Daily Archives: 03/01/2008

Uncategorized

More on Ché Scoble…

Nicolas Carr has a good review on the Scoble vs. Facebook fight.

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Scoble: freedom fighter or data thief?

If I remember correctly from my training, the data remains the information of the person that entered it. Also, the company storing the data, in this case Facebook, should not use it any way that hasn’t been agreed to by the originator of the data. If they do not protect the data they’re in breach of their data privacy rules.

If I’m right, it means that Scoble doesn’t have a leg to stand on and will loose his Facebook access for good.

I suppose the way to look at this is that Facebook’s terms of service are the way that Facebook applies data privacy law and ensures that it protects the data of the users that Scoble has linked to. Scoble isn’t alone, he’s got to think of the 5000 people he’s linked to; he needs permission from the 5000 to do this.

France, Politics, UK, US

It’s not just the toilets…

I left the UK 12 years ago and haven’t looked back. This rings so true…

Flushed with shame at Britain | Alice Miles – Times Online

In my experience whenever you point things like this out in the UK you get one of two responses…

– “Well, it would be worse in X country”

– “Well there is no other way of doing it”

The first response shows the slide towards the “you’re either with us or against us” nationalism of Fox News and the second shows a complete lack of fight or belief that they can or should push for change.

I have an old friend who often says”why don’t they just make it work?” about trains, the NHS and other problems. The toilets could be fixed if someone cared.

On a related point; I saw this yesterday…

“The unhappiest emigrants were in France, and the United States, with nearly 19 per cent and 14 per cent respectively disappointed with their new life.”

This is the unhappiest? I bet that more than 19% of people were unhappy with a move within the UK.

Technology, UK, US

Can you hear the boom? That’s the Scoble effect…

Scoble’s done something and got his Facebook account blocked. My bet was that he was getting his contacts out to put in another system. TechCrunch UK reports it here…

TechCrunch UK » Blog Archive » Facebook blocks Scoble for downloading his contacts

The Facebook people are currently asleep, this will probably be out of control by the time that they wake up. Scoble can blog quicker than they can react.

It’s a pity that Facebook isn’t on the NASDAQ because I’d like to measure the Scoble effect!

Politics, US

Election Hyperbole…

It’s all too easy to forget the progress of the last ten centuries…

The next ten years will run roughshod over the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the formation of American democracy, the printing press, interchangeable parts, division of labor, the end of slavery, nuclear technology, antiseptics, the theory of gravity, the theory of relativity, the rise of communism, two world wars, universal suffrage, landing on the moon, and the Internet.”

Trailhead : Doing the Math

Products, Technology, Uncategorized

Facebook starts to putting users first or…

…maybe they’re just going to make money by charging to send users emails.

“Starting today, we’ll begin blocking links in Mini-Feed, Notifications, and Notification Emails which lead to the installation of another application in the hopes that developers focus on user experience and engagement being paramount, not deceiving users for the sake of growth.

Happy Hacking!”

Facebook Developers | Facebook Developers News

IT, Products, US

It’s not just Apple…

Dave Winer is taking on Apple’s hard disk policy. The fact that they keep the hard drives is upsetting him.

“It’s amazing to me that the tech blogosphere doesn’t treat Apple’s policy re broken hard disks as the huge gaping security hole that it is.” from It’s a security issue, folks (Scripting News)

I’d not thought about it before but this is industry standard practice. Most hardware manufacturers exchange hard drives for corporate clients every day. There is Peta-bytes of data walking out of offices around the world every day.

IT, News, Technology, UK

But what about corporate IT?

Nick Carr has a good article in The Guardian about how consumer IT is now a service.

The big switch may turn off jobs | Technology | The Guardian

Of course he’s right, but he doesn’t talk about how this is going to affect corporate IT departments. Most IT staff are not running dating sites or YouTube; they’re running payroll and finance applications for corporations.