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Thursday, September 28
SiteKreator Launches Business Edition
by
Mike
on Thu 28 Sep 2006 08:52 AM PDT
SiteKreator Launches Business Edition
Online Web site builder SiteKreator (sitekreator.com) announced this week at DEMOfall in San Diego it has launched the Business Edition of SiteKreator, an online suite that enables users to design, maintain, and host customer Web sites.
Designed for entrepreneurs, small to medium-sized businesses and independent professionals, the Business Edition starts at $15 per month and includes hosting. SiteKreator is a fully-hosted online application that eliminates the need to download, install, or upgrade software.
The all-inclusive application suite delivers the "look and feel" of a professionally designed site and the flexibility of high-end content management system at the price of a standard Web hosting service. SiteKreator's portfolio of customizable templates ensures a consistent appearance, helping businesses create attractive, fully-functional Web sites.
"Small businesses need to compete online, but often they don't have the resources or capital to build attractive and effective sites," says Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMOfall. "SiteKreator helps businesses instantly design, manage, and host elegant, fully-branded, and interactive Web sites - quickly and painlessly. Best of all, businesses don't have to know the first thing about Web design."
Tuesday, September 26
AOLfree: You've got problems
by
Mike
on Tue 26 Sep 2006 07:12 AM PDT
AOLfree: You've got problemsIn July, AOL released a new version of their software that anyone can use for free if they already have an Internet connection. I would recommend you do not get it anywhere near your PC.
I have not run AOL software since the late 1990s when I co-authored a book called Internet Messaging. So I was naturally curious about this announcement and wanted to try out the product. I was very sorry that I did. Before I knew what was going on, my hard disk had filled up with many different pieces of software, such as the following:
AOL Coach, AOL Connection Services, AOL Deskbar, AOL Spyware Protector, AOL IE Toolbar, AOL You've Got Pictures screensaver, Real's Player, QuickTime, and AOL Computer Check Up. Not to mention the AOL Uninstaller, which only uninstalls one of the above programs. Who designed this?
The AOLfree version faithfully replicates the AOL paid experience: You have AOL IM, a browser to AOL's portal, and of course, AOL e-mail. The portal is their Web site that has news and information, and is a half-hearted attempt to compete with Yahoo and MSN.com. And why bother trying to create an AOL e-mail identity when there are so many other and better choices? Most people use whatever e-mail and browser they want these days.
However, there are a couple of things that the new AOL software does not do, things that parents should know. One of the most useful things of a real AOL account was the ability to set children's access to content and how they would use their IM and e-mail accounts. While most teens these days know more than parents and how to get around these blocks, the preteen set can benefit from these controls. The AOLfree universe is completely free of parental controls.
But if you are still using AOL and do not have youngsters around, you want to get off the AOL bus now. This is why their phone lines are being clogged with users who want out of their monthly AOL tax on their Net access. And do not get me started on how much of a maze AOLhelp online is. There are so many blind alleys on their Web site that anyone trying to figure this out is not going to get very far. Clearly, they are working on their site. (When I went under AOLhelp, account questions, price plans AOL offers; I got "We're sorry, currently there are no available documents for this section." Oops.)
Yes, there are some semiuseful tools, such as AOL Computer Check Up, which scans and attempts to fix your hard disk for things that are wrong with it, but there are better programs around for free, including PCPitStop.com. And there is its Spyware blocker, but after installing all these other AOL things I am not sure that I can find the blocker among all my desktop clutter anymore. And why, pray tell, do I need both Real and QuickTime players on my machine? Certainly, one would be enough to play all that video content that AOL now is streaming at me, including the intro video with the cute blonde showing me what the software does, which is almost worth the entire hassle of installing and uninstalling AOLfree.
Thursday, September 21
Broadband Passes Dial-Up Internet Access
by
Mike
on Thu 21 Sep 2006 07:16 AM PDT
Broadband Passes Dial-Up Internet Access
Driven largely by the bundling of services, high-speed broadband has finally overtaken dial-up in Internet access, accounting for a 56 percent share of residential ISP customers, according to a report released Wednesday by J. D. Power and Associates.
The customer market research firm noted that high-speed services had surged even though they are priced much higher than dial-up. Power and Associates said the average price subscribers pay for high-speed access is $42.13 a month versus $18.45 for dial-up.
"Although high-speed Internet is still considerably more expensive than dial-up, bundling high-speed with other products, such as telephone and video service, has made it an increasingly attractive option," Steve Kirkeby, executive director of telecommunications and technology research at Power and Associates, said according to a press release.
Kirkeby also noted that dial-up's 44 percent market share still represents a significant piece of the Internet access market.
For high-speed access, the preference study listed WideOpenWest (WOW!) with the most satisfied customers followed by Bright House Network's Road Runner and, in third place, BellSouth. Also placing high in the rankings were EathlLink, Verizon, Cox, and Qwest. Occupying positions in the bottom of the survey were RCN, Mediacom and Comcast.
Wednesday, September 20
Gonzales Wants ISPs to Save User Data
by
Mike
on Wed 20 Sep 2006 07:07 AM PDT
Gonzales Wants ISPs to Save User DataAttorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that Congress should require Internet providers to preserve customer records, asserting that prosecutors need them to fight child pornography.
Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller have met with several Internet providers, including Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Comcast Corp., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.
The law enforcement officials have indicated to the companies they must retain customer records, possibly for two years. The companies have discussed strengthening their retention periods which currently run the gamut from a few days to about a year to help avoid legislation.
During those meetings, which took place earlier this summer, Justice Department officials asserted that customer records would help them investigate child pornography cases. But the FBI also said during the meetings that such records would help their terrorism investigations, said one person who attended the meetings but spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings were intended to be private.
Testifying to a Senate panel, Gonzales acknowledged the concerns of some company executives who say legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on customers' privacy rights. But he said the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great.
"This is a problem that requires federal legislation," Gonzales told the Senate Banking Committee. "We need information. Information helps us makes cases."
He called the government's lack of access to customer data the biggest obstacle to deterring child porn.
"We have to find a way for Internet service providers to retain information for a period of time so we can go back with a legal process to get them," he said.
Friday, September 15
Internet service providers should attack spam at the network level
by
Mike
on Fri 15 Sep 2006 02:25 PM PDT
Internet service providers should attack spam at the network levelA database of more than 10 million spam email messages collected at just one Internet “spam sinkhole” suggests that Internet service providers could better fight unwanted junk email by addressing it at the network level, rather than using currently available message content filters.
Also, the research – conducted at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing -- identified two additional techniques for combating spam: improving the security of the Internet’s routing infrastructure and developing algorithms to identify computers’ membership in “botnets,” which are groups of computers that are compromised and controlled remotely to send large volumes of spam. The findings are now directing the researchers’ design of new systems to stem spam.
“Content filters are fighting a losing battle because it’s easier for spammers to simply change their content than for us to build spam filters.,” said Nick Feamster, a Georgia Tech assistant professor of computing. “We need another set of properties, not based on content. So what about network-level properties? It’s harder for spammers to change network-level properties.”
Feamster and his Ph.D. student Anirudh Ramachandran will present their findings on Sept. 14, 2006 in Pisa, Italy, at the Association for Computing Machinery’s annual flagship conference of its Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM).
From 18 months of Internet routing and spam data the researchers collected in one domain, they have learned which network-level properties are most promising for consideration in spam filter design. Specifically, they learned that:
• Internet routes are being hijacked by spammers;
• they can identify many narrow ranges within Internet protocol (IP) address space that are generating only spam;
• and they can identify the Internet service providers (ISP) from which spam is coming.
“We know route hijacking is occurring,” Feamster said. “It’s being done by a small, but fairly persistent and sophisticated group of spammers, who cannot be traced using conventional methods.”
Route hijacking works like this: By exploiting weaknesses in Internet routing protocols, spammers can steal Internet address space by briefly advertising a route for that space to the rest of the Internet’s routers. The spammers can then assign any IP address within that address space to their machines. They send their spam from those machines and then withdraw the route by which they sent the spam. By the time a recipient files a complaint related to this IP address, the route is gone and the IP address space is no longer reachable.
“Even if you’re watching the hijack take place, it’s difficult to tell where it’s coming from,” Feamster explained. “We can make some good guesses. But Internet routing protocols are insecure, so it’s relatively easy for spammers to steal them and hard for us to identify the perpetrators.”
Feamster and researchers elsewhere are actively working to improve the security of Internet routing protocols, he added.Better spam filtering will also result from a system, which Feamster hopes to design, based on collaborative, network-level filtering among ISP operators.
“Within the single domain that we are studying, it’s interesting that you don’t see the same IP addresses repeatedly being used to send spam to that domain,” Feamster said. “So ISP operators need to be able to securely share information about IP addresses associated with spam.”
In addition to studying network-level properties of spam, Ramachandran and Feamster compared their lists of IP addresses used to send spam against eight frequently used “blacklists” compiled by network operators to help filter spam.
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