one mikro2nd
web2, net3, programming, design, business, and the fundamental nature of spacetime

MIA: Google News Upgrades    [ the web/ ]

When is Google going to upgrade Google News?

I don't mean anything too radical... I really, really don't want people clicking news articles straight through to Buzz on the assumption that this somehow substitutes for real communication. I have enough noise in my life already!

But I would like to see a way to promote/demote articles that the News software decides to feed me. I'm sick to death of seeing articles for the latest car models released. Let's leave aside the fact that the articles are hideously misclassified... Helloooo, Google! It's over 100 years since cars were bleeding edge Sci/Tech! At least a promote/demote system would allow their software to learn over time that I'm never going to read articles about cars or cricket... that "How Green is Your Valentine", apart from being a bit dated at this point in time, is definitely not climate-change news...

Then, too, it would be so nice to have a way to say to Google News, "Please never show me news from source X ever again." Certain news sites are so tediously flashy that they're not worth the bother of clicking through. I'd rather just make them vanish - at least from my view of the world.

Does this mean I would only get biased, half-arsed, partial news? Of course. But that's what any of us are seeing anyway!

Ah well, its pretty unlikely that Google are paying any attention to this anyway. ;-) My real point is about software adapting to the way I work, play, communicate and view the world. I'll elaborate in another post.

18.Feb.10  6:09 AM, SAST | Words (258) | 0 Comments | 0 Trackbacks

SEO Fail    [ the web/ ]

So. I've been working quite hard at getting course material together... mainly for OO Software Analysis Design courses and a Design Patterns course. The motivation comes from years and years of teaching Other Peoples Courses and experience a deep and abiding dissatisfaction with the material I am handed to work with. I strongly suspect that my students sense this...

Not Good!

So - after a very, very long time umming and aahing over it - I've put my own course materials together. Blatantly stealing tricks and tips from the HeadFirst books, plans include incorporating video and even music. Dare I say I've done a whole lot better than the usual run-of-the-mill? Order of magnitude? But that would be presumptuous, wouldn't it?

Along the way I realised that I needed to pay a whole lot of attention to my business) website. The old one sucked. Bad! Not at all descriptive of what I'm now doing or trying to achieve in the OO design and architecture space. So I spent a little time reading up on the website of that famous search engine about how best to structure my site and its content for searching. How to better market what it is I do. I read all about "not using Black Hat SEO" techniques. I paid strict attention to their advice! And I went forth and restructured... but only in a good way! What you see is what the googlebot gets. No tricks!

The result?

Falling from a page-rank of nearly fuck all, I now have a page rank of... zero. Thanks, Google! I guess I'll take my advertising business over to Microsoft, now.

I can only speculate what might have brought this on. Perhaps I got listed on some directory site that Google's software considers Bad News. That's the most likely thing I can think of... Or did I just use words like "software design and architecture" a time or two too many? Perhaps it was the word "Java"...

Unfortunately - like The Borg - there's no Human Person one can contact at Google to say, "Hey! I'm really a Person. What went wrong here and how do I fix it?" Pretty much I'm screwed. Where my site was ranking very well for searches on stuff like "software design training", "Java training"  and "software architecture course" last week, this week I'm nowhere to be seen. Instead you'll see listing from schmucks offering the same-old same-old. The same tired, half-hearted training crap that led me to start developing my own course material in the first place!

So what's a Real Human to do? I guess I'll just have to live with it. After all, my reputation amongst intelligent human beings is top-notch... not something I have to worry about. So do I need to get upset over how some software see me?

Probably not.

25.Jan.10  4:00 PM, SAST | Words (464) | 0 Comments | 0 Trackbacks

Flightwish Reboot    [ the web/ ]

Restarted working on Flightwish today. A lot of background stuff... seeing that the DNS is correctly set up for all the FW domains... getting Subversion properly configured on the dev server... restoring the old FW software trove... all the dirty little details of permissions, software configuration and setup that don't usually get mentioned in software development plans, but eat into your time in such a big way.

I've installed the Pebble blog engine on the server, and I have to say it looks pretty nice. Far more impressive than the Blojsom engine that I'm still using for my personal blogs. Simpler to use and customise, and performance feels somehow snappier. The only real snag I hit is that Pebble is supposedly able to interpret WikiCreole - not my wiki syntax of choice, but better than no wiki syntax at all! - only it doesn't seem to work. At least I couldn't make it work. Well, it was pretty late in the day, so maybe my brain has simply had enough for the day.

My idea is to first just get a Flightwish blog up and running so that I can get some content up on the site, and update it reasonably regularly so as to improve its pagerank. I was a bit surprised to see, though, that despite having only reactivated the flightwish.com site a few days ago, its pagerank is 3. Not bad for a dead site! I guess it must be because it has been a real site in the past, and also due to its age (several years.)

After that my next priority will be to get a forum system up and running and looking reasonable so that people can start to sign up and chat. Yes, it would seem to be Yet Another Social Networking Website. Hopefully we'll have enough of a real focus to make it a bit different. The idea is (as it always has been) to do something in the travel space, with a strongly social slant.

As soon as the forum is set up I'll focus on writing a bunch of content - to be released at several-day intervals - telling the stories that drive/drove the initial concept of Flightwish. Those stories (you'll have to subscribe to the Flightwish Blog and wait a few days if you're interested - there's no content there yet) will explain the shape of the Heart of Flightwish as it exists in my head. I'll probably also reminisce about some of the experiences we've had with this thing in years past... the long, long road we've travelled to get here.

Lots of work for a one-man-band! But I think we can do something really interesting, different and meaningful in the travel space. Certainly I'd love to visit Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, Belgium (for the beer) and loads of other places, but I don't think I can do it without a bunch of help!

26.Dec.09  4:30 PM, SAST | Words (481) | 0 Comments | 0 Trackbacks

Network Disasters Happen in Threes Fours    [ the web/ ]

Only 9 more sleeps to go...

Strike 1: Last week, disaster struck in the form of a 2-day DSL outage. Telkom -- my current DSL provider -- blithely went and cleared the fault ticket after 24hours -- without any consultation with me -- because their test centre said that my router was getting a connection to the local exchange. The ticket comment was, "Fault closed at customer request." Liars!

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth later, they discovered that a whole lot of people in the area were experiencing the same problems: very sporadic connectivity with almost no traffic getting through. Turned out to be a fault on the exchange itself.

Strike 2: On the same day that this problem started, my London-housed server went down for Reasons Unknown. Of course I was blissfully unaware of it until Friday. 2 days of server outage. Then my service provider there was terribly slow to rectify the problem (which -- as the universe will insist upon -- involved a fractal nesting of sub-problems with their own sub-sub-problems ad mandelbrot.) As I write, the server is still only partially up. Apache service -- the one my paying customers rely on -- is up and working fine on one IP address, but Tomcat, hosting my personal and "corporate" sites, blogs and wikis still cannot talk through the other IP address. The service I get from VAServ is pretty kak, but not so kak as to be noteworthy -- they really are giving me a very low-cost package, and, as always, You Gets What You Pays For.

Strike 3: At the same time an FTP backup service I use for offsite backups refused to authenticate me, using the same credentials I've been using for years, with the result that I could not even ensure the safety of all the data! Be Still, My Twitching Ulcer.

You're Out: Welcome to this morning, where we present -- for your entertainment and edification -- a reprise of last week's DSL outage. Telkom, predictably, and once again, are in complete denial that there is actually a problem. Their tests show a solid connection between my router and their exchange. No shit, Sherlock! Pity the bits can't squeeze through the tiny opening.

I've always been very happy with the ISP service I've received from WebAfrica, and have, over the years, put many friends and colleagues onto them, not one of whom has had anything less than Sterling service. I've asked WA to take over my DSL service¹, too, in light of recent events. The only bit of business Telkom will be getting from me for the foreseeable future will be POTS.

Only 9 more sleeps to go...²

---

I think this sorry whining actually has a point; it tends to back up my long-held belief that telcos are constitutionally incapable of competently running IP services. The cultures and philosophies that make end-to-end controlled networks are unable to comprehend -- in some weirdly deep, DNA-level way -- how to cope with IP networks which have almost no intelligence in the middle, but live, instead, with all the intelligence at the edges.

People who run IP networks, on the other hand, are able to provide perfectly adequate voice services over IP, which is why they're going to eat the telcos' lunch over the long term.

---

[1] There's no transfer/installation fee. Their monthly rates are at present the same as Telkom's, and as they roll out their own infrastructure, they anticipate reducing the charges. Their support desk is outstanding, staffed by people who actually know stuff, don't mind admitting mistakes and problems, treat customers like Real Humans instead of problem-id's, and follow through on promises and commitments and ensuring that things get fixed. I can't see any downside, can you?

[2] Of course, it occurs to me a little late, that I'll only be able to actually post this when I get the server working properly again. Which will only happen when I get some reasonable connectivity back. Which might happen slightly after Lucifer goes skiing from his front doorstep.

09.Sep.09  2:25 PM, SAST | Words (665) | 0 Comments | 0 Trackbacks

MikroBlog Brainstorm, Part One    [ the web/ ]

Part one of a wiki-essay on "Thinking about a new/different way of doing blogging... and about what blogging is all about... "

Original at: http://mikro2nd.net/bits/Wiki.jsp?page=MikroBlog

Comments/constructive criticism welcome; be aware, though, that Part One is just painting background for a brainstorm, and not intended as a comprehensive, or even accurate, Recent History Of Blogging. Still very much a Work In Progress!

Past

Blogging in the conventional manner -- having a blog at BlogSpot or LiveJournal or WordPress or even at your own domain using some custom blog platform -- it all seems a bit passè, now, after the hype and frenzy of a couple of years ago.

The format is very much that of a newspaper article, isn't it? Headline, dateline, reporter, article. Even TV reporters follow the format. Oh, except for the commenting, of course! And ratings. That's what was so exciting; a new form of conversation. Two different kinds of conversation, really.

The first is the __News Mode__ conversation. It's a ''broadcast'' mode, primarily; News from me and my world to y'all out there who might be interested in following my drivel. Great for venting. Later that morphed into podcasts -- where did that all go to? -- and photoblogs, but it's all much the same thing. Think of Life Magazine in the 50's and 60's. That's why the mainstream news-media has managed, though it took them long enough, to successfully incorporate blogs and the blog style of things into their websites and mainstream content: it's not so very different from what they were doing before blogs came along. Though let's note in passing that many of them are still extremely uncomfortable with the free-and-easy, short-and-to-the-point, frequently vituperative style that commenters use. There's still a whole lot of this style of blogging going on, and I don't think it is going to disappear.

[{Image src='http://www.adfreeblog.org/adfreebutton.jpg' width='150' height='56' align='right' style='' class='image' }] It can be demanding, though, for the C-list bloggers like Yours Truly. Bloggers with, perhaps, a couple of dozen regular readers who share some niche common interests, read and comment regularly on each others' blogs, and, over time, become friends-at-a-distance. These are the bloggers who are not in it for the money. On their sites you'll see "Proudly Ad-Free" badges. They tried AdSense, and made the grand sum of 32 cents from it. The pressure from all those "How to be a Successful Blogger" websites... the feelings of having let people down should you fail to blog three times a week on a regular schedule... keeping that blogroll up to date... acknowledging all the comments... keeping the comment-spam under control... It all becomes too much after a time, and we see many of these C-listers give up their blogs after a couple of years. Sad, really, because many of them bring a fresh, interesting, if slightly myopic, story to the world.

The idea that bloggers were going to replace conventional journalism with news-from-the-streets... where did that go? Sadly not too many bloggers are keen to follow the Courts beat, nor to drag about after boring political hacks looking for the stuff the mainstream media masticates into news.

But! The conversation is peculiarly stilted. You leave a comment on someone's blog. Perhaps they reply via another comment. Perhaps somebody else comments on your comment. You probably never get to see that. Did you bookmark that conversation? Unlikely! And even if you did, will you remember to go back and visit the bookmark? You might comment on half-a-dozen blogs on any given day. It's a hell of a lot of work keeping up with all those conversations!

There have been various technical fixes to the problem -- email notifications on comment follow-ups, websites that follow the conversation for you and attempt to centralise it -- but none of these have been particularly successful. So as a means of actual conversation, conventional blogging comes up deficient.

But it did get us started, didn't it? We're all writing and conversing much more than we were a decade ago when we were still mainly a television audience -- mere passive consumers of the torrent of crap deemed by the Media Powers to be in our best interests -- and their way of ramming crappy advertorial down our collective gullets.

14.May.09  1:15 PM, SAST | Words (705) | 0 Comments | 0 Trackbacks

Code as Exploration of Unknown Territory    [ the web/ ]

I have come to view coding as the act of exploring and charting unknown territory -- the wilderness of our cognitive space.

If we let it, as we go along, our code illuminates the crevices and crags of our understanding, and shapes as it goes, our ideas of where to go next.

Version-control is the key mapping tool.

---

I've just reached a point in the development of the mikroblogging tool where I (finally!) believe I understand what's needed; what might work as something new-ish and interesting-ish in the conversations we have over this Internet thingie...

It's not a conventional website like Twitter or Blogger. Itss not a standalone desktop/PC-installed system doing some sort of smart p2p stuff. It's not a conversation follower nor a search tool nor a Bayesian-interest-detector. More something hybrid from all of these.

Let's see where the code will take me next...

28.Apr.09  12:51 PM, SAST | Words (141) | 0 Comments | 0 Trackbacks

Datapro/Vox Spam Wrapup    [ the web/ ]

Its been a long, long time... way too long... since I promised to report back on my complaint to the ISPA in which I accused Datapro/Vox Telecom of being spammers.

The first part of the ISPA's complaint-handling procedure is to have the parties try and resolve matters between them. Datapro's attempt to brush me off was a laugh:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

So eventually, somewhere around March, the event wound its way to the ISPA's Complaints Committee who deliberated, and some weeks later, sent me a formal Ruling:

Datapro/Vox Telecom were found guilty of spamming, and fined R100 000 (about EUR10 000 at the time.)

Naturally Datapro appealed this decision, as was their right. Unfortunately the appeals process is quite a slow one, so it was only about 9 June that I was informed of the outcome of the appeals process:

On appeal it was found that Datapro/Vox Telecom were confirmed as being guilty of spamming (through address repurposing.) The fines were, however, reduced to R45 000, most of which has been suspended for 12 months, provided that Datapro/Vox do not spam again within that period of time. Effectively Datapro/Vox have had to pay a paltry R7 500 in fines. Their guilt remains undisputed.

This strikes me as the ISPA having no balls.

The Appeals Committee recomended that Datapro/Vox

...ensure that a working opt-out facility is provided on all marketing emails and to report back to the ISPA complaints administrator within 1 (one) calendar month of receipt of this report on remedial action taken by it. The Appeals Panel recommended (which recommendation is not binding) that such remedial action should also include cleaning its email marketing lists to avoid a repetition of this complaint. This could be achieved by way of a reminder email requesting recipients to confirm their desire to continue receiving such emails (opt in), which is preferable, or by requesting them to indicate their preference not to receive such communications (opt out), which is adequate and then abiding by the indicated preference.

To my knowledge none of this has happened. I have received neither an opt-in request, nor any opportunity to op-out.

The only communication I have had was on 3 June -- 8 days after the Appeal Ruling -- I received yet another marketing spam from Datapro/Vox... still no opt-out link, still no confirmed opt-in. I just have not had the time or energy to follow-up with another complaint of this violation of the suspension conditions imposed by the ISPA on Datapro/Vox.

Further, the ISPA's documentation carries a notice stating
so I am effectively barred from making the original PDFs available, despite (or perhaps because of) my having made it clear to the ISPA that it was my firm intention to publish the course of events and all documents.

I am also unable to find any notice, link or reference to this ruling on the ISPA website. Are they too afraid of the potential income-loss should one of their largest spammers members get pissed-off enough to depart the Association?

A pretty sorry indication of the general state of the local ISP industry, I'm afraid.

19.Jul.08  10:08 AM, SAST | Words (518) | 1 Comments | 0 Trackbacks

Power to the Purple    [ the web/ ]

A week of power-supply problems. Not Eskom's fault, this time, but more localised failures.

First the power-supply for the network server had a fan stop turning. I could have taken the chance on the unit working without cooling, since it is relatively lightly loaded -- no graphics cards, only a single disk -- but, since I had a spare power-supply unit handy it was a task of mere minutes to swap the faulty unit out and get the server back into action. It is a fairly key piece of our little home network, being a web-cache, local domain-name server and cache, Subversion repository and file-share space, so we miss it badly when it is down.

Then the power supply on my desktop machine decided to follow suit. Also a fan failure. I hate those crappy little fans! There's absolutely nothing wrong with the basic electronics of the power supply itself, but the ball bearings in the fan have died. Pricing for a new power-supply runs from a little over R100 if I were in Cape Town with easy access to wholesalers, through R200 from a web-shop, all the way to R300 from the local PC shops! This is for the most basic 350W PSU -- none of that fancy gaming-machine stuff for me. (Though I will confess to being tempted by a unit costing around R800, simply because it is alleged to be completely quiet! I'm a self-confessed anti-noise-maniac.)

My guess is I'm going to spend an hour messing about with the soldering iron, installing new fans (I have a couple just lying about) in the "faulty" power-supplies.

At the same time, several warnings from my server-supplier in London telling the story of a week-long tail-of-woe about power-supply into the datacentre. Apparently a failover switch failed to work correctly during a power-outage last Sunday, causing the battery-based UPS to take the entire load for about 10 minutes before the batteries were totally drained. All servers in the DC went down hard. It has taken them until Thursday to isolate the problem and replace the parts (electrical and mechanical) that were at fault.

During the whole affair, all server owners have been kept fully informed via RSS feeds and emails at every step of the way, since there is a risk (however slight) that servers might go down if there is a power-grid outage again and the on-site staff -- now fully briefed on managing a manual switch from grid power to the backup generator -- should get taken-up at just the wrong moment.

This is exactly the sort of thing I expect from server providers and datacentre operators. Everybody understand that, despite the best-laid plans, sometimes shit happens. It is how they respond, and how transparent and communicative they are in responding to the crisis that truly matters.

This is in very sharp contrast to Verizon's datacentre in Durban, where my other client's servers are housed. About 10 days ago they had some electrical work going on in the DC, which in turn made some server-moves necessary. They did all this without warning their clients that there might be some risk to their operations. Needless to say, my client's servers went down without warning in the wee hours of Sunday morning. No heartbeat monitoring in place, so it was Monday before anybody knew that something was wrong. No peep from Verizon to their customers. Half-arsed, I call it.

There's a lesson in all this about Single Points of Failure. I've been warning for over 8 months that having all the servers housed in a single DC, or even in a single city, is a risk. Maybe now the business will take some action, but, given the general lack of respect or attention to the fact that, like it or not, they are a technology business, I have my doubts.

03.Jul.08  12:30 PM, SAST | Words (631) | 0 Comments | 0 Trackbacks