The woes of webmail.

Nov 032011

After some discussion with a friend I decided it was time to update a website I own called ‘Talk Tidy‘. It’s one of the first I ever created and is dated to say the least, though still functional!

After opening cpanel and looking at the stats, I discovered to my horror that I’d not instituted any spam control so the entirte webspace, some 2GB was filled with *spam* mails… over 60,000 of them. Naturally I deleted as many at a time as I could, 999 to be exact, but it’s still taking time and is a real annoyance.

If anyone can explain the motivations of the people who send this stuff out I’d be grateful, it *can’t* simply be money. Most people I know seea spam email and delete it instantly so *can* it really be that profitable??

Makes no sense to me.

Lenovo vs DHL vs Me!

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Oct 242011

So I ordered a Thinkpad Tablet… well actually I ordered *two*. As some readers might recall I first ordered one for “the wife” then, having seen how functional hers was, I ordered one for myself… a 64GB model. The order for mine went in on October 11th so, because the wife’s had arrived in little over a week, I was all fired up ready to expect delivery at the beginning of last week. Did it come? Well obviously not or I’d be wittering on about how great it was instead of spluttering in annoyance down the phone at company reps!!

To try to find out where the machine was. I rang Lenovo this morning. It took the best part of 30 mins on the Lenovo site to find out who I should be calling but eventually I got hold of a rep. She checked their shipments and said it should have been delivered last Friday at the latest. They gave me a ‘con’ number and told me to ring DHL, so I did.

Guess what? Yes, they blamed Lenovo and said they were only informed the machine was ready for collection on Friday. After some short discussion the ‘rep’ went off to find out whether they did in fact have the machine, and whether it was due for delivery today… and if not when!

The rep came back 15 mins later having tried to sort out where the machine was, did they actually have it, and if so when can they deliver it!!! The response was that she’d have to give me a callback because they were having difficulty contacting the driver to establish not only whether the parcels were on his delivery manifest, but to establish if he actually had them on board. In other words… they don’t actually know where they are!!

The thing that is *now* grinding my gears is just why is DHL allowing their drivers to leave their depot when they don’t know what they are carrying or where they are going?? I was going to ask, but thought better of it. After all, if I was *too* sarcastic I just might not get the thing til next year!!!

Sheesh!!!

I’m now waiting for a phone call… I wonder if I’ll get one??

Grrr…… !!!

Whatever did we do before YouTube?

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Oct 082011

Yet again this morning I found myself stuck on YouTube watching and listening to a variety of tunes I’ve not heard in lord knows how long. My favourite era for ‘pop’ music is (as for most people I’d assume) the period roughly contemporary my ‘youth’, i.e. around the mid 1960′s to mid 1970′s. After looking up the name of a band I remembered as a ‘one hit wonder’ (Simon Dupree and the Big Sound singing ‘Kites‘) I found myself totally hooked on playing lots of my old favourites.

After a happy half hour or so I started musing on the system and querying what we did *before* YouTube Existed. After all, it’s only been the repository for all this essentially ‘pirated’ music for five years or so. Oddly, I simply can’t remember! The site has become *so* ubiquitous since Google absorbed it into their empire that it feels almost as it it has existed since the web was created! What is beginning to bug me now is that having got the site there, having got all these music clips, videos and the like up in the cloud… what is going to be done with it?

As useful as the site is, and as accessible as it is, it is nonetheless responsible for singlehandedly milking hundreds of millions (if not at least potentially billions) of dollars of royalties from individual artistes and recording companies and I fail to understand why they are allowing it to continue instead of dragging Google through the court system?

Acting on the assumption that the music companies are for once behaving in some altruistic manner and allowing us access to their music for free, it occurs tio me that perhaps one way forward would be to relaunch YouTube as a ‘streaming’ station in its own right. The suggestion would be that Google (or someone else) create an app that allowed people to type in search terms. The App would then go and dig out all relevant files etc and play them in whatever sequence the user selects!

Now it may be there is already an App out there that does that… if so I’d like to find it… if not, perhaps some progamming entrepreneur might like to create one and get it out there. I know I’d love to have one so maybe others might feel the need. Build it and they will come!

Steve Jobs – a few words.

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Oct 072011

I figured it was time to write down a few words about Steve Jobs and his recent passing. It was clear from the published photos of him back on August 29th that he was indeed a very sick man with only a short time left to live, yet of course we all hoped against the evidence that he would pull through once again. Sadly it was not to be and he finally succumbed to the cancer that had afflicted him for years.

I doubt very much if he was at all ‘ready’ to go, but he has of course left an immeasurable legacy behind him, and one that it will be virtually impossible for anyone else to replicate or surpass. Apart from his success as a technological wizard with the release of the early Apple computers, we have to applaud his creation of the (for their time) quite incredible NeXT line of computers after his dismissal from his own company, and then the development of what has been the most innovative animation company to date, i.e. Pixar. Regardless of the fact that he personally couldn’t possibly have developed all the products he is associated with, it remains fact that he was at the helm of some of the most successful companies of recent times!!

I’ve never been an ‘Apple Fanboi’ as such, to begin with I could never afford the inflated prices the company charged. By the time my income had risen and their costs had reduced to a point where I *could* have afforded them, I was too deeply committed to the ‘Wintel’ systems be be able to change horses easily. Nevertheless, I have never doubted for a second the genius of the man or the magnificence of the products Apple produced… they just aren’t for me.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs legacy really lies of course in that he was one of those valiant few who forced a paradigm shift onto the world, albeit a world that was actually waiting for the shift. True eventually those changes would probably have come anyway, but it’s possible that the development of that shift may well have gone in an entirely different direction without Steve being there pushing his own vision of that future world. Essentially, the technological revolution he was a part of entirely changed our world in ways we haven’t yet fully come to terms with let alone explored and whatever comes after will be built entirely on the shoulders of Steve and his peer group.
That he did amazing things in his first incarnation with Apple is without question. That after his ‘second coming’ he inspired changes in his company that signalled a revolution in both marketing and design is also beyond doubt. Yes it’s east to say that those devices released under his guidance were already in existence, but they were most certainly not in a form that made them particularly user friendly. Nor were the majority particularly well designed either in form or function! Apple might have a limited product range compared to other companies producing similar devices, but the impact of each release still sends shockwaves through the industry as each upgrade is released.

From Steve’s perspective I suppose if he had to have a time to leave forced on him, then perhaps being made to leave whilst at the top of his game was a good a place to leave as any. He’ll drift into history (and probably hyperbole!) as the inspiration of a thousand imitators, but I doubt our world will ever see the likes of Steve Jobs again, and I’m certain even if one eventually arrives I’ll not be around to see it!

Rest in peace Steve – the world was a richer place for your existence and is a poorer one for your passing.

Steve Jobs dies!

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Oct 062011

Can’t write much right now – it’s quite upsetting but I’ll write a fuller piece later on.

All I can say right now is I’m really sorry he’s dead. The man was a marketing and technical genius and we’ll never see his sort again.

Source: Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, dead at 56

Slight hiatus in publishing.

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Oct 052011

Kids are home for their Spring Break… only three weeks but even after just two it seems like it’s going on forever! Bearing in mind I’m a house spouse so have to be here when they are, it means is I’m a bit ‘tied’ up currently.

If I ever work out what ‘normality’ is I’ll return to it as soon as they’ve gone back to school. In the meantime feel free to peruse some of the older, intermittent and possibly more bizarre rants of the past few years.

Enjoy – back soon!

And now it’s just silly!

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Sep 302011

Having had a few problems with Sharepress which led me to discover a possible hack or code insertion somewhere, I decided to activate the Facebook app “Networked Blogs” which I’d used previously. Naturally that hasn’t been working either – perhaps it’s associated with the ‘hack’ but regardless why it isn’t working… it still isn’t.

Over the last hour or so I’ve ticked boxes and pressed buttons in the hope *something* would finally sort the problems out… and I thought I’d done it, only to discover that whilst the test post worked, the subsequent ones *didn’t*.

It’s surprising how frustrated it’s possible to get over something that has no real importance in the overall scheme of things! The blog works, i.e. posts are posting, so there’s no pressure. Nevertheless… grrr. I think I’ll just walk away for an hour or two and come back to it when I’m more able to concentrate on the solution instead of the problem!

Registration too strict… or??

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Sep 302011

I was told the other day that the registration process for the blog is far too strict and that ‘plugins’ like “Askimet” and “Stop Spammer” should stop 99% of the spam comments in their tracks.

The point being that if it’s impossible to register… then it’s equally impossible to comment on the posts, which sounds reasonable in a way. However what I found the last time I attempted to remove the blocks was that I was overwhelmed by ‘false registrations’ so even if the spam itself was stopped, I ended up having to deal with (literally) thousands of spurious members.

However, in the spirit of forgiveness and to show I’m more than happy to be proved wrong, I’m going to remove the restrictions on registration etc and see how we go. I’ll be away for a few days this weekend (we’re off to Western Plains Zoo) so I’ll be able to gauge when I get back how successful (or not) the experiment has been.

Facebook: changes a step too far?

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Sep 272011

With nearly a billion registered users I doubt Facebook will suffer overmuch from my criticisms, but I’m beginning to think the writing is on the wall for my own participation in the phenomenal Social Networking site. I’ve been uneasy for some time about the way Facebook operates, especially vis a vis users ‘privacy’ but recent changes to the site, along with those proposed, are bringing the issue to a head.

Less IT oriented people might be unaware that most sites place a small piece of code on your computer that they use to identify you if you should return to that site. The purpose is usually benign in that it can store certain information about you to enhace your visit and make ongoing participation more ‘user friendly’ For example the cookie might store your username, email, the last time you visited and similar data so that you don’t find yourself having to recall obscure and/or arcane passwords or perhaps wading through page after page of irrelevant information as you try to locate what you really need.

However, cookies *can* be used for more sinister purposes such as tracking your visit to sites and reporting back to base. Again this *might* have a benign application for certain programs, but in the main it isn’t considered to be an activity an ethical site would indulge in, which brings us to the first of the issues that prompted this post. It seems from recent media reports that Facebook cookies are collecting information from many of the pages you visit… especially those that require ‘login’ information and carry a ‘Facebook’ logo on it[1]!! All of the sites that allow you to login via Facebook add their information to the cookie and all of it is reported back to Facebook for them to use as they will.

The implications of the tracking are so serious I’m quite seriously considering whether the invasion of privacy is becoming intense enough to warrant giving it away entirely!!

And yet there is even more to be concerned about. It seems that despite their assurance to the contrary, Facebook *is* using the information gleaned from the cookies. This becomes obvious when you consider their ‘Instant Personalisation’ technology. Basically this comes into play when you visit a site that you’ve never visited before, but that is linked in some way to Facebook (usually by an app that lets you log in via your Facebook ID). What you will see even before you have decided whether or not you want to become a part of the site, is that you are addressed by name and your FB profile picture may appear on the web page!

These changes to Facebook are quite seriously making me rethink the entire operation of ’Social Networking’. In some ways it’s an irritation that Facebook is causing so much angst because the basic notion is quite brilliant. Zuckerberg obviously had a genius stroke in the way he opened up such an addictive communication portal. Currently it’s so easy to locate people, share photos and family information, locate friends and family and interact in a way that was never possible on the ‘Messenger’ type communication programs such as ICQ or IRC.

However, there is so much wrong with the way Facebook *can* intrude into your privacy (whether it actually does or not!) I’m beginning to get very concerned about what information it *is* gathering!

One answer is of course to delete your account, but here the thing is that even if you delete all your photos… Facebook itself *won’t*. They will be retained forever as will your posting history and your links to friends and family. What’s more I think the T&C’s still say pretty much that Facebook can use them for whatever purposes they wish without any communication to you that they are doing so… or to what purpose they are being put!!

It’s becoming a problem that was anticipated… but nobody took really seriously until now. The marketing power that Facebook has was massive to begin with. With the implementation of these new features they are going to be almost unstoppable!

[1] Facebook tracks you even after logging out

[2] Facebook and Microsoft De-cloak Chrome – MS Neuters Their Privacy Advocate | ESET ThreatBlog

The ‘cloud’ vaporises.

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Sep 112011

Yesterday for several hours Microsoft’s nascent cloud storage systems vanished as if they had never been. The problem was eventually resolved, as you’d expect, but, especially for the businesses most badly affected, questions must still remain over the viability of online versus local storage.

For some services, such as MSN the issue might not be quite as serious for some as for others (depending on the use the individual or company has made of it) however for users of Skydrive, and especially users of Office 365 (Microsoft’s challenge to Google’s Office Suite), the issue could have been catastrophic! Microsoft’s assurances about the stability of the platforms seem to have become meaningless in the face of a total collapse of the system. It might be hard to believe anyone could be dependent on Hotmail as they could have been in the past, but for those that *are* the inability to access their mail was at minimum frustrating!!

Microsoft was at pains to explain that they had solved the problem, that DNS changes were being propagated, and that normal service would be resumed as soon as they were complete, but that doesn’t really help those stranded as a result of the outage! When this is coupled with the 20,000 or so Hotmail users whose inboxes and archives were temporarily ‘lost’ by Microsoft over the New Year we can see why people still have the jitters about moving *all* their storage to the offsite, and (potentially) out of country data centres, which after all is what “the cloud” really consists of!

We have to ask ourselves whether the time of “the cloud” has indeed come… or if there is still a substantial amount of development and capital input required before the system can be regarded as sufficiently stable for businesses to be confident the services they need will be 100% accessible 24/7!!

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