Firefox add-on Search Cloudlet for Google and Yahoo
Posted on December 20th, 2008 by Richard Catto 2,063 views
This is a truly innovative add-on for the Firefox web browser, that is causing me to rethink my use of Google Chrome as my browser of choice.
Currently Google Chrome does not support add-ons, but apparently will in the future.
With the Search Cloudlet add-on, when you search with either Google or Yahoo, you will get a tag cloud generated which summarises your search results into a tag cloud. The tag cloud comprises all the keywords relevant to your search term. Clicking a tag, adds it to your search terms and refreshes the search with results which zero in on what you want.
You can also see which sites are represented in the search results.
This add-on was written by a research organisation - The International Software and Productivity Engineering Institute (INTSPEI).
Tags: Firefox, Google, INTSPEI, search, yahoo
Filed under Firefox web browser | No Comments »
Why Yahoo! and Microsoft are both crap
Posted on February 10th, 2008 by Richard Catto 3,696 views
It actually doesn’t matter if Microsoft buys Yahoo! or Yahoo! buys Microsoft or they give each other to the other in holy matrimony because at the end of the day they are both very crap companies.
The big difference between them is that Microsoft still makes huge annual profits (last year it was over $16 billion) while Yahoo! is on a sharp decline. It’s share price has halved in the past two years down to under $20 from $40.
Google’s profits last year are also less than expected.
The only company doing really well financially still is Microsoft. Financially, Microsoft is very stable due to its Windows and Office products. Vista sales are up. The financial future remains rosy for Microsoft.
So if this is the situation, why does Microsoft want Yahoo?
I believe it is out of fear of what Google might do to undermine Microsoft’s core business in the future.
Fact is, Google is already undermining Microsoft’s Office product with its online Google Documents service.
If you compare Google’s online web 2.0 services with Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s then Google’s are superior except in one instance – Yahoo’s flickr.com is better than Google’s Photos (Picassa Web Albums).
Yahoo’s 360 and MSN Spaces are both shit blogging platforms. Blogger rules them. In turn, Blogger is ruled by self-hosted WordPress blogs.
Google’s gmail rocks Yahoo mail and hotmail into the garbage tip.
Anyone I’ve ever introduced to gmail has ended up dumping both yahoo and hotmail for gmail. The only hottentots who refuse to get with the gmail program are those poor technically challenged neaderthals who still crave their daily Microsoft Outlook fix. I pity those poor bastards.
What else you got? Search? Hahahaha!!! Yahoo and MSN are both useless at search and since they still haven’t been able to engineer a new search service that puts Google’s in the shade in the 10 years that Google has dominated the field, we can safely assume that they will never achieve that Herculean feat. It is simply beyond them. They have no clue how to build a better search engine. Or they would have done it already.
Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live both have more chatters than GoogleTalk has. GoogleTalk only does text chat and voice whereas both the former offer video as well. Thing is, based on extensive use by myself over the past few years, I can quite confidently assure you that you will get no better VoIP voice quality than via GoogleTalk. Even the much venerated skype is shit. For vid conferencing I find Windows Live the best at the moment. Thing is, Google is so good at producing quality services that I expect that when they do release a Vid service on GoogleTalk that it will knock the socks off all competitors.
I believe that the best company to buy Yahoo! is in fact Google, because Google knows how to make web 2.0 services work and be financially viable. Microsoft is clueless and Yahoo is trailing Google in its core competencies.
If this Microsoft buys Yahoo! deal goes ahead, Yahoo! will be obliterated by a clueless, clumsy and outclassed Microsoft.
Microsoft is a bad company with a lot of cash and an installed base that feeds it – for now. However, at some point, I believe Microsoft and ALL its technologies will be wiped out by better Open Source Software products.
I strongly believe that young people should not invest their time learning Microsoft developer technology skills. They should invest themselves in the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) platform. Businesses building in-house software systems on the Microsoft platform will regret it.
Tags: Google, LAMP, Microsoft, web 2.0, yahoo
Filed under Google, Microsoft, web 2.0, yahoo | 12 Comments »
Yahoo’s brand new WordPress plugin is being shown the finger by bloggers
Posted on December 16th, 2007 by Richard Catto 3,269 views
Yahoo very recently announced the beta release of their new Yahoo shortcuts plugin for WordPress.
This I got to know of via shoemoney’s rather scathing review of it and of various WordPress personalities.
Jeremy Shoemaker’s blog is a joy to read because he isn’t a suckass uptight wannabe pseudo intellectual blogger who spends 90% of his day kissing the asses of his online buddies and the other 10% trying to sound all intellectual by using obscure words that have most people either reaching for a dictionary or clicking the back button.. This I see too much of in the South African Blogosphere. Pretentiousness. It’s a creeping disease amongst the weak and spineless. Don’t go there. Be yourself. Be normal. FFS!
The Shoemoney blog was listed by Adii as a must read for Web 2.0 professionals, whatever the hell that is. I’m just an ordinary blogger. Web 2.0 is just yet another meaningless buzzword, although not the worst. The most pretentious and most inane phrase I’ve heard in connection with bloggers is "New Media Evangelist".
What the fuck is a new media evangelist!? Do these people go around knocking on doors asking if they can pray with you for your web shite, that it may be saved?
"Let WordPress In! Let Him In! Oh Mighty Laawd, let WordPress In!"
I think I’ll take a hot cup of cocoa with a gaggle of Mormons anyday over that bullshit.
Now cunning Yahoo has dumped this oh so impressive plugin on the WordPress blogging community obviously with the hope of getting rave reviews and… the reverse has happened.
Why?
Because they’re pulling moves, and their ulterior motives are so blatant, that it has led to many bloggers taking offence. So far, most of them seem to be American bloggers. I just bet the many obsequious South African bloggers are already laying out their prayer mats so they can get down on their knees to kiss Yahoo butt come Tuesday.
Yahoo enlisted one of WordPress’ famous developers, Alex King, to write their Yahoo shortcuts plugin. He has done a pretty good job for Yahoo. I’ve installed the beta release on this blog, and I’ve used it to add pictures to many of my blog posts, including many older posts in my archives.
That is the one feature that HAS received the thumbs up from most bloggers. The plugin does an excellent job of integrating flickr into WordPress so that one can find a suitable image which is hosted on flickr, and insert it into your blog post without much fuss at all.
It is what the rest of the plugin does that is not so kosher. Yahoo analyses your post for keywords and then automatically links them to various Yahoo resources, many of which appear to be commercial in nature, WITHOUT REMUNERATING THE BLOGGER.
They’re offering a T-shirt to anyone who installs the plugin. And you have to be resident in the United States. They must be insane. Yahoo’s plugin effectively inserts text link adverts into the blog post without paying the blogger. Sure, you can remove them, but what the fuck was Yahoo thinking?
Yahoo must own an enormous pair of BRASS BALLS to risk offending bloggers like this. They’re already down in the search game – I mean, I like NEVER use Yahoo to search for anything. Yahoo is so stupid. What is it that most bloggers want most of all?
MONEY from their blogs.
Google understood this and gave bloggers Google adsense adverts. It has not been smooth sailing for them. Google has alienated many bloggers with their harsh policies around alleged click fraud. So there is an opportunity for someone to step in and save the day for bloggers by giving them a cool new blog toy that helps them make some money from their writing.
Instead Yahoo has come in and low-balled bloggers with their "free plugin" and offer of a T-shirt, but no money.
SHOW US THE GODDAMNED MONEY, YAHOO!
Or go home.
Don’t try and take advantage of us. Show some respect for bloggers. We put in a heck of a lot of hard work, spilling our sweat and blood and tears into our writing, and many of us would like to get something tangible back from that.
So, still no white knight for bloggers has appeared on the horizon. But surely, some day one will come for us? Surely?
Tags: Alex King, monetize blogs, Plugin, WordPress, yahoo
Filed under Plugin, yahoo | 2 Comments »
The Nature of Online Deception and how to protect yourself from lying bitches and bastards
Posted on November 22nd, 2007 by Richard Catto 2,898 views
A few days ago I came across this seminal Wired article on The Nature of Online Deception. Read it. It could save your life, and I mean that quite literally.
An IM Infatuation Turned to Romance. Then the Truth Came Out.
This story was found in the blog of fellow stumbler, anitab.
This is a story of rank deception. All the key players lied their arses off.
Beginning in early 2005, an American, name of Thomas Montgomery, a 45 year old factory worker, husband to Cindy and father to two young teenaged daughters, logged onto an Internet site and set up two fake profiles. He decided that he would be Tommy, an 18 year old marine, preparing to ship out to Iraq and Tom Sr, his own online daddy. In other words, he lied his arse off, and what do you know, he caught in his net, another liar.
The liar he caught was 45 year old Mary (surname naively withheld by duped online publications) masquerading as 18 year old blonde tanned Jessi. She was able to keep up this masquerade quite easily because Jessi was her real life 18 year old daughter, who was the source of the never ending videos and pics of "herself" that she sent to gullible online suitors.
Mary was the true mother from hell. Not only did she clandestinely adopt and usurp her daughter’s identity online, she also supplied at least two men with photos of her daughter in a bikini plus she shipped her daughter’s underwear (several of Jessi’s g-strings) to the men she conducted online romances with.
And none of them would ever have known of her utter duplicity had not a man gotten killed over her.
On September 15 2006, Thomas Montgomery fired three shots from a high powered rifle into Brian Barrett, 22, while Barrett was sitting in his pickup truck outside his place of work, killing him.
The details of the story make fascinating reading, and you can satisfy your morbid curiosity by following the link above, but the basic outline is this:
Montgomery created two online aliases for himself and proceeded to use them in an elaborate relationship ruse with Jessi, a woman he believed to be 18 years old. Montgomery’s elaborate deception was first discovered by his wife Cindy in February of 2006, when she came across Jessi’s g-strings. Once she had unravelled the whole sordid mess, she contacted Jessi (aka Mary) and told her Tommy’s (and Tom Sr’s) true identity.
Ironically, this revelation blew Mary’s mind and she sought to confirm this information with Brian, a work collegue of Montgomery’s, whom Montgomery had introduced her to. I say ironically, because, of course, Mary was deep into deception herself. Brian confirmed everything that Cindy had told her.
Soon Mary and Brian were conducting a romantic online relationship themselves, with Brian all the while believing that he was talking to an 18 year young woman, not a fat pudgy over the hill 45 year old psychotic lying bitch. Montgomery was furious when he discovered that "his" Jessi was now involved with his work friend.
Rather foolishly, in hindsight, Jessi and Brian added fuel to the fire by taunting Montgomery online, calling him a "child predator". Jessi even went so far as to share her account password with Brian, who then used Jessi’s account to chat to Montgomery pretending to be Jessi, in order to further humiliate Montgomery. They got Montgomery suspended from a game room. Barrett also spoke about the situation at work.
Not a smart move humiliating Montgomery was it, Brian? Got your motherfucking ass killed, didn’t it?
Okay, so one stupid 22 year old kid got his ass waxed, and one deranged 48 year old former family man got himself 20 years in the slammer. And the woman? She got off scot free. No charges have ever been preferred against her.
So what can WE learn from this whole sordid little affair?
A Russian proverb ("doveriai, no proveriai") famously used by Ronald Reagan during the Cold War springs immediately to mind – "Trust but Verify".
Mary was able to convince even an out of state policeman that she was 18 year old Jessi over the phone. That policeman then dispatched a local police officer to inteview Jessi and it was at that point that the ruse was uncovered, because 18 year old Jessi was nowhere to be found. The only person at the telephone number was this 45 year old woman, Mary.
So there’s your answer – you have to meet in person. Alternatively hold your conversations via webcam, because it is frankly impossible to spoof a live video conversation.
And for god’s sakes, don’t humiliate your work colleagues. They might just shoot you.
Tags: Google, instant messenger, online chat, Online Deception, windows live, yahoo
Filed under Online Deception | 1 Comment »
