April 6th, 2006
Recently, I have received a few requests from Web sites asking permission to use my photos posted on Flickr. Of course, there is a flattering element to all this. Wow, someone thinks some of my photographs are worthy of being reproduced. Perhaps not surprisingly, however, these requests are rarely for photos I consider particularly good or interesting.
The last such email I received had a curious subject line: “Re: Your jennifer Aniston Photographs”. I don’t have any “jennifer Aniston” photographs, not any I can recall. That was clue #1 as to the possibly fishy nature of the message. Clue #2: the link provided in the email that I should click if I was interested in sharing my photos with the site’s members seemed to be an individualized link (a sequence of numbers after a generic URL) suggesting that my response was being tracked. The URL had “flickr” in it, a convenient way to confuse people and have them think that they’re simply clicking on a Flickr photo link. No, it was a link to the site being advertised by the message.
Yes folks, I think these supposedly flattering messages are all about advertisements for the sites in question. They don’t really care to use our photos, they are mostly just interested in getting the word out about their sites and services. Some of them at least put in some effort by looking up a relevant photo to suggest for inclusion. But others don’t even bother to pretend that they have any connection to you other than including you in a new type of spam scheme.
I know there are several Flickr users who read my blog. I have heard from one of you about a similar experience. Anyone else? I’m purposefully not listing the sites that have contacted me, I’m not going to play along. However, I’m curious if anyone else received a message from “Calder” with the cryptic link.
Posted in IT/Comm, Miscellaneous, Photos | 1 Comment »
April 6th, 2006
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April 5th, 2006
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April 4th, 2006
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helpful resource
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free photos (CC license)
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“enables you to understand how much space the files and directories consume on your disk drives, and it helps you find obsolete files and folders”
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absolutely hilarious!!
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“Your query is submitted to PubMed and the resulting abstracts are classified using Gene Ontology terms. GeneOntology is a hierarchical vocabulary for molecular biology covering cellular components, biological processes and molecular functions.”
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Posted in Del.icio.us Links | 3 Comments »
April 3rd, 2006
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brief profile of my blogging and research in my alma mater’s alum magazine
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the Hungarian Prime MInister’s blog (leading up to this Spring’s elections)
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qualitative data analysis software with free teaching edition
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transcription software (keyboard shortcuts, no foot pedal)
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information on qualitative data analysis methods
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AnSWR is a software system for coordinating and conducting large-scale, team-based analysis projects that integrate qualitative and quantitative techniques.
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research on Belarus media uses
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CinePaint is an open source painting program used by motion picture studios to retouch images in 35mm films. It was formerly called Film Gimp.
Posted in Del.icio.us Links | Comments Off on Links for 2006-04-03
April 2nd, 2006
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A visual look at where US tax dollars go
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something like this shouldn’t require Flash, it should be text-based for maximum accessibility (or a text-based alternative should at least be clearly marked)
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Free economic, demographic and financial data
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Posted in Del.icio.us Links | Comments Off on Links for 2006-04-02
April 1st, 2006
In 2002, Google brought us PigeonRank.
Today, Ask brings us RhymeRank. Check out the results for Crooked Timber (right-hand side of the screen) or try the service on your favorite search term. [UPDATE 4/2: As of April 2nd these results are no longer available.]
Yahoo! went a bit too geeky on this judging from reactions to my various past posts by making their April Fool’s all about Web 2.0 and calling it “All Your Web 2.0 Are Belong To Us”. After all, if you don’t know what Web 2.0 is then you’re certainly not going to find that post amusing. In any case, it’s just a blog post on their Search Blog, it’s not as though they introduced a whole new service.
What other April Fool’s have you come across today? No, they do not have to be search related.
Posted in Humor/Fun | 2 Comments »
April 1st, 2006
This year’s Google April Fool’s joke is Google Romance, a service that will help you find your romantic match. It’s sort of cute, although I think some of their past jokes have been better.
The site does bring up something I have been meaning to blog about so I’ll take this opportunity. It concerns the paradox of matching services such as dating Web sites or job search sites. I haven’t thought about this issue too much, but enough to blog about it. (What’s the threshold for blogability, by the way?:)
Services such as dating and job search sites promise the user to find a perfect match, whether in the realm of romance or the labor market. But deep down, is it really in the interest of these sites to work well? After all, if they do a good job then the seekers are no longer relevant customers and the sites lose their subscribers.
One way to deal with this is to offer additional services that go beyond the matching process. For example, the match-making site eHarmony now has a service for married couples. It is an interesting idea. It seems like a reasonable way to expand their user (subscription!) base so they are not dependent on keeping matchless those whom they promise to connect. Moreover, I can see that they may have quite a loyal user base in those whom they helped find their matches. Job sites can also offer services that go beyond the initial match. Nonetheless, I think there is an interesting tension in all this.
On a not completely unrelated note: Happy Birthday to GMail! Fortunately, that was not an April Fool’s two years ago. I came across the Google Romance notice on Google’s homepage, because I saw the GMail birthday icon and wanted to see if they had it in bigger on the Google homepage (a page I never visit otherwise, because why would I in the age of search toolbars). The birthday image is not reproduced there, but I did see the Romance link. (Yes, I’m obsessed with knowing how people end up on various sites and I’m projecting here by assuming that anyone else cares.)
Posted in Humor/Fun, IT/Comm, Products/Services | 1 Comment »
April 1st, 2006
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March 30th, 2006
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March 29th, 2006
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March 28th, 2006
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March 27th, 2006
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“a web page activity widget that helps you quickly see how people find, navigate and value the pages
of your web site”
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mixing videos
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generates the code for box with rounded corners
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customized printing service
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how many blades on a razor by 2010?
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using the collective to fight spam (requires software download)
Posted in Del.icio.us Links | Comments Off on Links for 2006-03-27
March 26th, 2006
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“The official organ of LaborNet”
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“shows you who’s on a particular web page, allowing you to chat with them privately or in a group”
Posted in Del.icio.us Links | 1 Comment »
March 25th, 2006
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emergency contraception; making sure Walmart follows up on its promise to stock EC
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union funny
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UK union-sponsored site
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ajaxy MS Word type online word processor, unfortunately it crashed my browser; the file I had saved wouldn’t open up in Word
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Posted in Del.icio.us Links | 2 Comments »
March 23rd, 2006
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March 22nd, 2006
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Carriers caused sleepless – and costly – nights and days by lost luggage
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Esther Dyson’s editorial about a new proposed service that would have senders pay to guarantee arrival of their email in the recipient’s mailbox
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by John Perry Barlow, a utopian approach to how the Internet was going to develop
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Posted in Del.icio.us Links | 2 Comments »
March 21st, 2006
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George Clooney and the Huffington Post
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various resources including stats, reports and a searchable EndNote reference file
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Posted in Del.icio.us Links | Comments Off on Links for 2006-03-21
