Successful Blog

Net Neutrality 11-06-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Battle over ‘net neutrality’ arrives in Canada

. . . “Right now, the internet is almost a perfect, universal democracy,” says Pippa Lawson, the executive director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Law Clinic.

“The smallest bloggers can be accessed as easily and as quickly as the websites of major corporations.”

There’s clear incentive there for those who have the economic interests to discriminate. That’s why it’s necessary to ensure that there’s a level playing field and you have to do that legislatively.”

Lawson said Canadian companies want exactly what American companies want — to control the web and make a lot of money doing so.

“There’s a big push in Canada right now to allow those sorts of discriminatory practices,” Lawson said.

“The companies that own the pipes of the internet — the telecom companies — haven’t liked sitting back and watching big content providers like Google and Yahoo make billions of dollars. They want a piece of the pie, and they want to be able to favour their own content or the content of the corporations that would pay them big money.”

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Congratulations b5media on the New Website!

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Would You Look at That!

b5media 2006

The old b5media digs was getting a little tight. We’re 150 blogs strong with 14 channels and 2 million unique visitors every month. That many people, that many places meant it was time to get roomier — so that folks wouldn’t bump into each other and fall down.

Open the door to the next level — many rooms, plenty of spaces and new places to get folks where they’re going with the latest architecture. . . . simply elegant, well executed, and well, just excellent and just right!

The new b5media home page and the new blog — click to see them larger.

b5media.com home page b5media.com new blog

Congratulations to b5media — to the founders: Jeremy, Darren, Duncan, and Shai. Kudos and wow to Ben Bleikamp, the man who designed the classy website and to Aaron Brazell, the technology architect who brought it life.

Go on over. Do some exploring. Be sure to check out the elegant comment box Ben designed just for you. While you’re there, leave a word for Ben and Aaron — a toast or congratulations. Here’s a link to get you to the new b5media website.

I’ll wait here. I’m still nervous about getting lost in space again.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article,
Two Blogs in One: A Good Hack Gone Bad

Net Neutrality 11-05-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Mudwrestling At The Goldberg’s

. . . The issue seems pretty simple. Videotron wants to preserve the gatekeeper status they enjoy as a cable television provider. That’s why they oppose net neutrality. In a world where many competitive alternatives exist, that might be tolerable. In our world — the world where your choices are cable or the incumbent telco — it shouldn’t even be on the table.

Do we, as consumers and producers of content, want a return to the end-to-end integrated model of the entertainment networks, or do we want choice? There’s enough crap on the tube. Let’s vote for choice and see what happens.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Two Blogs in One: A Good Hack Gone Bad

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Two Blogs in One

On Tuesday Open Comment Nights while the comments are flying at one or more per second, Joe says Successful-Blog has a time warp. Come and see for yourself. He seems to be onto something. Yesterday I thought Is there a space warp too? It sure felt that way.

The problem started Thursday night — folks could see their own comments, but couldn’t see mine. Had I fallen out of my blog into a black hole? No, a server move met my way of finding unique problems to solve.

Not everyone could say they had two, two, two blogs in one.

Thank you, Jeremy for telling me what was going on. I didn’t know you were moving house, yet you stopped to find out, so I would know.

Thank you, HART for the screen shot of what you saw — it helped solve the problem with fewer words.

What I Saw What You Saw that HART Sent

A Good Hack Gone Bad

The smartest technology architect from b5media, who had plenty to do, Aaron Brazell saw that I was still on the old server blog. He found a forgotten hack in my computer. It was made months back to fix an issue I hardly remember.

Helpful hacks can be problems waiting to happen. This was a case of a good hack gone bad.

We deleted that hack. Suddenly, I was back on the blog inside your computer.
Thank you, thank you, Aaron. I so appreciate every minute you spent.

Gosh it’s great to be back. Yeah I know, most folks say I’m lost in space anyway. So what’s new?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

PS. Please don’t ask why I never thought to check one of the other 8 million computers in our house. I was lost in space. I didn’t know where I was.

Of course, when I finally told my husband what was up, that was the first thing he did. Go figure.

When Did AT&T Become Not For Profit? Was I Absent that Day?

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Tom Evslin at Fractals of Change has been following Mr. Whitacre of AT&T more closely than I have. Tom’s detailed account of the merger with BellSouth is quite clearly focused. I’ve only pulled highlights. Read his analysis at at&t Blames Commercial Entities for FCC Delay.

Mr. Evslin’s report begins with the fact that the FCC has again delayed voting on AT&T’s merger/acquisition with/of BellSouth. He includes these lines from the NY Times in which AT&T is quoted as saying:

“While we regret that the merger has been delayed by the self-interest of commercial entities and their litany of unreasonable demands, we look forward to the F.C.C.’s approval so that we can get about the business of providing the overwhelming benefits the merger represents to consumers, to the economy and to the public interest.”

. . . we regret self-interest of commercial entities?

Excuse me? Are you implying you’re not part of that group? When did AT&T become not for profit? Was I absent that day? If you’re going to imply something untrue to me, please have the decency to be convincing.

Dear Mr. Whitacre, CEO of AT&T, first you said you will charge me and my destination to use “your pipes.” Now your company says that commercial entities are in the way of your “overwhelming benefits to the public interest.”

Tom Evslin says,

It’s the hypocrisy that’s annoying. Much more important is that this acquisition is significantly anti-competitive and is NOT in the public interest, far from it.

I have to agree with him.

Refusing emergency wireless voicemail access is only one in the list of things NOT “in the public interest” AT&T and BellSouth have done to date. MA Bell is back. Do read on. I missed most of this until Tom Evslin put it in one place.
[Read more…]

Net Neutrality 11-03-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

The Banned Site tool turns up something interesting

Over on Threadwatch they were discussing the newest MSN seach parameter, which allows the parameter LinkFromDomain. Russ Virante, one of the commenters, posted his newest tool based on that parameter, which will show you which of your outbound links that are banned from Google, pretty useful if you want to weed them out, though it only shows the first hundred, and this site has more outbounds than that. Be that as it may, it was useful in weeding out one from my webgeek directory.

also ran it on the Bitchslappin Political Blog to see what turned up over there. . . . But the other surprise was the Verizon PoliBlog, which I won’t link to, but you can find here:

http://poliblog.verizon.com/PoliBlog/blogs/poliblog/default.aspx

Hmm, one has to wonder why that is? Is it something in the algorithm? Did they do something shady? Have they been spammy? Or could it have something to do with Verizon’s stance on Net Neutrality?

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE