Google Base: Social Networking?

Its alive and breathing: Google Base just launched as reported by the official Google Blog and is… well I honestly don’t know! The plan is to enable the users to search for items which have been submitted by other users for free use. Is this Google’s new method of becoming a part of a social network?

Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items. We’ll host the items and make them searchable for free.

In my opinion, the validity and integrity of the data provided has yet to be prooved. In fact, I can submit anything I’d like and give false information just as if I’d write the most illogical things on my blog? I’m not sure if Google Base is such a useful tool as its maker say.

However, the ability to submit your own content and your own academic work seems to be a fair argument for the use of Google Base as a tool to publicize your thoughts.

/von

Firefox: Pimped

After several weeks of doing nothing with Firefox due to the deepest suffering from the slow speed and high latency, I considered updating my 1.0.6 version to 1.5 on my laptop. Further I tried to add the Fasterfox extension and a new theme, however I was not allowed to do this. At first I thought the University’s WLAN would not grant access to the FTP Servers (which it actually did permit), but back at home I had the same problem.

What happened? I updated from the 1.0.6 to 1.5 RC1 and forgot that the Software Installations were manually disabled inthe old version. Sadly, the developpers have removed the ability to deny these software installations and replaced it with a menu button in the Options->Content area to make special exceptions for sites which are allowed to install software. Well, right away I had to manuever to the about:config and manually edited the following line from false to true:

xpinstall.enabled – default – boolean

That solved my problem of installing the extensions and themes for my newly pimpled Firefox! Beat that, developpers!

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Flock me up!

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Earlier this morning I received my official invitation from the team around Flock – the newest toy for combining Webbrowsing, RSS Aggregating and Social Bookmarking! Unfortunately the firewall of the University of Flensburg is not allowing me to download the file, and I’m probably trying to get my hands on it once I’m back home. For now, you may review some photos already here at Factory Joe’s Flickr Set. Hopefully I will post a review in a few hours!

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Mein Problemkind AntiVir

AntiVir LogoFür mich als Student ist diese Software wunderbar dazu geeignet, die Kosten meines Studiums zu minimieren. Dennoch hat der AntiVirus Dienst AntiVir in letzter Zeit einige Problemchen aufgewiesen. Mit der frei und kostenlos verfügbaren Version treten anscheinend Konnektionsprobleme zu den Downloadservern auf, sobald man das (automatische) Internet-Update startet. Diese auf rein subjektiv gefühlter Ebene aufgetretenen Zeit-Einbußen führen zu einem massiven Aufbau von Enttäuschung.

Meine Damen und Herren, was ist denn da los, dass die glänzende Vorführversion eures ansonsten kostenpflichtigen Dienstes so rummuckt? Wären da ein paar frische Server hilfreich, oder sind schnellere Breitbandanbindungen eine sinnvolle Lösung zu eurem Problem? Als „umsonst-Kunde“ bin ich bestimmt daran interessiert, meine bisweilen guten Erfahrungen mit eurem Produkt auch in meiner baldigen beruflichen Karriere kundzugeben, was in der einen oder anderen „fully paid“ Premium Professional Version des AntiVir innerhalb einer mehr oder minder großen Firma resultieren wird. Bitte kümmert euch drum. Danke, ich hab euch nämlich irgendwie lieb!

Update gegen 10.45 Uhr:
Nun wird laut Golem angekündigt, dass ein inkrementelles Update für die Software vom Hersteller verfügbar sein wird, so dass die Downloadgeschwindigkeit drastisch reduziert werden soll. Katharina und ich sind schon gespannt! Welch ein Zufall, dass ich schon heute morgen mit dem AntiVir angefangen hatte.

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YahooMSN: Combined Instant Messenger

The deal is nearly perfect: Yahoo and Microsoft are planning to combine their instant messenger tools Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger to allow their users to communicate with those from the opposing messenger tool. Sounds like quite the thrill against Trillian and other merger tools. However, the entire conversion of both networks is scheduled to be done not before spring 2006. [via Golem]

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Backup your VoIP Calls: HotRecorder

I heard about HotRecorder thanks to Robert’s post. Basically, you may record Skype and Google Talk conversations and save them to a file. Perhaps that’s an interesting add-on to create new PodCasts?

Certainly, the tool HotRecorder is able to do this, however they seemingly allow this only for users of the premium version:

Due to the great demand by HotRecorder users to convert the recorded .ELP
files to .wav or .ogg, we have recently released a beta version of the audio
converter for HotRecorder Premium.

So far, HotRecorder meets my expecations of being a program for backuping your important conversations – in case one needs to do that. However, due to the lack of openness from the company to people who simply cannot (or do not want to) afford $14.95 for the premium version, they’ll probably get some bad karma for skipping on us poor students! :(

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Spam Karma 2.0

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I have installed the Spam Karma 2.0 plugin instead of Bad Behavior now and am enjoying its amazing customizability. Bad Behavior sadly disallowed too many external webtools and it excluded some readers. This is not acceptable for me… especially since only one manual spammer ended up in my moderation queue in the last 24 hours with Bad Behavior being disabled! :(

/von

Test: BadBehavior turned off

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Earlier today I’ve had a small telephone chat with Robert and one of our topics was the increasing problem on how to fight off spam at best. With the term spam we’ve tied it down to both Comment-, Pingback- and Trackbackspam. WordPress usually defends itself against this nasty bunch by given the administrators the option to moderate their comments, but once the spam increases, the numbers of to-be-moderated spam can reach a few hundreds and thousands of database entries.

However, people have created some plug-ins to counter these spammers:

  • Spam Karma 2.0
    This plug-in is meant to stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters.
  • Bad Behavior 1.2.2
    Spambots are prevented from accessing your site by analyzing their actual HTTP requests and comparing them to profiles from known spambots including user-agent and referer analyses.

So far I’ve experienced the most positive protection from Bad Behavior, but while working with some website optimization tools yesterday, I noticed they were being blocked off from my site. On top of this, Robert expressed on the phone and in a recent article that other people are often turned down from bad behavior due to natural problems with user-agents or their referers. Instead of pulling hard restrictions on a blog by disallowing any form of communication (comments and trackbacks), I’d prefer to keep the idea of a social network alive. To accomplish this, the elements of interactivity have to remain intact. How else can I ask a question in my blog and get answers and with them some useful solutions?

Now I turned the plug-in off to see how much spam will pass to my moderation queue, and on top of this I will install Spam Karma tomorrow and attempt to compare these plugins. Nevertheless, the never-ending problem with Spammers is simple: They know what your defenses are and they are working to undermine them.

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How-to build your Telephone Recording Circuit

Have you ever planned to record your phone calls? Then let’s do it! Engadget has the solution for all of us who still obtain an old modem: How-To Build a Telephone Recording Circuit from an Old Modem!

What you’ll need:

  • an old modem with an audio transformer
  • a soldering iron
  • a throughhole circuit board
  • a computer with mini jack audio in (and a Griffin iMic for older macs)
  • an extra telephone cable

I just have to find the old 28.8 modem somewhere in one of the boxes, or it is perhaps hidden at my mother’s place. Give me a month and I’ll be Mr. Big Brother!

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BadBehavior 1.2.2

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I already planned to upgrade my major joker in the frontline of fighting comment and trackback spam already a few hours ago, but it took some time for me to remember: BadBehavior 1.2.2 has been installed and runs smoothly. In the name of spam-free blogs! ;)

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