Off the Top: Internet Entries
Showing posts: 121-135 of 138 total posts
Today I was reminded why I left Interland for Web hosting. I moved off their servers in September to PHP Web Hosting. I was paying 40 dollars for poor uptime (down a couple hours a week), poor service, poor admin privileges, and horrible e-mail hosting (constantly getting others e-mail on the same mail server). A quarter of that price now gets me nearly 100 percent uptime, solid admin rights, great service (although most is done electronically, but that is perfect for me), and perfect e-mail hosting. Not only do I get these benefits I get a database access, double the storage, double the traffic, and very few headaches.
Today after stating and restating to Interland in October I would not be renewing my contract when it came due, they billed my credit card directly with a huge increase for services. They did not ask to verify a 20 percent increase in charges, nor contact me to get approval to rebill my card.
If your money and your time are not valuable to you choose Interland for Web hosting. If they are valuable to you there are many other options.
MIT's Tech Review queries about mobile text messaging in the U.S. as much of the rest of the world uses it much more than Americans. I was very impressed with the mobile services in Europe last year and now really would like to have text messaging for my work. The frequency that text messaging works on is far better than mobile phones for penetrating walls and for being stable in emergencies (this may be attributed to its lack of use).
I clicked on my first Web ad in months, which was for Harvard is offering Distance Learning courses over the Internet. Most of their cources are technology related and they have the course outlines and syllabus posted for many of the courses.
I was hoping this article would never be written as it is the antithesis of the Web. The Washington Post writes about setting up international boders on the Internet, which includes a digital border patol that denies access. My hope is that while there is a Web there is a way to get arround these restrictions. The whole world does not need to become like China and block content from outside its borders.
Mappa.Mundi offers Mostly Cloudy, Clearing Later: Network Weather Maps article about Internet mapping tools that show congestion and other related maladies.
The folks at Digital Web - new have been busy finding the few new items over the past few weeks. It is always good to keep your eye on the DW-new page every day or two as it covers a broad spectrum of Web/Internet design and development issues. It is good to have Nick back and manning the daily post again as this means vacation is over.
The Web Grew Up
I was thinking the other day that two years ago, or so, was the last Christmas lag I noticed on the Web. It used to be that around Christmas time the Web would drag around the Christmas holiday as students finished their exams and surfed the Web. Office workers took advantage of their fast connections and a few free moments to order off the e-commerce sites.This year I noticed this lag did not happen. Not this holiday season and not in September when students went back to school and were using their fast pipes to pull songs from Napster and catch-up on all their friend's sites.
Yes, maybe the Web has grown up. The only lags these days are from viruses and worms that grab hold of distant machines and only make it seem like we are all on dial-up as the malicious traffic drags the services down for the rest.
Champeon interviewed in pixelview
Steve Champeon is interviewed in Pixelview. Yes, the list-mom for webdesign-L shows his softer side.The Way We Webbed
Builder.com to focus more on technology than Web. This article, delivered to my e-mail a couple weeks ago, has been ringing in my head. The Web is not dead, but how it is build has changed greatly. All of have learned a lot over the past few years and we all have grown greatly. Many of us have been implementing content management systems or rolling our own solutions to ease the management of these sites. We have build community tools and become readers and commentors on other's sites.The Web is no longer just static pages. It has not been for some time. Dynamic pages have there limits too and we all have found wonderful balances to build a better Web that is a better tool and information source for the users. The Web has also burst its seams and spread back out over the broad Internet. The Internet has become mobile and Web content has been repurposed and is now showing up on handheld devices and developers are creating versions of their information to ease this adoption (this will be an addition to this site in the next month or two, so to accommodate those that read this site on wireless AvantGo readers). Information is also syndicated using XML (RSS) so others can pull the information and use it in a manner that best suits them.
There will be a need for Web pages for quite some time. The great skill of Web design (from folks like Jeffery) will continue to be a needed profession as the design and visual presentation of information is essential to better understanding of the information and eases the adoption/internalization of information. I look forward to the new content from Builder.com, but I also will miss some of their focus too.
WebTechniques provides a wonderful overview of the changing Web teams. I have been finding much of what this article points out, the Web it still a valid element, but people have build more efficient tools to manage the content and to help reuse that content. The traditional Web teams have been changing and the skills are widening for those with a passion for building the Web. Read the article as this piece it the tip of the iceberg for what many folks have been watching happen or experienced in the past year or two.
One of the reasons that I love the Internet is its ability to be a conduit for exchanging ideas and discussion of topics. Not that this is not is new, it isn't. The comment tools in use on Web pages provides the ability to not only share ideas, but capture them for further use. Discussions are not lost in the ether as they can be at conferences, but they are stored for later reference.
This has been going on the past few days at Peter's site in a discussion about the term of use, Information Architect. The discussion has somewhat turned to the use of spatial metaphors to describe the Web and its use. None of the participants are really with in a short drive of each other. We are all sharpening our knowledge and ideas and changing perspectives to some degree. The Internet provides an amazing resource for life learners and bringing people of similar mind together to interact.
Go check the new Digital Web Magazine issue. I am so happy to be seeing color. This month's theme is content and Christopher Schmitt's Content as Navigation Tool is a solid review of the use of content on a site. Miraz Jordan's What's happening? A new look at Web pages is also a must read so to focus on the general population users.
But, of all items the interview with Scott Benish and Josh Kneedler of Dreaming America Productions was a great read. In part it was good to hear how two of guys I met in Austin last year at SXSW are doing, but their approach to projects was good insight. I have really been enjoying the interviews at Digital Web they seem to be rather in depth and offer great views of the how other folks approach development.
There are some things that are painful. Switching from DSL to dial-up would be near the top on my tech list. This sounds superficial, but my life really changed when I got broadband the Internet became an extension of my computer, not a slow plodding method to get news and see what a couple of friends are doing. The ability to manage others sites would not be possible without broadband. Can you imagine uploading a modified Dreamweaver templated site with 400 plus pages over dial-up. Pulling new modules and plug-ins for software I own would be painful. Owning Microsoft software is more palatable with broadband as they have so damn many patches (which sometimes overwrite other patches creating the need for new patches to fix the last patches).
The Beeb News provides a wake-up call to those that are still in the dark about wireless network security. The article welcome to the era of drive-by hacking shows how pervasive lax security is in London. This unaware approach to wireless network security can be a nice cheap way to get a fast Internet connection, but it also leave corporate and/or home networks wide open for abuse. The terms used for those that partake in the break in access are "war driving", "war pedaling", or "war walking" depending on the mode of transport used to take your laptop from open access network to open access network.
The article found that none of the networks use anything stronger than the built in security measures on the wireless hubs. The London area even has maps potting wireless access areas. Some see this access as a public good, but many of the enterprises networks, which house files and account information are wide open too.