Dave Winer applied to get Scripting News onto Google News, and got rejected.
Apparently they did so on the basis that it’s just him that writes it. I suspect the real reason is that his site is not a news site, at least not in the conventional sense. It’s mostly just pointing to stuff elsewhere on the web, rarely with any comment or analysis. It’s certainly valuable, and maybe the media world will change over time, but for now a one-liner with a hyperlink is not a news service.
I think someone hacked Newsgator’s “latest buzz” feature.
Dear Mr Gullible,
How would you like to renew your domain name at an exhorbitant rate with us?
Sincerely,
Borderline Fraud Department,
Domain Registry of America
Google have announced they are doubling the storage limit of Gmail to 2Gig and will then increase the storage limit on a daily basis, with no view to stopping.
Surely every person on earth must have an invitation by now, but if you don’t just let us know in the comment and you too will soon be experiencing the ever expanding goodness that is a Gmail account.
A another day, another browser release. But BEWARE. As Marc Orchant says, Bad Things will happen if you try to install Firefox 1.0.2 over the old version, as the Automatic Updates tells you to. Instead, download it, remove the old version (it should leave your profile intact) then install the new one.
This happened with 1.0.1 as well. Like the long Title popups bug, they really should have fixed this by now.
As a follow up to Daniel’s previous post. If you want to change the default browser search engine in Firefox (say from .co.uk to com.au after you’ve installed the ‘proper’ English version of Firefox) it’s a simple procedure.
Type about:config in the address bar.
Scroll down the list to browser.search.default.url.
Double click on this and change .co.uk to com.au – you’re done. All your browser searches will now run through the Australian version of Google, with correct spelling.
And if you want to remove/add/edit the search options in Mycroft (the search box at the top of the screen) there’s a great free utility at http://www.svenbader.de/e_index.html
Having installed the UK-spelling version of Firefox, it almost looks unnatural to see dialog(ue) boxes about “colours”. And I think it’s the downloads dialog that refers to saving to “disc”.
It’s a consequence of most IT-related innovation coming out of the USA that we’ve become used to US spelling dominating the world of computers. From Windows 95’s “Network Neighborhood” (yes, even when installing Windows with supposedly Australian English) to “floppy disks”, “dialog boxes” and of course IE’s “favorites”… You just learn to live with words spelt (spelled) just a little differently.
Admittedly it starts to get a little grating when spellcheckers claim “English” is the same as “US English” and otherwise usable applications keep showing the dates the wrong way around, or insist on two character states and five digit postcodes. Not to mention web sites that have a country dropdown list and put USA at the top (rather than, say, putting it in alphabetical order and defaulting to it).
And don’t get me started on programs that default to Letter sized paper instead of A4.
Ahem.
Anyway, one catch with having dispensed with Firefox’s US spelling is ending up on Google UK when searching. Fortunately the “Add Engines” feature of the search box is pretty easy to use. Search for your preferred engine eg Google Australia for me, and click to install it. Easy.
Removing the old Google UK option may be a little trickier, but it doesn’t much matter, since once you use the AU one, it sticks as the default.
For those of us who speak English but are outside the USA and spell “colour” with a U, Firefox is now available in “British English” (that is, non-US English) as well as a host of other languages.
Meanwhile, the domain firefox.com has been acquired by the Mozilla Foundation, and is displaying one of those “Umm, which Firefox did you want?” pages, like bbc.com did for a while after it was bought from Boston Business Computing.
D: How do you get Newsgator to import OPML files? The help claims Add Feeds has an import button, but I can’t find it?
T: Go to Newsgator Manager.
Add A Feed
Other Feeds
Just under the tabs you will see URL | Import – try that.
D: ah, there it is. Thanks. That was one major hurdle to switching to Newsgator.
T: Now I want to find how to export OPML.
D: Dammit, I’ve been spoilt by SharpReader’s speed. But I’ll have to put up with this slow response on Newsgator if I want home/work synced.
T: Do what I did, boost your connection speed. 1500 kicks in at midnight Saturday, you can’t believe how much I’m looking forward to Sunday!
D: This is at work. Most sites are very responsive, but this isn’t, at least not right now.
T: How odd. I have noticed at times it can be a bit slow – but I guess it’s depending upon response times from other servers too.
Still the syncing between work/home/wherever is a good thing to have.
D: yeah. sync good.
Google’s new beta Google X Mac OS-X-themed page was taken off air only about a day after appearing. Given how aggressive Apple (and Google) have been at pursuing imitators, maybe they thought better of copying the OS-X Dock.
Who knows, maybe Google were scared of Apple, who certainly don’t hesitate to call in the lawyers when they think they’ve been wronged.
Scoble’s found some mirrors so you can see Google X for yourself.
Okay, two techniques, one that’s going to be comprimised sooner, one that’s going to be compromised later:
I don’t see the second as a viable solution because it demands javascript (precluding certain users), and the first will be bested by the spammers when it becomes economically viable. I guess it depends on the implementation cost as to if it’s adopted here.
Why are webloggers googlebombing online poker?
I assume it’s to reduce the attractiveness of spaming the blogs with the term. Wouldn’t you want positions 1-10, rather than just #1, and really shut the action down? I don’t see that it will. But wikipedia will be regarded as a more relevant site, and that’s gotta be good, right? Speaking of which, I must go check for vandalisim on my pages…