Check that your Google ad opt-out has been honoured

I have opted out of Google’s Doubleclick (and others’) advertising cookies many times. In theory, you only need to do it once, but I have been to Google’s opt-out page many times to find that the company has set another new cookie on my system.    I fiddle around with my cookies a lot, so […]

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Microsoft Internet Explorer 9: the worst browser on the scene

Microsoft has released its Internet Explorer 9 to much fanfare at SXSW. I’m really not sure what the fuss is, because it appears, as usual, the browser hasn’t been tested.    Here it is on my Asus laptop, running Vista. That’s apparently my company’s home page. Looks slightly different to how Firefox, Chrome and Opera […]

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More Facebook dating scam profiles: is this now the scammers’ medium of choice?

Remember when spam ruined email?    Welcome to Facebook, 2011. And why, some day, people mightn’t be joining it if spammers begin making up a larger proportion of the membership.    I have received two odd friend requests, and since there was no way I knew these people, I asked them what our connection was. […]

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In the wake of the ’quake, a time to be bold

The Christchurch earthquake is certainly not over, not while the city rebuilds. And the bill, at a meeting I had with some other luminaries last Thursday, is estimated to be in excess of the NZ$20,000 million that the New Zealand Government predicts.    So, other than juggling the funds, what does the Government intend to […]

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Hopefully the last Firefox 3 blog post

Since discovering that Firefox 4 Beta 13 is stable, I have spent less time with Firefox 3·6, the buggiest, most oft-crashing program I have ever used in 30 years of computing.    But I used it today enough times to net myself five crashes, though this is above average. The ‘unmark purple’ bug that plagued […]

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Where do the Mac evangelists hide when Apples go, ‘Boom’?

Once again, I posted a Tweet (which went on to my Facebook) about Apple messing up (this time, about Mail with disappearing attachments). There were no replies.    Interestingly, whenever I post about a Windows bug, the Mac evangelists all swarm on to it, usually with the sentiment, ‘Get a Mac.’    They all disappear […]

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Autocade’s MediaWiki software gets locked down

Autocade’s third birthday is on Tuesday, though today I had to introduce something that goes against the principles of MediaWiki: the prevention of public user registrations.    Despite adding an Akismet anti-spam extension last week, spammers, evidently using non-blacklisted IPs, continued to add false content with their links on to the site today.    I […]

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Dealing with the social networks

Everyone deals with their social networks differently, which is great. It shows that we are in charge of the technology and how it serves us, rather than vice versa.    But with nearly sixty outstanding invitation requests to me on LinkedIn and five on A Small World, I thought I’d share mine. Twitter I’ll follow […]

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Volvo unveils its China strategy

Volvo has announced that it will build a plant in China, and seeks approval for a second, in what it calls its second home market.    It was inevitable, though for the long-term survival of the brand, it’s not a bad idea.    Through Geely’s acquisition, it can potentially leapfrog other foreign car brands inside […]

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Google’s new algorithm will likely weed out content mills

I’m not enough of a bastard to only dis Google, because they have made a pretty good move today.    Google’s new algorithm, it is claimed, will weed out content farms, one type of site that has annoyed us here regularly.    These are sites that just pinch others’ content automatically. Because search engines pick […]

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