Dark Side of the Carton

I don’t know what mine is either, but apparently Yahoo was unable to save them:

I just blindly upgraded this site to WordPress 2.5 and wow. I figured it would be a minor upgrade, but there is a completely revamped dashboard and admin backend to this thing that is stellar. Great job guys, I am really loving the changes.

There is no denying the speed or convenience of using instant messaging for communication. Phone calls are good, email is better, and IM is the best. Since about 2006 I’ve been using Trillian for my IM needs. Trillian uses an XML based client side file to store your buddies and their aliases. The lack of a solid server side buddy sync has driven me away from the popular IM client. Well, that and the fact that it’s become a piece of bloatware only rivaled by Firefox in terms of its sluggish response.

Previously known as Gaim, Pidgin is an open source alternative that has really come into it’s own. With a GTK+ based UI, Pidgin can take any of the existing GTK+ application themes out there and use them natively. It’s lightweight, responsive, and works very well and though it took me over an hour to recreate my Trillian buddy list complete with aliases, my buddies are now stored on their respective server’s so if I have the need to use Meebo as my web based IM client, I have access to my up to date buddy list.

I haven’t been happier.

Dictionary.com defines a journalist as “a writer for newspapers and magazines”. After Gizmodo’s recent actions at CES where they openly admit to using a device called TV-B-Gone, it’s no surprise that the definition doesn’t include websites. This is not to say that there isn’t some high quality work being done by online journalists, just that running a blog and pretending you are a journalist doesn’t in fact make you one.

Gizmodo is the Gawker owned blog that is also responsible for slapping a profane internet picture by the name of “tubgirl” up on a fellow Gawker’s blog for more than an hour. If you don’t know what “tubgirl” is, just take my word that you don’t need to see this particular picture.

By all accounts, Gizmodo gives off the appearance of being a legitimate site with content that is worthwhile and interesting, but that is really where the legitimacy ends. The Editor in Chief of the site, Brian Lam, has shown for the second time in recent months that he is nothing more than an immature asshole with no regard for other peoples work or livelihood.

Maybe Gizmodo really doesn’t want to be taken seriously and would rather face the struggles of a small time site that doesn’t get invites to trade shows or press only events. Maybe they revel in the fact that proper journalism comes off as stuffy where blogging is hip and trendy and gives you street cred or something.

As someone who runs an online gaming site that began as a gaming blog of sorts and has transitioned into what I would hope is viewed as a professionally run site with journalists on my staff, I am appalled at Gizmodo’s actions and their lack of regard for others. Their stunt may have been fun and a little funny, but that doesn’t change the outcome that it has on other online media outlets. Some of us have worked very hard to establish ourselves as legitimate sources of information and news and stunts like this cast a shadow of immaturity on the rest of us.

Thanks Brian and Gizmodo, you’re making it harder for the rest of us. Why don’t you do all of us a favor and just fire yourselves and call it a day.

Sites like GameRankings, MetaCritic, and GameStats are what the lazy people of the internet use to gauge a game’s overall quality. The theory behind this is that on average, a large sampling of reviews will give you a proper perspective of the game. I would tend to agree. Being a Statistics geek, the previous statement only holds true if you have a large enough sample size. How big of a sample size is necessary? That is anyone’s guess at this point and not really the focus of this post.

Getting your site listed on these major aggregate sites is by no means easy. There is essentially a single entry path to gaining acceptance on the list, something my site still has yet to do after 5 years and 800 reviews with the exception of GameStats. Our previous attempts to get into the good graces of Game Rankings were met with a stern response about the design of our site, that the editor in question didn’t happen to like. The other reason we weren’t included was that we didn’t officially have a numeric scoring system, something we officially fixed about 6 months ago. Talking about the faults with the numeric scoring system is something I want to revisit at another time though.

One of the more interesting things you will notice when visiting any of these sites today is who they are owned by. GameRankings and MetaCritic are both owned by CNET. Guess who else is owned by CNET? That’s right, GameSpot. What about GameStats? Owned by IGN Networks, as is the popular movie site Rotten Tomatoes. These aggregate sites exist to provide a fair and unbiased look at all of the published reviews on a given game, or at least they used to.

Now before I start accusing anyone of not playing fair I took a quick look at a few sample games on all of the sites. MetaCritic sorts their external review links based on score so there is no blatant attempt to direct traffic to their sister site at GameSpot. GameRankings goes one step further and actually seems to exclude an article listing for GameSpot reviews, a move that actually surprises me quite a bit. I mean, why wouldn’t you at least include a link if you own both sites? The sorting method on GR appears to be random or sorted by a piece of data that the end users don’t have, making it difficult to find a particular outlet’s rating.

GameStats took a little different approach and included coverage from IGN’s site, but actually lists content in the reverse order that it was added to the site, leaving the top links on the page to the sites that get coverage up last. An odd method for sure.

When I set out to write this post, I figured for sure that I would see some malicious behavior using these massive aggregate sites to push traffic to sites also in their respective networks, but it doesn’t appear to be the case. In all liklihood, the staff and original owners of the sites maintained control over the sites even after being purchased by CNET or IGN Networks and have taken a hard line to ensure that they don’t appear to come off as biased.

Now if I could only get myself on the GameRankings list…

I always find it funny when large companies use the same stock photos. This guy is showing up on Verizon.com right now as well as the Publisher front page for Yahoo’s ad service (sometimes, it’s a rotating photo).

There are a lot of tools out there for doing basic port scans on your edge devices. These tools are unnecessary if you access to a remote machine outside your network, but they come in real handy if you don’t. I saw this new tool on LifeHacker.com today and it’s a very nice simple tool that also packs in a GeoLocation feature that was more accurate than anything I’ve seen to date.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you need a remote port scanner, be sure to think YouGetSignal.com… or don’t.

The internet is a fascinating thing. It empowers us to feel connected to other people without actually talking to them. It’s the avenue with which most of us communicate with one another. It’s the lifeblood of the newer generations. That said, our friends at the Texas Department of Transportation took that away from me this weekend.

There is road construction on the major road near my house and midday on Friday our cable services went out. That meant no internet, no phone, and no TV. After 8 hours of downtime things finally came back up, but I don’t remember the last time I felt so “disconnected” and I can’t help but feel a little bit silly. I mean, its just the internet… right?

I have a feeling that this feeling of “connectivity” will only serve  to increase as the younger generations become more and more dependent upon the web for their communication and relationships. I have a feeling that this will not be a good thing moving forward.

I work in the vast world of “IT”. All that means to most people is that I have some sort of job related to computers. It could range from cleaning out the inside of computer cases all the way up to managing a multi-regional network complete with complex data links between each location. That is not really what this post is about though.  What it is about is the fact that I want Microsoft to release a Home Edition of Exchange.

You see, I have a full time day job complete with in-house Exchange server. I can access that email from anywhere via the web or remote desktop. I have 1 copy of those emails and I know how to get to them. I also run a side business if you will. That business revolves around communicating with PR people via email. Much to my frustration, I have a copy of those emails here at the office and at home in Outlook. Messages sent from the office, do not get put into my Sent Items folder at home and vice versa. This has created an email synchronization nightmare for me.

Sure, I could shell out for the full version of Exchange and the hardware to run it, but that is a pain and I’d prefer not to mess with it. What I really want is a version of Outlook or Exchange that is super light weight and meant for home users to access their email globally. I know I’m not the only person that jumps through hoops to check external email accounts.

I have found a few possible solutions that include a combination of hMailServer and Roundcube webmail as well as just using remote desktop or LogMeIn to get back to my home machine, but that’s a little cumbersome. I mean, they both work, but it ends up being slow.

In all honesty, I am not sure that a lightweight version of OWA would be all that much faster, but it would be nice to be able to get to that email via the web. Glad I finally got that off my chest.

I was recently checking out kids toys, I have 2 young ones, on the Fisher Price website and at some point it decided I didn’t have the most current flash player installed and I got to this hilarious page.

Whoops! You need to download Flash and/or Shockwave to play with this activity. You’ll need a grown-up to help you.

Flash allows you to view animated cartoons and interactive games online.

Shockwave is the Web standard for rich-media and allows you to view interactive web content and listen to music online.

There are 2 key elements that make this page funny. The first one is that FP assumes the person navigating the page is not in fact a “grown-up”. Do underage kids often surf the web looking for toys? Secondly, if so, does FP honestly think a child is interested in exactly what Flash/Shockwave IS? I get the intention with the cutesy page and the fact that the second message is probably meant for the grown-up I was supposed to fetch, but I think they failed in their execution.