eConsultant

Project Googlefox

Project Googlefox
By Eric Hellweg January 31, 2005

As far as rumors go, the one about Google's move into the browser space is heating up. Ever since it was uncovered that the search company registered the URL gbrowser.com last April, Web chatter has been abuzz with the prospect of Google launching a browser to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

The buzz meter ratcheted up a few ticks last week when Ben Goodger and Darin Fisher, two key players in the development of the Firefox browser, each announced on the MozillaZine blog that they were now employees of Google.

"Another pointer towards a Google browser," someone posted on Googlefan.com. "Ben Goodger was lead engineer on the Firefox project…now he's been hired by Google -- the company that owns gbrowser."

Neither Goodger nor Fisher is commenting on their new roles, and Steve Langdon, a spokesperson for the company, has also maintained a relative silence on the specifics.

"I'm not able to share any information on what Ben's going to work on," Langdon says. "Many of Google's products aim to enhance browser products, and we're interested in exploring interaction between browsers and Google's services."

For the sake of argument, let's assume that Google is in fact building a browser. The company is constantly unveiling new products, from desktop search tools to television video searches. A browser wouldn't be a tremendous departure for the company's famous tinkerers.

But a Google browser would be a major shot across the bow of Microsoft.

Right now, Microsoft doesn't make money on its Internet Explorer, although the product is lumped in with the company's lucrative Operating Systems division. The IE browser, though, plays an important defensive position for the company, a position that's expected to become more offensive when Microsoft's next operating system, Longhorn, is released in 2006.

Analysts believe the browser will feature an integrated search component, similar to a toolbar, which will return users to a Microsoft-produced search results page, with keyword and other advertisements around the search results.

The troublesome area for Microsoft, however, is that it might not maintain its browser dominance until 2006. With the release of Firefox, Microsoft is seeing that latent user frustration molts into defection, given a suitable alternative choice.

According to OneStat.com, IE has lost five percent of its market share directly to Firefox, a product publicized almost exclusively through word of mouth alone. Think about the user reaction -- spurred by perceived virus vulnerabilities and quality concerns -- if Google were to launch a browser and advertise it heavily.

"A Google browser could dramatically change the browser market share," says Mark Mahaney, an analyst with American Technology Research.

Microsoft is downplaying the speculation, and putting a smiling face on the prospect of a new browser war.

"While Internet Explorer is the choice of hundreds of millions because of the unique value it provides, we respect that some customers will choose an alternative," a Microsoft spokesperson says in an email interview.

For now, Microsoft isn't yet in trouble. It still controls over 90 percent of the browser market, and with the Longhorn on the way in less that two years, Google needs to act quickly if it is in fact planning on launching a browser product. A new Internet Explorer with built-in search capabilities could have a devastating effect on Google.

"If there's one thing that has the potential to dramatically switch search share now is an integrated search function in a browser," says Mahaney.

Slashdot | Microsoft Opening Office XML Formats: "Microsoft has opened up the XML schemas for Office 2003, thereby silencing a lot of criticism. This could potentially open the way for several government contracts as certain governments have made open standards (and not open-source) a pre-requisite. In their FAQ, Microsoft not only says that open source developers can distribute software built using them, but also that they'll make all future updates available using the same terms. Here is the Official Microsoft Site and CRN and Techworld have stories about it."

So you want to be a consultant...?

"So you want to be a consultant..."

r: Why work 8 hours/day for someone else when you can work 16 hours/day for yourself?

I've been a consultant of one form or another since 1985 when I started my old company, V-Systems, with a friend from college, and actually did bits and pieces of consulting as early as 1982. I have been asked often about the business, and I decided to write this up.

Please note that I am providing observations from my own personal experience, but I am not providing tax or legal advice. You need to pay somebody for that, and I'm not qualified.

Furthermore, I am not even attempting to make this a comprehensive guide for everything required by one in or contemplating the consulting business. I am purposely omitting whole areas, such as licensure, insurance, and negotiating - there are other books for that, and this isn't trying to be one of them ...

BBC NEWS | Technology | Smart search lets art fans browse

"Smart search lets art fans browse"

If you don't know art but know what you like, new search technology could prove a useful gateway to painting.

ArtGarden, developed by BT's research unit, is being tested by the Tate as a new way of browsing its online collection of paintings.

Rather than search by the name of an artist or painting, users are shown a selection of pictures.

Clicking on their favourite will change the gallery in front of them to a selection of similar works.

Browsing

It is much more akin to wandering through the gallery
Jemima Rellie, Tate Online

The technology uses a system dubbed smart serendipity, which is a combination of artificial intelligence and random selection.

It 'chooses' a selection of pictures, by scoring paintings based on a selection of keywords associated with them.

So, for instance a Whistler painting of a bridge may have the obvious keywords such as bridge and Whistler associated to it but will also widen the search net with terms such as aesthetic movement, 19th century and water.

A variety of paintings will then be shown to the user, based partly on the keywords and partly on luck.

"It is much more akin to wandering through the gallery," said Jemima Rellie, head of the Tate's digital programme.

For Richard Tateson, who worked on the ArtGarden project, the need for a new way to search grew out of personal frustration.

"I went to an online clothes store to find something to buy my wife for Christmas but I didn't have a clue what I wanted," he said.

The text-based search was restricted to looking either by type of garment or designer, neither of which he found helpful.

He ended up doing his present shopping on the high street instead.

Music and film searches

He thinks the dominance of text-based searching is not necessarily appealing to the majority of online shoppers.

Similarly, with art, browsing is often more important than finding a particular object.

"You don't arrive at Tate Britain and tell people what you want to see. One of the skills of showing off the collection is to introduce people to things they wouldn't have asked for," he said.

The Tate is committed to making its art more accessible and technology such as ArtGarden can help with that, said Ms Rellie.

She hopes the technology can be incorporated on to the website in the near future.

BT research is looking at extending the technology to other searching, such as for music and films.

DivXRepair, divx, repair
"Welcome to DivXRepair"
If you are playing avi files, you may have noticed one of the following things:
- Suddenly the image froze but the sound kept playing.
- Disoriented or equally coloured blocks of pixels distorted the image for a time.
Using DivXRepair, you can repair corrupt avi files and eliminate freezes. This program automatically detects and eliminates bad frames.

Convert all your Videos to DVD ...

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > State of the Art: Videotape to DVD, Made Easy

"Videotape to DVD, Made Easy"

WHOEVER said "technology marches on" must have been kidding. Technology doesn't march; it sprints, dashes and zooms.

That relentless pace renders our storage media obsolete with appalling speed:5¼-inch floppies, Zip disks or whatever. And with the debut of each new storage format, millions of important files, photos, music and video have to be rescued from the last one.

At the moment, the most urgent conversion concerns videotape, whose signal begins to deteriorate in as little as 15 years. Rescuing tapes by copying them to fresh ones isn't an option, because you lose half the picture quality with each generation. You could play them into a computer for editing and DVD burning, but that's a months-long project. You could pay a company to transfer them to DVD, if you can stomach the cost and the possibility that something might happen to your precious tapes in the mail.

There is, fortunately, a safe, automated and relatively inexpensive solution to this problem: the combo VHS-DVD recorder. It looks like a VCR, but it can play or record both VHS tapes and blank DVD discs, and copy from one to the other, in either direction. Pressing a couple of buttons begins the process of copying a VHS tape to a DVD, with very little quality loss. (You can't duplicate copy-protected tapes or DVD's, of course; only tapes and discs you've recorded yourself.)

And if your movies are on some other format, like 8-millimeter cassettes, you can plug the old camcorder into the back of this machine, hit Play, and walk away as the video is transferred to a DVD.

(Of course, now you have to worry about the longevity of recordable DVD's. Fortunately, a DVD's movie files are stored as digital signals, not analog, so you won't lose any quality when you copy them onto whatever video format is popular in 2025. Video contact lenses, perhaps?)

As a bonus, a combo VCR-DVD player-recorder can eliminate one machine stacked under the TV, one remote control and, in most cases, one set of cables to your TV. (None of this makes it simple, however. All of these machines are far more complex than, say, a stand-alone DVD player.)

I sampled four of these combo boxes: the Panasonic DMR-E75V, the RCA DRC8300N, GoVideo's VR2940, and the JVC DR-MV1S. (Who makes up these model names, anyway - drunken Scrabble players?) All are available online for $285 to $350. As it turns out, shopping for a combo recorder is an exercise in compromise. Here are some of the trade-offs you have to look forward to.

A9.com Home Page

[print version] Microsoft: Legit Windows or no updates | CNET News.com

Microsoft: Legit Windows or no updates

By Ina Fried
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Legit+Windows+or+no+updates/2100-1016_3-5550205.html

Story last modified Tue Jan 25 21:00:00 PST 2005



Aiming to crack down on counterfeit software, Microsoft plans later this year to require customers to verify that their copy of Windows is genuine before downloading security patches and other add-ons to the operating system.

Since last fall the company has been testing a tool that can check whether a particular version of Windows is legitimate, but until now the checks have been voluntary. Starting Feb. 7, the verification will be mandatory for many downloads for people in three countries: China, Norway and the Czech Republic.

In those countries, people whose copies are found not to be legitimate can get a discount on a genuine copy of Windows, though the price varies from $10 to $150 depending on the country.

By the middle of this year, Microsoft will make the verification mandatory in all countries for both add-on features to Windows as well as for all OS updates, including security patches. Microsoft will continue to allow all people to get Windows updates by turning on the Automatic Update feature within Windows. By doing so, Microsoft hopes it has struck a balance between promoting security and ensuring that people buy genuine versions of Windows.

"We think that the best foundation for the most secure system is genuine software," said David Lazar, director of the Genuine Windows program at Microsoft. "We want to urge all of our customers to use genuine software. (At the same time), we want to make sure that we don't do anything to reduce the likelihood that a user will keep their system up to date."

The program, known as Windows Genuine Advantage, also offers perks to those who verify their copy of Windows. Those who do can get free software as well as discounts on other Microsoft products and services. Microsoft is upping the ante a bit, adding some additional discounts on MSN Games as well as on the company's recently announced Outlook Live subscription service to the existing list of benefits, which includes free access to the company's Photo Story 3 program.

Customers do appear to be interested in double-checking the status of their operating system. Some 8 million people have been asked to participate in the program since testing began, and more than 5 million have taken part.

And those numbers have come with very little recruiting on the part of Microsoft, Lazar said.

"More and more we will be marketing the offers to broaden the participation," he said. "People do like free stuff."

Piracy is a major problem for Microsoft and others in the software industry. One software industry study estimated that more than a third of software is pirated, costing the industry $29 billion a year. Microsoft won't put an exact figure on its losses, but said it is certainly in the billions over the past 10 years.

The validation effort is just part of Microsoft's threefold program, which focuses on educating users, engineering products in ways that minimize piracy, and enforcement through the legal system.

As for the added security risk, Directions on Microsoft analyst Michael Cherry said that people are putting too much of the blame on the software maker.

Cherry said it is not necessarily Microsoft's responsibility to protect people who aren't paying the company for its products. He likened the situation to buying a fake Rolex and then expecting warranty service if the product breaks.

The problem with that analogy, Cherry acknowledged, is that a broken Rolex doesn't put other watch owners at risk, whereas vulnerable computers connected to the Internet threaten all PC users. However, Cherry said that many of the computers that are at risk are using genuine, but older versions of Windows.

"There's a growing chance that the people whose machines are being taken over are running older systems which aren't really securable," he said.

Cherry said he thinks the company is acting appropriately, noting that making sure people are running genuine Windows is important for all customers.

"I think they are entitled to do this, and I think it is in customers' best interest to know that they have a genuine version of the software," he said. Counterfeit copies could contain their own bugs or viruses, and there is no way to guarantee that security patches will work, even if the user can download them, he said.

While Microsoft is the obvious beneficiary if piracy rates go down, Cherry said programs like Genuine Advantage also help level the playing field for smaller computer builders who play by the rules and find themselves undercut by dealers offering PCs with bogus copies of Windows.

"Those are the people I hope the program is helping," Cherry said.

An excellent article on use-cases for web site construction ...




by Norm Carr
and Tim Meehan

One of the biggest problems in delivering a website, and yet probably the least talked and written about, is how to decide, specify, and communicate just what, exactly, is it that we’re going to build, and why. What problem are we solving? Who needs it? What’s this site for, anyway?

Poor understanding of target user needs or our client’s vision, ineffective use of limited resources, misguided emphasis on the wrong design priorities, over-emphasis on pet technologies — all will contribute to a failed, late, inappropriate or too-expensive website. Experience can teach us how to avoid pitfalls, but the greatest lesson can be learned by the least experienced: the earlier that purpose and goals are clearly defined and recorded, the more easily problems are identified and solved, the easier it is to stay focused, and the better the result is for everyone.

Somewhat surprisingly, web developers seem reluctant to adopt methods and approaches from other disciplines that could reduce their problems. Particularly during the crucial initial phase of projects, we can benefit from emulating certain software engineering practices.

Rent songs via subscription ... $50 / month for cable to listen to songs on the TV ; $50 / mo for DSL to listen to mp3 on the computer; $12/month for satellite radio in your car; $15 / month for Rhapsody to fill your iPod ...

Gunning for iTunes

Don't look now, but the world of digital music is about to get rocked.

This quarter, leading online music services that offer consumers monthly subscriptions and individual song downloads will try to gain ground on Apple's iTunes by introducing the ability to move subscription-based songs onto a plethora of MP3 players, thereby answering one of the biggest criticisms leveled against the services.

When the subscription services become portable, the effect should be nothing short of revolutionary -- immediately leveling, if not reversing, the current iTunes-dominated digital music market.

Digital music subscription services such as Napster, Yahoo's MusicMatch, Virgin Digital, and Real Networks' Rhapsody allow consumers the ability to stream more than 800,000 songs to the PC for roughly $10 per month.

Up until now, though, there's been a catch: subscribers can't take the music with them.

Burning songs onto CDs costs more, and if a user wants to download an individual track, in many cases that costs more as well. And since the music is streamed over the Internet, subscribers couldn't move any songs onto MP3 players.

"No one wants to lug their laptop into their car and hook it up to their car stereo," says Zack Zalon, president of Virgin Digital. Consumers are using streaming subscription services right now "in the short period of time at home or office. [Subscribers] are very interested in portability. It's the biggest issue."

To make those song portable, the services have turned to Microsoft's Janus technology.

Introduced late last year, Janus uses software and hardware hooks to make sure a song's usage licenses are up-to-date. Using Janus, subscribers will be able to drag and drop songs from their streaming music service onto certified portable music players.

The technology is part of Microsoft's "Plays For Sure" initiative, a sweeping marketing effort aimed at helping consumers understand what services and content can play on what devices. A Plays For Sure logo on a portable digital player, for example, means that it will play music from any service that also features a logo.

In terms of storage, consumers will be limited only by the capacity of their players, provided they maintain their monthly subscription and dock the device at least once a month to update the licenses.

Guibot : Home Page: "Guibot: Bridging the Gap Between Customer and Coder

Our UML based Guibot tools establish fast, clear, and accurate requirements by implementing the Cockburn Use Case format with automated GUI prototyping and automated Activity Diagram production via our notation, Extended Activity Semantics. When using Extended Activity Semantics, the system 'to be' is visualized in the context of the customer workflow, allowing the customer to articulate the information system in their own business language. At the same time, the programmer receives a clear description of the user activity and information requirements.

By combining activity diagrams with GUI prototyping, quick buy-in and clear communication between the customers and the software production team is established. Forward and reverse engineering of activity diagrams, combined with GUI prototyping, is available as a stand-alone tool or as a Rational Rose add-in."

XML Smell language developed by university

XML Smell language developed by university

Sounds, pictures, and now niffs

By: INQUIRER staff Sunday 23 January 2005, 13:04
A RESEARCHER at Huelva University in Spain claims to have created a version of XML that can transmit smells. Or fragrances if you prefer.

According to the university, the ability to transmit smells has applications in many fields, including tourism, gaming, marketing, medicine, and others. We can think of some of the others, but we guess you can too.

The university said that it's worked with researchers in both computing and chemistry to come up with the concept of the XML Smell language.

It said the initial idea was to print smells on paper using laser and inkjet printers, but the fragrances degraded over a short period of time. And so the boffins claim to have developed a dual pass printing system, using two polymers which degrade by light and by touch, so that the niff only niffs when a document is read.

But the researchers said they quickly realised that smells could be propagated over networks and the Web. And so they have created XML Smell, which they claim can define in universal and standardised way the transmission of smell which allows the transmission of fragrances by email, by SMS to a mobile phone, or via a TV show.

Currently, the boffins are designing a device which will sit close to a TV, a radio, a phone or a PC, and which contains a "smell palette". The components in the palette are realised according to instructions contained in the XML Smell language.

Right now, the boffins are working on miniaturising such a device.

You think it's an early April Fool, right? Go here.

As Fernando Cassia, who kindly translated the piece for the INQ remarks: "We'll soon have to watch out for smelly denial-of-service attacks, with techies saying: 'Sorry honey, I won't be able to make it to dinner tonight, we've had a hacker break-in at work and we're up to here in the sh*t. Literally, the place stinks!"

Pricelessware - Contents: "2004's Pricelessware of the year!"

Thingster Overview

"Executive Overview

Present

Thingster is an open-source weblogging service for locative media. It is being developed by Anselm Hook, Tom Longson and Brad Degraf in association with Locative - a multi-disciplinary group of theorists, artists and engineers exploring the implications of attaching information to place.

Users can publish 'virtual post it notes' about any geographic location: a street intersection, a street address, a restaurant, a hiking trail or a geocache.

Speed and ease of use is a key feature. The time from first seeing the service to making that first post can be less than a minute.

The reward or 'exit strategy' for a project like Thingster is social and environmental. The hope is to enrich neighborhoods such that it becomes easy to discover local services at a lower cost and to create additional environmental awareness.

The hope is that people using Thingster should have a higher quality of life than people not use Thingster - they should simply be 'more fit'."

Slashdot | Microsoft Won't Appeal EU Ruling

"Microsoft has decided not to appeal the European court order to implement antitrust sanctions, Instead, Microsoft hopes to win their main appeal that they (Microsoft) had abused their software dominance.'"

kottke.org :: home of fine hypertext products

"Craigslist and cottage industries

In NYC, when you don't have a car and you need to move stuff that won't fit in a taxi and isn't enough that you need an entire huge moving van, you call a 'man with a van'.** I recently used the services of a guy named Paul, recommended by a friend of a friend. After packing the back of his truck with my things, we set off for our destination, chatting along the way. He asked me how I'd found him and we eventually got to talking about craigslist.

Paul told me that these days, he got most of his jobs from CL and only one or two a week from personal referrals. I found that surprising and when I pressed him further, he told me that because of CL, he's been able to do pursue moving (which he really likes doing) as a full-time career. I can't remember the exact quote, but Paul said something to the effect that he can't believe he's getting away with starting a full-time business on CL without it costing him a single dime.

I'd never really thought about it before, but in some ways, CL helps lots of people build businesses cheaper and more effectively than more 'robust', complex, and expensive enterprise software solutions. Movers are just one example. CL can help you find employees for your business. If you've got a van, you can pick up free furniture and electronics around the city, fix or refurbish, and sell it. You can start a business doing computer troubleshooting, piano lessons, buying and fixing up old motorcycles, or escort and sensual massage services. And if you need something done for your business but don't have the money to pay for it, you can always barter goods or services in exchange. These are just the obvious examples. Does anyone know of anyone using craigslist in more creative ways to make a living or other examples of people succeeding in business using CL?

** Don't know how this evolved, but folks in the "man with a van" profession like to rhyme the names of their businesses. My guy was "Call Paul to Haul", but you will also probably find "Chuck/Buck with a Truck", "Cory with a Lorry", "Schmuck with a Truck", "Call Jack to Pack", and so on. (Oh, I'd recommend using Paul if you need a man with a van...contact me if you'd like his info.)

Indian accent a BPO liability?

"Indian accent a BPO liability?"

Is the heavy Indian accent prompting a major US outsourcing firm to slash its India operations by 50 per cent and relocate to another Asian country?
The Tampa, Florida-based Sykes Enterprises denies the accent bit, but confirms the "migration" (read layoff) plan for its Bangalore call-centre facility that went on stream barely two-and-a-half years ago.

Sykes attributes the shift to Bangalore's "inadequate rate of returns" -- a point the company makes in its 8-K document filed before the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. "It's a purely financial decision," insists Subhaash Kumar, the company's senior director for investor relations. Speaking to the Hindustan Times from Tampa, he dismissed reports on the accent factor and pressure by corporate clients on this score.

Tongues had started wagging after a Tampa newspaper attributed the Sykes move to complaints that American customers had problems comprehending the accents of Indian call-centre staffers. But Kumar denied receiving complaints of this sort. India's loss may be the Philippines' gain, according to analysts closely following Sykes. The company has not named the preferred alternative destination yet, but it has had call-centre operations in the Philippines since 1997. A senior analyst from Raymond James and amp; Associates has been quoted in the local media as saying that Filipinos have "less noticeable accents" than Indians. That apart, the high employee turnover rate in India is said to subject companies to extra spending on recruitments and training.

In keeping with the secretive manner in which most outsourcing firms function, Sykes would not say how many staffers will be laid off at the Bangalore facility. Or, for that matter, the number of Indians on the company's rolls.
The 8-K document confines itself to indicating that Sykes will "migrate" customer call volumes accounting for half of the $4 million (about Rs 17.5 crore) generated by the Bangalore facility annually.

Does this mean 50 per cent of the Bangalore staffers will be laid off? "No," says Kumar, without elaboration. Further queries on numbers are met with the standard response: "We can't quantify." The whole process of migration (including layoffs in Bangalore, redeployment of site infrastructure, and recruitments at the new offshore facility) is slated to be completed within the next few months.

How to measure the value of your web content: January 24, 2005: New Thinking by Gerry McGovern

"How to measure the value of your web content"

The way to make web content more valued is to make it more measured. The more ways you can measure the value your content delivers, the more your career will be valued.

Increasingly, information economies will focus on ways to measure the value of the information they create. Very little work has been done on this crucial area, and most organizations hardly have a coherent information strategy, let alone a way to measure its success. However, we are going to see major changes over the next ten years in content accounting practices and management theory.

We have wonderful tools today that will tell us the value of the physical things in our factories and offices. Now we need to create wonderful tools and disciplines to measure all our information assets. The real test of information is in the actions that it drives, and ultimately, you will be measured and rewarded on the actions that you deliver with your information.

Content is this hidden asset in many organizations and to grow and continue to be profitable, organizations will need to tap this asset in a way they have not done before. The Web provides a wonderful environment where we can test the effectiveness of content in a way that we never could before. The better organizations are going to focus increasing energy on what content is working and what content isn’t.

Right now, the measurement tools are crude, but they are getting better all the time. This is going to be a very exciting time for content professionals. Let’s face it, no matter how many times you edit something, it’s hard to be really sure that it is just right—that it has the killer instinct. Being able to measure how people respond to content is going to help us all discover where the real killer content is.

You must find ways to discover how people respond to your content. Here are some things you can consider:

1. Make sure you have accurate, consistent data on your website. Many web managers have extremely poor data coming through on website activity. To be blunt, if you can’t measure, you’re not really a manager. Make it a number-one priority to clean up your data.
2. Focus on action points in the data. How many people are visiting the homepage and then leaving? How many people are failing to fill out forms? How many repeat visitors did you have this month, as against once-off visitors?
3. Test, test, test. The data will only tell you so much. The best web managers make it part of their daily routine to interact with readers. There is no greater skill you can develop than to have a deep understanding of how your readers think. There is only one way to develop this deep understanding: by consistent interaction with your customers.
4. Usability test once a month. Watch people try and complete a task on your website. The first time you do it you’ll be amazed.
5. Consider ‘split testing’: an advanced but very interesting approach. Basically, using special software you randomly split your audience in half and publish two different versions of a page. The pages may be the same except for one element, perhaps a different heading. Then you measure which page works best.

Gerry McGovern

You are welcome to republish this article once you place the following text and link at the end of the article:

Gerry McGovern provides website content management solutions.

Generate your own error message ...

Error Message Generator

"Atom Smasher's Error Message Generator"

Pew Internet & American Life Project: Search Engine Users

1/23/2005 | MemoReport | Deborah Fallows

Internet users are extremely positive about search engines and the experiences they have when searching the internet. But these same satisfied internet users are generally unsophisticated about why and how they use search engines. They are also strikingly unaware of how search engines operate and how they present their results.

Internet users behave conservatively as searchers: They tend to settle quickly on a single search engine and then stick with it, rather than switching as search technology evolves or comparing results from different search systems. Some 44% of searchers regularly use just one engine, and another 48% use just two or three. Nearly half of searchers use a search engines no more than a few times a week, and two-thirds say they could walk away from search engines without upsetting their lives very much.

Internet users trust their favorite search engines, but few say they are aware of the financial incentives that affect how search engines perform and how they present their search results.

Only 38% of users are aware of the distinction between paid or “sponsored” results and unpaid results. And only one in six say they can always tell which results are paid or sponsored and which are not. This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results.

Second, as Stan Leibowitz and Steve Margolis have shown in their book, Winners, Losers and Microsoft, in virtually any market that Microsoft has entered (financial software, spreadsheets, etc.), the effect has been a dramatic reduction in prices and an expansion of output and innovation. Software products that do not compete with Microsoft’s products fell in price by 12 percent from 1988 to 1995, but by 60 percent where there was competition from Microsoft.

Slashdot | Musical Robots Invade Juilliard

No Human Performers

All Music Performed by Computer-controlled Acoustic Instruments

RoboRecital, a concert of mechanical music presented by composer J. Brendan Adamson, will include no human performers. It will instead feature four automated instruments: GuitarBot, a self-playing guitar; an automated fifty-seven rank pipe organ; a Yamaha Disklavier, a modern player piano; and ModBots, a collection of robotic percussion instruments.

http://edit.ticker.yahoo.com/config/slv4_page?.p=ticker

Yahoo pushes news, again | CNET News.com

"Yahoo pushes news, again"

Yahoo has reintroduced downloadable software to stream news and information to people's desktops. Called the Yahoo Ticker, the free application takes the features of My Yahoo--personalized stock quotes, weather data and syndicated feeds of news headlines--and transports them, in the form of a streaming ticker, to the desktop. In a move to compete with Google's search Deskbar, Yahoo also has added a Web search box to the software.

The concept, called "push" technology, was popularized during the dot-com heyday as a way to make over the computer as a personalized portal of news and information, rather than forcing people to surf the Web for the same. But the concept fell out the window with the dot-com crash. In recent years, as the tech economy has rebounded, companies including Sony Pictures Digital and Entertainment Tonight have promoted similar push applications.

Silicon Valley Watcher: Scoop! Google to provide AdWords API to Advertisers

Scoop! Google to provide AdWords API to Advertisers
by Tom Foremski and Candida Kutz for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

Google is about to announce technology that will allow its advertisers unprecedented levels of control over when, where, and who can view their advertising on Google search pages and those of Google partner web sites.

For the first time, the search giant will provide its advertisers with an application programming interface (API), which will enable them to link their computer systems with Google and control parts of the mammoth Google ad delivery system. The API will allow advertisers to self-administer the delivery, the timing and the price they will pay for their text ads.

This raises the bar in the online advertising market as Google turns to technology to try and outwit and pull ahead of media savvy competitors such as Kanoodle and others. Kanoodle says its average click-through revenue is twice as much as that of Google's because it gives online publishers greater control over what types of advertising is displayed, at which times, and is better matched to page content or search terms. (Silicon Valley Watcher meeting with Kanoodle this week: Geeks versus Media City Slickers...)

The release of the API marks a transition for Google, from an online services company towards that of an IT platform for global ad delivery. The types of sophisticated management tools that will be available from Google and third parties should also help tie advertisers into its ad network.

It is but a short step from the global delivery of simple text ads to carrying commercial transactions also. This would pitch it against companies such as eBay and other online retailers.

The Google API is only available to advertisers and not to online publishers carrying Google ads.

Silicon Valley Watcher also learned that Google assembled its global salesforce of about 1800 people in San Francisco this week to brief them on the new technology, and how it will be marketed. It represents a complete revamp of its Adwords/Adsense text ads program. More details are here.

Google and Overture pioneered the development of advertising networks that deliver simple text advertising with a commercial message linked to web page or search content. In Google’s Adwords/Adsense advertising programs, the customers bid against each other for choice keywords related to their advertising message. Google collects fees only when someone clicks on a text ad link. The system is highly automated with a low cost of operation.

Access to the Adwords API will initially likely favor larger companies with the technical skills to optimize their advertising delivery. However, a large third-party services market will grow around the Google API and allow smaller companies to run sophisticated advertising campaigns.

However, many online publishers want to control which Google ads are shown on their sites. This has been a sticking point with many large media groups who have turned to Kanoodle and others.

Some media groups are beginning to view Google as a competitor. The large computer industry trade publisher, IDG, has become increasingly hostile to Google. IDG views Google not as a technology company but as a media company and a competitor to its online publishing business. It has urged other publishers not to give Google access to their web content. A lot of online publishers carry Google Adsense ads because Google splits the revenue with them.

Google has a fraction of the publishing costs compared with a company such as IDG. Google publishes pages of links produced by computers, yet IDG requires large, non-scalable editorial staffs to produce pages of content at a far higher cost.

IT salaries to oncrease 0.5% on average in 2005 > Employment > IT Facts

"According to Robert Half Technology 2005 Salary Guide, average base pay for IT professionals overall will rise 0.5% in 2005, with larger increases expected in high-demand specialties such as information security and quality assurance. This compares to a 1.6% decline in starting compensation that was projected for 2004"

230 sites offerring the same product on multiple platforms/DRM/ unplayable on others ...

The New York Times > AP > Technology >Global Digital Music Market Soared in 2004

"Global Digital Music Market Soared in 2004"

The IFPI, which represents more than 1,450 record companies across the globe, said music fans in the United States and Europe legally downloaded more than 200 million tracks in 2004, up from about 20 million in 2003. That contributed to estimated digital music revenues of around US$330 million (euro253 million) in 2004, up sixfold from the previous year.

The IFPI said there are now more than 230 online sites where consumers can buy music legally, up from 50 a year ago.

An excellent article on XML printing ...

XML.com: Printing XML: Why CSS Is Better than XSL

"Printing XML: Why CSS Is Better than XSL"

Longtime readers of XML.com will remember the battles between XSL and CSS that took place in these columns in 1999 and that were memorialized in XSL and CSS: One Year Later. Since then, the two languages have coexisted in relative peace: CSS is now used to style most web sites, XSLT (the transformation part of XSL) is used by many server-side, and XSL-FO (the formatting part of XSL) has found a niche in the printing industry.

The subscription model marches on ...

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Microsoft to sell Outlook e-mail program

"Microsoft to sell Outlook e-mail program"

REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. will begin selling its Outlook e-mail program as a subscription to Hotmail customers, in a bid to persuade people to pay for add-on services and better compete with rivals such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

The new service, which costs $59.95 per year, will let people organize e-mail, contact lists and calendars in their online Hotmail accounts using the Microsoft Outlook program most often found on businesses' desktop computers.

an excellent article ...

Sudhian Media

"Understanding Audio Compression: MP3, WMA, Ogg, and More."

Trying to transmit audio data with uncompressed audio or video is not the easiest task. After all, even an audio CD contains data that transmits at 1400kb/s, a fairly large chunk of data, more than many compressed DivX movies. The ability to stream that kind of data is one reason why there has been an increase in the bandwidth of wireless networks within homes, or the addition of things like gigabit LAN to many new motherboards as a standard feature. The joy of digital audio is that there are many different ways to decrease the amount of space required to store it, depending how signals are represented.

Excellent article ...

GUUUI - Navigation blindness

"Navigation blindness
How to deal with the fact that people tend to ignore navigation tools"

Let the desktop search wars begin ...

Yahoo! Desktop Search Beta

"Yahoo! Desktop Search"

Malicious Software Removal Tool

"Malicious Software Removal Tool"

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 computers for and helps remove infections by specific, prevalent malicious software—including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom. When the detection and removal process is complete, the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed.

Microsoft will release an updated version of this tool on the second Tuesday of each month. New versions will be made available through this Web page, Windows Update, and the Microsoft Download Center.

Windows XP users may get the latest version through Windows Update. To have the newest versions automatically delivered and installed as soon as they are released, set the Automatic Updates feature to Automatic.
Users of all supported versions may run the tool directly from this Web page, or manually download the newest version to run locally on their computers.

Because computers can appear to function normally when infected, Microsoft advises you to run this tool even if your computer seems to be fine. You should also use up-to-date antivirus software to help protect your computer from other malicious software.

A guide to ripping and encoding music : Page 1

"A guide to ripping and encoding music"

Introduction to audio formats and bitrates

MP3, MP2, MPC, APE, FLAC, AIFF, WAV, OGG, etc. The list of audio formats out there seems to go on and on, and to the uninitiated, it's a daunting task sorting through them all. Chances are, most of us started out using an all-in-one ripper/encoder. For me, it was MusicMatch JukeBox, back when you had to pay to encode anything higher than 96Kbps. Times changed, and I discovered the joys of p2p, back before the RIAA made a big stink about file-sharing. I am embarrassed to admit that I downloaded MP3s based on their file size... the smaller the better. You see, I had not made the tenuous connection between quality and file size. All that mattered was that I had dialup Internet access, and the quicker I could download a file, the better. Come to think of it, I didn't even know what variable bit rate (VBR) was, and when I saw the bitrate changing in Winamp one time, I deleted the file because I thought there was something wrong with it ....

Fast Company Now

Jack Welch on Getting Ahead

Do:
Over-deliver your results and expand the horizon of your responsibility.
Manage your subordinates with the same carefulness that you manage your boss.
Get on the radar screen by getting behind major initiatives early.
Relish the input of lots of mentors, realizing that mentors don?t always look like mentors.
Have a positive attitude and spread it around.

Don't:
Make your boss use political capital to champion you.
Let setbacks break your stride.

Losers include iPod Killers (no one there yet!), Sony (stuck in the 80ies) ...

2004 MP3 Losers

"The Digital Media Losers of 2004"

1. iPod Killers

There were none. A few competing players like the Rio Carbon are excellent, but none have even put a dent on the iPod's dominance. A marketing phrase, nothing more.

2. Sony

Back in 2000 Sony failed in it's first attempts at selling a digital media player. That's because these players did not play MP3 files, only Sony's proprietary ATRAC 3 format. Then the inventor of portable audio watched as a computer manufacturer took over the digital market. Sony finally relented and released its first MP3 player the Sony Network Walkman NW-HD1. Unfortunately, the NW-HD1 was uninspiring.

3. WMA

What puts the WMA format on the losers list is the fact that Overpeer was able to corrupt the Windows Media DRM and load adware onto music files. This means far more malicious software can be added too. WMA files are now an information security risk and if debilitating trojans appear, consumers will learn to avoid the format altogether. This will lead services like Napster and others selling WMA tunes to offer a second file format to hedge their bets to avoid losing sales. Could this become the opportunity for Ogg Vorbis and FLAC to gain mainstream acceptance?

Security issues haunt Microsoft again ...

2004 winners ainclude Apple, eDonkey ...

2004 Digital Media Winners

"The Digital Media Winners of 2004"

1. Apple

It took the top spot last year and has earned it for this year. The iPod increased its dominating market position for 2004 selling 4 million units during the Christmas season alone. As for iTunes, it sells two out of every three digital song files. No surprises here.

2. eDonkey

It's number one, passing KaZaa as the top P2P service.

...

Aome preditions for 2005 and an evaluation of 2004 predictions ....

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column

Betting a Billion

Bob's Predictions for 2005

2005 Predictions from David Galbraith ...

David Galbraith

"Predictions for 2005"

Predictions for 2005:

1. Wikiyahoo - Tagging/Folksonomies become the tech talk of the town. Flickr gets acquired

2. Googlets - People cash out and leave Google, creating a startup frenzy in SF

....

PHP snippet to take small payments via TypeKey and PayPal ...

TKPal TypeKey PayPal for PHP: "TK Pal is a snippet of PHP code you can place in a PHP enabled page to restrict access to content to TypeKey users who have specifically paid to see that content."

Wired News: Vaporware Phantom Haunts Us All

"Vaporware Phantom Haunts Us All"

10. Alienware's Video Array
9. Intel's Pentium 4 at 4 GHz
8. Apple Computer's G5 Chips at 3 GHz
7. Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms
6. Gran Turismo 4
5. ATI's Radeon X800 series of video cards
4. TiVoToGo
3. Microsoft's Longhorn
2. CherryOS
1. Phantom Game Console

Searching for Audio and Video is improving ...

Wired News: Search Looks at the Big Picture

"Search Looks at the Big Picture"

Microsoft is releasing beta of antispyware software ...

Neowin.net - Where unprofessional journalism looks better - Download: Windows AntiSpyware (beta)

"Download: Windows AntiSpyware (beta)"

Blog Torrent - Simplified bittorrent by Downhill Battle

"Blog Torrent"

What is Blog Torrent?
Blog Torrent is software that makes it much easier to share and download files using the bittorrent protocol. Blog Torrent is easy to install on your website: we don't use MySQL so installation is as easy as uploading a folder to your web host, and all administration happens in the web interface. Blog Torrent is easy for users: even if they don't know what bittorrent is, they get an installer that downloads the file they want. But most of all, Blog Torrent makes publishing with bittorrent painless. Just click "upload", pick a file, and you're done. This is our preview release and it has a lot of bugs and rough edges... but we're smoothing them out for the next version, so stay tuned.

YADM is an accessible DHTML dropdown/flyout/explorer solution with complete separation of CSS and Javascript ...


Accessible and styleable drop down menu with DOM and CSS

"YADM - Yet another dynamic menu"

The cat-and-mouse game between BitTorrent site owners and site-suers is on ...

A new hope for BitTorrent? | CNET News.com

"A new hope for BitTorrent?"

Just weeks after legal attacks crippled the popular BitTorrent file-swapping community, an underground programmer from its ranks has stepped forward to announce new software designed to withstand future onslaughts from Hollywood.

Dubbed Exeem, the software has already been distributed in a closed beta, or early test format, by the creators of the SuprNova.org Web site, which was until late last month the most popular hub for the BitTorrent file-swapping community.

Last week, the head of that now-defunct site, a man known as "Sloncek," officially announced the Exeem project in an interview on the NovaStream Webcasting network. He said that it would be a modified version of the popular BitTorrent technology, but transformed into a decentralized, searchable network similar to Kazaa or eDonkey.

E-Commerce News: News: Online Holiday Shopping Soars 25 Percent to $23 Billion

"Online Holiday Shopping Soars 25 Percent to $23 Billion"

Online shopping in the U.S. soared by 25 percent, to US$23.2 billion, during the 2004 holiday season ...

Online consumers this holiday season favored spending on apparel/clothing, totaling $3.8 billion, or 16 percent of total online revenue.

The toys/video games category was second, with $2.5 billion, or 11 percent of online revenue, while the consumer electronics category rounded out the top three with $2.3 billion, or 10 percent of total online revenue.

Categories generating the highest year-over-year growth in holiday dollars included jewelry, flowers and computer hardware/peripherals.

Jewelry jumped 113 percent to $1.9 billion, compared to the $888 million spent in 2003. Floral retailers experienced a 59 percent surge in online revenue to $530 million, while computer hardware/peripherals increased 30 percent over last season, generating $2.1 billion this year.

The more easier it become to records tracks ... the more advertising will pop up - even in satellite radio where you pay upfront ... are you ready to listen to "This is XM radio" ... before and after every song.

Wired News: Sat Radio Recording Moves Ahead

"Sat Radio Recording Moves Ahead"

A handful of new and soon-to-be-released devices enable music listeners to automatically record tracks from satellite radio broadcasts onto hard drives or portable music players such as the iPod. While the recording industry has publicly decried such activities for terrestrial radio, analysts say it has a financial reason for remaining silent about satellite radio recording.

Satellite radio broadcasters XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio each deliver more than 100 channels of music, sports and news in high-quality digital audio streams to home, portable and automobile receivers.

Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on...
Fifty-seven channels and nothin'

-Bruce Springsteen

Now you can carry all 500 of them ...


Wired News: TiVo Untethered and Ready to Go

"TiVo Untethered and Ready to Go"

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- TiVo pioneered digital video recording as a new way of watching television -- when you want it. Now it could be TV where you want it, too.

The long-awaited service feature called TiVoToGo, set to launch Monday, will give users their first taste of TiVo untethered.

No longer confined to TiVo digital video recorders in the living room or bedroom, subscribers will be able to transfer their recorded shows to PCs or laptops and take them on the road -- as long as the shows are not specially tagged with copy restrictions. That's also the case for pay-per-view or on-demand movies, and some premium paid programming.

Users also will be able to copy shows onto a DVD -- soon after but not immediately at the service launch, company officials said.

The mobile feature is a key step in TiVo's long-term vision of giving consumers more freedom with how and where they enjoy their favorite TV. TiVo plans to extend TiVoToGo so it will work on other portable media gadgets, as well.

The company, based in the south San Francisco Bay community of Alviso, eventually hopes to expand its service so video can be accessed anywhere via the Internet.

"It lays the foundation of moving content out of the living room," TiVo spokeswoman Kathryn Kelly said.

Hope the spyware writers in the USA read this. State of California vs Your Company will be a very difficult lawsuit to win.


BBC NEWS | Technology | California sets fines for spyware

"California sets fines for spyware"

The makers of computer programs that secretly spy on what people do with their home PCs could face hefty fines in California.

From 1 January, a new law is being introduced to protect computer users from software known as spyware.

The legislation, which was approved by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is designed to safeguard people from hackers and help protect their personal information.

Spyware is considered by computer experts to be one of the biggest nuisance and security threats facing PC users in the coming year.

The software buries itself in computers and can collect a wide range of information.

At its worst, it has the ability to hijack personal data, like passwords, login details and credit card numbers.

The programs are so sophisticated they change frequently and become impossible to eradicate.

Ad onslaught

One form of spyware called adware has the ability to collect information on a computer user's web-surfing.

It can result in people being bombarded with pop-up ads that are hard to close.

In Washington, Congress has been debating four anti-spyware bills, but California is a step ahead.

The state's Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act bans the installation of software that takes control of another computer.

It also requires companies and websites to disclose whether their systems will install spyware.

Consumers are able to seek up to $1,000 in damages if they think they have fallen victim to the intrusive software.

The new law marks a continuing trend in California towards tougher privacy rights.

A recent survey by Earthlink and Webroot found that 90% of PCs are infested with the surreptitious software and that, on average, each one is harbouring 28 separate spyware programs.

Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware.

Adaware / popup generators / viruses that appear like mp3 and mpg files ?

PCWorld.com - Risk Your PC's Health for a Song?

"Risk Your PC's Health for a Song"

Ads and adware have a new way to get on your computer--through files that appear to be music and video.

Andrew Brandt and Eric Dahl, PCWorld.com
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Think you're downloading a new song or video? Watch out--that file may be stuffed with pop-ups and adware.

PC World has learned that some Windows Media files on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa contain code that can spawn a string of pop-up ads and install adware. They look just like regular songs or short videos in Windows Media format, but launch ads instead of media clips.

When we ran the files, we noted over half a dozen pop-ups, some attempts to download adware onto our test PC, and an attempt to hijack our browser's home page. However, you can take steps to guard your PC against this ad invasion.

Good riddance ...

Microsoft's Passport fails to travel far as Web strategy

"Microsoft's Passport fails to travel far as Web strategy"

Microsoft is abandoning one of its most controversial attempts to dominate the Internet after rival companies banded together to oppose it and consumers failed to embrace it.

The Redmond software company said Wednesday it would stop trying to persuade Web sites to use its Passport service, which stores consumers' credit-card and other information as Internet users surf from place to place.

The acknowledgment came after eBay posted a notice on its site Wednesday, saying it would drop Passport in late January and rely on its own service.

eBay, Passport's most visible backer , was among the first companies to adopt it, with great fanfare, in 2001.

Another early backer, Monster Worldwide's job-hunting site, Monster.com, dropped Passport in October.