Author Archives: paolo

HTML tag <A> gets a new attribute: nofollow

I read on News.com that Google is promoting a new attribute for the html tag <A> for preventing comment spam.
Example: Visit my <a href=”http://www.example.com/” rel="nofollow">discount pharmaceuticals</a> site.
Google will not follow such a link (because of the nofollow attribute) and hence the linked site will not get Pagerank. This should give less incentives to blogspammers in automatically commenting your blog with spam messagges. I think it will not work but this is just a try for tacking spam and hence worthwhile.
What is more interesting is the “decentralized” evolution of (HTML) language. The new attribute is just a proposal from Google to extend a standard language but Google has a so high reputation that many people will follow this suggestion and this means Google has the power to change HTML language. Technorati did something similar proposing rel="tag" just few days ago. Technorati proposed also VoteLink with rel="vote-for" and rel="vote-against" and XFN with rel="friend met" and others relationships-related tags.
Actually everyone can propose a change in HTML language (or whatever language/protocol) but it is of course difficult to have it accepted by a significant number of players/content creators.
It will also be interesting to see if this language evolution will produce different linking behaviours.

<a rel=”tag”> and technorati aggregates your post based on category

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If you want to have your category-tagged posts aggregated by Technorati, “tag” your post by including a special link:
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/[tagname]" rel="tag">[tagname]</a>
(from Technorati Tags Help).
Since I was there, I’ve modified how post categories are visualized on my blog, they should float on the right with a little cloud image linking to the relative tag page on Technorati. If you notice any problem (especially with IExplorer), please let me know.

2 more “things” technorati could aggregate: papers and todo lists.

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Some entries ago I was asking if there was somewhere a repository of category-tagged blog posts (for a project I was thinking about with some colleagues on evolution of a shared language). Few days ago, Technorati made a big step in providing it.
It aggregates URLs bookmarked under a certain tag in del.icio.us, photos tagged under the same tag in flickr and ALSO blog posts categorized under the same “tag”. Cool! For example, see the page about the tag “peace”.
Are there other services that use tags to tag things? Yes, there are. citeUlike lets you tag scientific papers. 43things lets you tag “todo lists” (I didn’t play with 43things so I’m not really sure what you tag). For example, see citeUlike page for design “tag” and 43things page for design “tag”. Gmail as well allows you to tag received emails but of course (at least for the moment) emails are private and it is not possible to aggregate them. We will investigate “would it be useful?” next time.
Are there more services that allow you to tag things? If you know any, please report them in the comments. I especially think we could really enjoy a songs-tagging site but more about this later.

Windows crashes, crashes and crashes

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zeusnews (in Italian) reports on a number of failures of billgates technologies in his “see the future. today” show(off).
The video is (kind of) available at microsfot site. But I was not able to see it. In general with my gnu/linux laptop I’m able to watch all the videos i wish notwithstanding the closeness of the format. Instead this time, after some efforts without success (there is the scary mms:// protocol), i realized that if they don’t want to make easy for me to see it, perfect, I’m not going to see it. Zeusnews also reports the fact Microsoft removed the video from the web for some time but had now put it there again.
Luckily enough, I was able to see the 1998 show with the usual windows crash (.mov file) that is always fun but it also makes me think that, despite being a worst software product, windows got a global monopoly on users’ computers.
Below, you can find the salient pieces related to (4) failures from the transcript of billgates failure-show:

Secunia: “use another product”

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Secunia‘s report:
“Some extremely critical vulnerabilities have been discovered in Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system, conduct cross-site/zone scripting and bypass a security feature in Microsoft Windows XP SP2.
Solution: Use another product.” (found via wikilab)
Seriously, if you are still using the most bugged browser of history, drop it and jump on the shiny Mozilla Firefox.
[This is the second anti-micro$oft post. In Italy we say “non c’e’ due senza tre” (there is no two without the three), so you know what next entry will be about ;-)]

For billgates, Free Culture advocates are Commies

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From BoingBoing, I come to know that billgates consider people that believe in free culture as communists. Such a comparison is so deeply wrong, I’m almost speechless. Free culture and communism are 2 completely different topics.
“There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.”
Anyway I had a small glimpe of what americans on average think about communists (should I say “they don’t think”?) when I was there for some months. I guess billgates’strategy is simple: call them communists, have your media broadcast the idea and let televisions-truths-swallowers get the concept and burn the communists.
Making fun of this nonsense sentence, some people have created wallpapers, t-shirts and other gadgets with this “creative commies” propaganda. Check some of them on BoingBoing.
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Almost one month without blogging

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Phew! I just saw last entry was written Dec 17, 2004. Almost one month ago! Why have i not written during all these days? I don’t know. Maybe lack of motivation. Maybe just too many holidays. Maybe I was tired. I need to think more about it. Anyway I have many “drafts” (unpublished blog entries, often with just a sketched idea or just a have-to-blog-it link) so I’ll buffer out them today and tomorrow.

There IS an alternative!

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SpreadFirefox team has chosen a key phrase I terribly like: “There is an alternative“. Actually, my preferred one is TIAAA (There Is Always An Alternative) as opposed to TINA (There Is No Alternative), often used by Thatcher and neoliberists in general to argue how capitalism is the only possible choice and you should be mad in trying to think and build something different. However this post is not about slogans but about the 2 full pages ad promoting Firefox in The New York Times (image). On the left page, the Firefox logo is built with all the names of the people who have contributed (PDF). Cool!

Hassan Masum is WorldChanging

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Via Seb, I come to know that my friend Hassan Masum started blogging over at WorldChanging. I met Hassan some months ago in Fribourg and I was delighted to discuss with him of many different topics. He is really a many-interests clever guy. WorldChanging was already in my blogroll and I think it will beneficiate from Hassan’s contributions in changing the world for the better. Welcome Hassan!

Reputation and Trust class

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I would love to attend the Reputation and Trust class of Understanding Online Interaction course by david wiley! It seems he always writes down a short funny story for introducing the weekly topic (and the assignment…). I might borrow the idea if I’ll ever teach a class. Unluckly, from Italy, Utah is a bit too far away.
And since he releases the content of his blog under a Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike license and i do the same for content of this blog, I happily and legally post here all his post, of course giving credit.

Reputation and Trust

B. Have you ever bought anything from Amazon.com?
A. Sure.
B. And you felt comfortable giving them your credit card information because…
A. [incredulously] Because they’re Amazon.com!
B. But what about before they were “Amazon.com”?
A. Are you going to talk about walking uphill both ways through deep snow?
B. No, no. That would take us in the wrong direction. [thinking] How about Ebay? Ever buy anything from Ebay?
A. Sure.
B. [with delight] A ha! Caught you in my little trap! You’ve actually never bought anything *from* Ebay. You’ve bought things from sellers who used Ebay as a front for their goods.
A. [unimpressed] Fair enough.

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