IE 7 Beta Leaked

A build of the IE 7 browser has been leaked to the net. You can download it here. Let’s see what they’ve got brewing so far!

Update: that link has been taken down! Read the comments for alternate links!

Read the rest of this entry »

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

So, want a sneak preview of one of BlogMad’s new features? OK, here you go: it’s called VARB and it stands for "view a random blog." (Click the image for a better view). VARB is a method through which normal BlogMad users, as well as guests to the site, will be able to vote for different blogs by viewing them. If your blog is on VARB, the ranking system will automatically show your blogs to guests, charging you only 0.25 credits a view. The higher you rank, the more you get viewed! Look forward to this fun new feature at BlogMad!

I woke up this morning to an unexpected surprise - there is now a "delete" button for my Gmail. Yes! A delete button! This has been the one feature that has been hard to live without, and now I don’t have to. I think Gmail may now be perfect.

When the U.S. Government requested search data from the web giants, Yahoo! and MSN said "yes" and Google said "no," forcing the matter into the courts. The government’s position is that this request would aid in its efforts "to understand the behavior of current web users, to estimate how often web users encounter harmful-to-minors material in the course of their searches, and to measure the effectiveness of filtering in screening that material." Additionally, the government wants to know what "web sites people find through the use of search engines, to determine the character of those sites, to estimate the prevalence of harmful-to-minors material on those sites, and to measure the effectiveness of filtering software on that harmful to minors material." Google stated that they do not want to give this info to the government for several reasons: they don’t want to identify their users, they don’t want to disclose information on how many searches they process per day, and finally, that the request is an "undue" burden on them…which I suppose is legalese for, "too much work we don’t want to do." In response, the government has stated that they don’t want to identify users, they just want a random sampling and they would be willing to work with Google on their other requests.

Frankly, I’m confused. In this case, it seems that government wants data to analyze so that they can find ways to protect minors online. This doesn’t seem that harmful. Yahoo gave in. MSN gave in. What is Google afraid of? For a company whose motto is widely known to be "don’t be evil," denying a request whose ultimate goal is to protect children, seems, well, somewhat evil. Will turning over this data reveal something about Google or its users that they don’t want us to know? Is it really a trade secret or just a dirty little one? Or is it that Google is taking a stand that they should not have to turn over their data at the government’s whim? That’s quite possible and definitely a valid concern. Best for them to set their boundaries now before it’s too late. Or could it just be that Google is the only company sticking up for users’ privacy - whether a random sampling or not - this could still be seen as an invasion of privacy. However, for a company that scans your emails to display relevant ads, that’s an odd position to take.

Full story at Search Engine Watch

Robot cops? Yes. For real. In South Korea. In 5 years. Holy moly.

Eat cyber bullets, punk!

Google just bought dMarc Advertising, a company that puts ads on the radio. Yes, the radio. Not podcasts, not satellite, but the old-school radio. Is this a joke? Not at all. In a statement made by a Google spokesperson: "Google is committed to exploring new ways to extend targeted, measurable advertising to other forms of media," said Tim Armstrong, vice president of Advertising Sales, Google. "We anticipate that this acquisition will bring new ad dollars and accountability to radio by combining Google’s expansive network of advertisers with dMarc’s talented team and innovative radio advertising technology. We look forward to working together to continue to grow and improve the ecosystem of the radio industry."

So, what’s the big plan here? Apparently, just to make more money. Google advertisers will have another avenue besides the net for their ads, I suppose. So, the question is: Is Google a search company or an ad company? I’m beginning to think it’s the latter.

6 Million for this? In theory, the idea of a website that will literally "gather" the content of blogs from around the net is a good idea. At least that’s what I thought Gather.com was doing when I signed up after reading a news article about the new business. However, that’s not exactly the case. Bloggers have to submit articles to the site and the content is organized in a directory structure. One would think that a wannabe Web 2.0 company such as this would organize content on-the-fly via tagging, but that is not the case. To make matters worse, the site actually has a business plan to make money through advertising, the revenue of which bloggers will share. This among claims that they’re going to do for content what Ebay did for auctions! Quite a statement! It takes more than a logo with the word "beta" in it and a pretty (though busy-as-Yahoo) homepage to get bloggers on board. Hopefully Gather.com will take this constructive criticism before it’s too late…and Bubble 2.0 begins.

Searchfox, an RSS aggregator. What more to say….next?

If you like to download content, but don’t want the MPAA knocking at your door, then these sites are for you! You can download legal, non-copyright-protected torrents are Prodigem and Public Domain Torrents. At Prodigem, the content includes videos, podcasts, news, and other miscellaneous content (like the How-To Girls Bikini Calculus video). At Public Domain Torrents, the name is self-explanatory. The site has many movies, that, because of their age, exist in the public domain. So, lots of black-and-white classics can be found here, and lots of campy B-movies as well. Happy downloading!

A rootkit-type feature has been discovered in Norton SystemWorks. The rootkit could allow attacker to put malicious files on a computer running SystemWorks. Symantec said that the reason they were deliberately hiding a directory from Windows was to keep customers from accidentally deleting the files. However, once they learned of the vulnerability, they quickly sent out an update to fix their product. A security company that uses rootkit technology? This is starting to worry me…if Symantec is using rootkits, who else is?! All I can say is at least they are handling the fallout from this better than Sony did!