Posts tagged with Technology

Your Privacy Is Still Null

Google Web History

You don’t want people seeing what you’ve searched for? But you searched for that! Are you ashamed now? Why?!

Government Email Snooping

While I don’t condone it, how can it hurt you? If you’re a gunrunner and you’re about to get convicted based on evidence found in your mailbox, I salute that! Other than that, nobody cares what colour your panties are! The police can search your house with a warrant; why not your mailbox?

Facebook Stalkers

You are aware that you can block people, right? Better still, think about why you joined Facebook!

Google Analytics Tracking

If most of the visitors from your site are from jail, or the States, or Japan, wouldn’t you like to know? If most of them are running Linux or Mac, wouldn’t you like to know? Also, you like it when a site caters better to your needs, right? You like it when they give you more of the stuff you liked before. How do you think they know all that?

Why are you so afraid of the amount of information about you that’s available on the net?
That information should not come close to defining you as the wonderful, complex person that you are! That information is just peanuts compared to all the feelings you can instill in another person!

And if that is not the case. If the amount of information available on the net accounts for most of you. If there’s little left to find out about you in the real world. Well, in that case, I’d say your online privacy is the least of your worries!

Posted on the 25th of February, 2010 | 7 Intelligent Comments

Tech Support

I got a nice phone call the other day:

Hi, Horia! I have a problem.

Hello! Let’s see.

I have this Trojan notification from my antivirus…

What options does it give you?

“Copy(!) to Quarantine”, “Terminate” and *gibberish I could not make out*

Okay; click the Quarantine one.

OK. I clicked the red X and it’s now asking me if I’m sure. It also says that if I take no action, my computer could be at risk.

Right, click No, then Quarantine, then Terminate.

I clicked Quarantine and it’s not doing anything.

Click Terminate.

Nothing. Wait. It went away then came back again.

*I imagine they’re refering to the notice*
Please disconnect from the internet.

Okay, hang on. *I hear a lot of commotion* I closed Opera. And all the files. Now what?

Did you disable your wireless connection?

Why?

Please disable your wireless connection.

OK, let me start up Opera first.

Wait, no…

OK. Now, to disable the wireless, I need to plug out the black box from down there, right?

Erm, I guess that would work too. Go ahead.

Ah, I found the switch on my laptop. I disabled the wireless, but now I still get the notice.

Quarantine, then Terminate.

Ok, it came back.

Close Opera, please.

Ok. Wait, I can’t.

*I figure a download prompt is keeping them from closing the browser*
Press Ctrl + Shift + Escape for me, please.

So, C-T-R-L *sounds of them straining* Shift and.. what?

Escape. To the top left.

Ok. I get this funny window with…

I know. Click on the tab labeled “Processes” … Now find Opera.

Opera.exe!

Right. Now, right click on that.

Click or double click?

No, the right mouse button.

OK, I get a menu that..

I know. Click on End Process Tree

Right click?

No, regular click. Left mouse button.

OK. Hey, Opera disappeared.

Yes. Now start Opera again
*I figured a mallicious script on a website they were on was to blame. Opera can be set to restart with all the tabs from the previous session opened without prompt. To get rid of the tab, I had to throw Opera into error recovery mode so that they could select to start fresh, with no tabs. Otherwise the tabs would be loaded from the cache*

OK…

Now, a window should appear with…

*To herself* Tabs from previous session, OK…

No!

Oh, I get the notice again!

Yes, in the task manager, close Opera the same way as before.

Oh, I closed that window. How do I get it back? C-T-R-L…

Ctrl+Shift+Esc, Processes, find Opera…

Yes, yes. OK, closed Opera.

Start Opera again. This time, when the startup screen appears, wait for me. Okay?

OK. So, Tabs from previous session

Okay, anything but that option. Try “Start with Speed Dial”.

OK… It started. Hey, where are all my tabs?!

They needed to be closed. Do you remember the link in last tab you were on? Stay away from it!

I don’t remember.

Gah, well. What version of Opera are you using?

I don’t know.

Click Help, then About Opera.

Oh, OK. Opera nine point…

Upgrade! Go to Opera.com and download a new version, please. Opera 10.10.

OK. I’m on the site… Download..

Wait, didn’t you disable your wireless?

No, why?

Nevermind. Please scan your system to make sure the infection did not spread.

OK. But later. It makes my laptop run slow. Erm, Horia, thank you.

Don’t mention…

You don’t mind me calling you when I run into trouble like this, right?

No, I don’t. Because now you know how to fix this kind of issue. So when something like this happens again, you’ll know what to do and you won’t have to call me.

Erm…

Right, goodbye!

Posted on the 11th of January, 2010 | 11 Extraordinary Comments

It’s Complicated

A week ago, Horia went from being “single” to “it’s complicated” and you instantly had an opinion about it. Especially the ladies.

Now, let me explain. I don’t have a complicated relationship with a girl. No, not even her! And I do not have a complicated relationship with a guy either. Although recent evidence might suggest otherwise.

I just decided I have a very steady relationship with code and coding.

I love its braces, its commas, its mood swings and its get-things-done take on life!

While it’s very rewarding, it is time consuming, and it does have its limitations. And yes, I’m thinking sex-wise.
But then, you can’t have it all; can you?

So, it’s complicated!

Posted on the 14th of December, 2009 | 21 Sexy Comments

Tools for Spreading the Word

I’m talking about the buttons that read ‘save to delicious’ or ‘digg this’ or ‘stumble this’

People who don’t frequently tweet or save to delicious won’t start because of a huge button on your website. The ones that do, already have their own tools and MO for doing so.

The services that don’t provide cool bookmarklets or API’s or tools are the ones that benefit from those buttons. People appreciate the time saved, but are those services really worth the real estate their buttons take up? I mean, have you ever used Fark?

Why not make your site cleaner? Those buttons are almost always hideous, save for some very few, but very cool, designs. Plus, they steal attention from your own call to action buttons. Like ‘comment’ or ‘buy’

People who don’t use twitter or facebook or digg or delicious or what have you are simply nauseated by the constant ‘Tweet This’ call out they see on sites. Wouldn’t you be?

Posted on the 4th of December, 2009 | Comments Off

How Software Gets Done

Today, we saw the release of the PocketFox logo. We’re all anxiously waiting for this mobile version of Firefox. We’ve actually been waiting too long. And that’s a problem.

It seems to be taking forever. This means that the developers are busy polishing the product, getting it up to 99%. It will probably be released then, almost bug-free. But what are we to do in the meantime? Ever heard of Release Early, Release Often? The sooner you get your product out to the masses, the sooner it’s used, the sooner you get feedback on it, the sooner you can focus on the 20% of the functionality that will please 80% of the users.

Worse is better, kinda like less is more, is a model that holds in this fast changing world. We are already used to bugs, aren’t we? We don’t care. We just want those nifty features. That’s why Opera has taken the browser market by storm. They’re pushing Beta’s to users. And we love it because we get to play with the new toys, not to mention have a say in the final product through our feedback.

–

When you’re taking forever planning the perfect first kiss, you’re missing the point. The point is that it’s supposed to be a kiss that you’ll enjoy. It does not have to be one to tell you grandkids about. You’ll have plenty of other stories to tell them.

In life, like in software, too much planning and polishing hurts. It’s quite rare that someone discovers a gem of an idea, spends years turning it into reality and being a total hit.

The things we use most today, all started as rough products, that were then blessed by progressive improvement. Twitter, facebook, youtube, yahoo, gmail, telephones, TV, pens, paper, houses, clothes.

It’s through progressive improvement that relationships will grow. The first step is to plant a seed, take some action, make a choice!

The rest will follow.

Posted on the 9th of November, 2009 | 2 Remarcable Comments

The Beauty of Typing More

Well, that’s all gone to shit.

After reading Atwood’s tweet: “even Hungarians are not using hungarian notation any more.”[sic] — I got to thinking.
People have stopped writing properly.

I know what Hungarian Notation is, sillies. And I know it’s has nothing to do with grammar or spelling things right. But then, few things today have to do with proper spelling. And I’m not talking about English, either. I’m talking about mother tongues. The beautiful ones, with funny letters and groovy sounds.

Languages will tildes,breves, carons, cedillas, circles and other diacritics. Those are the ones I’m talking about. They’re not dying. Their writing is.
The process itself is called Romanization. It basically means that you can only use the letters found on standard qwerty keyboards plus a few French-ish letters.

The Romanians have long adopted this trend. Now, most of our online writing would sound funny if read out loud and with no interpretation. The Hungarians too have fallen to this group. It’s understandable, since their letters are damn funny and tough to type. The Dutch, too. Their cosmopolitanism is what caused that stroked out o to vanish from the online. And the French? Well, they’ve been eager to leave all those damn accents behind since the day they were forced to start using them.

The Ruskies, zhe Germans, the Norse and the Asians have yet to be Romanized. And that’s good!
It makes inter-cultural communication a bitch, but it’s well worth it. People will have to study, translators will be hired, eyes will be pleased. That’s what the Japanese say when they’re asked why they don’t switch to the Latin charset: ‘Ours is so damn prettier!’

Granted, adding the special letters is cumbersome, at best. And sometimes, the wrong letters are added. Sometimes we’re just too lazy to switch between keyboard layouts. Sometimes, money gets printed with the wrong diacritics because of bad character support on Macs. Some bastards will write in English because they just feel like it.

Whatever our excuse is, it stands. But we’re still on a very slippery slope.

And yeah, Jeff Atwood’s twitter account is @codinghorror. A must-follow for any developer.

Posted on the 30th of September, 2009 | 6 Exquisite Comments

Twitter versus Yahoo!

When I switched from IRC to Yahoo!, the one thing that was most annoying was how intrusive IM windows became.
You’d be minding your own business and then, suddenly, the center of your screen was covered by a chat window saying ‘Hi’. Well, I eventually got used to that.

Then came the Age of Mass. Skillfully tailored mass messages, made out to look like they’ve been meant only for you. And then, people just got lazy and started blurbing out all the inanities they could come up with. All ending in ‘sorry for the mass’. It was a dark age for communication.

Then twitter came along.
All the messages were mass messages, they were meant to be mass messages. You knew that upfront. The one monumental advantage? you could check your mass messages whenever you felt like it. I don’t know about you, but I like most things to be unobtrusive.

Also, twitter has reduced the number of chain-mail messages I receive. It’s way easier to drop a bit.ly link into a tweet.
So, even though twitter still annoys a lot of people, it has brought some good into this world. Whether you realize it or not.

Now, when I get a mass message, I don’t mind anymore because a warm feeling of nostalgia sets in.

Posted on the 26th of September, 2009 | 4 Coarse Comments

SONY. Like No Other

Ten years ago, I kinda won a SONY Discman. “Discman” is so old, my spell-checker does not pick it up as a valid word

The CD Player came with its pair of earphones, obviously. Simple, black, stereo, branded earphones.

Throughout the years, those earphones have been tugged at, sat on, rained on and have had their fair share of beer dipping.
I don’t even want to think about how many hours they’ve played music. And almost at max volume at that.

They still work great!

They’ve been shared with so many girlfriends, they’ve been shared with so many girls that were just cute, they’ve been shared with good friends. They’ve been close to my skin for so long, greased up with my own sweat. They’ve been with me on the bike and to the seaside. I’ve used them with my PC and with my laptop. Now, it’s my iPhone’s turn to enjoy their 3.5mm jack.

That’s not all. Before the iPhone, I was the proud owner of three Sony Ericsson phones. A K700i, a K750i and a P1i. My first digital camera? SONY W40. My first DSRL? SONY α200.

Anyone care to buy me one of their grossly overpriced laptops, please?

Posted on the 22nd of September, 2009 | Comments Off