I got a "My Space"
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Technology

Don't you say a word.

If you didn't get it from the title, I got a "My Space" profile and such. I even have it tricked out all dope, yo. A nice space background and such. Even some music and video (the music matches my ambiance but the video doesn't - like i care). So, My Space got me, too. There are some strange things on it, though.

Some of the Groups are a little odd. There are, of course, groups for sports teams. Then there are groups who are against certain sports teams. Then there are even groups who are against the groups that are for certain sports teams.

I remember reading somewhere before I joined, by checking the little box that said "I Agree...", which stated that I am not allowed to post pictures that are offensive or porn related. However, there are many people who have profiles, or belong to groups, that talk about, show, and discuss sex and/or sexual innuendos. How you could go to upload a picture, see the red text that says 'don't upload porn', and upload it anyway is beyond me.

I don't like porn, but I'm not going to tell people who watch it and look at it that they are going to burn in the fiery pits of hell for all eternity. I'll let God do that. But My Space is not the place for that stuff.

P.S. - there are other sites out there for that stuff if you really like it hot (as in hades hot).

Anti-badware
Mood:  bright
Topic: Technology

Well... lets see...

Anti-spyware and anti-virus programs have gotten better in the last few years. Since there has been a boom in the number of spyware, adware, and virus attacks, this only makes sense.

Yet all of the programs have a similar problem, especially when it comes to having to decipher the pop-ups you get from your real time scanner. They only tell you simple things like "program32.exe is trying to install itself to the registry." What do you do?

Well, if you are installing a program, it is safe to say that the alert is talking about something you are installing, even if you don't recognize the file name. But when you are browsing the internet you might get some alerts. Is it ok to install this file? Do you need it to view the page correctly (like flash or java)?

These programs need to give more info on the files so you can make a better decision.

For those of you having this problem, you can turn to liutilities.com to figure out what those system processes are and if they are good for your system.

AIM6 aka Triton
Topic: Technology

OK, I read a while ago something about the new version of AOL's Instant Messenger. It would be version 6, I believe, also know as Triton. The things I read lead me to believe that Triton was bad news. The people who downloaded and installed the beta version of the software said they found lots of little pieces of software (what we normally call spyware) that had installed themselves without telling these people about it. Bad AOL, bad. So I have installed Triton and thought I would let people know what I have found.

The following is information found while installing Triton and after reading the Terms and Conditions before installing:

Triton installs "stubs" which can "call out" to the internet, download programs, and install them.

You have to install the AOL browser. There is no option against it.

An "Anti-Spyware" tool called Spyware Quick Scan "may have been included" with Triton software.

Triton comes with a "Website Alert Feature" which will alert you whether or not you are visiting websites that have been associated with "good or potentially problematic business practices".

AOL "may" deliver automated updates which "may" change certain "functionality". However, you can choose to have it ask you first.

Profiles from older versions are no longer available from within Triton.

Triton wants to pull contact lists from Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo!, Hotmail.

You will become a member of plaxo and plaxo will install a toolbar if you don't catch the check you have to uncheck.

There is also an option to "Keep IM conversation text after IM is closed". I'm guessing that means your conversations will stay forever until you manually get rid of them. You could potentially pull up a conversation you had two weeks ago.

So these are my findings. Take them for what they say and don't freak. But if I were you, I'd go with Trillian or GAIM, both of which support AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, and a few others.

Pay-per-Browse Part 2
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Pay per web page you view?
Topic: Technology
....
Hole #4: Downloads and Streams
So you visit Disney's official "Chronicles of Narnia" web site. If you knew the URL to the site (vs. having to browse the Disney site) there's a penny. No big. Then you have to browse the Narnia site looking at everything that looks interesting. But wait... the site is done in Macromedia Flash! Will the penny-per-page idea work with Flash sites? Something will have to be programmed to know when I've gone to a new "page." Then I browse to the downloads section (assuming the previous works out, ther's a couple more pennies). How does this work? Do I pay a penny for the page that is loaded and save the picture like normal, or do I get charged for the picture as well? Will being charged for the page that opens (with the picture on it) cause every other person who has pictures (or even other files) to open a new page before linking you to the file you want to download? If you are charged an amout per file, then how do you price this? By file size? By file type? A combination of both? I'm sure a compromise can be reached for this problem, but when I browse the site further, I run into another dilema. Streaming audio and video. How do I pay for this, and doesn't it seem like a cheap move to make me pay to visit a site that contains video that they are going to charge me for? Again, how does streaming media get paid for? How Stuff Works has a simple solution: pay-per-view (they must really like "pay-per-" stuff). But even with a pay-per-view setup who do I pay? Do I pay MSN to view it's files, Disney to view it's files, Quicktime to view it's files, and so on? There has to be a company who will handle the pay-per-view setup, to keep prices similar and payment streamlined. I don't want to pay ten different companies, on top of the 20 different web sites I will pay each month. I visit the internet alot, but I don't want people to know that.

Hole #5: Who will govern penny-per-page?
Like I just said, I don't want to have to pay 30 different people for stuff, reguardless of how much cheaper it would be to get subscriptions to web sites now. [Which is a moo point, because right now I am not paying anything at all and even though it would only be a penny to view one page, that will add up over time and I always prefer free over not-free.] Oh ya, and what about that company called ISP...? To connect to the internet I need an ISP, an Internet Service Provider, which means coughing up $20 a month, plus, just to get me connected to the internet. Then, after I am connected, I have to pay for each page I view. Sounds almost like a scam.
One way to take care of this: (as How Stuff Works points out) give the ISP $10 more and they will keep a small fee and give the rest to the sites you visited, dividing the money based on the amount of times in percent that you visited a site in a months time. Ok... I pay ISP $20 dollars now, view pages for free VS. pay ISP $30 dollars, view pages for free. Still not good, the price went up.
But who will be in charge? Who will take care of dividing the money? Who will I pay, and will I pay different sites or companies for pages versus video streams? Who will govern pricing? Will I end up paying Disney, MSN, HowStuffWorks, Yahoo!, Ebay, and Amazon separately? How Stuff Works thinks they have the solution to the penny-per-view governing problem: let the top 1,000 web sites decide. More on that later...

Hole #6: What about yen-per-page?
As you may or may not know, the Chinese have a different money system than ours. So does England, Canada, Europe, Australia, Mexico, and so on. How much do they pay "per-page?" Do we assume the penny is the standard and all other countries must calculate their money to equal one cent? By the way, money flucuates enough in one country alone, but one day a page could cost you 1.25 yen-per-page and another day cost you 1.50 yen-per-page, that is if we assumed the American cent stayed constant. So how do we adjust for the difference in countries money systems?

Hole #7: Top 1,000 sites, eh?
Ok, so How Stuff Works says the top 1,000 sites should govern the penny-per-page system. I guess that's fair, but how do we determine the top 1,000 sites? Do we go strictly by numbers of visitors to the site? Just because you visit a site once, does not mean you liked it, or meant to visit. So then we should go by number of return visitors. But still we have a problem. The only people who know how many visitors a web site has is the person or company who owns the server, or possibly the ISP. Should we trust them to send in correct numbers? Or what if Amazon, Ebay, MSN, Google, etc. got together and voted out Lycos, saying it just wasn't popular enough of a site to be considered one of the top 1,000. Maybe they just don't like Lycos. So Lycos gathers it's own 1,000 best sites and they create their own version of penny-per-page.
What about international web sites? Not Google-like sites with a Spanish version also, but sites that exist in Japan, are very popular in Japan, and are only useful to Japanese, but rake in mucho grande visitors and qualifies as a top 1,000 site. [By the way, who is deciding who is a top 1,000 site again?] Do you think American buisnesses want Japanese, or German, or Italian, or even British people deciding what it will cots Americans to view their web sites? Do you think the British want Americans deciding to use the American cent as the norm while thier pence flucuates according to the cent?
Yet, the biggest problem with this is the "1,000" sites. You realize that it says one thousand, right? That's one hundred (100) sites from America, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, Spain, Mexico, China, and Great Britain. And the theory is that they can all get along and decide on a system of payment to use for viewing of the internet. Keep your fingers crossed.

Hole #8: The Napster Generation
I'm sure you've heard of Napster, but do you remeber the original Napster? Napster (named after the college kid who created it) was a revolutionary piece of software that allowed people to do something new to the music world: get songs for free. This was an awsome idea, but it is also theft (by American Copy Right laws). Napster lost the battles but won the war by coming out with a Record Company freindly pay-per-song version of the Napster program. However, many people were getting sued by the RIAA for having 1000's of MP3 files on their computer which they were sharing on, or had downloaded from peer-to-peer networks through programs such as iMesh, Livewire, and the ever famous KaZaA.
Through these legal battles 2 good lessons were learned: (1) the world of digital media is changing the way people get music, movies, and tv shows, and (2) if it's free, people will take it. For example, there was a girl who mentioned to MSNBC that more than half the songs she had downloaded she did not even like. She simply downloaded them because they were there. If she had to pay for them, she would not have them. And this brings up an important point. For every iTunes, there is a KaZaA; for every OS you must buy, there is a Linux that is free; for every web site that starts charging users to visit, there will be one that gives information away like it's the end of the world. They may be small in numbers, but they will be there. They will be a collective that will call themselves the Free Information Web Ring, and they will not stoop to the level of the big companies that back the sites which contain the same information but charge you for it. How long will they survive: always. There is always somebody going against the grain and they are the ones we remember; the rest just looks like smooth wood.

Hole #9: Publicity, Marketing, Profits, oh my!
Let's go back to the subtly mentioned Quicktime. If you go to the Quicktime web site, you can view many movie trailers. So with the new penny-per-page system in place you will pay to see a preview of a movie Disney paid Quicktime to place on their site, so you can decide whether or not you want to see the movie. I smell another scam... I might as well just watch the commercials on TV and wait for the preview to come on. This way, if I choose not to see it I have wasted no money in my decision. But seriously, why would someone go to a web site which promotes movies or events: Publicity/marketing sites. If I really want to know what the movie is about, I could walk to the Library and read the newsaper review for free. If I am going to pay to view a web site, it must have something I cannot get that easily from any other source. Example: I cannot go to the Library and lookup the 10 most realted sites to "kite-boarding." That is something best left to Google. However, if I really want the movie times, I can look up the theater in the phone book and call the theater on my cell phone which gets free weekend calling; versus paying to look it up on the internet. I can also get the weather, news, and sports from TV, information better than that of the internet from the Library, and event times by looking up numbers in the phone book and calling the restaurant or establishment. I don't want to pay to get things I can get for free, including previews which I can already watch for on TV (even though I may pay for cable or the dish).

Little Holes
The fact that I pay for internet access right now encourages me to use the internet as much as I can. But if I was paying for internet access and on top of that had to pay for each page I viewed, I would be more careful about the number of pages I viewed. I would also choose my results from Google, or MSN more wisely than before, knowing that a link may look good but then take me on a web page viewing spree, robbing me of my pennies.

Another thing is the way pay-per-view works on cable. You may say I pay for cable and then if I watch a pay per view channel, I will pay per movie I view. Similar to the penny-per-page idea. But again, if I can find the information for free somewhere else (borrow the movie from a freind vs. paying per view) then I will go with that.

What will happen to ads? Will they dissappear, or still be used to supply free information to people who are a little slow to jump on the bandwagon? You can bet your backside that if I have to pay to view a web page I don't want to see even a small ad. That would be the only good part about the penny-per-page system; no more ads, no more pop-ups, because the money being collected should be enough to pay for the site.

Conclusion
My English teacher always said not to state that this is my conclusion with a title such as "Conclusion" but I wanted to make sure you know I'm done. - Penny-per-view: good idea or bad idea, or bad idea with good intentions. How Stuff Works points out one semi-moo point that is almost worth mentioning. If we pay a penny per page we view (it's only a penny people), coupled with the number of hits Google gets in a month, that means that Google would profit near $1 million dollars a day or $350 million dollars a year. So if web sites are going to be making from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per day, then I better see something that makes it worth my penny, or you can bet I'll be the first one joining the Free Information Web Ring.


Some items are linked to as a courtesy. Others I actually like; such as How Stuff Works.

Pay-per-Browse Part 1
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Pay per web page you view?
Topic: Technology
Sorry about this one. It's so long I had split it up into Parts.


Before you read this you should head on over to HowStuffWorks.com and read their article on How Penny-per-page Might Work. When you're done reading that all the way through, come on back so I can rip the thing to shreds.

Done? Or did you just skip it? Well, in case you didn't feel like reading the article (or got lost while reading the article) here's the low down: Someone thinks that either (a) paying a penny for each page visited, or (b) paying a fee to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) which will then be passed onto the web sites, is a good idea. Obviously, I do not think it is a good idea. Here are the holes I have spotted.

Hole #1: The Internet was born Free
The Internet, or World Wide Web (WWW), was started by a group of Universities who wanted an easy, quick way to send data back and forth. This was a simple network of mainframes, linked together to form an information database that anyone connected to it could access. The Universities were able to pay for equipment because of grants and private funds, and they did not pay an ISP (mostly because they were the internet at this time). Through message boards and early developement in data and file transfer/sharing, the WWW soon grew outside the Universities. The internet like we know it today has actually been around for most of the life of the internet. The only thing that has changed significantly is file size, picture quality, streaming and other protocols and file transfer methods (ie. Peer-to-Peer). Some websites do charge fees for their content, however, this content normally costs that much (in print form, or CD or DVD form...). But for Google to charge you to search for a keyword that may or may not give you the results you were looking for sounds a little odd. Does Google have to provide this service for free? No, but it has from the beginning, like all other sites, and to start charging now to access content that was previously free seems like a cheap shot at the users to rake in more profits.

Hole #2: What about the Users?
If Time Magazine wants to charge me to view content I would normally have to buy the Magazine to view, then I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is the people who have given us information for free from the beginning. Keeping in mind that no one must provide free content for me to view, what about such websites as Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with millions (if not more) of articles. More over, I can go into it and edit anything I want, or even add or request an entry if I cannot find a certain item or topic. Since I can go into Wikipedia and edit stories/articles then I would be considered one of the many publishers or editors of that site. Do I get a little cha-ching to pay for my time?
What about people who use free hosting sites such as Tripod? Will they be allowed to keep publishings free websites, and if so, will they ever get a penny-per-page revenue from visitors of their site, or will Tripod snatch it up? What about AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, etc.? Will you have to pay to put your profile out on the internet, and if so, will you get money for every person who visits your profile, or will MSN snatch that up from you (like Microsoft needs more money)?

Hole #3: Content Chopping
The Article from How Stuff Works is 8 to 9 pages long (depending on whether or not you look at the links, too). Considering I take the short route and go to the sites home page first, then search for "penny-per-page," then click on the link to the article and read it all the way through, including the links page, I have just paid How Stuff Works 11 cents to read one article. You might say this is no big deal. What if every web site does this, though? For this article it may be good to chop it up into smaller sections (although we don't have to pay a penny to see each section right now), but what would happen if all web sites came up with clever tricks to force you to visit multiple pages just to see or read what you were looking for? What if newspaper or magazine sites chopped articles into sections creating multiple pages for articles that would otherwise be fitted onto one page? What if sites created pages that were a bit harder to navigate to exactly where you wanted to go, adding multiple links you have to click to get to the content you want? This content chopping would rob the users of money they would normally not have spent, having been forced to view multiple pages. Despite what How Stuff Works might say, there is no one to stop companies from doing this sort of stuff, and who wants to visit each web site to make sure they are playing by the guidelines? Further more, there are greedy little men in dark conference rooms trying to devise plans for robbing you of your money that even I cannot think of right now.