Links can lose their value and
get rusty, even with Google

was innocently browsing the Internet this morning. By serendipity, I then arrived at a page where Google boast their contributions to Open Source software through funding (Summer of Code). It is only one example among others. But then, upon immediate inspection, merely all links turned out to be rel="nofollow"ed. SearchStatus made it evident by highlighting those links with red shades.

I have always adamantly believed that the purpose of this new class for links was different. I thought it was introduced in order to prevent and deter spam, among other things such as accommodation for microsformats (e.g. XFN). Here is the snag: If Google themselves are using rel="nofollow" to obstruct dynamicity into relevant, on-topic links, why should anyone else be hesitant to do so? rel="nofollow", a concept that was put in place by Google, is confirmed to have become something that can be misused. Its use has gone beyond the so-called ‘link condom’ (for spam) utility. Otherwise, Google demonstrate hypocrisy herein.

SING virtualisation software, someone from Hungary illustrates how Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows can be worked on simultaneously (view screenshot and further details), without the need to boot into a different, independent partition.

This comes only a week or so after Boot Camp from Apple began supporing Linux. It now caters for Linux boots, as well as Windows boots. It relies on the availability of Intel chips, which replaced Power PC in an important strategic move. This makes the prediction and vision of triple-boot machines a reality, but moreover, it does so without the obvious perils. It obviates the need to reboot Mac OS X. This equips Apple with a huge selling point.

have this sick habit, which is my tendency to keep track of bug reports I have submitted to projects. As uninteresting as it may be, here is my latest report to WordPress:

Leak’ Outside Bounding Border

[Latest nightly in use]

The appearance of the dashboard is inarguably impressive, so call it a pet peeve perhaps: I find the following box spillover somewhat of an eye sore, which should be trivial to fix. The “Write post” box is extended when the items on the left are expanded, but what about those the reside on the right-hand-side?

Local Screenshots

I sometimes feel like a bug report which is not recognised or awarded for (if not financially, then at least on a personal level), there is little or no incentive to intervene and assist further.

I must admit that I lost a fair bit of passion for WordPress development. I have been less willing to help once it began to drift onto a commercial agenda (Automattic). But as I digress, I may continue to contribute to a project whose code is GPL‘d; a project that has impact on many sites and enriches people’s on-line experience. I still feel discouraged to do more debugging when somebody else out there gets paid for it. The forum mavens have expressed similar sentiments before.

Feed readers are merely everywhere nowadays. They are especially popular among bloggers and sufferers of the information overload age. To some, feed readers have become an application whose importance is on par with that of the E-mail client and the Web browser.

In a new review of on-line feed readers (as opposed to native desktop applications) Feedlounge, which I am/was somewhat involved in, was probably one among two winners, Google being the other contender. I once mentioned Google as the primarily threat to Feedlounge — a fact that Feedlounge founder were quick to grasp. Will all readers prevail or will only a few survive?

Other reviews: A decent overview involving 10 prominent Linux distributions, even a comical review of Windows Vista

Bloggers should probably take a quick glance at the following item:

AUSTIN, Texas–Laina Dawes and Elaine Liner are pretty sure they were fired for blogging. It’s not 100 percent certain, of course, because no one ever told them so officially, but the evidence seems solid.

Addendum: New Met blogging rules spark anger (BBC)

Here comes yet another article on the significant new detriment (see more example below), but in an entirely new context.

This latest one comes CNET

In today’s gadget-jammed, sensory-overloaded culture, drawing and keeping a consumer’s attention is more important than ever to businesses.

[...]

Related items:

• Treating Online Addicts
• The Electronic Information Overload
• Blog Depression
• Internet Addiction

Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)

Foreword: I syndicated Robert Scoble’s blog for a few months in the past, mainly in order to keep an eye on Microsoft’s ‘software politics’ and developments. I thought I would see the nicer face of an aggressive corporation, but I soon dropped it like a hot plate.

consider very few things to be “shocking”. There are very few things as adverse-to-logic and even shocking as Robert Scoble using Firefox and running his blog on WordPress (LAMP technology). This has been the case ever since his so-called ‘Net dad’ had weblogs.com sold out to VeriSign — a rather evil company. Scoble is a Microsoft evangelist, but he decided to practically infiltrate a world of Open Source. At some stage, it ended up badly.

Before Scoble became Dave Winer’s ‘surrogate child’, he wasn’t doing anything too admirable, but he was among the first people to blog. Then, years later, he would rave about ‘RSS this and RSS that’. It was Winer’s technology. Scoble only understands computers as a user, rarely realising the underlying issues in depth. He is no developer and no great writer either, yet his reputation and momentum, as well as being outspoken and critical of Microsoft while being paid by them is what makes him somewhat exceptional. His reputation is overrated.

When it comes to technology, I found that Scoble cannot tell his ass from his face. Microsoft employed him only because of his Web statistics. It is a public relations trick — companies buying readership (through popular voices) and promote propaganda to improve the Windows brand name and image. Microsoft had plans of employing many freelance bloggers to promote evangelism, using money. Scoble now runs on Linux and when I mailed him about it, he could only come up with a lame excuse about this choice.

If you seek a popular blog to aggregate, skip Scoble. It is an utter waste of time. Grossly overrated.