have spotted potential in unifying newgroups and feeds. Much of my reading involves newsgroups and aggregators as I do not require much beyond plain-text and a few references (links) to richer pages.

Feeds on the left and newsgroups on the right; click images to view in full size

The two applications are separate, yet they are similar in nature (see the screen-shots above to convince yourself). Will someone consider combining them? Web sites viewed as newsgroup threads? Perhaps newsgroups aggregated with abilities to participate?

Less than an hour ago, the BBC revealed the list of the UK’s richest people, which is an interesting read.

An overall increase in wealth means that the entry level for the Rich List has risen by 25% to £50m.

Am I the only one to conclude that more money is taken from the bottom to reach the Billionaires?

Nearly every aspect of life has evolved to revolve around computers. Take banking, communication and licensing, for example. With more information drifting on-line, the number of usernames and passwords one has to remember becomes unmanageable for the mind.

Following the concept of the master key, it is vital to retain one master password — a cryptic password that unveils all others. How to turn this idea into practice depends on your operating system and available tools. Consider locking of a file, hiding of records in your PDA or secure on-line memos.

y relative passed me a message concerning Internet policies. It discussed the loss of privacy among sites with the .us suffix. The message came from GoDaddy, who apparently sent all their clients a self-promoting E-mail — one example among many of mail that that is uncalled for. Other organisations exhibit similar, let us call it, “aggressive behaviour”.

Bob parson, the man in charge of GoDaddy ‘broadcasted’ in this mass-E-mail:

…On my personal Blog, www.BobParsons.com there are a number of articles where you can learn more about the NTIA’s unfortunate decision and what you can do to help get it reversed.

I also will be talking about our right to privacy on Radio Go Daddy, our weekly radio show that debuts today, March 30, at 7 PM PST. To find out how to listen in, please visit the Web site dedicated to the show, www.RadioGoDaddy.com…

The above is shameless self-promotion. GoDaddy, the very large and successful domain registrar, have demonstrated tactless behaviour.

The Public Wiki section on this domain

ome months ago I decided that only urgent messages are worth the use of E-mail. Somehow I just got fed up, even though I was spam-free.

A couple of days ago I took what I hope to be a step towards life without E-mail. I set up a Wiki where most of my correspondence will take place. Wikis are a collection of pages where content is editable by everyone, given access privileges of course. Why not use forums or bulletin boards for rapid communication? Here is a short comparison:

*Dependent on the package

Do you happen to view your bank statements on-line? Long process, is it not? It can be automated with this huge library of Perl scripts for many different banks around the world. A click or two can reveal your balance, transactions, etc.

Encryption has little practical use outside, for example, the government and defence domains, but signing of E-mail messages is essential as it is the only means of verifying identities. Unlike telephone or face-to-face interaction, there is no vocal identity and people in the past have been susceptible to frauds. To find out on ways of signing your E-mail, consider for example, GnuPG.

Phil Zimmermann explains why PGP (or encryption in general) is necessary:

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What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If some brave soul tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he’s hiding. Fortunately, we don’t live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There’s safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their E-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their E-mail privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity.
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