new blow to net neutrality

So now the FCC [Federal Trade Commission] issued a report entitled Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy,  concluding that net neutrality is not an important issue to protect.

To read the report, clikc here. [pdf]

free software foundation to campaign against Microsoft

In response to Microsoft’s attack against free software, the FSF has announced on May 16th 2007 the creation of a campaign to fight back by organizing ‘public support into action on software freedom issues’:

The new team will be composed of two campaigns managers and an international group of volunteers, with one position to be filled by current staff member John Sullivan and the other by new appointee Joshua Gay. They will work together on the FSF campaigns BadVista.org and DefectiveByDesign.org, and launch additional campaigns in the near future. [link]

e-waste dumping in Africa

According to a UN report, an estimated 50 million tons of electronic waste generated globally every year, e-waste and its disposal is a growing problem, and much of it is dumped in Africa [link]. The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal is a treaty on waste disposal entered into force in 1992 [link]. It is estimated that

anywhere between 25 to 75 percent of the e-waste that enters Africa, mostly through Mombasa, Lagos and Dar es Salaam ports, is useless.
It is also reported that in Nigeria alone, about 500 containers full of used electronic cargo pass through the Lagos port every month, according to a recent study by Seattle-based Basel Action Network.

firefox extension

TextMarker is a great Firefox extension. It allows you to highlight text on web pages and has 3 customizable highlighter colours. Fascinating!!

After installation, to highlight text, just select the text then right click and click on Highlight Text. If you want to remove the highlighting, then just right click on the highlighting and choose Erase this Highlighting.

To change the colour:

1- Click on Tools | Add ons [a list of extensions will open depending on how many extensions you downloaded]

2- Click on the TextMarker extension. It will give you three options:  Disable, Uninstall and Options. Click on Options.

3- Choose the highlight colours that you want.

As you can see from the image, I have several extensions downloaded. The ‘copy plain text extension’ is excellent for the regular user, and the Web Developer Extension is great if you are  working on CSS or Javascript etc.

phishing test

Here are some phishing stats from SonicWall:

• 6.1 Billion – Number of phishing e-mails sent world-wide each month
• $1,200 – Average loss to each person sucessfully phished (Federal Trade Commission)
• 15,451 – Number of unique phishing attacks in January 2006 (Anti-Phishing Working Group)
• 7,484 – Number of phishing Web sites found in January 2006 (Anti-Phishing Working Group)

Sonic Wall also puts a very interesting test for your online safety [link]. Try it and see how safe you are. I LOVE that test!!!

200,000 malicious programs in existence

These problem programs can arrive via e-mail, instant messenger, through your internet connection or even your web browser if you visit the wrong website. The threats are so numerous and appear so fast that Windows users must feel under siege. [link]

The majority of the attacks are against Windows users. So how do we stay safe while surfing? The BBC offers a few suggestions:

• Use anti-spyware and anti-virus programs
• On at least a weekly basis update anti-virus and spyware products
• Install a firewall and make sure it is switched on
• Make sure updates to your operating system are installed
• Take time to educate yourself and family about the risks
• Monitor your computer and stay alert to threats

Doesn’t exactly say much, but for starters, this is good advice.

encylopedia of life

Imagine a digital page for every species on the planet. This is what this newly released digital encyclopedia aims at achieving eventually. It is called the Encyclopedia of Life and it is aiming at being a ‘comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized’ encyclopedia. While the project’s information and objectives and plans have been released, the Encyclopedia itself is not yet functional and its fully functional version is expected by mid 2008.

According to its own stated description, the EOL is:

an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goal is to create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike. To transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species. And ultimately, to increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

safari going windows

Apple announced that it is releasing a version of Safari for Windows [link]. This, according to the BBC, reignites the ‘browser wars’. It has been suggested by some developers that this might be because of the impending release of the iPhone. It should be noted that like other browsers, Safari ‘earns money for Apple every time a user searches Google via the integrated search button on the browser’s toolbar’ and:

Google pays a share of ad revenue to Apple. According to one report, Firefox’s developer the Mozilla Foundation earned over $50m in search engine ad revenue in 2005, mostly from Google.

The BBC notes that

Up until now, Safari has captured just 5% of the browser market, while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer accounts for 78%, and rival Firefox 15%.

I’m not Fake Steve Jobs

Gates and Jobs meet at the All Things Digital Conference May 29-31, 07 and took the stage together [link]. Gates began by clarifying jokingly that he is NOT a fake Steve Jobs. One of the most amusing and revealing things in their talk is how Bill explains, and Jobs acknowledges, that the Apple II  actually used Mircosoft’s Basic to run. Here’s Jobs’ version of the story:

My partner we started out with, this guy named Steve Wozniak. Brilliant, brilliant guy. He writes this BASIC that is, like, the best BASIC on the planet. It does stuff that no other BASIC’s ever done. You don’t have to run it to find your error messages. It finds them when you type it in and stuff. It’s perfect in every way, except for one thing, which is it’s just fixed-point, right? It’s not floating-point.
So we’re getting a lot of input that people want this BASIC to be floating-point. And, like, we’re begging Woz, please, please make this floating point.
…
We’re begging Woz to make this floating-point and he just never does it. You know, and he wrote it by hand on paper. I mean, you know, he didn’t have an assembler or anything to write it with. It was all just written on paper and he’d type it in. He just never got around to making it floating-point.

So who comes in? Bill Gates comes in and writes the floating point for the Apple II.

Read the transcript or view the video:

is it the end of spam?

The good news is that one of the top ten ‘most wanted’ spammers has been arrested. The bad news is that it will not even have a tiny dint in the amount of spam we are receiving. But his arrest is symbolic and it is still a good thing.

The spammer is 27 year old Robert Alan Soloway and he is on a Spamhaus list of 135 spammers responsible for as much as 80% of all junk e-mail:

Soloway sent out unsolicited bulk e-mails using networks of compromised computers called “zombies.” These are generally home computers whose owners typically have no idea that their machines have been infected with viruses or other malicious programs; service providers can’t easily block messages from zombies because they are mixed in with legitimate messages. [link]