Archive for May, 2005
Wal-Mart, Netflix reach DVD truce (SiliconValley.com)
SiliconValley.com - Wal-Mart, the discount retailer whose relentless price cutting has crushed countless smaller competitors, Thursday surrendered its online movie-rental business to Netflix, the DVDs-by-mail upstart.
Apple sued for discrimination by former employee (MacCentral)
MacCentral - A former Apple Computer employee has filed a lawsuit charging the company with discrimination among other charges. The employee, Shaune Patterson, worked as a human resources compensation consultant. Lawyers for Patterson say this may be one of the largest discrimination lawsuits filed against Apple by a Lesbian.
May 22nd, 2005
Internet Business News - Macromedia ships Macromedia Web Publishing System, Macromedia Contribute 3 and Macromedia FlashPaper 2
August 16, 2004 — Macromedia ships Macromedia Web Publishing System, Macromedia Contribute 3 and Macromedia FlashPaper 2.(Macromedia Inc.)
PC Magazine - Macromedia Captivate 1.0
January 20, 2005 — The newly rechristened Macromedia Captivate 1.0 ($499 direct) is the result of the company's 2003 acquisition of eHelp and its long-running RoboDemo product.
PC Magazine - Macromedia's Suite Gambit Pays Off
October 14, 2003 — Not just a collection of disjointed apps in a single box, Macromedia Studio MX 2004 proves the old adage that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
May 22nd, 2005
Quantum encryption demo shows secure video conference potential
ComputerWeekly.com, UK - May 9, 2005 Toshiba Cambridge said quantum cryptography allows users on an optical fibre network to refresh their encryption keys frequently in a completely secret way.
SATA bridge chips to expand interface options
Electronics Talk, UK - May 19, 2005 Oxford's top-of-the range SATA bridge chips will include transparent data encryption as a standard feature. Storage manufacturers
May 21st, 2005
Kylie Minogue Surgery Reported Successful (AP)
AP - Australian pop star Kylie Minogue had a cancerous lump successfully removed from her breast and doctors are confident they caught the disease early enough to prevent it spreading, a surgeon announced Saturday.
'The Child,'Tommy Lee Jones Win at Cannes (AP)
AP - The Belgian film"The Child,"about a young petty crook suddenly faced with the responsibilities of fatherhood, won top honors Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival.
Sundance to Launch Indie-Friendly Theaters (AP)
AP - Robert Redford's Sundance Group will launch Sundance Cinemas, a movie theater chain for independent, documentary and foreign-language films as well as some studio projects.
Friend to Lead'Mister Rogers'Center (AP)
AP - Fred Rogers'former confidant and collaborator has been tapped to lead a center in honor of the creator of public television's"Mister Rogers'Neighborhood."
May 21st, 2005
Missing Backup Tapes Spur Encryption at Time Warner
ComputerWorld - May 9, 2005 Part of the current problem, Lazar said, is that companies don't have proper chain-of-custody requirements or encryption technology in place.
SATA bridge chips to expand interface options
Electronics Talk, UK - May 19, 2005 Oxford's top-of-the range SATA bridge chips will include transparent data encryption as a standard feature. Storage manufacturers
May 21st, 2005
Am I the only person that has had a few dreams with Mr. Trump in them (no not that kind of dream!)???
Donald Trump has made cameos in my dreams several times as a business associate or boss figure who I was out on sales calls with… is that weird or what???
The dreams could not have been more real and what I remember most is that we had a casual and comfortable comradery.
What is particularly strange is that I have not worked for a boss in over 10 years.
In any event the dreams were pretty cool and made me smile at how I manged get Mr. Trump in them… the power of television!
I’m not the only one that has dreamt of Donald Trump, am I???
Donald Trump Dreams
May 20th, 2005
Kendra is Hired!
I couldn’t be more happy to see Kendra was hired as the new Apprentice.
Ya know, I thought it was a long shot for the other lady, Tana, but I must admit Donald Trump added uncertainty when he harped on Kendra’s crying. I almost thought Kendra had a shot… but fortunately that was just to build the tension.
In the end Kendra got the gig and Tana is shipped back to the farm.
Great season finale - congrats Mr. Trump.
More on the Apprentice at TV is King Reality TV Site
May 20th, 2005
SATA bridge chips to expand interface options
Electronics Talk, UK - May 19, 2005 Oxford's top-of-the range SATA bridge chips will include transparent data encryption as a standard feature. Storage manufacturers
PGP: Extended Encryption For Compliance
Enterprise IT Planet, CT - May 11, 2005 has unveiled new security products with an extensive layer of encryption covering the whole enterprise, built to keep up with growing demands for regulatory
PGP: Extended Encryption For Compliance
InternetNews.com - May 10, 2005 products built to keep up with the growing demands for regulatory compliance and information privacy, with an extensive layer of encryption covering the whole
Missing backup tapes spur encryption at Time Warner
ComputerWorld - May 6, 2005 MAY 06, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Time Warner Inc. this week said it will "quickly" begin encrypting all data saved to backup tapes
Vontu and PGP Partner to Deliver Content-aware Email Encryption
SAP INFO, Germany - May 10, 2005 Data loss prevention provider Vontu has partnered with encryption specialist PGP Corporation to offer what they claim is the industry’s first content-aware
Network Resonance Receives Patent for Secure Network Auditing
Yahoo News (press release) - May 18, 2005 Every communication retains the original SSL or TLS encryption until audited by authorized personnel using the portal. A sophisticated
May 20th, 2005
I stumbled onto this opinion post about syndic8.com getting banned from Google because they accepted advertising and placed links to subdomains that contained thrid party content that some people perceived as spam.
Syndic8.com was the subject of a net backlash resulting in Google dropping syndic8.com to PageRank 0 from an 8.
For the record, syndic8 is back up to a PageRank 8 and it appears Google has accepted their apology (must be nice to brownose with the Googles :’>)
Here is an excerpt from an opinion post that prompted me to weigh in.
May 12, 2005
Post Title: Syndic8 on the hot seat for gaming search engines
Quote from TDavid:
“I’ve met Jeff Barr in person and he is a very nice, personable fellow. Nice or not, though — and I think Jeff would agree with this — he made a collosal business blunder here. It’s easy for the rest of us out here to be an armchair quarterbacks and I’m not trying to just pile onto a good guy with this one, but it bears repeating to webmasters reading this: do not try to game the search engines!”
“Read the Google guidelines and follow them. Do not let any advertising deal or scheme rope you, fellow webmasters, into something that smells fishy. When in doubt, make a blog post and ask what others think about the deal and if it would be kosher. Heck, I got taken a little bit to task over just making a freaking checkbox default checked (which is still under consideration for change, BTW), so you can bet people out there will offer opinions proactively — instead of reactively — to any questions one might have about the ethics of a given activity.”
Please read the full text Posted by Tdavid at the URL:
http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20050512/1850/
OK, here is what I have to say.
In my opinion I do not believe Jeff Barr of syndic8.com had any intenion of “gaming the search engines”.
I believe Jeff Barr made a business decision he thought would make him more money from advetising and that decision turned out NOT to be a good one. I’m confident that Jeff had no idea that this decision could get him banned from Google.
Please read Jeff’s post in his blog entitled:
I Was Really Stupid, and Greedy Too
URL: http://www.syndic8.com/~jeff/blog/index.php?p=214
I appreciate that Jeff is apologetic, however I am concerned that he is now running scared and will take less chances and be less innovative because he feels he will have to always look over his shoulder.
I haven’t studied what syndica8.com did specifically, so I can’t comment as to whether what he did was right or wrong. I suspect it was wrong or at least partially wrong…
I would like to respond to the avalanche of negative feelings sent his way and the varying opinions stated that seem to feel that any kind of search engine optimiztion, or the selling of advertising are evil practices and that offenders should be hung out to dry.
Google’s “guidelines” “TOS” “Rules”, whatever you call them, are vague and next to impossible to follow except in a very broad sense.
My interpretation is:
you better not do bad evil things or you’ll regret it.
A passage from their sacred TOS can be roughly translated as
“Ads should not be placed on pages with the intention of making money”
- that’s a joke :’>
It’s not specific in any sense… not black or white - right or wrong. It’s intentionally vague and authoritative.
Google likes it this way because it makes everyone walk on their tip toes carefully and leaves their terms of service wide open to interpretation ( OR MISINTERPRETATION !!! )
“Better safe than sorry” many cautious and fearful webmasters say… better not put ANY links on a page, because some links are bad… better not try to make money on my site because making money and greed is bad…
Since when is showing ads and hoping they get clicked an evil thing??? Google does it – on every page of their site!
If you think about it – Google goes out to the net and borrows content – words, images, news stories, whatever – puts them on it’s web pages without permission and then slaps a bunch of advertisements on their pages so they can make billions of dollars.
Don’t get the wrong idea here – I am being sarcastic.
I believe Google has every right to do that.
Now, don’t we have the right to do that as well, or only allow the right to Google.
Whatever happened to the original spirit of the net? People exploring, expressing, creating and interacting with others in a whole new way.
Suddenly the web is overpopulated with sour grapes, jealous losers, tattle tales and complaining whiners.
Am I complaining :’> Er, sorry!
For some twisted reason it has become fun for some bottom dwellers to be the evil lurker in a forum and make people feel bad. Fun for some people to write blogs criticizing others and calling out for a lynching without even a trial. Negative vibes emmanate all over the net.
What ever happened to KARMA?
do something NICE and something nice will happen to you…
Do unto your neighbors… blah blah.
If you don’t have anything nice to say…
Why can’t we just get along???
Why is it that so many people enjoy other people’s misery? They enjoy it so much that they even go to great lengths to make other people feel miserable.
And if you are successful like Jeff Barr from syndic8 - look out… there are likely people gunning for you… waiting for you to “game the search engines” so they can start a backlash…
I have learned to stay away from discussions in forums and such, because it never fails, there is always someone quick to jump in and spread the negativity. Serve up hostility. They enjoy it.
Why does it make people feel so good to make other people feel so bad?
That should be in the “guidelines” someone. BE NICE TO OTHERS.
Back to what is good conduct in the eyes of almighty Google…
Google does not make public their “rules and regulations” other than to paint a broad picture that anything bad isn’t good so don’t do it.
If you at all think about WHY you are doing something, it probably is evil.
That’s what I get from the TOS at Google.
I’m not saying that what syndic8 did was good, right or proper. I didn’t see it with my own eyes and from my point of view the DNS redirection part with subdomains was obviously not smart.
They could have made more ad money in a more legitimate way I am sure, BUT since when do webmasters have to ask their visiting public what is OK and what is not OK to do on the websites???
Do we have to ask permission if it is OK before we make decisions like what kind of ads to place on our sites, or whether we should do so at all?
Just because someone makes money or as people put it “they took the money”, doesn’t make it bad or evil… Google takes the money like crazy… are they bad? They run ads up the ying yang and even make the advertisers bid on terms so that they have to pay $75. a click for “lung cancer cure” or whatever…
Sure, we’d have more “feel good” moments if all those evil doing net business people did this thing for free, or donated all profits to save the whales, but hey - this here is the USA!
We do things to make money so our quality of life improves and we have more toys to play with, right???
Is Google unethical for putting ads on all their pages? Are they evil for charging $75. a click to customers willing to pay it?
No, they’re just doing business. They simply wanna make their stockholders shit loads of cash… that’s not evil… it’s just being Google.
But dare any other less God like web businesses try to make a buck… look out!
If great web sites like syndic8 are to remain valuable resources, it is reasonable to expect that they will be a “business” and do things to “make a profit”. Not underhanded unethical things, but hey – occasionally they may run an ad that offends us or doesn’t seem like it belongs… so what?
Is placing an ad for HOT CHOCOLATE when it is not a hot chocolate themed web site acceptable???
Other times it may be making “business decisions” for things like ad placement… placing ads where they make more money from people clicking more often. That isn’t gaming is it…
Running a popular web site is a business and somebody has to pay the bills - unless they make the site suck so bad it isn’t fun to visit - why complain about how they make money???
It’s OK to make money on the web, right???
I can hear a few of you saying… “it’s not OK to make money IF…” IF is subjective. As long as it is legal, let’s not be so quick to judge. If you don’t like what a site is doing – don’t visit that site.
Please don’t think I condone spam or evil practices in any manner - I do NOT! But instead of starting a web backlash and running off tattling to Google, why not reach out to the web site and let them know you’re disappointed in something before you go and crucify them.
I just don’t get it when people are so eager and HAPPY to stomp on other people and point the finger at them and say things like they are EVIL for wanting to make money.
I say – worry more about what you are doing and pay less attention to the way you want other people to live their lives and run their businesses.
Go hug your wife or a dolphin… do something good!
OK. Did I piss anyone off out there??? NO??? GOOD!!!
Fedburner Feed
May 16th, 2005
It aint over yet! Sunday night and someone is winning Survivor tonight!
OK, it’s 9:16 PM here in California and the final episode of Survivor is on TV. Since I am Tivo’ing it I haven’t begin watching it yet!
I will now FINALLY make my judgements and select the one I’d like to win.
The final 4 contestants are:
Katie - looking better since she’s shed a few points, and she has a nice personality. She got a bit emotional on Ian and that was hard to take, but she has grown on me.
Ian - I was indifferent about Ian up until last weeks episode when he started to act goofy. First he and Tom decide if they win a reward challenge that they’d bring one of the gals so they’d be seperated. Ina wins a car and a reward at a mansion and what does he do - he picks Tom to accompany him. That alone had me thinking twice about him, but when things heated up he started having trouble reponding and I thought he dug himself in so deep he’d be a goner last week… but he didn’t.
Tom - the most intelligent and capable of the survivor’s. Tom is very level headed which I appreciate. His calm handling of Ian’s change in plans was admirable. If Tom makes it to the final two he is without question going to be the sole survivor as voted by the jury.
Jenn - She is pretty and a good competitor. She is strong, but didn’t really play the game too much, at least not all that noticeably. She clung to Greg a bit much and was more of his shadow.
OK, all that laid out on the table it must seem obvious I am rooting for Tom as the winner of Survivor Palau. I am. He is strong and honest.
Here are my picks in order.
1. Tom - he deserves it
2. Katie - she deserves runner up, but blew it by keeping Ian in the game
3. Jenn - no one will feel she is qualified to be the soul survivor. I can’t see her winning, although she looks good. Also the jury will still hold her relationship with Greg against her.
4. Ian - he should not win. If he makes it to the final two, he will lose. If he wins the joke is on us.
So, let’s see how it pans out. Regardless of who wins I will say I enjoyed this season of Survivor almost as much as All-Stars and much better than the dud season of Vanuatu.
Survivor just keeps on kicking!
May 16th, 2005
Macromedia to Hold 2005 Annual Financial Analyst Meeting in San Francisco, California (Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance)
Macromedia, Inc. today announced that its management team will provide an update on the Company's financial strategies and growth initiatives at its 2005 annual financial analyst meeting in San Francisco, California, beginning at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 18.
Education Is the Focus at Streaming Media East (Ziff Davis via Yahoo! News)
Macromedia's acquisition by Adobe should be all the buzz, but panels will focus on the development and deployment of streams.
Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual
Excellent reference for Macromedia’s Web Authoring Software.
RSS 6 links: Dreamweaver
Excellent reference for Macromedia’s Web Authoring Software.
May 15th, 2005
Ellis Island Passenger Arrivals : American Family Immigration
Between 1892 and 1924 over 22 million passengers and members of ships' crews came through Ellis Island and the Port of New York.
Immigration History Research Center
Resource on American immigration and ethnic history. Archival and library collections, academic and public programs, publishes bibliographic and scholarly
New Zealand Immigration Service
Official NZ Immigration Site. Lots of useful information, including current passmarks, form downloads, a list of offices and fees and all the new
May 15th, 2005
I saw that the Rolling Stones are back at it and doing a mondo sized tour. My age is becomming more evident as I saw them 20 years ago at the Oakland Coloseum.
As concerts go it was OK, but geez, can they still rock 20 years later??? Mick is in his 60’s!
Here is an excerpt of the article with details of the Stones tour.
______________
Rolling Stones Revival Tour to Stop in Atlanta
Fans Can Buy Tickets Saturday
NEW YORK — Roll over Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news: The Rolling Stones announced a new album and world tour Tuesday with a three-song mini-concert at one of Manhattan’s bastions of classical music, The Juilliard School.
The familiar crunching riff of “Start Me Up” was greeted with a roar from hundreds of fans filling Lincoln Center from its plaza to its rooftops, as sixty-something lead singer Mick Jagger launched into the lyrics.
“Thank you very much guys,” Jagger told the cheering crowd at the century-old conservatory on a sunny spring afternoon. “This is one of the earliest concerts we’ve played.”
The brief show promoted the tour that begins Aug. 21 at Fenway Park, where the legendary rock dinosaurs will play in front of the Green Monster. Dates in North America will continue through December.
Full text of article at:
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/4475016/detail.html?rss=atl&psp=news
Rolling Stones Concer Tour News:
http://www.livedaily.com/onsale/archive/1077-4.html
Question: Are Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones too old to rock the house???
May 15th, 2005
Computerworld Encryption News Headlines
Encryption Knowledge Center News Encryption News | Mobile Channel | E-mail newsletters > Encryption XML Feed > XML Feed FAQ
Encryption - a CompInfo Directory
Find the best sources of Internet-based information on Encryption. Encryption - News. Anti Virus News The Register; Computer Security News
May 15th, 2005
Immigration History Research Center
Resource on American immigration and ethnic history. Archival and library collections, academic and public programs, publishes bibliographic and scholarly
Center for Immigration Studies
May 13, 1997 - The INS announces that a record number of illegal immigrants have been deported during the second quarter of the fiscal year.
May 15th, 2005
Immigration Forms and Fees
This page provides you with access to immigration forms. Please take the time to read our General Directions on Immigration Forms, as well as Fee
New Zealand Immigration Service
The New Zealand Immigration Service helps people into New Zealand to visit, study, work, invest, or live. NZIS administers visas and permits and controls
May 15th, 2005
Weinsteins show in Cannes there's life after Disney (Reuters)
Reuters - Bob and Harvey Weinstein areproving there is life after Disney.
Crazy Cabbie Gets Jail After On-Air Boast (AP)
AP - Radio personality"Crazy Cabbie"will spend a year in prison for tax evasion after boasting about it on the nationally syndicated"Howard Stern Show."
A glass glove fits'Cinderella Man'(USATODAY.com)
USATODAY.com - As a kid, Jeremy Schaap says he was"somewhat of a geek"who liked to memorize long lists of names, all the heavyweight boxing champions. That's how he first heard of James J. Braddock. Only boxing historians know much about Braddock, the most unlikely of champions, but that's about to change.
May 15th, 2005
CANNES (Reuters) - Dreams of comic-book heroics fueled Samuel L. Jackson’s desire for a part in George Lucas’s “Star Wars” epic.
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“I used to sit in the theater and wonder who was auditioning people, where were they holding the auditions and how could I get in it,” Jackson told Reuters Saturday, the eve of the world premiere of the sixth and final “Star Wars” episode.
“It’s always part of that comic-book world that I grew up reading and wishing I could be in,” he added, as the Cannes film festival braced for a flood of Lucas publicity Sunday.
The movie, “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith,” is set for its global premiere in the French Riviera resort, with an ocean liner booked to host Lucas and the world’s media for one of the most heavily hyped releases in recent years.
The first five films have taken well over $3.5 billion at the box office and a further $9 billion in official merchandise sales.
Jackson believes Sith is a key part of the series, because it explains how Anakin Skywalker turns from Jedi Knight to evil warlord Darth Vader.
“I think these (last) three films are about the evolution of who we know as Darth Vader, and I guess now looking back on the other films you also have a different view of who he is,” said Jackson, wearing a white flat cap and dark sunglasses.
“We used to see him as just pure evil, because we didn’t know that much about him. Now we know how he got to this particular place, so he seems more the tragic figure than an evil figure now.”
For Natalie Portman, the actress who plays the queen- turned-politician in the latest Star Wars trilogy, saying farewell to the films will be a bittersweet moment.
“It’s been an amazing sort of phase of my life,” she told Reuters. “You’re leaving it behind and … you don’t have another chance to go back and do it again.”
Portman’s hair will raise eyebrows when she hits the publicity trail Sunday, without her flowing black locks.
“I’m shooting a film called ‘V for Vendetta’ right now in Berlin, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, and in this story I’m imprisoned by a totalitarian government and my head is shaved,” she explained.
Apart from the Lucas creation, Portman has other interests in Cannes: a second film in which she stars, Israeli director Amos Gitai’s “Free Zone,” is one of 21 movies competing for the coveted Palme d’Or prize.
Article Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050514/people_nm/samueljackson_starwars_dc_1
May 15th, 2005
Uh oh Abobe bought Macromedia… will we get shafted???
You have no doubt heard about Abobe buying Macromedia. It’s not official yet but there is already buzz about what will happen when it goes down.
I just worry that a few of my fave products will disappear. Like Fireworks. While I love Adobe Photoshop, there is something magical and fun about Fireworks. You can do some wicked LOGO and type tricks with it.
What do you think???
Here is news text.
Adobe may drop several of its products once its takeover of Macromedia completes.
An NPD Techworld report cited by MacNN reports that Adobe will also gain control of Macromedia’s ubiquitous Flash platform, an important asset, according to the analyst firm. Over 95 per cent of Internet-connected computers have Flash installed, the report claims.
Flash ownership a focal point
“NPD believes that Adobe will not only leverage the Flash platform to drive sales of its graphics and digital video editing and compositing applications, but will use Flash to extend the reach of its “intelligent document” platform automating enterprise business processes as well,” claims MacNN.
Customers stand to benefit from the merger, which will possibly take until 2008 to be fully completed. Customers will see better integration between the applications they already use.
GoLive, FreeHand, Fireworks may pass
“NPD predicts that Photoshop and Dreamweaver customers will be least affected by the merger”, the report adds, explaining that these will most likely end up being integrated within one suite of tools - the report observes that the GoLive, Fireworks and FreeHand products may be sold.
Marketshare figures cited in the report for professional graphics and Web applications show Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Flash as leaders in their respective fields.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?home&NewsID=11553
Talk about it!
May 15th, 2005
MediaCrypt Unveils Newest Encryption Algorithm: IDEA NXT
Yahoo News (press release) - May 9, 2005 Based on the strengths and foundation of MediaCrypt's IDEA encryption algorithm, which has secured millions of transactions, documents and communications
You should not come accross this error as most ISP's servers do
Cheap56k.com (press release) - May 13, 2005 ISP History: protocol to allow the computers to send and receive messages and data, known as an interface message processor (IMPs).
Vontu and PGP Corporation Deliver First Content-Aware Email
PR Newswire (press release) - May 9, 2005 leader in Data Loss Prevention solutions, today announced that it has partnered with, PGP Corporation, the global customer standard for encryption and digital
May 15th, 2005
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