Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Running Microsoft Office on a Tablet

I have run Microsoft Office applications, Word, Excel and Powerpoint on both an Asus Prime and a Playbook using Splashtop Remote Desktop.



While the Prime, with its keyboard makes the editing of Office documents the same as if you were using it on the host computer (there was very little lag due to the network), the Playbook was more suited for use as a remote control and a monitor.

The use with the Playbook would be very useful if you were using your laptop to present a Powerpoint presentation and you could then see what was on the screen behind you as you look towards your audience with your Playbook on your lectern as you control the presentation.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

EFF - the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Those that run torrent tracking sites such as Isohunt and The Pirate Bay claim that donations to EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, will help the abuse of those downloading copyright material. Surely this is missing the point. It is still stealing, no amount of rationalization is going to change that fact.

What EFF say on their website:

"..... the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense"

and:
"EFF is the leading civil liberties group defending  your rights in the digital world."


The problem I have with all this is the same one that I have with the "Occupy" crowd.

Video Capture Software recommendations

I don't currently have a requirement for a piece if software that performs this function (to my satisfaction) but I am looking for a recommendation or a positive review for such a program.

Most of the media that I consume is downloaded from the Internet or it is streamed in real-time. I do not have a cable or antenna feed for any of our TVs. I seldom watch DVDs and only own a single BD (actually a boxed set of Blade Runner). Even then I have worked out methods to transfer them to a hard drive and the material is watched from there via a Media Server.

What I am looking for is a way to capture some of the media that I am current watching from networks that I have yet to work out a method of download. I am not interested in uploading this material but as there is such a proliferation of media that is available for download I can only presume that there is software out there that those that do upload to torrents and P2P are using to capture that program material.



Honour amongst thieves

Due to this concept I am loath to download any programs that I have found reviewed on the Internet..

Monday, May 28, 2012

When someone complains to Google about your content

Google are pretty clear about what they consider as abuse in their Terms of Service. They also provide a mechanism for you to report such abuse.

I am pretty sure that this has happened to me.

Google must get hundreds of these types of claims a day and you can clearly see that they comply with legitimate claims of abuse. The majority are probably in response to copyright infraction and they will take-down results from the SERPs:


In other areas of complaint Google have no way of checking the validity of claims made by individuals that involve defamation. They are very clear in their TOS about making false claims. In the case of copyright material the remedial action that they take is to take-down the reference to that material, it is the responsibility of the website owner to make sure that the offending material is taken down. This secondary take-down will be made by copyright owners with the website owners or hosts directly. In the case of Google they make a notice of the action that they have taken with The ChillingEffects Clearing house.  They do this to be covered under the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. The other effect of this is for transparency and to let web users know why certain material cannot be found in their search results and what are the offending sources of that material.

In the case of defamatory information that is claimed to be posted I am sure that they will check to see if, in their opinion, that a complaint is warranted. If they see that the complaint appears to be that an opinion had been made and their are no factual untruths, they will probably ignore the complaint. If the material is not hosted by them there is not a lot that they can do and the complainant would have to take the issue up with the website owner or its host. It doesn't matter if copies or screen-shots are made of pages that are no longer available on the Internet as the normal remedial remedy is to remove that information. If it is already gone they cannot remove it anyway!

When it comes to personal information the situation works both ways. I would hope that they would respect the rights of individuals to make anonymous comment and refuse to relinquish the personal details of their bloggers. This is also based on the fact that they know this information, in truth all that they really know is the email address of the Google account holder. They do not necessarily know the Google Account holders real name and their contact (street) address. If a complaint were taken seriously they could contact the account holder by email.

I have not been contacted by Google regarding any of my content. Similarly, I not received any communication from my ISP, Website Host or my Domain Registration authority. It is suspected that they all have been contacted with regard to my alleged slanderous statements.

The other side of personal information is that if names and addresses can be found in other places on the Internet I think that it is safe to say that they are in the Public Domain and therefore cannot be considered private. If this information was posted in relation to a business then it matters little if the address is also a residential address.

Privacy regulations generally apply to businesses and government departments. They are designed to protect citizens from those entities and NOT the other way round.

With respect to defamation I consider the criticism of a companies business concept and practices to be "fair game". Compared to some of the nonsense that I have seen, even on Google Groups, my statements pail in their impact. Accusations of pornographer and pedophile seem to be common from those that wish to discredit others. I have never made such claims.

Why do I suspect that a complaint has been made

I closely monitor the visits to this blog. I also did the same for my website when it was in operating. When multiple visits from a single geographical location were observed, accessing specific posts or pages,  these coincided with visits from Santa Clara, the headquarters of Google in Mountainview.

The visits from a single geographical location were taking place on a daily basis. Using Google Analytics this fact stuck out like a sore thumb. When I had access to my webserver logs I could see that the visits were coming from the same IP address and host, sometimes multiple times a day. This goes to show the obsession that the particular individual had about me. I guess that he thinks that I have one about him, well, I do but it is more to do with why he is so "bent out of shape" with some of the things that I have said about him.

I get the impression that he is accustomed to getting his own way. When he doesn't he resorts to threats and intimidation. For this reason I have labeled him a "bully". I have documented these intimidation threats in other posts on this blog. The information that I have posted about him is pretty much back on this blog. It is not going away. It is factual and has been arrived at by extensive research.

I may have posted things in the past only to remove then. This was done for a couple of reasons. The first was to "wind-up" the person making the complaint and the second was that I had second thoughts on whether the information was appropriate and that I had sufficiently covered my tracks. Quotes from other people, informants so to speak, had been posted but these are largely still absent from this blog. However, the nature of the comments has been re-worded and re-posted. The same thing goes for photographs, but I have not bothered in re-posting some of them as they have already had the desired effect.

All other information was in the Public Domain as I obtained it from other posts on the Internet. Communications addressed to me have been posted on this blog. As they were addressed to me, I effectively own them and can do with them as I see fit.

When associations have been drawn this had been done from information that I have found during my research. If they are said to be untrue then my research is invalid. If this can be proven I will remove it. The observation (comment or opinion) that a business was dubious is NOT slanderous.

My question in all this is what is so important to this individual that all information that doesn't like be removed from the Internet? What is he trying to hide? I can understand that he does not like being challenged and seems to have problems with being reasonable in the past. I recognize that I am also being unreasonable but that is because I have been provoked.

I get visits from all around the world and it is only this individual that seems to be interested in information on himself. This is not to say that there have not been others that have found this information, they have. From this I can conclude that there is something that the individual does not want known, I further believe that this information should be found and it is (or was) in the public record. You should not be able to get information that you don't like removed just because you don't like it. You should not be able to get information removed by claiming that it is incorrect or untrue, this is often a fact of life, especially when it is true. You should not be able to get information removed by threats of legal action when the facts are true.

Looking for John Smith

This is another update on the Blogger Search function.

It has been seen that if you search for the occurrence of a person's name within a blog you may get an unrealistic list returned that gives you the impression that there are far more posts related to that person than is a fair representation of the featuring of that person on a blog.

For example, if you were looking for posts that contained the name "John Smith" and you used that name as keywords in a search, you would get all posts that contain a reference to John Smith. While this is maybe what you are after, it does not give you a feeling for the relationship between those posts and the total number of posts on the blog.

John Smith may have been involved with an activity that you had been reporting on and you had made multiple references to him. This is not that you have a particular desire to expose John, just that you are trying to highlight the activities that John is involved in. Over time, especially if John responds to what you have written, the number of posts is likely to be quite high with John's name in them. John may have been participating in something that you had determined as a dubious business. It was this business practice that you were exposing, NOT John specifically.

The "Up" Series

I have watched all of the "Up" series and am in the process of transferring all of these to a hard drive based storage solution.

The series up to 49 Up are on DVD and I have downloaded all 3 parts of 56 Up.The format of these files is xvid .mp3

It is my intention to create an archive in avi format of all the Up series.

How to recover lost disk space used by RRBACKUPS

In March 2010 - the time had come! - the post that quoted me and my website, www.tempusfugit.ca, on TechReport has ceased to be relevant.

The page that WAS ON MY WEBSITE and now linked from there has been changed radically. This a New page  and is completely difference to one referenced on the TechReport blog.

As you can see the original question was posed in Dec 2007
While I have downloaded and used the utilities that were originally available from IBM and more recently Lenovo, I am not sure where I have kept them. In addition to the fact they they are totally useless there are much better ways of configuring and maintaining your computer.

You are far better off abandoning what came with your Lenovo computer on its hard drive and installing a clean copy of Windows 7. Even if your computer came with XP, Windows 7 is a far better solution for you. I have successfully installed Windows 7 on old Thinkpads and IBM desktops that were originally XP and with specs that (according to Microsoft) are far too low.

The procedure described in the link above represents a philosophy change for me in that it has been determined that a new computer is best configured with a "clean copy" of an operating system and all OEM/Manufacturer nonsense and customization be abandoned. A rebuild and recovery is therefore quick and easy, without having to use the lengthy restore and recovery programs  supplied by the manufacturer - this includes Lenovo, Acer, Asus, HP, Dell and more.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

This website/blog was never about you

To even think it was is an example of supreme arrogance on your part.

I started out all my web ventures just reporting and commenting on things that interested me and happened to cross my path. The fact the the OneWorld Empire came into my radar is purely due to the recovery product that I saw offered in Canada Computers.

I commented on that service.

The reaction to that comment lead me to post other things about Wayne McAlpine, Joshua Sham and OneWorld. If it had not been for these reactions all would have probably been forgotten.

I have no interest in "flaming", making false statements (Libel and Slander) about OneWorld and/or its associates or otherwise doing anything other than reporting the facts as I see them.

My interest in you centers on the fact that I am of the opinion that people such as yourself need to be exposed and not allowed to "ride roughshod" over those that are less able to defend themselves.

I may have published your home address but I have subsequently found that it is in the pubic domain as it can be accessed on the Nevada Annual Reports website for the, now defunct, OneWorld company.

I have previously published a photograph of you. This again is not owned by you and you do not own the copyright (you did not take it - unless you had really long arms). You could have had it taken for you but I doubt that such a photograph would be of that ilk.
I published that photograph with a caption of "bully", which you are as evidenced by your actions.

You have undertaken multiple attacks on me and you have cause the temporary suspension of my website tempusfugit.ca - it will be back.

Deleting comments from blog posts

Although considered as bad manners and a violation of free speech, there are situations where I will either delete or re-post comments that are made on some of my posts.

The main reason for deleting or re-posting is in situations where the commenter is purely making the post to place a link to a website that they have an interest in. This is what I call "blog spam" and I have a note to this affect on the comment form:


The Blogger Un-publish button

I was a little confused to know what the "Return to Draft" button did. I thought that it would return a posting to the version that was before the current edit. In fact it is an "un-publish" key.

It was assumed that you could abort the edits that you were making on a post in the even that something went really wrong. If this was the case you should just close the post without saving (I am not sure what the auto-save would do about this, as you would probably see some changes).

Actually, the "Return to Draft" function is quite useful as you can select a range of posts and un-publish them all at the same time. They can then be reinstated as they were at a later date. This is particularly useful to overcome the unrealistic results of some searches.

Friday, May 25, 2012

The distinction between a Media Sever and a Media Centre

The reason for this distiction is that many have expressed the intention of using the Raspberry Pi computer for use as a Mini Media Center. This has gained me some interest in my project of using a RPi as a Media Server.

My requirements are specific in that I have established a need and a deficiency in the market for a device that I think fulfills this function effectively. I am not looking for a cheap solution because I cannot afford the solutions that are available. It is my belief that there are no working alternatives.

Due to the problems and deficiencies found in Windows HomeGroup sharing and Windows Home Server solutions a small dedicated NAS solution is to be developed using the RPi and Samba shares. The things to develop here are not the configuration of the the Pi computer, the installation of Fedora (or Debian) and the set-up of Samba shares, that has all been done before. It is the administration of large amounts of digital media on the storage device, the transfer of these files on and off the shared drives. I have also established that the use of a NAS device does in fact provide what appears to be a viable solution but the problem that I face at the present time is that the hardware that I have managed to get to do this is unmanageable from the administrative standpoint.

The difference between a Media Center and a Media Server

A Media Centre is another name for a HTPC (Home Theater PC), it is a self contained piece of hardware for the reproduction of digital  media. It can consist of a computer with processor and drives to store the media, a display and a means to control it all.

A Media Server is just a network storage device that is used for just that: storing and serving digital media to devices on that network.
This may include any number of Media Centers. A Media Server does not require to be able to provide a high definition video output. Its primary function is as a file server.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

.torrent not available or syncing in progress, check back in a jiffy

If you search for the above string you will see why you are seeing this message on Isohunt.

Here are my observations when I connect through a VPN and when I don't


Loading my VPN software:



It is clearly nothing to do with "syncing" and more to do with geographic filtering.

The fact that some torrents are not available is due to that they are being blocked in some jurisdictions. Above is the SERP entry showing DMCA take-down requests.

Premier Farnell

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

ITV 56 Up Torrent

Hopefully this is for those that were looking for real comments - not obscenity.

As I am pretty much the same age as those that are participating in the series I find it particularly poignant in that I can see the world in which I grew up. I do find that due to its format that successive shows get more and more diluted as there is less and less time to spend between the things that are new in the lives of those involved and the re-cap of what went on in earlier episodes. I do have a copy of the earlier shows on DVD and that is better to gain a better understanding of some of the events.

I do see the point that was raised by a number of the participants, especially those that had decided not to appear in some episodes, that the format does not really allow them to be portrayed in a manner that really shows what they are like as people, what they think and what they really have been up-to.

Things that are of great interest to me are the stories of those that had left the UK, and its class system, to make lives in the US and Australia (both places that I have lived). The fact that we currently live, and once worked, in Canada - we are now thinking of returning to the UK in retirement. We have mixed feelings about this as although we miss the "heritage" of the "old country", we do realise that we, like some of the participants, have escaped the barriers that our position in British society would have placed us in. It would be interesting to see that if we had stayed and not emigrated to Canada whether we would be able to afford the lifestyle that we are contemplating returning to the UK to enjoy. On the other hand it would be far better to stay here as we would be far better off in comparison to what out purchasing power would be in the UK.

It is interesting to see the interest in this post. Many visits from Australia (Melbourne, Sydney and other places in Queensland and Western Australia - we lived for two years in New South Wales) and Canada (we have been here for more years than I care to mention)

I have watched episode 3 of the latest series, 56 Up but I cannot download it. I can download BBC programs using get_iplayer and  am working on a way of capturing ITV, 4OD and Channel 5 programs. If I had a workable video capture program I could record anything that I can play and access from the UK using a VPN.

If someone can recommend a good video capture I would gladly see to it that you have copies of ALL the "Up" series. However, this program HAS to work to my satisfaction and I am not interested in just getting links to something that you think MIGHT work. Preferably it is something that you use - those uploading torrents must use software of this type.


Having just downloaded the 2nd part of the 3 part Micheal Apted "Up" series I am at a lost to understand the comments made by the up-loader.

I guess I could make a comment on the tracker site that I used to locate the torrent but I feel that the comments that are normally posted there are puerile in nature at the best of times. The up-loader's notes were particularly of that nature and as such I really do not want to associate with the person who uploaded the program. It is they that are most likely to read the comments. This comment is made on the off-chance that another P2Per is curious about the comments and makes a search to see if anyone else had a similar view.

The up-loader's comments seem to be inconsistent with the target audience of the "Up" programs and I really wonder if the person that uploaded them really understood the whole premise of the series. My impression was that the up-loader was not of the generation of ANY of the ages that the series were filmed - certainly not, as I, of the generation of the original 7. The comments seemed to be a personal attack in the crudest form, sexual innuendo and  course language, completely un-related to the Apted program.





PandaBoard ES

I can't really see that this is an alternative to a RPi - it is 5 times the price! Even the non-ES version is $174.




I am presuming that this motherboard processor combination will run a distribution of Linux. Without doing a little more research I cannot see why the Pandaboard cannot be used as a media centre and run programs such as Handbrake.

Links:

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Sir Tim on the Beeb

Sir Tim Berners-Lee was interviewed on Radio 4 today.

He was promoting the use of data in a truly public manner. He reckoned that "nerds" could solve the economic situation. This is not new for him, see link below from 2010.

He does think that that UK's recent calls for the Security services to have greater powers to perform surveillance on UK citizens as being dangerous. I agree with him on this point but disagree about the sharing of public data. The very recent situation with the IPO of Facebook is a prime example of that. It has been cited that the reason for the lack of acceptance is the deficiency of the Facebook platform in its ability to serve up ads to the mobile user. The use of data in an anonymous form is, in my opinion, an anathema to the the advertising industry i.e. businesses in general. If businesses cannot target consumers then they will not pay up for the service.

The reason that publicly available data is not going to be a viable for those that are capable of extracting and manipulating it, is because the sad fact of life is that big business makes the world go round. Sure, anonymous data, medical and the like, could be useful - but to make it valuable it needs to have a commercial value. To get this value will be difficult. It is another case of the lowest common denominator and you only have to look at the efforts of companies such as Groupon and FourSquare. Here we have the promise of discounts in a trade for your information. Information that is valuable to adverizers, public information is much less valuable by its very nature. To turn this into value that is greater than that generated by greed will be extremely difficult.

This coupled with the potential of abuse from those that are unscrupulous to link the anonymous information with identities makes it a non-starter in my opinion. Although I generally agree with Tim I think that he is being rather naive to thing that all you need to do is to get the architects of this new data source/pool to agree to keep it anonymous.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Windows 8 Schadenfreude

I must admit I have feelings of schadenfreude for Microsoft with regards to Windows 8.

I have a hunch that Windows 8 could be another Vista in any case I thin that MS are too late to the table when it comes the "touch interface" technology. The adoption of MS powered tablets has yet to prove itself and I don't think that just because there is a user base that are using Windows currently on their PCs is going to be a compelling enough reason for IT departments to push for MS tablets.

The IT industry and the users that they support have already accepted the iPhone and iPad. As far as a "corporate" smartphone solution the only thing I think MS could do is to buy-out the Blackberry technology. The Windows phone has yet to be anything but a bit of a wet squib so far. Even Android devices have gained more acceptance that WP.

The distrust of things Google are likely to barriers to entry for Android along with the fragmentation associated with the multiple vendors of hardware. This is why Apple may just win out as the "corporate" solution.

It is not that I "hate" Windows 8. In fact I have not even seen the need to test-drive it. I do think that the Metro interface looks a little "amateurish" but that is largely just an opinion. The Metro interface may work very well on a touch input device. I just think that Microsoft have missed the boat.

In the past I have jumped on the bandwagon that was ABM (Anything But Microsoft), I have tried various versions of Linux and I have even tried some Apple PC devices. All this has done is to reinforce my agnosticism with respect to operation systems. I use Windows 7 out of convenience but I could just as easily use Ubuntu or OSX - I really don't care.

As far as the arrogance that Microsoft, and those that have been their proponents, have shown in the past, I feel that time has come for the situation to be redressed.

What is the true value of Facebook

In light of the IPO it is worth an analysis of what the true value of Facebook is.


There is no doubt in my mind that there will be those that will make a short-term profit out of the IPO. Some, especially the private investor and those that live in countries outside the US, Canada, UK etc, those will have a tougher time in obtaining a slice of the pie.

I really don't get the numbers. I have read that the valuation (by Facebook) represents around $100 per Facebook member. I have also heard that only 1 in a 1,000 of Facebook users actually click on an ad that they see in Facebook. I find it hard to see how that all ads up???

--------------------------------------------

Update 18 May 2012.

The IPO flat price was $38 - it quickly peaked at $42.

I decided not to buy in-to the IPO. If anything an extension of our Apple holdings might be a better idea. I don't think that the 1,000% plus gain on the original investment in Apple is going to be repeated in anyway with the Facebook offering. Even the second purchase of Apple is doing well at +50% or so, and analysts are saying that a price of $750 to $1,000 are not out of the question.

I think the situation was a bit like the Tim Horton's IPO, there was much muttering from those that could not get in at the start. The institutional investors were there in force, pushing up the price on IPO day and selling to make a quick profit. This was what happened with FB, the $38 offering price opened at $42 and then closed a smidgen over $38. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of weeks.

Unlike Tim Horton's I don't think I will bother when the price comes down. I had some "Timmies" before in any case as I bought Wendy's stock before they were spun off - I couldn't ignore the lines outside all the outlets I drove past. I don't understand that either, the coffee that is, but there is no doubt about TH's popularity.

Bloomberg set $25 target:

Facebook Anonymity

Is true anonymity possible in a "Facebook World"?

It amazes me to see how some businesses have adopted the "Facebook mentality" and approach to carry out operations. Whether this is because "Social" is the new way of communicating by the younger generation or is it more efficient?

Seeing that Facebook are about to "go public" it is worth considering what the true value of Facebook is.

Businesses hope to realize advertizing coverage when they have Facebook accounts. Private Facebook users cannot be anonymous if they are to be identified by potential business interests. An anonymous Facebook user is useless to a Business. Lucky for Business the majority of Facebook users can be identified. That is the name of the game - there is little point in using Facebook if you can't be identified. Also, those that do not want to be identified are probably not using Facebook in the first place.

Antikythera mechanism

So the Greeks invented the computer! Pity that they are now about to bring down the Euro.


Links:
 b01hlkcq - "The Two-Thousand Year Old Computer" has been downloaded using get_iplayer.exe and is now in my archive.

Keywords: Clock, Computer, Edinburgh (who tipped me off to the fact that I typed "Clock" instead of "Computer", mechanical astronomical
bbc.the.two.thousand.year.old.computer torrent

Sunday, May 13, 2012

CPU usage when running Handbrake

Video conversion is one of processes that takes a lot of processor power. Along with gaming this is where a fast, multi-core processor can be invaluable.


The 6 core AMD 1055T, shown above, gives a pretty good performance level to make conversions at a reasonable speed. For example a 45 minute TV episode will take approximately 3 mins to convert to an iPad format whereas it takes over 30 mins on a Dual Core Notebook.

While the two machines I did this comparison with represent pretty much opposite ends of the performance spectrum for speed it emphasizes the need for a reasonably powered CPU when you wish to make video conversions.

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000

... an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom,  regulating the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance and  investigation, and covering the interception of communications. It was  introduced to take account of technological change such as the growth of the Internet and strong encryption.





In a lot of respects the UK is way ahead of North America when it comes to legislation relating to privacy (and the lack thereof).

Good to see that it kept Murdoch and his crew under control! (sic)

RIPA was brought to my attention whilst I was researching Lawful Interception and was mentioned in a BBC Radio 4 broadcast - File on 4 - "Cyber-Spies" - broadcast 25 September 2011
programme ID: b014q04r

The discussion was related to the involvement of British "Tech" companies in the business of Cyber-Surveillance in regimes such as those involved with the Arab Spring.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Inconsistencies with IPv6 and Homegroup?

Possible inconsistencies with IPv6 and Windows 7 Homegroup

In my case I think that I have traced the cause to the lack of implementation of the IPv6 stack  on the Western Digital Powerline (Live Wire) network adapters.

Friday, May 11, 2012

English Feeder - Scraper site

English Feeder is a scraper website that I have seen picking up content from my website and blogs.

I have found entries in Google SERPs when I have made similar searches to those detected finding pages on my sites.


In the example above the premise is that the English Feeder site is presenting current Tech News, presumably to Belgian and French Internet users.

Matt Cutts seems to have changed his view on Scraping, when asked a question on whether webmasters should be worried about Scrapers he now says (May 2012 - at SNX Seattle) they could even help your rankings because they may actually provide links back to you.

More about Blogger search

It would appear that the search, when made using the internal search on Blogger, returns results in order of relevance by default. You can change this to date after you have a BSERP.

Also the keywords from previous versions of the posts seem to be retained so that even though they do not exist in the post as it currently renders the search will still find the post in which it did.

The relevance behavior means that the posts with the highest number of occurrences of the word or words searched for will appear at the top of the list. In this way you can manipulate the way that the SERP displays for a given set of search terms. The BSERP can further be manipulated by scheduling the post dates such that it the list is subsequently sorted by date you can position particular posts within that list.

The retention of search terms that have been deleted means that posts will still be found even if you have seen fit to remove the search terms. While this could be confusing for the visitor it is useful to further manipulate the SERP.

In addition to searching a blog and seeing what is returned in a BSERP a general Internet search can also be useful when comparing what you find on a blog. It is possible to see what was on blog pages in the past in the same way as it is with regular website pages. The display of the Search Engine Cache can reveal things that the webmaster or blogger has removed. The Google Instant Preview uses this cached information.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

The Google Penguin Update

This is in addition to the Panda update the Penguin Update has introduced a few more refinements and explanations from Matt Cutts, Google's engineer responsible for the search algorithm.



Sunday, May 6, 2012

The Facebook "like" button

What really happens when you press the "like" button.

The "Like" button is one of Facebook's methods of capturing your Internet activity.


When you click on the "Like" button you are giving Facebook permission to "share" your details with the website that the button appears. That means that if the button is on a business website then you can expect "targeted" advertizing from that company, all the other "friends" in your friend list will know that you "Like" this product and all your friends will also receive targeted ads.

This concept, along with the Google + button, is a key element of Social Networks and how they can generate revenue.

Links:

How to remove inappropriate content from the Web


There was a time when it was not considered that what you posted on the Internet would come back to haunt you in later years.

The major problem with the removal of undesirable postings is that the majority of web site owners and administrators do not know how to remove content from their websites.

If you are in the unenviable position that there are things from the past that appear when people make web searches then there are  measures you can take to have that data removed. There are companies that claim that they will do ths for you and even provide you with a "package" that will protect your on-line reputation.

However, from the research that I have done they seem to be little more than purveyors of FUD and are more interested in getting you to sign up with them than they are about actually clearing your name. The services are not inexpensive and there are rumors that underhand and bully tactics involved.

It is my opinion that you are far better off asking the people who are hosting the incriminating content to remove it. Unfortunately some of the companies are no longer in business and there are others that have a "stock in trade" of maintaining this sort of content as it attracts traffic to their website.

This is what Google say

How to determine what you can get removed

First of all you need to find all of the information that is currently available on the Internet for interested parties to find. You can do this with a bit of narcisurfing (looking for yourself on the Internet). Once you have located the "Digital Dirt" you can then see who you have to approach to have the information removed.

Determining the information that is available on you for yourself enables you to determine how relevant and what the relative ease in which the content is to be found. If the pages that contain bad things about you are hard to locate, in that you need to have a pretty good idea of what you are looking for in the fisrt place, I would not be too worried. However, if someone is determined to find out things from your past it is pretty much impossible to stop them. Even if you get the offending information removed from the hosting website it is likely to remain in the history of sites like the Wayback Machine

Canonical Links

According to the Google Help:

A canonical page is the preferred version of a set of pages with highly similar content

This issue was brought to my attention when I was looking into the changes that Google were introducing with their Penguin Update. This Update in addition to their earlier Panda Update, introduces the Canonical Tag and other changes to the Google Algorithm for April 2012.

I found information on this on the WebProNews website and there were other videos of Matt Cutts from SNX, Seattle.

The Matt Cutts video on Canonical Links

BBC Radio Feeds Down

6 May 2012 - 7:00 EST

The BBC radio feeds for the Internet (browser) access seems to be not working.

The feed is still working on the TuneIn Radio app for the iPhone, Touch and iPad.

I have tried both the iPlayer portal and the direct link to Radio 4 from the Radio 4 website. The direct link is also what I use to access BBC Radio 4 on my Blackberry Playbook (as the Apple app does not work on it). The access from the Playbook is also not currently working.

It is interesting that the feed through TuneIn Radio still works. Hopefully the Beeb are not "playing" around with these feeds.

iPlayer for TV programs still seems to work - so it doesn't look like it is an iPlayer problem - they have had problems in the past when the BBC had made changes for a new version of iOS. As far as I know this is not the case today.

The error that iPlayer is displaying is:
This content doesn't seen to be working
Try again later


This was cured by re-starting the computer I was seeing this on.


Update - it now seems to be working- Maybe it was a false alarm? The stream now works after re-starting the computer that I first tried it. This computer was freshly switched on, so it wasn't a question of something crashing due to another program.
Still this post serves as a place-holder for other iPlayer on-going issues and the fact that if you are seeing this problem - try re-starting your computer.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Privacy Rights

In these days of the Internet and Social Networking, the subject of Privacy has taken on new facets.
Post updated: 25 May 2012
A quote from the Albine article on deleting things from the Internet:

"Defamation requires that four elements be met:  (1) there’s a false statement of fact, not opinion; (2) that’s publicly published to at least one other person; (3) if the defamatory matter is of public concern, there’s fault amounting at least to negligence on the part of the publisher; and (4) there must be damage to the talked-about person’s reputation.  For celebrities and public figures, there’s an additional requirement that the statement be maliciously untrue–you knew it was false, but you said it with bad and hurtful intentions."

It should also be pointed out that the removal of content from Google using Webmaster Tools has to be performed by the webmaster of the "offending" site. Google will not remove content from its servers as a consequence of "alleged" infractions of their terms of service.
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There is a world of difference in the antics of the traditional Cyber-Bully and businesses that don't like what is being said about them on the Internet.

White Pages

If you can't find a white pages listing for a person who you know their address I think you can safely say that they either do not want to be on mailing lists or they have something to hide. I guess if you were of sufficient influence in a community you could use that influence to expunge your personal details from directories such as White Pages.


What I find strange about the White Pages entry above is that when an address was entered into their search and then the "neighbors" button pressed only addresses that are on the border of the address that was originally entered show. It is almost as if the addresses in the whole block have been purposely hidden.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Removal of content from a website

Some links:

There are various degrees to which content can be removed from visibility on the Internet.

It is a common misconception that once something is posted to the Internet it is there for ever. This is a particularly well-held notion of those that use Social Media. (and perhaps it is if you have limited control as you do with Facebook)


You can even make a request, using Google's Webmaster Tools for the page to be removed from their cache. It is best to visit the help page on the Google site for the exact details on how to do this.


Google will also give you advice on what else to do to ensure that your pages remain removed from their index and they do not re-appear when your site is re-spidered.

There are other ways of removing your content from Google cache. These take a little more time but you have more control on how visitors get content from your website. In June 2011 I started a process to remove some of my material so that it was only accessible locally.

When the pages are re-written and the Google robot re-visits the new pages will find their way into cache and the visitor will then see a link to the local page on the page in cache. This is what I wanted to do as I wanted the visitor to think that there was information on this website that merited the viewing of Google cache.

Your reasons for wanting your content removed from Google cache may be different from mine. You may have been requested to remove the content. You may have received a "Cease and Desist" notice filed under the DMCA.

This technique will also work with all search engines that maintain a cache of the websites that they have indexed. Google is the most common and is the one that most are concerned with.

Links:

Capturing The Value Of Social Media Using Google Analytics

Do I really care about what visits I get from Social Media sites?

I guess I might sometime in the future - hey! I may even have a "Social Media Channel" at sometime.


The 3 things are:
  • Identify the full value of traffic coming from social sites and measure how they lead to direct conversions or assist in future conversions 
  • Understand social activities happening both on and off of your site to help you optimize user engagement and increase social key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • Make better, more efficient data-driven decisions in your social media marketing programs
I guess this is relevant to businesses that are relying on Social Media as part of their business plan. I am just an observer but I need to keep abreast of what is going on in this area and if there is someone who needs an insight into it I would be more that willing to enter into a discussion about it.

Advertising - a dirty word

There used to be a time when "Advertising" was a dirty word.

I think that I got this quote from the BBC Two program on the 70s


The activities of advertisers was seen as being crass North Americanism.

My thoughts go in waves

Normally the topics on that I post are related to what I am currently interested in and what I see others are by their visits to this blog. In the past my emphasis was on visits to my website, but now as the site is no longer active and the information is being migrated over to this blog, the response is dependent on visits to The Technology Muse.

This sometimes get sidelined by those that don't like what I have said about them on my website or this blog. One of the reasons that The Technology Muse is the dominant platform is that it preserves the anonymity of the media, a corner-stone of free-speech. Also the Blogger platform is vastly improved on what it was when I first started using it.

The news today is that Rupert Murdoch has been called out as "not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company" - BBC News 1 May 2012

Phone-hacking, cover-ups and general arrogance and "bully-boy" activities.

Leveson Inquiry - judicial probe into press standards

Operations, Weeting,  Elveden and Tuleta 

The culture committee

Intel's NUC and the Raspberry Pie

I think that Intel may be cashing in on the interest that the RPi generated:


I have already configured an ITX format PC and I have proven that this concept is a viable one for a media computer. In fact I am running an AMD Dual Core ITX machine that is capable of being unlocked to a quad and overclocked.

I see the RPi as a file server but due to its limitations on what is currently available for the Linux platform, w.r.t. media software, I think that the Intel product is going to appeal to the market that has the major interest in the Raspberry.

It all depends on the price.

Searches:
  • intel resberry pie - Hull, 29 June 2012

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Wayne Rooney

I wish that I had never made a post on Wayne Rooney. It seems to gather a disproportional number of "hits".

Links:

The reasons for this are probably due to the fact that Euro 2012 is in a lot peoples minds.

Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Specification

This is the specification that is related to the use of IPv6 compliant network equipment.

Nimble Social CRM Business Edition


Nimble - award-winning Social Relationship Manager


The interest that I have in the Social CRM product is due to a Blog Spam email that I received yesterday from Brenda Christensen of nimble.com.

I am not sure what the use of Social Media brings to the table, in fact I am dubious of the value of CRM. Having said that I had my own version of CRM that I developed for my own use many years ago. This was before "Social Media" existed, also before computers were "personal" - I am of the belief that it is not to tool but the desire to keep track of this information that is the key to Customer Relations. Having a method that is designed by someone else is not likely to reflect what you are trying to capture. In my day customers were impressed that you knew what you talked about last time you spoke - today customers are not impressed that you know the today is the anniversary of their dog dying!

Intel T3200 processor

An OEM Processor

Like many of the processors that do not appear on the Intel website (so you cannot look up to see whether they support a particular feature such as vt-x), the T3200 is a process that Intel supplied to Original Equipment Manufacturers (aren't they all?) so that they could divorce themselves from what is capable and what is not.

Other examples of this feature on this blog and include:

NoTracks Anti-Tracker 1.3.3 (Windows)

This page was prompted by a visitor interest in Scroogle and a ZDNet Downloads Digest article

It seems that all you have to do to feature on this website/page is to pay the money.

Not that there is anything wrong with paid advertizing, but it needs to be stated for what it is and not a veiled presentation  implying an endorsement.


As far as a product goes,  the NoTracks Anti-Tracker software is probably a little redundant as there are probably at lot of other things you can do to protect your identity and what you have been up to on the Internet. My post here was rather more aimed at the fact that just because a product is seen featured on ZDNet's Downloads Digest it does indicate any sort of review or endorsement by ZDNet.

If your concern is websites tracking you, such as Google with Analytics code used by a vast number of sites (including this one) then your best defense is to turn off JavaScripting in your browser.

If you are worried that others using your computer will know where you have visited I would suggest that if you are savvy enough to find the NoTracks software than you are more than capable of removing your tracks from you computer. If you are looking for a method to do this automatically then NoTracks may works for you. I am of the opinion that "less is more" and the fewer programs that I can install on my computer the better.


Restricting the listing of the contents of a directory


An over-ride needs to be made in the configuration files.

GIS - geographic information system

as per blog spam Renee Hewett American Sentinel University’s GIS degree courses.

A geographic information system is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographical data. The acronym GIS is sometimes used for geographical information science or geospatial information studies to refer to the academic discipline or career of working with geographic information systems. In the simplest terms, GIS is the merging of cartography, statistical analysis, and database technology.

The GIS courses offered by the American Sentinel University are related to the study of Geographic Information Systems.

In the world of Social Networking and mobile devices Location (and/or Geo Tagging) is possible.

What are people saying about you online?

As a continuation of my study on Internet use and behavior the notion that there are things being posted about you or your company that you do not wish to be seen.
How you can tell that this is happening and what you can do to prevent or control it.

At a recent dinner party a conversation on whether you should incorporate Social Media in your companies business was raised. The reasons why you would want to do this are many fold. The promoters of the various platforms see this as a new area that going forward is a big business opportunity for themselves and users of their services. The question is: Is there any real merit in doing so?

The fact that there are more and more people on-line and the use of Social Media is maybe at its peak are good reasons to  use Facebook, Twitter and Google + to "reach out" to your customer base.

However, there are downsides to this and the future of Social Media is by no means certain. Social Media may be a passing fad and the users of such may soon tire of it or get fed up with the loss of privacy that they perceive is happening. The fact that their personal data is being used in a manner that they have not agreed to or have no control over and the fact that there are things being said that they would rather not have others read.

Links: