Service Provider Journal

Apple has a lot to learn about being a service provider

Yet more proof that Apple has a lot to learn when it comes to being a service provider.

Tighten up Facebook privacy settings

My first column for Windows Secrets is all about tightening up your Facebook privacy settings.

The seamy underside of social gaming

Posted to Mike Arrington for bringing this to light. As Anu Shukla -- someone I know from InfoWorld days -- says, everyone is entitled to their own opinion about this. My opinion is Arrington's right, and I'm saddened to see Shukla apparently playing some dodgy games with gamers' trust.

Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell

Posted using ShareThis

FCC says what we already knew

FCC declares at last: "Actual broadband speeds lag advertised speeds by at least 50% and possibly more during the busy hours." Did we have to wait for a Democratic administration for this to become a government observation?

Undeletable email attachments

Has anyone else experienced this: spam with attachments that can't be deleted by Windows in the ordinary fashion, because they're "in use" by another program? These are PNG files according to the two PCs of mine where they've been received. I was able to delete them using a free program called MoveOnBoot, but it's a pain to have to delete them by rebooting a computer. Are these PNGs some new kind of spyware? What processes are they launching? I can't tell.

Yes, Web apps suck at service

One thing I love about downturns is it forces journalists and bloggers to focus on what needs improvment, rather than simply riding the bubbles of hype. Here's an example: Web Apps Suck at Service.

DNS as newest censorship device?

From GigaOM:

While he says he supports letting a carrier supply a safe DNS service, he’s opposed to blocking the ability to reach DNS servers other than those the carriers are running. “Sometimes a compromise lets you move on,” he says. “Sometimes it’s the first step down a slippery slope.”

Silicon Valley needs to rescue house.gov

house.gov remains inaccessible to millions tonight as they try to figure out what their government is doing on the worst day in Wall Street history.

I think it's the patriotic duty of Silicon Valley, including Google, hosting providers such as Rackspace, and ISPs, to get house.gov back on its feet by tomorrow morning. What could be more important than letting the American people know what their government is doing on this day of days?

Beyond the woes of house.gov, I'm disappointed that news accounts of the defeat of HR 3997, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, don't even refer to the bill by name or number, instead simply calling it the "bailout bill." (And that's a bit of a misnomer itself.) The roll call of who voted yea or nay is here, but in this day of information at your fingertips, it should be a Google Maps mashup, showing the yeas and nays by Congressional district, readily viewable the same way the result of a presidential election is available.

This blog is five years old today

Of course, I was blogging before that, using Userland's Radio service, but all that's long gone from the Web.

Up or down: The game

I wonder how long it will be before somebody figures out a way to game downforeveryoneorjustme.com. Maybe there will be a followup story to this one in the New York Times when that day arrives.