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Platinax Internet >> Platinax Internet News
« September 2004 | Main | November 2004 » October 29, 2004PC World, flash memory sticks, and customer serviceMy mum has been badgering myself to get a memory stick. As I've got a friend's wedding over the weekend, getting a good memory card for journeying seems like a good idea. So I drove to PC World to check them out. After looking around I asked a sales rep where I could find memory sticks. He pointed myself to a kiosk and stated that they were in a cabinet there and he wandered off. I came to the kiosk and didn't immediately see them so I asked abother rep a short way off. He redirected myself there, and pointed out that the cabinat was around the corner from it, then wandered off. I got to the cabinet - it was locked. I figure that the staff didn't expect myself to smash the glass just to look at the packaging and find out what a memory stick is, and whether a USB 2 one is fully compatatible with a USB 1 port. So I asked another member of staff putting out software boxes on the next kiosk. He found a security guard to open the cabinet, told me USB 2 would be fine with USB 1, and handed myself a box for a 1 Gigabyte and 512 Megabyte flash memory sticks. Getting a price at the till, the 1 Gigabyte memory stick was over what I planned to budget. However, the 512 MB memory stick was in a box in appalling condition - it looked as if it had been left in the rain and then kicked about. The packaging was battered and very poor quality. I hadn't yet asked the staff member what the "40 times faster!" claim on the 1 GB memory stick meant, but he'd already wandered off, leaving myself with an unknown product, a broken box, and a security guard who figured he may as well just lock up the cabinet again. Let's recap - 3 staff members considered it more important to do something else but sell myself a product, and when I did have a product in my hands, the cashier expected myself to be happy with a smashed up box. Did the memory stick still work? She told me if it didn't I could bring it back. Sure, like I want to chase PC World just to get a working product. I left the shop pretty disgusted, without making a sale, and went next door to Currys. Their sales staff are also variable, but when I finally found a member of staff, he talked to me, and answered a few simple questions on the product without wnadering off. I purchased a memory stick, some blank CD's, and a camera battery - just under ��100. I constantly find it incredible when big brand retailers depend on low-trained minimum wage staff to represent their interests. In my opinion, well-trained staff who believe in what they are doing, and care about what they are doing, are absolutely essential to make sales. I should never have been allowed to go into a retailed such as PC world, looking to buy a product they had, only to leave dissatisfied. Staff should have considered it more important to take myself to a locked cabinet, see it unlocked, and then answer a few simple questions - rather than wander off or put software on the shelves. The fact that it took requests to 3 staff and a security guard, just to be handed a tattered product, shows a most appalling failure of business method, marketing practice, and sales strategy. I certainly won't be looking to PC World for my next PC, nor future peripherals. (Feel free to enter the forum discussion on Customer Service.) Posted at 03:05 PM
October 27, 2004What the Google Sandbox looks likeThere's a lot of discussion still about the Google Sandbox - is it a new phenomenon, is it related to LocalRank, or is it entirely in the collective imaginations of a few link builders? I've done SEO for a couple of years now - though I only went commercial early in 2004. However, I've had results I could not expect nor explain according to my prior experience. The mooted Google Sandbox, as escribed here: The Google Sandbox: the definitive guide led myself to believe I was seeing exactly the same phenomenon. In fact, after reading about it, I was able to make an exact prediction of when two of my first clients would suddenly be out of the Google Sandbox and impact the SERPs. Here's an example, using a screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet record (with sensitive information removed). It overs 18 keyword phrases, and the link building for them began in March. Yet it was not until June that the rankings impacted - and then they seemed to impact all at once. I though it looked like a Sandbox effect. You're welcome to make your own judgement from this graphic:
Posted at 12:50 PM
Worldpay Customer Management System updateTomorrow, Worldpay will released an enhanced CMS and Callback systems for merchant, which will allow access to more information and better management of it, as well as request action from WorldPay over specified orders. Changes:Transaction Confirmation Email - more Shopper details When a shopper makes a purchase, the transaction confirmation email sent to you contains details about the shopper. After October 28th, the standard email sent will be enhanced to include the shopper's: Remittance (or Settlement) Invoice Email - copy available
Callback - more information upon failure When a callback to your server fails, you will now receive more information in the details that we send to you. After October 28th, the Callback Failure Email will contain attached files, showing: Select Pro/Select COM users only:Before Live - initialise your own installation
Posted at 12:32 PM
October 26, 2004Suspicious card behaviourAnyone who has any small degree of control over their merchant gateway will know that there are two main areas through which fraud can be detected. The first is incorrect card details - but a problem here is that the international banking system does not support the full billing address. And a number of circumstances can set up a red flag on the order when none is required. For example, sometimes the country of origin for the card does not match the billing address country - which will happen if a Canadian citizen pays from a US bank account. Another indicator of possible fraud is unusual card usage. In short, if a card is suddenly used more frequently and for higher cost orders, the activity is noted as suspicious and may set up a warning besides an order. Yesterday evening I received a call from my bank looking to investigate how my Switch card was being used. The truth of the matter is simply that - after months of frugality - I allowed myself a little spending spree for new clothing for the family. Add to that a few bills at once - and all on top of general business and personal/family expenditure - and you have a pattern of card use the bank considered worth investigating further. I'm certainly happy to be approached and such security issues looked at- obviously, it's for my own protection. I just sincerely hope that it doesn't impact my current payments - I have a lot of orders on recurring billing, and it would certainly not be pleasant to find any number of them bounced due to warning flags for suspicious card activity. So far so good. :)
Posted at 09:12 AM
DDI HostingDDI Hosting - the troubled hosting company I reported on in DDI Hosting again and How not to run a webhosting business has finally been bought out - by Steve Empie of Frontier Networks. The deal was concluded 5pm EST, and sees the servers - which had been held as unpaid for by GNAX - transferred entirely under Steve's administration. The existing accounts are expected to be migrated to the CPC Data Center once existing matters with GNAX are fully settled. Most importantly, this sees client accounts remain online, rather than GNAX or CPC pulling the plug on the servers. A good way to run a hosting business? It certainly wasn't before - but hopefully now DDI Hosting clients can have proper peace of mind that they have three different companies looking after their accounts, and will be taking all matters to e-mail to correct outstanding issues.
Posted at 08:50 AM
October 25, 2004DDI hosting: againI reported before on the issue of DDI hosting, and used it as an illustration of miscommunication in action within a business enviroment. The situation does not seem to have become any clearer, with multiple providers becoming caught up in the mess that was created. The topic is discussed in more detail on this thread at WebhostingTalk: DDI: where's pegasus? It seems that Larry Stevens has now sold his interests in DDI Hosting to other providers, and bdsnyder provides an excellent summary of what is reported to have happened in this thread here: My "now deleted" DDI thread is IN THE NEWS ! Steve Empie, of Surfspeedy, is also quoted in the thread, making a point I should have iterated before that Surf Speedy do not actually own or operate DDI Hosting. Steve Empie made this public statement: I attempted to purchase a portion of Digital Dreams Corporation but the contract was breached. I never signed on to the incorporating of a new company either. It also appears that James of CPCHosting.net is trying to salvage the remaining DDI clients and ensure their websites remain online, after allegedly being owed a significant amount of body by the prior owners. All in all, the entire issue looks like an appalling example of poor client communication by the previous owners. I simply hope that existing DDI Hosting clients will enjoy better communication from now on, and best of luck to all concerned. Posted at 04:17 PM
Dealing with ripped website designsI mentioned before about the issues of copyright regarding forum posts. When it comes to website design, through, issues are usually a lot more straightforward. In many instances, where there is a clear violation of copyright, then a polite e-mail to the site owner pointing out the problem goes a long way. I've done this a couple of times where my site designs have been completely plagiarised - as per this thread: Site ripped - then link exchange request!. If that doesn't work, then the webhost behind the site is liable for any DMCA violation (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) - so an e-mail to the webhost will, in most cases, end the matter completely. The complicated part comes from persons who lease their servers directly from the datacenters. This is precisely the hosting situation I had for forum2 in the previous discussion regarding forum post copyrighting. And it may well require actual proof of a DMCA violation before a datacenter is willing to unplug paid for server. If the admin owners of forum1 and forum2 in the prior example had not settled the matter between themsevlves, then with no upstream provider to pull the plug on the issue, we could may well have seen the issue fought out in the courts, and the necessary legal precedent established after a few years of lawyer pay enrichment. All the more reason to be happy to see such issues resolved. :) Luckily, website designs are much less a contentious issue - a website either runs a unique template, or a public purchased template. So there is far less ambiguity on such issues. If you do find your website ripped, though, do keep calm about it. Take it first as a compliment, and then accept that there's a good chance you can resolve the issue either directly through the site admin, or else through the site webhosting company. Keep e-mails polite and to the point - simply state your contention. Don't threaten legal action - simply state that you hope that the person(s) addressed with take responsible corrective action, so that you will not need to take the matter any further. In most cases, you should see a satisfactory resolution relatively quickly. If not, simply keep the polite e-mails going until you are finally satisfied that copyrighted elements - graphics or text - have been removed. Do remember, though, that HTML is open source, so you cannot sue for a site having a similar style. Posted at 03:50 PM
Who owns forum posts?I had a matter to deal with this weekend, that involved posts from one forum being reprinted on another forum. The problem being, that the admin of forum1 did not at all give permission for the admin of forum2 to reprint the material - which the owner of forum1 was claiming copyright for. My problem was that I was hosting forum2, so was caught up in the argument. I've had to look into copyrighting issues as part of being an aspiring writer, but I still have a very imperfect understanding of copyright. Part of that understanding is that anybody's writings are copyrighted to themselves - and that forum owners are simply republishing that material under a non-exclusive license - unless clearly agreed to as otherwise in a user agreement (not in a footer copyright notice). However, as raised in the Who do forum posts belong to? thread on the Platinax Community Forums, the issues regarding copyrighting of posts is still unclear. The reality of the matter seems to be that there is as yet no clear legal precedent made on the matter, and therefore until there is, then the issue will remain vague and uncertain. As for the original contention between forum1 and forum2 - they reached an agreement, not least because fighting over the issue was not going to benefit anybody. Which I am thoroughly glad about.
Posted at 03:28 PM
Business 2 BusinessI had to leave the house and go see the solicitors. I've a wedding to go to next week, so I figured I'd stop off at a leather jacket shop just before the solicitor's office itself. I tried various jackets, the owner recommended one that I wouldn't normally have tried, but which fitted perfectly and looked great as well. After buying, he must have wondered why this scruffy studently-looking person didn't seem to give a shrug about spending a couple of hundred on a leather jacket. He asked what I did and I mentioned I was in internet marketing - the promotion of websites. His eyes lit up - he's got a secondary business interest selling kebab and takeaway hardware, and the website is already being built, and being high in search engines for keywords seemed exactly what he was looking for. So I gave him a business card (I always have around 20 in my wallet) and continued on. At the solicitors we discussed a certainly family matter I'm having to deal with. At the end of it, the solicitor just idly asked what I actually did for a living. I mentioned about working to get people results on search engines. She was intrigued - the owner of the law firm was very into computers and the internet, and they already had a website... I handed her my business card. Funny old world, isn't it? Point is, if you are a sole trader or small business like myself, then you are your business. Everywhere you go, your business walks with you, whether you like it or not. I'm not a great salesman - in fact, I'm a completely rubbish salesman, who loves the technical challenges of my job, not the direct sales angle. When people ask what I do for a living I am purposefully vague and dismissive. Still, if the topic arises, I'll enthuse about what I do if it's a natural part of the conversatron. I won't go out of my way to sell myself, though. So, it's nice to see how on a day when I went out to purchase other people's services, I came away with two very real sales leads for myself. I think I like business 2 business. :) Posted at 03:12 PM
October 22, 2004UK SEO trade association: SMA UKA trade association for UK SEO's has been launched: The Search Marketing Association. Currently it's headed by Barry Lloyd, and supported by names such as Mike Grehan and Ammon Johns. I spoke with each of them at September's SEO Roadshow in London, and the idea was already gaining momentum then, so it's great to see it become a reality, especially when there has been so much uncertainty and stinging criticism of SEMPO, an organisation created in the US apparently to support and promote SEO good practice. I've signed up for the newsletter and will no doubt join - I have great respect for the people involved - not simply because they are very experienced in the field of search marketing, but also because there is a very real will expressed in getting a very real, active, and practical association for SEO running in the UK. And here's a copy of the press release:
More information here:
Posted at 10:29 PM
Ebay: from strength to strengthThe BBC carries an interesting analysis of EBay, looking at the company growth, marketing strengths, and past weaknesses, and reveals a company that moves from strengthn to strength and posting profits that prove it. A short history is covered:
1995 Mr Omidyar sells his first item - his own broken laser pointer - for $14 1997 Meg Whitman joins eBay 1999 Sets up in the UK, Germany 1999 Site crashes for 22 hours 2000 Sets up in Japan (pulls out 5 months later) 2001 Overtakes Amazon as the most visited e-commerce site 2001 Moves into China 2002 Buys online payment service PayPal 2002 Pulls out of Japan 2004 moves into South Korea and India, giving it a foothold in 29 international markets
Posted at 01:34 PM
PC Hijack for PhishingAccording to Ciphertrust, and as reported by the BBC reports, desktop PCs are being hijacked to allow phishing attacks to originate from Zombie PC's. It's hardly a surprising move - use of trojans and spyware and other security exploits have real money behind them and are no longer the school yard for script kiddies. T When phishing can lead to complete access to user banking details, it opens the door to wide-spread fraud, so the setting up of zombie networks - networks of PCs infected for use in such attacks - a viable commercial project. As reported at the BBC: Cyber conmen 'hijack desktop PCs' "Phishing attacks represent a collaboration of the world's most skilled hackers and organised crime," said Paul Judge, chief technology officer at Ciphertrust. Posted at 01:28 PM
Yahoo! buys Stats e-mailLooks as if Yahoo! like the model that Google use with GMail - Yahoo! have now bought up a private company called Stata Labs, which uses software to provide relevant context-based ads in e-mails. As reported at CNet: Yahoo has quietly purchased e-mail software company Stata Labs, in what could be an investment in a coming PC search tool to rival Google and Microsoft. Posted at 01:24 PM
Microsoft IstanbulMicrosoft continues to try and strengthen it's product ranges in the commercial sector, by improving corporate instant messaging that synchornises with Outlook, not least the calendar and scheduling information. Currently code-named "Istanbul", it will only run if installed with LCS 2005, which allows the instant messaenging clients of Yahoo!, AOL, as well as Microsoft, to all work together. As reported here: New life for Microsoft's enterprise IM Microsoft on Tuesday announced enhancements to its corporate instant-messaging service that will weave in features commonly found in the company's Outlook email software.
Posted at 01:18 PM
Dirac: Open source media playerThis month the BBC has been giving low-key demonstrations of an open-source video compression project that could see Windows Media Player seriously rivalled. Named Dirac, the codec is still in the alpha stage and isn;t expected to be available as a beta until Autumn 2005. Founded three years ago by lead developer Dr Thomas Davies, Dirac is one of those projects you will definitely want to keep an eye on, as the open source movement continues to strengthen itself on the home PC and internet. Posted at 01:13 PM
Amazon posts profits, shares dropAmazon is the sort of company most online entrepenuers can only dream of building. It's shown what good vision and hard work can bring to internet business, despite the hype of the dotcom boom bust years. As a long-term shares investment, it looks juicy. As reported by CNet news: Amazon.com on Thursday posted quarterly earnings that more than tripled on strong international sales but offered an outlook for the current quarter and next year that was below the more bullish analyst forecasts, sending its stock down 8 percent.
Still, all good for the long-term investor. Posted at 12:59 PM
Firefox fans payIn a remarkably aggressive move involving open source software, Spread Firefox is looking for donations to put a full-page ad in the New York times. Firefox 1.0 is coming soon, let's keep building momentum and fill the ad -- the first-ever, full-page advertisement in a major daily newspaper created and paid for by the open source community. The sign-up includes:
As if Internet Explorer wasn't a big enough advertisement for using Mozilla Firefox. :) Five million Firefoxes released into the wild James Governor, an analyst at Red Monk, said that it is not just Web users that are interested in Firefox. software vendors are also showing an interest. "For the last seven years ISVs generally supported IE only, now that�fs changing," said Governor. "We are starting to see ISVs developing Web applications which support both IE and Firefox." Hardly surprising considering the long-suffering security problems that Internet Explorer doggedly suffers from. Kudos to whoever is paying the bandwidth fees for Mozilla, though. :) Posted at 12:52 PM
October 20, 2004From desktop to network?John Battelle speculates on the future of Google's desktop search, and considers the possibility of Google merging its Desktop Search with Orkut, to produce a network of "mircosites" running from Google HTTP servers. It's certainly not hard to imagine Google developing technology from Orkut and creating it's own network that people would effectively build from their own PCs. When you add Blogger to the mix... Now there's something to think about. Posted at 06:15 PM
ICANN rules to changeKieth Barrit of the International Trademark Association, reminds us in the INTA Bulletin that new ICANN rules are only weeks away. The first issue is that domains that are registered with false or incomplete registration data, will not be allowed to be renewed during the redemption grace period (the 30-day period following deletion of a domain name during which the owner may reclaim it). Not until complete and supposedly accurate registration information is provided. However, the big problem is that there will be no verification of the data submitted. For a method supposedly for combating fraud, this seems like a remarkable of foresight. After all, what percentage of fraudulently registered domain names are going to be left to expire, only to be re-registered? And then what is to stop fraudulently registered domains being re-registered with different fraudulent information? The second issue is that the Whois Marketing Restriction Policy will require bulk access agreements with registrars to prohobit marketing and redistribution activities. Again, we have to wonder how effective is this policy going to be. E-mail mining of whois information has been against WHOIS policy anyway, yet has not stopped various Unsolicited Commercial E-mail practitioners. So will the new policies of ICANN actually tackle the issues they are supposed to address? From November 12th, we'll get to see. But don't hold your breath. Posted at 06:01 PM
When Infoseek kicked out GoogleIn Search Memories, Mike Grehan relates a sessions at the summer's SES in San Jose, when old hacks discussed the older days of search. One by one, top staff at Infoseek, Excite, and Alta Vista, related on how they were approached by Larry Page and Sergey Brin with their PageRank algorithm - and one by one they shoved them out - Steve Kirsh, then director of Infoseek, telling the boys from Stanford to "Go pound sound". Instead, Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google. The rest is history. Nowadays, Steve Kirsch is apparently lot more receptive to students from Standford. :) Posted at 05:55 PM
House market slow continuesAs per earlier comments, the signs continue that the housing market here in the UK is slowing. The Council for Mortgage Lenders reports that there were around 29,000 first time buyer loans, as compared to figures of 31,000 and 32,000 for the previous two months. Remortage loans remain high at around ��80 billion in total. Expect things to get worse over the next 12 months. House market slowing, lenders say Posted at 02:48 PM
Corrupt world sinkingA coalition of 17 aid agencies - inlcuding Christian Aid, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and the WorldWide Fund for Nature - today released a report called "Up in Smoke", which claims that all the supposed "Millenium Targets" - which aimed to halve global poverty by 2015 - cannot be met due to ongoing climate change impoverishing the world's poor further. Global warming, caused by excessive release for carbon dioxide, is clearly fingered in the report Aid agencies' warning on climate If that wasn't bad enough, Transparency International - an anti-corruption body - reports that oil production is a prime basis for corruption, especially in developing countries. Oil wealth 'can cause corruption' So I guess that means that oil is officially bad for our species - bad for our health, bad for the world, and ultimately corrupting. Posted at 02:40 PM
October 19, 2004Google saves hostageFrom the BBC: An Australian journalist kidnapped in Iraq was freed after his captors checked the popular internet search engine Google to confirm his identity. Posted at 11:38 AM
October 18, 2004Yahoo! search has new lookAnd Yahoo! search now has a new look: Familiar, no? :) Posted at 06:49 PM
Google Desktop: security warningSomeone made a silly blunder at Google - in the recent released Google Desktop software, someone left the default settings for cahcing secure pages and their information. Easy access to banking details anyone? Apparently, Google has corrected the issue immediately. Posted at 06:00 PM
Jux2 meta searchPersonally, I think that meta-search is the way forward. Ask has great clustering technology, but often this can be seen as useless in the commercial environment, as commercial competitors certainly do not link to one another as freely as free reference resources do. And although Google has great indexing technology, and generally returns "good" results, the general feeling in the webmaster community seems to be that the results could be better - if only Google would stop fiddling with the algorithm. Combine both with Yahoo! and MSN and you have a consensus of opinion - just as pages are rated on being "approved" by other sites via links, so are results "approved" by running them via different search enignes that master different elements of search. There are a number of meta-search engines out there, but many do not seem to be catching the user imagination - a predilection for "sponsored results" on top of organic results kills a search engine's usefulness, in my opinion. So what does the Jux2 meta-search engine have that the others don't? USer control - you can select which of the other search engines you would like to get results from, and even order them to your preference. Meta-search is looking much more promising. Posted at 05:50 PM
October 14, 2004BPI sues peopleThe British Phonographic Industry has recently won a court case, allowing them to demand the identities of 28 users from Internet Service Providers (ISPs), claiming massive file-sharing going on: However, according to the BPI:
Well, if this is stealing from the manufactured crap these companies have been churning out in high volumes for years, then let's hope those "livelihoods" and "people who invest" continue to suffer until such point as they decide to put a little integrity into popular music. Posted at 06:33 PM
Google DesktopGoogle desktop application released The net giant has released a preliminary version of a desktop program that will search computer hard drives, as well as the web. I think I should really have named this entry: Google release Spyware. Because that's what they're doing. They haven't released this application in some magnaminous show of comraderie with the internet community - the single purpose of this application from Google's point of view is to effectively spy on millions of computer users, and track their habits as intimately as possible. Of course, Google's main interest isn't tracking individuals - it's simply about gathering huge swathes of marketing data from users applying their software. Essentially, it's sugar-coated spyware. However, Google are - currently - a well-respected company. So no doubt people will rush sheep-like to provide free large-scale marketing information to a billion-dollar corporation. Meanwhile, the same people - having legitimately installed spyware on their machines via free downloads and freeware - will no doubt be reaching for Adware and Spybot, to try and protect their privacy from those less reputable companies - you know, those ones who use spyware to track users... Posted at 06:26 PM
WHSmith report lossesHere's how the BBC reported it: Struggling retailer WH Smith has plunged into the red, making one of the worst losses in its 212-year history. A retail analyst interviewed on the BBC claimed that the problem was WHSmith not trying to sell enough - ie, that they should force prospective customers to walk right across the shop, funneled by aisles, to tempt them to buy more. In my opinion that's missing the point - the cornerstone of marketing is that you target your client's needs. And in many instances, WH Smith simply does not do that a a retail outlet. Anyone who's ever visited a WH Smiths knows what the problem is with the music and books - the ranges for both are too small, and what is there is over-priced. In simple terms - there's no reason to shop at WHSmith for books or music. Products are put up aimlessly. What's worse, in my opinion, is that WHSmith has made little effort marketing itself as an online provider - if you are a business and have the money to force a big presence on the largest marketplace on earth, then you need to do it. Just my 2 cents. Posted at 06:19 PM
October 13, 2004Jeremy Zawodny at Yahoo! SearchPopular blogger and Yahoo! engineer, Jeremy Zawodny, announced last night that he is moving departments - and will be working on the Yahoo! search team again. While Jeremy makes a point of trying to open, it'll be interesting to see how informal Jeremy can keep his discussion of search tech. And whether he likes it or not, there will certainly be pressure for some kind of "limited marketing" of Yahoo! search via his blog. However, that comes with the territory - so possibly the most interesting aspect of Jeremy's promotion is that webmasters would have an accessible figure from a major search company. Whether that actually develops into anything useful and constructive in the long-term remains to be seen. Jeremy has also contributed to the official Yahoo! blog, such as his recent coverage of the Web 2.0 conference. Posted at 09:15 AM
October 12, 2004AOL new browserAOL have been quietly developing their own standalone browser, while the internet is otherwise distracted by speculation on a Google Browser, Internet Explorer security problems, and various front-of-shop revamps to AOL and Yahoo. So what does the AOL browser do and offer? Well, according to Eweek's article AOL Readies Standalone Browser, he software will be completely standalone from the usual AOL software package that subscribers of their ISP service must install - which means that most PC users should be able to use the new AOL browser without needing prior software installations. AOL browser featuresApparently, the new browser won't use the tabbing feature that many Firefox users love (but I never use - open me a window anytime). However, an interesting new feature is the ability to generate page thumbnails while the mouse arrow hovers over either the "forward" and "back" buttons. Also list: The AOL Browser will also provide several tools dubbed "Power Browsing." These new features let viewers zoom in and out on a page, force a Web page to display in high-contrast for the vision-impaired, and highlight or list links on a page. Apparently, because of the recent win over Microsoft over Netscape competition issues (AOL bought out Netscape and effectively reaped the case benefits), AOL has the royalty-free rights to use Internet Explorer technology for 6 years. However, the question that begs is how mindful will AOL be of security? Internet Explorer has become an effective laughing stock for it's security failures, and as reported earlier today, details on new critical security flaws in IE and other Microsoft products were released today. Posted at 09:33 PM
Don't forget: Switch off autopilot!I can really relate to this - making two dumb mistakes in succession, after years of no mistakes. From Reuters: Autopilot Sinks Absent-Minded Skipper: A Finnish commuter ferry captain has been suspended after crashing into a pier because he forgot to turn off the autopilot -- for the second time in three days. The captain was given a second chance to prove his seamanship after an accident on Tuesday when two passengers and one crew member were injured after the Suomenlinna II hit the pier at its destination, an island just outside downtown Helsinki. Posted at 09:17 PM
Steve Jobs interviewSo what makes a successful innovative business? According to Steve Jobs it's: saying no to 1,000 things" so as to concentrate on the "really important" creations You can find an interesting interview with Steve Jobs at businessweek, which includes some telling Q & A on the more difficult years in Apple's history: You need a very product-oriented culture, even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together. Otherwise, you can get great pieces of technology all floating around the universe. But it doesn't add up to much. That's what was missing at Apple for a while. There were bits and pieces of interesting things floating around, but not that gravitational pull.
Posted at 09:11 PM
Microsoft Security UpdateToday Microsoft unveiled no less than 10 security advisories covering 22 new flaws that the company has detected in its own products - including some rated as "critical". Not surprisingly, Internet Explorer continues to reveal itself as an easy tool for hackers, and the general question begs to be asked as to why - only weeks after the much trumpeted, and troublesome, SP2 update - has Microsoft waited until after the release to discover that it's all part of a continuing botched job. I promise you all, my next business PC will *not* be running Microsoft Windows on it. Here's how CNet described the issue in it's article Microsoft warns of a score of security flaws: The advisories, and patches published with the bulletins, range from an "important" flaw affecting only Microsoft Windows NT Server to a collection of eight security holes, including three rated "critical," that leave Internet Explorer open to attack. Microsoft's highest severity rating for software flaws is its "critical" ranking, while "important" is considered slightly less severe.
Microsoft has faced increased criticism for not incorporating any new features into Internet Explorer since releasing Version 6 in fall 2001. Microsoft does not plan on releasing any changes to Internet Explorer until the release of Windows Longhorn, not due out for several more years. Posted at 09:02 PM
October 11, 2004Pension bubble burstI don't have a pension. Should I be worried? Question is - should I really care to invest in a pension, when there are other savings schemes out there, that might offer greater reliability and profitability? After all, those investing in pensions lost out to the stock market falls in 2000 - but those who saw the clear warning signs and put the money into property, would be absolutely laughing now. What does a pension offer that other saving schemes cannot rival? Is putting away money that cannot be touched or controlled, for decades, really a sound investment? Once upon a time pensions were worth taking out, because the government ensured that there wa value in them, with a 25% contribution to private pensions. Now it's hard to see pension schemes as anything other than one among many alternatives. And as the BBC reports here, the entire pensions situation is pretty confused: While the government says the pensions gap is caused by a mix of undersaving and early retirement, the Tories have blamed Chancellor Gordon Brown's removal of pensions tax breaks in his first budget.
Posted at 10:01 AM
October 09, 2004Media vs the peopleThe whole issue of file-swapping reaches a peak as the RIAA and others take the issue of file-swapping to the supreme court. Hollywood studios and record companies on Friday asked the United States Supreme Court to overturn a controversial series of recent court decisions that have kept file-swapping software legal. This should certainly be interesting - but having seen how ruthlessly the record companies have behaved over the past couple years, it's hard to be sympathetic to them. Let's not forget how the RIAA companies leased commercial tracks to mp3.com - otherwise a haven for small artists. However, the music giants then each took turns to sue mp3.com - for using the wrong sort of storage system for their tracks. Once the share price for mp3.com had flattened, Vivendi Universal bought the company out, then spent the next year effectively forcing out the smaller independent musicians - such as myself - to turn mp3.com into a temporary showground for their own signed material - before then closing the place down entirely. The RIAA has become to the music industry what McCarthyism was to US politics in the 1950's. Posted at 09:54 AM
October 08, 2004Microsoft Office: security vulnerabilitySecunia has apparently issued a warning that older Microsoft Office software contains a buffer overrun flaw, that could allow Word '97 and other Office produts, to be used for Denial of Service (DOS) attacks on user machines: Flaw found in older Office versions: A security company warned Thursday that a flaw in Microsoft Office could allow a denial-of-service attack to be executed on systems running somewhat older versions of the popular productivity suite. Posted at 09:46 PM
Google SMS and ClusteringGoogle SMSNews buzzing around the internet about the new Google Short Message Service (SMS). Apparently in development, it allows a search of local business listings, comparison of online products, and looks up dictionary definitions, among other things. You can also find out more information here on the Search Engine Watch blog. Google Mobile? It's coming.
Google word clusteringAlso in the news from the Search Engine Marketing Conference in Raliegh, is a demonstration by Peter Norvig of new word clustering technologies, as demonstrated by Andy Beal here That is definitely a development to keep an eye on.
Posted at 09:26 AM
October 07, 2004PageRank Update: was it worth it?So, the Google PageRank has finally updated, after well over 100 days with no PR update. Having seen no real changes on my own sites, though, the process has distinctly lacking in any action. Was it ever really worth watching in the first place? Posted at 10:55 AM
October 06, 2004Netscape: abuseSo I received an e-mail about a fraudlent lottery scam, from a Netscape address. I figured I'd be a good boy scout and report the issue to Netscape's abuse department. Ho ho. You'd think something as simple as that would be easy? I typed in "Netscape.com" - and ended up being redirected around 5 different sites/subdomains, before finally ending up on a feedback form. Only it didn't work. Not in Mozilla Firefox - and not in IE 6. Some people think that Netscape was killed off by Microsoft. Maybe Netscape simply killed itself off, by blocking all reasonable forms of consumer feedback about it's products and services? Posted at 03:38 PM
October 05, 2004Bone Marrow transplants: lack of Asian donorsLeukemia is one of those cancers we've all no doubt heard of, and are also probably familiar with the idea that bone marrow transplants can help combat the disease. However, for a good chance of success, there needs to be a good tissue match - and as a friend has recently discovered, issues of ethnicity play a major role in success. For example, the website Findthetime.org has been built to help raise awareness of a distinct lack of Asian donors on the British bone marrow register. In fact, as the site reveals, there's a very serious lack of general tissue donations for a variety of ethnic backgrounds. For example, Timeforlife quotes from the following information:
If you would like to help give blood, donote bone marrow, or other tissue samples, then please consider contacting the following agencies, regardless of your ethnic background: National Blood Service Posted at 11:04 PM
WorldPay: DDoS continuesWorldPay ontinue to come under a sustained DDoS attack:
I sincerely hope this is corrected soon. Posted at 10:17 PM
ModernbillImagine the scenario - you go to the shop and buy a few groceries. Only when you get to the till, they take your credit card details, but you are not actually charged for your groceries. Not yet. Store policy. You then get home, sit down, and unpack your groceries - only to then get a communication from the shop that you haven't actually paid for your groceries, and that you must come in immediately to pay for them. How many businesses would survive inflicting that level of inconvenience on their clients? Not many? In which case, why does Modernbill - the billing package for e-ommerce solutions - insist on doing exactly that, for people who purchase goods using on a merchant using Modernbill? I have to admin a very large number of webhosting accounts (over 110+ at last count). Many of these are multiple accounts with the providers. But because of one reason or another (usually Modernbill's innate dislike for people making multiple purchases from the same merchant) that means I have multiple billing cycles set up with the same webhost. So when I receive automated e-mail's from webhost's Modernbill software, telling me that I haven't actually paid, and that I should log on to pay - I tend to be unimpressed. I have to sort through a mountain of e-mails to locate the exact sign-up, discover which of the passwords I've been allocated is applicable, then log on and surf around until I figure out which part of Modernbill's unfriendly billing interface I am actually supposed to be clicking on. Then I pay - as I should've been debited when I actually signed up. A webhost may argue that Modernbill is a sound e-commerce solution - but the set-ups I've experienced with more than one host are nothing better than the original analogy of the grocery shop at the start of this entry. When I expect to pay for goods online, I expect the goods to be paid for then - complete - fin - no more work from myself. The idea that I should be happy to repeatedly chase after the merchant just to pay for goods where payment was not originally accepted is simply unacceptable. I am therefore making a clear policy in my webhosting purchases in future - in my pre-sales enquiry, any host I find using Modernbill will lose the sale.
Posted at 09:17 AM
October 04, 2004X-Prize wonSpaceShipOne has won! Space has now been reached by the private sector, under the conditions determined by the ansari x-Prize. If I had the cash, I would certainly book a place on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactica. :) http://www.scaled.com/ Posted at 09:18 PM
World Pay returns to serviceI've been back into WorldPay this evening, and everything is working fine for the moment at least. There's also an e-mail in my inbox from WorldPay, stating that normal services are 80% resumed:
The story made the BBC news website as well: Posted at 09:13 PM
Disability Discrimination ActThe Disability Discirimination Act (DDA) - which has been on the statute books since 1995 - finally enters it's last phase, in which small businesses are no longer exempt from catering to the accessibility needs of disabled people. Whilst most people consider the issue most particularly applicable to physical access, there is a very real argument that small businesses will also have to ensure that they provide accessibility features for disabled people on their websites - for example, as argued here: Is Your Website Legal? by the Ecru design team, which has built in accessibility features for government websites. Some web design companies already deal very specifically with design and accessibility issues - for example, Randall Designs has made a particular crusade on the issue. However, not all design companies are necessarily aware of accessibility issues - especially those presented in the W3C accessibility Initiative. Ultimately, the actual extent that the DDA will impact the website accessibility as whole is as yet untested, and the DDA itself remains to be tried out in the courts. However, if you have never attempted to address accessibility issues with your website, then now is perhaps the time to get started. After all, you probably would not want it to be your own business that has to fight a test case on the matter. Posted at 03:47 PM
WorldPay: continued DDoS disruptionWorldPay admin was again unavailable this morning, and apparently for a lot of Sunday, too:
Posted at 01:33 PM
October 03, 2004How not to run a webhosting businessHere's the apparent scenario - a guy called Larry Stevens was running DDI (Digital Dreams Incorporated) Hosting. Normally he's well-thought of in the webhosting community, though his techs complain that he tends to disappear. On September 27th, a bdsnyder at WebhostingTalk opened up a thread called ddihosting.net customers should backup, NOW. A brief summary of that rather loooong thread runs as follows: - Before June 30th 2004: DDI Hosting offer low-budget hosting plans. - June 30th 2004: DDI hosting, technically owned by Larry N Steven's father, Larry M Stevens, files for an article of dissolution in Idaho, where the company is apparently based. Effectively, the company is dissolved. No customers are informed of this. - July 2004: DDI Hosting apparently seems to have been running on nothing more than autopilot - Early September 2004: Support tickets go unanswered, then the server at The Planet datacenter is unplugged from the network. - 27th September 2004: bdsnyder starts a thread at WebHostingTalk complainig about bad support and his site being down. Larry Stevens is noted by the board moderators as having logged onto WHT, but without responding to the thread about his company. - 2nd October 2004: A DDI Hosting client notices that their DDI Hosting billing is now charged to by Frontier Networks - which trades in webhosting serices under the name of Surfspeedy.net. - 3rd October 2004: DDI Hosting customers remain completely unaware with what's actually happening with the company - and their websites - with no communication apparently ever received on the dissolution and apparent buy-out of the client-base. They continue to have absolutely no clue with anything that has gone on - or is going on - in the slightest.
Addendum: After sending the above entry, and after a Private MEssage from Steve Empie of Surfspeedy, regarding the dissolution, the thread at WHT continued here. Here's the short version: - Larry addressed various points, indicating that there had been a major failure in the support system, and that he had been over-engaged on major technical issues. - Other posters were critical of Larry: Tempers were particularly flared because Larry had apparently heavily used WHT for building his business up, and long-term poster The very minute you use WHT to build a client base, as a host, you are held to a very high level of accountability, by your client base, and by other hosts in the WHT community. Aussie Bob also makes this very sage comment regarding business in general: I have lost track of the numbers of negative comments I have personally received from other hosts, on WHT. I used those comments in a constructive manner, and they helped me build my business. Those comments are like fire and that can be used to make my business stronger. The more negative the comment was, the more it helped me build my business. I loved getting negative comments. I never cried about it, and said I was leaving WHT because of them. I powerfully used them to fix what needed fixing, and to learn what needed learning.
Bryan Snyder contacted myself at WebHostingTalk to point out that the servers were unplugged from The Planet datacenter, not in early September, as the above stated, but in early July - two months previously - with the client sites being moved to servers at GNAX the same month. Posted at 10:03 AM
WorldPay DDoS attackLast night WorldPay experienced what they described as a "planned and large scale Denial of Service" which resulted in their administration systems being "severely disrupted ". Whilst it's obviously disturbing to see a processor hit in this way, I can only hope that WorldPay have the resources at least to undergo large-scale IP filtering to block out the attack the laborious way, rather than simply taking their servers offline until everything calms down - which could take days with a severe DDoS. It obviously does raise concerns regarding protection of merchant services - in general - in the face of concerted DDoS attacks, and other forms of internet sabotage. The admin system is working again this morning - and I sincerely hope that this is because of high investment that WorldPay puts into it's server and network infrastructure. After all, the amount of money that WorldPay charge is pretty considerable - large set-up fees, plus large transaction fees. But there's a theory that when you're paying high fees for a service, that you are therefore paying for quality. With regards to WorldPay I sincerely hope that statement is justified as true. For the records, here's a copy of the WorldPay e-mail: Dear Customer, Posted at 09:01 AM
October 02, 2004Search Engine ToolbarsWell, it seems that everyone wants a toolbar these days. Whilst Microsoft get ready to open up with their new search engine with new previews, lo! and behold - a Microsoft toolbar is released. On the one hand, this looks like just another company jumping on the bandwagon. In reality, it shows that Microsoft are taking the battle for the search engine market. Like Yahoo! before them and the Yahoo! toolbar, that follows long on the heels of the firmly established Google Toolbar, what we're seeing is an absolute battle taking place for the lucrative search engine market. And why are the toolbar's important? Well, for a start, we're talking about Permission Marketing here - and the ability for a provider to help push their own products, without filling their own home pages full of advertisements for their competitors. More importantly, the toolbars collective extensive marketing data - tracking information, demographic usage, that all in all present mountains of potentially valuable personalised marketing data to the giants of the search engine world. Like people who provide free advertising to billion-dollar coporations by wearing branded clothing, so billio-dollar search engines have found a way to collect extensive maketing data on millions of individuals. The search engine market continues to move forward towards personalised marketing and wider definitions of relevancy based on past user information. The search engine war continues in earnest. Posted at 04:33 PM
Business in AntarticaNo matter how tough your business is, at least you probbably won't endure the sort of conditions that Greame Hart did with the British Antartic Survey. The buildings are built on big steel legs, because the snow surface rises about 1m a year. I was at the fifth base to be built on the Brunt, the others having been long since buried & crushed by the ice. If you're looking for something to idle a couple of minutes in recreation, you could do far worse than explore Greame Hart's Antartic site, not least his great collections of photos of his Antartica expedition.
Posted at 01:20 PM
October 01, 2004AdWords tracking: yours and theirsAaron Wall at SEO book covers a story here about PPC tracking: Adword Tracker: New Google AdWords Tracking Tool As tracking of investments is a pretty essential aspect of marketing (at least, if you believe in Seth Goldin) then something like this new AdWords Tool - if it works - should be pretty essential purchasing. It'll be interesting to see whether any of the reports of it's use bear out it's high ideals, though. Posted at 12:05 PM
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