I figured I'd better make sure my own house was in order if I was going to blog about web tracking! I've reviewed my websites and blogs, and find the following.
Flies & Bikes (this website) - Ghostery doesn't reveal any trackers. Joomla sites do, I think use cookies however.
Here's a <sarcasm>nice</sarcasm> tracker revealed by the excellent Firefox plugin Ghostery. According to the forum at nodpi.org, this tracker was noticed by a poster on Guardian Unlimited, and it tracks when people highlight and/or copy text, and phones home (presumably to the company HQ in Canada) this information tied to your IP address.
Apparently the noscript Firefox plugin will block it (as does Ghostery). Ghostery says this about Tynt Tracer:
The Register reports that the UK Government's much-vaunted and euphemistically named Internet Modernisation Programme (which of course represents State snooping on a vast scale) is going ahead as planned (Massive net surveillance programme on schedule).
This huge endeavour, which seeks to monitor and track all electronically mediated communications in a (probably vain) hope that patterns useful in crime detection may emerge was apparently begun in 2006, despite a consultation exercise that completely passed me by (I must have blinked at an inopportune moment). According the The Register:
A quick update on the blog article on persuading Evolution to cooperate with MS Exchange 2007.
I can confirm that the procedure works fine, that I can read/send emails, view edit my calendar, and view/edit tasks. Contacts access seems a bit flaky, however. And my work's Exchange server appears to be set up to require a secure VPN connection when using Evolution off-site. Which I suppose is no bad thing.
So, here's the situation. I've been happily using the Evolution email/calendar software with Ubuntu GNU/Linux for several Ubuntu releases for some time now. Of course, this was with the MS Exchange 2003 that my workplace uses. No problem, using the exchange connector plugin for Evolution.
Earlier this year we were upgraded to Exchange 2007, whereupon everything changed - I was no longer able to access the mailserver or calendar. Aha! I thought, I'll find an appropriate plugin for Evolution. Well, that was a little easier to say than achieve. Firstly, many websites refer to an apparently now unavailable plugin named Brutus. Secondly, after I identified the plugin to use (evolution-mapi), it didn't seem to work.
I've been visiting a couple of prestigious Research Institutions this week, and delivering presentations of my current research work. This was fine and dandy - I'd updated my standard presentation as appropriate to the audience, and with new data. For this I generally use Open Office, which has a rather good presentation app, called Impress.
Unfortunately, I ran into an issue with output of the slideshow to a projector. My laptop is a slightly aged Sony VGN-TX5XN - about 2.5 years old, with a meagre 1Gb RAM onboard. As soon as I plugged in the cable to the projector, the display went black, with only an immobile mouse cursor visible. I rescued the situation by using a PowerPoint version I'd made (not perfect, but good enough for the job) on the host's XP laptop.
This looks to be good. As legal blogger Jack of Kent writes today (Libel Reform: Free Speech is not for Sale), two pressure groups, English Pen and Index on Censorship, have conducted a joint inquiry into English libel law - their report is now available on a new website:
Some weeks ago, I noted the existence of Google's Sidewiki (Is Sidewiki evil? (Probably not, but it's annoying)) and mentioned that I'd planned to install a Sidewiki blocker on my websites. Well, I've done that. I've also installed the Google Toolbar thing, and now have a Sidewiki button nestled up there next to my Firefox URL box.
Every so often, I click on it to see if a website has any Sidewiki annotation, but thus far, I've yet to see one. Does this mean that Sidewiki's a flop? Or just reflect the nature of the sites I visit (many are forums or blogs with pages of relatively transient interest)? And need I have bothered to install a Sidewiki blocker at all?
Apparently this isn't a wind-up, though it sure looks like an early April Fool. Here's an 18 button mouse from OpenOffice.org, from a report in The Register (OpenOffice.org pushes gamers' buttons with OOMouse):
I anxiously waited for some try roads to take my new pride and joy (Cervelo P3 time trial frame; The new time trial bike) for a spin. Being as I was off to the USA first thing Sunday morning, I got all set up to ride it on Saturday. Tubs pumped up, bolts tightened, new cycle computer picking up the GPS satellites...only to discover issues with the heatset being loose. And the rear wheel pulled.
By the time I'd got that dealt with it was getting dark. So, the maiden ride will have to wait until I'm back from the USA.