Friday, June 2nd, 2006, 1:49 pm
ANY Webmasters may have already noticed (or been informed) that Google’s greatest and latest, the 64-bit “Big Daddy” datacentre, had experienced a major error. The Web developers community is humming over the consequnces whilst very few clues are selectively being delivered by Google spokesmen (and spokeswomen).
More information on the issue of page dropping, “Big Daddy” anomalies and general impact on inbound links:
The public is kindly requested not to panic. Google results pages may have degraded (including invalid, irrelevant and broken links), but all in all, this degradation is not radical. Google remains best bar none in terms of quality search results.
Thursday, June 1st, 2006, 3:25 am
I have just learned (through Bruce Schneier) that, in a large German dating site, the password “123456″ works 1.4% of the time and 2.5% of all passwords begin with “1234″. People are simply lazy or unwilling to memorise passwords. This all means that it would only take about 60 attempts to break into a user’s account.
In an era of Web services, remembering many password can be difficult. For this reason, I personally chose the ‘master password’ approach, as I call it, and I also manage everything as such on my PDA. Password choices are a very important matter, which is something you come to realise only when you get hacked/cracked. In the case of unencrypted comminication, they need to be changed very regularly, as well.
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006, 3:25 pm
HEN Webmasters discover that someone stole their content, they often report this to Google. Blog plagiarism has truly become a plague, but stolen content, spam, site scraping, and copyrights infringements ought to be reported to all search engines, which is why I set up this one particular Web page. It enables any Webmaster or user to report content misuse to three search engines at once (or in parallel at the least).
What was the motivator for this little handy frameset? I noticed that many people report undesirable content to just a single copany called Google. But what about the others? Shouldn’t all be infomed at once? I believe there should be an impartial, not-for-profit body that watches over content theft. somehat like the DMCA, I suppose. Such a body (or site-accessible service with interfaces) could centralise knowledge regarding Web offenders and prevent various companies from doing this independently, merely reinventing the wheel to achieve the same (search) results.
Think big(ger). Let’s get the Web more organised, better structure, and immune to fraud. Never delegate this responsibility to companies, which are slowly making our Web more commercialised and semi-privately owned.
Tuesday, May 30th, 2006, 2:02 pm
Yes, that’s a USB drive
OME of these videos and images could definitely make you choke on your Cola (or whatever you drink, if anything). These are good illustrations of products that are either ahead of their time or are simply plain ridiculous.
Related items (other ‘shrimpies’)
Sunday, May 28th, 2006, 5:16 pm
An inflatable booth for you to work in [rolls eyeballs]
XPAND your mind for a moment and imagine working everywhere. Imagine being able to grab your office (probably computer) everywhere you go.
If the thought seems pleasant, look no further. I have just come across what I can only describe as an inflatable igloo. Frankly, I doubt it will ever become a success. People go outdoors in order to escape, rather than pursue work in a disconnected, mobile environment.
Also see: Server in a Bubble
Saturday, May 27th, 2006, 10:09 pm
Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale
have just returned from a very nice evening/night out with the European Free Software Foundation. It was a very intersting experience, which I would have happily become a part of had it occurred more frequently.
This weekend was their annual General Assembly, so we went out for drink and dinner. I appeared to have been the only person among the group (except for perhaps one other person) who was not in the foundation or the comity. Despite this, I believe we hit it off. All in all, we got along very well as everyone was open and friendly. I managed to meet the people who coordinate participantion and contributions in different countries across Europe. I might get involved or join them in the future. We shall soon find out. The goals seem more political than technical.
Friday, May 26th, 2006, 8:43 pm
The first mode of variation in a
poor appearance model of the brain
OME “dreadful deadline”, which I mentioned in my previous post, is thankfully behind us, after a short extension. To make matters much better, I have just received a notification of acceptance for another conference, which saturates my once-modest publications list. Tomorrow I may find out that another paper was accepted (of which I am not the first author though).
All in all, such decent progress will make it easier for me to complete the Ph.D. fairly early. I will be presenting my work in July and fingers remain crossed for TMI. When one gets showered by many achievements at once, it is hard not to make a vanity blog post. I hope others feel happy for me as I have already informed my entire family.
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