June 2008 Archives

When I expressed my leeriness about using foreign-based social networking sites and applications, you may wonder why. Most, if not all of these web sites have privacy statements, some with great detail, some just "we protect your privacy" at the bottom of a page. Being in the US, my expectations are that my private data will be protected and that if for some reason it is lost, stolen, or misused, that I may have legal recourse. Okay, I know, fat chance, but at least there is a chance. Patriot Act and FISA courts not withstanding, for the most part, we do have protection.

The clause in most privacy statements that cause me the most heartburn is this one, taken from a unnamed social web site:

Disclosures Required by Law: We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information when we believe in good faith that an applicable law, regulation, or legal process requires it, or when we believe disclosure is necessary to protect or enforce our rights or the rights of another user.

Sounds fair, right? You would want to be protected from whatever. The phrase that concerns me is the applicable law, regulation, or legal process one. In the US, it would be state and/or federal law and the privacy statement would say what state has jurisdiction in its matters. And that is why I always check where the web site is hosted and the company is located.

The problem with this particular privacy statement is that the web site and its company are located in Mainland China. Yes, those friendly folks who brought you the Tiananmen Square massacre, harsh treatment of practitioners of feng shui, and persecution of the Tibetan followers of the Dalai Lama. So, you think that since they are hosting the Olympics that all is changed? No censorship? No theft of your personal data? In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to worry. Since we don't live in one, we even have to worry in the US.

For real! I am still constantly amazed at the width and breadth of the new frontiers that are being explored (and exploited) in Internet-aided social networking. Being the übergeek, I tend to get totally lost in what I term as link digression, the downward spiral of looking at references to other neat stuff found while looking for neat stuff. Strange way to express it, I know, but totally fits the activity.

You may have noticed a stub page here on the web site to try and connect the dots in my personal social network. It is hardly started because I find myself going deeper and deeper in the available tools. One site I made the mistake of going to is Mashable, self-termed as the #1 Social Networking and Social Media News Blog. I call it a place to get lost for hours, especially the get-an-invite section, to get an invitation to a newly released beta platform.

While it does provide for hours of entertainment, I do find that some of the social whatevers are simply repeats or wannabees or sad imitations. Also, I am leery at some of their intent in the area of th protection of your personal data. I make it a point to check the domain registration as well. Found one that looked very interesting, a just in time RSS aggregation tool that provides alerts via IM (yes, yet another one of those). The name sounded strange, foreign... did a quick whois and found that the owner and the hosting is located in China. Crossed that one off the list.

So as the adventure continues, I will get around to adding some notes and links and general impressions of these wide-ranging tools, both on the blog and in the Social section of the web site. Oh, and of note, I happened across the Webware 100 awards... like I needed another list of applications to look through...

That is the only word I can use to describe the accident that I spent four hours at last night. Senseless loss of life. I dread it when the tones come across my pager for an accident. It is a part of what we do, our service to the community in times of need, but we would so much rather just be there in case of need than to have to respond to it. Late night on a road nearby that is known for its sharp declining curves, when you hear a call for an accident on it, you know that it will not be good, as if any accident ever serves a useful purpose.

When the response comes for our rescue truck for entrapment and for the fire police to close down a road, along with extra ambulances and medics, you only hope that we are not necessary, that everything is okay. But when you hear a medical helicopter placed on alert and then hear that their services as well as the EMT's are canceled, but rescue is told to continue in, your heart sinks. Last night was one of those nights.

For whatever the cause of the accident, two young men, high school students, lost their lives. Over the past two years, it is the third fatal accident in that stretch of road. Their families and friends gathered at either end of the scene. Our job was to light the scene for the investigators as well as provide a perimeter to keep onlookers well back from the area. The clusters of people, obviously their classmates, clinging to each other, crying, consoling, asking why, why this had happened. Our job is to assist the police in their reconstruction, but also to provide for the safety of all who were at the scene, both working and grieving.

Seeing the kids, wrought with the pain of losing someone close to them, and the adults, either relieved it was not their son or daughter, came together to try and make sense of and begin the recovery from such a senseless accident. Senseless, that two young men will never get to see adulthood and live full lives. Senseless, that their parents and siblings have lose a part of their family. Senseless, that their friends and classmates have to grow up very quickly to see someone's life snuffed out in a moment.

I am not one to make a judgment on the cause of the accident. Those details will come out in the days and weeks ahead. It is, though, a reminder to all of us, to slow down a bit, pay attention more when we are behind the wheel. When I walked down to the scene, it was not until I was only a few feet away that I could even begin to tell what make of vehicle it was, and then only by the manufacturer's emblem. So many times, we feel that when we are surrounded by steel and airbags, that we are invincible. We aren't. We are frail in comparison to the forces of an accident, even a minor one. No matter what auto maker says about this safety feature or that improvement, the overriding laws of physics still remain.

My thoughts are with those who lost someone in that accident last night.

Finally, I can see the last 200 gallons or so of brackish (mild statement) water at the bottom of our pool. The biggest problem is getting those last gallons out of the pool. I have been using a heavy-duty submersible sump pump (clearly marked as not for use in swimming pools) with great success. Now, at the deep end of the pool with so little water in it, the challenge is getting the pump to sit upright so that the water level switch is upright enough to turn (and keep) the pump running. So far, so good.

My little amphibian friends who had taken up residence in the pool are almost gone. I have three stragglers that I need to coerce a bit while the rest of the water drains since the next step in hyperchlorination - shocking what little water is left while I refill with clean water. That process will kill of the algae and any other growing matter to be swept away through the filtration system. The frogs will not want to be in there when that happens so I need to get them migrated to a nearby stream with their compadres.

Back to work!

Yes, yet more to be read (your mileage may vary). I was looking for one thing, found it, but got lost in a never-ending spiral of link digression. Oh well...

• PrivateLine, telephone company-related history (fascinating article on the old Letter and Number System ... my old home number was in the JAckson 7 exchange) (via Frank Harrell's web sites)

I should really go back to using Furl or del.icio.us or whatever. Add it to the To Do list.

And the someone knows who she is. Even though it didn't arrive until today, it made this past Sunday even more special and made me feel like I can have that particular day again.

Trying out SmugMug as an alternative to Flickr. Flickr has just plain got me mad at them, courtesy of Yahoo IDs and trying to combine accounts and frustrating me on both when they don't work. Trying to merge puts me in an endless loop of is this what you want to do and then not doing it. Since I was considering going pro, I might as well pay the money to a place that appears to have their collective act together and not be tied to one particular ID/email address system. Off to investigate their API's and such as well as upload a few pictures while I grab a shower (cleaning the pool is nasty smelling business).

Thinking about it, maybe I will post the SmugMug album covers on Flickr to get it noticed on all the feeds. Not a bad idea!

Lord, I just have to laugh... I read this article on Blorge about the UK social network called Faceparty - gee, wonder how they came up with that name? In the ever diligent Web 2.0 world to keep the predators away from the children (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong), they have decided that no one over the age of 35 can gain access/membership on Faceparty. Well, if you take a look at their log in to our network suggestion highlighted in the graphic at the right, who over the age of 8 would? Better yet, what parent would allow their child to do so?

Oops, I forgot - mom and dad just park their kids in front of the computer and trust them to make the right decision. Pardon me for being so stupid.

The reason I am pointing this article out is for the arbitrary age that was picked. They even admit it is arbitrary. Using Google, most sources state that the demographical profile of the typical sexual predator is difficult to define. Some say that there is a 95/5 percent male versus female, while others say it is closer to 75/25. The average age is anywhere from 30 to 45, depending upon the study. But, a more salient fact is one that you read far too often: Only a fraction of those who commit sexual assault are apprehended and convicted for their crimes. So, registration and the statistics and cross-reference databases yield are only a partial view of the predators that lurk on the Internet.

What is truly needed is for the public and those who use the social networks to wake up and realize that your privacy can be compromised and that you are the only one who is ultimately responsible for your safety. Not the service provider, not the government, not some idiot who uses a dartboard to determine a random number. You would no sooner publicize your personal telephone number or social security number on a road-side sign, so why do it on a network connected venue.

And, of course, someone had to buy a domain name to make light of Faceparty's decision.

Please go over to my Important Legislation page and read how you can help get legislation passed to help Pennsylvania's volunteer firefighters and EMT personnel! Call and email your PA House Representative today to encourage their support and quick passage of Senate Bills 1169, 1315, 1315, and 1316 this legislative session!

The live scanner stream is off-line, courtesy of a Comcrash outage after last night's heavy thunderstorms. As soon as we get service restored, the stream will be back online.

Update: the stream is back on-line!

Always forget to change my Technorati Profile when I move things around. So, here is the verification entry.

Today, I am planning on spending the afternoon at the fire station. Temperatures are expected close to 100°F (38°C) and an air-conditioned office sounds like the best spot to be. I am going to try and clean out all the old web pages which interfere with the new site layout, as well as get the pictures posted from yesterday's equipment competition and parade in West Chester.

Tonight, we have our first township concert at Miller Park, featuring the Fabulous Greaseband, hot music on a hot summer evening. The music starts at 6:30 pm and is free to all. Bring a chair and enjoy the sounds!

I'll be out there with the Fire Police, providing traffic and parking control - uniform of the day is shorts and bright orange shirts, along with the usual traffic vest, just trying to keep cool.

While looking for something else, things for the To Be Read box:

• Some nifty MT4-compatible plugins (finally)
  
• Movable Type Plugin: Joomsayer
• Movable Type Plugin: Sociotags
• Movable Type Plugin: Curvaceous
• and a bit of Micro$oft humor
• Automattic Stats for MT
• MT Plugin, Xomment (to improve the comment experience)
• Evernote (capture, sync, find)
• Plurk (your life, on the line) and an MT4 plugin
  

And, of course, MT 4.2 - they never stand still at Six Apart!

Right now, I have to get moving!

I was reading through some saved links and found, by mistake, an entry about a tool I used to use quite frequently called Zempt. So, I reinstalled it and am giving it a swing! Will have to drop a note to Toby Simmons who appears to have picked up the support and development of this fine tool, as well as mention the need to add tags in addition to keywords. Also, find it humorous - the preview tab is preset to use his WordPress layout.

Those are the words of who we need to elect in November. Speaking before a crowd in Mitchell, SD, he ended his speech with a story about an encounter he had early in the campaign season.

Go out to the media sites and find today's speech. Amazing how a story can get a crowd energized and, hopefully, our party in motion for victory in November.

I know that sounds harsh, but it is true. There is even a Wikipedia entry on the subject (doesn't surprise me). For the uninitiated, let me give an example. Let's say I have a nice picture on my web site. You come surfing through and think Geez, that would look nice on my web site! Since I do plainly post both copyright and Creative Commons licenses, I have no problems with others using my published works, provided they give me credit for it. And the term using implies that they serve it from their host, not mine.

Trivial, you say. What are a few extra bytes down the stream? Those few extra bytes add up very quickly if you decide to hot link to my graphic on MySpace or Facebook or some random message board. Last year, I was working on a client's web site. The traffic levels were very consistent from day to day until one day, the site's bandwidth went up 3000%, a trend that only grew. I found out that someone had hotlinked a 125 KB graphic on a page that was featured on Digg, Wired, Slashdot, and a number of other high traffic drawing sites. Bottom line is that my client, not the offender, suddenly had overage charges for bandwidth. Simple equation: bandwidth = money. It also degrades the victim's own web site.

My usual tactic is to change the name of the graphic and modify my site to the new name. Pain in the butt and yes, costs me time to do it. Then the offender gets a broken image and, yes, I get an additional 404 (file not found) line in my log files.

If you are serving your web site with Apache and have mod_rewrite enabled, another method is available. Simply add the following lines to the .htaccess file in your web root directory:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|js|css|swf|png)$ - [F]

substituting your domain name in it. The drawback of this is that you cannot use your own images on other web sites outside the domain unless you modify the rules for each reference (PITA).

And, of course, retribution can be fun too. This can be done with method 1, replacing the hotllinked file with it, or with some server side tricks, like mod_rewrite or scripting. The "it" is a graphic that will give a subtle hint to the offender that you are really displeased with what they are doing...




Sad to say, this either draws flames or, worse yet, more folks hotlinking to it.

What's the best way to deal with it? Most times, I leave them a comment or send them an email and ask them to conform to the rules of common courtesy. If that doesn't work, I just remove/rename the graphic. It all takes time, time that I could be doing more resourceful things.