Techie :: Techno ::: December 2005 Archives

One of the more commonly asked questions on both mailing lists and fora is related to e-commerce, or more specifically accepting payments on your website. I've put together this brief guide in order to help webmasters, or at least point them in the right direction. If anybody has any additions or corrections please let me know.

Rss feeds can be a little boring. Although you can syndicate your blog's content you may feel that you are missing out on some of the interactive elements that readers can get directly on your blog.

A couple of months ago I mentioned RTE's plans to offer streaming video. In a related announcement they have become the first associate member of INEX, the Irish Internet neutral exchange.

My old Dell laptop finally died a few weeks ago. It had been on its "last legs" for quite some time, but when the screen refused to display anything the other week I knew it was no more

Unless your site is for a very select number of people whose choice of browser is restricted, such as may be the case on a company network, website developers / publishers / designers need to take into consideration the cross-browser aspect.

I would love to know what the criteria for the Golden Spiders judges was in selecting the Cork City website for a prize. It certainly wasn't for it's design! Try viewing the damned page with the announcement

From DRI : "Next Tuesday, the 13th of December, the European Parliament will vote on a Data Retention Directive [1]. This proposes to extend data retention to the Internet, and will result in your ISPs logging every email you send, every web page you visit, and everything else you do online and storing that information for several years. We urge you to email, fax or phone your MEPs [2] as soon as possible to express your opposition to this measure, which will introduce mass surveillance of every man, woman and child in the EU. As to what you should say, it is best if that comes directly from what you consider important. However, Privacy International and EDRI have adopted a position [3] (which DRI has endorsed) setting out five key criticisms of the Directive. Feel free to copy and paste these if you wish. 1. This Directive invades the privacy of all Europeans. The Directive calls for the indiscriminate collection and retention of data on a wide range of Europeans' activities. Never has a policy been introduced that mandates the mass storage of information for the mere eventuality that it may be of interest to the State at some point in the future. 2. The proposed Directive is illegal. It contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights by proposing the indiscriminate and disproportionate recording of sensitive personal information. Political, legal, medical, religious and press communications would be logged, exposing such information to use and abuse. 3. The Directive threatens consumer confidence. More than 58,000 Europeans have already signed a petition opposing the Directive. A German poll revealed that 78% of citizens were opposed to a retention policy. The Directive will have a chilling effect on communications activity as consumers may avoid participating in entirely legal transactions for fear that this will be logged for years. 4. The Directive burdens EU industry and harms global competitiveness. Retention of all this data creates additional costs of hundreds of millions of Euros every year. These burdens are placed on EU industry alone. The U.S., Canada and the Council of Europe have already rejected retention. 5. The Directive requires more invasive laws. Once adopted, this Directive will prove not to be the ultimate solution against serious crimes. There will be calls for additional draconian measures including: * the prior identification of all those who communicate, thus requiring ID cards at cybercafes, public telephone booths, wireless hotspots, and identification of all pre-paid clients; * the banning of all international communications services such as webmail (e.g. Hotmail and Gmail) and blocking the use of non-EU internet service providers and advanced corporate services. Helpfully, we in Ireland are in a unique position to lobby our MEPs - because the Government has already stated it is so opposed to this particular draft that they will bring a case to the European Court of Justice to block it if the European Parliament approves it. Thus even MEPs from the Government Parties have no reason to support the proposed text in Tuesday's vote. It is not too late to stop this law: please join us by contacting your MEPs to say no to a surveillance society. [1] http://www.ispai.ie/051202EUDR.pdf [2] http://www.ispai.ie/Irish-MEPs.doc [3] http://wiki.dataretentionisnosolution.com:81/images/8/86/Finalstatement.pdf"

I recently posted about the importance of maintaining accurate information in domain whois. Earlier today (yesterday if you want to be really pedantic) the GAO (US Government Accountability Office) released its report on INTERNET MANAGEMENT- Prevalence of False Contact Information for Registered Domain Names. (pdf)

Justin Mason has announced the release of SpamAssassin 3.0.5.

The debacle surrounding data retention in Europe (and Ireland) has been dragging on for the last couple of years.

As Christmas will be upon us all very soon it is only natural that people are organising presents - both personal and corporate.

A new magazine, 03, was recently launched to cater to:

.... IT professionals with current or planned future deployments involving open source, or those interested in the cost saving benefits of using open source solutions in an enterprise environment. O3 should also appeal to the small business owner who is interested in a strong, secure and scalable IT infrastructure without incurring high deployment costs

For further details and to download a copy see their site

A lot of small to medium sized businesses do not have dedicated IT staff. They may outsource to an IT services company, but more often than not somebody is "elected" as the resident "IT expert" as they know slightly more than their colleagues.

The EU domain will enter sunrise 1 later this week, so if you hold a trademark you really should make sure that your request is submitted. If you don't have a trademark you can still apply during the sunrise 2 period if you hold a "prior right". Of course .eu isn't the only "show" in town. A lot of people seem to forget about other regional TLDs. If you are selling into other EU country markets then it makes sense to protect your brand as much as possible.

According to a press release from Free Software Foundation France, the French government is on the point of banning free software.

The SugarCRM team announce that v4 beta of the Open Source CRM is now available for download.