Behavioural advertising involves the tracking of a web user’s surfing and displaying advertising that matches this data. I find the tracking of my surf history unnecessarily obtrusive personally and today found the online tool that will prevent marketing companies from collecting this data and profiting from it:
http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
Incidentally I came by this information by way of Rapleaf, Continue reading ‘How to Opt Out of Targeted Behavioural Advertising’
I had initially hoped to keep my Big Society posts on the positive end of the political spectrum. Unfortunately there is a wide dearth between it’s high ideals and the complete and utter self-absorption espoused by vast swathes of the media and public at large. This is a post about why this self-absorption is wrong and who is at fault.
Continue reading ‘Apparently Controversial: Sticking up for Tomorrow’
PDF won’t open in browser (Firefox/IE/Chrome) after updating to latest Adobe Reader 9? You just need to accept the End User Licence Agreement in the standalone version of Reader first.
Open up Adobe Reader 9 and click Accept. That’s it – you can close it and get back to using it in your browser from now on…
Money never sleeps. A somewhat dramatic title but kudos for attempting to convey images of horror in a finance movie. The sequel to the 1987 outing that immediately turned into a cult hit with the very people it sought to ridicule has made a comeback to presumably add further quotes to the repertoire of trading desks around the world.
I watch relatively little film but occasionally find a reason to catch one that strikes a cord – the Hollywood interpretation of who needs scapegoating over the past four years seemed as good as any. Continue reading ‘Wall St Reviewed’
Image courtesy jayce 31
Google has done two ‘real-time’ things lately, one good one not so good: Real Time web indexing and real time web search.
With ‘er, hang-on a minute…‘ moments now surfacing in the public domain I find the contrast between the two to be especially important. Google in their traditional engineer style expound the benefits of both in shaving seconds of search: ’11 user hours saved globally each second’; ’50% faster indexing rate of content’; figures that prove the mantra – machines search better than humans.
Machines definitely do the donkey work better than humans. Continue reading ‘When to do Real Time’
Image courtesy Colony of Gamers
nice web article on web articles
Doug Crockford of json fame is the same Doug Crockford who put Manic Mansion out on the NES all those years ago
fascinating article on how the corporate tech co’s missed out on paid search whilst tech firms in general fail to hold on to their engineering talent at their peril before concluding a twisting tale with an attack on the tangible value of Facebook’s ever-changing ‘platform’. On this last point, I’d offer up that if Facebook really does want to transition it’s users to a social search and thus mark Facebook at the heart of it, it needs to ensure a watertight vision for it’s ecosystem – something it’s abjectly failing to do at the minute with it’s myriad API breaks & deprecations
Continue reading ‘Friday Linkdump’
A few thoughts on the creations unveiled at last week’s showcase show and tell conference in the Maiden City.
First up, the keynote from NYSE (who bought up NI startup Wombat Financial Software in Belfast). To be honest the corporate speak gave me flashbacks of what it’s like to work in that dreary environment. But 500 jobs isn’t to be sniffed at, and neither is their plans to create an API for 3rd party development to offer services based on their stock ticker platform. While it likely doesn’t go far enough – I’d like to see it made public so that independent programmer/traders like myself could start playing with it – it’s a step in that direction and is to be widely welcomed.
Not so welcome was the sole question for the guy, which wasn’t really a question at all – more a plea to help all the unemployed people around Derry (not to mention “6,000 on the dole in Inishowen”…) get jobs. That was the gist of it and it sounded desperately out of sync with a new outward-looking Northern Ireland unafraid to compete with the rest of the world on merit. Host for the day Mark Nagurski moulded it diplomatically into a question about why NYSE likes NI. Hooray.
Now the startups…
Continue reading ‘Showtime In Londonderry’
In the days before the web backpacking was a step into the unknown.
Now it’s largely a step onto Google.
In order to recreate that sense of adventure we are forced to either go to new extremes or remix the old ways of overland travel with our new found ubiquity. This is an account of a two week excursion into South East Europe via the cheap ‘n easy Ryanair into Zadar, Croatia and following on with sleeping rough through several of the Former Yugoslav states, taking in the obligatory Norn Iron international in Montenegro before crashing out on a beach in Greece by way of Mytikas.
Continue reading ‘Sleeping Rough in the Balkans’
Google App Engine is a fast way to get into the fundamentals of cloud computing. But as well as having it’s share of important technical restrictions there are also some structural kinks like no support for naked domains and a limit of 10 apps per user account. Fortunately there are hacks around both:
Continue reading ‘Some App Engine Hacks’
“and some other guy was wanking in dark street corner looking at women passing by.”
Zappos, that customer relationship poster boy, started out as a droppshipper
Middlemen not to be confused with MiddleMan is on US release today. No sign of UK date yet
relevant: how to sleep outside for free
Continue reading ‘Friday Linkdump’
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