I have been listening to radio, music and videos on the Web using tools like WinAmp, flash players and embedded Windows Media Player and QuickTime. For some reason, even though the volume on my PC is set to as low as possible without being 0, the sound coming through my headphones is always extremely loud. Is it really necessary for this sound to be so loud? Why do programmers feel the need to set the default volume so darn loud?

People are not naturally deaf, nor should we have to anticipate deafeningly loud sound coming from the speakers.

magitam: Google’s Non-launch of Chrome - do you think we should hold Google accountable for their broken promise? http://life.magitam.org.uk/2008/09/02/google-too-big-to-keep-its-promise/

Google has decided to create their own browser, dubbed Chrome. It is open source based on WebKit and powered by Google Gears. Another browser amongst many others. I don’t particularly care for most of Google’s products, thus I most likely won’t even test drive this product. I think, though, that Chrome will gain popularity, and it will be fast, very fast for couple of reasons.

First reason being - people, for some reason, are just crazy about Google and what it has to offer. They love to use their search engine, GMail and their various other apps. They look forward, with great anticipation, to anything new that the company hints or talks about.

The second reason why Google’s Chrome will gain great popularity is the same reason why Mozilla’s Firefox grew so fast in its user share - opposition to the standard, to the established - Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

I believe that these two reasons will be the cause for Google’s Chrome to explode in its user share. Talk is all over the web about this. A quick search for Google’s Chrome on Twitter demonstrates this. All though, I do think it will be most popular amongst the tech crowd.

Chrome will see some competition from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8, so would Firefox. I installed IE 8 over the weekend and I can say that IE7 intrigued me, but IE8 enticed me and I might go back to using Internet Explorer. The new interface, functionality, privacy and build in tools are great. Microsoft is definitely moving in the right way with their work on Internet Explorer.

Google’s choice of introducing its Chrome browser in the form of a 38 or so paged comic is a wonderful approach of the proverbial RTFM. Personally I greatly enjoyed it, and I much rather read and look through illustrations than read pages of text explaining some technology, how it works, and what it is “supposed” to do.

I have been an avid follower of Google in the past, and I have looked for any products from them and I have attempted to use every one of their apps - as a Google fan, but I’m no longer. I did also switch to Firefox, at a time when I looked at Microsoft with an unkind eye. Plus, at the time Internet Explorer was rigid, unfriendly, and not all pages functioned well with it. So I did partake in both of the above reasons, even though they no longer apply to me.

I would like to hear what your thoughts on this are. Do you agree with the above reasons, or do you have reasons of your own? What are your thoughts about the comic? Should other companies apply the same methods when designing manuals for their products?

As a co-founder of JutiaGroup.com I still handle technical and relevant aspects of the web site. Lately potential advertisers have been making contact, but they have been making contact the WRONG way. I have no idea what’s the logic behind it, but people are using the simple contact form to request information, which is already available on the clearly visible and indicated advertise page. I guess the thing that bugs me most is that to get to the contact form, which they use, a surfer has to find the contact page, which is hidden in a submenu. The information, which they request is available on the page which is to the right of the link on which they have to click to find the contact page.

Maybe they do go to the advertising page, but they just don’t navigate it. It’s called scrolling people, just scroll down the page. All the information people ask for is on that page, plus a very nice and extensive contact form, which was designed to save the time, which is now invested in going back and forth via email to determine something that one should have read and provided at first contact.

The Wordpress community is vast. Wordpress is one of the major blog CMS on the Internet. I very much enjoy browsing the Web and whenever I come accross a blog, I find interesting, I tend to check, or at leased attempt to, what plugins are used on the blog. Anyone, who is familiar with the directory structure of Wordpress can check this.

Anyways, the point I am trying to make is - Wordpress succeeded because of its open community and its members’ willingness to share information and plugins. Probably about 50% of the time I attempt to view what plugins someone is using on their blog I am unsuccessful, because the plugins directory, of all the ones in Wordpress, is restricted. Why? I would like to know why do bloggers feel that they need to protect something that is free on the Internet as is. Sharing and promoting the plugins one uses on their blog is a way to show your gratitude to their developers.

As an old school blogger, and one of the first of the just starting Wordpress community, I have always had a page listing the plugins I use on my blog. So, Wordpress bloggers, please allow others from the community to view what plugins you use on your blog. It will make the Web more userfriendly, functional, and it will incourage developers. Thnak you.

Another win for Net Neutrality. Today it was reported that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) “disciplined” Crap…Comcast for their violation of their customers basic write to access information on the Internet. I say disciplined, because comcast was not punished via a financial burden. They were just told “you were bad. Don’t do it again. Fix it.”. It is hard for people and especially for companies to learn their lesson, when negative reinforcement is not used. Comcast was not punished, so they have noting to loss. If they had to pay fins, for example in the form of free or discounted service for their customers, then they, as the money garbing leach that the company and its operators are, will think twice before violation the freedom of access to information and data of real people and some intangible IP (Internet Protocol or Intellectual Property) address.

Now, because they were not cause to pay fines, the operators of the company will have learned, in their attempt #1, what they can do. Because the company did not have to pay fines, it will again try to throttle its network, but at its second attempt it will know how far it can go with certain actions and how to hide its procedures better.

You can read the announcement here: FCC Comes Down On Comcast For P2P Blocking

My house is serviced by Waste Management. A company, supposedly, on the forefront of thinking green and working to recycle and minimize pollution. Well, I can tell you guys that you are doing it wrong! I don’t know if this is standard procedure, but I for sure know that other companies, which offer recycling, don’t do it that way.

Here is my problem with them. WM asks its customers to separate recyclables from their garbage into different containers, something that is necessary to make recycling easier. But when they come to pic up my garbage and recyclables, they are both dumped into the same container. To me that does not make any sense. Supposedly they sort out the garbage at their station, but then why would you ask your customers to separate these objects if you are just going to put them back together and then “waste” money to pay someone to separate them again? Other companies have trucks, which have compartments for the different recyclables and waste. Why doesn’t WM have these type of trucks?

I think that combining the recyclables with the garbage, just to separate it again at a later point, ruins much of the potential recyclables, like paper products for example. Many times the garbage bags have juices and liquids in them as well as sharp objects. When they are put together and then compressed inside the truck these bags break and all those liquids flow out soaking into any potential recyclable paper products and thus ruining them.

BTW, WM has a new social network called Greenopolis, which is part of their Think Green educational program.

I spend massive amount of time on the Internet, partly due to my job. In that time, I have come across a wide array of websites. I have seen a lot of useless sites, but thanks to a recent mass mail email mistake by the insoshi.com project my email became available to a lot of people, and some of them turned out to be spammer. What a surprise there, right? Anyway, one of those assholes sent out this sites - hamtoss.com. Now I know I have seen the most useless site.

You know what? Thinking about it as I write this, this site is not useless. At least not for its creator(s). Its purpose is to collect emails for that spammer. It shows you, the casual surfer, a silly animation. You like, you think it is funny, and you fall in their trap - “wanna know when we toss something new?”. You read this, seemingly harmless, words and you provide your email address. Damn that’s genius.

I think I will use one of my SPAM trap emails to see how this turns out.

I just spend 15 minutes blocking splogs and scraper IPs for jutiagroup.com. It is a pain in the rear. I have to spend time sorting through comments, that are marked as SPAM, to make sure there aren’t any good ones. Almost always they are bad, and 99% of the time they are trackbacks from scraper sites, that steal content and place it on their ads bloated sites. Do they really believe that having a trackback link makes it OK to steal the content?

Ahh, it is so annoying!!! That is the problem when you have a real site that allows commenting. You have to deal with this kind of crap. This doesn’t happen as often on this site, though. But I had one last week on my post about Alerth Thingy, now that douche doesn’t have a Google Adsense account any more. I hate this loozers.

By the way, I ended up blocking freehostia all together from being able to read content on Jutia Group. There were a lot of trackabcks from blogs hosted by them this time around. So more no longer!