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Net Neutrality Discovered to Be a Marxist/Communist Plot!

tijani — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:10:24 -0700

the videos by beck are always entertaining . . . :-D
net neutrality is a new way it combines the most visited sites like e-bay,amazon etc etc . . .

"Terms of Service": Do You Want to Run Your Own Servers? Does Your ISP Forbid This?

tijani — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:06:26 -0700

obviously ,if i get a chance to get my own i surely get an own browser.
as em a business man and i need to use internet almost more than 16 hours.

"Freedom is Slavery" - Senator McCain introduces bill to block FCC Net Neutrality

tijani — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:59:06 -0700

it does infect the customers. as most of the business now a days is online so it do effect the customer and they go for another network.

FCC: Broadband Speeds Often Slower than Advertised

tijani — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:57:11 -0700

it is common in all over the world that the speed advertised is mostly high than the speed you get .
specially the downloading speed.many of my friends in other countries also have this problem.

TW and Comcast exploring online access to broadcast and cable TV programming

iamtod — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:00:48 -0700

Those are my quotes from above, but Tristan got em a little tweaked.

I lived in Clearwater and Tampa FL from around 2004-2009, and at both places they required me to get their triple packages to get the 10/2 connection, and while trying to order the service here in Lakeland they once again required the triple package.

I just talked with a friend who's still on brighthouse, and he claims he had the old top of the line 10/2 data package independently (at the same time they required me to have all 3). However, he gets free cable tv through his condo association (legally), so I think they had some sort of agreement with BH to allow this. He dropped to the 'lite' service later on, and then tried to upgrade again, and they wouldn't let him.

While on a road trip, we stayed with someone who was bitching about Comcast requiring all 3 services to get the top of the fastest speeds. Though it appears this is already known.

TW and Comcast exploring online access to broadcast and cable TV programming

tristanbobistan — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:34:19 -0700

(02-25-2009 09:28 AM)lauren Wrote: Can anyone report other ISPs that are restricting higher speed Internet service tiers to customers who are also subscribing to affiliated phone and/or television services? If memory serves me correctly, AT&T U-verse Internet access may currently only be available at the residential (non-business) level in a similar manner, though it may be possible to cancel the non-Internet services at a later time and still keep U-verse Internet. Clarification on this by any U-verse subscribers would be appreciated.

--Lauren--

Todd: I went to visit my buddy, and the other person that was with me was ragging on him for having a land line
Todd: and he said it was required to get the top internet
Todd: shit, the only way you can get internet from brighthouse is w/ either a phone or TV package
Todd: I fought tooth and nail trying to get just internet

Todd: okay I just talked to my buddy, he's got the television free through his condo association, and then he was able to get their lite internet alone
Todd: but that's all he could get
Todd: anything faster than the lite requires a combo, and obviously they don't even offer that anymore

New YouTube Design Horrendous, Unusable

jackypunker — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:24:18 -0700

I completely disagree, I absolutely love the new design - to be specific I am talking about the new page layout the Grey border around the video, the simpler comments section, the NOT the new controversial channel layout I don't use that anyway. It's clean, unobtrusive and simple. Don't give a shit about the whole 5 star rating crap - things will either be disliked now or really liked, simple.

FCC: Broadband Speeds Often Slower than Advertised

jackypunker — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:21:26 -0700

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced in September that actual broadband speeds lag behind advertised speeds by as much as 50 percent to 80 percent. The FCC defines broadband as being at least 768 kilobits per second (Kbps) for download speeds. It could cost between $20 billion and $350 billion to accomplish the task, depending on if you want to just send e-mail with large PDF files or watch HD videos over the Web. And even the networks in place now aren't robust enough to meet the kind of traffic expected down the line. In practice, the advertised bandwidth is not always reliably available to the customer; ISPs often allow a greater number of subscribers than their backbone connection or neighborhood access network can handle, under the assumption that most users will not be using their full connection capacity very frequently.

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) -- Good, Bad, and/or Ugly?

jackypunker — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:18:57 -0700

The uses of DPI appliances are regularly under fire by network neutrality advocates, privacy advocates, and people who are generally concerned about communication infrastructure. DPI lets network operators ‘penetrate’ data packets that are routed through their networks and this practice is ‘new’, insofar as prior networking appliances were generally prevented from inspecting the actual payload, or content, of the data packets that are shuttled across the ‘net. Virtualization giant VMware has launched a new product vSphere 4 positioned as the first cloud computing operating system combining under one roof a diverse set of dynamic virtualization management tools.

FCC Launches OpenInternet.gov Web Site

jackypunker — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:16:13 -0700

In light of these emerging challenges and uncertainties about existing policies, last month the FCC began a process to seek public input on draft rules of the road that would clarify and supplement current FCC policies to protect the open Internet. These basic, high-level rules would ensure that broadband providers don’t block consumers from accessing the content and applications of their choice, don’t deprive consumers of their entitlement to competition, and don’t discriminate against or in favor of traffic, and they would require broadband providers to disclose basic information about broadband service.

Atrocious Ethics Galore in the "Lost iPhone" Case

polaris — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:17:34 -0700

It all seems too perfect (a play) to be a 'believable imperfect reality'. These days of "Reality TV" shows galore, why can't it be a 'Reality Real-Life' show of sort. We see this all too often even in the real scandals. Of course, there may be no trail (of hard proof) behind Apple's own hand - "wink-and-nod" - publicity, and we may never know The Truth!

If it's so indeed, all this mind-numbing ethics or legal analysis-es are just a side show. Even as we indulge, taking ethical and legalese sides, Apple reaps all the benefits and already a "winner", laughing all the way to the bank.

Beware the "Google Voice" Phishing Attack!

lauren — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:07:04 -0700

"Beware the 'Google Voice' Phishing Attack!"

--Lauren--

Google, Others Help Yahoo Fight DOJ E-Mail Snooping

lauren — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:15:58 -0700

"Google and a number of prominent pro-privacy groups have come to Yahoo's defense in its attempt to fight off intrusive efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice to gain access to stored e-mail contents without warrants."

--Lauren--

Australian Internet Content Restrictions Spinning Out of Control

jasonx — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:56:34 -0700

Being in Australia our internet infrastructure would place us in a third world country. It's amazing to see how far behind we are with the rest of the world in terms of internet infrastructure and not to mention governmental policy of further regulating what content we can and can't view.

It seems like our government is more concerned on governmental policy regarding on what we can and can't view instead on delivering on its promise (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/...37263.htm) of a faster national broadband network.

Video breaks up, freezes, etc. while watching YouTube fullscreen -- How to Fix?

lauren — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 01:57:01 -0700

This suggestion may seem counterintuitive -- and is not guaranteed to work -- but often will help drastically if you have problems with fullscreen video playback on YouTube (the actual issue is related to the Flash plugin). The description below is for Windows users, but a similar process may be similarly useful on other platforms.

Get a YouTube video up on your screen (normal window, not fullscreen). Stop the playback for now. Right-click on the video area itself, then left-click on Settings.

Make sure that the left-most icon (lower-left of the settings box) is selected -- left-click it if necessary to select.

You should see an option labeled "Enable hardware acceleration" -- if it is currently checked, left-click the box to un-check it. If the option is already un-checked, this "solution" won't work for you!

Odd as it may seem, fullscreen playback problems on YouTube seem to frequently be reduced or completely cured through this procedure of disabling hardware acceleration.

Surprise!

--Lauren--

ISP Accused of "Hijacking" Google Search Queries and Subscribers' DNS

lauren — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:05:03 -0700

"Greetings. All of the data on this situation isn't in yet, but on its face this appears to be an extremely problematic situation, seemingly involving ISP 'hijacking' of their subscribers' Google-related traffic."

--Lauren--

ISP Accused of "Hijacking" Google Search Queries and Subscribers' DNS

lauren — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:14:17 -0700

European ISPs Threaten to Join "Content Owners" to Gang-Up on Google

lauren — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:09:17 -0700

"Telefonica, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are now demanding that Google "stop using their networks for free" (golly, where have we heard that canard before?) and are suggesting that ISPs should team up with Content Companies whom the ISPs claim are similarly "oppressed."

--Lauren--

Google introduces "site speed/performance" signal to (some) search rankings

lauren — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:06:08 -0700

"Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed — that's why we've decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings." -- Google Webmaster Central Blog

--Lauren--

What are some recommended Google Chrome browser extensions?

lauren — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:02:36 -0700

Recommending browser extensions is perilously close to a religious discussion these days, and given the rapid pace with which new Chrome extensions are appearing any suggestions could be quickly outdated.

However, here's a handful from the set of Chrome extensions I'm currently using that may be of interest:

Autocomplete = on
Tries to remember passwords even for sites that try to prevent you from saving passwords in the browser

ChromeMUSE
URL shortening interface -- great for use with bit.ly and other shortening services

ChromeReload
Automatic page reloading

Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller
Highly configurable smooth scrolling for mouse and keyboard

Google Dictonary
Word definitions on demand as you browse

Google Reader Notifier
Gives count of items waiting in Google Reader

Google Voice
Notifier and interface for Google Voice

Lazarus: Form Recovery
Automatic recovery for deleted or lost form input data. Can be a real lifesaver!

Speed Tracer
Extremely comprehensive Web application performance and activity profiling tool. Fantastic work. Go, Speed Tracer, Go!

- - -

That's just a tiny sampling.

--Lauren--

Google Chrome browser's "sync bookmarks" doesn't seem to work -- what gives?

lauren — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:55:46 -0700

Actually, Google Chrome's bookmark sync function does work, but currently perhaps not in the way that you (or I) might have expected.

Chrome bookmark sync (controlled from the tools menu) does not actually sync bookmarks on the computers designated for syncing. Rather it syncs the bookmarks from all designated computers to a bookmarks folder in Google Docs, accessible via the Google Account specified via sync setup in Chrome on the computers themselves.

So if you login to Google Docs using that account, you should see your synchronized bookmarks folder.

Hopefully at some point soon bookmark sync will extend to actually synchronizing the bookmarks on the computers themselves, but for now the existing functionality is still very useful.

--Lauren--

New YouTube Design Horrendous, Unusable

lauren — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:40:46 -0700

Tell us how you really feel about this, Ron! Seriously, it's clear that some aspects of the YouTube redesign have been controversial, and word is that a "redesign of aspects of the redesign" will probably be quickly forthcoming.

A Mashable article from a few days ago -- "Inside YouTube’s War Room" -- is explicitly focused on this issue and may be of particular interest.

--Lauren--

2010 CACR Higher Education Cybersecurity Summit

RDEdge — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:34:27 -0700

In case anyone is interested:

2010 CACR Higher Education Cybersecurity Summit last week in Indianapolis, sponsored and hosted by Indiana University. Links to archived video from each of the sessions throughout the day are available at the Summit website (http://www.indiana.edu/~uits/cacrsummit10/index.html) under the Program and Speakers menu

Fred Cate, from IU law school, opened the conference. Fred has testified before Congress on issues re: privacy and the Internet, and is very active in this area. I asked the first question when he finished and opened for questions. Basically, I wanted to know what the difference was anymore between China, essentially a police state Google is fleeing, and Australia's Internet censorship efforts, and the UK, where there are now more surveillance cameras than people, it seems, including the ones in public restrooms reported recently.

Fred responded so assuringly (not), by recounting how DHS is pouring money for surveillance cameras into USA municipalities, without any regard to requiring policy and oversight regulation of how they are used, how material is archived, etc.

After the session that was a free form discussion by five major schools privacy officers, I started to ask them what they would be doing in five years, since privacy would essentially be dead by then.

Before lunch, the featured speaker was Bruce Schneier. http://www.schneier.com/

Ronald D. Edge
Director of Information Services
Indiana University Athletics
Bloomington, IN

New YouTube Design Horrendous, Unusable

RDEdge — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:27:55 -0700

So to reiterate some points I made to Lauren in an email earlier this week (and I thought dealing with 50 - 100 emails a day was bad. Sorry, Lauren.):

I tried to post a comment on your YouTube West Wing Remix video as HeartlandTuber, but the new comments interface is so f*cked up, I could not get it to post. First it refuses and throws and error if it thinks I have misspelled something, so I was unable to refer to "Faux Noise Nutwork", and how they do editing like this every day on all their reporting.

Then I could not decode the frickin' captchas after a half dozen attempts, so I gave up for the moment in disgust.

Feeling masochistic, I decided I would find the discussion forums.

After finally locating a way to click through, I could read a thread on how bad the comments section and the whole redesign is. I wanted to contribute my thoughts. I found a button that said I needed to login to reply/participate.

Well, I was ALREADY logged in to YouTube using my YouTube ID/Handle, and password. But OK, I click, and am taken to a basic Google login, that wants an email address and password.

So I try my YouTube ID and PW. Fails, of course. I try the email address and PW the YouTube account was created and registered with, which works, because I have used it to request admin email, e.g. password change. Fails. I try another Google account I use for my online hobby business, which works just fine for logging in to Google Merchant Checkout. Fails.

At this point, I reach the conclusion Google just does not want to hear my comments on the new redesign, so, having, like Lauren, to actually spend some time every day working to put bread on the table, I gave up trying.

I think the new design at YouTube sucks heartily.

As I said in another email to Lauren, the designers apparently are unaware of http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com and Herr Flander's dicta on good (and terrible) web design. They really, really need to review principles.

The comments are just atrocious, the worst part being that you cannot see the ratings and event icons associated with each comment. You hover your mouse, and they appear. And by the time you have scrolled to the bottom of the comments you can see, you have nausea and vertigo induced by the flickering appearance and disappearing controls.

Mystery meat navigation of the absolutely worst kind.

FWIW, even navigating my own account profile, it took me a while to find my own playlist so I can play stuff while I worked.

Google's index claims my site is hacked or a phishing site! It's not! What can I do?

lauren — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:01:08 -0700

With extremely few exceptions, when Google's automated systems flag a Web site that way, something is wrong with that site.

However, it is not at all uncommon for a site operator to be unaware of situations caused by outside malicious hacking, contamination via viruses, or resulting from various other means without the owner's knowledge or consent.

The best starting place to deal with such situations is to explore Google's extremely comprehensive Webmaster Central, which is a veritable cornucopia of write-ups, tools, advice, and other resources of tremendous use even to the smallest of Web sites. (It's remarkable how many Web site owners tell me that they've never even heard of Webmaster Central until I clue them in!)

Of particular interest in the context of hacked sites are Google's pages specifically addressing this and related issues within Webmaster Central.

Even if your site is 100% clean as a whistle, Google's Webmaster Central resources are definitely worth checking out for anyone interested in maintaining a good site reputation and the highest possible organic (natural) search rankings with Google.

--Lauren--

How can I create a YouTube URL that starts playing at a specific place in a video?

lauren — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:42:13 -0700

Easy as pie. You simply need to add:

#t=[mins]m[secs[s]

to the end of a YouTube URL (where "mins" is minutes and "secs" is seconds of course!)

For example, appending:

#t=02m37s

would seek the video to the 2 minute, 37 second point before starting playback:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8y6ABOkNm8#t=02m37s

Useful, eh?

--Lauren--

What can I do about specific "inappropriate" Street View Images?

lauren — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:29:21 -0700

Google provides a mechanism to report any specific problematic images for removal consideration. Google is typically quite responsive to these Street View reports, though it is usually unrealistic to expect immediate imagery changes given the scope of the Street View service, and there have been some exceptional cases where more effort has been required to get particular images removed. If you run into problems regarding particular Street View image removal requests, please let me know and I'll try to be of assistance if possible.

--Lauren--

Are Google Street View images "live"?

lauren — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:38:30 -0700

NO. Street View imagery is photographed by vehicles that only travel any given road at infrequent intervals, and significant time elapses between these static photos being taken and their inclusion in Google Street View imagery. For any given location the Street View imagery may actually be many months old -- often significantly older.

Google is apparently experimenting with the inclusion of some available webcam "live" imagery within Street View, but this would only involve access to existing Webcams that can already be easily viewed via non-Google directories and mechanisms.

As publicly available imagery, Google Street View is a highly useful resource. On the other hand, the vast real-time Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) networks being deployed by many governments around the world, with imagery frequently used in ill-defined manners and indefinitely archived, are considered by many observers to be genuine risks to civil liberties without conferring significant actual public safety benefits.

--Lauren--

TW and Comcast exploring online access to broadcast and cable TV programming

WatZer — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:25:55 -0700

Hi,

I know this topic is more than 1 year old that is not active but because my TV just got broken last day I really need to watch television until I saw this thread. Maybe there is still a chance, I can watch my favorite TV shows.

Needed: Tools for Less Technical Consumers

JayKriz — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:35:21 -0800

If you don't have an idea to the connection of protocol, it might be better to call the tech support so that you may follow their advice to make you satisfy. You are the customer that might need some support from their services.