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Showing posts from July, 2009

Has ICANN Gone Too Far?

ICANN was formed in 1998 . It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers. ICANN is pushing to expand the Internet's Top Level Domains (TLD or gTLD) from its current 21 to some staggering, unspecified new number. TLDs are the .COMs, .ORGs, etc at the end of URLs. "The advantage of all this is there will be many more ways for sites to be described. The question is whether it will really help Internet users or confuse them." asks Saul Hansell in a recent NY Times article. But that's just scratching the surface of the issue. According to CADNA (Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse), companies are already losing over $1 billion annually due to cybersquatters misrepresenting and redirecting traffic on the Internet through taking advantage of URLs not purchased by companies. The pr...

You're Only Borrowing That Digital Content

With Amazon's most recent removal of content off of the Kindle, we're reminded that you're only borrowing digital content; not buying it. Farhad Manjoo of Slate wrote a great article, Why 2024 Will Be Like Nineteen Eighty-Four , that reviews the limitations and dangers of having digital content. Most of the e-books, videos, video games, and mobile apps that we buy these days day aren't really ours. They come to us with digital strings that stretch back to a single decider—Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or whomever else. For me, I'm still buying CDs and paperback books because I like the physical item. I also look for low cost and garage sale DVDs. One day I might not have the choice, but while I do, I choose to own over borrow.

Browser Wars III - Revenge of the ...?

Since Microsoft killed off Netscape (Browser Wars, the original), most users were not aware of any alternatives until Firefox (FF) came on the scene ( Mozilla vs. Godzilla - Browser Wars II). Actually, there was a 3rd browser that was and is quite good, Opera . More recently, Google announce their own web browser, Chrome , while Mozilla had released Firefox 3 (now FF 3.5 is available) and Apple released Safari 4. Since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 5 (IE5), I've been quite unhappy with the browser. It has suffered from security holes (predominately due to ActiveX), proprietary solutions (ActiveX again raises its ugly head), and slowness. I've also come to really like Firefox due to its extensibility with Add-ons. With the popularity of Firefox and now the additions of Chrome and Safari, you could say that Netscape is finally getting their revenge, sort of. Since Firefox came out of the aftermath of Nestcape and the additional fire power of Google and Apple, Microso...

Internet Strategy Forum Summit 2009

This is not my typical post, but interesting for many of us all the same... I had the opportunity to attend the Internet Strategy Forum Summit on Thursday July 23rd, 2009, and these are from my notes and some relevant and related links. Don't take the gaps in my notes as a sign of unimportant content -- rather I volunteered at the event, which distracted me some times, and of course I networked with friends and colleagues, which created other distractions. For only $200, this is an event was and has always been well worth the cost. (Speaker list: http://www.internetstrategyforum.org/events/Internet_Strategy_Forum_Summit_2009_Agenda_as_of_07-14-09.pdf .) Katherine Durham, HP, VP of Marketing, Imaging & Printing Group Shifting the Digital Marketing Mindset to Harness the power of an Integrated Approach "Flat is the new up." "If content is king, context is queen" Marketing Mix by Stage in Funnel: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremiah_owyang/37498018...

Online Discounts with Coupons

Here's a little tip to save a bit. When you purchase online, and you see the box for " coupon " or " coupon (if available) ", this is your clue to search for a coupon and get yourself a discount. In most cases you can enter " [company name] coupon code" into Google, and you will find a site with a coupon code. A coupon code for my most recent online purchase saved me 6% off the total price.

Adobe Photoshop CS Hangs on Load

One day when I tried to load Photoshop CS on my Windows XP box, it hung. I don't recall having it crashed on my prior usage. I tried killing the app, closing my other apps, and loading again. Still no help. I next tried rebooting; again no help. After searching a bit, I found a solution within a thread on Photoshop 911 . I removed all ".psp" files from the "Adobe Photoshop CS Settings" folder -- I just moved the files into a temporary folder. Photoshop recreate 3 files when I launched it: Adobe Photoshop CS Prefs.psp Favorites.psp PluginCache.psp Depending on your specific XP installation, you may or may not find the "Adobe Photoshop CS Settings" folder in this location: C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\8.0\Adobe Photoshop CS Settings Where [username] is your login username.