Time is an interesting creature of change…  The more things change the more they stay same??  To a certain degree I find that to be correct.  Internet Explorer always seems to be a few revs behind its competition i.e. Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari.  I find it interesting how Opera and Firefox are leveraging the Internet to enhance the browsing experience.  It makes a lot of sense.  This could also be attributed to the general nature of improvement – things evolve over time.

Opera’s Unite, the web server in a browser,  is a good example of a web browser that is much more than a web browser.  It is an application that uses Opera servers (or personal servers) to share content.  That is a very vague overview, but it makes a point; web browsers today are much different than web browsers of yesterday.

I think this is a trend started by Firefox.  Firefox plug-ins that integrate delicious, flickr, facebook, or any kind of social media that is web based – is a change from the norm.  Even Mozilla is graying the line between desktop and webapp.  The introduction of Weave lets users sync up their browsers across many PCs and mobile devices.  Allowing for a more constant web experience – such a great idea.

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Google Public Policy Blog posted a response to a tremdonous exposé on Google HTTPS by a group of researchers (at least "signed" by a group of researchers).  It really wasn’t all that in-depth, but it was a good report none-the-less.  Could it have been a blog post?  Yes.  Would it have been as effective?  No and Yes.  I think getting Google to respond to something publicly is a step forward in their cause and doesn’t do any damage to Google.

It only helps everyone I believe.  The more people that know about web security – a better web will be had for all.

The overview from the research paper:

Google supports HTTPS encryption for the entire Gmail, Docs or Calendar session. However, this is disabled by default, and the configuration option controlling this security mechanism is not easy to discover. (1)

What they want done:

Rather than forcing users of Gmail, Docs and Calendar to “opt-in” to adequate security, Google should make security and privacy the default. (1)

I think Google is an unfair target in this situation.  I tried getting HTTPS on my Yahoo! mail – no going.  No options.  Appending https to mail.yahoo.com only encrypts your login and not your mail session.  How about getting them to change??

I don’t know about hotmail or live mail whatever it is called now, but I suspect that is also the same.  Google is far ahead of its competition, yet, they are singled out?  I don’t get it, but I do.

Google is an agent of change and represents the future; they are held to a higher standard.  They should be applauded for all the good they have done for the web and all of us. 

I’m not sure if Google should be forced into this situation of automatically enabling HTTPS for all users; do we need HTTPS at home?  How many of their users access from home or other secured network?  This is a question that Google alone can answer.  Sure, it would be nice to protect all the people who have no clue about security, but is that Google’s responsibilty?

I don’t know.  Should Google start a new PR campaign about the dangers of using unencrypted HTTP on a public network?  That sounds like something Microsoft or Yahoo! would do.

Change is Hard

I don’t think we will ever know the true reason why people still use IE6.  If you do a quick search you find a ton of sites giving lots of reasons.  “They don’t know any better”, “they dislike change”, “because they have to”, “they have an old computer” (3) … all valid reasons why but that is not the point.  Change must occur.  There are so many better choices people must be informed.  This blog does not render correctly in IE6, its close but no cigar, and I think that is how people will ultimately change.  We must move forward and leave people behind so they will catch up.

The Future is Now

I stumbled across a nice little blog Lea Verou that is done totally in CSS3.  Very ambitous and is what a lot more sites should do.  We must move forward so others may follow.  We need more blogs pushing the newer standards.  I don’t think corporations can do this because they are afraid of losing sales or isolating customers; a valid point.  Is this a drawback of Corporations on the web?  That all forward progress must grind to a halt?  To a point.  Yes.

There are a lot of interesting things happening right now that I think correlate to aging technology.  The rise of netbooks hampers this forward progress.  Vista and Netbooks never going to happen.  Windows 7 and Netbooks sounds promising.  I feel we are stuck right now.  I think that is okay as things cannot be the same forever.  The one balantly obvious fact is Microsoft’s model of stitching the browser to the OS will never work.  It has to be independent to be effective.  The next iteration of Microsoft IE codenamed “Gazelle” finally sounds like they are becoming a modern browser (hopefully).  Looks like they are going to follow Google’s implementation of Google Chrome with a multi-process browser (each tab is a process).

The one certainty is that IE6 is dead and people need to be weaned off of it ASAP.

What browser do you use?

I found it quite difficult to find information on how to convert basic cable (plain old cable) into composite.  This is for the folks who have cable, but don’t want to pay for extended services and cable boxes.  There are two verbiages that you will find on your web searches:

1)  Just use an old VCR!
2)  Just use an old computer!

End of thread…  End of post… That is where the story ends and it leaves a lot to be desired.  I have problems with both of these solutions.

1)  The VCR is archaic
2)  I don’t want to leave a computer running in a room that will be used sparingly
3)  I don’t want to wait for a computer to boot up

This can be negated if you have a cable box that already does that.  But there are still people out there without cable boxes.  Or don’t want a cable box in every room or on every device; I’m sure the cable companies want you to.  I can’t seem to justify the extra $30 + fees for the box to move away from basic cable.  Renting a cable box seems like a dirty tactic to me; in the long run they have to make a killing.

I have NetFlix so if I want to watch a movie I can just get it off of there.  Also, there is NetFlix streaming which is awesome.  I do not want to give the cable companies more money – it’s already highway robbery.

The problem with this is that projectors do not have a TV tuner.  It doesn’t know what to do with the coax connection.  Projectors cannot tune (most of them that are out there anyway).  But I believe there is a happy medium… a product by Ambery.com -> Super Video to WXGA Converter.  This device works much like a cable box expect that you can buy it and use it how you like.

It takes a coax connection (Clear QAM), it won’t decrypt any of the pay channels like a real cable box, and converts it to composite, VGA, or S-Video.  Composite will most likely be your best choice for a projector.  I believe they also have one with component connections.  If you are looking for HDMI I’m not sure what will be needed – I’m guessing an upconverter of some sort.

Clear QAM is important.  If the device is not Clear QAM then it will not be able to tune to the cable frequencies.  If you have been looking at the Analog-to-Digital most of the ones that I have found do not have clear QAM meaning they will not work with cable; you will need an antenna to retrieve the signals.

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FDWC (Fear Driven Web Commerce)

It seems every few months or so sites like www.whydiggisblocked.com come about spewing FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). I think this is a marketing ploy to drive more traffic to their sites – these things get a lot of visibility on Digg and Reddit. Before this iteration there was www.whyfirefoxisblocked.com. It’s not the users that need to change, it’s the sites that think their visitors should have to conform to some statistic. The web is not a one size fits all business model. You have to be flexible and change for the users.

I visited the sites to see what I was truly missing with having Ad Block Plus installed and what I found was amazing. IT WAS ABSOLUTE CRAP. ReadWriteWeb has a nice write up on the Economic Idiocy of blocking social media… short conclusion: basically these people are idiots.

Traffic is good for a site, it is healthy, in fact, it is the lubrication that keeps everything going or something. It’s about the conversation that this Internet technology creates. It is amazing. If you need ads to keep your site alive, I’m sure a lot do, find a better way to drive funds than smacking banners and ads all over your page. I don’t know, GET CREATIVE or INNOVATIVE.

Endorse a product, ask your users what they like, anything something, but not that same crap that we hate. I’m so numb to banners on websites as it is. There has to be a better way than isolating traffic to your site; that just seems counter productive.