Entries by Kevin Harrison

On July 27th, 2009 AT&T took the first shot at "net neutrality" by blocking the popular website "4Chan.org" to all of their customers.

Several blogs and news providers have already begun reporting this issue:

http://mashable.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/
http://www.phonenews.com/

AT&T customers who have been impacted by this filter are doing everything in their power to reverse it, however, AT&T refuses to comment on the issue at this time. Several thousands of AT&T customers are already in the early stages of starting a boycott if AT&T does not remove their filter on 4chan.org.

AT&T is taking away our internet freedom, something President Obama claimed he would protect during his presidential campaign! I need your help getting the word out about this issue. This is a topic that should NOT be brushed under a carpet and be forgotten! Contact your local news channels and let them know what AT&T is doing!

To learn more about net neutrality and how it affects everyone on the internet, check out:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/

I gotta say, when they said they were going to revolutionize the browser today, i thought to myself what could they possibly do to opera that would make me want to use it? There can be nothing of actual use aside from the novelty of using something aside from firefox.

Oh boy, was I wrong.

Opera might actually have something, something huge. Apparently, the folks at Opera have been working tirelessly even though they are 5th in browser penetration.

Opera has integrated an actual webserver into their browser which has never been done before.

A user can configure the unite service from their browser. It's rather straight forward. Simply enable the Unite service from Opera then right click on any application that you would like to use and click start service. Currently they have a Fridge service, where users can leave little notes on a virtual fridge in the form of a virtual post-it. Along with the fridge, they have a lounge, where people can have a chat, a webserver where people can view a personal web page, and then there is basic file sharing.

The file sharing is broken into three different categories, Photo Sharing, File Sharing and a Media Player.

Talk about an easy way for everyone to share their creations.

Incase anyone is wondering what the server version is of the unite service, the webserver responds as...

200 OK
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:46:30 UTC
Server: Opera/ubuntu.kharri1073.operaunite.com
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Client-Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:46:30 GMT
Client-Peer: 213.236.208.34:80
Client-Response-Num: 1
Set-Cookie: unite-session-id=9b4736b661f85d9025507f3a; Max-Age=2073600; path=/

Leave me a message on my fridge... http://ubuntu.kharri1073.operaunite.com/fridge/

Dear Microsoft,

Can you have any less brand recognition? You're changing focus, names, and ideas way too frequently. How can anyone take you seriously?

Sincerely,
A former windows user

I don't know why Google changed the colors of the categories in Google news but it looks like they actually regressed.

Each major category in Google News had their color changed yesterday. Each category is a variant of their classic Google color scheme.

The news categories now make the website look like it was produced for (or by i can't say) an 8 year old. If you don't read the actual news headlines you may thing it is a page for kids.

If memory recalls, the categories in Google News used to have a solid background greyish color. The only colors in the category was a top border which used the Google colors.

Perhaps it's just because it's new change, but the colors just seem too distracting, keeping the user's eyes from the actual news content. If a color wheel is fired up, the colors don't even match the same scheme. The UI team really goofed on that.