Is The Economy Affected By Slow Internet?

With the many people in the world that have access to high speed internet, it may be hard to believe there are still those without slow connections. But there is another aspect to slow internet that hasn't crossed the minds of many - how it affects the economy.

More and more people these days want faster internet, but so do businesses. But those living in rural areas have had a tough time getting the same level of connection as their big city counterparts.

The Importance of Technology

Technology is moving at a faster rate than ever before. And there is no business today that doesn't rely at least partially on a fast and reliable connection to get done what they need to. Without a high quality connection, there is no access to the products and services that allow businesses to grow. As well, a business without a reliable internet connection may not be able to use their current resources to their full potential.

Experts say that the economy's future will particularly depend on the progression of internet technology. And right now, it seems that the capability to have a connection is a greater reality, with companies expanding their infrastructure to make internet available to more customers. But what do internet speeds look like? Have they gotten any faster?

The Status Quo

Before, it seemed as though customers were paying high prices for internet speeds that were moderate at best. This was fine for internet companies, but what about the customer? And why was this the status quo, despite the fact that the technology to improve costs and how internet is delivered was already there?

Today, incredibly high speed internet is available, but at a significant cost to the consumer. One company's internet service can cost a customer as much as $300 per month. Where this is the case, a business wanting fast internet could be paying much more than they need to be. This could cause them to attempt to defray their costs and stay within budget by going for a slower internet option. But again, this means not using their resources to their full potential, which could negatively affect their long-term revenues and ultimately, the economy's health.

Is Fast Internet At A Profit Possible?

Many wonder whether or not fast internet connections can be offered while still allowing internet companies to earn a profit. And at least one company is proving that this is a possibility, with gigabit fiber-optic internet on their menu at just $70 per month, and basic service at no cost. But this particular company isn't planning to enter themselves as an internet provider, preferring instead to simply prove that an ultra-fast connection at an affordable price is possible.

A Changing Workforce

No longer are workers showing up or expected to be in the office all day long. Today, telecommuting is the new way to earn money. Many employers are encouraging their employees to work from home. This is resulting in much less stress for many workers, who can now spend more time in a home office setting with their kids. Not only that, but working from home has reduced wasted time in meetings, as well as saved employers full-time staffing costs. These, along with the many other benefits of telecommuting have definitely benefited the economy. But without fast internet, creativity, innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit are stifled.

Continue The Momentum

There are several communities who have many initiatives in place. But unfortunately, the internet speeds to keep the momentum going are simply non-existent. Without this, it isn't only businesses that suffer, but communities as well. Those communities wishing to expand and establish themselves as a place where businesses can thrive will have a difficult time convincing those they are trying to attract to their area.

Recent net neutrality rulings may see a slippery slope where the differences between the speeds of ISPs becoming a political issue, which many say will only complicate things down the road for consumers, who could eventually see higher prices.

Citations:

• How slow internet is affecting our economy

Featured images:

•  Image source: SmartPhotoStock

Guest author Renee Manson writes on a variety of technology-related topics. She recommends High Speed Internet Providers as a resource for helping consumers compare their options in broadband.

YouTube offline: Vevo is categorically opposed

Last week, we learned, not without joy, that the YouTube application for Android mobile devices will soon allow watching videos offline. Once the video is loaded on your device, you'll be able to watch it as much as you want in a period of 48 hours.A new feature that can be useful when you are in a bad coverage area, when you carefully monitor your 3G consumption or simply if you intend to listen repeatedly to the same song over and over again.

Vevo: A party pooper!

  

Unfortunately , apart from our expectation about the eventual integration of offline mode on YouTube, Vevo sees this novelty as evil.

"We’re not going to allow viewing of our music videos or other programming in offline mode"
 
The ultimate promotion tool on the net of giants like Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, Vevo account, aren't counting on  losing a dime generated by advertising, nor will consider the risk that they might be overshadowed by Youtube's own application. A choice that is anything but a wise on their part and should further encourage piracy.After all who want to wait four minutes loading whenever he wants play a song when you can just download it illegally to be available on the SD card as soon as you want? It is clear that only way to attract music consumers in making it accessible . But obviously, Vevo couldn't care less.

However, Vevo's decision should not compromise the integration of offline mode in the YouTube application, expected in November .

Google PageRank updates schedule for 2013

 Google’s PageRank (named after Larry Page), or the heart of their software as Google describes it, is a system of counting link votes and determining which pages are most important based on them. These scores are then used along with many other things to determine if a page will rank well in a search.



The PageRank updates scheduled for this year:

• 1st Update: January 28 to February 6
• 2nd Update: June 27 to July 7
• 3rd Update: September 29 to 4 October
• 4th Update: 24 December to 29 December
  

However, Google also relies on other strategies such as Google Panda (released in February 2011) which is a change that aims to lower the rank of "low-quality sites" or "thin sites", and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results. CNET reported a surge in the rankings of news websites and social networking sites, and a drop in rankings for sites containing large amounts of advertising.

Twitter has got your back!

Privacy in the digital age means a lot of things to a lot of people. From social networks to government surveillance, people always seem to be concerned.
But let's not kid ourselves. Complaining about privacy has become nothing but a way to express the "geek side" or an additional item to the black geek glasses to complete the "geeky look" . For all the complaining, no one is going to do much about it. Hence the sense of what is private shrinks.

However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted its annual report (Who has your back?) on which Internet vendors do the most to help protect their users' private information.

The most privacy-oriented companies should comply with these policies:

1. Requiring a Warrant for Content
2. Telling Users About Government Data Requests
3. Publishing Transparency Reports
4. Publishing Law Enforcement Guidelines
5. Fighting for Users’ Privacy in Court
6. Fighting for Users’ Privacy in Congress

2013 Results

Although these results might not comply with your expectations, you must keep in mind that the report is about the government access to user's data.

"We’re happy to report that several of the companies included in last year’s report have significantly improved their practices and policies concerning government access to user data"
  
"Readers of this year’s annual privacy and transparency report should be heartened, as we are,by the improvements major online service providers made over the last year."

In the end,  EFF thinks that things are getting better among these vendors that deal with so much user data, and it seems that they're really happy with Twitter's improvement:

"This year two companies received all six possible stars: Sonic.net and Twitter. We are extremely pleased to recognize the outstanding commitment each of these companies has made to public transparency around government access to user data."

and a bit disappointed with Google's latest statement:

"We notify users about legal demands when appropriate, unless prohibited by law or court order."

To read the full EFF annual report: https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/who-has-your-back-2013-report.pdf

Google to launch premium TV channels on YouTube this week.

Two months ago, I wrote a post about rumors about Google trying to make more money from YouTube, back then, we talked about a premium music service that Google is getting ready to launch this year.

And the we weren't completely wrong, Google is trying to make more money from YouTube but it seems that they are in a bit of a hurry since the premium channels are expected to arrive later this week.

Last week, Eric Schmidt announced that "The television is surpassed" while YouTube exceeded one billion unique users per month.
  

Google to replace TV

 

Many sources (including the Financial Times) agree on the fact that the channels on subscription arrive this week on YouTube. First, they will launch 50 channels, for a subscription fee of $ 1.99 per month.

Google could therefore present a serious competitor to Netflix (which is not available for many users outside the U.S).  
  
Moreover, rumor has it that Google was in discussions with a number of companies such as Warner Music Group with the idea of ​​offering a music subscription service.


 





More Money for Google 


YouTube is already extremely profitable for Google, even though its economic model was only turned around advertising. This new announcement will mean both the arrival of a lot more quality content on the video platform and the arrival of a lot more cash through the subscription model.
 


However, the question is, are you willing to drop a few dollars a month for premium channels on YouTube?

Paul Miller: One year without internet.

Last year, Paul Miller (a journalist at The Verge, a news and high-tech Web site) announced to experiment to live a year without internet. 

The 26 year old man (at the time) had to learn to work without using internet. The experience forced him to call people to meet, to consult library books to learn, not to have all the information he needed in a  moment.  
"I give up one of the five most important technological innovations of all time for a bit of peace and quiet." 

The experience was tracked on The Verge and allowed to follow its progress. Yesterday, May 1, 2013, the end of this year offline, was an opportunity for Miller to make an assessment. Surprisingly, it is negative. According to him, the experience left on a false premise: life without internet just was not his "real life" because internet took an important part in his "real life". Seeking to experience something different in another world, was impossible because his life and the internet were already bound.
 

He does not deny, however, some positive aspects as being able to focus on a text for a while, return to books... even his family said that he has become closer to others.
The big problem was that he was alone in this experience and the world around him continued to live connected. 

 "Internet is not an individual activity, it is something we do with each other. Internet is where the people are" 

"For this experience to an impact, it would probably take everyone participate, not a single man in a disconnected world" 

The only real conclusion is that internet isn't causing social distancing, but the use of it, as shown by the history of P.Miller. If you want to read the full story of the journalist is here.

Read the full article on The Verge.

The Free Web Vs DRM in HTML5

 "The W3C has a duty to send the DRM-peddlers packing, just as the US courts did in the case of digital TV. There is no market for DRM, no public purpose served by granting a veto to unaccountable, shortsighted media giants who dream of a world where your mouse rings a cash-register with every click and disruption is something that happens to other people, not them." -Cory Doctrow.

With the death of the owners plugins like Flash and Silverlight, media groups have a problem controlling their streaming flow. For example, they wont be able to restrict a video to certain countries, or to ensure that a film is not viewed simultaneously by two friends sharing a unique Netflix account.
To address their concerns, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) provides an integrated control system (digital rights management or DRM) directly in HTML5, this update of the language through which the Web is built.  
While the measure has not yet been adopted, 27 organizations, including the April and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote a letter to the consortium. Their request: "Keep the digital handcuffs off web standards."

The arguments for
Rather surprisingly, the father of the World Wide Web and W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee, who usually defends a free and open network, supports this measure. According to him, DRM is not directly integrated into HTML5. In essence, he said that HTML5 would contain hooks, and that everyone would be free to lock or not to lock.
More generally, he argues that such a system is the only solution for media groups to adopt HTML5 and  not to return to Flash.  
Netflix, the streaming giant, recently said it was ready to move to HTML5 if the W3C incorporated the famous extensions for encrypted media (EME, the barbarous name of opening the door to DRM plugin). Microsoft and Google are also in this camp.
The arguments against
"This catastrophic proposal would change the HTML so it promotes the digital handcuffs (DRM). EME is sponsored by a handful of powerful companies that are members of the W3C, such as Microsoft and Netflix. These companies are promoting DRM, both for reasons of their own and for the close relationship they have with the most important media companies", the coalition wrote.
The founder of the website BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow, is comparing it to the DVD, wanting to control the media chronology with geographical areas, media conglomerates have indirectly led users to hack. According to him, DRM is not only against-productive, they also limit innovation because they restrict the changes that can be made to content or services. While the industry has moved away DRM on physical media, including music from the iTunes store, she sees the transition to paperless cloud the opportunity to return to the charge. A story that repeats itself, in fact.

Learn more about DRM and join: Voices Against EME

How to treat your visitors with respect?

Everyone of us work hard to make his website or blog appealing for the audience, whether by delivering the proper content, design or services. And to be able to always satisfy your visitors, you should gather some basic information about them(page views, country, browser, OS, traffic source).

Such information in my hands or any other website's, is most probably harmless and it is to serve a specific purpose.
These information become harmful when you hand them to big corporations with huge databases containing a tremendous amount of information, that eventually, by matching them, they could end up possessing some very intimate and personal information about your visitors.
And by big corporations I mean Google, Facebook, .... or in some countries, government.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying by any means to generalize that big corporation are evil (Although it's not totally wrong) and other independent website are good. But there is a factor we can't ignore, these corporations have the power. Power that neither I nor any website have.

How is information gathered?
Well, simply put, an information is gathered whenever you Like something on Facebook, you +1 something on Google, you connect to iTunes or the scariest, when you send an email(check this post: Audacity).

Some other times, it is handed out to them by bloggers and website owners like us.

How? Well, in the process of working on our blogs and websites and making them more appealing, we need tools to help us, and some of these big corporations, as kind as they are, offer it to us for free (Check out this hostile post If you're not paying for it, you're the product). And it is needless to say, that the most powerful and popular tool is Google's web analytic.

How to treat your visitors with respect?
Whether you are a care free person who thinks that all this is delusional and worthless or whether you are some paranoid person who believes in conspiracy and spray over their webcams because you think you're under surveillance, whether you like this digital world or not, it is a fact that it is controlled in a way Hitler could've only dreamed of.

And once you have a website, you have a responsibility and whether you believe in privacy or not, it isn't up to you anymore. You have visitors, that have their own beliefs and you have to respect them. And in order to do that, you must not hand the information they trusted you with to anyone because by this you would be sabotaging your relationship and showing no respect to their privacy and freedom.

So, a first step would be keeping these information to yourself. And to do that, you must use tools developed by people who believe in freedom and personal privacy unlike Google. So what I am suggesting, is for us to stop using Google Analytic and start respecting our visitors. And by us, I mean myself too. So, join me!

What's the alternative?
If you've been coming to my blog (powered by Blogger-Google) for a long time, you would know that I won't leave you without an alternative, an excellent one:

http://piwik.org/ :a free software and by that I mean that it respects the freedom of computer users by putting the users first and granting them freedom and control. And it also happens that it costs 0$.

Whatsapp and Skype to be blocked in KSA?

Online communications services such as Skype and WhatsApp may be blocked in Saudi Arabia if they do not provide the means to monitor their content, declared today, sources in the telecommunications industry.

"Telecommunications companies were asked by the authorities to come up with the operators of these platforms applications to an agreement to monitor the content," said a source regulator in the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC).

 


"The CITC has been given a one-week period, which ends on Saturday, to the telecommunications companies to get a response regarding content monitoring" an official of the Saudi Telecommunication Co . (STC), one of the three operators of the country, stated.

After this time, the CITC may block the popular WhatsApp and Skype applications for smartphones and internet telephony, he continued.

In addition to STC, Saudi Arabia has two other operators, Mobily and Zain and according to an industry source, these are companies that have asked the CITC to take action against these online communication services under the claim of unfair competing.

We have to mention that in the United Arab Emirates,most applications like Skype are blocked by the regulator of the country, apparently to protect the commercial interests of the two local operators Etisalat and Du.

What does the creator of RSS have to say on Google Reader phasing out?

While users from all over the world went crazy, signing petitions, begging Google to reconsider their decision about the phasing out of Google Reader in July, one person didn't give a fuck. I'm not talking about just anyone, I'm talking about the inventor of RSS!

Dave Winer, who is credited for his inventions of both RSS and blog, wanted to respond to the demise of Google Reader, Google's RSS service and feed aggregator:
"I won't miss it. I've never used it. I do not believe that a company as large as Google has common interests with me, and I do not trust them to store all the news I want to read. Besides that, I do not think that an approach such as "inbox" is a good idea. Who cares about the number of unread items? I like the idea of a river of news to read, and I have many configured flows, bringing me news and podcasts. [...] the next time, remember to pay for the services you depend on. Those have more chances of surviving the bubble. "
 

The approach is interesting, but probably too biased for the most of Google Reader users. Anyway, I have already published an article suggesting some alternatives to Google Reader.

Use Twitter as a Gmail notifier and get SMS for new mail

Before starting I have to state that this project is created by the genius Mr.Amit Agarwal, I'm just creating this tutorial to demonstrate and explain the process.

So, as Mr. Argawal mentions this idea will let  can turn your Twitter Timeline into a Gmail Notifier and get notified (via tweets) as soon as new email messages arrive in your mailbox.And since you can link Twitter to your phone number, you can even get SMS text alerts for new Gmail messages.

This three steps process should take you 5 minutes and it is really easy to follow. Let's start: 

1- Creating a new Twitter app Gmail:

First I'm going to create a brand new twitter account and I'm gonna call it h20platform. Then, we'll have to go to the twitter settings and check the option “Protect My Tweets” and uncheck the option “Let others find me by my email address.” 

Now to create the application, go to https://dev.twitter.com/apps/new, sign in with your new twitter account and fill the fields as the picture below shows:

Google to make more money from Youtube.

YouTube the streaming giant, issued the following statement: "While we don't comment on rumor or speculation, there are some content creators that think they would benefit from a subscription revenue stream in addition to ads, so we're looking at that."

Now the rumor is, that Google is to launch a subscription music service of their own, with suggestions of going live later this year.  It is believed that the service will be heavily linked with the Android mobile operating system, thus syncing with Google Play, where people can upload music to play anywhere. You know, something like "Spotify".

While the YouTube service is to be largely free, users can upgrade to unlock more features, such as ad-free access, for instance. And regarding the scale of YouTube it's impossible not to see the record companies jumping onboard any new venture, since streaming represents a sizeable portion of online revenues at the major labels.

The only question is whether it should be ad-supported or subscription based.

So would you be interested to pay for some extra youtube features?

Fine of 561 million euros for Microsoft!

The European Commissioner for competition will be fined € 561 million to Microsoft. This is based again on anti-competitive practices and non-compliance of the giant on its Internet Explorer browser.
 

The story goes back to July 2012. The European Union opens an investigation because they suspect Redmond not to let the 28 million users of Windows 7 SP1 choose their web browser. The giant then admits a technical problem prevents BrowserChoice.eu to display, that allows you to select the browser. 
However, this "technical problem" is contrary to the Commission's requests.

So, again, this giant is mind-numbingly trying to outsmart anyone who stands in their anti-competitive practices.

Audacity.

For those who follow this blog regulary, don't worry this is still a tech related post; for the others, well, I don't really care about you. Unless you're planning to become a regular.

In this post we'll be talking about a behavior that really bugs me, which is audacity.
First I'm going to define it, then I'm going to show you some examples.

Definition: Rude or disrespectful behavior.


First example:

"She had the audacity to pick up the receiver and ask me to hang up".

Our second example will be "Scroogled"

When we talk about lack of security, vulnerability, spyware, malware and viruses the first thing that comes to you mind is Microsoft.

Microsoft, the mother of the infamous IE which seems to constantly be in the news for its security issues and vulnerabilities (take a look IE wiki page);
Microsoft the mother of the newly born windows 8 surface that sends data to Microsoft about each application that is installed in Windows 8, which is a very serious privacy problem.
(The process is well described by canadian security researcher Nadim Kobeissy )


Now, this Microsoft that earned its reputation is starting a campaign agaisnt google privacy (gmail to be more specific) just to promote their outlook.com, which, it happens, that also display ads.

This is audacity.

Our Third and last example is of course Google:

Google does read your sent and recieved mail. I just wanted to make clear this up. And here's Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

"We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are, with your permission; we know where you’ve been, with your permission; we can more or less know what you’re thinking about." - Google Chairman Eric Schmidt at the The Atlantic Washington Ideas Forum in 2010.

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt on Consumer Privacy.

You all know, that google has this browser named Chrome. And what you might not all know is that chrome, like any other browser have a private surfing mode or "incognito" as Google named it.
Now when start you chrome with incognito mode, this is the message that will be displayed :

This is like me, trashing new readers at the beginning of my post and bitching later about how no one is following me.

And finally, I know this post might not be interesting for the most of you; but I think that "Audacity" is the word of this century and I wanted to have some fun with it.

Rising from Mega upload's ashes : Mega is born.

From his safe haven in New Zealand, Kim DotCom launches in one hour a new file-sharing service with military-strength encryption. Mega, will be similar to MegaUpload but with a twist.

The service will offer 50GB of storage for free and three Pro tiers of 500GB to 4TB for $13-$40 a month.

 How it is different?

The difference that makes a difference is that all files are encrypted using a 2048-bit RSA key. What this means effectively is that Dotcom cannot be accused of knowingly storing copyrighted materials because he cannot technically know the content of the files stored on MEGA—only the user who uploaded the files and/or possesses the key can.

For a full review about Mega please refer to this article. 

Stop spamming and advertising

This is a quick tip about how to stop spamming and advertising using 'Gmail Filters'. It's really so simple and doesn't take any effort.

This method isn't very sophisticated, it's based on a very simple logic and works 90% of the time.
What we're going to do is, to delete every  message that contains the word subscribe in it; Since all the advertising and spamming mails contain this word.
In case you are subscribed to some important mailing lists, you might want to not delete it. You could make it skip the inbox and forward it to a label that you create.

So to create a filter on Gmail, go to settings>filters>create new filter.
We want to apply the filters on every message that has the word 'unsubscribe'  and this filter should delete this message.

I hope this was useful, and be careful while applying filters.

WWW, WWW2, WWW3...What is the difference?

We've all seen www, www2, www3; We type for exemple 'www.company.com' and we're suddenly redirected to 'www3.company.com'. What exactly is this, and how do we get there?

Starting the domain name name of your web site with www. or www2. or www3. is a common convention and nothing more. There is nothing in the HTTP specification that says a web site must start with www. or any other prefix. It is simply a convention that began in the early days of the web and was used to distinguish a company's web server from its FTP server, gopher server, mail server, etc... But no such distinction is necessary, because this part of the URL, 'www.' help it decide how to perform this internal routing.
Usually this type of configuration is stored in your .htaccess file, located in public_html.

Another example is role-based routing. For example, store.company.com and developer.company.com are both hosted at company.com, but serve different roles on the web; one is an online store, the other is a site with resources for programmers. (And each is probably also load-balanced in ways that don't rewrite your URL.)

How to access any blocked website using ssh tunnel?

How much do you hate it when you're at work, school, college surfing the web, trying to access some website and you get prohibited, because "they" don't want you to see the content of just because you have some work to do and you shouldn't waste your time on Facebook.

Here in this post you will learn how to bypass the web filter using ssh tunnel in 3 extremely easy steps.

Don't be so hasty now, it's not the time for you to skip to the steps. First you have to know a little about ssh tunnels and firewalls.

Well, as shown clearly in the picture above all that an ssh tunnel do is connect to an online ssh server that allows SSH access and create a Tunnel between the host PC(ssh client) and server by bypassing the web Filter.

As for the firewall, well it is the sadistic son of a b*tch that is prohibiting you from accessing facebook. As you see in the picture below.

Or, as Wikipedia defines it: a software-based or hardware-based and is used to help keep a network secure. Its primary objective is to control the incoming and outgoing network traffic by analyzing the data packets and determining whether it should be allowed through or not, based on a predetermined rule set.

Now after I bored you to death with my babbling here is how you can access Facebook, Youtube, ..from your work place or school :