Tech Volta

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.

So, today is the day that we should all be thankful for the various things in our lives: our family, our friends, our loved ones, our pets, etc etc. For all those things I am very thankful. But I think I am going to do something a bit different…

The top 5 technologies I am thankful for:

#5 SMS
Short Message Service - My preferred way of communication. I can keep in contact with a lot of people in a short amount of time. I’m just not a big phone person, I think having a conversation on a phone takes too long when you want to ask a simple question. Phone calls are not obsolete; they just have their place.

#4 Apple iPod
I don’t know where I would be without my iPod. I would be drowning in a sea of CDs and that’s no good. Having my entire music library in my pocket is quite an amazing thing. Also the ability to add the many podcasts I listen to is great.
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Google has rolled out a new service for their GMail e-mail service: IMAP. To enable IMAP you have to login to https://mail.google.com and enabled it via Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP. I’m guessing by this point just about everyone should have it, since I have it and I’m usually one of the last to get these new features. After you enabled IMAP you can connect to GMail using your favorite mail client; like Thunderbird.

IMAP is a protocol, much like POP, but way cooler.

Gmail IMAP is sweet; I am mightily impressed! Basically, the best feature of IMAP is when I delete a message off of my local mail client (Thunderbird 2.0) that is hooked into GMail it also deletes it on the GMail’s web application. So, I can use Thunderbird while I’m at home. When I’m at work, school, or abroad I can use the the web application and everything stays in-sync. BRILLIANT! Also at work we use IMAP, so this isn’t a new way to do things, but it’s great that Google is expanding their services.

There are many benefits to using IMAP on Google’s GMail here are a few.

1) No longer tied to just the web browser for mail (or POP yuck!). For those who are not familiar with POP, it basically downloads all your mail from the mail server. Thus, it is hard to keep everything in-sync, which is a necessity now-a-days for people on the go. Isn’t that everybody?

2) Security, security, security. To use Google’s IMAP service you have to connect over IMAP secure, which is port 993. This encrypts all your mail traffic so no one can sniff your mail; keeping all of your passwords and mail safe. Depending on the program you may have to select SSL before you can access IMAP secure (IMAPS); I use Thunderbird 2.0, so I selected SSL when I configured Thunderbird.

3) More security for sending mail. Another great aspect of IMAP is the ability is that you can send mail via Google’s SMTP (Send Mail Transport Protocol) server; this is your outgoing mail. I know that this was available for POP, but it should be mentioned because it uses TLS (Transport Layer Security) so all of your outgoing mail is safe and secure.

4) Better for sharing devices. You can hook your GMail into your phone, PDA, laptop, desktop, anything and keep all your e-mail up-to-date. This is a great time saver, you can spend your time on more important things than making sure all your mail is synced.

5) Labels translate into folders. I was worried about how Google was going to handle the transition from their “labels” onto an IMAP client. Don’t be worried all your labels become folders and I think it feels a little more usable in this aspect.

The only problem I have with using the IMAP service with GMail is that all my contacts are on the web application. I don’t think this is specifically a Google problem; they didn’t write the IMAP protocol. Since I have all my e-mails I ever sent or received with my GMail account I can easily rebuild all my contacts.

Google does a nice job of laying out the instructions of various mail clients here.

In Google we trust.

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School has thrown me into a constant state of work and deadlines. I’m glad I have found time to sleep as of late. But I have not forgotten about you all. I have had lots of ideas, but no time to express them. oh yes my lament.

This is not a bad thing I guess. I would much rather spend my time writing and exploring various topics; I think I learn way more this way. And in the future I think we are all going to be in a constant state of education the way things are moving today. New technologies are being implemented daily. The landscape is in constant change. But yes, this is not a bad thing because I am learning a lot of interesting things and can apply them to my life. This is a good a thing.

So what I wanted to talk about was Human Computer Interaction (HCI), more specifically the User Interface (UI). Probably up to this point in my technological education I wasn’t too concerned by what the user thought. My thinking was this is how it is and we must adapt to the technology. I think that was a big mistake. Technology should conform to the user; this is my new mantra. Users are not stupid - the technology makes them feel stupid - and that is a big no-no.
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I usually don’t answer memes from people. It’s just not my style, but Bobby from Revellian has always written highly of me, so I feel this one is for him. This is stemming from his definitely freaky post of a near death experience. It was a great story and I’m glad he is alright, please read the post it’s good!

This meme was started by Christy’s Coffee Break. I like her blog, it’s got quite the geeky appeal to it. The freaky fridays meme is an interesting idea I think, something different. I like these niche posts that explore different things.

The Death of a Loved One

I’m not much of a believer in ghosts, ghouls, or shadowy creatures of the night for many various reasons. I’m not so sure how much I believe in a great afterlife, I think it is an attempt of our brains to try to comprehend this crazy world. Death is not an easy think to deal with, when it is loved ones, friends, or complete strangers. I think it is easy to put ourselves in their shoes, which is why death is so personal.

Time: 2000-2001, the turn of the century occurred, Y2K was a bust, and I was finishing my last year of high school. Also, this was the most trying year of my entire life, so far.
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