Category: Uncategorized

Big Brother Google

1984 came and went, and it turned out that Orwell’s version of the future didn’t come to pass, at least on the date he foretold. Privacy is a huge issue on the internet and sometimes there’s a grey line when it comes with gathering user data. Google recently announced that it will be consolidating all the data it tracks about you across all of its products. It does this with the best intentions, both for you and for itself, but this can be a dangerous power that I’m not sure I trust Google with.

It isn’t that I have anything against Google or that I have anything to hide myself. However, Google having this amount of data can be very hazardous with our government in the state that it’s in. There’s way too many tyrannical laws being passed through Congress these days. The government has given itself way too much power and we’re just waiting around for the executive to be elected that will make full use of this power.

Google’s data collection may be great for their ad revenue plans, but the chance of the government deciding that it wants access to any or all of that data is what upsets me. Google should reconsider the amount of data it retains from it’s users. This is essential to eliminating the “big brother” factor.

Funny vWorker Job Posting


One of the most entertaining emails I received daily is the vWorkers mailer. It is a list of all the latest freelance work that is available at vWorker.com. It’s entertaining because of some of the amazing things some people want written for peanuts. There are many foreign programmers waiting on job vacancies like this, and they are willing to work for near nothing. However, it still gives me a good chuckle when someone thinks they have come up with some amazing idea and just need someone to code it. Why is that funny? Because most people have good ideas, even those idiot code monkeys. The main difference is that a code monkey realizes when an idea is ridiculous.

Today’s job posting was funny for a whole new reason. The irony in this post is just amazing. Here is a screen shot of the listing. I’ve highlighted a clue to the irony. Enjoy!

Adobe Cancels 64bit Linux Flash beta

For many years, the internet has been plagued by a dependency on the proprietary software known as Adobe Flash. There are plenty of open alternatives that could be used, but from the beginnings of the internet, ShockWave and Flash have been used by many websites.

Flash has been used for everything from buttons and banners to games and complete user interfaces. It’s a very powerful tool, but it is outdated and is maintained exclusively by Adobe. While the Flash player browser plugin is completely free, the tools to create Flash content are not. There in lies the trouble. Being closed source, Flash depends on Adobe development. There are many people who use 64-bit Linux as their primary OS. Adobe has canceled development on the 64-bit version of there Flash plugin. This means that simple things like Youtube videos won’t work on 64bit Linux.

This is why proprietary formats are bad. Hopefully things will improve as more and more webmasters turn to HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript for their Dynamic content needs.

iTunes University

I have to admit, I wasn’t a fan of iTunes until I got my first Mac Mini. I started listening to one of the radio stations on it. To be exact, I liked the solo piano station. I wasn’t aware of many of the features on iTunes.

Recently I decided to take up iPhone app development. I found a great course on iTunesU. It’s a complete Stanford Univerity course on iPhone development. It is made up of around 20 videos.

So I started to browse through some of the other courses available on iTunesU. Man, I can not explain how excited I was when I started reading through all the available course. I know, most people won’t care about lecture videos. However, I love it. I’m sitting here watching a lecture on Physics from MIT. This is great stuff.