BEST PRODUCT DESIGNS 2006

"BusinessWeek has published IDSA's annual list of the best designed products of the year." [via /.]

GOOGLE TO TEST PAYPAL RIVAL

"Google is set to introduce a test version of its GBuy online-payment service as early as this week, presaging a shake-up in the online-payments market now dominated by eBay's PayPal, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Here is how the service will work: Consumers who search for items like "shoes" or "strollers" on Google's search site will see text ads with a symbol or icon designating advertisers that accept GBuy payments. Shoppers normally would have clicked on an ad and been linked to that merchant's Web site. Now, while they will still be linked to the merchant's site, they will go through a different checkout process integrated with Google if they choose GBuy for their transaction. Details of the service could still change before Google's official GBuy announcement.'" [via /.]

THREE 3D WEB BROWSERS REVIEWED

"Use that graphics card for something besides games. ExtremeTech has a group review of three browsers that use some aspect of 3D to display the Web. While none of them are going to put Firefox or IE out of business any time soon, they're fun to play with and give a new slant to the Web."
From the article: "Whatever happened to the virtual reality, 3D world of the Web? Back in the late '90s, all the hype was about VRML -- Virtual Reality Markup Language -- which would turn the web into an immersive environment that you'd maneuver around to get to the information you wanted. We're here to tell you that the reports of the 3D Web's death are greatly exaggerated." [via /.]

STANDARDISATION IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Workshop: Standardisation in Software Development

You are all invited! The workshop will take place on Monday June 5, 2006 at Hotel Atrion (9 Xronaki Str.), Heraklion, at 18:00. Admission is free. See you there!

PUTTING MEDIAWIKI TO WORK

NewsForge (Also owned by VA) is running a short writeup on how to put MediaWiki to work for your organization. The writeup includes several addition tools that could be helpful in rounding out the overall package. From the article: " Imagine how useful it would be to have an online knowledge base that can easily be updated created by key people within your organization. That's the promise of a wiki -- a Web application that 'allows users to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit all content, very quickly and easily,' as Wikipedia, perhaps the best-known wiki, puts it. Why not bring the benefits of a wiki to your organization?" [via /.]

MIT PROJECT TO CONVERT MOBILE PHONE USERS INTO PODCASTERS

A new research project at MIT's Media Lab, entitled RadioActive, aims to turn every cell phone or PDA carrying member of the public into a podcaster, and every mobile device into a virtual podcasting studio. The project defines a large-scale asynchronous audio messaging system in which voice messages can be threaded like text in a discussion forum (like on Slashdot) as a method of 'discussion-on-demand.' [via /.]

CAN PEER-TO-PEER FINANCE WORK?

"Two companies, Prosper and Zopa, appear to be convinced that social networking can be combined with borrowing and lending. They're intent on using eBay as a model for listing and bidding on loans without the involvement of a bank. Call it peer-to-peer finance. There are already some 800 groups on Prosper ready to loan money to specific causes, such as the Apple User Group, 'a lending group for those wishing to purchase either a Macintosh or Apple iPod.'" [via /.]

GOOGLE RELEASES AJAX FRAMEWORK

Google released a new AJAX framework based on Java. From Google's mouth: "Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language." This impressive framework promises to make AJAX available to the masses and is one more step towards Google becoming the de facto Internet platform provider. [via /.]

2006 WEBBY AWARDS

The winners of the 2006 Webby Awards have been anounced. [via /.]

CASE STUDY: INTERNET-ENABLED RADIO/PODCASTING - INNOVATION MANAGEMENT & NEW BUSINESS MODELS

How could traditional radio stations benefit from recent socio-technological developments such as podcasting? And what about the commercial viability of "new unconventional" radio stations, some of which effectively capitalise on volunteer contributions (of course, on the other hand, it should be noted that upon first glance such practices are predicated on the potential for end-user innovation and empowerment)? Which revenue-streams & business-models are being endangered or made possible precisely because of these developments? This case study aims at discussing and exploring such questions.

The links below are the essential background reading for this case-study:

• Wikipedia entry for podcasting
• September 2005 First Monday article entitled "Podcasting: A new technology in search of viable business models"
• KYOURADIO: World's 1st podcast-based radio station & related article

The "Social collaborative filtering" way to listen to radio & play music

• Last.fm
• Pandora

Streaming

• Shoutcast.com

More...

• Launchcast
• Nova Planet (FR)

TUTORIAL: APACHE/MYSQL/PHP

Download and install the apache http server, mysql and php (on winxp), and then (download first) install mediawiki and/or joomla which you will populate at a later stage with content/data.

tip: you could use EasyPHP or any other similar tool/suite of appz.

WOULD YOU BECOME A CYBORG?

Social Consequences and Effects of RFID Implants?

"Even with all the talk about privacy and security, there seems to be a growing community of people who are implanting themselves with RFID chips. Being a developer myself, I am intrigued about building applications and solutions that will open my doors, unlock my car, log me on to my computer and control home automation. I'm seriously considering jumping into this head first, being on the bleeding edge, and going with an implant. I have looked at resources like Mikey Sklar's site, and Amal Graafstra's site, since they are two pioneers on this subject. For research, I have started TaggedLife to document my own journey. I was wondering what the Slashdot community think about this. What do you think are the social, security, privacy, and health risks associated with this? What are the pluses? Would you do it?" [via /.]

the threaded discussion over at /. is also interesting to follow.

CMS OR NO CMS FOR ART & BUSINESS?

Conrast http://the-raft.com/fsol/ to http://www.raft.vmg.co.uk/fsol/ .

Both sites present themselves as the homepage of the fsol (wikipedia links to another site as the official fsol site), yet the former is an e-business venture and the latter has an artistic edge. this is one reason why this juxtaposition is interesting; another is that it also entails looking at these two systems from the perspective of the underlying motor: the former website would be practically impossible to implement with no CMS, whereas the latter seems to strive very efficiently without one. of course, i've no idea how often, or not, the latter is also updated, changed, having new content added or its form transformed. what do you think?

WEB APPZ Vs. DESKTOP APPZ

"ThinkFree Online is, simply put, Office without the Microsoft, a collection of free online apps that support and contain most features found in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. ThinkFree has just released a major upgrade to its features, bumping its online storage to 1GB for each user and adding a lightweight AJAX-based collaboration feature. ExtremeTech has an interesting review of ThinkFree Online's applications and features which reveals a lot to like about this improved webware and, while it may have its occasional quirks, can be great for those who want to edit and create documents on the fly." [via /.]

...To what extent and under which circumstances are web applications going to replace desktop applications?

AJAX & THE KEN BURNS EFFECT

"IBM DeveloperWorks has an interesting project posted that shows how to design a client-side slide show using the 'Ken Burns Effect.' From the article: 'If the Web 2.0 revolution has one buzzword, it's Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax). [...] Here, you discover how to build XML data sources for Ajax, request XML data from the client, and then dynamically create and animate HTML elements with that XML.'" [via /.]

NEXT IN BROWSER DEVELOPMENT, HIGH DPI WEBSITES?

"In a post at the WebKit blog, Dave Hyatt raises interesting points about the future of web development and browsers. He says, that with screens getting more and more pixels, it is imperative website design takes the next step: High DPI Website rendering. This could mean that a CSS pixel (px) is rendered as a 2x2 pixelblock. In the article he also mentions WebKit will be providing possibilities to use SVG for all kinds of purposes, like backgrounds. He calls upon other browser developers to take part in the discussion so that 'concrete standards in this area can be hammered out.'" [via /.]

UPDATE ON BROWSER WARS

In this interesting paper by Harvard Business School professor Pai-Ling Yin and Stanford professor Timothy F. Bresnahan, entitled "Economic and Technical Drivers of Technology Choice: Browsers" (synopsis here), issues central to the management of innovation & technology in a highly competitive market galvanised by uncertainty and technological distruption, are addressed on the basis of the past, present, and likely future outcome of browser wars.

...with respect to IE and Netscape, the authors conclude that "distribution had a larger effect on the rate and direction of technical change than technical browser improvements", effectively echoing the claims of previous research that concluded that technological superiority is possibly not the most crucial factor determining further technological development (the case of Betamax Vs. VHS is the archetypical point of reference, as Betamax lost the format war to VHS despite its being touted for being a superior technology).

...also worth noting is that in the analysis particular attention is laid on the role of a first-mover advantage, as well as under which circumstances is a second-mover likely to unseat the incumbent.

CASE STUDY FOR BUSINESS ANALYSIS: GOOGLE

"Businessweek confronts Google naysayers with an analysis of the company's business structure, arguing that its unique structure lends it the flexibility to adapt to any and all markets: 'Google is actually the first company with a brand that is built entirely on stem cells: able to grow and develop into whatever form it sees fit.' The article predicts significant changes for the company in communications, hardware, entertainment and localization and goes on to argue that Google is on the verge of achieving the holy grail of branding--being all things to all markets." [via /.]

ISN'T IT SEMANTIC?

The British Computer Society interviews Sir TBL. Well worth a read.

BTW, TBL has recently started blogging on all things semantic. His insightful weblog is here. Welcome to the 'sphere Tim, and many thanks for your gift to us all.

THE WEB DEVELOPER'S JOB: FOLKLORE & FACT

"Google released the first public beta of its Google Pages service Wednesday, allowing users who signed up for the service in January and February to begin creating personal websites using an easy-to-use, browser-based tool. The service gives each user 100 MB of free storage space on Google's servers. To use the Google Page Creator tool, users must have an existing Google account. However, only those who signed up early (in January and February) to use Google Pages have access to the current beta. No new signups are being accepted at this time, Google said. The company is expected to open Page Creator to more widespread use over the next few weeks." [via /.]

Does Google's Pages Service, and similarly-positioned free web-based services (think weblogs at large), point to a not that distant era in which a web developer's role will be confined to rather "theoretical" contributions - such as information architecture or usability evaluation or even conceptualising the easthetical dimension of the site - to the process of developing a business-orinted website? What does the class think?

PHP READING LIST

For those of you who wish to delve more deeply into PHP..."IBM developerWorks has put together a PHP recommended reading list. It provides resources for developers and admins adopting PHP and tackling advanced topics such as building extensions and writing secure code. There's also a list of books and blogs for keeping up with changes to the language itself."

Sources:
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/06/03/16/2146207.shtml [threaded discussion]
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-read/ [reading list]

BLOGGING FOR PROFIT

The below could provide the basis for a very interesting and hands-on class experiment. In a time when the functionality, ease-of-use, and easthetics of the weblog form are the main drivers for the development of the new model of "doing business on the Web", the simplicity and process-streamlining offered by the below described integration of a free weblog tool and e-commerce tools (ie. shopping cart, paypal) could potentially be revolutionary. Read on...

Zero to (free) shopping cart in sixty minutes

This cycle can feasibly be completed in under an hour; most of the time is spent filling out forms over and over again. PayPal account verification steps may take up to 5 business days, though, but that shouldn't prevent purchases from taking place.

1. Using Blogger, get a blog (and configure it to use your FTP server, if so desired).
2. Using Picasa, create a new Hello account and configure it for the blog.
3. Using PayPal, get a merchant account.
4. Using Picasa and Hello, send a merchandise photo with a short description to BloggerBot.
5. Using PayPal's merchant tools, generate an "add to cart" button for the item.
6. Using Blogger, edit the new post to include a title, a description, and "add to cart" and "view cart" buttons.

Feedback welcomed as to how this performs for y'all out there.. One interesting side effect of this process is that, without any advertising on the site whatsoever, it's a new way to (theoretically, at least) make weblogs profitable.

Note: Many people distinguish weblogs from websites by looking for the series of timestamps that are commonly associated with a series of "posts". If you remove the dates from the main page, others may then choose to say that it is not a weblog. This is up for debate, I suppose; at what level of post-processing and customization does a weblog stop being a weblog?
[via Richard Soderberg]

BUILD YOUR LINUX-ON-DEMAND WITH YOUR WEB BROWSER

Euronode released a web site which allows users to build
pre-configured Debian GNU/Linux servers, tailor-made for their exact
needs. Users can follow a simple web-based wizard to choose services
(web, mail, database, samba, etc.), and options. Once done, the web
site will generate a bootable .iso image, with all configuration and
server parameters already set up. [via spyware yahoo mailing list]

https://euronode.com/

WHY TABLES FOR LAYOUT IS STUPID...

"Why tables for layout is stypid: problems defined, solutions offered" is a presentation-tutorial on the web that I found incredibly (user) friendly and useful in order to understand why tables (which I have been using for ages to develop web-spaces; btw, five years ago I thought,..., no, I was adamant that using layers for page layout was the wrong thing to do as it didn't -then? - provide me with the degree of control in how page elements would render/appear, that is, the presentational-morphological aspect of the webpage, that I wanted; but then again, back then I was completely unaware of CSS and its potential) do not match well with CSS. Sure enough, the tutorial is full of "biz talk" which is at times almost annoying (due to being repeated a time too many) and could have been avoided, yet it's oriented toward the business-minded web developer, and this somewhat justifies the tone and the phraseology used throughout the text.

Also apropos, see:

• Toss out your Tables! CSS is the scene!
• WWW pages and CSS: Tables, CSS and Netscape
  

UNIPAGE - A PDF ALTERNATIVE?

"Unipage recently released a beta version of its Unipage Unifier. The Unipage encoding is a way to encode a full page with its images, CSS, Javascript, Flash, and whatnot, into just one HTML file. The 'Unipage Unifier' program instantly turns any online or local page into a 'Unipage' that can be viewed directly in a browser. It saves the mess of files when you normally save a complete web page, but maybe the bigger scoop is that now people can use 'Unipages' to send content rich documents instead of PDF. But Unipages are superior to PDF in their ability to hold functionality (Javascript), Flash animations and practically anything normally possible in a web page. Together with any program that can export into HTML you can get fully styled, dynamic, portable documents instantly. And it's free." Good luck taking down the installed base of PDF. [via /.]

ONLINE AJAX PAGES THE NEW WEB DESKTOP?

"With our existing models for operating environments aging badly, how do we manage our information and software as we get increasingly mobile and short on attention? In a ZDNet piece, Dion Hinchcliffe discusses the rise of the new dynamic, online, roaming Ajax desktops like Netvibes, Live.com, Protopage, and Pageflakes. Will concerns about privacy and reliability kill these or is this the wave of the future?"
[via /.]

For an introduction to AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML), see relevant wikipedia entry.

In addition, see this script from the excellent DynamicDrive.com which emulates the "drag & drop" behaviour of the above webpages. For "sticky notes", see this.


Apropos, "Today Yahoo! released the Yahoo! User Interface Library. This library is comprised of a number of dynamic HTML utilities and controls for building rich web UIs and Ajax applications. They are made available under an open-source license. In addition, Yahoo! released the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. This collection of design patterns for Web interaction is intended to provide Web designers prescriptive guidance to help solve common design problems on the Web. Both are free in both senses of the word." [via /.]

Also related: "The Web is no longer a place where simple applications are tolerated; 'users have become more advanced, customers expect robustness and advanced error reporting, and managers are fired because an application goes down 1 percent of the time. It's your job then, to go beyond a simple Ajax application that requires a more thorough understanding of XMLHttpRequest.' This DevWorks article tries to help developers use Ajax to build a solid foundation in which an application handles errors and problems smoothly." [via /.]

HACKERS HIJACK MILLIONDOLLAR HOMEPAGE

Interesting follow-up to our earlier discussion about the Million Dollar Homepage.

---

Hackers hijack milliondollarhomepage
By Rhys Blakely

Cyberspace blackmailers have hijacked the website that earned a British student entrepreneur more than $1million in advertising sales. A criminal gang, suspected to be linked to the Russian Mafia, is demanding $50,000 to call off an online attack which today caused the site to crash.

Alex Tew, the 21-year-old founder of milliondollarhomepage.com, started the project in August to tackle his student debt. The site, which was divided into 10,000 tiny squares that were sold to advertisers for $100 each, made headlines around the world when it hit its target earlier this month.

But the publicity also attracted the attentions of a criminal gang calling itself the "The Dark Group", which sent Mr Tew a ransom note via e-mail on January 7 demanding $5,000 (£2,830). The group, which investigators suspect is based in Russia, threatened: "We're capable to take your site down".

When Mr Tew refused to pay, the gang waited a week before launching an attack that threatened to overwhelm the website and cause it to crash last Thursday. On Friday, Mr Tew received a second ransom e-mail, this time demanding $50,000.

The e-mail, which has since been resent daily, said: "hello u website is under us atack to stop the ddos send us 50000$ … if u do not pay -u site NEVER came online … -u have BIG problem with u sponsors … u must answer TODAY."

This morning, Mr Tew told Times Online from his home in Cricklade, Wiltshire, that despite efforts to improve the site’s security, the hackers had stepped up their attack. Visitors to milliondollarhomepage today met with an error page that said: "error 403 – forbidden … don't come back you sly dog!"

"There are some ruthless people out there, but to be honest, I expected something like this to happen as the profile of the site increased," he said.

"At the moment I’m too busy to ponder the moral implications of it – 2,000 people have paid me $1 million between them to advertise on the site and I am focussing on getting the site up and running again."

The poor English used in the ransom e-mails and the kind of DDoS – or distributed denial of service attack – used by the hackers to crash the site has led investigators to suspect that the gang behind the attack is based in the former Soviet Union, a notorious hotbed for cybercrime. However, DDoS attacks, which crash websites by flooding them with more traffic than they can deal with, can be very difficult to trace.

Mikko Hyppönen, the chief research officer for F-Secure, a leading internet security company, said these types of attack have became increasingly common in recent years. Most attacks are launched from infected home computers which can be controlled through internet viruses released on to the net by malicious hackers.

"Criminals usually target businesses such as online shops, which will lose money as soon as their website is offline, or sometimes we see companies targeting competitors, hoping to put them out of business. In this case people know that this guy has money," he said.

Mr Tew has met with the Wiltshire branch of the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit to pass on details of the attacks. He also expects to be contacted by the FBI, which is also investigating the hijacking and attempted extortion because the servers that host the site are based in the United States.

Under the terms of his website, Mr Tew has agreed to host his clients' adverts for five years. However, there is a clause which allows the website to be out of action for maintenance, which he hopes will cover the current disruption. It is unclear whether he has been hit financially by the attack.

However, the milliondollarhomepage.com is still destined to become a business school case study, with academics heaping praise on its "brilliant simplicity".

Flush with funds, Mr Tew, whose previous jobs include stacking shelves in Tesco, left his home last autumn to start a business degree at Nottingham University. Having completed his first term – during which his web venture earned him some $4,000 a day - he has now decided to defer his studies until September in order to "explore some of the new opportunities that have presented themselves".

Source: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1995107,00.html

FIREFOX'S PING ATRIBUTE: USEFUL OR SPYWARE

The Mozilla Team has quietly enabled a new feature in Firefox that parses 'ping' attributes to anchor tags in HTML. Now links can have a 'ping' attribute that contains a list of servers to notify when you click on a link. Although link tracking has been done using redirects and Javascript, this new "feature" allows notification of an unlimited and uncontrollable number of servers for every click, and it is not noticeable without examining the source code for a link before clicking it. [via slashdot]

possibly filed under the "social implications of html programming" section.....

PIONEERS & INNOVATORS OF THE SEMANTIC WEB: RETO BACHMANN-GMUER

Familiarise yourself with WYMIWYG/KnoBot developed by Reto Bachmann-Gmür (his KnoBot-powered weblog here).

Also, make sure you check out Reto's presentation, entitled "From the information pile to social, knowledge-exchanging bots"(OSCOM 2003) for more in-depth information pertaining to the raison d'etre of KnoBot and the motivation behind its development.


From the WYMIWYG/KnoBot project website:

KnoBot - An agent for decentralised knowledge exchange

WYMIWYG KnoBot combines semantic web technology with a P2P design to build a trust based decentralised system for information selection and discovery.

What KnoBot is:
- An innovative cms for running your blog or website
- An RSS/Atom/KnoBot aggregator
- A system for rating articles and feeds
- A system for sharing ratings with others
- A fully semantic web enabled system

KnoBot is open source software developed in Java using the Jena framework for accessing an RDF model where all contents and meta-information is stored requiring no relational database. The rendition to variuos output fomat is done with XSLT transforming RDF serialized as R3X or TriX into HTML and in future other fomats like Atom, RSS and XSL:FO (to generate PDF-files).Getting started

THE FRIEND OF A FRIEND (FOAF) PROJECT

The Friend of a Friend (FOAF) project is about creating a Web of machine-readable homepages describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do.

Your assignment: With foaf-a-matic, create a FOAF file describing yourself (follow the steps given here). My email is george at hyperdrome dot net .

PIONEERS & INNOVATORS OF THE SEMANTIC WEB: JO WALSH

Make sure you familiarise yourself with the projects listed on frot.org - Jo Walsh's personal webpage (dev log here) - especially mudlondon, and spacenamespace.

DODGY E-BUSINESS

What do you think of the Rich Jerk, especially in relation to the previously discussed Million Dollar Homepage ?

btw, thanks to Andreas Houben for the pointer.

WEB DEVELOPMENT WITH TAPESTRY

"IBM DeveloperWorks has an interesting article on how to simplify your Web-based development with Tapestry, an open-source, Java-based framework that makes developing a breeze. The article shows you around Tapestry, from installation to file structure. See for yourself how Tapestry facilitates servlet-based Web application development using HTML and template tags." [via slashdot]

BEST ARTIST WEBSITE (INCORPORATING E-COMMERCE)

See http://www.matthewherbert.net

Why elegance & simplicity rule on the Web: check out the magnificent Matthew Herbert website.

-----

btw, see also Interacting Arts for its aesthetic functionality (but it's not an e-commerce site).

RETROFIT YOUR WEBPAGES FOR WIRELESS COMPATIBILITY

"You probably don't want to maintain Web and wireless versions of the same site or take on the overhead of Extensible Markup Language (XML) transformations. This article shows you a more practical approach to wireless compatibility. With some well-designed XHTML, a bit of CSS, and the media attribute, you can do wonders. Create more flexible, Mobile device ready, Web pages with XHTML and CSS". [via slashdot]

WRITEABLE WEB: INTRODUCTION TO WIKI

for a starter, dive into wikipedia for a tutorial, or take Garnet's 30 sec. wiki tutorial.

THE MILLION DOLLAR HOMEPAGE & MILLION PIXEL E-ADVERTISING

Thanks to Antonis for the pointer to the Million Dollar Homepage.



The article below gives a thorough introduction to this weird new trend in Internet advertising, and links to several similar pages on the Web.

---

Million Dollar Homepage : $1 Pixels Advertising Idea

It all started with the Million Dollar Homepage - an advertising idea which sold each of the million pixels for $1 each.

And just as we speak it has been a advertising success with its owner Alex Tew saying "in just 3 weeks I have made enough money to pay for all 3 years of University!" As of now he has sold 41600 pixels, which means he has earned $41600 and he deserved it for the original idea he has started. The advertisers seem to have been hooked by the idea, even though you need to buy a block of 10x10 pixels, with a minimum investment of $100. But with all the traffic comming in, the advertisers and webmaster both benefit. See more tips for better placement.

Well it has started a lot of activity with new such dollar and penny homepages at cheaper rates comming up.

• Million Dollar Homepage - the pioneer which sells a million pixels for $1 each (minimum 100 pixels block= $100).
• Zero Dollar Homepage - Offers pixels for free! Well non pixel ads are paid. If he gets enough traffic, I am sure such paid advertisers will come in.
• Million Dollar Webpage - a similar concept with 10000 squares worth $100 each. FAQ says it is "an experiment in internet marketing in terms of generating web site traffic and testing an alternative ad format. The site is also offering advertisers a chance to be a part of internet history."
• Million Penny Homepage - A cheaper version selling a million pixels at 1 penny each. So a minimum 10x10 block costs $1.
• Million Euro Homepage - It is also based on selling one million pixels. For just one euro per pixel you can buy some of these pixels to display an image of your choice.
• Million Dollar Pixel - 1 million pixels of internet ad space for $10 a pixel block. Linking your company/brand name or slogan to another name on the board will mean half the price of that block will be donated to charity.
• One Million Pixels - Each 10x10 block costs $5. A portion of each pixel sold will donated to the Red Cross.
• Dollar a Pixel - Each pixel for sale at $1 each, with a minimum purchase of 50 pixels. Maximum of 800x600 pixels for sale which will be online for 2 years.
• MiljoenPixels.nl - In Dutch. Logos of minimum 20x20 pixels available for 100 euros. Online till 2010 at least.
• Ebay Pixels - a million pixels for eBay sellers. It "aims to show only live sellers, who actually sell, so we reserve the right to resell space purhased if you would not sell any item for 90 days" and it links to all their items for sale. Each 10x10 block costs only 10 pounds (GBP).
• Million Dollar Mosaic - The Million Dollar soup can on the main page is made up of 10,000 smaller cans. A permanent link of 10x10 pixels costs $100.
• The People’s Vehicle - 480,000 pixels of advertising space sold at $1.00 a pixel in blocks of 100. Purpose - to buy a new car. You also choose a brand of vehicle – the more pixels you purchase the more your vote counts! The front page shows how many votes each brand has.
• AdSquares - Each square is 20x20 pixels and priced depending on the quantity (with discounts). The maximum cost is £5 per square.
• Million Booby Homepage - the "sexiest" ad space. 1,000,000 pixels for 10 cents each. Minimum 100 pixels.
• 250000.org - four 10x10 pixel box for $100 and have a chance to win $25,000.
• Australian Million Dollar Homepage - Each single block (10x10 pixels) costs $100.00 (AUD)
• Half-a-buck Pixels - buy a 10x10 pixel block at $0.50 per pixel.
• Million Yuan Homepage - sell 1 million pixels to collect 1 million yuan (=$125,000 in US dollars). 100 pixels minimum.
• Links Across America - Plots are sold in 10 pixel x 10 pixel squares (100 pixels total) on the US map. Business Sites $100, Church Sites $20, Personal Sites $20. To purchase a plot in a state, you must prove that you're actually located in that state.
  

Lets see how far this new idea in internet marketing and advertising goes. But the original has made $40000+ and the pixels are selling fast as I write this... I am starting a list here which I will update. Please free to suggest more such sites in comments.

Source: http://pchere.blogspot.com/2005/09/pixel-homepages-new-internet-marketing.html

THE FUTURE OF HTML

HTML isn't a very good language for making Web pages. However, it has been a very good language for making the Web. This article examines the future of HTML and what it will mean to Web authors, browser and developers. It covers the incremental approach embodied by the WHATWG specifications and the radical cleanup of XHTML proposed by the W3C. Additionally, the author gives an overview of the W3C's new Rich Client Activity [via slashdot]

WEB BROWSER FOR WEB 2.0

In last week's workshop, following the workshop on RSS and RDF, we saw Web-based Bloglines and discussed news aggregators/news readers in general (ie. mozilla newsmonster) as they are the most popular contemporary application of the Semantic Web. Today, we will see Technorati, and, most importantly, Amaya: W3C's editor/browsert.

GREAT WEBSITES

The following websites demonstrate excellence in one or more aspects of web design:

• eqnation [music events organiser & electronic music production]
  
• ethical media [web development & marketing agency]
• first monday [peer-reviewed journal on the Internet]
• fournos [center for theatre and cyber-culture]
• google [search engine & many more peripheral services-products]
  
• metamute [cyber-culture magazine]
  
• nettime [mailing list for collaborative text filtering]
• radio userland [weblogs - desktop publishing made easy]
• the simpsons [about the simpsons anime]
  
• slashdot ["news for nerds - stuff that matters"]

Your assignment is to identify what makes them so great , and, in addition, identify any broken guidelines.

ALBA REPORT - GUIDE FOR NEW ENTREPRENEURS

ALBA conducted research regarding funding opportunities for start-ups in Greece and authored a report-guide (in greek) whose goal is to underline the funding channels for start-ups in Greece and help new entrepreneurs support financially their first steps in the digital economy [via go-online].

* Οδηγός Νέων Επιχειρηματιών 2005
* Αναπτυξιακός Νόμος 2005
* Προκήρυξη Προγράμματος «Τεχνομεσιτεία»
* Ο Δεκάλογος του Επιχειρηματία στην Ψηφιακή Οικονομία

WEB DEVELOPMENT: NOTES ON FIRST SEMINAR

This semester I'll be teaching Principles of Web Design.

The reading list for this module is much the same with Developing a Website aka Web Development, which I taught last year, so keep track of this page for further additions to the reading list.

For next week you have two assignments. Your first group assignment is entitled "Semantic Web: Past, Present, and Future". You have to prepare and make a 10 min. presentation based on your research on the Semantic Web: what TBL originally envisioned it to be, what is its current state (ie. applications, deployment by the business world, etc.), and how is it likely to progress in the following years.

For the second (individual) assignment, you have to choose a website (preferably, an e-commerce site such as protoporia , or the site of a Crete-based organisation, such as ergotelis), and submit it to a methodical usability analysis in accordance with the guidelines-criteria set by Jakob Nielsen [useit.com] and Vincent Flaunders [webpagesthatsuck.com]. Your assignment is, thus, to move beyond the aesthetical properties of a site, and evaluate whether the chosen site fulfils its functional goals.

Good luck!!!

See you in class next week.

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ACADEMIC YEAR 2005 - 2006

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WEB DEVELOPMENT: READING LIST

The recommended reading list for the Web Development module is here.

Make sure you familiarise yourself with the following Websites as you'll be using them quite often during the course:

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Websites that suck
Jakob Nielsen [useit.com]
Macromedia

The reading list will be updated continuously so make sure you check back at least once a week.

See you on Monday evening.

WEB DEVELOPMENT: MODULE BEGINS ON MONDAY

Now that the second semester has kicked in the module Developing a Website is going to be what I'll be teaching. The first lecture-tutorial will take place this Monday, February 7, at 18:00 at the Computer Lab, and we'll discuss the historical development of the Web from the late 1980s when TBL first started working on his idea for a system that would streamline the exchange of scientific information and documents to the contemporary Web that we're all using in our everyday lives for a myriad different reasons. So, the first lecture will be, to a large extent, theoretical, however, also touching upon the underlying technologies that power the World Wide Web (WWW), and discussing the motivations behind, as well as the conflicts involved in, the development of the WWW.

The best resource on the subject is the website of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which I strongly advise you to get very familiar with as you'll get to use it a thousand times over the duration of the course, and the book Weaving the Web by W3C's co-founder (and developer of the Web) Tim Berners-Lee.

See you all on Monday afternoon! Till then, enjoy your weekend!

Wireless Networks & Security Basics

Εισαγωγή

Τα δίκτυα έχουν μπει για τα καλά στη ζωή μας. Οι περισσότεροι από εμάς, αν όχι όλοι, έχουν κάνει χρήση ενός ενσύρματου δικτύου υπολογιστών. Οι καιροί όμως αλλάζουν και οι τεχνολογία αναπτύσσεται με γοργούς ρυθμούς. Πολλοί από εμάς ίσως έχουν χρησιμοποιήσει εκτός από ένα ενσύρματο δίκτυο υπολογιστών και ένα ασύρματο. Ας δούμε λοιπόν πως λειτουργεί ένα ασύρματο δίκτυο υπολογιστών αλλά κυρίως πως μπορούμε να του δώσουμε ένα καλό επίπεδο ασφαλείας.

Ασύρματα δίκτυα: Τρόπος λειτουργίας

Καταρχήν ας δούμε πως πολλοί υπολογιστές μπορούν να δημιουργήσουν ένα ασύρματο δίκτυο. Η καρδιά του 802.11,τ’ οποίο είναι το πρότυπο επικοινωνίας για τα ασύρματα δίκτυα, είναι το BSS (Basic Service Set) ή το IBSS (Independent Basic Service Set). Στο BSS είναι αναγκαία η παρουσία ενός Access Point. Ένα access point είναι μια συσκευή η οποία “ενώνει” τους υπολογιστές μεταξύ τους ώστε να επιτευχθεί επικοινωνία. Το access point χρησιμοποιεί όπως θα έχετε καταλάβει ήδη το πρότυπο 802.11. Στις μέρες μας χρησιμοποιούμε το 802.11g. Αυτό το πρότυπο λειτουργεί στην συχνότητα των 2.4GHz και προσφέρει ρυθμούς μετάδοσης (θεωρητικά) μέχρι 54Mbps. Επειδή όμως η θεωρία με την πράξη διαφέρουν πολλές φορές, συνήθως οι ταχύτητες είναι μεταξύ 15 με 22 Mbps. Επίσης μπορεί να καλύψει μέχρι και 50 μέτρα απόσταση. Όσο για την συμβατότητα; Μπορεί να υποστηρίξει τα προγενέστερα τα 802.11a και 802.11b. Η χρήση του AP είναι καλή όταν οι υπολογιστές που θέλουμε να διασυνδέσουμε στο δίκτυο είναι αρκετοί. Αν δεν είναι αρκετοί τότε πάμε στο IBSS. Το IBSS δεν χρειάζεται κάποιο AP αλλά μόνο WNIC (Wireless Networks Interface Card). Σε αυτή την περίπτωση κάθε υπολογιστής μπορεί να επικοινωνήσει με έναν άλλο αρκεί η εμβέλεια τους να φτάνει ο ένας τον άλλο. Αυτή η τοπολογία ονομάζεται ad-hoc.

Ασφάλεια

Η ασφάλεια είναι ένας από τους πιο σημαντικούς παράγοντες για την σωστή λειτουργία των δικτύων, είτε ενσύρματων είτε ασύρματων. Μάλιστα η ασφάλεια ενός ασύρματου δικτύου παίζει πολύ μεγάλο ρόλο αφού ο καθένας που θα είναι στην εμβέλεια του δικτύου θα μπορεί να αποκτήσει πρόσβαση. Ας δούμε κάποια βασικά πράγματα που πρέπει να έχει ένα ασύρματο δίκτυο για να είναι ασφαλές.

• Αλλαγή SSID. Κάθε Access Point ή Router έχει ένα προκαθορισμένο SSID (Service Set Identifier). Η αλλαγή αυτή είναι αναγκαία ώστε να μη μπορεί ο καθένας να μπει μέσα στο δίκτυο (για να μπορέσει κάποιος να μπει στο δίκτυο είναι αναγκαίο να γνωρίζει το SSID). Αν αφήσουμε το προκαθορισμένο τότε είναι σχετικά εύκολο να βρει κάποιος αφού για τα προϊόντα των:Buffalo Technologies, Cisco, D-Link, Enterasys, Intermec, Lucent, and Proxim χρησημοποιήται ως προκαθορισμένο SSID το “any” ενώ μερικά άλλα είναι τα: "tsunami", "101", "RoamAbout Default Network Name", "Default SSID" και "Compaq". Όταν θα γίνει η αλλαγή καλό θα ήταν να χρησιμοποιήσουμε νούμερα & γράμματα μαζί και το όνομα να είναι όσο μεγαλύτερο μας επιτρέπεται. Επίσης σωστή κίνηση θα ήταν η αλλαγή του SSID να μην γίνει μια φορά αλλά ανά τακτά χρονικά διαστήματα. Επιπλέον πρέπει να ελέγξουμε αν η συσκευή μας έχει SSID boardcasting. Αν ναι τότε η απενεργοποίηση του είναι αναγκαία.

• MAC filtering. Ένας άλλος τρόπος για να ασφαλίσουμε κατά κάποιο τρόπο το δίκτυο μας είναι με ένα MAC filtering. Κάθε δικτυακή συσκευή έχει μια διεύθυνση. Αυτή η διεύθυνση αποτελείται από έξι δεκαεξαδικούς αριθμούς. Οι πρώτοι τρεις δεκαεξαδικοί αριθμοί είναι το ID του κατασκευαστή (manufacturers ID) και τα υπόλοιπα τρεις είναι ένας σειριακός αριθμός που έδωσε ο κατασκευαστής για καθεμία κάρτα. Ένα παράδειγμα διεύθυνσης MAC είναι αυτό: 00-53-45-00-00-00. Για να βρείτε μια MAC address σε windows πηγαίνετε σε γραμμή εντολών και γράψτε ipconfig /all και θα δείτε όλες τις διευθύνσεις MAC των δικτυακών σας συσκευών (αναφέρονται ως physical address ή φυσικές διευθύνσεις). Σε linux η εντολή είναι ifconfig. Κατόπιν πάμε στο configuration το AP η το router ώστε να βάλουμε τις MAC διευθύνσεις που θέλουμε να φιλτράρονται.Να προστέσω απλός ότι το MAC filtering δεν είναι κάτι το σπουδαίο ως προς την ασφάλεια. Αν κάποιος ξέρει μια MAC διεύθυνση μπορεί μέσα από τα windows χρησιμοποιόντας αυτό το πρόγραμμα και να αλλάξει την MAC διεύθυνση του. Σε linux: ifconfig ethx down hw ether 00:00:00:00:00:00 0.0.0.0 up .

• Encryption. Η κρυπτογράφηση για τα ασύρματα δίκτυα γίνεται μέσω του WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). To WEP μεταδίδει κρυπτογραφημένα τα μηνύματα μέσω των ραδιοκυμάτων. Το WEP χρησιμοποιεί κρυπτογράφηση των 128-bit. Αυτό σημαίνει ότι μπορούμε να ορίσουμε ένα κλειδί μέχρι 13 χαρακτήρες. Μπορείτε να ορίσετε το κλειδί από το configuration του AP ή του router. Βέβαια είναι αυτονόητο να πούμε ότι αν η συσκευή σας υποστηρίζει 256-bit κρυπτογράφηση (26 χαρακτήρες) παρέχει σε σας μεγαλύτερη ασφάλεια. Παρόλα αυτά το WEP δεν είναι πλέον και τόσο ασφαλές. Υπάρχουν πολλά εργαλεία τα οποία μπορούν να παραβιάσουν την κρυπτογράφηση που σας παρέχει το WEP. Δύο τέτοια προγράμματα είναι τα Aircrack και Airsnort. Μια βελτίωση για το WEP είναι το WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access). To WPA βελτιώνει το WEP σε δύο τομείς: Βελτιώνει την κρυπτογράφηση με το πρωτόκολλο TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) και την αυθεντικότητα του χρήστη μέσω του EAP (extensible authentication protocol).


Πολύ καλά βιβλία για το θέμα του 802.11 αλλά και την ασφάλεια είναι τα:
O’Reilly - 802.11 Security
O’Reilly - 802.11 Wireless Networks - The Definitive Guide
O’Reilly - Building Wireless Community Networks, 2nd Edition

ARE THOSE PEOPLE FOR REAL?

It's not the first time I got email from someone [this one came from Jasper Conrad] claiming they give out fully-legit degrees in exchange for hard cash....but this one is the funniest of all, so I thought I'd share it with you. have a good laugh:-)



And remember: if you don't take it as a joke, but, rather, you are tricked into playing their game, then, in the best case scenario, you'll be taken for a ride, possibly resulting in loss of some money. In the worst case scenario, you're going down as an accomplice to fraud.

COMPUTING: WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT & PRESENTATION

I uploaded the PDF with the topics for the written assignment to be submitted on Friday, and all the instructions/notes pertaining to it. Don't forget that the presentations complementing the assignments will take place on that very same Friday. Late submissions may not be considered.

Feel free to ask any questions either here or via email. And btw, good luck:-)

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS

As I told some of you during last Friday's tutorial, this weblog would welcome contributions from all of you. Therefore, if any of you feel like giving it a try, taking this conversation a step further, either leave a comment here or send me email and I'll send you all the info (perhaps an admin account?) you need to get started with posting on this weblog.

hey, it should be fun too:-)

COMPUTING: READING LIST

The following reading list comprises several (hyper)texts that have been discussed, and/or referred to in the course of the first semester for the module Introduction to Computing. Of course, the only text that is essential reading is McLuhan's all-time classic Understanding Media (unfortunately though, only the first seven chapters are available online; yet, on the other hand, these chapters constitute the main theoretical backbone of McLuhan's seminal book, and as such, they ought to be given particular attention).

-- here goes then:

Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1944) The Culture Industry: Enlightment as Mass Deception, from The Dialectic of Enlightment.
Bauwens, M. Peer-to-Peer: from technology to politics to a new civilization? (document in progress), 2001.
Dafermos, G. (2001) Management and Virtual Decentralised Networks: the Linux Project, First Monday, November.
Dafermos, G. (2003) Blogging the Market: how weblogs are turning corporate machines into real conversations.
Debord, G. (1967) The Society of the Spectacle.
Debord, G. (1988) Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle.
DiBona, C. et al. (1999) Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution.
Joy, B. (2000) Why the Future Doesn't Need Us, Wired, April.
Kaczynski, T. (1995) The Unabomber's Manifesto (Industrial Society and its Future), The Washington Post, September.
Locke, C., Weinberger, D., Searls, D., and Levine, C. (1999) The Cluetrain Manifesto: the end of business as usual.
Marcuse, H. (1955) Eros and Civilization, A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud.
McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media, the Extensions of Man.
Negri, A. and Hardt, M. (2000) Empire. Also available here, here, and there.
Vaneigem, R. (1972) The Revolution of Everyday Life (Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations).


Have I forgotten anything? Please let me know.

Also, I Intend to continuously update this list as time flows on, with more books, essays, papers, etc. For the time being though, the list carries only texts that I managed to find on the Web. Soon, I will also update the list with texts that are not (yet?) accessible online, such as Jeremy Rifkin's Age of Access, Bernard-Marie Koltes' s In the Solitute of the Cotton Fields, etc., etc.

UPDATE: I uploaded the updated version of the reading list (offline texts and proper links included) here.

WHAT IS A WEBLOG?

So, first, let's start from the basics. What is a weblog, or blog in short? What does it mean to be a blogger? And why is everone so much into it? Not that long ago, I wrote a longish essay, titled "Blogging the Market", in a section of which I tried to explain in the best possible way what a weblog is all about. That was back in October 2003, but not that much has changed to compel me to do a re-write, at least not anytime soon. So, what is a weblog then?

"Bloggers are turning the hunting and gathering, sampling and critiquing the rest of us do online into an extreme sport. We surf the Web; these guys snowboard it. Bloggers are the minutemen of the digital revolution (Henry Jenkins 2002)."

It’s quite hard to accurately describe what a weblog really is. Or what people mean when they say they are blogging. One could easily conclude that a weblog is a technology, or a social process culminating in an online phenomenon or even an online kind of a diary, if not to say a new form of journalism. The term is as broadly defined as peer-to-peer, to say the least. In fact, a weblog can be all of the above and none of it. Some people blog for fun, some for business and others for god knows why. Just like any other technology, if we could say that it is a technology, a weblog rests upon the people who adopt it to find a purposeful application for it. Technology shapes people, but people also shape the path upon which technology evolves. What matters is not technology but the use technology will be put into when in the hands of people. The same goes for any social process. Democracy differs enormously from place to place, say from ancient Athens to contemporary Athens. If you think that the above does not make any sense, you’ll be further puzzled down the road. If you ask me what a weblog is, I would say that a weblog is a personal website but not static and unchanging like the websites we’re used to (best examples of which are 99.99 percent of corporate websites), but it can also be a group website where people brainstorm, rant and ramble about whatever is on their mind without paying much attention to typos and consistency in style. A weblog can be updated and change frequently, sometimes many times within a single day, but this of course rests upon how lazy or energetic and passionate the blogger is (or bloggers are). To add further confusion to the above, a weblog can be highly interactive in the sense that random people can play an active part in the ongoing discussion by commenting on what’s already written on the weblog or they can even start an off-the-topic discussion, provided the weblog’s infrastructure allows for such things. On the other hand, a weblog can be a very solitary textual account of one’s feelings and thoughts, a written manifestation of a person’s vanity when an ego trip has taken over and does not allow any space for interactivity with the outer world.

According to the book which tracks the evolution of my favourite weblog from a student’s website to a weblog jointly written and maintained by as many as 30,000 people,

"a weblog can be anything from a journal to a stream of consciousness commentary or even a full-blown news site. The important features are a steady stream of fresh content and a willingness to link to other existing sites as a raison d'être. Think of the Captain’s log on Star Trek and how it usually served to introduce and frame the upcoming story, and add in a very quick feedback loop. For the most part, weblogs are simple and straightforward. People can publish their thoughts, even for the first time, with almost no training (Chromatic et al. 2002)."

A weblog can be a story or just a pointer to a story worth reading and telling others, a conversation or something like an online post-it note with some commentary attached, a professional journalist’s terrain or an amateur writer’s playground, a company’s official online presence or a disgruntled ex-employee’s angry outburst. A weblog is what we make it to be. [LINK]

BLOGGER INTRODUCTION: ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?

My name is George N. Dafermos. Call me George. Among other things, like being a human being, I'm also a lecturer in Computing & Business Information Systems at GLOBAL - the campus of the University of Sunderland (UK) in Heraklion-Crete, Greece (yes, that marvelous, yet often frustrating paradise island).

Today, I had a discussion with GLOBAL's academic co-ordinator about how we could extend our arms and voices to inquiring minds all over the world, reaching-out, taking the conversation a step further. It was obvious, at least to me, that a blog is what we needed. So, in the course of the next days, I will try to demonstrate here, at this blog, why and how this is the best channel for such a rhizomatic conversation that spans the network of the networks, whilst descending into the abode of educational production.

That said, who are you? Don't be shy! Introduce yourself:-) Or, best, go create your own blog and join the conversation!