A Closer Look at the Web

All about the Internet, Computers and Software

In this section:
Amuse Yourself - Great streaming content
Essential Firefox Extensions
Other Must Have Applications
Somewhat Cool Sites
What does and doesn't Work on the Web
Various thoughts about Technology

Amuse Yourself

The following is a list of some great free content on the web - worthy of visiting while your on your computer eating lunch, looking for a quick entertainment fix.

Video - All about Wal-Mart

A PBS Television special: "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?". You can watch online the full Frontline program. Watch Here

Video - News Programme from Britain

Newsnight is a daily television news program aired on BBC One to the domestic UK audience. Very similar in format to the old CBC's 'The Journal', the show covers a wide range of current event topics. What makes this show really worth watching is the hard hitting questions put to the guests. The hosts always asks the questions the viewers at home always want answered. The hour long broadcast is updated daily (when you visit the site, click on the right side box: "Watch Now"). Watch Here

Video - CP24 - Toronto's News

Watch live local news 24/7. Great station to give you the Toronto fix when your away from home. Look midway down the right side for the live stream links - Watch Here.

Essential Firefox Extensions

I LOVE Firefox - it's the way software should be - where people can fix things that annoy them and customize the features of the program. Here's a list of the most amazing simple addons for the browser that will make surfing the web 'all the better'

1. BugMeNot - Firefox Extension

BugMeNot.com was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times).
Click Here to visit the Download page (Look for Install)

2. FoxClocks - Firefox Extension

Great simple program that allows you to add several time zones to the status bar of your Firefox browser.
Click Here to visit the Download page

3. Session Saver - Firefox Extension

Before Firefox - I used Opera - and my favourite website feature was the Session Saver. Essentially this tool allows your to close the browser and on the next start-up it reopens all of the pages you were last looking at. This will stop you from going back to IE.
Click Here to visit the Download page

4. Open Link In... Firefox Extension

Adds context menu items for opening links and images in a new background tab (or foreground tab if your tabs normally open in the background), in a new background or foreground window, and in the current tab. Includes an option to gather menu items into a submenu.
Click Here to visit the Download page

5. Paste and Go - Firefox Extension

Lets you paste an URL from the clipboard and directly load it, either via the hotkey Ctrl-Shift-V or the corresponding item in the location bar's context menu.
Click Here to visit the Download page

6. New Tab Homepage - Firefox Extension

A very simple tabbed browsing extension that loads your homepage when you open a new tab. If you have multiple homepages, the first is chosen.
Click Here to visit the Download page

7. PDF Download - Firefox Extension

Allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it!
Click Here to visit the Download page

Other Must Have Applications

FoxIt PDF Reader

A MILLION times better then the Adobe version. This reader is free - and opens nearly instantly any pdf. Never wait again. You'll never go back!
Click Here to visit the Download page

CutePDF - Writer

Write pdfs for free. If you want to save a webpage easily - just click print and select 'PDF' - voila - a pdf. Works in all applications that support the print function.
Click Here to visit the Download page

AVG Free Anti-virus Software

AVG Anti-virus - A great freeware anti-virus software program. This program works, and isn't intrusive like other commercial anti-virus programs. It has cleared my system of several viruses.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall

You should always have a firewall if you surf the net - just don't use the Windows version. Use zone alarm and disable the Windows XP firewall by going into your network settings.
ZoneAlarm.com

Somewhat Cool Sites

Webattack - A site that has a large selection of freeware programs. Easy to find and download programs - unlike tucows or download.com. I like simplicity.

TigerDirect.ca - Great site for computer hardware and software - very detailed information and product shots - but it's still cheaper to go to a small computer shop and buy OEM versions.

Acronym Finder - Now I don't know how useful this site really is, but it's rather cool. This site has virtually every acronym ever created. I tried it using Toronto centric abbreviations such as: GTTA, TML, TO, GBC, TGH, MM, etc. (if your curious what these stand for you'll need to visit the site yourself!

What doesn't work on the Web

There are 3 things I'm not a big fan of on the internet: 1. Blogs 2. Podcasts 3. RSS Newsfeeds.
- Lets start with blogs - They are great for friends and families to stay in touch - but really do people have that much to say that others want to hear? Wiki is the way to go - information needs to be organized around themes not dates.
Podcasts (see blogs) - Some are good - vast majority are noise. People are just to busy to mess around with the downloading and transfer of chatter. The concept is good - execution is crap. (numbers back me up - 80% of downloaded podcasts are never listened to - consumer survey conducted by Bridge Data
RSS Newsfeeds - does it really take that much time to visit your 2 or 3 favourite news/information websites?

What does Work

Wikipedia. It's the future of information management. This is exactly how the web should work. The refinement of data. It reduces noise! Data isn't static nor should it be. It's like a textbook that never goes out of date. Sure there's problems. But it's far better then blogs. Where information (noise) multiplies out of control.

Banner Ads I believe they work - and better then TV ads. It's perfect for branding. People may not read them or click on them - but they still see them. I'm a really big fan of the 320 x 240 flash video ads - ones that show a funny little video clip - no audio - and has reply or other options at the end of it.

Video Podcasts - relevant noise.

Web Standards

Tip 1 - Reduce your Spam

So is your email account getting more and more spam? Ever wonder how you got on mailing lists for viagra and porn? Well one of the many ways your name ends up in a spammers database is a result of you having your email posted on a website.

One of the most common ways for spam organizations to gather email addresses is by 'fishing' the web with clever software programs (spiders) that seek out and record every email address they find. It's rather simple for them to do, all they look for is the @ symbol on each webpage it goes to. The program has a few rules in order to verify if it's a real email address, after that it's added to their massive database.

So what can you do? First try to avoid posting your main email address. Secondly if you ever build a website, always use a graphic to display your email address. If you need to display your email address as text on a page, use ASCII letters. Most spam 'spiders' ignore ASCII characters. So simply convert your email address to ASCII and you should be able to reduce your exposure to spam. But remember once your name has entered one database, you will have a very hard time getting off their lists, as your name is traded and sold to countless other companies.

Will it be PayPal?

My long standing argument about what it will take for e-commerce to become a major consumer activity has always been focused around the need for a good, low cost payment system. The true potential of e-commerce will happen only when consumers can pay for content/access/items in terms of cents. We need to have a way for people to pay 5 cents for a chance to listen to a song.

At the same time consumers will have to be able to quickly spend their 'change' with the least amount of fuss. No registration pages, not email confirmations, just click and pay. What I envision is an account system built into your browser. You will visit a website of your favorite artist look for that music video your just craving to watch at 2:47 in the morning, click on 'pay 4 cents', and watch your video streamed to your computer - which once paid for watch as many times as you want per session - since it would be cached and the delivery cost has been covered.

If PayPal can bring it's costs down for the content providers we may see the next internet revolution take hold. When people easily spend their cents the dollars will follow.

Why Computers will never be shrunk out of Existence.

I'm always intrigued when the marketing department of major computer manufactures, and some leading computer magazines talk of the computer that will be hidden away out of sight in your home, a computer that can be built into the wall of your home, a virtually non-existent machine. These futurists talk as if the computer will cease to be an entity of ones home. They talk of the end of the big beige box.

But don't buy into it. At least not for another 20 years. The big box under your desk is here to stay, well at least for some more years to come. And it's got nothing to do with the limitations of technology or inability to shrink the systems down to the size of playing cards. Rather what will stop this from becoming a realty is a majority of users just won't buy it. Computer owners want something to show off and brag about.

To really understand computers and their owners you must think of computers like cars and not microchips. The target audience has typically been men. And the selling premise has not been so much about convince and ease of use but rather megahertz, megabits, speed and upgradability.

The result of selling to men is that computers have become a 'male' object. Meaning their male owners think more of computers being simply a method to help them become more efficient but rather a machine that needs their tweaking, their customization. That's not to say that all computer users have such an attachment to their systems, but as with all things it's usually the early adopters that influence the future of consumer products. It's these people that usually dictate what will become popular and what will fail. People with little or no interest in the inner workings of the computer, are the same people that buy whatever becomes mainstream. So at the end of the day, it's important to understand the hard-core computer user to understand where technology will take us.

To understand the future of computers you need to understand the industries recent history. One of the first modifications made to computers has been 'overclocking', a process in which users override the default computer settings and speed up the processor above and beyond it's original retail capacity. What microprocessor manufactures often do is manufacture one chip and with the use of software create a range of chips with multiple speeds all based off the same product. It's like making one car engine with 3 maximum speeds and selling each one as an unique product. So these hackers discovered that you could buy the cheaper 'lower' speed chip and rev it up to the highest speed in a few simple steps. This process of overclocking has become so popular that major name brand motherboard manufactures have created overclocking abilities in it's product line. Now such a process is not for the faint of heart, overclocking can destroy your computer with no chance of refund. But the risk hasn't stopped people seeking the reward. But the reward is less about having a marginally faster computer but rather bragging rights. It's all about being able to show off your machine to your friends and telling the world how you beat the system and have a computer cooler and better than everyone else. It's no different than someone supping up their car, it's less about being faster, but having something others want.

But since the late '90's an even newer trend has emerged and it revolves around case customization. Essentially people have begun creating new and unique case designs. This initially was a direct result of overclocking. When you overclock the processor chip one of the negative side effects is excessive heat. As the chip runs at higher speed it generates more heat. To compensate for it, you need to improve air circulation and upgrade the size/speed of the cpu fan to dissipate more quickly the heat produced. Now all of these changes require altercations to the traditional computer case. More air circulation required the more air vents installed. This began the need for punch more holes in the computer case and physical realignment of interior parts. So the overclockers began altering their beige boxes. But what's the point of doing all this hard work and not being able to show your friends your hard work? What better way to show off your 'cool' new system than to put a window on the side so you can show off your modifications. So along came window kits that allowed you to build a physical window into the side of the case so you can show off to the world your motherboard. That was soon followed by light kits. These lights usually a neon colour allow users to illuminate their case an add ambient room light to the room. Well now that you've added a light and window, beige is a rather dull unexciting colour, so users began repainting their boxes and adding decals and motifs. Now an whole industry has emerged centered around case modification. You can now readily purchase kits that allow for endless configurations to your system. Everything from LED displays for the front of your system showing the core temperature of your computer to fridge like devices that keep your motherboard at near zero temperatures.

Don't get me wrong people do what smaller, easier to use computers. People love the idea of the end of wires. But people still want the box to show for their investment. Look for parallels with the home computer industry and the car industry. Smaller, more efficient doesn't necessarily equal popularity. But when someone pays $3000 for a machine, they want something 'cool' to show for it. Hence Apple's recent success.

Extreme PC Gamer - A company specializing in case modifications.
Apple - The company that understands that style is just as important as substance.

Quick Little Tips

Here's a really quick shortcut that all computer users should find useful. Ever need a screen capture of your desktop? a webpage? Open what you wish to capture, press the 'Print Screen' key (often expressed as 'Prt Scr'), open your graphics program and 'paste' (control key + 'v' key).