Schleichwerbung! Schon alleine das Wort macht jedem Vertreter des öffentlich-rechtlichen Mediums Angst und Bange. Und es kam noch dicker. Das Microsoft-Logo diente als Quellennenung des technischen Dienstleisters, und war nicht als Schleichwerbung beabsichtigt. Nunja, wirklich? Zuvor hatte der Linux-Verband kritisiert, dass in Grafiken zur Wahlberichterstattung der ARD, welche durch den NDR erstellt und durch den WDR redaktionell bearbeitet werden, das Microsoft-Logo eingebettet war. Weil solch ein Fall aber schon laut der Berichterstattung von Golem früher schon einmal in Bezug auf die Wahlberichterstattung aufgetaucht sei, wiegt sich der NDR in seiner Sache sicher.

Auf der anderen Seite, und das ist meine persönliche Meinung, bin ich es sowieso leid, dass die öffentlich-rechtlichen Senderhäuser sich über Gebühren finanzieren, und so nicht bzw. nur im geringen Teil am großen Kuchen der Werbewirtschaft teilnehmen dürfen. Uns allen und insbesondere den sozial schwachen und weniger begünstigten Bürgern erspart eine werbewirtschaftliche Loslösung der ÖRs die monatliche GEZ Gebühr, welche noch nicht einmal von staatlicher Natur ist, auf der anderen Seite könnte der Sendeauftrag der öffentlich-rechtlichen TV-Landschaft ganz gefährdet werden. Aber haben nicht alle Medienwissenschaftler schon sich dazu Gedanken gemacht, Vorschläge angeboten und Lösungen unterbreitet? Nichts wurde davon berücksichtigt bei der (Um-)Strukturierung der ÖRs…

Brian Williams is the author of The Daily Nightly and was recently quoted as saying: „I don’t have a therapist. I have my blog.

Now if that’s not the truth. Who can afford a therapists if you develop your own almost natural social network based on blogs and similiar communicative software systems? Interactivity saves the expertise. Who else can give you more input than those people with who you share your daily life – or as another option – your professional life?

[via Recruiting and LightWithin]

The developper team released the Beta 1 for Windows and Linux and an Alpha 2 for OS X. I guess that’s a must download, must install, must use one.

Firefox 1.5 offers you to use new features like:

  • Automated update to streamline product upgrades. Notification of an update is more prominent, and updates to Firefox may now be half a megabyte or smaller. Updating extensions has also improved.
  • Faster browser navigation with improvements to back and forward button performance.
  • Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs.
  • Improvements to popup blocking.
  • Clear Private Data feature provides an easy way to quickly remove personal data through a menu item or keyboard shortcut.
  • Answers.com is added to the search engine list.
  • Improvements to product usability including descriptive error pages, redesigned options menu, RSS discovery, and „Safe Mode“ experience.
  • Better accessibility support including DHTML accessibility.
  • Report a broken Web site wizard to report Web sites that are not working in Firefox.

More of these changes and additions, and I believe Firefox will become the instant killer for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

[via Golem | read more | digg story]

Matthias Armborst created a questionaire plattform named Bloggerbefragung.de to support his current project for communication science at the University of Dortmund. The entire questionaire is aimed for German blog readers and authors.

Most of the worldwide (english speaking) blogosphere is already caught within various questionaires for research projects and final thesis. But the project of Matthias will definately aid in the process of estimating the German blogosphere, which has been already pulled down by some recent reports in the past.

What will come, what will be – so far, the German blogosphere seems to develop.

[via Meinungsmacherblog]

Zitat eines nicht näher namentlich erwähnenswerten Bekannten:

Wenn Merkel morgen die Klingeltonwerbung abschafft, dann wähle ich sie!

Okay, es war ein Scherz, aber ob das nun etwas an ihrer letztendlich stumpfsinnigen Politik ändert, das vermag keiner wissen. Jedoch ist sicherlich ein Großteil der Bevölkerung dafür, also wird sie gewinnen! Go Angie Go… mit Jamster und Co! Aber ne… Angie? Pfui-Bäh! ;)

For the upcoming elections in Germany, this result shows a clear direction of my most recent test on Wen-Waehlen.de. In contrast to my previous results from the more simply constructed Wahl-O-Mat, the test by Alvar Freude does not ask about only 30 thesis, but 54 scaled statements which have been previously given a special accent based on my personal fields of interest.

I suppose this rather detailed test explains my personal stance towards the CDU/CSU and FDP coalition. It took me approximately 20 minutes to fill out the entire rating questionaire, and I received a much more biased result than the „Wish-Wash“ result of Wahl-O-Mat. The rather funny remark here is that the Left-Wing party was on top. Its nice to know that these semi-radicals are on top – even if I don’t favorize nor approve this popularistic party.

[via Golem]

This is truely an amazing SPAM mail, and I’d love to share this one. How stupid are people that they truely believe this email is for real and not fake? I believe there are several thousands of them who click the links in the email… and as if Microsoft themselves gave such instructions! (typos and errors included)

From : microsoft.com
Sent : Thursday, September 8, 2005 7:24 AM
To : ***@hotmail.com
Subject : Secure your pc, your website for a better protection!

OVERVIEW
——————————————————————————–

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. The tool creates a log file named mrt.log in the %WINDIR%\debug folder.

This tool is not a replacement for an anti-virus product. To help protect your computer, you should use an anti-virus product.

SPECIAL OFFER
——————————————————————————–

Download The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool by following the link found in this e-mail and you get a free-trial of EXCHANGE SERVER 2003 !!!
Exchange Server, the Microsoft messaging and collaboration server, is software that runs on servers that enables you to send and receive electronic mail and other forms of interactive communication through computer networks. Designed to interoperate with a software client application such as Microsoft Outlook, Exchange Server also interoperates with Outlook Express and other e-mail client applications.

Yeah right, as if one would get such nice freebies from Microsoft! I’d love to receive a free copy, but … haha, this is way too funny! Stupid spammers, stupid exploiters, stupid dialers, stupid… people?

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets. That’s probably a sentence I’d like to write all the time if there’s yet another one of these nifty little things that enhance our luxury life. One of these is already the well-known iPod, but by now, there’s a new stage of development: The iPod nano. This gadget keeps us entertained with the latest technology, and is a really small one, too! With a size of 9 x 4 x 0.69 centimeters and about 42.5 gramm, the USB device with 4 GByte storage will cost about 250 Euro. And those who still planned to buy the iPod mini will be disappointed since Apple apparently removed the item from their iPod-Player list.

But where’s the catch in buying this product? Besides its small size and capacity, I don’t see any benefit from it. Since most CDs are already copy right protected and nearly every copy might be a case of copyright infringement, who should really use it except to carbonize the old CDs for a nice jogging session? The expensive downloads from the iTunes music shop won’t lure me into their customer’s value chains… :(

[via Golem]

Tonight I finally got my ballot… and I already voted. It wasn’t that easy after all but I made my vote a couple of days ahead. My choice was pretty much based on my situation as a student. I discused it with my mum tonight as well but in the end my desicion was pretty clear. It feels kind of strange now because the crosses are set and I’m hoping I made the right decision. So I’ll see and have to wait one more week…

There are many things which disturb me concerning politics of the USA, but this is nothing else but yet another sick form of modern american racism. I believe those who voted for George W. Bush and probably his father, should remember they elect those who hate half of their own country. Now the presidental mother, Barbara Bush, was widely quoted in the news. Why do they still pretend to be interested in the entire issues of humantity, of helping and supporting those who are dying or are already dead?

So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway. This is working very well for them.“ -former First Lady Barbara Bush, regarding flood evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston.

Now I’m fond of what we have in the European Union – a political system that would kill off those in power for simply saying such thoughtless bullshit.