Month: February 2006

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The Opera web browser has introduced a Dashboard-like Widget feature in Opera 9 Preview 2*. I believe this is the first 3+ platform widget framework out there.

Dashboard is, of course, Mac OS X only. Yahoo! Widgets (formerly Konfabulator) is Windows XP and Mac OS X only. The KDE Desktop (mostly used on Linux and *BSD) has plans to include floating applets in KDE4’s revamped desktop, Plasma. Opera runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and a number of other platforms.

Opera’s taken a very similar approach to Apple’s. A widget is a bundle of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The most obvious difference is the structure of the bundle: Continue reading →

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Here’s something I just don’t understand about the whole electronic eavesdropping controversy.

Given that FISA warrants are:

  • Easy to obtain
  • Secret
  • Obtainable retroactively, so you can legally start listening in immediately

Why is it necessary to eavesdrop without one? What’s so hard about getting a warrant?

While we’re at it, given that the bad guys almost certainly knew we were spying on them as much as we could already, what’s so dangerous about revealing the warrantless spying program?

Instead of these endless self-justifications, it would be nice to see President Bush or Attorney General Gonzales say, “You’re right, we should have gotten warrants. From now on, we will.” End of story. Instead of digging in their heels and insisting on powers that should scare the hell out of anyone, no matter what their party affiliation.

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I’ve been meaning to mention this, but for the past few weeks the spam category here has been syndicated on Planet Antispam [dead link]. Thanks to SpamAssassin’s Justin Mason for the invite!*

It’s been odd, knowing that anything I post in that category will show up on another site within an hour or two. On one hand, I’m writing more on the topic than I have in months. On the other hand, anytime I start to write a spam-related post, I find myself thinking about whether it’s worth cluttering up the feed.

*Actually, it wasn’t an invitation so much as a call for submissions on the SpamAssassin mailing list. But he accepted it.

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eBay must have some sort of blanket advertising deal with Google, because the “sponsored links” you get for some searches really don’t make any sense.

Case in point: I did a Google search for the phrase, “nigerian scam,” and saw the following ad:

Looking for Nigerian Scam? Find exactly what you want today

Wow, when they say, “Whatever it is, you can get it here.”—they really mean it! 😉

Interestingly, if you search for “419 scam,” you get the same type of ad, but not if you search for “advance fee fraud.”

I tried a few random search terms, and from what I can tell, eBay’s ad shows up on many—but not all—two-word searches. I’m not sure what the pattern is, but I can’t imagine someone at eBay deliberately asked to buy ad space for some of these phrases.

But in a show of accuracy, if you search for “random stuff,” you’ll find it!