Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

Apple iTunes which launched in 2003, has managed to turn themselves into an extremely successful media store.  Up until this point, Apple has always said that they would never consider turning to a subscription service.  Now rumor has it that they may be changing their tune.

Other music services on the web like Yahoo’s Music Unlimited have taken the subscription route, but yet none of these services have become too popular. Why is that?

Some analysts are saying that subscription models haven’t worked yet for other services because iTunes hasn’t gone that route yet.  Is iTunes really THAT influential? Or are these other services just lacking something?

Phil Liegh who’s a senior analyst with Inside Digital Media spoke to CNN Money and said:

“The number one factor regarding the acceptance of the subscription model is the dominance of Apple. The idea of subscribing to music is new to most consumers so when the dominant player doesn’t talk about it, the idea seems out of the mainstream for most consumers.”

While some are saying that an iTunes subscription is definitely a possibility, others are saying that this isn’t very likely.  Dan Moren over at MacUser.com says:

I think the deluge began in my newsreader sometime last night: “Apple to consider iTunes subscription service!” You’d have thought that perhaps the clouds had parted and the smiling visage of Steve Jobs had blazed forth, sending down word from on high that Apple would offer iTunes subscriptions. Not exactly.

The whole rumor of Apple starting a subscription service came from the CEO of Intent Media Works who works with peer-to-peer networks.  If Apple was going to start such a service, I doubt they’d be telling them their plans first.

Whether or not this rumor is true, I think most people would be happy with a subscription service, particularly if they purchase media regularly.

—

As a side note, you just might be able to purchase your favorite Beatles songs from iTunes soon. The Beatles recently settled a $50 million royalty dispute with EMI that has kept their music from the iTunes store thus far.

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This article was written on June 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

Rumors are running rampant that Yahoo is considering acquiring MySpace.  This isn’t just some random rumor either – The New York Times is reporting that News Corp. and Yahoo have discussed the idea. It’s a pretty “loose proposal” as the New York Times says, but the idea has been thrown out there.

The cost? Well, rumor has it that Yahoo would give up 25% of their stock which would mean that MySpace is worth $12 billion.  Keep in mind, News Corp. originally paid $580 million for MySpace, so they’d be receiving a nice return on their investment. This is definitely a smart move for News Corp., but is it a smart move for Yahoo?

Now the next question is why would Fox be so eager to get Yahoo stock? Giving up 25% of their company sounds like a lot right now for Yahoo, especially after they just lost their CEO, however, their main competitor is Google. Given that, perhaps Yahoo feels as though they’d be able to stand up to Google’s competition with MySpace on board? This move could potentially turn out to be very profitable for Yahoo if they are able to control the advertising and search on MySpace.

We all know Yahoo has wanted to get into the Social Network scene. Afterall, they offered Facebook $1.6 billion in December which was quickly turned down.  With the recent spike in Facebook’s popularity, it might make more sense for Yahoo to run after Facebook with a more generous offer and see what the result is.

Speaking of Facebook, has anybody else noticed that more people are un-installing the new applications rather than installing them? So many of the applications are cool for about a day, and then they serve no real purpose. Hopefully it’s not true, but I think Facebook apps may be losing some appeal. They have for me anyways.

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This article was written on January 28, 2009 by CyberNet.

The odds are pretty good that you’ve come across the Experts Exchange site while trying to troubleshoot some sort of problem. You probably got frustrated when you noticed that the question being asked was visible, but you couldn’t find the answers without registering first. That may not be a big deal if registering was free, but they actually charge $13 a month to get an account.

The good news is that you don’t have to pay just to see the answers. Experts Exchange obviously wants search engines to be able to see both the question and answers so that they can get a better ranking. Google, for example, forbids that a site show different content to their crawler than what the user sees. So Experts Exchange had to figure out a workaround.

What they ended up doing is checking to see if a user is coming from a search engine like Google using referrer information provided by your browser. If that’s the case the solutions are indeed displayed on the page, but you just have to scroll all the way down to see them. Here’s what I’m talking about…

You’ll see the question just as you’d expect:

If you scroll a little farther you should see the hidden answers/solutions, followed by a long list of categories:

After you scroll past the categories you should see all of the answers/solutions:

Now there’s a catch. If you try linking directly to an article you won’t see the solutions. Experts Exchange is specifically looking for the referral information in your browser to ensure that you’re coming from a search engine. That’s why this will work if you click the first link in these Google search results, but won’t if you try to jump directly to the article by clicking this link. Similarly this won’t work if your browser is set to hide the referrer information from websites.

So there you have it. You can view the answers from Experts Exchange without needing to register, and you don’t have to try to use a cached version of the page.

Thanks to Michael and Cory for giving me the idea to write this article!

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This article was written on December 17, 2006 by CyberNet.

I’m not sure if many of you have heard of Script.aculo.us before but it is often the code used to provide Web 2.0 styled effects. Usually you’ll find it implemented in expandable/collapsible menus where it applies a sliding effect to the menu instead of just disappearing right away, so Script.aculo.us basically smooths out animations. Of course, it can handle more than just menus and you should checkout the demo page for more examples of where it would be useful (different examples are listed in the right column).

I have considered using it in the expanding/collapsing sidebar elements that this site has but the downside is that it will eat up some bandwidth. Depending on the effects that you want to use it could total over 100KB of additional downloads required for every visitor on the site. If you just want a sliding effect to collapsible menus then that isn’t quite so bad and will typically just use around 15KB.

The newest version of Scrip.aculo.us, version 1.7 Beta, is throwing in even more effects that could change the way websites present information to us. Now there are two new morphing effects and one transformation effect that is sure to make any site look professional. This site has setup a demo so that you can see the three different effects in action along with how you can implement them yourselves.

The transitions are so unbelievably smooth that it feels like something you would see in a PowerPoint presentation and not on a website. I can almost guarantee you that you’ll refresh the page at least once so that you can try each of the effects again. I’ve refreshed the page well over 10 times.

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This article was written on July 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

This morning, one of the contacts on my Windows Live Messenger list appeared to be on-line and sent me a link that looked like this: [myusername].historyshotz.com. What caught my eye was the fact that my actual username was in the link, and then upon clicking the link, Firefox let me know that the site was reported as web forgery. Knowing the link came from a friend, I was curious, so I started to look into it. As it turns out, their account had been compromised and what I would have seen had Firefox not stopped me from following the link, are boxes to enter in my MSN email credentials.

The domain, historyshotz.com was registered just yesterday (they are based in Panama City, Panama according to Whois.net) and they attempt to retrieve your credentials by telling you to login to see a photo from the person who sent you the message. Those who fall for it authorize some company called TST Management to “send messages of a commercial nature via Instant Messages and emails on behalf of third parties via the information you provide us.”That line comes from their Terms of Use/Privacy Policy where they also point out that they claim they aren’t a phishing site that attempts to trick you into revealing your information. Riiiight. They say that, right before they talk about accessing your account to send messages to your friends to promote the site, and introduce them to “new entertaining sites.”

What we are trying to get at is if you happen to receive a link from a contact on your MSN/Windows Live Messenger list that looks like this: [yourusername].historyshotz.com, (with your actual username appearing in the link), do not follow it and do not enter your credentials. We don’t care that they claim their intentions are good, they can’t be, not with the way they attempt to get your credentials in the first place, followed by the spamming they do. Oh, and that spamming, they say the user will be liable for:

“ANY LIABILITY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES CAUSED OR ALLEGEDLY CAUSED BY ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE, ERROR, OMISSION, INTERRUPTION, DEFECT, DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION, COMMUNICATIONS LINE FAILURE, SHALL BE STRICTLY LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT PAID BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE SUBSCRIBER TO THIS SERVICE.”

If you happen to get the link from a friend, be sure to let them know that their account has been compromised and to change their password immediately.

What was reassuring for us was the fact that Firefox already identified the site as web forgery, just one day after the domain was registered. Yay for Firefox!

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