I can’t turn on the TV, surf the web, or peer into my Twitter feed without stumbling into another year-end wrap-up of 2010. These dime-a-dozen contrivances abound like the proverbial lemming to the cliff (lemmings don’t really do that, it’s also a contrivance). However, there have been enough of some…
This may be somewhat old news by now, but given the hubbub last night that Apple and some makers of apps for the iPhone are getting sued over tracking users without consent, it seems that the struggle between privacy and features will never be old news. Back at the dawn…
First off, let me apologize for ending the title of this post with a preposition. I am playing off an idiom, so I think I have some leeway. Besides, “You get that for which you pay” just doesn’t roll off the tongue. In the last week I have watched two…
In an effort to help educate the general public about its browser, Chrome, and the web in general, Google released an online “book” called 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web. Done in the style of an illustrated children’s book that allows readers to flip through the pages,…
Today Opera Software released data about how users of its Opera Mini mobile web browser use the web. Opera does this periodically to give some insight into how its users may be surfing, but what we don’t know is how much Opera Mini users correspond to the web in general.…
Yesterday I covered an example of lawsuits sparked by teachers unions and school boards over social media policies. Today I’ll carry it a little further with another case involving unions as well as a professional association. Complaining about Your Job An employee at an ambulance company, faced with complaints on…
Back when I first started pitching the idea of developing a social media policy for an organization, it was really two-fold. The first part was the key part to me — outline a process and rules for your organization to communicate using social media. Having a process for responding to…
If you are in the United States and not dead, it’s kind of hard to miss all the chaos leading up to election day next week. Surprisingly, not a lot of people seem to know where their voting place is or even if they are registered to vote. Conveniently, Google…
The history of the web is littered with unexpected patent claims that feel frivolous to nearly all. These are driven partly by a terrible system for reviewing and awarding patents and a litigious society that sustains a business model of lawsuits in the hopes that some will just pay.The latest…
This is somewhat old news now (it’s 5 days old — an eternity) but I think it bears mentioning. The URL shortener Vb.ly was shut down by the Libyan government when it seized control of the domain Vb.ly. The Libyan government runs Nic.ly, the registrar for all things Libyan. Nic.ly…
I regularly come across reports and studies that talk about how smartphones are a growing platform, outpacing PCs in some markets and/or demographics, essentially re-writing how we use the web. Most of those reports lack hard data or lack solid analysis of that data, however, and fall prey to best…
I will be speaking twice in September, both of them sponsored by Infotech Niagara. If you’re in the Buffalo area, these are great opportunities to boost my ego and watch me cruise abandoned plates for food. Developing Coding Standards The first event is Developing Coding Standards, where I will be…