The Classic Yuppie

So in an effort to become more productive on the road, I’ve installed Ubuntu Linux on the Vista laptop. Since it’s a rather lightweight install and OS, it should do wonders for the battery life.

I’ve taken it to work today and I’ll post how it ran for me today. So far Evolution, the built-in email client and open-source competitor to Outlook, has been wonderful in the UI. The setup of my corporate Gmail account was a bit hoaky, but that was my own fault (I never *can* get those settings right.)

I love the fact that both Mozilla Firefox and OpenOffice.org come preinstalled with this distro.

I find myself rather excited about the iPhone 3.0 software update.  A lot of the features I have been anticipating have finally come to fruition.  Things like proper push notification and copy/paste functionality are long overdue.

Skype is finally here for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  I got the early release at about 11:30 on Tuesday.  I will do some testing and post a minor review here.

Speaking of here… I am leaning towards moving my blog off the WordPress.com servers and onto a self-hosted solution.  From a design standpoint, it just makes sense.  I’d like to hear any feedback on this idea from my friends and readers before I implement anything.  What do you think?

So I guess I have a lot of catching up to do with an post on Classicyuppie.com.

Cryssy and I are doing well. Her sewing business, Jolie Chose Designs, has taken off and she is constantly busy with new orders and commissions. She’s trying to find the perfect balance between her personal and professional life, since I’m always complaining that we never see each other in the evenings. At least it feels that way. She started her business late last year and posted good numbers on her balance sheet, so we’re looking forward to even more growth this year. She can really make a successful push since she’s the chief administrator to the Loligoth Database.

I, on the other hand, am not experiencing that much growth with my professional endeavors. New Media Designs is experiencing slow growth due to the economy. Because of the recession, businesses (especially small businesses) are hesitant to spend capital on such things as website design, opting to have in-house associates assist with their online marketing. This makes me re-think my 2009 strategy a bit. I was going to offer podcast production as an addition to our specialties, but due to the slow growth, I don’t think this is a direction I want to head in right now. I also have to eliminate any extra costs, which includes the video feed for our NMD Live! Stream. This means no more video for “The 2.0 Show” podcast. It will be strictly a recorded production available for iTunes Store and for download on our website. You’ll still be able to get the audio, just no live video while the podcast is in production.

On to better things…

As some of you may know, Cryssy and I were renting our house. We were in the small side of a duplex home and recently moved to the larger side of the house. Since the original buyer of the house wanted out of their contract with the property owner, they moved out and the owner asked us if we would consider purchasing it from her. We jumped at the opportunity and are now proud homeowners.

Considering the previous owners had absolutely no taste when it came to color coordination, I now have to repaint the living room, dining room, kitchen and both guest bedrooms. However, considering the house is over 100 years old, it’s in decent shape structurally, with only cosmetic improvements to be made. I plan on posting our before-and-after pictures on the my blog so that you can see the progress we’ll be making. We won’t have that many “before” photos of the dining room, since that was the best kept room in the house – only needing the walls painted.

If anyone wants to reach me, all of my information is on the About Me page. Also, you can friend me on Facebook or Twitter if you have an account and you haven’t already. For the record, I have a Myspace page, but I haven’t been on there in quite some time (seeing as that it’s so 20^th century Web 2.0).

Cheers!

A recent article published by CNET’s Chris Soghoian regarding YouTube being issued a waiver from third-party cookies has me concerned.

Google, the parent company of YouTube, has the right to track and trend visitors to their sites and how they interact with the content as long as they comply with their own privacy policies posted on their sites.  Long term tracking cookies continue to track your Internet behavior and browsing habits, even after you surf away from the site that placed the cookie on your system.  As you can imagine,  I am gravely concerned in the way the Executive Branch of our government has decided to write Google a blank check because they’ve decided to use the service to host material for them – the videos will be embedded in government-owned domains.  The technology of these cookies is such that you don’t even have to play the video.  They will automatically register in your browser without any user interaction whatsoever.

If the new administration chooses to embrace social media and Web 2.0, they should have their own infrastructure in place to handle this. There exists a Federal statute from The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – rule M-03-22 states that:

“Agencies are prohibited from using persistent cookies or any other means (e.g., web beacons) to track visitors’ activity on the Internet except as provided in subsection below; Agency heads may approve, or may authorized the heads of sub-agencies or senior official(s) reporting directly to the agency head to approve, the use of persistent tracking technology for a compelling need. When used, agencies must post clear notice in the agency’s privacy policy of: the nature of the information collected, the purpose and use for the information, whether and to whom the information will be disclosed, and the privacy safeguards applied to the information collected.”

Furthermore, technologies that are permissible according to M-03-22 are: single session cookies (cookies that expire when you surf away), and customization technology (used to customize a website at the visitor’s request).

So, basically, tracking information can be used if it’s for customization of the site per the visitor’s request or if it’s for tracking purposes on a single session only. Long-term tracking cookies are expressly prohibited from being used unless there is “compelling need”.

I wonder how the White House is considering this to be a compelling need? It is against Federal law for our government to track information on it’s citizens’ which have been suspected of no crime (probable cause statute applies to Federal law enforcement agencies, too).  I am also curious to know if this applies to just YouTube or to Google as a whole.  If this exemption applies to the entire organization, this could possibly have farther reaching ramifications than originally thought.

While I praise the President for his dynamic use of Internet technologies, namely social networking, I would be remiss in my journalistic duties if I didn’t report the other side as well. I would hope that a presidential spokesperson could comment to the citizens’ of our great country on this issue and explain why Google is so special.

Until then, I urge you to take the necessary steps (you should already be taking) to secure your anonymity while surfing online.

Internet Explorer: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/cookies.htm

Firefox: http://mozilla.gunnars.net/firefox_help_firefox_cookie_tutorial.html

Safari: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Safari/3.0/en/9277.html

Opera: http://my.opera.com/dude09/blog/2008/12/27/tutorial-for-block-cookies

As always, I appreciate your comments and questions.

UPDATE #1: Food for thought when posting your comments: How do you think this plays into the ‘Net Neutrality” argument?

UPDATE #2: I have posted the following screenshots taken after visiting WhiteHouse.gov to corroborate the information in Chris Soghoian’s article: