April 2008 Archives

Well if nothing else, the above headline should please those giving out advice on search engine optimisation (as the below will show).

I've just come out of a lecture from Anton Grutzmacher, head of client services, from Hitwise, a web information and usage company.

There was loads of really interesting stuff about the regional media and how they are doing in terms of website traffic.

But there was one stunning statistic which I had never seen before in 'official' terms.

We all know that online porn, also known as 'bongo' and 'grumble' is somewhat popular. But in terms of actual cast iron information I didn't know how much.

After all, the popular searches through engines like google and yahoo are ranked - but 'purient content removed' is the rider.

So we know that people are searching for Britney Spears or Pamela Anderson and loads of other stuff like ipods, but are they really in the top ten?

Well hitwise can put it in perspective - they monitor the usage of more than eight million surfers using information from internet service providers.

And the results are that 'adult' content is as popular as all the internet search engines put together.

So for everyone logging on to google or whatever as their homepage or as a search tool, there's someone shiftily finding something rather more grubby.

As to how this fits in to the debate over the future of local journalism, I'm not sure - but perhaps executives might be tempted into taking more drastic action in terms of the online content they provide!

It would be fair to say that anyone technically unaware, looking for a new graphics card capable of playing the latest games at the moment would be somewhat confused.

The situation has not really been helped by nvidia's naming policy - the 8800 series has had so many revisions that anyone could be forgiven for wondering what's going on.

For your reference the cards in order of speed (including AMD's top cards) go 8800gs 384, 3850, 8800gt 256, 8800gts 320, 8800gts 640, 3870 512, 9600gt, 8800GT 512, 8800gts 512, 8800 GTX, 9800 GTX, 3870 X2, 9800 GX2.

Confusing eh? Especially as Nvidia reused the GTS tag for newer cards. So which card would I buy? Clearly budget is an issue and it depends on what your system is, as there's no point in pairing a £400 9800gx2 with a ageing cpu as the graphics card will be hopelessly bottlenecked.

The recent king of the middle market has been nvidia's 8800gt 512 - released as a spoiler for the 3870 from AMD it actually spoiled it's own 8800GTS 512 which was released shortly afterwards. Who would want to spend £210 on the GTS when the £150 GT did the job nearly as well?

Since then the 9600gt has come out as well, and is only marginally slower than the 8800GT.

The graphics card market is saturated with minor revisions, slightly overclocked versions of the same cards and so on, but I think that I'd still go for the 8800GT 512 - if you can find it for around the £115 mark!

I recently started having some BSODs (Blue Screen of Death), always while surfing the internet.

In fact, to start with the screen just went black and the whole thing locked up. I since discovered that the BSOD feature was in fact turned off - so it would just crash and freeze or simply reboot without telling me why.

So after turning it back on I discovered it was down to Stop 0x000000F4 - as usual Iresorted to the internet but sadly it was unable to say with any certainty what the problem was.

Then I remembered that I'd told spybot to block a few programs from inserting themselves in the start menu, and in a fit of impatience I had just clicked to block, rather than checking out what they were first.

That proved to be the culprit and since then, touch wood, it's been running fine.

Just goes to prove it's unwise to turn something off, or ban something without checking properly what they actually do.

ACCORDING to reports fraud on the internet is a much bigger problem than previously thought.

Bank industry figures published earlier this year show "card not present" losses for internet, phone and mail order crime were £290.5 million last year.

But a BBC News investigation found that £500 million of fraud took place when failed attempts were taken into account.

Often the fraudsters are able to hack into the websites of smaller online retailers, and get card details direct when someone pays.

It certainly doesn't necessarily make you feel all that secure when buying online - but I don't feel necessarily put off - after all the internet provides a great tool for shopping, allowing instant comparisons and many bargains.

Thankfully I haven't, as yet, had any problems, but I reckon there are a few rules which at least make it less likely to happen.

I generally only buy from the bigger, more established companies. Also check if they have a contact phone number - it's normally a good sign if they do.

Home computer security need not be that expensive or daunting - although it's best to have an overlapping system.

I have a number of anti-virus and spyware programs running - all of them free. You don't have to pay out - for example the AVG free edition is almost identical to the paid-for version. I also use ad-aware and spybot.

So there you have it - don't necessarily be too afraid - it might happen, but if you take precautions it will lessen the likelihood.

If anyone has any tips or experiences, feel free to post a comment.

EBAY sent me a response to the Government crackdown on reselling tickets on their auction website.

Clearly touting is a bad thing - although I suppose it fills a hole in the market - albeit at potentially eye-watering prices. Not to mention the fact that you may be subsequently refused entry.

Of course eBay as an organisation has a slightly dubious record at cracking down on fraudulent and illegal activity.

Take clothing for instance - you'll find pages and pages of 'Armani' 'Dolce and Gabanna' and so on clothing at seemingly amazing prices, all shipped from the far east, of course.

After a Rolex watch? A scan will soon find dozens - and you're not talking about paying thousands of pounds.

People seem to be happy to buy designer wear at knock down prices - in the knowledge that what they're getting is not necessarily the real thing. And ebay takes a cut from every deal.

In response to the ticket plan ebay told me: "Why should fans be prevented from reselling spare tickets just because they can no longer go, or their team is knocked out?

"The trouble with bans or price caps is that they don't work and can be counter-productive. They end up either driving the trade on to other parts of the internet - or even worse, on to street corners where there is no consumer protection if things go wrong."

"Often the only way genuine fans can get hold of a ticket is through sites like eBay. Our own research shows that for a series of major sporting events, less than one per cent of tickets were sold on eBay."

So, say, for a Wembley cup final, with a 90,000 total capacity, if the tiny proportion of one per cent has been sold on ebay, then you're talking about 900 tickets, which anyone would agree, is quite a few.

Got a bit of a shock this morning when I was quickly checking emails and so on with a laptop.

My daughter, who is only newly five, came up to me while I was on the BBC homepage and asked me to click on the cbeebies icon. I didn't think much of it as I thought she's just recognised the logo from watching on television.

But no - she took control, navigated to the site, started clicking on various icons, getting directly through to the games section, started one off and began playing!

I was fairly stunned - I had thought her knowledge extended to turning on the computer and writing her name with the keyboard, which was all I had done with her.

Clearly reception classes at the local school go a bit further in their tuition than in my day!

GO into a store like PC World and you'll see hosts of computers loaded up with Windows Vista, plastered with stickers saying they're capable of running Microsoft's latest operating system.

In fact a colleague of mine recently, unwisely, without doing any research or even asking your correspondent for advice lashed out on such a computer.

Somewhat shamefaced, he has as yet been unable to provide a full list of the specifications which were allegedly 'Vista Capable' - but has admitted that it runs like a slug stuck in glue.

Now it has emerged that flagging up computers too slow to run the full operating system as being 'Vista Capable' was actually a Microsoft policy.

Internal documents were released as a result of a class action lawsuit in the USA which revealed how the software giant set deliberately low 'recommended' specifications to avoid putting computer users off buying Vista.

So how is your Vista machine running? I, for one, am sticking with XP Pro for the present.

Mobile phone retailers have announced that the price of the iPhone is to be slashed for the next month.

This means cuts of around £100 for the much-hyped device.

The Carphone Warehouse and mobile phone operator O2 said they would sell the 8GB iPhone for £169 until June 1.

This is a cut of more than a third of the gadget's original price within five months of its much-anticipated launch.

But Apple stores will continue to sell the 8GB phone for £269.

So has it been a runaway success? Clearly slashing the price soon after launch has nothing whatsoever to do with disappointing sales, say the shops.

In fact O2 today described it as their fastest selling device. But they don't qualify the statement - so it might have been the fastest selling ever on launch day, for example.

After all, anyone waiting in anticipation for the launch would probably have bought it immediately. Also consider that in your average 02 shop there must be 30 phones on sale at any one time - so a standout product like the iphone would be expected to perhaps out perform other mobiles which have many rivals.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised that people haven't been flocking to buy a device for £269 with a minimum £35 monthly contract, data limits and functions that most people wouldn't ever use.

SOUND card manufacturer Creative got into a bit of a pickle lately after a computer whiz released new drivers for free.
Creative has hitherto steadfastly refused to release software to make its older products work properly with operating system Windows Vista.
This means that anyone who has an Audigy 2 card, for example, wouldn't be able to use all the features, or in some cases even get it to work at all. Creative have stuck to the line that for full functionality people have to invest in the lastest X-Fi cards, which can set you back a pretty penny.
So, as is the way of the internet, someone released drivers on their own website, which allowed the older cards to work in Vista, and also unlock the features which hitherto had been shut off. The did ask for donations, although this wasn't needed to be able to download the software.
Creative had previously said that it had been unable to produce these drivers - with a huge team of software designers. But one bloke, presumably operating in his bedroom, managed to do what this multinational company could not.
Cynics have said that the tardiness might have something to do with trying to force everyone who upgrades their operating system to buy a new soundcard.
The guy, calling himself Daniel K posted a threat on creative's forums - causing them to go absolutely mad.
As the above link shows, they've been subject to a certain amount of editing, with Creative's line changing from 'get off our intellectual property!" to "However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties.
"We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers."
Just goes to show the power of the internet - a big company like Creative forced to do big-style grovelling.
After all some on the initial comments from Creative were less conciliatory: "By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods."
The potential backlash prompted something of a reversal. But it goes to show what happens if one company effectively has a monopoly on one kind of component - and use it to force consumers to buy the latest product.
So all the nvidia and intel fanboys out there had better hope for more competition from AMD and ATI - otherwise perhaps the same thing could happen.
The question is whether daniel_k is a modern day Robin Hood or a thief of intellectual property. I know what I believe, but it's surprising how many people have different views.

EBAY is changing the way feedback works next month - and sellers are up in arms about it.
Some are threatening to boycott the site because they won't be allowed to leave feedback - but their buyers will.
This has led to some fears about sellers being held to ransom by buyers withholding feeback and demanding unfair changes to deals. In some ways this is a double whammy as ebay is also putting up fees for sellers.
One thing for sure is that this fundamentally changes what is at the heart of ebay's success - the feedback system.
Although the site is attempting to mitigate concerns by installing safeguards with regards to unpaid items and whether the feedback will be posted, I believe they are in danger of killing the golden goose.
The feedback system works both ways - in some cases buyers can be blocked in advance because their obviously poor reviews show them to be dodgy - something which is impossible to know after these changes.
There is no doubt the current system has its problems. People are discouraged from leaving negative comments on sellers after a deal goes wrong, or the item isn't all it's cracked up to be, because they fear 'revenge' negative will be posted for them.
Be that as may, I can say that the only negative comments I've ever left have been for sellers who didn't pay up.
The new system also means sellers are reliant on ebay's complaints system. As someone who occasionally has had to deal with their customer service, I can't say I have much confidence. All you seem to get back is an automated response which doesn't deal at all with the issue you've raised.
It will certainly be interesting to see how it turns out - and the question is - why change a successful formula so radically?