7/04/03 - 7/10/03 Blogging [Like writing on virtual toilet paper]: This site is back to receiving virtually no external referrals beyond the odd [and I do mean odd] google referral. I have been getting some funny incidental traffic from the MSN search engine as well, as it provides a link to this site as an alternative for people misstyping the address of that do-not-call government "no phone solicitations" database. On the brighter side, a surprisingly pleasant and productive e-mail conversation with the key industry insider should produce a traffic boost in the middle and again towards the end of the month. --------------------------------------------------------- On [a now rare] visit to XODP I found this quote from the unhumble moderator David F. Prenatt, Jr At the same time, I am of the opinion that search engine technology has made the concept of a large scale Yahoo-style Web directory somewhat obsolete. Beyond a critical mass of about 300 editors and/or 2 million URLs, quality control becomes an overwhelming problem for an indexing community. In my opinion, the best search solutions available are customizable meta-searches that spider the listings contained smaller, higher quality Web directories, but -- as I have stated previously -- few people need or want this level of precision. Most people are quite happy with search engines like Google and pay-per-click services like Overture. This typically libertarian -- if people are not rioting in the streets and blowing up buildings-- they must be happy with corporate control BS, is so simplistically vacant. I would bet all the money I have that the vast majority of average Internet users would express substantial dissatisfaction with the search industry, upon being informed of the basic facts regarding the history of this $2 billion a year mapping racket. The fact that people likely do find using google a better surfing alternative to randomly typing letters in the location bar, can't fairly be perverted into the conclusion that they don't "need or want" anything better. As for yahoo-- it was corruption by commercialization, not obsolescence, that destroyed that idea. ---------------------------------------------------- www.internetisshit.org I would agree that the Internet is shit-- and I think this is a nicely written lament -- what I don't like is the stupid "let's just blow it up and run away" solution suggested. More depressing, is the fact that this kind of a nothing website, is likely getting a LOT more traffic than my proposed "WHATIS" solution. Speaking of whatis, now that the --should be publicly owned and operated-- WhoIs database can no longer be directly accessed, I will be replacing the whois search function on my powercons toolbox. I've decided that a suitable replacement would be a "select text and search" at the News and Blog search engine Daypop. Related link:: resourceshelf interview with Daypop's Founder and Proprietor Dan Chan permanent link

5/26/03 - 7/3/03 Biasphere [biased commentary regarding biased reporting regarding bias research]: Lots of little articles this week with the kind of negative tone. This register.com article ignorantly argues, that you would have to be ignorant , to think that internet users are generally ignorant. I think thousands of searches a day at yahoo looking for yahoo says different. Consumers don't trust paid-for search The Study Results Here are a couple of articles regarding remarks by Marc Andreessen, co-creator of Netscape, who laments the lack of browser innovation.... I guess he hasn't heard of powercons either. Netscape Founder Says Web Browsing Innovation Dead Browser innovation is dead - Andreessen In spite of what the financial markets might indicate, I think the Internet's heading for the re-crash and burn phase. I really love technology, and if I'm having a hard time justifying spending 12 bucks a month for Internet access it's not a good sign. ...Maybe I'm just part Australian. Australians log off the web Surfers impatient with search engines ------------------------------------------------ In powercons news, close to 2000 copies of the toolbox were downloaded in the month of June. Unfortunately, most downloads happened within the span of a few days. I don't know what exact external link was responsible for the good days of 300+ downloads, but this site [digitalspiritz.com] did post a link at the time of peak traffic. Currently traffic has dwindled to some 20 downloads a day. Maybe no news is good news, but it seems strange that I haven't received any meaningful feedback from users. Another site deserving a thank-you link is - Jen's Freeware -the page design is kind of tacky, but it is a very comprehensive list of available browser software. ------------------------------------------------ In other news: Google did accept my InMendham.com domain for inclusion in its ad-sense program. Apparently their system is a little overwhelmed as it hasn't yet been able to produce any visible ads on the pages I installed the script. The system seems open to a lot of abuse, but I will keep my mouth shut about that for the time being as I don't want to prematurely violate the incredibly restrictive confidentiality agreement google imposes. Here are few other sites sent the same stupid, rejection e-mail google sent to this [donotgo.com] site: www.tnl.net/blog decafbad.com/blog jeremy.zawodny.com beblogging.com permanent link

5/22/03 - 6/25/03 Mad Cow Disease spreads to the web [makes two cows silly]: I received this CowShit e-mail from Tu-smelly-cows regarding my submission of "Powercons" to be indexed in their directory. The preposterous rating 40% below their minimum standard proves a level of corruption that should offend all defenders of an Open, free Internet. The weasels doing the reviewing are no doubt of the same breed that you will find at Animal Farms like Dumboz. These Internet parasites have snuck into the foundation of the Internet (indexing/mapping) and are a piece-at-a-time stealing the franchise. These "editors" and "reviewers" are not informing, or inpowering the web public, they are deliberately narrowing accessibility and they should be shamed back into the dirty slutty holes from which they came. In other words Tucows is diseased and they should be quarantined, or better yet just ground into fertilizer. Dear Software Author: Thank you for submitting your software for evaluation. We appreciate the time you have taken to let us know about your program. Unfortunately, after reviewing your application, we have decided that it does not meet our current needs. Score =19 31 to 33 points = 3-cow rating 34 to 37 points = 4-cow rating 38 or more points = 5-cow rating Because of time constraints and the volume of reviews we conduct, please understand that we are unable to entertain any debate or discussion regarding Reviewer-subjective portions of the evaluation. For further information on our scoring procedure please see the Ratings Guide available in the ARC. If you were a Subscribing developer, the score for this review would include a point-by-point breakdown of each criterion. This is only one of a number of benefits that ARC Subscribers receive. Want to learn more? Log into ARC to find out everything our Subscription service has to offer! Please do not let this discourage you from submitting other applications. We encourage you to continue considering Tucows for your future software distribution interests. Thanks for your interest in Tucows, The Tucows Review Staff permanent link

5/20/03 - 6/21/03 The Mother of Invention [apparently doesn't sleep around much]:Since the time I first discovered the "loophole" in Internet explorer that enables you to inject DHTML JavaScript into documents. I wondered if the shortcut of just using a bookmarklet to insert a .js file reference would work. The fact that I hadn't read in any book, or seen on any web site, any reference to the possibility of injecting hard drive based js files into on-line documents-- made me think it must not be possible. After all, something this useful and powerful, just couldn't be overlooked, right? I mean if there was a way, to make it possible for individuals to customize their web browser to suit their individually particular needs or impairments, someone in the very intelligent web development community would make that possibility a reality, right? As implied, the answer is WRONG. Apparently for some five[?] years now, any Dom compatible Web browser could have easily [relatively] been made user friendly, customizable, and expandable with the add-on of a Powercons style toolbox. As bad as it is, that no one outside the power structure has exploited the technique of using a bookmarklet to inject an external hard-drive-based .js script-- the fact that no one in the browser/web development or standards community has suggested that such an enhancement be fully supported (installed on page load) by web browsers is really disappointing. I guess open-source really doesn't mean open minds. This new "I can't believe it" revelation confirms old doubts about the jerks we have let controll the Internet's evolution. I have long lamented the fact that a simple thing like having a standard package of "structural parts" installed with every web browser-- that would give universal access to a variety of common, "client based" fonts and image elements--hasn't been aggressively advocated or implemented. Probably more than 80% of bandwidth used on the Internet is wasteful, stupid, redundancy that could be easily eliminated if we had an Internet that was built to rationally serve, rather than to selfishly exploit, the end user. The gist of this [everyone sucks but me] rant is that I have discovered that it is possible to create a all [most] browser compatible version of the powercons toolbox, and as time permits I will apply my inadequate skills, toward its development. ...and yes, I do hate you all. permanent link

5/18/03 - 6/20/03 Google Ad-nonSense [perpetual motion in reverse]: A few weeks ago I was joking when I said this: Wouldn't the user be better served if google just overtly offered better "page rank" to anyone willing to put a big google ad down the right hand column of their web pages. Apparently the joke's on me, and everyone else who would hope that the Internet would not become "vast wasteland 2" or just televisions retarded little brother. The Internets regression back to the "Prodigy days" where ISPs ate up a quarter of the viewing screen with advertisements was, I suppose, predictable reflecting on the fact that "regression" is everywhere: We are again fighting wars built on lies. There are more commercials on paid cable television than there used to be on free TV. We're trying to land a probe on Mars to take pictures, and analyze the soil. News flash we did that 30 years ago. Pretty pointless then, VERY pointless now. We are running a 400+ billion dollar deficit-- and no one's talking about it. And we are Still allowing the rich to borrow the money in the Social Security trust fund so they can reap some more un-earned gains in the stock market. Sorry I digress... Google's Ad-nonSense does "add" some new catches to The Catch-22 imbecility of their "make the popular, popular" page rank algorithm. Catch 23: Ad-nonSense affiliate's can filter out competitor ads. So.. I guess.. ads will be relevant, but not "too" relevant. Catch 24: We all become google affiliate's, use the money we earn displaying ads to buy more ads from google. Ad prices keep going up, display revenues do like-wize, and a bunch of already rich shit-heads at google steel enough money to buy every atomic particle in the universe. There is a little bit of, kind of ironic, good news. My powercons toolbox is incompatible with, and destroys, the "Iframes" which google uses to display its ads. ---------------------------------- 06/20/03 2:30pm update: I just received this rejection e-mail from google. Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Our program specialists have reviewed your application and were unable to approve you for participation in our program at this time. The website currently associated with your account was not found to be in compliance with our policies (https://www,google.com/adsense/policies). The results of our review are outlined below with complete explanations for your convenience. Issues: - Page type --------------------- Read below for definitions of the issues we found: Page type: Your website is a type of website that we do not currently accept into our program. Such websites include, but are not limited to, chat sites, personal pages, search engines, sites that contain predominately copyrighted material, and sites that drive traffic through cybersquatting. So much for the propaganda that there are a lot of smart people working at google. So what's the brilliant idea-- we won't just pointlessly reject sites, we will make a lot of ugly, stupid and completely indefensible accusations in our form rejection e-mail... hoping that the recipient will be so pleased that they won't want to sue our child molesting faggot asses off in court for defamation and discrimination. Everyone who works at google is short, fat, smelly and stupid and you can all drop dead-- for my "convenience". permanent link

5/14/03 - 6/17/03 Internet Map? [Sorry we are ALL SOLD OUT]: From: Overture prepares for new chapter Pasadena-based Overture has no doubts about its future, promising to deliver more breakthroughs that will diversify its business, delight Web surfers and unnerve its biggest foe, the far better known Google. Deliver breakthroughs like what: Smallpox in an easy-to-use disposable flip-top can? ``Five or 10 years from now, we are going to look back at the current state of Web search and be embarrassed, like we are now when we look back at old technologies like Betamax VCRs and 8-track tapes,'' said Gary William Flake, Overture's chief science officer. Too bad, Mr. flake will likely never develop a enough of a conscience to feel the absolute shame he deserves to live with. ``When you have a great product like we do, it's certainly tempting to sit back and rest on your laurels, but we're not going to do that,'' said Ted Meisel, Overture's chief executive. Product? I don't see no stinking product While the technology for running pay-for-performance systems is complex, the concept is simple: advertisers bid for the right to have their links displayed under specific search terms. The auction determines the order in which the links are displayed on a Web page. Just like stealing candy from a baby. The system has proven be a hit among Web surfers and Web sites alike. Proven?, no doubt, by the same people who proved Iraq had WMD Overture's links are on pace to attract 2.4 billion clicks this year. The company's search database includes 88,000 advertisers who paid an average of 37 cents per referral during the first quarter, up from 24 cents the previous year. A tax by any other name.... The downturn in Overture's stock is ironic, considering its search model is a big reason behind the Internet's recent financial renaissance. "financial renaissance" and Greenland is a tropical paradise, right? Pay-for-performance search is expected to attract as much as $2 billion in Internet advertising this year, up from $100 million just three years ago. Coincidently, Spam e-mail has a likewise spectacular growth rate. As Meisel reminded analysts in a meeting last month, ``We have put on the map a market that didn't really exist until we came along.'' No you put "marketing IN the map" permanent link

5/11/03 - 6/13/03 Swallowtail Down [oh the buganities]: The National Technology Media wouldn't get IT, if "it" crashed in their living room. Something with a butterfly on it, probably crashes in their office every day, which should give them an indication that maybe, underlying infrastructure, or the basic design is flawed -- yet they write this mush about page rank bugs on the windshield as if that has something to do with the internets navigation problem. Here is an excerpt from some excerpts of a post I left replying to the PC Magazine article. . ...As to the facts misstated: What was primarily responsible for googles success was its clean speed-- and little else. Its "popularity momentum", it's page rank so-to-speak was well established long before anyone cared to take notice of the page ranking algorithm. At the time google took off, every other popular search engine was turning into absolute portal junk. Cluttered, slow, and results completely controlled by the evil takeover of paid inclusion. (I took this picture with my new camera (Olympus d-560) yesterday and just had to find a way to work it into the conversation) On the brighter side webattack.com has index my powercons toolbox. They describe (grammarical errors their fault this time) it as something better than the three and a half stars they gave it, but I'm certainly not going to complain. Unlike downloadDotcom which expects me to pay $79 to list my free software, the listing at webattack.com was free, and took less than 24 hours. In terms of speed and efficiency webattack really outperforms the competition. permanent link

5/9/03 - 6/10/03 Going... Going... [go-guides gone]: You can guide a go-guide to a better mutually beneficial trail, but can't make them walk it. Go-guides declined, without reply, my offer of a link exchange...So I have replaced the toolbox function at their icon location with a dictionary search at OneLook. I will replace the go-guides icon, that is part of the Image map, with something more suitable as time permits. ---------------------------- On the chopping block this week is cre8shitforums and webword- both sites claim an interest in the subject of "usability." As both sides demonstrate little interest in the fundamental "usability" subject of Internet Navigation, and as both dispute my claim that "powercons" is the greatest IE "usability" add-on, EVER-- I think the ax has already fallen on both. The fact that my e-mail "requests" were--let's say-- a little hostile... I think sealed the deal. But... as I pointed out in one reply "I am done, with the-- all roads leading out, but none leading in-- theory of Internet Design" previous related subject post In Powercons News: You can now pre-configure the toolbox to automatically perform some functions at startup. Used to its best advantage [i think] this enables you to do a "one click" search on selected text. This feature gives the toolbox, an easily "co-branded" option that I hope I can persuade some "search site" to take advantage of. permanent link

5/6/03 - 6/8/03 Create A Site [forum hell]: So I made the mistake of playing on their crooked board and I got Rooked by the Black Knight-- No real surprise! but disappointment seems unavoidable nonetheless. You have to wonder about these "libertarians" (social regressives) who are afraid of free speech. Are they just petty ignoble little man, riding huge egos, raping the truth, and stealing the empty pillage of their adversaries fundamental civil rights.-- just for the fun of it? or are they "inquisitioning" and "crusading" in the name of some grander cause? As I see it, the knights, Bishops and Cardinals, of the SEO realm are serving a naked emperor and are commanded by greedy devotion to keep all eyes and minds closed. In their medieval world an idea, not conceived to make someone wealthy, is a crime against social courtesy and a heresy against their ethically vacant theology. In their bible no advantage or gain--or #1 ranking--can ever be ill-gotten, as "having" is a synonym for "earning". From their perspective, being humbled by the chance of good fortune, or given pause by a conscience that bows to fairness, would be a sacrilege to their sustaining mantra, "I am deserving and wonderful and you peasants are irrelevant." Another day... another bucket of slimy red herrings. permanent link

5/02/03 - 6/05/03 200 Pieces of Spam in the Box, 200... [you shoot one down, make a big frown, 199....]: I'm now getting about 200 pieces of Spam a day, and just downloading and reading the subject lines is wasting more time, than the "privilege" of e-mail is worth. Funny how we consider it too much of an imposition to allow a homeless man to sleep on a sidewalk, but it's OK for some jackass who doesn't even know my gender, to let me know every day that they think I need bigger breasts, balls, and penis. I should be able to sue them for making me even wonder how you might use, bigger balls. In other Shiternet news: The ODP has established the pretense of an "abuse reporting system " Jokes this funny, should come with a warning label. What might be almost as big a joke, would be to have reports of morons in government, sent directly to George Bush. According to google (sort of) there are 5,009,104 redundant, or "very similar", Blogs in cyberspace. A few weeks ago I realized from a referral that my Blog was ranked 740 on the keyword Blog. I figured this wasn't Too bad, considering I've heard that there might be a million Blogs out there. Finding out that I'm 740 out of 896 kind of makes me feel the need to make something bigger. In Marketing Whore House news: "According to Jupiter's research 76 per cent of marketing executives that used search engine marketing rated it as more successful than banner-style advertising and 64 per cent plan on increasing their spending. Jupiter says that respondents believe that web-wide search is more accurate than local site search a full 52 per cent of the time. Search is the single greatest opportunity to learn from - and influence - customer behavior" Using search engines to influence customer behavior. Kind of like using "map making" to "influence" destination arrived at. From "all roads lead to Rome", to a superhighway directly to bigger breasts and penises (and balls), in just 2000 short years-- now that something to be proud of. permanent link

5/28/03 - 6/01/03 What Kind Of Plan? [A plan that cannot possibly fail. -Clouseau]: As an act of desperation, I have decided to compromise a few personal standards in an effort to do something about this sites invisibility. I've always felt an obligation not to let my personal opinions too substantially influence what I link to-- Unfortunately, this policy only really works if you are not the only one keeping to it. If or when my powercons toolbox becomes popularly used, a link on it is going to have some value. The catch is, I think for there to be a "if or when" some of these would be beneficiaries need to pay up now with the reciprocal courtesy of providing a reciprocal link. The plan is, once a week I am going to select a site currently listed on my powercons toolbox and present them (the website) with the simple ultimatum-- support powercons or powercons will no longer support you. No doubt some will spite me with there cut off noses, but maybe a few will realize that I am only asking for fair reciprocation and that it is better to serve a mutual interest than no interest. On the chopping block this week is goguides --there's a lot of old bad blood between us so this should provide an interesting test case. On the subject of "old bad blood" I have been engaging in a little Harlequin medieval combat with the still insufferable, yet not as slanderous, "Black Knight". Funny how even hate is made almost charming when it is seasoned with a sense of nostalgia. here is one of the splinters left on the battlefield: In the end I am proving the theory-- that the Internet navigation system is substantially broken --to be a sad fact. I've produced, innovative, useful content, made a modest (average or better) effort to promote it, and yet contrary to the "google notion" {that quality content is rewarded) my rather brilliant innovation remains virtually invisible to the web public. I will agree with you about one thing, there is no free lunch on the Internet, as the Internet has been allowed to become some kind of studio 54-ish, A-list only, bastion of elitist segregation and self-indulgence. Past post on this subject In Internet Explorer news: From: zeldman.com Meanwhile, even though the corporate owner of Netscape has committed itself to increase IE's market share, Microsoft has announced that it will no longer make a standalone version of Internet Explorer : "As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation. ... Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS." This is probably good news for me as it will give me more time to establish the practicality of customizable "Powercons" as a standard browser option. permanent link

5/20/03 - 5/27/03 Cyberspace Is Bent [neatly folded and in storage]: Ron Green of "slightly bent" Does some wondering regarding Microsoft's plans for Internet Explorer. I fall for the bait, and post this comment: From my perspective, IE is far from dead and "further development" is happening right now. My "powercons" innovation (still [and always] in beta development) is converting IE into a customizable, open-source-like browser platform. Sometime this week I should be introducing the newest innovation which will allow users to add their own favorite-- bookmarks and "bookmarklets" to the toolbox. So far no one has recognized (or will admit to) the cyber-world changing potential of this innovation, but as long as Microsoft doesn't do a major bug fix in the next year or so. I don't think they will have any control over the evolution of the IE browser by the end of 2004. Unfortunately, in bent space this kind of "yes I have a solution" comment sinks into invisibility almost before it hits the visible horizon. Related Blog Stuff: re: Is Internet Explorer Dead? Don't try to re-invent the browser, please answer to the question On the subject of powercons I've got the first phase of the links editor working. I was able to incorporate the editor right into the script that runs the toolbox-- pretty damn clever, but you'll probably only hear that from me. In other news I did inquire of the National Research Council when they were going to release their $800,000 report on INTERNET NAVIGATION AND THE DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM. Now they are saying around Thanksgiving. Seems appropriate that we get some expensive caned government pork (spam) with our turkey. Being a vegetarian I think trying to consume any of it will just make me sick. Past post on this subject permanent link

5/15/03 - 5/19/03 Internet To Die For [or just internet dying]: There has been a lot of Internet buzz about some "the Internet is dying" remarks by Lawrence Lessig. From Lessig's point of view what threatens to be the cause of the Internets death is big media de-regulation and consolidation. No doubt this problem can be blamed for televisions persistent vegetative state-- but I don't think "big media", is what is sucking the life out of the Internet. As this Register.com article points out there are problems other than big media control killing the Internet -- like Spam for example which is more of a million little shysters problem. At slashdot the subject provoked a lot of one-liner sloganeering regarding the exact medical condition of the Internet. Those who are impressed by search engine ad budgets see near perfect health-- on the other hand those of us who remember the early days are mumbling eulogies lamenting the youthful promise tragically lost. In describing the symptoms of the Internets terminal disease many are using words like static and noise. I like this analogy because it implies that there is a transmission and/or reception problem and maybe that will get people thinking about the adequacy of the "industrys" responsible for providing that infrastructure. As I see it a poorly structured ( abuse-able) DNS and a grotesquely unprincipled Search Industry have made the Internet sick by providing no ability to defend against, opportunistic parasitic marketing infections. What the Internet needs to regain its health and what it should of had from birth, is some kind of immune "system". There are many treatments to choose from, from the least aggressive of a vaccine Alter-[better honest]-NET that keeps all the clean cells separate from the infectious one's to the more aggressive penicillin of full Web regulation. There are potential cures that pose no risk, and cost very little-- like my whatis proposal. Hopefully... as more people realize the urgency, the common sense of at least trying this harmless remedy will become the agreed upon prescription. permanent link