At MIX06 in Las Vegas
I am actually sitting in a an enlightening session right now at MIX about Atlas and IE7. About an hour ago we finished the session with Bill Gates and Tim O'Reilly. It was my first time seeing Bill Gates live, which was fun.
If you are here at the conference, feel free to come up an introduce yourself. I hope to have a more comprehensive post later about the sessions I am attending.
Google's Persistence Of Memory
There is a reason why Google keeps 18-24 months of search information before anonymizing it - three reasons, actually - and the company discussed them through the Official Google blog.
 |
| Google's Persistence Of Memory |
 |
The mechanisms behind Google's operations seem surreal to people who have been on the Web since Tim Berners-Lee turned it loose over a decade ago. A short time after it debuted and people started launching websites all over the world, the need for a quality search product became apparent.
Whether one likes it these days or not, Google became that product. Their ubiquity has become a lightning rod for controversy, be it on censorship in China, or privacy issues at home. One of the company's legal heavy hitters, Peter Fleischer, wrote about Google and search history, and why they remember searches:
Three factors were critical. One was maintaining our ability to continue to improve the quality of our search services. Another was to protect our systems and our users from fraud and abuse. The third was complying?and anticipating compliance?with possible data retention requirements.
Fleischer goes into a little more detail about each factor. He cited the Google spell checker as an example of an improvement they were able to make. Google can also improve its search results by looking at what people clicked in response to particular queries.
On the security side, Google's riches come from its advertising system. It's an ongoing battle to keep scamsters in check, and sifting through logged searches helps with this. Fleischer also said: "Immediate deletion of IP addresses from our logs would make our systems more vulnerable to security attacks, putting the personal data of our users at greater risk."
Google also faces the prospect of being mandated to keep data for a period of time in the US and Europe. "At the same time, regulators in other parts of governments have argued for shorter retention periods, reflecting the conflicts in every country between privacy and data protection objectives on the one hand, and law enforcement objectives on the other," he wrote.
Last week, the New York State Consumer Protection Board asked the FTC to delay Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, citing privacy concerns. Board chairperson Mindy Bockstein, who formerly worked in Eliot Spitzer's state attorney general's office, wants Google to allow people to selectively remove personal items from Google's access logs.
Fleischer's post appears to be the response Google wants to make to that request. Google needs that search memory to persist for their purposes, and does not look inclined to anonymize information on a shorter schedule unless legislation forces them to do so.
Google, Privacy, Search History
Dedicated Server
Dedicated Server Hosting Reseller web hosting cheap company, this is one of the best hosting services that sell dedicated servers, yes, domaingurus this can be your best option to begin your reseller hosting company. HERE ARE THE RESULTS OF TRYING YOU. Now we know that domaingurus.com does a great job. DomianGurus delivered the benefits they said they would. They delivered FAR MORE than they said they would...than my wildest dreams. Good hosting services DomainGurus.
Chris Wilson - Moving the web forward
This year’s Web Directions Breakfast, an optional extra on the morning of the 28th of September will be hosted by co-creator of CSS and genuine web innovator, Bert Bos of the W3C. (Read on Source)
DNA bounty from mammoth hair
A rapid technique for isolating DNA in hair provides a new route to study the genetics of extinct creatures.
McDonald's Hosts Free Hotspots in UK
The fast-food chain will offer free Wi-Fi at its 1200 restuarants in the UK.
sTLD .post Evolution - No Comment!
"There is a letter from the Universal Postal Union (UPU) to ICANN concerning the use of their sTLD .post that may well have important implications for the future evolution of the domain name system."
Images: Virtual worlds via Google
Virtual worlds developers using Multiverse Networks' platform are able to import 3D models from Google's 3D Warehouse into their projects.
Wii helps Nintendo treble profits
The success of the Wii has helped Nintendo treble its half-yearly profits to 188.78bn yen (£810m).
Feb. 6, 1958: Size Matters, Especially in Electronics
Texas Instruments files the first patent request for an integrated circuit. Electronics is about to be revolutionized.
The hidden side of linked data
Two of my previous posts have raised a few issues that I find very interesting and lead to some more un-answered questions. One comment in particular is what got me thinking. What happens when information about us on the web is no longer disparate, no longer hidden in the database — locked away by thousands of [...] (Read on Source)
Whiteboard Friday - Blogging for Higher Rankings
Posted by great scott!
This week, Rand discusses a few essential strategies to consider when adding a blog to your site. If you want your blog to be readable, enjoyable, and able to generate links and traffic, give this installment of Whiteboard Friday a look.SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday-Blogging for Higher Rankings from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.
UPDATE from Rand: As promised, here's a link to the corporate site I mentioned (that does a particularly good job integrating their blog) - Articulate.com. And of course, now that I'm talking about what a good job they're doing, they've switched from having the blog in the main nav (as it was last time I checked out the site), to putting it deeper into the sub-navigation of the support section.... Oh well - serves me right for not checking my example before filming :-)
How to Make Money from Website Flipping Part 1
Nowadays, bloggers tend to create blogs on topics that are considered popular and profitable. This is as opposed to creating blogs for their personal interest or enjoyment. Bloggers frequently need to battle the temptation to create another real estate blog or debt consolidation blog simply because they believe that this is where the “real ... (Read on Source)
Blood Vessel Inhibitor Shows Promise Against Metastatic Thyroid Cancer
Thyroid cancer that has spread to distant sites has a poor prognosis, but an experimental drug that inhibits tumor blood vessel formation can slow disease progression in some patients, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Microsoft Plugs Nine Holes in Windows, DNS, SQL
It's among the vendors patching a multiplatform DNS vulnerability.
10 Cool Open Source Easter Eggs
Royal HeHe2-ness: "Curse Words in The Linux Source Code -- grep -r [word] /usr/src/linux[TAB]/*"
Stockholders Vote to Keep Yahoo Execs on Board
Despite some stockholders' sour comments at Yahoo's 2008 annual stockholder meeting, the majority of stockholders vote to re-elect each member of the executive board.
Online Threats Cost Consumers $8.5 Billion Over Last Two Years (TechWeb)
TechWeb - InformationWeek - Consumer Reports cites security problems as a main motivation for buying a new PC or Mac and also lists what it considers to be the seven most common online blunders.
Can Big Oil Companies also Do Good?
We seem to be piggybacking off of each other here around Green Options lately - reading each others’ posts and writing new posts based on them. I just finished reading the post that Adam Williams wrote earlier today, World Naked Bike Ride: Is Anything Gained by Protesting Oil Dependency in the Buff?, and in the post he mentions that Last ... (Read on Source)
Cloud Computing's Perfect Storm?
An Intel, Yahoo, and HP initiative will use large-scale research projects to test a new Internet-based computing infrastructure.
OB for P!
The Democratic National Convention has certainly kept me busy!! Don’t misunderstand me, not because I’m at the convention, or even in Denver, it has just been a busy week…. (Read on Source)
Lies, Damn lies, and Statistics - a lesson in Benchmarking.
James O'Neill: Many years ago - before on-line meant "the internet" - I annoyed a journalist in an on-line discussion. I criticized the methodology used by his magazine to test file servers: Machines copied a large file making it a test of the cache effectiveness of the server. As more machines and hence more files were added performance rose to a peak, then the total of files being coped exceeded the cache size, and it plummeted. This they explained as "ethernet collisions".
I mention this because there's always a temptation to try to rip up a Benchmark someone else has done (I certainly didn't use very diplomatic language back then). Single task tests can give you an idea how well a machine will carry out a similar task. What do file server tasks look like ? Realistic tests for file servers are hard. For virtualization it is close to impossible. If you a take a real world question like "I have 100 machines; when I multiply their CPU speed by their average CPU loading it they average out at 200MHz. How many Servers do I need ?" Obviously it's more than 100x200 = 20GHz / (cores * Clockspeed) ... but how much more ?" You need to answer questions like "What's the overhead of running VMs ?" Would 5 servers running 20VMs have a bigger or smaller percentage overhead than 2 servers running 50 ? Assuming you could work this out and come up with an "available CPU" figure, it doesn't answer questions about peaks of load i.e. "at any point in the last month would the instantaneous sum of CPU load totaled over a set of machines exceed the available CPU on the virtualization server ? And of course we haven't mentioned disk and network I/O questions.
Cisco to outline long-term growth strategy next week
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Top U.S. network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc is set to outline its long-term growth strategy in an analyst meeting next Tuesday, with investors focused on when and how it will shake off the slowdown in U.S. technology spending.
Hick?s Picks 45
Variety reports that NBC has won a bidding war to acquire “Jason and the Argonauts” for its primetime schedule. The series, produced by Media Rights Capital, is being billed as the first series show completely filmed on a green-screen for primetime television. According to reports, NBC engaged in a fierce bidding competition with ... (Read on Source)
Phantom candidate is used to assist city Democrat
Quirk of Vermont politics makes it safer to run with a buddy
123-Web-Messenger-Server-Software(Mac) 1.4
123 Web Messenger is a web (browser) based instant messaging software for your site, enables one-to-one chat to your website users. It brings the website to life, make it interactive between users. It retains members and increases loyalty of them. [New | License: Shareware $599 | Requires: Mac PPC | Size: 3959 KB]
Determining Volume Group Disk Usage On AIX Unix Using Sh And Awk
Is nothing sacred? A look at a few AIX commands that can make your life simpler. Today's topic, and accompanying script, have to do with a more specific function already described in our series on working with AIX LVM (Actually, that link points to the last entry in the series. It's a strange thing about serialized content; the only way I can hook you up with a link that will get you links from part 4 to parts 3, 2 and 1 is to give you the last link.
Titans 47, Lions 10 Lions Prolong a Tradition of Futility - New York Times
 Seattle Post Intelligencer | Titans 47, Lions 10 Lions Prolong a Tradition of Futility New York Times - Duane Burleson/AP By KAREN CROUSE DETROIT - Making fun of the Lions is too easy, like an ice fisherman casting his line into a drink cooler. Lions hit new low, but Marinelli should stick around until the ... Titans Dominate Winless Lions |
Eagles - Defensive giants, except in division
THE EAGLES' defense has been more consistent and less one-dimensional than the offense this year. It ranked eighth in the NFL against the rush, ninth against the pass, and seventh overall, heading into last night's action. The team's most impressive victories of the season, over the Steelers and over the Falcons, were largely forged by the defense. (Read on Source)
name: MAGPIE