Internet

I don't know how many people out there are aware of the move that eBay is presently making in Australia. At present, eBay is applying for immunity from prosecution under the Trade Practices Act. They intend to limit payment options on eBay to Cash on Delivery (COD) and Paypal. For a good portion of online business COD is not an option; so in effect, they intend to limit eBay users to Paypal.

Paul Osborne, a 44-year-old Englishman was so devastated at the thought that his wife of 24 years might be having an affair, that he packed her things, put them on the curb. It all started with some rumors that he heard and allegedly confirmed by snooping through her email account. He gave her a second chance, but again became convinced and this time took more drastic action: he put her on eBay.

According to Paul: “In a fit of rage I put the advert on eBay. I later took it off because I realized it wasn’t the right thing to do. I was just so angry.”

We can all agree that it was the wrong thing to do, but you have to feel for the guy, who after being married for 24 years discovered emails in his wife's account between her and another man where, "They had been discussing their sex life together and making plans for the future."

For future reference John, the appropriate course of action would have been to consult a competent divorce attorney. [Daily Telegraph]

Microsoft is set to make some significant changes to Internet Explorer 8 that should see the browser secured against ActiveX exploits. The changes will make the browser much more convenient than it previously has been, as users will be able to install ActiveX controls without Administrator rights. The onus will be on publishers to prepare their programs in order to meet new security requirements and will work for Windows Vista based systems.

There is something of a Wild West mentality to ethics on the Internet; which has its good and bad points.  Most blogs struggle to make ends meet or lose money.  This blog is in the latter category and I am fine with that; the end goal is to get this thing in the black and I will one day, I am sure of that.  The thing is that Internet business is hard, it is competitive and it is cut throat; we don't need to be hamstrung or exploited by the very companies that we turn to for hosting, yet we are.

Network Solutions was in the news not all that long ago for front running or domain kiting as it is sometimes called.  The practice works like this: you go to their site and start hunting down domain names.  Whatever you type in, they register, Network Solutions would have you know that they do this to protect you. They charge a premium for the service, which if you ask me is nothing short of exploitation.  If you wait for a reasonably short period of time they do release the domain, but why should you have to wait?  When I heard the news I was flabbergasted; Network Solutions is a very large hosting provider, why would they need to do things that way?

Flash forward to today, where I am browsing a bunch of miscellaneous feeds.  Network Solutions caught my eye again and I decided to investigate.  It seems that they are domain parking on people's sub domains and earning money from them.  Don't worry, the user signs away any right to complain in their 59,000 word user agreement:

The more devices that you have the bigger the problem of keeping everything in sync can become. SugarSync is a web-based service that aims to change all of that.  It is PC and Mac compatible and will allow you to share files between as many systems as you want.  It takes the work out of synchronization.  You do not need to have all of your systems online in order for it to work.  It would seem that the documents, images and other files that you sync are uploaded to the SugarSync server, from where they are sent out to the other systems that you own.  It is a common sense approach; sort of like Foxmarks for files.

SugarSync also brings your mobile devices into line; not all are equal in this department.  Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices can handle whatever you throw at them, but the iPhone will only display pictures.  According to the review in USA Today, the Mac software is presently in Alpha stage, but will be advancing to Beta shortly.  It is apparently a little buggy but gets the job done.

Quite obviously, services like this are not free.  The cost of your service will depend on your data synching needs:

"A basic subscription gives you 10 gigabytes of online storage for $5 a
month or $50 a year. A 30-GB plan costs $10 a month or $100 a year. The
top-tier 250-GB plan costs $50 a month and $500 a year. SugarSync
includes a 45-day free trial. First year prices are half off for
Sharpcast Photos subscribers and SugarSync beta testers."

As we get more devices and our mobile devices become more capable, synchronization is going to become somewhat closer to a necessity than a convenience.