Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Thursday, June 29, 2006 Oops, Gmail does it again and again  Is it just me or has Gmail become slower and less responsive lately? I have been an avid Gmail user since I received my account invitation. It took a while for me to get used to its approach to email. Like most of us, I have been accustomed to organizing my emails in various folders, so I found it a bit unsettling when I had to abandon the notion of folders in favor of conversation-affinity and labels. What drew me to Gmail in the beginning was the seemingly endless storage in stark contrast to other free email providers with their paltry capacities. Gmail's mantra of "search, don't sort" finally won me over. True to its claim, I no longer need to contemplate deleting emails. When in doubt, I just archive them. The quick search has certainly been a boon and has saved me quite a bit of time when I need to find a certain email. Gmail's usage of AJAX, however, doesn't dazzle me much. Okay, so the whole page doesn't have to be repainted as I navigate the system. Big deal, I still have to wait for the meat of the page (the emails) to be displayed on my browser. In my opinion, the whole concept of AJAX is a bit overblown. True that AJAX does away with full blast page trips to the server, but when you have to wait for the main content to arrive at your browser, the irritation factor is just the same, at least to me. But lately that irritation has been on the rise as Gmail takes longer to refresh content and sometimes it fails entirely and comes up blank. Other times it flashes an "oops" error message, as shown here. The end result is that I have to close the dialog box and click on the refresh button of my browser, which defeats the whole purpose of AJAX. I must assume that over time, Gmail has seen a surge in users and the servers have become less responsive servicing all the users. I suppose that's a good problem for Gmail to have attracted so many users. Now that Gmail has won over so many with its innovative approach and spiffy interface, it's time to get cracking on its backend infrastructure. That work is probably not as sexy as the front-end, but it's probably even more critical in keeping the application fluid. gmail,google,ajax,email <Oops, Gmail does it again and again> // posted by rh 0 comments | Sunday, June 25, 2006 DSL Renewal  A week ago I received an unhappy notification from my DSL provider. My one-year trial period was about to be over and they were switching me to the regular monthly price. As consolation they would give me a small price break if I visited a special Web page that they had set up for me to register there. So much for that consolation, the price was over 75% the rate I was paying thus far. Hard to believe, but it's been almost a year that I finally bid dialup a long farewell and switched to broadband. At that time, my phone company was running a special on DSL and with a one-year commitment, I took the bait. The thought was that by the time I was up for a renewal, competition from other sources, such as cable, would bring prices down and I won't have pay a lot more when I renew. Worst case, I could switch back to dialup if all else failed. What I didn't count on was that broadband was too addictive and I would never be able to go back to dialup. Even if I did, my family would have my head served on a platter if I subjected them to the painfully slow speed of dialup. There was no turning back, and the broadband providers realize that all too well. It's not unlike the friendly drug dealer that provides the first few hits for free, only to get you addicted and start charging the big bucks on subsequent deliveries. Instead of following the letter's instructions, I decided to call up my phone company and see about alternatives. They are still peddling their DSL services at low prices, so my plan was to cancel my service and restart it anew with the introductory price. Instead, the friendly operator told me to ignore the letter and she cheerfully signed me up for a new plan with a faster speed and a lower monthly price to boot. The next time you receive a renewal notice for your broadband or whatever else you might be subscribed to, consider contacting the company and inquiring about your options. You might be pleasantly surprised, as I was, at what the companies might offer to keep you as a customer. dsl,broadband,isp,dialup <DSL Renewal> // posted by rh 0 comments | Tuesday, June 20, 2006 Google Spreadsheets  If you wanted take a peek at where Web 2.0 is headed, you can do no worse than taking a test drive of one of Google's latest beta tools, dubbed Google Spreadsheets. I signed up for this online productivity tool a couple of weeks ago and after receiving my invitation, I delved right in and created a small spreadsheet and ran it through its paces. Okay, this is no Excel. It harkens back to the early days of Lotus123 where spreadsheets were simple and had a fraction of bells and whistles of today's modern spreadsheet programs. There is an occasional response lag and the interface is somewhat constrained by the browser capabilities. Yet, I was still impressed by the clean look and the intuitive design. There is a decent list of functions available, and the spreadsheet can be saved and shared online. The upside of this tool is its ubiquity. Anywhere one can find a browser and an internet connection, the spreadsheets can be viewed and modified. No need to carry a spreadsheet program around or mess with confusing licensing requirements. Best of all, it's free. I must assume that combined with its recent acquisition of Writely (an online word processor that has the same benefits of Google Spreadsheets) Google has its eye on the productivity tools market, dominated today by Microsoft Office. And Microsoft probably can't help but feel a bit threatened by this rapid march towards online tools. One might be tempted to give most, if not all the credit to Web 2.0 and AJAX. After all, these are the technologies that are most notable in the stampede towards porting many applications online. But perhaps the true champions here are the Web and the Internet, and these seemingly new technologies are just natural milestones in the realization of the promise of the Web. If you are tempted to dismiss these online tools as mere toys, too rudimentary to be taken seriously by real professionals, I must remind you of the early days of Windows. Windows still has many detractors, but its impact on business as a serious platform today can not be denied. These online products are just beginning to take shape. They are still very much in their infancy. As they mature with the Web, and that is inevitable, they will eventually change the application landscape as we know it today. Web 2.0 and AJAX might be a distant memory by then, but there is no stopping this revolution now. google,excel,spreadsheets,microsoft,office,ajax,web 2.0 <Google Spreadsheets> // posted by rh 0 comments | Sunday, June 18, 2006 Bill Gates, the Philanthropist  Being the richest man on earth comes with a baggage. For one, you become the most admired, or the most reviled, or both. Looking the his early pictures, when Microsoft was just taking shape, it's hard to believe that the scrawny kid made it all the way to the top and had so much staying power. No matter what one might think of him, he was probably the most instrumental character in bringing information technology out of the shadows and making it into the giant industry that it is today. No, Microsoft, didn’t single-handedly create the markets and the products, but it coaxed plenty of companies to compete with it and benefited all of us in the process. Plenty of us owe our livelihood to Microsoft, myself included. For people like me, having a career in technology is perhaps the most obvious benefit, but anywhere in the world a document is created, a Web page is viewed, or a chart is generated on a spreadsheet, Microsoft has had a direct or indirect effect. For that I am thankful. But it seems like there was a lot more to Bill Gates than just creating the world's largest software company. Many wealthy people become philanthropists as a PR move, but I think Bill Gates gets a genuine kick out of this type of work. Perhaps being the largest philanthropic organization in the world can be a source of great pride and can motivate one to push even harder. But even if his motives have a selfish side, it can not be denied that many people are benefiting from his good work. At the time when so many company bosses are tangled in legal mess arising from their own greed and hubris, it's refreshing to see someone using his money and power to help others. His decision to leave Microsoft in the next couple of years and enmesh himself in his charitable work should not be overlooked by business schools to make a point. It is possible to be rich, powerful, and sometimes mean and vicious in the business world, and still be the right role model to many who wish to be like him. bill gates,microsoft,philanthropy,software,information technology <Bill Gates, the Philanthropist> // posted by rh 0 comments | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 Intel's Blunder, AMD's Opportunity  It seems inevitable that any company that's been around long enough would make a misstep or a series of bad judgments and suffer the consequences. Such is the dilemma that Intel has found itself in recently. Until recently Intel seemed untouchable. Riding high on Moore's law (processing power doubling every 18 months) , it kept cranking out various processor models for all sorts of computers from laptops to high-powered multi-processor servers. Older processors would also continue to flourish as their prices eased and they found home in a litany of smaller embedded devices. AMD, Intel's arch nemesis seems to have always been around. Mostly living in the shadow of its much bigger rival, it has had a rocky history of violent profit and loss swings, but no matter what, it seemed to always hang in there, albeit as a small distraction rather than a competitor to be taken seriously. But suddenly the 64-bit revolution changed all that. Intel's bet was on Itanium (IA64), a powerful 64-bit chip that blew past prior performance metrics, but was hardly backwards compatible. That meant that 32-bit programs (which still comprise the lion's share of the software market) couldn't run on Itanium, at least not natively. That meant that all those programs had to be recompiled under the IA64 platform, and in some cases that meant large alterations (hence, large expenses) which many companies balked at. Realizing a golden moment, AMD seized the opportunity and delivered the x64 Opteron architecture. It wasn't a match for IA64's power, but it could run 32-bit applications natively without any modifications. It was the dawn of the 64-bit architecture bifurcation, and in hindsight, AMD had the better strategy. The market had clearly chosen the x64 architecture over the IA64. It didn't take long for Intel to recognize its mistake, and today Intel also produces processors with the x64 architecture alongside the IA64. The blunder put Intel in a catch-up mode with AMD, but AMD has been smart enough to build on its momentum and snare a number of important vendors, the latest being Dell. To be sure, Intel is still a much larger and more diversified company than AMD, its market capitalization dwarfs that of AMD by a 10 to one ratio. It won't be easy to stay ahead of Intel for long and AMD must recognize that it has finally awakened a sleeping giant that is now in hot pursuit. One must assume that the phrase coined by Intel's ex-chief rings loud in AMD's hallways today: "Only the paranoid survive". It had better kick up the paranoia factor much higher if it intends to survive or even win this battle. intel,amd,x64,ia64,64-bit,processor,itanium,opteron <Intel's Blunder, AMD's Opportunity> // posted by rh 1 comments | Saturday, June 10, 2006 The Sarbanes-Oxley Effect  With the Enron's trial, and a number of other sensational scandals, finally over, the US public sector can finally put the dark clouds behind it and resume its business. Only it's not business as usual. The Sarbanes-Oxley law (a.k.a. Sarbox) which was enacted as the result of the Enron's fallout now weighs heavy on US markets. In a nutshell, Sarbox ratchets up the scrutiny on public companies in an effort to keep them honest. Company executives can no longer use ignorance to sidestep bad accounting and fraud. But who are we kidding, most of these guys caught in the mess were well aware of the misdeeds and profited handsomely from them. Now they will be held accountable in the eyes of law and that should keep most of them on the straight and narrow. Let's face it, if the boss is unaware of the goings on in a company, then he or she is not doing the job that's paying them top money, and I don't see how they could shirk responsibility given that they were tasked to look out for the shareholders' interests. Many now blame Sarbox for the reluctance of some corporations to go public in the US. Some have chosen to go public in other countries with more lax accounting rules and to list their stocks in exchanges abroad. Their issue with Sarbox is one of complexity, bureaucracy, and wastefulness. Some fear an erosion of the US markets status if the situation continues and are calling for more relaxed accounting rules. I can't say I am familiar with the intricacies of being Sarbox compliant, but I wonder why some companies would resist the very tool that can generate confidence in their accounting practices and attract the investors. If a company is afraid of subjecting itself to strict accounting rules, perhaps that company is not worth investing in. Yes, the more stringent accounting rules come with some painful consequences such as additional expenses and resources, but would it make the US market less palatable to companies and make the US markets second rate? Even so, would investors choose to invest their money in more risky markets rather than a certifiably honest system. I find it improbable that stricter US accounting rules would cause grave harm to the US markets. On the contrary, even if there is some short-term pain, investors would eventually gravitate towards a market that can provide more transparency and integrity. After all, if blind risk-taking is what investors are after, they can just take their money to a casino and roll the dice. Sarbanes-Oxley,sarbox,accounting,enron,business <The Sarbanes-Oxley Effect> // posted by rh 0 comments | Monday, June 05, 2006 Viagra, Levitra, Cialis  There was a time when spam referred to Hormel's canned meat. Then junk email was honored with the moniker thanks to Monty Python. Today spam comprises the majority of the emails sent around the world. But spamming is no longer just confined to email. Search engine spamming is another irritation that has gripped the Web for some time. It manifests itself in several variations like blog spamming and forum spamming but it's generally referred to Web sites that cobble together a lot of content taken from various places, lace it with a medley of popular keywords and let the search engines crawl and index them. The spam site operators make money by greeting visitors with ads and other pitches, giving little in return in terms of value and quality. Comment spamming is another way shady sites can their word out. They typically unleash search robots on sites, looking for pages they can submit comments to. These could be blogs, forums, feedbacks, or submission forms. The Web Tools pages of this site, for examples, has such comment sections for users to leave feedback. Once discovered, the robots post messages peddling porn, medication, gambling, stocks, or whatever else the scammers are engaged in. Realizing that many site operators delete such entries eventually, the robots come back repeatedly to post more messages. They also use evasive tactics such as posting from various nodes, in case a site blocks access to one or two offending IP addresses. After receiving countless junk posts, I finally decided to incorporate a CAPTCHA system into the commenting page. The technique is not fool-proof and adds a small inconvenience for legitimate users, but it prevents most robots from posting comments as they are unable to decipher the encoded phrase necessary to make a successful entry. Clearly spammers have some success with their tactics. They obviously play the numbers game. In other words they count on the fact that a small minority of people can be fooled by their junk messages and put money in their pockets. I wonder about the gullibility of some people that actually respond to them. If spam didn't produce any results, these guys wouldn't waste even a single second pumping out the garbage. As long as the cost of spamming remains low, and as long as a few naïve people are fooled, the abhorrent activity will continue. All site operators can do is to make their sites less palatable and less accessible to spammers and hope the miscreants will move on to easier targets.spam,viagra,cialis,spammers,search engine spamming,captcha <Viagra, Levitra, Cialis> // posted by rh 0 comments |

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