U.S. NetworX

UPDATE: As of Jan. 20, Congress is backing away from the bills and postponing action.

You’ve heard about SOPA and PIPA, the two pieces of legislation aiming to stop online piracy of copyrighted material, and the accompanying protests. But let’s distill it even more, as this is a controversial enough topic we all need to consider.

To make things simple, let’s attack it with the 5 W’s we learned in school, and we’ll certainly leave you to dig even deeper if you like.

Who?

As NPR reported, the battle is basically Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley. You have the media conglomerates (movies, music, media lobbyists, etc.) on one side wanting to stop the online piracy of their content. The other side, you have the vocal opposition of many Internet users and those who rely on it for their own jobs, including Google, Ebay, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox and LinkedIn.

What?

While SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act – PDF) gets the majority of coverage, there’s also PIPA (PROTECT Intellectual Property Act – PDF). SOPA originated in the House of Representatives, while PIPA is the Senate version. Both seek to add powers to respond to copyright infringements across the Net. The New York Times reports that some methods could include preventing search engines from sending users to sites with questionable content, as well as interacting with payment tools/sites like PayPal to stop the transfer of money for possible pirated media.

When?

Reports show that the Senate could begin voting on PIPA on Jan. 24. However, protests were hitting a feverish pitch starting Jan. 18, with many big-name websites (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) going dark in protest, as well as explaining the issues and requesting their visitors to take action.

Where?

While the two bills have originated in the U.S. Congress, their reach could extend even farther. The Internet being so decentralized will lead to so many problems as to searching for possible infringements, you might see foreign websites, hosts, ISPs and the like stuck in such a legal morass. Let’s say a user in Ireland posts an infringed movie file from a California movie company to a website hosted in Israel – it’s likely both groups will be pulled into the fight with the studio. How do you get all the groups, with their separate legal issues, to comply with one another?

Why?

At the heart of the matter is a fight against online piracy of copyright infringed works. I don’t think people want to have free or vastly cheap access to songs, movies, TV shows, etc., but the too broad, too powerful laws are irking many. There is talk of these laws having an adverse effect on free speech rights and the integrity/security of the technology that “powers” the Internet.

I want to know more!

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/21380/SOPAPIPA-blackout (Disclaimer: I’m a paying member of this website, but this post goes into a very detailed account of a SOPA-like request to shut down a site due to alleged copyright infringement.)

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/copyrights/index.html?smid=tw-nytimes (Once again, the Times has a great overview on a large topic, with multiple links and details.)

http://www.vice.com/read/pipa-supporters-copyright-violations (Some of the SOPA and PIPA legislators are in fact using copyrighted works without request/permission.)

http://theoatmeal.com/ (The animation takes a humorous look as to how SOPA might shut his website down. It might be crude, but the points are valid. Note: the animation might not be safe for work.)

We’ve previously posted the Top 10 signs you’re using a bad site/email hosting company, so it’s only fair to post the signs your website needs to be redesigned. Watch out, folks, we are trained professionals…just not in comedy.

1.    You forgot you even had a website or what it looks like.
2.    It has a hit/traffic counter at the bottom of the page. (Congrats on your 20 visitors.)
3.    There’s an animated stick figure in a hard hat, with flashing “Website Under Construction!” text.
4.    Your homepage has an address like http://yourISP.com/home/~yourusername.html
5.    The site is built entirely in Flash.
6.    When you call your host, the call goes straight to voicemail, which is currently full or has not been setup.
7.    Audio or video automatically plays when you visit, but you can’t turn it off.
8.    Menu options read Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 …
9.    Your host says the design can’t be viewed on your iPhone.
10.    It’s hosted at MySpace.

Gone are the days of being stuck with your Internet browser being locked down into a default set of tools. Welcome to today’s browsers that can allow plugins or add-ons customized for a variety of uses – run searches, view the weather, read documents without closing the window or going to a new site, and much more.

The following are a list of some of our favorites and why you might like them.

Firefox add-ons

FireFTP – FTP powers right there in your browser

FireShot – take screenshots of a website (or maybe just a piece of it)

Adblock Plus – Does what it says on the box: blocks ads, banners and more

Weatherbug – View your weather info in a quick glance, rather than visiting a stand-alone website

PDF Download – Robust tool for handling PDFs rather than separate programs like Adobe’s Reader

Fox Splitter – View multiple sites, or parts of sites, in just one browser window

Aging Tabs – older and unused tabs fade out, which is great if you have lots of tabs open

Google’s Chrome extensions

AdThwart – more ad-blocking powers

ChromeSEO – provides search engine optimization stats and tools

Vitzo WHOIS – run WHOIS domain name searches while in the browser window

February saw Google launching its Buzz system – the Gmail-attached message and sharing tool. After a few months of steady use in a very unscientific manner (read: my friends and I trading pictures, links, jokes and discussions), here’s a list of what works and what doesn’t.

I know it’s still young and has faced some external battles over privacy and access, but Buzz is shaping up to be better than Google’s earlier Wave tool. I’m considering Buzz to be the Diet Coke of Wave: a similar batch of tools, but fewer calories and issues.

So let’s see how Buzz is doing in real-life use.

The bees’ knees

• Unlike Wave’s invite-only access, all you need is a Gmail account to use Buzz. Voila, a much larger user base.
• Accessed via a mobile device, you can view Google Maps with a new Buzz layer, so you can plot out Buzzers. For fun, move the map to Midtown New York City and watch the Buzzes fly. (Take THAT, rural Rankin County, Mississippi.)
• Supposedly there is a mechanism in place for Buzz to recommend interesting posts, but I’ve yet to notice one. Maybe I’m just not interesting enough, eh, Google? However, I rarely start a Buzz but will comment on others. Maybe the Buzzes you start are somewhat weighted?
• The integration into your Gmail inbox is a one-stop shopping experience, and is making me consider making Gmail my home page of sorts.

Oh, buzz off

• Personal information and privacy remain the largest issue. Some say how Google was attaching it to public profiles, it could let the public basically see your conversations with other users. Later on, Google stepped in and added permissions and the like to control access.
• If you didn’t create the Buzz, your replies can only be text and links. So if the Buzz starter posted a great pic, your follow-up image can’t be inline – you’ll have to post a URL instead.
• Email notifications had been a touchy issue. When Buzz came out, the default method was to send an email alert for each comment that was made in a Buzz you were a member. So if you were in a large and active thread, your Gmail account would be full. The original work-around was using a filter to hide or even delete the notices. But Google quickly stepped in and added new settings in Buzz to allow or disallow email notification. (Personally, I don’t mind the email notices and I’ve kept mine on.)
• Buzz can let you connect other sites and social media platforms to your Buzzes. Meaning, what I post on my blog, Flickr, Twitter, etc. can show up in my Buzzes. Great, you might think. But like me, you’re cross-pollinating: I have Twitter followers in Buzz, so I get a double dose of whatever they post. Unless your buddy disconnects their Twitter feed from Buzz, your only recourse is to ignore or unfollow.

So where does that leave us? Where are Google and Buzz going? Good question. Facebook and yes even MySpace have the same functions. Is it a trial run for Google for a Twitter Killer, but with a much more powerful advertising and revenue-generating model?

(Read last week’s article on the Chrome browser by clicking here.)

Unlike Chrome, Wave certainly has its short-comings. Yeah, I know it’s still by invite only, and Google has slapped some big notices how it’s a preview version and not even in beta testing. In other words, like old maps show, “Here be monsters!”

The gist of Wave is Google trying to make an online tool for communication and collaboration, with some fancy widgets built in. Think of it like a chat room on a bad batch of steroids.

I received an early invite to the system and have spent some time in it with friends kicking the tires. The result? It’s got growing pains, but shows some potential. Socially, I prefer Twitter to keep in touch with friends. Wave, however, is more of a big chat room. You create “Waves” that you can think of like a topic. In that wave, you invite from your contact list folks you want to participate with. Inside that wave, you can post messages, upload files, add images, even little games and poll questions.

Here’s an example: let’s say I want to organize a dinner party with friends. I create a wave, give it a name/short post (“Let’s have supper before the holidays get here”), and add participants to it via my contacts list. Within that wave, I can start suggesting dates, time, location, etc. At any time, my contacts can reply with their own comments, via text, images, links and such. We can also input widgets like a polling question (“Will you bring a covered dish? Yes – No – Maybe”).

After a couple months of usage, though, Wave to me is not the end-all, be-all email or chat/message board killer some are making it out to be. The big gripe is the invitation-based method currently in use. If I can only Wave with folks who have accounts right now, what about other friends and family? In addition, it still is buggy and slow in use, even when I use Google’s own Chrome browser to use it.

Short answer: Neat idea, but much left to be desired. Now, Wave goodbye.

I’ve given two of Google’s products a spin recently, and here are some thoughts and notes I’ve collected. By no means am I CNET-caliber in covering online technology, but an above-average Internet user. So maybe I have an idea of what to expect and how things should work.

The Chrome browser

At home, I was frustrated with the slow download of photos from a photographer’s website. I had previously tried Chrome at home (Hey, that rhymes!) when it was released, but I deemed it too buggy and some sites didn’t react too well to it, so I returned to Firefox.

With the current version of Chrome, though, the speed increase over an updated Firefox was noticeable. Chrome loaded more quickly and didn’t stall and eventually crash like FF did. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! With that result, I’ve started using Chrome at the office as my go-to browser. It’s only crashed once on me; probably the good ole PEBKAC issue.

The other bonus for me was the search function, especially when I need to find a word in a long post or list of links. Firefox does it well enough, but I noticed that Chrome not only highlights the word, but also adds little notches in the vertical scroll bar to help say, “Hey! Look! Go up HERE to see another instance!”

Only thing I’ve seen as an issue with Chrome was a Flash website that took longer to run and didn’t match the look of the same site in Firefox. Honestly, I don’t know how much of that is a Chrome bug vs. that site developer not taking Chrome into consideration.

Verdict: It’s worth a try if you feel like experimenting with a browser that’s Internet Explorer or Firefox. There is a speed difference in your favor, too.

Next time: Google’s Wave