Big Tech lies: that’s the default position

02.07.2024/11.58

If we take everything Big Tech says as a lie, then we wouldn’t be far off what is happening, rendering my recording of the examples I encounter in daily life unnecessary. We know they lie, and it would actually become more unusual to record the times they tell the truth or follow through with something. […]

Strange behaviour on SRWare Iron, and Bing ranks phishing site first

02.06.2024/10.15

I was led to believe that SRWare Iron was Chromium with more privacy, but this morning’s experience testing it was a bit disturbing. Let’s take a fairly common search, like Amazon seller. SRWare’s default search engine is Bing, or at least its own search takes you to Bing. And Bing puts in its first result […]

Google sacks its own team for protesting

22.05.2024/12.41

I had bookmarked this a while back: the statement by former Google employees who were sacked for not supporting the company’s involvement with the Israeli government and military. Some were not even part of the employees’ sit-in protests. But Google is too weak to be able to handle dissent, and clearly doesn’t support the welfare […]

Tesla misfires, Toyota lies

/02.58

The 1983 Corolla liftback—the E80 series was peak Corolla, relative to what was on offer in the C segment. Toyota was on a high then. Tesla finished itself this year, by firing its new-product development team at a time when it desperately needs new products—proper products, too, not the Cyberstuck which has so many […]

Nexorank: stay well away from this ‘international SEO agency’

14.04.2024/09.52

Just doing a little experiment with SEO. Nexorank has a couple dozen entries in Google for a search for its name. They say on Linkedin: Exciting news for businesses striving to boost their online presence! 🚀 We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with SEO expert Jack Yan. 🔍 With his proven track record of […]

You can post misinformation on Linkedin, and there are no consequences

11.04.2024/12.32

It’s official: unlike Medium, Linkedin has confirmed that it will not remove posts that misuse my name under the grounds of misinformation. After the initial report, and a request for a review, Linkedin determined ‘After reviewing the content, we didn’t find any violations of our policies.’ Summary: I reported the misinformation as misinformation to Linkedin. […]

Signing up on Seller Central: another Amazon swindle

22.02.2024/05.40

I thought I’d look at selling the Autocade Yearbook through Amazon, since people who visit the site are in the mood for shopping. Against all my instincts, I’d bite the bullet and make bloody Jeff even richer. But the whole sign-up process is a swindle. Here’s what I sent to them. Hello there: I […]

It would be nice to get my Amazon Associates money

17.02.2024/09.34

This has been going on for between 10 and 20 years, and I think closer to the latter. Didn’t know Jeff was this hard up for cash. I didn’t record the dialogue last time, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but since I can’t trust the buggers, I will this time. Fed in to […]

The curious case of Google’s SEO searchers

03.01.2024/11.16

They may no longer be relevant, but most (all?) of our sites still have meta keyword tags. When we redevelop a site, we tend to take the header tags in full from the previous incarnation, so unlike the old joke about George Washington’s axe (‘This is the original. I’ve only had the handle and blade […]

Google can’t deal with YouTube code; and a farewell to Smugmug after 13 years

04.10.2023/10.44

Once again, Google is full of bollocks. Its latest email to me says there’s a video on the Lucire website that’s ‘too tall’. Here’s a screenshot of the offending video on the page it identified. I checked the embed code, and the width is set to 300, the height to 169. […]