There’s a new buzz among internet movers and shakers… something that’s been keeping the VC’s up late at night. New companies with funny names are sprouting left and right touting new ways to use internet technologies. It’s an evolution of the web. The web is now friendlier — more people are able to use it to create. More people are able to use it in their daily lives. The web is growing up, and the buzzword is Web 2.0. This is an implied “new release” of the technology… how is it different than the first ten years?

It all started with the blog. “Push button publishing for the masses,” touts one blogging application. Suddenly, with a login and a few keystrokes, you can post your opinions, reviews, personal journal, whatever, instantly. Pyra Labs started Blogger as a sideline product in 1999. It was the first of a series of hosted web applications that made it simple to publish online. That’s one of the key features of Web 2.0 - hosted applications. No longer are solitary geeks sitting in their bedrooms hacking at a command line to create published content. Now, a slick new application generates the framework for you, and you simply type your information into a form. Presto! Web site! Created and updated by you — the average Joe.

By 2003, Pyra Labs was purchased by Google — and the rest, so they say, is history. Now you can choose from probably more than a dozen hosted applications to create a weblog.

Google - the mother ship of all Web 2.0 companies - has branched out into way more than just search applications. The geniuses at Google found a way to support their company (nicely, one might add), through advertising. They’re now spending serious energy pushing the Web 2.0 envelope with Google Maps, Google Base, Blogger, Picasa, Gmail and more. And like Google, new businesses are being formed that use the web in a different way than ever before. Established web enterprises like Yahoo are also trying to leverage this new way of thinking about the web. Flickr, purchased by Yahoo about a year after it was developed, is a photo storage site that is one of the leaders of the Web 2.0 meme.

A key concept behind Web 2.0 is the openness of the content. This new wave of cooperation (the internet has always tried to be about cooperation, but has been stymied by competition) has fostered “mashups.” A mashup is when a developer takes an already cool idea and adds his own twist. For example, Google Maps allows you to use it any way you see fit. An enterprising developer has created a game — Brewster Jennings Protects America — that is based on Google Maps and a story line out of a modern day CIA / Spy / Terrorist novel. Paul Rademacher created housingmaps.com, that mashesup Google Maps and CraigsList.

Another concept behind this new meme (it’s more of a meme than a movement, or a concept, or even a technology - because it’s all those rolled into one) is social interaction. More and more, people are acting individually to create great masses of information that can be searched in new ways. Take del.icio.us, a social bookmarking application. This very stripped down looking interface allows you to keep your links online so you can access them from any computer. It also allows you to tag and discover other people’s links. Tagging, the ability to assign key words to a photo, an entry or another element that will aid in the location of information on this massive ball of disorganized content, is another earmark of a Web 2.0 application. Wikipedia, the huge free-for-all web encyclopedia, is another example. Anyone can write an entry in the encyclopedia. Anyone can edit any entry. There are great discussions among people concerning the entries that encourage the creation of socially-agreed upon definitions.

What makes the idea of Web 2.0 revolutionary is that the web is being used as a platform. The technology driving this change is different than the static html of yore. Many of these applications rely on new languages, like Ajax and Ruby on Rails to accomplish the fantastic programming feats the new applications require. A database is almost always involved.

Google has very recently partnered with Sun to create an office suite that is entirely online. That’s right… your word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and even presentations will be created and stored online. No need to install software — just connect to the internet to work with the latest applications. Microsoft is getting nervous. Look for a major announcement in the coming weeks that Office will be offered as an online application soon. There’s going to be a big battle, and some fallout. Defining software as a service, not a product, will create some major business shakeouts.

But the good news is that the sky’s not falling. With Dale Dougherty’s coining of the term Web 2.0, the internet’s big brains are recognizing that a major shift has occurred. After the bursting of the bubble in 2001, we needed something new, and here it is. Read Tim O’Reily’s seminal article describing this paradigm shift to learn even more.

Resolution is a hard concept to wrap your mind around because of the confusion between print resolution and screen resolution. Most people think that their screen displays images at one of two dpi - either 72 or 96. This is partially because the information that Apple and Microsoft circulated to help describe how to scale fonts and images in relation to screen size. They picked these to arbitrary numbers to help them do the math and create a graphical user interface with elements that are in proportion to one another. It is also because scanner software uses dpi (dots per inch) and ppi (pixels per inch) interchangeably, when they actually were meant refer to the particularities of different output devices.

Here’s a statement to blow your mind: an image file has no physical “size” except for its file size. What do I mean by that? An image file has no size until it is output, either on a screen or on paper. A gauge for describing size on paper is dpi, or dots per inch. A gauge for describing the size on the screen is ppi, or pixels per inch. Don’t confuse these two. Most scanning software doesn’t make any distinction between the two and uses them interchangeably. The screen is very different than paper because screens (video) don’t output using “dots” as a reference unit, while printers do.

For example, scan an image in at 72 dpi. Scan the same image in at 300 dpi. Print them both out. They’ll be two different dimensions. Most computer printers print at 300 dpi. This means that a black box 300 pixels by 300 pixels will print 1″ x 1″. So your 72 dpi image will print out about one fourth of the size of the 300 dpi image. Dots per inch are very important to your printer.

Your screen, however, couldn’t give a flying flip about dpi. Your screen cares about the actual dimensions of your image. It wants to know how tall and wide the image is in pixels, and will display the image using the dimensions in the file. A popular screen resolution is 1024×768. This means that your screen is 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels tall. An image that is 300 pixels wide will occupy less than one-third of your screen real estate.

Every image file contains a tag that tells the computer and printer how to achieve desired output sizes. Your camera, scanner, and your image editing program embed this information in every image file they create. Let’s say you scan a 4″ x 5″ image at 1,000 dpi. If you print the image on a printer that prints at 1,000 dpi, your resulting print out will be 4″ x 5″. If you print the image on a printer that prints 500 dpi, the resulting image will be 8″ x 10″. However, if you display the image on the screen, it will be gigantic (it is 4,000 x 5,000 pixels). On a screen with the resolution set to 1024 x 768, you’d have to scroll right 4 times to see the whole width of the image, and scroll down over 6 times.

The tag attempts to tell the printer how large the image should be in inches. Most printers look at the tag and try to print out the image at 100% of the given size. If a digital printer reads the tag and determines that the image should be 8″ x 10″ at 500 ppi, it will do its best to make an 8″ x 10″ print, regardless of the resolution. But the screen doesn’t look at this tag. It simply renders the image “size” according to the number of pixels in the file.

Web developers think in pixels, not inches or even dots per inch. We also worry about actual file size — every image has to be downloaded, remember, and a large file size will make the page download very slowly. The more pixels in an image, the larger the file size.

So how do you use this information when scanning images for web use only? Scanning images in at 72 (or 96) dpi will give you an image on your screen that is roughly the same size as the image you scanned. That’s why it’s used as a standard. If you would like your image to be larger on your screen than the printed image you’re scanning, bump the dpi up. Generally, I scan at 100 dpi and pull it into Macromedia Fireworks where you might notice that no mention is made of dpi. That’s because Fireworks is an image editor designed to be used primarily for web images. If you have Fireworks and want to see how the math for print and screen is done, simply open your favorite image and choose Modify > Image Size from the menu. A dialog box will pop up. This shows “Pixel dimensions” and “Print size”. Change Print Size | Resolution to 1,000. This will show you how pixel dimensions change when print resolution is modified.

If you’re preparing images for the web, try not to think about inches, and you’ll find you can free your mind of dpi.

This week’s Nigerian Scam features the sad tale of a wealthy Dubai merchant who’s cancer has “defiled” all medical treatment. He no longer trusts his greedy family, and has decided to email me for assistance in disbursing his $25,500,000. Bah! I wish him luck and “dispatch Allah” to be with him. I’m sure there’s a special place somewhere for him.

I really don’t know who would actually reply to an email like this. And I can’t imagine the idiot who would send out such a scam hoping to find a dupe that would respond. If you get something similar, just ignore it. Or, like me, laugh at the stupidity of it all, then trash it.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: SALIM
Date: Sep 27, 2005 8:18 AM
Subject: PLZ ACKNOWLEDGE.
To: undisclosed-recipients

Assalamualaikum ,

My name is SALIM IBRAHIM a merchant in Dubai, in the U.A.E.I have been diagnosed
with Esophageal cancer It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and
right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.

I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for
anyone (not even myself) but my business. Though I am very rich,I was never
generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business
as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now
know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the
money in the world.

I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would
live my life a different way from how I have lived it. Now that God has
called me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my
immediate and extended family members as well as a few close friends.

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to
give also to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last
good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity
organizations in the U.A.E, Algeria and Malaysia.

Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore.

I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute
the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan,
they refused and kept the money to themselves.

Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with
what I have left for them.

The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of (Twenty
million five hundred thousand u.s dollars) that I have with a finance/Security
Company abroad. I will want you to help me collect this consignment and
dispatched Allah be with you.

SALIM IBRAHIM
PLEASE GET BACK TO ME ON THIS EMAIL ADDRESS:
salimcareibrahim@netscape.net SO THAT I CAN GIVE THE DETAIL OF THE FUNDS.

If you’re doing business on the internet, your success will hinge on the degree of trust you build with your customers. The way to build that trust is to tell visitors up front that you respect their privacy and will protect it. Most reputable sites have privacy policies. Most consumers don’t read them. Why? They’re usually about as useful as reading your credit card agreement. Even if you slosh through all of that mumbo-jumbo, you don’t really know any more than you did before you started AND the policy can change at any moment, without notice.

So what’s the point of having a privacy policy if no one reads it? The absence of one makes you suspect. Without coming out and saying that you don’t intend to do anything evil with your customer’s information, you’ve implied that you just might sell their information. I won’t buy anything or even give up my email address to a site that doesn’t have one (even if I just acknowledge its existence and merely skim it). If you are selling a product or service, your customers will feel more secure if they know that any information submitted to you will be used only in ways they have authorized. Your policy should be simple and as jargon free as possible.

Finally, your privacy policy should have your contact information. That alone builds trust and credibility. Your customers should have to hire a private detective to find out how to contact you off line. If you run your business out of your home and don’t want to divulge your home address, just get a post office box.

Here’s a sample privacy policy template (for company “X”) that works well without being too long or full of jargon:

Privacy Policy

What Information X Collects
X collects personal data from visitors to the website who register their information or who use the online store. We track IP addresses so we can improve our services and enhance your X experience.

How X Uses Information You Provide
If you give us your personal information, we will use this information to register you with our website, to administer our website services, and/or to process any orders you may place online. We will send you announcements or communications by email only if you give us your permission by submitting your personal details. Otherwise, we use your information only to review our performance and to improve our services to you, or to communicate with you about your order if you have placed an online order.

Does X Share Your Information With Others?
X does not sell, rent or disclose our client’s names, addresses, email addresses or other personal information to any entity. We do not disclose your information to third parties, unless required by law or in connection with a legal claim or proceeding. If X is acquired by another entity, information about X clients may be made available to the new entity.

Security
X uses appropriate security measures to protect the information you give us. However, while we take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information, you accept that no Internet data transmission can be guaranteed to be secure from access by unintended recipients and will not hold us responsible for any breach of security unless this is due to our negligence.

Contact
X
Mailing Address
Phone Number
Email

This sample is a simple, standard online policy that I find acceptable. You may copy and use it on your site, customizing it as necessary (ie. if you sell email addresses you collect on your site to third parties, for exampe, please change this sample and let your customers and visitors know).

Oh yeah — I’m not a lawyer, so don’t drag me into your court case if you decide to use this boilerplate and somebody sues you. This is just a sample, standard privacy policy that I have used on commerce sites, and I like it. My advise it to get legal counsel’s approval before you even take your next breath if you have any legal questions about what your doing on the web (or anywhere else, for that matter).

A List Apart has provided a short excerpt of Peter Morville’s book Ambient Findability: Findability Hacks, published by O’Reilly. “Findability” may be an odd word, and it certainly grates my old English major nerve, but it is a serious consideration when designing any web site, and ignoring it can spell disaster for your project.

Morville points out that many designers and web engineers tend to shy away from the dirty world of marketing, but in reality, ignoring it is a disservice to both your client and the world at large. Perhaps that is why the industry has created this word: findability. It sounds so much more acceptible to typical design professionals. Heaven knows, they wouldn’t want to sully their art or engineering with the concept of actually making a buck. But whatever you call it, it can’t be ignored as an integral step in the site development process. If you built the most useable, beautiful product catalog filled with items that everyone needs and wants and you ignore the need for an individual to find the site over the sea of flotsam that has become the internet, you’ve failed. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. I believe that the tree really does fall in the forest even if no one hears it; however, if you build a web site and no one comes, who really cares?

A cross-disciplinary approach to findability is advocated by Morville: a team should be created with members from marketing, engineering and design. HP has done it, creating a “Findabilty Group.” Some companies make one person, the “Findability Engineer,” a point person for making sure their site is not lost in the noise. Whatever your company does, even if you are your company, the issue should be addressed.

This excerpt is quite interesting and gives you something to think about as you design your site. You can download the entire first chapter of the book as a PDF from O’Reilly’s site, or you can purchase the book from Amazon.

Think Google’s got it all? Well, not really. In a recent LifeHacker entry, Wendy Boswell points out that Google can’t properly spider databases and other sites that have certain restrictions. There are alternative ways to searching for hard to find articles, even within Google — and other ways of finding arcane information without using a search engine at all.

There are scores of less-used resources that can deliver information to your desktop aby accessing the “invisible web.” Wikipedia cites Brightweb, stating the invisible web, or “deep web” contains 500 times the number of pages that Google and other search databases can access. With the caveat that no one can really count things without first knowing they exist, the Wikeipedia contrasts the differences between the “surface web” and the “deep web,” noting that “There’s a lot more information out there than we could ever imagine.” That content is located within the dynamic pages generated by isolated databases that search engines simply can’t get to.

Wendy gives us a few ideas about how to tap this elusive information and how to weed out Google excessive search returns. One of the first suggestions she offers it typing “database” after your search term in Google. Her example, “warthogs databaseâ€? yealds just what she needs for her fictional research paper (“the life cycle of Botswana warthogsâ€?) — the Penn State Faculty Research Expertise Database.

There are also other sites out there that provide gateways to the invisible web. Wendy divulges just a few, emphasizing reliable, cite-able sites:
• Invisible Web: Gary Price and Chris Sherman have put together a searchable directory of various databases on the Invisible Web.
• Librarians Index to the Internet: A directory of various sites on both the visible and invisible Web put together by librarians; all are reviewed before inclusion and have the Librarian Stamp Of Approval.
• GPO Access: An amazing site. You can search hundreds of US Government databases at the same time.
• WebLens Scholarly and Academic Research Resources: Includes databases as diverse as the Stanford University High Wire Press Archives, a searchable index of past issues of the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, a “galaxy of knowledge.â€?

Even more can be found in the Wikipedia entry.

Ah, yes. Another 419 Advance Fee Nigerian Scam. I received two of these - both identical - to two different email addresses. They must have the Bravos in the cross hairs. I don’t know why I think these wacky Nigerians are so funny- but perhaps it has something to do with their awful English and preposterous assertions. I would also refer you to the hilarious scambaiter site, 419Eater.com, if you’ve got some time and want a chuckle. For your viewing pleasure, here’s the text of the email I received:

Dear Bravo,

Good day and how are you? My wish is that you receive this letter in good faith and by his grace we are going to work good things out of this great deal.

My name is Barrister James Obi.A Solicitor and an Advocate of the supreme court of Nigeria, I am the Personal Attorney to Mr. Alan Bravo,anexpatriate,who was a consultant with Shell Development Oil Company in Nigeria.

On the 21st of April 2001, my client and his wife were involved in a car accident along Sagamu/Lagos Express Road. Unfortunately they lost their lives in the event of the accident, since then I have made several enquiries as to locate any of his extended relatives, but all proved abortive. After several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his relatives over the
Internet,to locate any member of his family but to no avail,hence I decided to contact you.

I am contacting you to assist in retrieving the money valued at about (US$11.5m) that was left behind by my client Mr.Alan Bravo, with the Universal Trust Bank Plc (UTB) before it gets confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank. Consequently, The bank issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confiscated within the next ten official working days.

Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 2years now, I hereby seek your consent to act as the next of kin to thedeceased,the proceeds of this account valued at (US$11.5 million dollars) can be paid to you and then you and I can share the money.55% to me and 40% to you,while 5% should be for expenses or tax as your government may require. I have all the necessary legal documents that can be used to back up this project.

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us succeed without any hitch. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect us from any breach of the law.

PLEASE DO GET INTOUCH WITH ME THROUGH THIS E-mail address

below: barjamesobi01@hotmail.com

Thanks as I look forward to your anticipated maximum cooperation.

Yours Sincerely.
Barrister James Obi(Esq)

Earlier this week I purchased a Canon ip4200 printer. I am most impressed with the speed and high quality prints, and the flexibility of paper handling. The only complaint I have is the price of ink refills; but for a photo shop quality printer that delivers archival quality high resolution prints, I guess I shouldn’t be cranky about this.

I decided on this printer after reading several reviews. It has a high resolution (9,600 x 2,400 color dpi) and prints pretty quick. It also features duplex printing and an extra paper tray so that you can keep your photo paper in the bottom and your regular printer paper in the top feeder.

Being the cautious buyer that I am, I also researched the ink. The ink is special ChromaLife100 ink with the Canon iP4200 printer that is supposed to last 30 years in moderate light, and 100 years in archival storage. I checked PrintPal, the place I’ve always bought cheap ink refills, and they had ink for around $5 a cartridge (the ip4200 takes five cartridges). By the way, you’ll get 15% off and free shipping on any printer refill (they have most of them) if you visit that link.

I mistakenly thought that when PrintPal referred to “ip4000″ they meant the 4000 series. Wrong! The ip4200 has the special ink and a chip installed so that your warning light won’t work if you use bulk refill ink (I’ve never wanted to make that mess). What’s more, I’ve read elsewhere that if you try to refill the used tanks, the print head will be damaged by the non functioning chip and render the printer useless.

I bought the printer at NewEgg for just $107 (it’s gone up a bit since then). I’m super happy with the quality, so I’m going to keep it. Still, the whole ink thing has left a bad taste, and now I’m going to be cautious about checking Print Preview first.

The cheapest ink I’ve found, of all places, is at Amazon. If you find it any cheaper, let me know so I’ll feel better about printing lots and lots of pages. By the way, according to one source, a tank lasts for somewhere around 500 photos, on average. That’s about 12 cents per print, not including paper. The prints are actually better than what I get at Walgreen’s.

Here’s some Amazon links if you’re looking for the printer (at writing, the printer was $112 with free shipping) and/or the ink:

• Canon PGI-5BK Black Ink Tank - $12.99
• Canon CLI-8BK Black Ink Tank - $11.99
• Canon CLI-8C Cyan Ink Tank - $11.99
• Canon CLI-8M Magenta Ink Tank - $11.99
• Canon CLI-8Y Yellow Ink Tank - $11.99

This is a revision of BravoAuctions.com. I once again used WordPress for content management, and modified the Connections 1.0 template to suit my needs. I’m not real happy with the top image, or the overall dark green cast of the page, but it does the job. I may find another image in the fullness of time. I’d really like something brighter, but it is difficult to find a central image that says “online auction.” So that’s something to consider as time goes by. It’s already getting much better traffic than the old site received. The following plugins are used to make the site function appropriately: Bunny’s Technorati Tags, Draft Control, IImage Browser, and Smart Update Pinger. In case you have not noticed, I am a HUGE fan of WordPress, and I’m considering custom tailoring a templage set for other sites that are not blogs.

I’ve encouraged people to take advantage of the PayPal service, but if you do, you have to be sure that you protect your account and your personal information. Here’s an example of a scam email. Never respond to an email that contains links to the PayPal service. PayPal does not send email to its members with links in it. Here’s an example of an email I received today that shows you why you should not click on the link.

Here’s the email I received:

Subject: Your Account
Dear valued PayPal® member,

Due to recent fraudulent transactions, we have issued the following security requirements.

It has come to our attion that 98% of all fraudulent transactions are caused by members using stolen credit cards to purchase or sell non existant items. Thus we require our members to add a Debit/Check card to their billing records as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. Your Debit/Check card will only be used to identify you. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the PayPal® service. However, failure to confirm your records will result in your account suspension.

We are requesting this information to verify and protect your identity. Federal regulations require all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record identification from all persons opening new accounts or obtaining ongoing payment services. This is in order to prevent the use of the U.S. banking system in terrorist and other illegal activity. For these reasons, PayPal® will utilize services provided by various credit reporting agencies to verify the information you submit to us.

Once you have updated your account records your pending PayPal® account transactions will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your billing records please login to your account by clicking here.

Thank you for your time,
PayPal® Billing Department.
Copyright © 1995-2005 PayPal Inc. All Rights Reserved. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of the PayPal User Agreement and Privacy Policy.

At first blush, this email looks authentic. It’s fairly grammatically correct (there’s only a couple of spelling errors), it reads like PayPal is trying to prevent fraud, and it’s got all the “official” copyright notices, etc. But it’s a fake. How do you know? Simple: PayPal never asks you to click on a link in an email. Just to prove to you this is true, I did. Here’s what came up in my browser:

That URL is NOT the PayPal address. Even though “PayPal” does appear in the URL, it’s really located on a server called “paypal.servr656.com”. The important thing to look at is the word that appears immediately before the “.com”. That’s the name of the server. If I entered my PayPal information on this screen, whoever is operating the site called servr656.com will get my PayPal ID and password. They can do anything they want with my account after that.

Just for fun, I found out who owns the IP number associated with this domain name. It’s owned by a company in Italy:

role: DADA board - Direzione
address: DADA S.p.A.
address: Borgo degli Albizi, 12
address: I-50122 Firenze
address: ITALY
phone: +39 055 203941
fax-no: +39 055 2466304

Now, before we get wild and try to turn DADA in to some authority, we have to realize that DADA is an Internet Service Provider — just like AOL or any other number of internet providers. They probably don’t have anything to do with the devious souls who sent me this email. They probably don’t even know that one of their customers is up to mischief.

If you receive an email like this, you have a few choices:

• Do nothing. Nothing bad happens. No one gets hurt.
• Send a copy of the email to spoof@paypal.com. They know about it, send you an email that says they do, and you never find out what happens. At least you feel like you did something and PayPal knows (they may act on it).
• Make an international call to +39 055 203941 and listen to them say “we don’t know anything about that” or “no comprende” in Italian.

The best thing you can do is not click on links in any email that looks like it comes from PayPal. PayPal won’t ever send you an email that asks you to do this. Just delete the mail, realize there’s bad people in the world, and get on with life.