Block the tracers, regain your privacy
Some time back, a marketing guy I worked with told me about ClickTale, an Israeli company that provides you with this snippet of JavaScript that you can install on any website that allows you to track your user's activities. Let me emphasize that it's not just seeing something like, "Oh they came in through Subpage 23A, then went to the home page, then left." which may seem invasive, but is something I don't have such a problem with as it helps you to make a site better. Admittedly, users should probably be made aware of this, but given the fact that every site out there tracks user traffic these days, it seems the cow has long been let out of the proverbial barn on that one.
No, ClickTale allows you to actually see what your users are actually doing. It pulls up your actual site and you can see where their mouse goes, what they click on, what they type in to fields, how long it takes them to react, etc. While you don't know their name, you do know their unique IP on the web, which browser they're using, what country, and even what city they're coming from. Yes, it is very Big Brother. At first, I thought it was cool and then I realized that it's actually quite ucky, especially as no end user is ever told about how deeply they're being monitored on a website. By the way, I do track statistics here, but it's mostly to see how many people visit and not much else. ClickTale is something I've long abandoned and never plan to return to.
So, it was with great annoyance that I found out that my main local news source, SFGate is using something similar called Tynt Tracer. I can understand why they'd do it as this service tells you whenever someone has copied content from your website. In their case, I assume it's because they'll want to sue anyone who uses more then two sentences of it somewhere. It's really quite dumb as those who are stealing their pages are using what are called "page scrapers". These are automated. They leave no trace they were at your site other than an IP address hit in your logs. They also don't load JavaScript which is what this Tynt system is using.
So really, what SFGate is doing is just seeing what people copied out. I don't know why they're doing it, but it makes me really uneasy. It's absolutely none of their damned business if I copy a name from an article and search for it on Google to find out more about the person. Sure, it may help them refine their business, but I really don't care. Pay for focus groups. Don't spy on me without telling.
Since I am a web developer, I'll let you know that it happens to be quite easy to deactivate this Tynt system or their Tracer.js. First, use Firefox. Next, install the AdBlocker Add-on. Open up the Preferences in AdBlocker and click Add a Rule to block. Put in *tynt.com/javascripts/Tracer.js and click OK. That's it. You're done. No more snooping on you because really, they've got oodles of other systems in place to track your general usage stats and I don't have a problem with those. It's ones like this where I draw the line. And oh yeah, blocking that script will block it on any other site that's using it as well. So neener neener.
26 09 2009 0 comments
Tags: code, internet, privacy
I disabled my voicemail. You should too.
Actually, do whatever you like. I don't care. The only reason that I got rid of my voicemail on my mobile phone is because my home phone forwards to it and I honestly just don't need voice messages. But the thing is that because of this setup, I am always by a phone. If someone calls and I hear it, I'll answer. If for some reason I miss the call, then I can see the missed call in the log. If that still isn't enough, then someone can either SMS or email me. Honestly, there are more than enough ways to reach me and really, I'm simply not that important that I need to be reached at all times; in fact no one I know is.
Why the voicemail hating? This is actually nothing new. At a previous office, I was the IT Manager. I got extremely tired of the fact that people would call to leave a voicemail and then email me or come down to see me and ask if I got it. That seemed just a bit redundant, so I simple shut off voicemail on my extension and claimed it was out of order. I also did this for the extension of anyone else who asked. We all had email, which to me works a great deal better than voicemail.
I mean, most of my voicemails (both the ones I get and I the ones I leave) are something along the lines of, "Oh, hi. Um... well, just wanted to um... check and see what you're... uh... doing. How's it going? Everything is good for me. So... well, uh... call me back." Despite nearly four decades of use we're still not really sure what to do when we don't reach a human being. Then there's the other side of that where once you receive a voicemail, you have to transcribe it somewhere if it's important. I know that some people save their voicemails, but that's like saving steam. It's ephemeral at best and honestly, based upon the type of people who I see saving literally hundreds of voicemails, management should fire all of them as they're rarely organized or productive, but that's another issue.
Let's get back to SMS though. I freakin' love SMS. This isn't just because of my work on Africa projects where people chew through SMS like the delicious candy that it is. No, I love SMS because it forces you to be succinct. An SMS message can only be 160 characters at most. It makes it simple to ask, Q "Where are you?" A "I'm at the cable car turnaround on Powell Street." whereas a voice call would doddle back and forth to the point where each person would guide the other until they approach one another while talking on their respective phones. Then there would be that knowing smirk as they hang up both of their phones and head to Starbucks Blue Bottle Coffee.
Don't get me wrong, voicemail had a good two decade run, but once SMS and more importantly, email came along, its days were numbered. And that's the thing, if an SMS won't suffice, then send me an email, or (and this is the truly 'holy shit' moment) let's actually meet face to face and have a real conversation where we can talk and get a full understanding of what each other is saying.
Anyways, this is why I've done away with my voicemail. The Africans figured this out long before we did because absolutely no mobile plan has voicemail with it. People either beep one another or they, yes, you guessed it, SMS one another. It works quite well and we could all learn a lot from this, or we can just keep going on leaving our meandering voice messages, although I have stopped any of you from doing that to me now >:)
02 09 2009 0 comments
Tags: communication, internet, voicemail
Let's stop using 'maybe' because it means 'no'
It seems that when people want to stop trolls on a website, they turn to only allowing a positive message to be shared. At first, I agreed with this somewhat, but then realized if you don't allow the negative in, then some aspect of the positive gets co-opted to become the negative. I mean, you can't really define the positive without the negative, so they both have to be there. But there's one other outcome of artificially skewing the positive which is the overuse of "maybe".
I've found that the US loves "maybe". It's not negative and it's not positive. It's completely noncommittal which is great for people who always want to portray an image of either being open to everything or being part of everything. Having the "maybe" allows them to do just this while fitting in a teeth whitening session around their daily activities and it allows Americans the ability to look like positive can-do people while actually being some of the flakiest people in the world.
I say end the "maybe" because really, it means "no". Let's face it, it's either "yes, I can do/come to that" or everything else. I can't count the number of times I've been part of some Evite or Meetup where there are a third "yes", a third "no" and a third "maybe". How can you plan an event other than to assume that all those "maybe" are actually "no" and if they were to show up (they never do), you just have to tell them, "Well, I didn't know you were coming."
I've actually written in to the support teams at both these groups to allow "maybe" to be taken out if you're constructing an event. They refuse to do it which is ridiculous. I think Evite even wrote back to me along the lines of, "We appreciate your feedback, but the majority of our users prefer the 'maybe' option." That's fine. Anyone who wants to use it can, but I just want to get rid of it on what I'm doing so that planning is actually possible instead of trying to generate an illusory buzz about your event.
I have to admit that the Plague of Maybe is something which is much more predominant in the bigger cities in the US. In my hometown if someone doesn't want to attend something, they'll say, "No, I'm not coming. It sounds gay and I think you're a asshole." While blunt, I appreciate this so much more than a "maybe". So come on, let's stop using "maybe".
26 08 2009 2 comments
Tags: internet, language, us america
Wave is great, but where's my HTML 5?
The big buzz since yesterday is surrounding Google Wave. After having read a rundown of this thing, I find it to be rather cool. I'm not alone in this as a great many people feel the same way. The best thing is that they stole Microsoft's thunder over their Bing release, which is always cool.
One of the reasons that I'm rather fond of what Wave is doing is that while doinking around with Facebook's API and Connect systems, I've been a bit lazy to really dig in to them as much as need be. Sure, I know enough to get in there in program up an App, but why? I have nothing on this site that's worthwhile to spout about. Maneno could maybe use an app, but it's in its infancy and needs a lot of things before it needs a Facebook App. And this is why I think Wave will be cool in that it will crush Facebook's proprietary system. It will be open source and do just about everything that Facebook is currently trying to do. I like that. I can get behind that. I can develop for that. Oh, but wait...
Wave is going to need HTML 5 support before it really takes off. As I can see, we're screwed when it comes to HTML 5 support. Firefox 3.1 has it, but we're still officially on Firefox 3. Safari 4 in theory has it, so that's good, although Apple, as super early adopters often crap up standards, so I have a feeling it won't be until Safari 5 that the support will be trustworthy and 4 still is in beta. Explorer is just out in the cold altogether with not even Explorer 8 having support these days and I hope that this is the think that ends up killing off Explorer use. Lastly, Chrome doesn't have support in version 2, which is the current version. I find that odd given that Google is pushing Wave, Wave would like to have HTML 5, and Google makes Chrome. I assume that support will shortly be forthcoming.
So, Wave does appear to be the future, but it's a future we'll have to wait for. Personally, I'll be thrilled to not have to use that damned swfobject JavaScript hack to get Flash working correctly on my sites, since the "video" tag will handle. It's going to be a long day in coming though...
29 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: facebook, google, google wave, internet
Is there really any worth to SFGate anymore?
I will often link to SFGate.com. This is the online extension of both the Chronicle and the Examiner, our two main newspapers in the city. I've enjoyed the site over the years and the upgrade they did a year or so ago really brought the site around and made it seem like SFGate was taking a run at trying to be the new Chron in a world where newspapers are dying off.
This has changed recently. I assume it must have something to their massive losses last year which are requiring a huge staff reduction for the paper. It seems that now, instead of just their own content, they're linking off to others' as well and not that they're licensed the content, but actually full referral links to the other news agency sites. It's like they're trying to make themselves in to some of a San Francisco portal for news. The only problem is that this doesn't work.
As you can see in the graphic below, I've circled all of the alternate sources on a random day for the front page of the paper. It's a lot. In fact, it's the majority of the articles that they're running on the front page of the site. None of us really need this. We read this site because of the original content on it. If we wanted a portal, we could use Yahoo! or Google News. For those inclined, we could also strap together a custom feed reader to see all of this as well.
It comes down to the question that I always ask when doing anything, "What's the added value?" If you're just copying what others do, whether it be reporting, coding, art, or what have you, what are you really doing? What is there, that's new and has worth in your "creation" and merits it generating revenue? If the answer is nothing, then why are you doing it and how do you hope to keep doing it, as anyone can copy, especially in this digital age.
17 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: internet, news, san francisco
End6, Maneno, and Crowd Awesomosity
The term Crowdsourcing has been around with us for about three years or so now. As a theory, it's great stuff in that you work with a large group to spread out a task and see it to completion. Usually everyone works without payment on it as they believe in the project. It's one of the backbones of Linux as well as a huge slew of other technologies that make the web run. You're probably using something that was "crowdsourced" on your computer right now and you don't even know it. Of course, marketing types had to dig their grubby little fingers in to the whole thing and use it as a code word to try and get [trick] people in to working for free by working their wicked marketing ways.
I still believe in it though and for the projects that I'm working on, it's worked well. This probably stems from the fact that I'm not getting paid to work on these projects and I let them speak for themselves. Sure, there is the pitch for help if people want to contribute, but I let people make up their own minds if they think that what they see is worth their time. This can be a slow process to get going in the first place, but once momentum is gained, you can have a legion of fans who show that any project truly work its salt needs no marketing department. Happy contributors and users are your marketing.
I bring this up because the End6 project is a little something that I've been working on to try and rid the world of Explorer 6. It's a simple popup that gets in peoples' faces when they visit a website and are using Internet Explorer 6. The reason for this is that IE6 is dead. It's insecure. It's now two versions old and most importantly, it's a broken piece of crap to develop websites for. That last piece is what really make me take on this project. It's grown slowly. I've had detractors. I've had people who even copied the whole thing, trying to merchandise it, but then disappearing because you can't make money on something like this.
The site was redesigned a few months ago to be a bit more visually appealing, but what has remained is invaluable content from people who were fans. All the translations of the source were from people who were fans. Each language allowed it to grow in to another market and attract new fans.
Today, a fellow named Willian Molinari wrote to me, letting me know that he created a Wordpress plugin called, anti-IE6-army. This is super cool. It spreads out visibility to even more people and will hopefully work to get IE6 outta here faster. The other cool part, is that Willian put the other alternatives in there as well. I love that he gave people a choice. I would never tout my creation as the best. It is quite a simple thing really, but what's important is what's important to these other projects as well and the fact that they're all tied together for Wordpress users is really, really cool. The End6 crowd is cool.
Of course, as I'm prepping for a talk on Maneno at the Creative Commons Salon (if you're around, come out), I am looking at Maneno and can't be more pleased at how the crowd has made this site grow from the base that this Hudin site is running on to a full-fledged blogging platform. People have given great feedback and pushed it in a good direction to be a system that really is for Sub-Saharan African bloggers and not just a Wordpress installation hacked to work for them. But most importantly are all the language translations. Whether it be Bambara, French, Swahili, Portuguese, or the forthcoming Fula and Lingala translations, this work could simply have not have happened without a massive injection of work and support by those who believe in what Maneno is trying to achieve. This is cool. This is great and I look forward to more of it.
Long live the crowd.
15 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: crowdsourcing, end6, internet, maneno
Kodak Gallery has gone Mafia on me
Last week I got a lovely email from Kodak Gallery telling me that I either needed to pay up and buy some yearly swag or risk losing all the photos I have stored on there, which is about 11gigs at the moment. This is apparently a new item in their Terms of Service agreement and I don't find it all that surprising because despite the fact that storage is quite cheap these days, it can add up quickly when you have millions of users swaddling gigs upon gigs of photos on your site.
While I only have buy $20 worth of product from them per year, I could honestly care less if they delete what I have there. I used to use KG to share my trip photos and I happened to like them a good deal more back when they were Ofoto. They served their purpose but now I post everything to the Photos section here. It just works out better so that I'm not entering in two places and people can check out the photos anytime they want. Sure, folks might steal photos, but I've given up really caring about that, since there is little money in photography these days. That's why I gave in and slathered a Creative Commons license across everything here.
But to be honest, the real reason that I don't want to bother buying photo products from KG is that their photo quality is pretty shabby. The printing is okay, but the paper is flimsy and it just feels cheap. I've gotten much better results from Oscar's here in San Francisco. Yes, it's more expensive than KG, but really, if you're going to go to the trouble of printing your digital files, print them right.
As a side note, anyone I know who hasn't printed what they want from my galleries on KG better do it soon because in a month or so, they will be no more.
04 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: internet, photography
Mutha Ucka Just Went and Blew my Uckin' Mind
I originally saw this here and that article author was pretty blown away by it as well. It ties in well with a past article I wrote called, The Brilliance of Editing. And it all goes to show why Puffy Blow Diddy Job Pee Ho (or whatever he calls himself now) is such a worthless hack. There are saps like him and then there are true samplers like the example above. Of course none of this bodes well for the music of the future because without some original content plugged in every now and again, are we just going to keep remixing the remixes until we explode? Most likely yes and is a great deal of the reason why the hipster is such a dead end that is epitomizing this before it really even happens to a massive degree. Just imagine ten years from now. I'll only be able to stand that if the world continues to produce good wine and cheese.
Oh, if you want more of this, go here although that one above is the best.
15 03 2009 0 comments
Tags: hipsters, internet, music
Whoops Goes the Social Media Expert
The "Social Media Expert" is a term that I've gotten to hate. It appears it rubbed Scoble's belly the wrong way as well. Whatever the case, these people are around and they advise groups to do things like start a Facebook account, when they don't really get that they should be starting a Facebook page.
Such was the case with Kiva who actually started up an account instead of using one of their personal (or company) accounts to start a page for people to be fans of. The result is that Kiva has finally become "single". This viewable status change (you can make these types of changes without anyone seeing it if you know how) was not lost on the folks who saw it, which I've included below.
27 01 2009 0 comments
Tags: hubris, internet, marketing
Misworded Mondays: Web 3.0
Defintion: One of the terms used to describe the evolutionary stage of the Web that follows Web 2.0. Given that technical and social possibilities identified in this latter term are yet to be fully realized the nature of defining Web 3.0 is highly speculative. In general it refers to aspects of the internet which, though potentially possible, are not technically or practically feasible at this time.
Usage: "Colm has been developing a new Web 3.0 application that we're ever so excited about. It will revolutionize the field of ass kissing!"
Reality: Web 2.0 was a painful term to hear, bandied about by many a marketing whore. The fact that any next iteration of the web could possibly be called Web 3.0 infects my soul with pain. Sure, if you want to think about what is next in the web, a 3.0 moniker might apply, but the problem is that these things become buzzwords for moron-speak. People run around say, "Oh wow, nice web 2.0." or "Hey, let me buy you a drink for going web 2.0." Nobody in this circle really knows what they mean, so saying that a site is Web 3.0 is ludicrous. No website is currently a 3.0 website. It's true. Point one out to me and I'll buy you a beer if it's true. Hell, I'll even give you an awkward lap dance in front of (or to) your grandma if it were true. That's how sure I am of no Web 3.0 applications existing. Let's just keep in mind that we're still just kind of finishing up the whole web 2.0 thing as the 2.0 social websites start merging/folding with one another.
It may be true that Web 3.0 will have something to do with mobile technology as Android and the iPhone have started to take off, but we'll know if this is the next generation of the web when we see it and it probably won't be until 2010. As it is now, all these mobile features are just outgrowths of 2.0 business. Cry "Fie!" on all those who would be Web 3.0 in this day and age and make sure to light their marketing people on fire just out of principle.
09 11 2008 2 comments
Tags: internet, language, misworded mondays
