For those who were concerned about Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Claria, your concerns have (apparently) been heard. For those who thought that Microsoft would not change a course laid out by its management team, your thoughts should be reconsidered. Today, Ed Bott is reporting that Microsoft will abandon its proposed acquisition of Claria. In my view, this is good. Claria has way too much baggage to overcome. The PR downside of such a purchase would have been immense. Microsoft has apparently recognized that the PR downside far outweighs any upside.
Again, props to Microsoft. The Microsoft of a decade ago might have plunged ahead simply to demonstrate their own arrogance. The Microsoft of today truly recognizes the value of a good corporate image – and the importance of “non-traditional” (WOM) message management.
-CyclingRoo-
Category: Technology
Deer Park Alpha 2
Asa announced the good news late last night. Deer Park (Firefox 1.1) Alpha 2 is now available. You can pick it up here. As noted before, there are some wonderful new features – including a “fast back” caching system as well as nativve SVG support. I’ve been running the nightlies that have led up to this and they have been outstanding. [*Note* If you haven’t migrated from the production builds yet, you may run into some trouble with some extensions – most notably Greasemonkey.] But if you like “new hotness,” come and get it. If you want the “old and busted” (but really great) Firefox stuff, you can get the new Firefox 1.0.5 here.
-CyclingRoo-
Triangulating on the Truth in the Blogosphere
Robert, you need to write a book or something. 😉
Robert Scoble has written a pretty good – albeit short – article on the relevancy of blogs and journalism. His keen insights include:
“…you know I’m biased, right?”
“…you can’t trust what I write.”
“I can’t control what they all say.”
Robert’s basic recommendation is simple: “you’ll be able to triangulate in on the truth.” And he is absolutely correct. A lot of people took the easy road and just trusted whatever they heard on the “Big Three” networks. But those days are long gone. And we certainly can’t trust any single source alone.
Instead, we must develop our own lists of sources on both sides of an given issue. And we must read (and carefully consider) each of these multiple sources in order to get a comprehensive view. Indeed, in this day and age, we are obligated to read multiple sources and then process all the information at hand. That’s why I follow liberal and conservative blogs rather than limit myself to blogs I concur with. That’s why I read the tea leaves from the .Net camp as well as the Java camp. After all, informed choices are predicated upon complete information.
[Thank goodness for RSS. Otherwise, I couldn’t keep up with all the sources I track.]
-CyclingRoo-
My Firefox Configuration
I am frequently asked: what customizations/extensions/scritps/insundries do you use for your Firefox configuration. That is a great question. And I have needed to anser the question a few times for myself. You see, every few days, I try a new nightly build (including the fabulous update system) or I regress my personal configuraiton to test things like the 1.0.5 candidate builds (like I am running now).
Each time, I really want to start with a fresh install. So I uninstall the previous version. Then I clear out the directories where everyting else (like extensions) is stored. Finally, I clear out the registry. Yeah, I know the last step would be unnecessary for my Linux systems. But this is Windows after all. So every week or so, I start out clean and refreshed. Then I have to add back the tools that I love – or just like a whole lot.
So why am I blogging about this? Two reasons, I want to keep a running (and public) list of what I’m running and what I love. In this way, people can learn from my meager experiences. Second, I want to make sure that I keep a handy list so I can launch the relevant installers whenever I start with a fresh build. I could write this stuff down. Better still, I could type up a quick Javascr5ipt and be done with it. But I want other folks to see what I’m using. So here goes…
Extensions
Adblock: Firefox stops many popups. Adblock stops even more.
Greasemonkey: An absolute must.
FoxyTunes: I love the fact that I can use iTunes without changing focus of my usual window – the Firefox browser.
Google Toolbar for Firefox: This is a great newcomer to my extensions.
Sage: A wonderful little RSS reader extension.
Greasemonkey Scripts
Technorati This: A simple script that adds Technorati tag embedding in Blogger’s post editor
Wikiproxy: This script scans each page for nouns and checks to see if these nouns can be found in Wikipedia. This is a sweet little script.
Technoproxy: This little gem scans each page and places links to relevant Technorati subject. Like Wikiproxy, this is a fun little script with a lot of processing required.
Book Burro: A script that adds functionality to Amazon, B&N and a few other book etailers. Whenever I want to explain the power of AJAX, I demo this little gem.
Email Linkify: I hate it when folks don’t use the relvant “mailto:” links on their pages. This script remedies such omissions.
Plugins
Macromedia Flash: Nuff said
Bookmarklets
Ping Technorati: A simple bookmarklet that pings Technorati with the current page URL. Just drag this link to your bookmarks and you’re done.
There is more I could write, but I’ll append as the need arises.
-CyclingRoo-
Tags: Firefox Greasemonkey
When Is WiFi Use Theft?
By now, everyone has probably read the news of the man who was arrested for “stealing” an unsecured WiFi signal. As I have read the news stories, several thoughts have come to mind:
- How can someone be guilty of theft when he was not on the land of the property owner? Indeed, the signal was being broadcast onto public property.
- On the other hand, mail messages move through public space. The mere transit of public property does not vacate the right to have security of transit for paper-based mail. And what about phone lines? They sit on public property. [Actually the phone companies have been granted easements by public landholders – i.e., the government.] So standing on public property shouldn’t “permit” you to exploit a wireless signal.
- How can someone be gulty of theft when the signal was not encrypted and the router was completely unsecured?
- On the other hand, if I leave my unlocked briefcase in an airport restroom, this does not give anyone the right to open the unsecured briefcase. Of course, shame on me for not locking my briefcase. And shame on me for leaving my valuable documents in an unsecured container on public property. But the fact that a lock has not been enabled does not give someone the right to open the briefcase.
- How can anyone own a wireless router and not take even the most basic of precautions? People don’t seem to realize that sensitve data is being broadcast beyond their property line.
- In the past, I’ve done some “war walking” to demonstrate (in)security. Should I turn myself in?
But let’s put aside the ethical discussion for a moment. What should we do?
As individuals, we should secure the wireless infrastructure that we have installed. Here are a few basic steps you should follow:
- Locate the Router or Access Point Appropriately
- Change Default Administrator Passwords
- Change the Default SSID
- Disable SSID Broadcast
- Turn on Encryption
- Enable MAC Address Filtering
- Assign Static IP Addresses to Devices
In addition to these simple steps, you should also check out good security sources on the Internet. Tony Bradley has an excellent series of tips on the About.com network. Tony also has some great links to books and other articles.
Once you’ve secured your own systems, start thinking about those around you. As wireless consumers, we should urge the many wireless device manufacturers to simplify the process of enabling security. Linksys (a wireless hardware manufacturer) and Broadcom have created the SecureEasySetup program. Buffalo has endorsed the AOSS program. These two technologies were recently compared over at Tom’s Networking. I won’t recommend one program over another. But both programs do one simple thing: they make the process of enabling secuirty far simpler.
If you aren’t secured, what are you waiting for? Highly publicized arrests ought to alert you to the fact that some folks will use your wireless infrastructure – if you let them. After all, you have locks on your front door, don’t you?
-CyclingRoo-
*Update 7/8/05* – Declan McCullagh has a pretty good article about this subject at C|Net’s News.Com site.
Tags: WiFi wireless security
Greasemonkey – New Bits RSN
The Greasemonkey team is hard at work on Greasemonkey 0.4. I am currently running a development build that works with the Firefox Deer Park bits. But the new GM release will have a number of very good features. First of all, the user can create a new user script via any outboard editor. This doesn’t seem like much. After all, most folks will just be installing pre-existing scripts. But for some of this, the new options will be quite nice. Second, the new build provides much more capability to edit/manage previously installed scripts. Finally, there is some new chrome stuff (UI improvements).
On the scripting front, Aaron Boodman (Greasemonkey developer) is spending a great deal of time to work through issues with Technoproxy – a GM script that will highlight nouns that have Technorati tags. It’s a fun little script that is terribly resource intensive.
-CyclingRoo-
Tags: Firefox Greasemonkey
Deer Park Alpha Bits
For the past few weeks, I have been dutifully upgrading my Firefox configuration with the most recent nightly builds. I do this for two reasons. First, I want to help with the QA process and provide feedback when problems arise. Second, I am just a sorry soul that loves to sail the stormy seas on a dingy! Seriously, I do this because I love seeing what’s new when it is at its newest.
This morning, I am seeing something at its newest. As noted earlier, I have been testing the automatic update facility in the Deer Park builds. And after upgrading this morning, I checked the About diakog on my Windows build. What to my wondering eyes did appear, but an Alpha 2 tag for my Deer Park reindeer. I haven’t seen any confirmations of this fact yet, but I am excited to see it.
So what’s new? Well, SVG is in the build. And the new automatic installer is in the build. And there have been a host of bugs squashed along the way. Since I am now seeing the tag in the Help dialog, I would expect a formal announcement sometime in the next couple of days.
-CyclingRoo-
Deer Park Update System Rocks!
I have been using the various Deer Park nightlies ever since SVG got baked into the code. Well, the folks from Mozilla are at it again. Asa reports that the new browser update system can be tested. So like a good little minion, I’ve enabled auto-updates. The process for doing this yourself can be found here. I made these changes earlier this morning. And what do you know? The new update system has successfully updated my browser to the latest nightly build. Very nice.
This will prove to be an extremely useful feature for deploying secuirty updates. But I sure hope that MoFo has sufficient infrastructure in place. While I am sure that they can support the wonks who use the nightlies, they will need a whole lot more when the Firefox community switches over to Deer Park (Firefox 1.1).
-CyclingRoo-
BBC Does RSS for TdF
I love convergence. When things I love cross paths, I know that I’m in the right place. Well, I’ve been reading all the Tour de France news (for the past year). And I decided to hunt down new sources for stories. For whatever reason, I started to check the Eurpean sources. In general, European newspapers have a much more balanced coverage of the event. Here in the States, all we hear (from mainstream sources) is that Lance is winniong or Lance is not winning yet. So I wanted to read what is being said by papers that have a longer history with the sport.
So I ran across an article from Robbie McEwen on the BBC’s sports page. And while the various stories were pretty mundane, I noticed that our friend – the RSS badge – was visible on a whole bunch of pages. And better still, the RSS feed was for the entire sport of cycling. W00t! If you want to consume the RSS feed, it can be found here.
I love it when my technolgy interests cross into my other personal interests. It means that the technologies I love are becoming mainstream.
-CyclingRoo-
Tags: Tour de France RSS
19 Gigajoules; What's a Gigajoule?
19 gigajoules was the amount of energy which resulted from the terminal impact of the Deep Impact probe. But how many of us remember what a gigajoule is? Hearing this number reminded me of Doc Brown saying that the DeLorean needed 1.21 gigawatts of power in order to initiate time travel. As we all laughed at Doc Brown and his horrid pronunciation of gigawatt (he said “jig-o-watt”), most of us wanted to know just how much power that really was.
Well, I want to know just how much force was imparted upon Tempel 1 this morning. From computer science (or from studying ancient Greek), we know that giga is the term for a billion. So a gigajoule is a billion joules. And a joule is the work done to exert a force of one newton for a distance of one meter. OK. Now that we have that in our minds, let’s look for some common point of reference. According to the Online Unit Converter,
1 gigajoule = 737562149.3 foot pounds, or
1 gigajoule = 372.506136111 horsepower-hour
So the NASA impactor exerted the same amount of force as over 6700 horses could exert over the course of an hour. The pre-impact estimate was that this impact would result in a crater as big as a professional football stadium.
So why do we fling objects into space and aim them at unsuspecting comets? Well, we want to know whether these things are rocks or just dirty snowballs. We will learn that as the data is analyzed. But until thne, we have learned something very important. Tempel 1 is not shaped like a peanut. It’s more like a banana. 😉
-CyclingRoo-
Tags: Deep Impact gigajoule