Category: Web sites

No more ads, no more trackers

You might have noticed that I changed the design of this site a month or so ago. As part of the process, I also eliminated advertising.

That’s the culmination of a transformation that’s been going on since last year, when I removed the Google Analytics code from this site. I shut down my Google AdSense account and removed the code serving ads from the network I was previously part of.

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With those changes, there are no longer any web trackers on this site. I do have the Stats widget (part of the WordPress Jetpack add-in), which counts site visitors and helps me determine which posts are most popular and which search terms visitors used when coming here via search engines. It doesn’t gather any additional information about visitors, as far as I know.

I have nothing but respect for the people who run my former ad network, Federated Media. They’re professionals of the first order.

The advertising industry, on the other hand, seems to be engaged in a race to the bottom. I finally got tired of ugly, misleading ads, which in turn were accompanied by tracking code that aggressively monitors your movements on the web.

So for now, at least, this site is free. If you want to support my work, I hope you’ll buy my books. I occasionally also recommend products here, from online merchants I trust. Those recommendations might include affiliate links. If they do, I include a disclosure as part of the post. (The link to Amazon.com at the beginning of this paragraph is an affiliate link, in fact.)

Ad-supported business models are becoming increasingly less tenable for small publishers like me. And the advertising industry is getting worse, much worse, in the way it tracks us.

I don’t have any answers for fixing the Internet. But at least in this one small plot of online real estate, I can make a statement.

Quote of the month

From my ZDNet colleague Mary Jo Foley:

“Even Apple — with a fanbase so loyal that many would throw their iPods and iPhones off a bridge if CEO Steve Jobs told them to — is coming to realize that it’s inappropriate to answer legitimate questions and complaints with silence.”

And just to keep a little balance… The topic of Mary Jo’s post is Microsoft’s marketing effort for Windows Vista, about which she notes,:

Whether you think — from a technology standpoint — Windows Vista finally is the product it should have been when Microsoft released it to manufacturing in November 2006, it’s plain, even to the most loyal Softie, that the marketing side of the Windows unit has been lagging. (I’d like to use a stronger word or two here, but ZDNet is a family blog network.)

I’m working on a big project that will be posted this afternoon at ZDNet. Stay tuned.

OK, all done: Go read my first look at IE8 Beta 2:

Internet Explorer 8 gets a massive makeover

I’ve also put together a gallery of screenshots to give you a sense of what’s new.

All in all, it’s much more than I expected.

Go to MIT for free

This is pretty cool:

MIT to put its entire curriculum online free of charge:

On Tuesday, school officials revealed plans to make available the university’s entire 1,800-course curriculum by year’s end. Currently, some 1.5 million online independent learners log on the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) site every month and more than 120 universities around the world have inaugurated their own sites for independent learners. MIT has more than 1,500 course curriculums available online to date.

I was actually accepted to MIT but chose to go to UCLA instead – better weather, closer to home. So now I can find out what I was missing…

Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog

Todd Bishop of the Seattle P-I has put together an excellent Microsoft Blog Directory. It includes links to webpages and RSS feeds for dozens of blogs by Microsoft employees and outsiders.

If you know of any worthy sites that aren’t on the list, use the e-mail link at the top of the list to send along the details.

Putting together this sort of resource is a lot of work, so kudos to Todd for doing this.

WordPress users, take notice

Good lord, this is a nightmare scenario. If you run a website powered by WordPress, be sure to read this announcement:

Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.

Longer explanation: This morning we received a note to our security mailing address about unusual and highly exploitable code in WordPress. The issue was investigated, and it appeared that the 2.1.1 download had been modified from its original code. We took the website down immediately to investigate what happened.

If you know someone whose site is powered by WordPress, spread the word. And man, do I feel bad for the people who run WordPress.org. This is indeed “the kind of thing you pray never happens.”

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Who uses newsgroups?

I’m curious: How many people that visit this site use newsgroups? How many people even know what newsgroups are?

If you follow any Windows-related newsgroups, leave a comment (anonymous is OK) and tell me which ones you follow.

Also, do you use a newsgroup reader, like Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Agent, or Thunderbird? Or do you use a web-based reader like Google Groups or Microsoft newsgroups? Or do you have a completely different approach?

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Best Vista communities?

Now that Windows Vista is on a glide path to a final release (with a few million individuals and businesses already having access to it), I’m building a list of sources for great advice and information about using Windows Vista.

I’ve got a few sites bookmarked already, but I’m interested in your input. Which sites do you trust? Which ones have the best news, the best tips, the best message boards, the best writing?

Post links in the comments.

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Rolodex update

Last week I noticed that the blurb along the right side of the Microsoft Monitor blog … er, research service from Jupiter Research no longer mentions Joe Wilcox, and his last post there was November 10.

Joe’s picture and by-line seem to be attached to recent posts at Microsoft Watch, which started on November 13.

Curiously, there’s no announcement at either location. When I googled used my favorite search engine to see if there’s any news, I found this post on Joe’s personal site:

My personal Weblog has been sorely neglected as of late. That’s because I’ve been wrapping up things at my current job. Tomorrow is my last day as an analyst with JupiterResearch. On Monday, I start at Ziff Davis as editor of Microsoft-Watch. I’m going back to journalism, which I increasingly missed in recent months. I clocked three-and-a-half years as an analyst. End of business tomorrow, that chapter of my work life closes.

I’m looking forward to seeing Joe take over Microsoft Watch, which has been in limbo since Mary Jo Foley left. But damn, Joe, you have got to fix the design on that personal site! That is truly painful.

Upside-down comments

Microsoft’s Mike Torres,  who works on the Windows Live Spaces team, offers up some thoughts about the frustrations of being a technology enthusiast in a world where people expect dogmatic allegiance to companies and platforms:

I’m beginning to realize how hard it is to be a Microsoft blogger.  When you talk about stuff you love from Microsoft (Office 2007, Windows Vista, Windows Mobile/Motorola Q, Live Writer) it sounds like you’re cheerleading.  When you talk about stuff you love from the competition (MacBook Pro, iPod nano, iTunes, Flickr) you run the risk of pissing off co-workers/executives.  Ditto when you talk about stuff you totally loathe from Microsoft (no comment).  And when you talk about stuff you dislike from competitors, it looks like you’re being defensive (uhhh… didn’t we ship that already with Live Search Macros?)  Oh well, it’s still fun.

That’s true of people outside Microsoft as well, Mike. People get very confused when they read my reviews and reporting of Microsoft’s products and policies. The idea that someone could like some things and be critical of others is just alien.

In the middle of that post, Mike passes along this tidbit:

There are lots of totally subtle but totally cool Spaces enhancements on the way that I can’t talk about.

I hope that one of those changes is a way to flip the default order of comments on a Spaces site. On Mike’s site, the most recent comment appears at the top of the list below the main post. The first comment is at the very bottom of the list. So in a long comment thread you get to see all the the replies, usually without any context, before you see the comment or question that inspired the reply. That’s just wrong.

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The rebate scam

My ZDNet colleague Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has a fascinating post on how rebates work:

A rebate puts a number of obstacles between the customer and their rebate.  The idea is that the customer stumbles at some stage (maybe they forget about the rebate, or they make a mistake when filling out the form, or maybe they lose the sales receipt) and the store of vendor wins. When a customer fails to claim their rebate, this is known in the trade as a breakage.  When a breakage occurs, the customer loses out and the store or vendor wins (because they get to keep the money!). 

What I find most interesting is that some of the tricks the big companies use are documented in a U.S. Patent Office application that Adrian quotes liberally.

I make no secrets of my feelings about rebates, but it is possible to increase your odds of collecting what’s due you.