n article on the dot-com fallout comes from CNET. It has just hit Slashdot and it makes an excellent story that is highly recommended to any computer or business enthusiast:

The most astounding thing about the dot-com boom was the obscene amount of money that was spent. Zealous venture capitalists fell over themselves to invest millions in Internet start-ups; dot-coms blew millions on spectacular marketing campaigns; new college graduates became instant millionaires (albeit on paper) and rushed out to spend it; and companies with unproven business models executed massive IPOs with sky-high stock prices. Of course, we all know what eventually happened to this world. Few of these companies actually made enough money to recoup that cash, and when their investors fled to the hills, these start-ups died dramatic deaths. These are the celebrity victims of the new-economy bust.

It is worrying how rapidly things get overvalued given the will. Wishful thinking is all it takes to live in a bubble, which is bound to explode one day. There were talks about a second dot-com boom recently, but they all appear like an overstatement.

Also see: Internet and Nature

The iPod has gone up to their heads

Nominet have made some controversial decisions in the past. I discussed one such decision back in March this year (see Re: Domain extensions). For those who haven’t the patience to read the whole thread, the conversations led to the following article from the Register:

Apple has been awarded control of the domain iTunes.co.uk, even though it was registered before the Mac maker announced its online music service.

Just as I thought that the story ground to a halt, I noticed the following story on the BBC this morning.

Mr Cohen is contesting Nominet’s decision in March to take itunes.co.uk from him and hand it over to Apple.

He told the BBC News website he is planning to continue to fight for the web address.

Talk about outrageous misuse of power by large bodies and corporations…

Yahoo have recently introduced nice features such as news delivery as RSS feeds. They now offer an extensive audio search which encompasses on-line music stores as well as smaller sites and self-promoting bands. It appears to work well because it managed to pick up some long-forgotten files — the stuff I recorded in 2002 or thereabouts. It’s all quite embarrassing, but I am flattered to find my name among the results pages. Raves and insults in the box below….

The latest generation of Web development involves tools such as the one used for managing this Web log. Although many pages continue to be composed in the level of raw HTML code or using What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) tools, their days appear numbered. Quite simply, both are antiquated methods of composing for the Web since development is usually done at the remote end — the user’s end. Both content and tools (software) reside on the user’s side. Content then needs to be transferred to the Web server and software is not guaranteed to work on any platform.

In the past few years, many free content management systems (CMS’s) have emerged. They typically re-use GPL‘d components for a more rapid development process, which is the power of Open Source. The result is the existence of many packages and some prominent ones are listed below:

• WordPress is a blogging tool which has recently stretched towards becoming a fully-blown CMS. It powers this section of the site as well as Harvey Tobkes
• Plone, which is highly popular
• PHP-Nuke (and PostNuke) that run The Computer Vision Digest and MARS.
• Drupal, a highly-motivated team that grows rapidly
• Mambo which is very popular among Linux users

There is no “best tool” as it all depends on the task in question and the nature of the Web site to be built. However, Plone is very mature, WordPress is highly user-friendly and PHP-Nuke is versatile. The best thing to do is visit the sites and view demonstrative flagship sites that run on each CMS package. A quick glance will give all the impression that is needed.

mericans can take advantage of a database/map of nearby Wi-Fi HotSpots. This Web site, WiFiMaps.com, is of course far from ethically acceptable. Perhaps it will force system administrator to finally change the default, out-of-the-box settings on their routers. It is amazing how penetrable Wi-Fi connections have become.

Related links: (external)

• WEPCrack
• How To Crack WEP
• Cracking WPA

The links above are posted as a word of caution. You must ensure that you are not exposed to such hacks, which probably affect old devices the most.

Paul Thurrott, a Windows guru is and well-known Windows advocate, wrote this strong critique of Internet Explorer 7, which he claims punishes both Web developers and users.

Paul closes his write-up with the following words:

My advice is simple: Boycott IE. It’s a cancer on the Web that must be stopped. IE isn’t secure and isn’t standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable both for end users and Web content creators. Because of their user bases, however, Web developers are hamstrung into developing for IE at the expense of established standards that work well in all other browsers. You can turn the tide by demanding more from Microsoft and by using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Macintosh only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.

Related item: Internet Explorer Breaks the Web

The BBC have published interesting statistics according to which a new blog is created every second.

The blogosphere is continuing to grow, with a weblog created every second, according to blog trackers Technorati.

…

It suggests, on average, the number of blogs is doubling every five months.

Older related items:

• Blogs Recession (snippet below)

As the number of Web logs continues to rise (nearing exponential growth), an anti-climax is rapidly reached. Attention is spread among more blogs and hence feeds/spiders account for more of the traffic for most blogs…

• Internet and Nature (snippet below)

…in the near future, everyone alive will (on average) write a song, author a book, make a video, craft a weblog, and code a program…