hanks to a wonderful tool from Ben Hammersley, search results from Google can be delivered as RSS feeds. Similar projects seem to have been brought down, perhaps by Google, so exploit it while it lasts.

Vis-a-vis Google results en masse, I updated my Google Cron tool, which aggregates statistics, PageRank etc. in a text file, updates it overnight, and flags changes.

While the title is an overstatement, it describes a trend which is yet to transform IT as we know it.

What is it all about? Moving all functionality to the Web server (analogous to computational servers), thereby using our workstation as merely a terminal to back-room dust-collecting equipment. Much like Web servers, load is better handled remotely, where parallelised infrastructures make maximal, persistent use of the hardware.

The use of AJAX-like technologies and increased bandwidth make this considerable step towards remote operating systems practical. There are a few unavoidable stepping stones though:

• More widespread high-speed connections
• Higher-capacity network backbones
• Demise of desktop-side software
• Closer Desktop-Web integration/coupling
• Decrease in cost of storage devices (e.g.  Comments Off |  Send this to a friend

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.

As more users share content and publishing tools become easier to use, pages become less content-rich or genuine. Increased comment spam and compatibility for the rel="nofollow" tag attribute discourage involvement. The symptoms can be spotted already.

Will the blog phenomenon die once blogs become as widespread as E-mail accounts? The main gain from this ‘Blog Era’ is the shift of power from authorities to individual people. Anybody is capable of being heard, which is fantastic.

ollowing a recent intervention with a Mozilla Firefox theme, I decided to pull together a Mac OS X-like theme for Firefox. I have set up a minimalist download/install page, but I am unlikely to take this further. Much of the artwork is imported and stitched together. I wish I found the time to create everything from scratch.

click image to view in full size (low resolution/lossy)

ews that are just in speak of a takeover of Macromedia (best known for Flash) by Adobe (makers of Acrobat Reader, Photoshop, Illustrator and so forth).

The two companies had settlements in court in the past. So, what are the implications of this acquisition? Domination of rich media delivery? This 3.4 billion dollar deal is definitely going to shape our future.

PimpZilla for Mozilla Firefox is one of the richest themes around. It was too ‘bling-bling’ and yellow for me to use at the office, so I modified it slightly. I can imagine the feeling of the original author about the hack, therefore I do not publish it. Contact me if you want a copy however.

PimpZilla in blue contains the official PimpZilla screenshot
click image to view in full size

Update: To avoid an E-mail load, I have put the Java archive in this page.

large number of users migrate from local mail store and private accounts (often provided by their ISP) to on-line E-mail services such as GMail. The two different mail management paradigms suit different people, though here are some factors to consider:

Experience has taught me that it is ‘healthy’ to combine both, but “different strokes for different folks”.