Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

You know I don’t like AOL at all. Well, I was watching DL.TV recently and they reported that 25% of AOL employees will soon be laid off! Bad for employees (sorry, dewds!) … but the good news is that AOL is dying! And meanwhile… it was in the news that AOL had released the search histories of many of their customers. I am sure that you may have searched for something you consider private, right? Well, not if you are an AOL customer! AOL stinks!

AOL Apologizes to Customers

“AOL issued an apology yesterday for posting on a public Web site 20 million keyword searches conducted by hundreds of thousands of its subscribers from March to May. But the company’s admission that it made a mistake did little to quell a barrage of criticism from bloggers and privacy advocates who questioned the company’s security practices and said the data breach raised the risk of identity theft. ‘This was a screw-up and we’re angry and upset about it,” the company said in a statement. “Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we’re absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize.'”

OK, now I feel better about AOL, don’t you?! NOT!!!

Wow! That’s a lot of bloggers! Are there that many readers? Hummmmm….

There’s a blog born every half second

“According to recent statistics from blog-tracking site Technorati, the blogosphere has doubled every six months for the last three years. That’s 175,000 new blogs per day worldwide. Technorati added its 50 millionth blog on July 31, 2006. The site’s State of the Blogosphere report is released every three months by Technorati CEO Dave Sifry. Sifry has been tracking the blogosphere since 2002, and even he’s surprised at the tremendous rate of growth for this quarter. ‘It is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago,’ Sifry said on his own blog. ‘Whenever I write about these statistics, I’m always asked by people, ‘Can it continue to grow this quickly?’ Frankly, I can’t possibly imagine it continuing to grow at this pace–after all, there are only so many human beings in the world! It has to slow down.'”

Yesterday, August 6th, was the 15th Birthday of the World Wide Web! Wow! Hard to believe the web is only 15 years old… huh? (NOT the Internet, remember… we had e-mail and newsgroups LONG before we had pretty web sites!)

Happy Birthday WWW!

“15 years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee publicly released his WWW project onto the Internet. According to Wikipedia: ‘On August 6, 1991, he [TBL] posted a short summary of the World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet.’ As the Wikipedia states, this was the point when hypertext was married to the Internet.”

Here’s a cool tip! If you have ANY experience at any programming language… or, even if you are a total noob, you can learn C++ from this tutorial.

C++ Tutorial

“These tutorials explain the C++ language from its basics up to the newest features of ANSI-C++, including basic concepts such as arrays or classes and advanced concepts such as polymorphism or templates. The tutorial is oriented in a practical way, with working example programs in all sections to start practicing each lesson right away.

By the way… I have been on vacation ALL week… that is why I am “catching up” with these little tidbits this evening!

Ubuntu Linux is for servers and human beings!

First Ubuntu Billboard Seen!

I have been playing around with the Kubuntu version (KDE User Interface version) and it is really cool! as desktop Linuxes go, it is one of the best! I still prefer Freespire… but Ubuntu has a LOT going for it! And, it is getting some good publicity and “spin!”

It is time to celebrate! There have been 200 Million downloads of Firefox! Wow! Rock on folks! The Internet world is a safer place to surf!

200,000,000 Downloads of Firefox!

For HTML coders, I have two EXCELLENT Firefox extensions that really show the power of extensions in this AWESOME Web Browser! What if, as a web designer, you could do a quick click in your browser and resize the window to represent the major settings for different resolutions of screens? Well, with the extension called “Yet Another Window Resizer,” you can. You can also add specific resolutions to the standard one’s available. Here’s where to get it:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2498/

Then, what about a way to do quick page edit in an HTML Editor that is part of Firefox? It is called Codetch. It is nice and kinda like Dreamweaver! Very, very cool! You can get Codetch here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1002/

Today is the day to buy your lowly, humble (OK, not so humble) SysAdmin a cookie! Yay! (I like the cookie!) OK, that was an obscure quote from the “Over the Hedge” movie. We will take cash as well. We aren’t proud. Anyway, today you should appreciate your SysAdmin!

International SysAdmin Day!

“Friday, July 28th, 2006, is the 7th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. On this special international day, give your System Administrator something that shows that you truly appreciate their hard work and dedication. Let’s face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe, will be showered with expensive sports cars and large piles of cash in appreciation of their diligent work. But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgement. It’s the least you could do. Consider all the daunting tasks and long hours (weekends too.) Let’s be honest, sometimes we don’t know our System Administrators as well as they know us. Remember this is one day to recognize your System Administrator for their workplace contributions and to promote professional excellence. Thank them for all the things they do for you and your business.”