Google

2011-03-31

Never ending Flash Plugin Issues

I've been using Google Chrome since the first day it was available for download and has made it my primary browser at home. It's been causing me some grief when I tried to upload files in gmail for sometime (nothing gets uploaded) and I have opened a case with Google.

My bug report was then merged into another one related to "Flash". Since then, I learned that it's the Adobe Flash Plug-in that's causing the problem. There are several threads, that are still going on for about a month now and it is not clear whether the issue is yet finally fixed.

In a similar case, after I upgraded several Macs to OS X 10.6.7 and installing Firefox 4, people started to complain. Upon investigation, we found out that Flash plug-in was the culprit and disabling it would fix freezes.

Here are the link on latest flash issues:

2011-03-27

Oh wiki, wiki!

I was cleaning up some old bookmarks and came across "School of Athens" wiki link. The picture is a great piece of art.... and then I saw this!

I went ahead and fixed it. Here is my revision. What would Wiki do without me :p

2011-03-22

Amazon App Stores

As expected, Amazon announced their "App Store" today for Android, and Apple sued them for using "App Store". Meh, what's new?

Here is something I did not expect though... I visited Amazon's app store and installed a couple of apps like "Wifi Analyzer". I still use AppBrain.com to find out if there are newer versions of my apps. It always detects updates faster than Google's Android Market (i.e. Google's App Store).

AppBrain showed me that there was a newer version of "Wifi Analyzer". I clicked to install, AppBrain transferred request to Google's Android Market but installation failed. I checked the error, it was something like ~"bad signature". This is troubling because it means that if I want to have the latest version, I will either have to wait for Amazon App Store to have the updated version, or uninstall it and re-install from Google's App Store.

I guess it makes sense that if you buy an app from Amazon App Store, you cannot use Google's App Store to upgrade it. I wish this was not the case for free apps though. Maybe some day Amazon and Google will work out a deal so that user may use either App Store for upgrades.

2011-03-06

Cypherpunks

I came across an absolutely fascinating article on cryptome.org titled "The Cypherpunk Revolutionary". It's about now famous Wikileaks founder Julian Assange but also a bit about Cypherpunk community.

Wikipedia article on Cypherpunk mailing list Phil Zimmermann, the creator of PGP. I remember using it in early 90s. E-mail was uncommon in the country I was working in (and internet not existent), so many people were using a single e-mail address for both personal communication and to a lesser extend for business. I was using PGP to communicate with my wife (then girl-friend).

Bram Cohen is another familiar name from the mailing list. I remember reading in the 2005 Wired article titled "The Bittorrent effect": "Cohen in fact has Asperger's syndrome, a condition on the mild end of the autism spectrum that gives him almost superhuman powers of concentration but can make it difficult for him to relate to other people".

And, then there is John Gilmore, who has such a long list of activities like founding EFF, Cypherpunks, alt usenet groups, who also got involved in what later became DHCP. what a resume, eh?

Take a look, fun read!

2011-03-03

What can Chase tell others about you?

This post is not really about technology but something that may interest you if you are a JP Morgan Chase customer. I was looking at Privacy policy and noticed this table:


Reasons we can share your personal informationDoes Chase Share?Can you limit
this sharing?
For our everyday business purposes – such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, or report to credit bureausYesNo
For our marketing purposes –
to offer our products and services to you
YesNo
For joint marketing with other financial companiesYesNo
For our affiliates' everyday business purposes –
information about your transactions and experiences
YesNo
For our affiliates' everyday business purposes –
information about your credit worthiness
YesYes
For our affiliates to market to youYesYes
For nonaffiliates to market to youYesYes


Apparently, you can exercise your federal rights to limit what Chase may share with non-affiliates.


To limit our sharing
  • Call 1-888-868-8618 – our menu will prompt you through your choice(s) or
  • Visit us online
Please note:
If you are a new customer, we can begin sharing your information 30 days from the date we sent this notice. When you are no longer our customer, we continue to share your information as described in this notice.

However, you can contact us at any time to limit our sharing.


Links may not work properly, I would suggest to logon to Chase Web site and check for privacy and security section for more info.

2011-03-01

WoW & Rift

Many long-time World of Warcraft (WoW) players (blink*) are (gulp!) 'bored'. The latest expansion is already "old content" after three months. Many stopped doing heroics as there is nothing to buy with Justice or Valor points. Achievement freaks are still finding stuff to do of course but excitement is gone. The fact is, there is not much to do right now until 4.1 delivers new content.

There is that never-ending question whether there will be another MMO that can beat WoW? Many believe that it will not happen, WoW is an anomaly, it's unique. That may very well be the case but this is a lucrative business ( 12 month * $15/month * 10 million players = $1.8billion a year), and there will be new-comers!

Welcome Rift! It was launched today in US. Rift is yet another MMORPG which aims to combine successful components of all others that came before it. Trion, the company behind Rift, claims 1 million account sign-up. Actual numbers of sales are not known yet.

It's kinda funny to see discussions like this on whether damage meters are required or not but there was a post there that made my day. There is no question on my mind that WoW would not be so successful without thousands of add-ons. Anyone who spent some time in Elitist Jerks theory-crafting site knows that the mathematics behind WoW is mind-boggling.

I think performance-counters (be it damage meters in games) are necessary for people who would like to improve themselves. It may feel good to be in la la land for a while but most people would need to satisfy their hunger for achievement, for being a better person (at something). So why others do not want them? Check this out!