ARLY this morning I bought iuron.com. The host was admirably rapid in its automated response and setup. Subsequently, after just minutes since the purchase I was able to access the domain (DNS was up-to-date already) and initialise things, e.g. content, passwords, customised error pages, siteinfo.xml, robots.txt, favicon.ico, etc.

In the intermin I created a site/project logo using The GIMP. It took me roughly 10 minutes to produce the compact GIF version, of which I keep a non-lossy version (bitmap) as often required.

A detailed but not yet comprehensive proposal is bound to go public in the brand-new domain soon. The specifications are not public and are password-protected for the time being. Let the title and excerpt give you a rough indication of where the project is headed. I am yet to seek funding opportunities so many more details are (hopefully) soon to follow.

Many on-line services incorporate RSS feeds these days. Briefly observe, for instance, the vendor-specific feeds management for this Web log.

It turns out that Google have joined that game with what they call Google Reader. GReader is bound to deliver quite a lot given what we know about Google engineers and their love-affair with Web applications (more latterly videos).

For feeds, I am still using RSSOwl (JRE, hence inter-operable), of which I am a tester. I am also a tester of the Web-based, AJAX-rich Feedlounge (screenshot below), but admittedly I never contribute immensely as a tester. I use RSSOwl (screenshot below) almost exclusively. I am rather loyal to RSSOwl though I occasionally take Feedlounge for a short spin. Feedlounge is somewhat irresponsive, is still in its testing phases, facing an uncertain future and boasts commercial aspirations.

Feedlounge in action

RSSOwl back in April (click to enlarge)

Sun Microsystems, makers of the Linux-related Solaris, have formed a pact with the Linux-oriented Google. The exchange between the two is that of search technologies (i.e. search bar) and Java Desktop, most notably OpenOffice, which is treading strongly and becomes among the main dangers to Microsoft alongside Web-based Office.

Sun Microsystems Inc. and Google Inc. on Tuesday said they agreed to a multiyear pact for Google to promote Sun’s software technologies in what amounts to a direct challenge of Microsoft Corp.’s dominance of business users’ desktops.

HAT we truly need is not SpamAssassin , but a SpammerAssassin [sic]. We have seen controversial cases where spammers got killed, but taking the law into one’s hand is a desperate and poor solution. However, what else can be done when the law in itself is futile and inherently lacking?

Something evil like comment spam gets blocked in the best of circumstances while nothing is done to penalise or catch the spammers themselves. How long must it take before globalised networks begin to hunt down the spammers, backed by excruciating laws to assist the enforcers? Surely not enough is done. In internationalised networks like the Internet, it is sufficient to have few countries (see spam maps) that are apathetic to spam and make havens for illicit traffic to be dispatched.

I recently joined an initiative to combat and ideally eradicate comment spam altogether. With a few tweaks I also found that SpamAssassin filters out my E-mail spam admirably well, separating ham and spam by putting them in separate boxes. Not all is lost as progress is still being made. Unfortunately, spammers get more ‘crafty’, usually keeping abreast of mail prevention methods. It is a never-ending race.

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N recent years we have seen the rise of (soon the demise of [2, 3]) blogs, as well as various personal homepages. The curious statistics include myself although I began when I was 15 with admittedly poor content. This dates back to the last century and is hence not considered “recent” either. Homepages used to be common habit among academics who wished to disseminate recent work, openly expressing to peers their research interests and showing (off) a list of publications.

This morning my 9-year-old sister approached me and asked for a personal homepage¹. She got envious since her friends have one already. Funny enough, she even wanted her own domain, but I stopped her right there. It was just over a year ago that she asked me to add a photo to a family photos page and I added several albums to the Genealogy section.

Trends appear to evolve and greed mounts enough to justify extending a single page, which soon becomes an independent, stand-alone site. It has become a norm rather than the exception and the ‘entry barrier’ is easier to get by. Several years ago there were only a few ‘brave’ individuals who boasted a page or a blog, but today these are so common that they are merely insignificant. The excess — or the overload as some would prefer to call it — makes visitors less willing to explore. In more and more forms and an increasing number of subscription we are given the input field “homepage” these days. So, individualism it no longer is.

Due to such homepages, it is also easier to access our minds, which as many other things can be used for better or for worse. One thing is for sure: the early years of the 21^st century will be remembered as the days when many people began erecting personal, self-centric sites (as opposed to scattered pages). Consequently, freedom of speech was on the rise (or conversely muted) and privacy jeopardised.

¹ I am afraid her homepage will remain unindexed by crawlers and accessible only to her friends for the time being.

I am still on vacation, but I would be sad to see the blog remaining static. The following are a few pointers that I have accumulated in recent days:

• Linux tablet – running fully-featured Linux on a modern tablet PC
• $100 laptop prototype – a proposal from MIT
• Why would a Linux device be as capable (or more) as any other platform which is expensive and bound to restrictions? See the Slashdot roundup of Web applications. The collection of links therein is makes an excellent proof of the emergence of AJAX in several major aspects of work, e.g. scheduling and spreadsheets. I mentioned this as a future possibility a few days ago and wrote a long essay about it on the plane just a day before coming across the item from Slashdot.

Did you know there was AJAX word processor, AJAX spreadsheet, AJAX calendar, AJAX presentation-building software, AJAX e-mail client, AJAX note-taking software and some other interesting applications, which, deployed on your local server, do not need installation and “just work” in a browser window?

CWORLD.COM are reporting that Google Video, a service that allows users to browse and view a large variety of videos, integrates a media player so that everything can be played in the browser, making it irrespective of the platform.

The service’s videos now play within a Web browser without the need for additional software, says Peter Chane, senior business product manager for Google Video.

Moreover, the previously Windows-only playback service is now available to users whose PCs run the Linux and Mac OS operating systems.

The move makes it rather clear why Microsoft are terribly afraid of Google. Proprietary and incompatibilities with competing platforms have thus far been Windows’ major lock-in factor. Google, who are Linux-oriented, appear to open up the Web, media included. Web-based media players mark a beautiful milestone.

Google Video features are also mentioned in today’s item from the official Google Blog