Google oversteping the mark??

After reading Robert Scoble comments on FOG & DOG I found myself wondering how far it could go.

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that you might be able to ask Google ‘What Job I should do tomorrow?’ or ‘Should I work for Company Bob?’

…..taken to it’s logical conclusion then I can imagine hiring managers asking Google, ‘Should I employ Fred?’ (which if Google suggested that Fred apply to Bob, the answer would be an unequivocal ‘Yes’).  Maybe one day it’ll remove the interview from the equation!

Maybe Google could start providing pre-emptive answers to questions (saving the need to actually ask the question)….

…. after all – with the volume of information they have on you, gathered over the years, they could know you better than you know yourself….

Technorati: space odyssey

VS.PHP 2.3RC1 is out

For those Visual Studio and PHP developers out there - 2.3RC1 for VS.PHP is out from JCXSoftware. 

Initial testing has gone well and it’s looking like a good release so far.  Found a few problems with formatting when editing Smarty templates – but it’s just an annoyance than a problem.

PHP Visual Studio VS2005

BlackBytes Components

Anybody know the fate of BlackBytes?  They have some great .NET components on their site but don’t appear to be operating anymore – I’ve sent a number of emails and tried to contact them on their forums but they appear to have becomes ghostware.

One of the problems with automated systems – as can be found when you download and request trial keys – is that the system responds – giving the appearence of activity…

It’ll be a shame if they have folded – their DNS API is the only one available.

Comment Spam @ WordPress

Comment & Blog Spam is an annoying aspect that tries to exploit Search Engines to improve rankings.  Driving more traffic to the spammers website to generate more revinue – either directly through PPC ads – or indirectly by driving up the value of the domain name.

It’s not just Blogs that are suffering – wiki pollution is a growing problem with poorly secured or badly implemented Wikis.  SpamHuntress wrote recently about a massive wiki spam issue on one of the sites she manages.  It’s a tough nut to crack – there isn’t a clear definition or deliniation of responsabilities on who is responsible for what.  Is it the responsibility of the site owner to make sure their site is secure?  Some would say so… but when you try to operate a large community effort (such as managing or maintaining a wiki where you want to promote community participation) implementing extras controls (such as user authentication & validation) dissuade people from participating.

SpamHuntress has a policy of contacting the network manager of the domain the spammers direct traffic to – which is a good policy – but is it their responsibility to do something about it?

I can’t help thinking that the true responibility should come back to Arpa and DNS – and their should be some tie in with the DNS environment.

The specific problems with managing spam for users of WordPress.com are exacerbated by the comment management interface – which don’t allow grouping of messages based on the senders email, IP address or the senders web-address.  Instead you have an endless list to step through when trying to pick out a comment or trackback.

It would be helpful in weeding out the good from the bad if you could select from a list of grouping options.

A blog focussed on VoIP and real world problems

I’ve started a blog:aside on VoIP and it’s issues in the real world on http://blog.sipx.ws - initially we’re looking at dealing with the problems of VoIP Peering. 

In ‘Plain Speak’ TM this is a way for userA@Boston.com to call userB@Rome.com.