Technology and the Internet

Welcome to the Twilight Zone… where you pay for the advertising you view.
I found out something new when I phoned my ISP to complain about an $11 charge added to my bill for broadband use. I don’t download music. I avoid huge video files like YouTube. I do upload photos to Flickr and my blogs. […]

Windows Vista is making things very difficult but I’m not giving up yet. I have CDs for an old version but the latest, 7.04 seems to do a better job of working alongside Windows. Not that I really am fond of Windows, especially Vista, but some things will not run on a Linux (Ubuntu) operating […]

A blog should be published at least once a week, if not daily, with fresh, original content. If you can’t do that you are using the wrong media and selling yourself short. Ezines need to make a comeback in a big way. Although an ezine can use content management systems (blog software) it is the […]

I think someone is going to come up with a scheme to bring blogs to email inboxes soon. It seems to be the next evolution in spamming to me. The content management side can’t be beat. But, it is still static. People have to come to you in order to be spammed. How disappointing. Of […]

I’m going to buy a new computer. Ding dang the bells are going to shine…! Consider that musically inclined and it will make more (some) sense.
I just received part of my income tax return and I am going to spend it on a new PC. My current PC is an IBM NetVista, about fix […]

I joined MyBlogLog awhile ago. I’m feeling frustrated with it. Not because it’s hard to use but three things bother me in general use. One is the friend thing. Another is having to click so many times before I actually get outside of MyBlogLog and land on the site I actually wanted to see, a […]

The newest addition to my Firefox web habit is Groowe, a toolbar which has replaced the Google toolbar for me. It has the two important features I need and a bit more.
The first thing I like about it is setting it to open a new window when I want to search Google for something. It […]

Three issues for computer users are cleaning, using and dumping them when they die.
Cleaning your computer is more than just dusting it off, weeding out garbage files and backing up your data. It’s detangling all those wires, cables and plugs and getting rid of old discs too. Check an electronics store if you want to […]

I’ve had email from two insane people in a row today. One was through an online dating site and the other was a guy who invited feedback about his blog.
The first guy I met through a dating site and I had replied to him once and he sent a reply back. His reply had nothing […]

I was reading about someone who has posted to a freelance job finding site, trying to get someone to list their site in the Dmoz directory. This person wants to pay someone to get the site listed immediately. There were five people who replied. One claimed to have done this before, for payment. The problem […]

It bugs me when I go to a business or charity type of site and find they have nothing extra to offer me. Not only is it harder and harder to find a real way of contacting anyone online but they are often really skimpy on content too. What are they saving it for? Why […]

I don’t understand the big emphasis on incoming links in deciding which sites are popular. It seems a very backwards way to judge the value of something. Especially when you consider how very easy it is to create as many incoming links as you can stand to create. Leave a comment in a blog and […]

Spam blogs, those which offer no original content (of their own making) yet flood their blog with Adsense and other get rich quick type of ads are known as splogs. I’m sure you’ve seen a few at least. Advertising has been around for years, on websites and all other forms of media. But, television, magazines, […]

Why are you online? What got you started? Chances are it had something to do with socializing. As great as it is to meet people from around the world while sitting in the comfort of your own home, it’s also a pressure cooker. In part being involved with any group can be a lot of […]

Long ago when the Internet and its websites were still campy versus professional, there were webrings. I miss webrings. Sure, they are still around but it’s not the same. Webrings are just one more dinosaur leftover, not quite retro yet.
I’m not sure why they began to die off as a species. You can still find […]

Have a look, take a spin around this free weblog host and decide for yourself. It’s from Six Apart, known for Mobable Type. Is Vox their way of competing with WordPress and Blogger?
Vox is a network like OKCupid, including boards, quizes and personal avatars. One of the interesting features of Vox is Collections, like a […]

Today I was out in the throngs and hordes of the big city (Toronto) shopping mall, right downtown on Queen and Yonge Street. Sitting somewhere, half-lost, I began to feel pretty small and unimportant. I could be anyone sitting there, I could be someone famous for all they know. Not that I’m not, famous I […]

Not all that long ago, in the olden days someone began rules for email etiquette. Someone else renamed the rules Netiquette. One of the old rules was for email signatures - the few lines of text at the end of the emails you send out. Email signatures used to include links, favourite quotes and even […]

Dmoz, The Open Directory Project, is still down. This should not bother most people. Many people won’t even know what Dmoz is. (It’s a web directory, run by humans). The directory went down about a week ago. Many of the editors noticed right away, I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t notice until a site […]