has integrated IM in the form of G-talk in the GMail interface, and continues to add other functionality as well (such as integration with Docs & Spreadsheets). Gmail is also consistently fast, offering the most storage and free POP-in and POP-out, meaning you can use Gmail to access your other email accounts, or access GMail from whatever email client you use. I tend to forward all my POP email to my Gmail account so that I have a copy of mails when I am on the move. Much quicker than copying folders to my laptop.</p> <p>Google's security includes spam, virus and phishing protection. All spam is filtered into a spam folder that allows you to separate the good from the bad, all incoming and outgoing messages are scanned for known viruses, and suspicious messages that look like phishing scams are flagged with a big red banner across the top of the message. In the last month my Gmail account has caught more than 300 spam messages and not having to deal with these manually is very useful. Checks on the spam box also show that little or now wanted message find there way in there, another big plus in my book. Gmail lets you report both spam and phishing attempts to Google.</p> <p>One contentious issue with Gmail is that they do place subtle ads based on the text of your emails on the right hand side of the page, this has lead to complains about the security of the message. Google insists human eyes never see your messages and the work is done by bots that scan the email; however, if you feel uncomfortable with this arrangement consider one of the other providers.</p> <p>Gmail leads the pack when it comes to additional mail/message features and extras. Gmail was the only service of the three that included an instant messenger program without an additional download. If one of your contacts is signed into their account, you can chat with them. If you both have webcams, Gmail is equipped with video chat software too. With Gmail's docs and spreadsheet feature allows you to post an editable document or spreadsheet online and access it from anywhere, similar to online storage. This feature is great for group projects at school or work, where all members of the team can access the same material. Gmail is also available in dozens of languages from Arabic to Vietnamese.</p> <p>Gmail provides a plethora of extras. Looks out for Picasa for photos, the calendar for scheduling and the iGoogle customizable homepage with personal tabs and literally hundreds of widgets.</p> <p>Yahoo Mail<br> Yahoo Mail is our second test, older than Gmail it has recently been completely revamped with a new UI allowing users to access other email accounts but only some POP features are only available on the paid account for a fee. Storage is on the low side - only 1 GB, which is much less than Gmail offers.</p> <p>On the upside, Yahoo Mail offers an intuitive, Outlook-like interface. Instant Messaging and RSS integration is available. One slight problem I found with Yahoo is that despite being on Firefox platform, as a Linux user, Yahoo reported that it had not been tested on my system and offered me the classic Yahoo look, there didn't seem to be a way avoid this notification every visit.</p> <p>Messages can be sorted by all manner of criteria. These include unread, sender, date, size and so on, while searching through your Inbox simply requires you to enter a few keywords. Emails can be flagged for follow-up and you can create filters and folders to help keep everything organised.</p> <p>Junk Mail is handled well, I checked my account before starting this article and since the last visit – about three days ago, Yahoo had caught 80 spam messages and not unwanted had managed to sneak through. Anything that gets through is easily banished by selecting it and clicking the Spam button.</p> <p>Windows Live Hotmail<br> Windows Live Hotmail gives you 5 GB (and growing) of online storage, fast search, solid security, POP access and an interface easy as a desktop email program. When it comes to organizing mail, Windows Live Hotmail does not go beyond folders (to saved searches and tags, for example), its spam filter could be more effective, and IMAP access to all online folders would be nice. You can send from other email addresses using Windows Live Hotmail and includes fast search and it accessible via POP in any email program . On the downside it lacks virtual folders and tags for message organization. No IMAP access is available at the moment. One nice feature which will keep your spam content down is the ability to accept mail only from people in your address book. In addition Hotmail does not automatically download images from unauthorized senders, which is a very useful feature in avoiding viruses. A reading pane, drag-and-drop ease and rich text editing lend Windows Live Hotmail a desktop-like handling. You can set up additional addresses to use in the From: line of mail you send with Windows Live Hotmail. MSN also provides access using various browsers and mobile devices.</p> <p>However, while technically good, actual operation is less impressive, pages were slow to load and operation felt clunky, especially if you were not using Internet Explorer on a Windows XP/Vista platform. The standard spam filter could do with some improvement. You can report spam easily using a "Junk" button, but that does not seem to have much of an effect and spam in my inbox remained as frequent as always no matter what I did.</p> <p>Calendar integration is a little odd and not connected to the rest of the functions, which is a shame. One user wrote: "I've been using windows live or MSN or Hotmail for years. Although parts of the mail service have improved, other parts fail. Because its free, they are now adding adds in the email pages. I get a lot of junk mail and take the time to block each one, yet they still appear in my inbox. One such spam will automatically launch a fake anti-virus scanner when I try to delete the message. I'm fed up and changing my email to Gmail. I do NOT recommend Windows live unless you can find a way to block the SPAM yourself, because windows live doesn't."</p> <p>Other users reported problems with Hotmail and their hardware, now to be fair, this may not be the fault of MSN – another reviewer commented "I can't get Hotmail email to come up on my computer ... I only get error on page. I can't even find out how to contact them to send them an email about the problem. If you're considering a Hotmail email account, forget it and move on ... your stress level will thank you."</p> <p>Results.<br> And the winner is....Gmail, at least for now its the winner. Yahoo is snapping at its heels in terms of functionality. The ability to find any mail using Google's search function is a big plus and if you use the label feature – which takes a little getting used to – you can reference emails easily, copy to multiple labels and find your message with a couple of words in the search panel!</p> <p>Coming in second Live Mail would still need to seem some work, but on the plus side the UI is uncluttered and clean where it falls down for this reviewer is the integration with the rest of the Live suite. This is fine if you want it, but if all you are looking for a quick and simple email client, the extras can get annoying. For myself I would actually rate Hotmail higher than Yahoo simply because the interface is more streamlined, but some of the adverse comments from users are worth taking on board.</p> <p>Yahoo mail while being good has a UI which is a little cluttered and not as well implemented as the Google version but it may suit others. I found it a sluggish and slow to respond. All three do what they say on the tin, but Gmail and Hotmail do it a little more elegantly.</p> <p>So if you want a webmail client, consider Gmail as your first point of call, chances are you will want to use one of the other Google features at some time, so you may as well jump onboard.</p> <p>See you in the virtual world folks...</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/23/webmail-and-i-5992100/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/23/webmail-and-i-5992100/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/07/microsoft-retires-xp-5906676/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-04-07:/2009/04/07/microsoft-retires-xp-5906676/Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:15:57 +0200 <p class="zemanta-img"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Windows_XP_Royale.png"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/47/Windows_XP_Royale.png/202px-Windows_XP_Royale.png" alt="Energy Blue desktop, featuring the new Royale ..." width="202" height="152"></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Windows_XP_Royale.png">Wikipedia</a></span></p> <p>Word on the net is that <a class="zem_slink" title="Microsoft" rel="homepage" href="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</a> plans to drop free support <a class="zem_slink" title="Windows XP" rel="homepage" href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsxp/">Windows XP</a> and <a class="zem_slink" title="Microsoft Office 2003" rel="homepage" href="http://office.microsoft.com/">Office 2003</a> as of next week. On April 14, the <a class="zem_slink" title="Redmond, Washington" rel="geolocation" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=47.6694444444,-122.123888889&spn=0.1,0.1&q=47.6694444444,-122.123888889%20%28Redmond%2C%20Washington%29&t=h">Redmond</a> giant ends consumer support for Office 2003 in addition to Windows XP Home and Professional. Crucially this will mean no more bug fixes except for security.</p> <p> Customers will need to pay for Microsoft assistance from April 14th onwards. Security fixes will still come down the line for Office 2003 and XP until August after which the <a class="zem_slink" title="Computer software" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_software">software</a> will be 'retired.'</p> <p> Customers can still get non-security critical fixes if they've part of the Extended Support programme. Microsoft is also "retiring" <a class="zem_slink" title="Windows Server 2003" rel="homepage" href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/">Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1</a>, meaning it will no longer provide support for the release.</p> <p> For the average home user the choices will be continue to use their exisiting software with a potential for vulnerbilities; move to <a class="zem_slink" title="Windows Vista" rel="homepage" href="http://www.microsoft.com/vista">Vista</a> or wait for Windows 7 to appear on the shelves. There has been speculation that this move to finally hammer the last night in the coffin of XP for home users is also a marker for the appearance of Windows 7, but although receieving some favourable comments from beta users there is still some doubts surrounding the new offering from the Redmond boys. Abandoning XP is something Microsoft have been wanting to do for some time, but the universally poor press on the roll out of Vista has delayed this for several years.</p> <p> The assumption has to be that with the end of XP for non business use, user will finally make the lucretive, for MS at least, jump to a new <a class="zem_slink" title="Operating system" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system">OS</a>.</p> <p></p> <p>Related articles by Zemanta</p> <ul class="zemanta-article-ul"> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/20/internet-explorer-8-download/">Internet Explorer 8 Download</a> (ghacks.net)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.medicineandtechnology.com/2009/04/downgrading-from-windows-7-to-xp.html"> Downgrading from Windows 7 to XP </a> (medicineandtechnology.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.manolith.com/2009/03/31/conficker-the-microsoft-virus/">Conficker: The Microsoft Virus</a> (manolith.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/windows-7whats-the-rush.ars">Windows 7 - what's the rush?</a> (arstechnica.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/06/ie8-blocker-toolkit-available-today.aspx">IE8 Blocker Toolkit Available Today!</a> (blogs.msdn.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.lockergnome.com/theoracle/2009/02/26/microsoft-and-low-cost/">Microsoft and Low Cost</a> (lockergnome.com)</li> </ul> <p></p> <a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Zemified by Zemanta" href="http://reblog.zemanta.com/zemified/2e601223-36dd-45aa-ac36-57bd58a656bc/"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2e601223-36dd-45aa-ac36-57bd58a656bc" alt="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]"></a><span class="zem-script more-related"><br> <br> </span> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/07/microsoft-retires-xp-5906676/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>windows-7xpwindows-2003hastingsoperating-systemsst-leonardsmicrosofthttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/04/07/microsoft-retires-xp-5906676/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/27/in-praise-of-twitter-5840290/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-27:/2009/03/27/in-praise-of-twitter-5840290/Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:31:51 +0100 <p class="zemanta-img"><a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/twitter"><img src="http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/resized/0000/2755/2755v2-max-450x450.png" alt="Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun..." width="210" height="49"></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com">CrunchBase</a></span></p> <p><a class="zem_slink" title="Twitter" rel="homepage" href="http://twitter.com">Twitter</a> is one of those applications that seems to possess no middle ground. You either love it and want to sign up immediately and see how popular you can become with a horde of followers (<em>add obligatory Stephen Fry reference here...)</em> or you consider it to be yet another example of how normally sane people can be persuaded to spend long hours on the computer announcing that they are on the computer, drinking coffee or considering what to post on Twitter!  But for <a class="zem_slink" title="Business" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business">business</a>, Twitter could be another useful tool to get information about your business out into the <a class="zem_slink" title="Public domain" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain">public domain</a> and get the customers in.</p> <p>Twitter is an information service for the time-poor web-savvy professional. Naturally, this is a very attractive demographic for many businesses. The format forces users to say what they want in 160 characters or less. Brevity is the unique selling point of the application.  Using a Twitter account brands you as web-literate, cutting edge and flags that for hundred of thousands of other user out there who are conditioned to small snippets of information in Twitter you are a source of accredited information. Consider this: you are looking for company, a piece of work you want to outsource, that work needs a knowledge of what the net can do. Which do you choose, Company A which boasts a <a class="zem_slink" title="World Wide Web" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web">website</a> and nothing more or Company B which posts on Twitter and gives you a pretty good idea of who they are and what they do before you have either called or emailed them!</p> <p>Twitter accounts give businesses an edge, a chance to make a connection with potential followers in a way that can't be done with emails, printed literature or information on the website. Twitter is part of the <a class="zem_slink" title="Web 2.0" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0">Web 2.0</a> ethos that breaks down the hierarchy between the provider and the consumer. While for some organisations this may be an uncomfortable transition, it is one that will reap benefits. Twitter is essentially a free advertising opportunity that brings customers direct to you, promotes brand loyalty in the form of Tweets being followed and brings company information direct to the user desktop. Any company with an eye to the future will want to get on the Twitter ladder, with a <a href="http://www.rotorblog.com/2009/03/16/ten-useful-sites-to-get-a-customized-twitter-background/">customised</a> <a class="zem_slink" title="Homepage" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homepage">home page</a> and regular output to the web.</p> <p>Twitter, like so much of the Web 2.0 universe, is <span>content intensive</span>, so weekly updates are not an option. The way to get followers is to make frequent but useful posts to the web. Having an account, which can be accessed by a number of employees, is one way to ensure content, but the company needs to be very clear about what information finds its way into the wild. In the same way that a press statement would be a carefully considered document, all Twitter releases need to be centred around the values of the company. That is not to say that the tweets need to be formal or dull but posting every time the managing director has a cup of coffee is not likely to pull in the followers.</p> <p>The application offers the chance to delete followers, so businesses need have no fear that they will be inundated with abusive comments, but the clever company will actually address these comments directly and out in the open often resulting in the would-be heckler slinking away with their tale between their legs or even being converted into an evangelist for the company.</p> <p>Since Twitter can be used for a mobile device, the switched on company can effectively post impressions and information from conferences and events. Applications such as Twitpix exist to enable users to upload photos providing another link between users and the company.</p> <p>Its easy to reject Twitter as another fad on the internet and another excuse for anal retentive users to post every passing thought that crosses their mind. But even if Twitter is a fad; its the fad of the moment and given its user base can businesses afford not to use it?</p> <p>Related articles by Zemanta</p> <ul class="zemanta-article-ul"> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.theredrocket.co.uk/blog/?p=233">What's the point of businesses using Twitter?</a> (theredrocket.co.uk)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://vator.tv/news/show/2009-03-16-social-media-is-here-to-stay-now-what">Social media is here to stay... Now what?</a> (vator.tv)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/buzz_balls_hype/2009/03/marketing-on-facebook-part-2.html">Marketing on Facebook Part 2</a> (mjroseblog.typepad.com)</li> </ul> <p></p> <a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Zemified by Zemanta" href="http://reblog.zemanta.com/zemified/826368f9-9e24-4958-a331-42bb11a18452/"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=826368f9-9e24-4958-a331-42bb11a18452" alt="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]"></a><span class="zem-script more-related"><br> <br> </span> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/27/in-praise-of-twitter-5840290/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>wanderjahresocial-networksmobilemediatwitterittechst-leonardsweb-20http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/27/in-praise-of-twitter-5840290/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/26/firefox-logo-wikipedia-if-you-are-like-me-you-may-5837164/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-26:/2009/03/26/firefox-logo-wikipedia-if-you-are-like-me-you-may-5837164/Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:07:56 +0100 <p>If you are like me you may think that the latest version of some browsers out there, far from being bigger and better have mastered the bigger bit at the expense of the better. <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=45.1238,-123.1138&spn=1.0,1.0&q=45.1238,-123.1138%20%28Mozilla%20Firefox%29&t=h" title="Mozilla Firefox" rel="geolocation">Firefox</a> is a case in point. While undoubtedly one of the better browsers out in the wild, its been getting larger and larger with each generation; ever more memory hungry and prone to problems. The fastest, most stable version of Firefox was arguably the last release of version 1.5. I installed it earlier today for an experiment and while not as pretty as its younger sibling, it is fast and it is small at around 5mb compared to 7mb for the latest incarnation. It was also the only version of the fox that I could reliably install the much used Freecycle addon. The only snag to this is that all the information on 1.5 suggests that its open to exploitation, so the choice is have the addon and be unsafe or play it safe and do without.</p> <p>But all the above made me wonder if there were other cut down browsers out there that could be installing in their more venerable forms. Older versions of the Opera browser seem pretty much the same as their younger brother and the newer editions do seem to have more features and feel more up to date.</p> <p>Running a fast lightweight Firefox-like browser means moving to the Seamonkey platform. Like the fox, this is based on the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://browser.netscape.com/downloads/archive/" title="Netscape Navigator" rel="homepage">Netscape Navigator</a> platform and for I tried it earlier today and it does indeed zip along speedily. You can install it with Firefox and they do seem to play nice together.</p> <p>People who live on social networks should check out <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.flock.com/" title="Flock (web browser)" rel="homepage">Flock</a> which is Firefox customised for <a class="zem_slink" href="http://facebook.com/" title="Facebook" rel="homepage">Facebook</a>, Myspace, Gmail and the like.</p> <p>There is no lightweight, older faster version of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/default.mspx" title="Internet Explorer" rel="homepage">Internet Explorer</a>, running earlier versions on a <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWS" title="Windows" rel="homepage">Windows</a> XP/Vista platform is asking for trouble! IE is the single most targeted browser on the net, so while it may not sit well, if you have IE the best option is to keep it up to date no matter what.</p> <p>Versions after <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/default.mspx" title="Internet Explorer 7" rel="homepage">IE 7</a> are considered safe and its worth bearing in mind that if you are running Windows 2000 you are running at best IE6 which is regarded as unsafe. Probably best to download Firefox, Opera or even Seamonkey pretty quickly unless you fancy contributing to the infected computer universe.</p> <p>IE 8 is new and some people have been reluctant to upgrade for compatibility reasons. Its not much fun to find you suddenly cannot access your bank details, or credit card or some other secure site. With that in mind, its always worth having at least one other browser on your machine and again, the way forward here is Firefox. A copy of Firefox 3 sitting on your machine can be deployed with IE and a website decide they have never heard of one another.</p> <p>For people who automatically assume that anything from <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.microsoft.com/" title="Microsoft" rel="homepage">Microsoft</a> was even badly made or impossibly resource hungry (and I confess to being one of them during the early days of Vista) its worth noting that the old firm seems to be getting back on form. Windows 7 is getting a lot of positive reviews and Internet Explorer 8 is looking good with reports that it will toddle along happily on an XP rig with 512mb of RAM under the hood.</p> <p>Its not really advisible to have the older browsers on your machine, upddates negate possible exploits and while they make the browser slower from time to time, slower is better than compromised with all the expense or hassle of the solution. My advice would be to have Firefox and possibly Seamonkey on tap to go with IE8. You can't really retro-load your browser, but with a couple of other browsers installed you can cover all eventualities.</p> <p>Related articles by Zemanta<br> <ul class="zemanta-article-ul"> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/internet-explorer-8-final/">Internet Explorer 8 Final</a> (ghacks.net)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A___##17##___www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/26/internet-explorer-8&a=3969840&rid=e736e196-2fab-456e-9747-7b850f0a8510&e=d6ec4c31d75aaeabfc19466b9b3517c1">IE8 will appeal to ordinary mortals</a> (guardian.co.uk)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http:/emblogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/03/17/a-new-chapter-for-web-browsers/?mod=rss_WSJBlog">A New Chapter for Web Browsers</a> (blogs.wsj.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://crenk.com/download-internet-explorer-8-from-microsoft-today-for-free/">Download Internet Explorer 8 from Microsoft Today for Free</a> (crenk.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10204642-2.html?part=rss&subj=Webware">Quick Web searches in Internet Explorer 8</a> (news.cnet.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10204655-2.html?part=rss&subj=Webware">Add and remove Internet Explorer 8 add-ons</a> (news.cnet.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://gigaom.com/2009/03/18/microsoft-releases-internet-explore-8-to-combat-rival-vrowsers/">Microsoft Releases IE 8 to Combat Rival Browsers</a> (gigaom.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/21/web-browser-popularity/">Web Browser Popularity</a> (ghacks.net)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://vator.tv/news/show/2009-03-16-social-media-is-here-to-stay-now-what">Social media is here to stay... Now what?</a> (vator.tv)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/buzz_balls_hype/2009/03/marketing-on-facebook-part-2.html">Marketing on Facebook Part 2</a> (mjroseblog.typepad.com)</li> </ul> </p> <a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://reblog.zemanta.com/zemified/e736e196-2fab-456e-9747-7b850f0a8510/" title="Zemified by Zemanta"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e736e196-2fab-456e-9747-7b850f0a8510" alt="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]"></a><span class="zem-script more-related"></span> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/26/firefox-logo-wikipedia-if-you-are-like-me-you-may-5837164/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/26/firefox-logo-wikipedia-if-you-are-like-me-you-may-5837164/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/25/firefox-not-so-hot-5829674/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-25:/2009/03/25/firefox-not-so-hot-5829674/Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:27:44 +0100 <p>In a blog post on Monday, Ben Galbraith, co-director of developer tools at Mozilla, explains that browsers are evolving from page rendering applications into application runtime environments. As that change occurs, browsers can provide many of the functions of operating systems. That, incidentally, is why Microsoft tried so hard to eliminate Netscape not so long ago. </p> <p>Galbraith credits this shift partly to Google's "creation of boundary-pushing 'desktop-quality' applications" and its evangelization of its Chrome browser as an application runtime. That's generous praise given that Google's decision last year to introduce a browser of its own raised questions that still haven't been satisfactorily answered about the future of the relationship between Google and Mozilla.</p> <p>One thing that might quiet worries about rising friction between the two organizations would be seeing Firefox back at the head of the browser technology race. If Firefox remains strong, it should continue to be able to collect revenue from Google, not to mention Microsoft or Yahoo, in exchange for searches sent through the browser's search box.</p> <p>Over the past few years, Firefox set the pace of browser innovation. But it has been caught or passed by Chrome 2, Safari 4, and Internet Explorer 8. The competition has been getting faster and has added advanced features like pre-emptive threading and memory protection for tabs.</p> <p>Firefox continues to rely on a monolithic architecture that can lead to instability and memory leaks, which have bedeviled Firefox's developers for years. It's a problem aggravated when Firefox plug-ins aren't coded well. Particularly in light of Chrome's responsiveness and low memory footprint, it's clear that Firefox needs some help, even it remains far more feature-rich than the competition. </p> <p>Galbraith wants the Mozilla developer community to help solve Firefox's memory problems, and those of other applications, by creating an open source tool to make application memory garbage collection (GC) -- the process by which programs clear unneeded objects from memory -- easier to understand and manage.</p> <p>"We plan on the initial implementation of this tool to be simple," he explains. "For memory usage, we want to introduce the ability to visualize the current set of non-collectible JavaScript objects at any point in time (i.e., the heap) and give you the ability to understand why those objects aren't collectible (i.e., trace any object to a GC root). For the cycle collector, we want to give you a way to understand when a collection starts and when it finishes and thus understand how long it took." </p> <p>Firefox is still quite popular and its usage continues to grow. It captured a worldwide market share of 21.77% in February, according to Net Applications. It remains the most customizable browser, with a wide selection of plug-ins. Firefox developers are also working on technology like the Ubiquity command line interface that no other browser can yet match.</p> <p>But without fundamentals like speed and efficient memory usage, Firefox could lose ground.</p> <p>Mozilla has been slow to deliver Firefox 3.1, which was supposed to be available in December and is now scheduled for the second quarter of 2009, owning to technical issues with its TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.</p> <p>Firefox needs the speed that comes with TraceMonkey. And it needs the stability and efficiency that come with well-managed memory usage. It cannot afford to innovate at the edges while remaining bloated at the core.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/25/firefox-not-so-hot-5829674/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>memorybrowserstechfirefoxcomputersst-leonardswanderjahrehttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/25/firefox-not-so-hot-5829674/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/20/the-rise-of-the-social-network-5792091/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-20:/2009/03/20/the-rise-of-the-social-network-5792091/Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:01:33 +0100 <p>The rise of social networking sites offers people new and varied ways to communicate via the internet, whether through their PC, mobile device or phone. They allow people to create their own online page or profile and to construct and display an online network of contacts, often called ‘friends’. Users of these sites can communicate via their profile both with their ‘friends’ and with people outside their list of contacts. This can be on a one-to-one basis (much like an email), or in a more public way such as a comment posted for all to see.</p> <p>Outside communication can be observed and commented on by anyone who is part of network. This promotes additions nodes of communication and contact. Social networking sites also have some potential pitfalls to negotiate, such as the unintended consequences of publicly posting sensitive personal information, confusion over privacy settings, and contact with people one doesn’t know, but the evidence suggests that people quickly become adept at assimilating and using the necessary rules.</p> <p>Adult social networkers use a variety of sites, with the main ones being , Facebook and MySpace, although there are a variety of other including Bebo, Ning, Linkedin and many more. It is common for adults to have a profile on more than one site - on average each adult with a social networking page or profile has profiles on 1.6 sites, and 39% of adults have profiles on two or more sites. Half of all current adult social networkers say that they access their profiles at least every other day. The site people choose to use varies depending on the user. Children are more likely to use Bebo (63% of those who use a social networking site), and the most popular site for adults is Facebook (62%). There is also a difference between socio-economic groups. ABC1s with a social networking profile were more likely to use Facebook. C2DEs, who were more likely to have a profile on MySpace. Social networkers fall into distinct groups and differ in their attitudes to social networking sites and in their behaviour while using them. Ofcom’s qualitative research indicates that site users tend to fall into five distinct groups based on their behaviours and attitudes.</p> <p>These are as follows:<br> * Alpha Socialisers – people who used sites in intense short bursts to flirt, meet new people, and be entertained.<br> * Attention Seekers – people who craved attention and comments from others, often by posting photos and customising their profiles.<br> * Followers – people who joined sites to keep up with what their peers were doing.<br> * Faithfuls – people who typically used social networking sites to rekindle old friendships, often from school or university.<br> * Functionals – people who tended to be single-minded in using sites for a particular purpose.</p> <p>Non-users of social networking sites also appear to fall into distinct groups:<br> * Concerned about safety – people concerned about safety online, in particular making personal details available online.<br> * Technically inexperienced – people who lack confidence in using the internet and computers.<br> * Intellectual rejecters – people who have no interest in social networking sites and see them as a waste of time.</p> <p>The opportunities for community engagement using these platform are fairly clear: it allows a user to engage with a large number of people for little or no cost aside from the time use to create and publicise the information; accessibility is not limited by mobility; translation applications exist online so language is not necessarily an issue; BME and hard to reach groups respond positively to situations where they are in control and this platform provides an opportunity to respond from your own machine, at home; information is 'opt-in' and far more likely to be read than paper based literature.</p> <p>Many people are technologically literate but find traditional websites difficult to navigate. Social networking offers the opportunity engage using content other than simple text and pictures, third party application including maps, photo streams, RSS feeds, and links to other resources are all possible and enhance the communication experience.</p> <p>Social networks provide for a cornerstone of engagement namely giving the public the means to engage and the opportunity to engage in a time frame which suits them. There is a growing expectation that social networks will be part of the available resources, many public figures now boast a social network profile. Increasing home internet access facilitates the use of social networking sites, although potential users often have alternative points of access (for example at school or at work). Increased connection speeds and the wider availability of broadband enable richer use of the internet, including uploading as well as viewing content. The specific technology that has enabled this growth in the number and popularity of social networking sites is part of a wider online phenomenon, enabling self-expression, communication and user interaction online, known as Web 2.0.</p> <p>Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.</p> <p>The literature on social networks and political participation has generally focused on the role of social networks in mobilizing citizens to participate. Brian Adams in his paper on local democracy and social networks examined the question: once citizens decide to participate, how can they use social networks to help them achieve their political goals? Based on interviews with citizens in a mid-sized city, he argued that social networks are a political resource akin to time, money and civic skills, and that they can facilitate engagement by helping citizens achieve various political tasks.<br> The Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) is on record as saying "Social networking has the potential to revolutionise how councils engage with children and young people." It recently ran a course which "[explored] how local government can harness the potential of social networking sites to promote youth participation in the democratic process and in the delivery of children's services." (Jan 2009)</p> <p>The speed of development in technology makes it susceptible to the stalling tactics of the intellectually disinterested who hold to the idea that social networking is actually a distraction from the business of democracy rather than an aid to it. Six months ago hardly anyone used Twitter, in six months time perhaps no-one will anymore. Right now it is the social networking tool of choice for many people, a wide cross section of society that includes MPs, councillors and professionals in a variety of fields, who find the ability to micro-blog information quickly to a group of "followers" an invaluable communication and engagement tool.</p> <p>Social networking tools come and go quickly and users are becoming used to and adapting to the speed of change. This speed of change means that there’s no point waiting for the rise of a dominant form of communication. Its likely that as a society of users we will become increasingly skilled at picking and choosing those tools which best suit our needs, rejecting some in favour of others as more advanced options become available.</p> <p>One interesting feature of social networks is that they tend to blur the boundaries between personal and professional life. Many people quite like knowing where their councillor is going on holiday or what their MP is watching on TV. It makes these relationships more human and that's important in a world that is increasingly post-hierarchical and more collaborative. But it also raises some difficult issues and will make a lot of people uncomfortable. The notion of boundaries is one often used by rejecters of social networks, voicing the fear that people will come to know too much about them.</p> <p>Web based communications have a lot of advantages, low cost, quick, interactive, waste free. It has been pointed out that 35 % of households in the UK are still not online. However there are a plethora of internet sources: libraries, internet cafés and places that provide wireless access and so do much to overcome this difficulty.</p> <p>Mobile phone using 3G technology offer access and the latest generation will often be pre-configured for Face, Myspace or other social network -further proof of its perceived importance. Young people in particular are comfortable with conducting their online affairs in public places or while on the move.</p> <p>"Silver Surfers" a term applied to older members of the community for whom the internet is a relatively new experience are another developing demographic and as a group combine a high degree of civic responsibility with a desire to be kept informed, the use of social networks to facilitate this is clearly mandated.</p> <p>While some local authority ITC managers may be concerned about opening their servers to social networks, there is little to be concerned about, normal monitoring for abuse should suffice.<br> interaction between users take place online and there is no need to download client software to individual machines. The only interaction likely to be required on for example Facebook, would be the loading of a picture of the user to their profile. It is not that long ago that councils were arguing that junior members of staff did not need email or external internet access and before that telephones, since these were likely to distract from work. Since then email then has become an accepted form of communication with staff at all levels and internet access is an important information gathering resource.</p> <p>If cloud computing and browser based application become the norm there will be an increasing need to provide online access across the internet. The simplicity of the networks has promoted their popularity in a way which would have been hard to credit less than a decade ago. The general public have a growing expectation that people in the public eye will be available on social networks.</p> <p>Social network level can improve communication and are not bounded by the normal hierarchies of local government. Given the number of button social networked and, some at least, of their related applications push, in terms of providing access to minority, BME, senior and other members of the community who historical have been hard to reach it is difficult to see any reason for not implementing access to social network immediately and make the general public aware that this is happening through the PR channels.<br> Related articles by Zemanta</p> <p> * Does Google Care About Social? (thecustomercollective.com)<br> * A return to silos - the big Web 2.0 joke (inquisitr.com)<br> * Social Networking Conference Pushes Message of Customer Engagement (seomashup.blogspot.com)<br> * Could Private Social Networking Postings Be Used Against You? (lockergnome.com)<br> * 5 more fresh articles...</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/20/the-rise-of-the-social-network-5792091/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>computerssocial-networksface-bookbebotwittermyspaceoperating-systemsitwanderjahreweb-20st-leonardsmediahttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/20/the-rise-of-the-social-network-5792091/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/19/safari-4-firefox-3-1-google-chrome-internet-explorer-8-compared-5785960/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-19:/2009/03/19/safari-4-firefox-3-1-google-chrome-internet-explorer-8-compared-5785960/Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:52:29 +0100 <p class="western"><strong><a class="zem_slink" title="Safari (web browser)" rel="homepage" href="http://www.apple.com/safari/">Safari</a> 4, <a class="zem_slink" title="Mozilla Firefox" rel="geolocation" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=45.1238,-123.1138&spn=1.0,1.0&q=45.1238,-123.1138%20%28Mozilla%20Firefox%29&t=h">Firefox</a> 3.1, <a class="zem_slink" title="Google" rel="homepage" href="http://google.com/">Google</a> <a class="zem_slink" title="Google Chrome" rel="homepage" href="http://www.google.com/chrome">Chrome</a>, <a class="zem_slink" title="Internet Explorer 8" rel="homepage" href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/default.mspx">Internet Explorer 8</a> compared</strong></p> <p>Whats the best browser? Its not the easiest question to answer, but have a look at some of the notes below before you decide on your weapon of choice. for surfing the net. Each will act as your window on the web, with support <strong>Google Chrome </strong>is minimalistic. It aims for simplicity, and the interface is stripped down to bare essentials. A single text field (dubbed the &ldquo;Omnibar&rdquo;) acts as both address bar and search bar, and tabs protrude into the title bar to save space.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western">The middle ground is occupied by <strong><a class="zem_slink" title="Microsoft" rel="homepage" href="http://www.microsoft.com/">Microsoft</a>&rsquo;s Internet Explorer 8</strong> and <strong>Firefox 3.1.</strong> Outwardly, both browsers offer sober front-ends though <a class="zem_slink" title="Internet Explorer 8" rel="homepage" href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx">IE8</a> does support some interesting new technologies. <strong>Safari</strong> 4, is a veritable orchestrate of whistles and bells.Safari has two distinctive features. The first is the &ldquo;top sites&rdquo; view. When you open top sites, you&rsquo;ll see a shiny curved grid of clicka</p> <p class="zemanta-img zemanta-action-dragged"><a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/product/firefox"><img src="http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/resized/0001/3109/13109v1-max-450x450.png" alt="Image representing Firefox as depicted in Crun..." width="230" height="77"></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/">CrunchBase</a></span></p> <p>ble thumbnails enabling you to jump straight to a particular website. Safari watches your browsing habits and populates the grid with your most commonly visited sites. Safari&rsquo;s other feature is its history view Safari also gives you a visual thumbnail of each page, making it easy to spot the site you seek even if you don&rsquo;t recall its title.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western"><strong>Firefox 3.1</strong> seems almost austere. The newer version offers a new plug-in manager to make it easier to manage Firefox extensions. Firefox's approach has always been to keep the main browser relatively conservative and offer a versatile plug-in architecture to enable third parties to add extra features and visual themes - and there are hundreds of free extensions available ranging from simple file viewers to advanced networking tools and interface tweakers.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="zemanta-img zemanta-action-dragged"><a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/product/chrome"><img src="http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/resized/0002/4457/24457v1-max-450x450.png" alt="Image representing Google Chrome as depicted i..." width="165" height="75"></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/">CrunchBase</a></span></p> <p><strong>Google</strong> prefers to trickle out incremental updates, typically upgrading the software every few weeks without even alerting the user. But the main features that set Chrome apart are the Omnibar and the &ldquo;most visited&rdquo; view, though rendered more plainly and without the configuration options.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western">The last contender, <strong>Internet Explorer 8</strong> introduces some interesting new ideas: web accelerators let you send text or a link from one page directly to another web service enabling you, for example, to search, define or translate a word at the click of a button. IE8 also features a new mode called InPrivate, which enables you to send out a minimum of personal information while browsing, and to cache a minimum of received content to your hard disk.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western">Chrome: at its launch, it was able to render pages with unprecedented speed. And, more importantly, its <a class="zem_slink" title="JavaScript" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript">JavaScript</a> engine (<span>known as V8)</span> was much faster than any other browser&rsquo;s, enabling web applications to become more powerful. It remains a fast browser, but today it no longer enjoys pole position: Firefox 3.1 uses an updated rendering engine and an all-new JavaScript engine, the curiously-named <span>TraceMonkey</span>. IE8 is a long way behind the rest of the pack on speed, so feature-rich sites likely to feel less snappy and responsive.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western">RAM usage, especially if you&rsquo;re choosing a browser for use on a low-powered system such as a netbook is a big consideration. Firefox used to be a notorious memory hog, but the current version is impressively efficient. Chrome and IE8 make much greater demands. Safari is not a browser for a lightweight PC and is very RAM heavy in use.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western">Safari : FOR: Combines superfast performance with head-turning visual effects. AGAINST: Heavy on memory, and some may find the graphics irritatingly showy.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western">Chrome : FOR: A lightweight, simple and stable browser that just keeps getting better. AGAINST: Neither the fastest nor the best-featured option.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western">Firefox : FOR: Hugely extensible, with a low RAM footprint and great performance. AGAINST: Rather light on features until you mess around with third-party plug-ins.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p class="western">Internet Explorer 8 : FOR: Brings some genuinely promising new technologies to the table. AGAINST : The slowest browser for JavaScript by a large margin.</p> <p class="western"> </p> <p>Related articles by Zemanta</p> <ul class="zemanta-article-ul"> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10197411-2.html?part=rss&subj=Webware">Mozilla says next Firefox likely months away</a> (news.cnet.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/17/google-chrome-unleashes-a-speedier-beta/">Google Chrome Unleashes a Speedier Beta</a> (techcrunch.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/02/internet-explorers-browser-market-share-shrinks-because-ie6-is-finally-dying/">Internet Explorer's browser market share shrinks - because IE6 is finally dying</a> (venturebeat.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://read2know.com/browsers/apple-safari-4-beta-for-windows-and-mac-ready-for-download/">Apple Safari 4 Beta for Windows and Mac ready for Download</a> (read2know.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10171145-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware">Safari challenges Chrome on Web app speed</a> (news.cnet.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A//www.infoworld.com/article/09/02/26/Safari_4_rivals_Google_Chrome_in_JavaScript_race_1.html&a=3419067&rid=e86d6c15-c987-4c7d-b46a-6b8a06c0dc93&e=86e14b8a5c343c881b75858b9dfc7d99">Safari 4 rivals Google Chrome in JavaScript race</a> (infoworld.com)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://wanderjahreit.blogspot.com/#loading">5 more fresh articles...</a></li> </ul> <p></p> <p></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/19/safari-4-firefox-3-1-google-chrome-internet-explorer-8-compared-5785960/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>web-20windows-7operating-systemshastingscomputersst-leonardswanderjahrehttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/19/safari-4-firefox-3-1-google-chrome-internet-explorer-8-compared-5785960/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/17/stop-the-bot-5772493/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-17:/2009/03/17/stop-the-bot-5772493/Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:16:01 +0100 <p class="zemanta-img"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wlorb.png"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a0/Wlorb.png/202px-Wlorb.png" alt="20px|Windows Live Logo Live News" width="202" height="202"></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wlorb.png">Wikipedia</a></span></p> <p><span>Finding yourself as part of a </span><span>botnet</span><span> is no fun.</span> Your computer becomes your worst enemy, watching everything you do which unless you use your rig for nothing more than a quick peep at the news once a week could be very bad news indeed! So what can you do about it!</p> <p>The Associated Press, <a class="zem_slink" title="Internet security" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_security">Internet security</a> company Prevx has reported that it found a storage facility for data stolen from 160,000 computers. The storage was hosted in the Ukraine and the data included passwords, social security numbers, credit card numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and other personal. The Aladdin's cave for <a class="zem_slink" title="Identity theft" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_theft">identity theft</a> According to the report, both government and bank sites had been compromised.</p> <p>So what can you do about it? Macs seem to be safe from botnets, although not completely immune to all threats. But if you have a <a class="zem_slink" title="Windows" rel="homepage" href="http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWS">Windows</a> based machine, Prevx suggests you stay on the lookout for a slow connection botnet infection is using your connection to send or receive data. If that happens do the following:</p> <p>1. stop surfing, close your email software (<span>e.g. Outlook</span>)<br>2. open Task Manager by pressing the<span> CTRL, ALT</span> and <span>Delete</span> keys at the same time. When <span>Task</span> <span>manager</span> opens click on the Network tab and see if your <a class="zem_slink" title="Personal computer" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer">PC</a> is using the <a class="zem_slink" title="Internet" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet">internet</a> network connection, if it shows more than a few percent usage then this could be further evidence of something using your internet connection without your knowledge.<br>3 try another security product if your PC is compromised your existing security has already let you down."</p> <p>Try something like <span>RUBotted (Beta) from </span><a class="zem_slink" title="Trend Micro" rel="homepage" href="http://www.trendmicro.com">Trend Micro</a>, <span>BotHunter from SRI Internationa</span>l, or try an online virus scan with the <span>Windows Live </span><a class="zem_slink" title="Windows Live OneCare" rel="homepage" href="http://onecare.live.com">OneCare</a><span> safety scanner.</span></p> <p><a href="mailto:wanderjahreit@google.com">If you think you need more advice drop me an email.</a></p> <p>If you are one of the growing band of Twitter users, you can find me at user name <a href="http://twitter.com">wanderjahre</a></p> <p>Related articles by Zemanta</p> <ul class="zemanta-article-ul"> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A//www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/3778807/Computer-hackers-selling-stolen-Facebook-accounts-to-gangs-for-89p.html&a=2273679&rid=12bef5d4-9e47-4056-b181-abd20905fec6&e=07db03a5c6ce7b3d418b11b2cfb298ae">Computer hackers selling stolen Facebook accounts to gangs for 89p</a> (telegraph.co.uk)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/02/avg_behaviour_based_add/">AVG finally bothers with behaviour-based defences</a> (theregister.co.uk)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2237556/avg-launches-identity-theft">AVG launches identity theft protection</a> (computeractive.co.uk)</li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://teckline.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/how-to-display-your-latest-twitter-tweets-work-around-for-wpcom/">How To Display Your Latest Twitter Tweet Work Around For WP.com</a> (teckline.wordpress.com)</li> </ul> <p></p> <a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Zemified by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_c.png?x-id=12bef5d4-9e47-4056-b181-abd20905fec6" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta"></a><span class="zem-script more-related"><br> <br> </span> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/17/stop-the-bot-5772493/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>web-20operating-systemshastingsspambot-netidentity-theftsecuritytechwindowsst-leonardshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/17/stop-the-bot-5772493/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/15/jaiku-code-under-the-open-source-5758215/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-15:/2009/03/15/jaiku-code-under-the-open-source-5758215/Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:31:59 +0100 <p>Google yesterday announced that it is releasing its Jaiku code under the open source Apache license 2.0</p> <p>Google acquired the Twitter-like application in 2007, but immediately closed it to the public. Last August it came back with unlimited invites, and now finally has been the JaikuEngine has been handed over to the open source community.</p> <p>Jaikido blog last week, "JaikuEngine differs from Jaiku in a few key ways. Although core features like the website, SMS (in the US only) and IM bot still work, feed fetching and international SMS are no longer available." The new JaikuEngine will also include support for OAuth, the open standard authentication protocol that Twitter recently began experimenting with in an effort to give users more control</p> <p>Jyri Engeström, co-founder of Jaiku and now a product manager at Google, said that it's time to break out of Twitter. "There should be lots of platforms, and they should talk to each other. Jaiku doesn't do that yet, but now there's a decent chance that it soon will," he wrote on his blog.</p> <p>Twitter has made rapidl progress in the last few months and is gaining market share, the real time information sharing has been finding favour with individuals and companies alike. It will be interesting to see how Jaiku fares with the competition.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/15/jaiku-code-under-the-open-source-5758215/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>techopen-sourcecomputershttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/15/jaiku-code-under-the-open-source-5758215/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/13/the-rise-of-the-social-nervous-system-5747696/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-13:/2009/03/13/the-rise-of-the-social-nervous-system-5747696/Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:56:06 +0100 <p><a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/josh/">Joshua Michele-Ross</a> published an informed piece for Forbes Magazine called <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/09/internet-innovations-hive-technology-breakthroughs-innovations.html?feed=rss_technology">The Rise of the Social Nervous System</a>. His essential arguement is that communication is the foundation of society, business and government. The internet scales up the capacity for this communication and at the same time renders services and coordinates action from humans input. He calls this the rise of the social nervous system.</p> <p>Josh focuses on now familiar examples: the Mumbai terrorist attacks as reported real-time on twitter, the Obama campaign (and in particular, the Houdini project), and Google Flu Trends. But Josh weaves them into a powerful conclusion: </p> <p><em>"Watch the news, and you will see daily evidence of how a system that connects billions of people is influencing the physical world- from recent protests in California against Proposition 8 organized by Facebook to the riots in my hometown of Oakland after several witnesses uploaded video taken from their mobile phones of a police shooting."</em></p> <p>Josh explains that key to the Web 2.0 experience is the notion of harnessing collective intelligence; examples of this can be seen in the way that wikipedia allows user generated content, or the way in which Amazon stays ahead of its competitors with the plethora of ways that users can contribute to their website and how that data is then used. But these effect are no longer limited to cyberspace and have an impact on real world activity.</p> <p> Josh points out that these effects are not limited to cyberspace, but are used to control and coordinate real-world activity. This is the new frontier, moving from "sensing" to "reacting," from "cognition" to "coordination" and group action. </p> <p>Many of the most successful Web 2.0 system derived their success from implicit rather than explicit data, the contribution made by simply clicking a link from one site to another that is recorded and used by Google to affect page ranking. One of the questions which Web 2.0 writers are struggling to answer is how far does this interaction go. When buy by credit card, we don't think we are contributing, but software at the bank, the merchant, and our personal finance application is listening to that credit card reader.</p> <p>Those applications will share and sense not just words passed from human to human across services like Twitter, or our search behavior but sounds, pictures, and increasingly, data from senses that unaided humans don't possess at all, or less precisely: a sense of precise location, or the rate of speed at which we move, the power we consume, the carbon we emit, the approaching weather, the state of the financial markets, the unique sequence of our genome, or even the way we smell. </p> <p><em><strong>The next great fortunes will be made by the people who discover how to build a system that reacts to one of the internet's new senses. </strong></em></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/13/the-rise-of-the-social-nervous-system-5747696/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>techsoical-nervous-systemcomputerscivil-libertiesweb-20twitterhttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/13/the-rise-of-the-social-nervous-system-5747696/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/12/the-voice-of-google-5744125/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-12:/2009/03/12/the-voice-of-google-5744125/Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:50:31 +0100 <p>Google has released a mobile phone service called <strong>Google Voice</strong> that converts voicemails into emails, potentially stepping on the toes of companies such as Spinvox. The new service will enable a person to store transcripts of voicemail phone messages in their email inbox. These messages are fully searchable. This is another move by the internet giant to move away from its more traditional products and into related Web 2.0 fusion areas.</p> <p>Google Voice is based on <em>Grand Central Communications </em>technology bought by Google in July 2007. The new version uses speech-recognition technology that automatically changes voicemails into text. The messages can then be forwarded as an email or SMS text message.</p> <p>It is unclear how Google Voice will fit into Google's business model, which relies on advertisers to provide 97 per cent of the company's revenue, advertising placement would be difficult to say the least. Other than a feature that bills users when they make long-distance phone calls, the product has no immediate means of generating revenue. Google are saying the new application wil be available to existing Grand Central users on Thursday and to the general public in the following weeks and the smart money suggests that the long term aim is to keep people on the Google sites for longer.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/12/the-voice-of-google-5744125/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>entertainmentgoogle-voicecomputerstechemail-to-smsithastingsst-leonardsgooglehttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/12/the-voice-of-google-5744125/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/11/dual-booting-xp-and-ubuntu-8-5735171/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-11:/2009/03/11/dual-booting-xp-and-ubuntu-8-5735171/Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:31:20 +0100 <p>I was in Bournemouth over the weekend, dual booting my daughters' rig. The plan was to have both <strong>Windows XP </strong>and <a href="http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/"><strong>Ubuntu Linux hardy Heron 8.04</strong></a> on a 250gig hard drive. Like most students, she was not the best when it comes to keeping her machine up to date and a recent remote session had lead to five hours of disk defragging, registry cleaning and general spring cleaning.</p> <p>When it comes to partitioning, XP has very few built in tools and anyone planning to work on the drive would do well to get hold of a custom paritioning tool. I settled on <a href="http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php"><strong>Gparted Live</strong></a>, a useful utility on a Live CD. Insert the CD boot the rig and Gparted boots to RAM; offering a handy selection of partitioning tools. I hived off 50gigs for the new drive and then installed Ubuntu.</p> <p>Hardy Heron is pretty good on dual instals and will recognise the existence of your Windows partition and offer to migrate your documents over to the new install. Earlier versions of Ubuntu don't have support for NTFS. <span>(<em>There is a later version 8.10 and Ubuntu release twice a year on a six month cycle but traditionally only the April (04) version is LTS - Long term support. The October (10) version will often have bugs and other problems which will be resolved by the Ubuntu community by the time of the next April release</em>.)</span></p> <p>XP does not play nice with other operating systems. It will expect itself to be installed at the beginning of the hard drive, when dual booting, you save yourself a lot of bother and editing if you install XP first.</p> <p>Take some time to understand what you are doing - accepting all Ubuntu's defaults during an install will probably delete your Windows partition. Recently, in a well known computer magazine an angry reader complained that a dual install had trashed his windows install, it soon became obvious this person had read the dos and don'ts and focused entirely on the don'ts. In his desire to install Linux he had completely reformatted his hard drive including the hidden partition with restore files! Use Gparted to have a look at the hard drive <span><strong>before</strong></span> you start. Spend some time understanding what you are doing and you could have Ubuntu up and running in an hour, including partitioning time.</p> <p>Hardy Heron includes support for NTFS, so once you have installed you'll be able to see your Windows partition and access your files (<strong>"Places"</strong> then look for <em>Media</em>) I find this a big plus since the migration tool may not pull in all the files depending on where they have been filed. It will also see your USB hard drives and network shares.</p> <p>If you are running a standard Live CD, you'll need access to the internet and need to download updates and additional software for DVD playing, MP3s and any graphics card you may have. This can be time consuming and bad news if you are on a limited download allowance. I get round this by having a customised DVD version ready to install with everything you need to get you up and running including support for MP3, the social networking browser Flock other goodies.. These are available from me for £2.50 including post and packaging. <em>Good luck with partitioning if you need advice  or the Linux DVD drop me an email</em> <a href="mailto:wanderjahreIT@googlemail.com">Click here</a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/11/dual-booting-xp-and-ubuntu-8-5735171/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>st-leonardsoperating-systemstechhastingsntfscomputersubuntulinuxgparteddual-boothttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/11/dual-booting-xp-and-ubuntu-8-5735171/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/11/microsoft-patchwork-5734820/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-11:/2009/03/11/microsoft-patchwork-5734820/Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:15:09 +0100 <p>Microsoft released three Security Bulletins addressing eight separate vulnerabilities on Tuesday. One critical and two important. MS09-006 ("critical") resolves a vulnerability in the Windows kernel. The flaw could allow remote code execution if a user views a maliciously crafted EMF or WMF image file. </p> <p>MS09-006 resolves a vulnerability in the Windows kernel. The flaw could allow remote code execution if a user views a maliciously crafted EMF or WMF image file - critical</p> <p>MS09-007 addresses a vulnerability in the Secure Channel (SChannel) security package in Windows. If exploited, it could allow spoofing, provided the attacker gains access to an end-user authentication certificate - important</p> <p>MS09-008 fixes vulnerabilities in the Windows DNS server and Windows WINS server. If exploited, these vulnerabilities could allow network traffic hijacking - important. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/11/microsoft-patchwork-5734820/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>st-leonardsoperating-systemsvulnerabiitiescomputerssecuritycriticalpowerpointitwndowswordexcelkerneltechpatchhastingshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/11/microsoft-patchwork-5734820/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/07/windows-7-the-big-turn-off-a-big-turn-on-5711654/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-07:/2009/03/07/windows-7-the-big-turn-off-a-big-turn-on-5711654/Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:22:13 +0100 <p><a href="http://www.wanderjahre.co.uk">Wanderjahre IT</a><em><strong> </p> <p>It turns out it is not just Internet Explorer that users will be able to turn off in Windows 7. Microsoft have said that users will have the option of disabling a number of features of the operating system.</strong></em></p> <p>Microsoft say there will be number of things that user can turn off, these include: <em>Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, the XPS Viewe</em>r and several others. </p> <p>Microsoft are staying quiet on what role, if any, regulatory issues played in the decision to expand the number of turn-offs but, a number of the programs are things that have been criticised in the past, such as the browser and media player, as well as the XPS technology which has been seen as a rival to Adobe's PDF.</p> <p>Microsoft has also stripped several programs out of the operating system compeletly! The photo gallery, e-mail, and movie-making programs will now only be available as downloads. </p> <p>The general response to Win7 has been positive and it seems that Microsoft are keen to get rid of the bad taste in the mouth that is Vista. Win 7 is shaping into the OS that Microsoft probably should have shipped instead of Vista and could be the salvation of the Redmond boys and girls. They certainly hope so!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/07/windows-7-the-big-turn-off-a-big-turn-on-5711654/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>hastingswanderjahrewindows-7techoperating-systemsst-leonardscomputershttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/07/windows-7-the-big-turn-off-a-big-turn-on-5711654/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/05/website-stories-5696762/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-05:/2009/03/05/website-stories-5696762/Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:41:14 +0100 <p><span><em><strong>Many people come up with ideas for websites that they never get round to executing. Some never get as far as ordering a website hosting service others get their website up but abandon it, despite having spent both time and money on the project. If you are thinking about starting your own site, I've got a few ideas which will help.</strong></em></span></p> <p><strong>1. Be clear about what you want!</strong> Before you shell out your hard earned money on a website and hosting look around. There are plenty of options out there for quickly put together web options, so have a look at blogs, social networks, Twitter, Flickr, Jalbum and all the other ways of getting online fast and at no cost (at least for the basic version of the service.)</p> <p><strong>2. Make sure you set a budget</strong> - and don't go above it. Cost in all the things that will be involved including the off-site expensives. If you are planning to link your site to say, Ebay, consider the costs of using their selling service, the cost of postage and packing and the costs associated with stationery. There may be other factors to be considered so make sure you sit down, work out the costs and do not end up spending more than you make. Something that happens more often then you might expect!</p> <p><strong>3. KISS (Keep it simple, stupid!)</strong>  A lot of people have ideas that tend to add in everything they can think of. This is usually a recipe for disaster. If your site is a rainbow of colour and a melange of style, take it down, do some research and do it again. I know one well meaning soul who regularly produces site of such eye-watering design and layout that visiting requires sunglasses and transquilisers! Keep your website design simple and make sure you have enough content to keep your website going. Avoid doing complex stuff right from the start like adding video features or twelve sub-categories of news items, doing too much too soon is one quick way down the road to have a site that is either abandoned as too complicated or become impossible to navigate. If the aim is to have people, makes sure they don't get lost. </p> <p><strong>4. Encourage criticism, </strong>Especially the useful stuff, bad coding, typographical errors and paragraphs which don't make sense. Avoid the naysayers and the it will never work crowd. Someone probably told the Facebook inventors they were wasting their time as well.</p> <p><strong>5. The content of your site needs to interest you</strong>. If its a boring subject you are unlikely to want to update it and your visitors will see that in the site.</p> <p><strong>6. Biggest is not best.</strong> In these cash conscious times, give some serious thought to what you actually need as a hosting plan. How much space do you really need, how many email addresses? Choose what you need, you can always expand later as the site takes off.</p> <p><strong>7. Design your site so you can update easily</strong>. If you are coding in HTML a simple site will be easier to update. It may sound stupid to professional, but make sure all your pages are based on a standard template; images come from one source and sizes are limited to 2 or 3 different fonts - which are supported by browsers. Remember your custom Harry Potter font will only work if the other person has it as well. Do your research and stick to web-safe fonts. </p> <p><strong>8. Feed me!  </strong>Websites are like the carnivous plant in "Little Shop of Horrors and they need constant feeding with new stuff. RSS feeds from news sites are one way to keep it fresh, but every now and then get in their do the website equivalent of weeding and planting some new flowers!</p> <p><strong>9. Best practice.</strong> In the business world best practice is about finding the things that other people are doing and copying them to your own business. If a site has something that could be adapted to your benefit use. But don't just rip off what the other guy is doing, take some time to customise it to your own needs.</p> <p><strong>10. Enjoy it!</strong> If you don't, if its a chore ask yourself do I really want to be doing this?  If you can't come up with a good answer, walk away.</p> <p>If you need advice or help with setting up a site <a href="mailto:wanderjahreIT@googlemail.com">email</a> me or contact me through my website <a href="http://www.wanderjahre.co.uk">www.wanderjahre.co.uk</a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/05/website-stories-5696762/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>best-practicetechhtmlwebsitesbusinesshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/05/website-stories-5696762/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/03/cyberbully-5688630/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-03:/2009/03/03/cyberbully-5688630/Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:01:59 +0100 <p>If you are getting messages to the effort that adding someone to your list of friends will result in your computer being taken over like some badly made 1950's horror movie, you can relax it ain't going to happen! What you are being drawn into when you pass these messages on is what's known as 'cyberbullying’ (or what one geek has termed 'Social Network Abuse')</p> <p>Here's one example of how Social Network Abuse can and often does work...Bill has a problem with Ted Bill and Ted share social networks and use many of the same on-line applications like MySpace and Facebook, including some chat rooms. Almost every social media application has some sort of ‘flagging’ option. Bill ‘flags’ every single one of Ted’s posts, and gets his friends to do the same, despite whether Ted’s posts are inappropriate or threatening violence. Bill is trying to get Ted automatically banned from the service which will be triggered by the flag count reaching a certain level whether Ted is guilty or not! This is a form of personal Denial of Service (DOS)</p> <p>Another example of a personal DoS is email abuse. Bill can send out an anonymous email to everyone stating that Ted is a hacker and that he should be blocked on all services. This type of email plays on fears that media escalate about the supposed danger of the internet, so it can turn viral quickly. Its having the message passed to as many people as possible which is the aim of the cyberbully.</p> <p>On Facebook and MySpace be on the look out for something reading a little like this: “If somebody called XXXXXXXX adds you to their facebook/myspace/bebo etc account/invites you to be their friend DON’T accept it because it’s a hacker. Tell everyone on your list because if somebody on yours adds them, you get them on your list and he’ll figure out your ID computer addesss. So copy and paste this message to everyone even if you don’t like them and fast..because if he hacks their mail, he hacks yours”</p> <p>This then gets passed around sometimes for years eating up resources and generally worrying people who are not tech savvy. Its practically impossible to access your social network accounts with this way. I say practically because if you post sufficient information about yourself; invite lots of people to view that information; and use some of it as the basis for passwords etc then you could be in trouble. Anyone who uses their telephone or birthday as their password and posts that information to their account is looking for trouble! But of course you don't...?</p> <p>Facebook is rife with these so called warnings and the wise user ignores. Don't forward them however much FB encourages you to do so. Its a waste of time and may one day result in a court case or two...</p> <p>You have been warned, but don't tell everyone?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/03/cyberbully-5688630/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>techfacebookcomputersmyspaceweb-20social-networkshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/03/cyberbully-5688630/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/01/my-twitter-front-page-5673447/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-01:/2009/03/01/my-twitter-front-page-5673447/Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:39:22 +0100 <p><a title="Screenshot-1" href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/screenshot_1/3278343"><img src="http://data5.blog.de/media/343/3278343_33169a2958_s.png" alt="Screenshot-1" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="347" height="352"></a><br>Rather pleased to get my Twitter site up and running with this rather nice front page.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/01/my-twitter-front-page-5673447/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>sciencerecommendedst-leonardssocial-networkstwittertechweb-20hastingsmobilecomputersentertainmentwanderjahrehttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/01/my-twitter-front-page-5673447/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/01/arm-demos-slim-low-power-netbook-prototypes-5670119/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-03-01:/2009/03/01/arm-demos-slim-low-power-netbook-prototypes-5670119/Sun, 01 Mar 2009 09:32:49 +0100 <p><a href="http://videos.zdnet.co.uk/260632244.htm"><a href="http://videos.zdnet.co.uk/260632244.htm">http://videos.zdnet.co.uk/260632244.htm</a></a></p> <p>Would have embedded the video, but for some reason the blog editor was not happy about that.</p> <p> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/01/arm-demos-slim-low-power-netbook-prototypes-5670119/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>entertainmenthastingswanderjahresocial-networksmediaweb-20computershttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/03/01/arm-demos-slim-low-power-netbook-prototypes-5670119/#commentshttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/02/28/wanderjahre-s-first-and-last-epistle-to-the-facebook-community-5665637/tag:webhead.blog.co.uk,2009-02-28:/2009/02/28/wanderjahre-s-first-and-last-epistle-to-the-facebook-community-5665637/Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:02:53 +0100 <p>Taken from Cook's first epistle to the Face Book comunity Chapter 1, verse 1-3</p> <p>Hello all!</p> <p>I bring pre-Xmas good cheer to you all from the Geek at the seaside, having received my umpteenth warning about a virus/trojan/rootkit/ boy/girl genius hacker, I thought I would just slip on my anorak and send out words of comfort to all those Facebookers who have been so worried that their machines and those of their friends will be reduced to so much beige colour plastic if those evil genii get their mitts on them – then changed my mind and decided to opt for the full on rant...are you sitting comfortably, no me neither, think its these trousers...!</p> <p>So if you get an email/attachment/invite/postcard/smoke signal or ethereal message from the unknown realms, 99 times out of 100 you can feel free to open it, ignore, ponder its unearthly meaning or laugh at the foolish American with no fear of crashing your hard drive, taking over your address and emailing information to all your friends about your love life or links with known terrorists groups; inviting all your mates to sign up for the 'Glen Miller appreciation page' on MySpace or causing your PC to immediately disassemble itself, pack the bits neatly and return them to the manufacturer.</p> <p>Despite the assertions of various big budget films and small minded TV shows its actually quite hard to 'hack' into a PC and do any real damage - always assuming of course that you the user have decent and updated anti-virus (which of course you all have...haven't you?) and a firewall set to block all the usual ports – and the software will know which one these are.. There is, however, some danger in opening attachments from people you have never heard especially if the said attachment has a file ending with something like .exe, .scr or .bin - opening these from an unknown source is not dissimilar to covering yourself in gravy, plaiting your hair with Antelope burgers and climbing into a lions cage at feeding time.</p> <p>Most warnings about how, if you let Mr X into your on-line life you will find yourself the helpless victim of his extraordinary 'hacking' prowess are complete myths, their purpose is to either get Mr X kicked off one forum or another or to simply spread the warning around the net as far as possible - big clue here, the warning always claim to be genuine and tell you to tell all your friends. They want to see their warnings spread as far as possible. Are these people idiots? In the words of Churchill, the insurance dog. 'Oh yes!'</p> <p>There *are* viruses on Facebook, the 'Storm worm' is one that springs to mind, but it needs you to actually click a link which is an .exe file and takes you to an external site and no one would be silly enough to do that, would they! Hmm....seems to have gone a bit quiet out there...</p> <p>So a few tips</p> <p> 1. if you get a warning about a virus, check in out before you pass it on - <a href="http://www.snopes.com">www.snopes.com</a> is an excellent site for this.</p> <p> 2. Ignore spam email, if you click the 'take me off the list' link, you have just told the spammer this is an active email address, expect invites to buy Viagra and Rolexes soon!</p> <p> 3. Official organisations seldom ask for personal information by email! Seldom in this sense is defined as never, if your bank or similar does - find another bank.</p> <p> 4. Be wary of pictures and other files from unknown sources and watch for those with .exe endings.</p> <p> 5. Never give bank details or similar out on the internet, its highly unlikely that any bank would ask for these details. If you are asked, ignore the email link and go to the site by typing in the URL in the address bar, look for a URL that starts 'https:// that 's' is important it means the site is secure.</p> <p> 6. If you are not sure what you are doing, don't do it. If in doubt ask. Lots of geeks about the place, myself included, who will be happy to help. You may have to put up with sentences which includes acronyms like SSH and TCIP and possibly even some references to operating system architecture but at least your computer will be safe. </p> <p>OK so rant over, but the number of these warnings is getting silly..So with a little caution and a lot of common sense we can all rest easy in our bed knowing that tomorrow our is another day for us and our computer...</p> <p><em><strong>PS: Amazingly Facebook tagged this message as possible spam and suggested I send a nice picture instead....sigh!</strong></em> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/02/28/wanderjahre-s-first-and-last-epistle-to-the-facebook-community-5665637/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>computersweb-20wanderjahretechsocial-networksscienceentertainmenthttp://webhead.blog.co.uk/2009/02/28/wanderjahre-s-first-and-last-epistle-to-the-facebook-community-5665637/#comments