Category Archives: computers

Spam Police – let’s pay a bounty on the heads of mail spammers

Posted on by
Reply

Is it a naive idea?   I waste SO much time now dealing with spam that eludes my ISP and Gmail filters – I’d say as much as an hour a week and that does not factor in the frustration and potential for lost “real” email.

My proposal is to create a fund through voluntary, very small personal contributions of a few dollars and larger ISP contributions to pay people to personally identify spammers, their businesses, and their location.   Spam Bounty Hunters.

This blacklisted database would be available to all with an excellent feedback forum to quickly remedy false positives.    If they protest, the accused would be deemed innocent until proven guilty by 95% agreement in forum feedback.

However, those deemed spammers would be tracked and followed as they changed businesses, emails, etc, and would be hounded by the masses via email, telephone, and real visits.   Collectively the “community” would make the costs of *even trying spamming* greater than any benefits.

Unlike current blacklists used by ISPs, this would bring the collective intelligence, and collective outrage, to bear against spammers.
Those who chose to be “spam bounty hunters” would be compensated from the fund by a formula designed to distribute whatever amount was in the fund devided by an estimate of the number of total email spammers (or some other formula designed to pay out at the rate the problem is fixed).

Over in China, people are getting paid a few bucks a day to play second life and accumulate Linden dollars for affluent US SecondLifers.  Wouldn’t this be a better use of their time?

Digg this story 

Hot Apple ? Apple Battery Recall. Hot Dell? Go to ….

Posted on by
Reply

Before that nice Apple laptop burns up you’ll want to go to the Apple Battery exchange program and see if you need a new battery.

Dell also has a Dell Battery Exchange thing going and although I give them props for sending me a free new adapter because mine was overheating along with my laptop and non-recallable battery.   The battery does NOT appear to be the problem in my case though, as it stays cool to touch.

HOWEVER, even the NEW dell adapter is heating up as well. The 5100 Inspiron laptop bottom (it appears not to be the battery) gets SO hot I can’t hold it in my lap or leave it flush with a table. I’d read this was a dust thing and blowing out the dust helps, but I think it’s related to the way the unit is built as well. I’m guessing (wildly) that the exploding dells are simply on the end of the curve of millions of units that heat up to varying degrees due to design flaws.

SES San Jose – it’s almost like I’m not … here.

Posted on by
Reply

I’m sitting in my San Jose hotel room a few blocks from the Search Engine Strategies conference thinking how much better the information about the conference is … right here on my pc … than at the conference itself.   I’m not knocking SES (yet), just noting that a broadband connection and good website coverage means that even up in my little Oregon town I can “see” the emerging online world as well – in some ways much better – than hanging out in the middle of things here in Silicon Valley.  Microsoft’s MIX06 had more PCs all over the place where SES, like last year, has a long line to check mail unless you want to lug your own pc all over the place.   Also an inconvenience if you want to check up on blogs or conference updates.   The key point?  The virtual 24/7 conference online is rocking, and will only get better over time.

I shouldn’t knock the conference because I’m just an “exhibits only” attendee and SES clearly has emerged as the key search conference.   Also, Danny Sullivan is arguably the sharpest SEO observer in the world and based on comments by some presenters I know he treats his peeps well …

YET …  it sure seems they have the same tired “Our SEO is the best ever” exhibitors and perhaps as many as 60+% of the same presenters show after show, most pretending they are better at or more helpful with PPC and organic optimization results than … a smart high school kid … which is not supported by much evidence I can see, especially on the organic side of SEO.   I do hate to miss Matt Cutts comments and the Eric Schmidt interview but maybe I’ll bump into them at the party at Google tonight.

After going to 3 full Webmasterworld conferences, two SES as exhibits only, and one AD-TECH (where they more-nicely-than-SES allow exhibits people to attend the keynotes which are the best part of that conference), I think Webmasterworld offers the best insights and networking.  One presenter who appeared at both told the WMW crowd he had to dumb down the presentation for SES. Perhaps he says the opposite here, but I think SES, at three times the price, is not even as valuable as a WMW conference for all but a handful of niches such as Vendors, who’ll do better at this venue because they are selling things rather than dispensing quality information.   (Man there are a lot of SEO clueless salespeeps in SEO!)

Of course personal contacts are important, but I know I’ll find some people I know over at the Google Party later this evening.

Can the long tail wag the big internet dog?

Posted on by
Reply

Obviously niches of human interests will be a very powerful force in the shaping of the online world, and it would seem the best way to serve niches, especially a small one, is more along the lines of medium or  small business rather than big biz.  However the mega sites seem to be increasing their share of the action, and are shaping the new access and community tools.

I’m wondering which of the following models, if any, will be most prevalent in the future.  How much will the long tail wag the internet dog ?
Big Corporate Website model:  Yahoo, Myspace, Google, MSN as giant info, tools, purchasing portals, community centers.
Medium Website model:  I see this as content aggregator sites like technorati that serve large niche markets and use Web 2.0 sensibilities to help users slice and dice the overwhelming amounts of online content.

Mom and Pop model:  Local or niche specific info-rich sites where users will spend most of their time researching/buying/socializing.

Obviously there will be all of this and more, but I think the trends are important and it *makes intuitive sense* to me that onliners, especially the next generation, will seek niche specific social interaction that is not handled well by anybody right now.   Big sites mostly lack enough of a human element and sites like Myspace that do have a powerful human element fail to deliver a high quality or info rich experience.

With that in mind I’m off to Silicon Valley to hear 1) pitches from the Search Engine Strategies vendors about how they can get me to the top of the search heap (thanks, but I’ll just take the T shirt for now).  2) Google Party!   Always fun to talk to the search and labs teams there.  They be clever folk.

Smart move by Yahoo?

Posted on by
2

Yahoo appears to be expanding their approach to search using humanized contextual information. This may trump Google’s search quality if Google remains as stubborn as it’s been with regard to human interventions.  However I’d guess Google will soon be forced to use a lot more human input as search quality may soon demand this.

One should remain very bullish on computer intelligence, but it seems for at least the next decade or so it’s not realistic to think that search results can be ranked by machine better than by humans.  Machines are much, much faster rankers than a human mind, but lack even many basic filters that allow a human to discard irrelevant or spurious information.    The hybridized search using computer algorithmic results combined with data from all relevant human sources should prevail in the near future.

Mennonites and Google

Posted on by
Reply

The Mennonites are known for their craftsmanship and honest business dealings.   Today, down at a local planing mill it was interesting to watch how important the social negotiation process was to doing business as my uncle and cousin figured out how to go about getting some raw planks from their tree farm turned into floorboards.  “Are you related to ….?” and “my daughter lives over on your road” mattered more than I’m used to in the west, where few have lived in the area for even a single generation.

I thought how far I was in so many ways from next week’s Google party in Silicon Valley.    Somewhat like the Amish, Old Order Mennonites often travel in horse drawn buggies, foresaking even the most basic technologies the rest of us take for granted.

Yoo-hoo, YHOO?

Posted on by
2

Hopefully you did not take my ealier “advice” and buy YHOO. I remain bullish on their prospects as well as IACI and MSFT as Google’s huge share of total PPC based search revenue dematerializes over the coming years, but hey, I also traded my Apple for WCOM so don’t listen to me.

Reuters says things will likely get worse for Yahoo as delays in their “project panama” contextual advertising routine continue to hurt their prospects of nabbing more of the PPC cash buffet.

Google is still going strong according to CEO Eric Schmidt, which is good because now they can afford the big party they’ll throw in a couple weeks – Google Dance 2006. See you there?

Southern Hospitality

Posted on by
1

Here at the Daily Grind in Harrisonburg, VA I’m enjoying a robust internet connection, sipping some robust coffee, and uploading a few pix to Flickr.    The big reunion starts tomorrow in Bridgewater, but  Mom and I are already enjoying the great hospitality of Aunt Doris and Uncle Joe  who live in  a beautiful  brick house  perched on a  hill near the middle of town.

No post from Chicago’s ORD because despite their HUGE signs promoting WIFI they … charge $6.95 per session.   Unlike Oregon where PDX and MFR have free WIFI, proving that Oregon remains one of the geat states in the union.

I don’t have much information about the economics of Airport WIFI, but I think ad based models are going to prove much stronger since even those of us who can afford to pay usurous wifi fees…won’t do it.

Gadgets – the desktop revolution begins

Posted on by
1

One of the best sessions at Mashup Camp 2  was Adam Sah’s “Google Gadgets” which outlined how rapidly gadgets are sweeping onto the desktop.   These were formerly called Google Widgets but Adam told me they have been renamed to avoid confusion.  Yahoo “confabulator” concept has a nice ring….but….perhaps some term standardization is called for here.    Apple can keep the widget idea because… they are Apple.
Gadgets are sweeping onto the desktop.    At MIX06 the MS Live team was also very bullish on the concept and has been developing a desktop and OS environment that will rely heavily on people populating their desktop with gadgets.     Although many of these are “whimsical” in nature, the number of functional gadgets is growing very fast.  I think this is the coming “battleground” – or at least a coming very fertile ground – for those vying for eyeballs.    In the meantime it’s a great way to customize the desktop easily.