Shawn Chittle writes that he was there at the beginning of Tucows, when it was just one cow. Before they had a barn, even. I love these impromptu histories. They remind me of my days as a young geek in my high school’s computer room.
Monthly Archives: July 2008
Ann Cavoukian: Rock Star
Chad Hensler writes in his blog about Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian, encouraging Google to challenge a ruling forcing them to turn private user logs over to Viacom. In Dr. Cavoukian’s words:
…business should not, in my opinion, rely on the surveillance of consumers to protect their copyright interests. It is not acceptable to allow copyright enforcement to come at the expense of users’ privacy.
My new personal hero.
Read the whole letter here. (Thanks, Richard, for the link.)
Pooh on the iPhone 3G
Earlier this year I dropped my Palm m505. On a really hard surface. At Orly. It survived, but would no longer sync. Clearly the Universe was sending me a message it was time to upgrade my PDA. And, of course, that would mean re-evaluating my entire gadget strategy, including my PDA, cell phone, iPod, and camera. And there, in front of me, was the answer, clear as day: it was time to get an iPhone. I heard a choir of angels singing. Oh, it was so right. Continue reading
The Weekend SysAdmin
I’m starting a new category dedicated to the beleaguered legions who are pressed into service during the precious few hours of respite they have from working for the man: The Weekend SysAdmins. Continue reading
Squeezing the Internet for That Good Information Juice
Back in the old days, when I taught a community college course on programming, I learned the difference between data and information. Data is all around you. It doesn’t really help most of the time. Information, on the other hand, is the data distilled into a form you can actually use. Continue reading
Still Well Behind That Curve
I can’t claim to be on the bleeding edge of pop culture. But, hey! Even the 26 yr olds I work with hadn’t heard of this. And I was twigged onto this by my buddy Ray, who’s about my age.
So, check out Frisky Dingo, by the creators of Sealab 2021, Adam Reed and Matt Thompson. Sadly, AdultSwim won’t play their videos to international visitors (like Canadians).
On the upside, another buddy just told me about this cool tool which lets you choose which country you want to appear to be coming from, and it hooks you up! More info in an upcoming post.
In the meantime, feel free to ream the boneheads at AdultSwim by viddying the Frisky Dingo goodies at https://www.sidereel.com/Frisky_Dingo.
Geotargeting IP Addresses
A friend IMed me asking for info on how to determine an IP’s real-world location. We use MaxMind’s GeoIP product at work, but I figured there’d be an open source version out there. And sure enough, I found the hostIP project, which boasts some pretty cool features in a number of different languages. I’m looking forward to playing with it!
Retooling in a Post-Firefox 3 World
Webmasters and web developers have a very intimate relationship with their browsers. All the web developers I know use Firefox because they can customize the browser with an impressive array of extensions, plug-ins and add-ons. It also doesn’t hurt that the browser is open-standards-friendly, and open source. Continue reading