“It’s true, I haven’t pursued higher education, but the presidency is a function and not a job.

BBC News – Youssou N'Dour announces Senegal presidential bid.

The second interesting thing about this article on the web is the SEO and page title tuning which the NYT has used for this piece. The article is called “The Year When Rock Just Spun Its Wheels” and it lists a bunch of groups who have, in Caramanica’s opinion, failed to set the US mainstream rock scene alight with their new albums, performances or even their entire careers to date.

But if you look at the page title (the bit at the very top of your browser window, above the address bar) it reads Rock in 2011 – Hot Chelle Rae, Foster the People, Chevelle. That’s the phrase which will appear when I paste in the address below this post. It’s also the page title which Google and other web services will use to help understand what the article is about. But is that actually what the piece is about? Sure, the article mentions those bands, but actually the newspaper headline writer had it correct, the article is about the year when rock spun its wheels.

I assume that NYT is hoping that by changing the title of the page away from the title of the article, fans of those bands who are looking for information about them will come to this page. That’s a mis-calculation which should backfire. For instance, I should imagine that a Foster the People fan would be annoyed with this:

… Foster the People, whose album, “Torches” (StarTime/Columbia), was one of the most lauded rock albums of the year by an emerging band, even though it did little to add to the soul-infused lite-rock of the 1980s.

Or how about this gem:

Nickelback on “Here And Now” (Roadrunner), Chevelle on “Hats Off to the Bull” (Epic), Disturbed on the B-sides collection “The Lost Children” (Reprise) — all released big albums this year that work the post-grunge rock spectrum, to varying degrees of success but with equal amounts of innovation, which is to say little. The burly guitars are the same, as are the melancholy choruses, the assertive but not affirming drumming and the sense that this has all been done before, and better (in some cases by Nickelback itself, several years ago).

I cannot imagine that there are too many Chevelle fans wandering around the web hoping to encounter stuff like that.

Choosing the title of a web page carefully is important. But it should be done to best indicate what the article is about, not to drive traffic in a misleading way. This is an interesting article about how mainstream US rock stood still this year, why not tell us, and the search engines, that.

Rock in 2011 – Hot Chelle Rae, Foster the People, Chevelle – NYTimes.com.

* I’ve inserted “US” into my description of the article’s subject. It’s a way to clarify that he is definitely not writing about any place else.

From the article:

The White House is asking us to give them ideas on what is blocking innovation in America. I thought I’d give them an honest answer. Here it is:

Current intellectual property laws are blocking innovation.

President Obama just set a goal of wireless access for everyone in the US, saying it will spark innovation. But that’s only true if people are allowed to actually do innovative things once they are online.

You have to choose. You can prop up old business models with overbearing intellectual property laws that hit innovators on the head whenever they stick their heads up from the ground; OR you can have innovation. You can’t have both. And right now, the balance is away from innovation.

Read the full article here:

Groklaw – The White House Asks: Whats Blocking Innovation in America? – My Answer: IP Laws.

(FWIW, the formatting of long articles on the internet is almost always improved through the use of  “Readability”

Conductor: www.mta.me from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.

Impossibly cool! NYC Subway trains API describes art on screen and has a fun musical surprise too. Speeds up over time and is different each time you launch. Run it in multiple tabs for even more fun. Requires scripting, flash, HTML 5 and sound.

MTA.ME.

We don’t know anything about Perpetual Kid and this amazing skin appears to be out of stock at the moment, but we are sooo tempted…

PerpetualKid.com: DJ TURNTABLE LAPTOP SKIN – TURNTABLE INSPIRED LAPTOP SKIN.

The other day I was speaking with a colleague and we got around to the topic of computers. He was moaning about some nasty stuff which happened to him online and how he was sick and tired of it. He also talked about how his girlfriend was getting scared by the Wall Street Journal about web tracking and "What they know about you". I explained that with a minimum of effort he could go anywhere on the web and look at anything and not be tracked He need not be afraid of any page and every site. His initial reaction was "Oh yeah, right". So I said I would write up a brief description of what I do to make myself safe and unworried about bad stuff online.

Here ya go, Henry...

Caveat: This list will not protect you from every web nasty (notably the “evercookie”), but it *will* get you a long way to avoiding bad advertising, cross site tracking and other security and privacy issues. The goal is to keep the web useable but much, much safer than just surfing “naked”.

Here we go:

Got get the latest version of Firefox from http://www.getfirefox.com
(EDIT – October 15 2011: The newest versions of Firefox are significantly faster than a year ago. Running these extensions will now have significantly less of an impact of overall speed.

Having installed the latest version of Firefox go to “Tools” and then “Add-Ons” and then look for the following:

* Ablock Plus – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865/ – (also at http://adblockplus.org/en/) –
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Please *disable* AdBlock on the sites you find the most useful and use the most. Many great sites on the web are free because of advertising and if you like the site, letting them have a little access to your eyeballs is cool.

* NoScript – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722/ - (also at http://noscript.net/)
This blocks scripting on pages. Scripting is the single most dangerous avenue of attack on the web. This add-on allows you to selectively enable scripts on your important sites. I tell it to let sites like my bank and amazon run scripts. If you only go to a site occasionally and it looks broken when you get there, just temporarily allow the root of that domain and it should work nicely. You can also temporarily allow all scripts on a given page. (EDIT – October 15 2011: I have found that the best installation for most folks is to use the Options dialog “Allow Top-level sites by default”.

* Flashblock – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433/
To prevent flash objects and ads from running unsolicited. Gives you a little icon which you can click to see the content.

* Beef Taco – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/180650/
This installs over 100 opt-out cookies in an instant. Easier and much more thorough than going to the NAI site.

* Better Privacy – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/
To deal with LSO / Flash cookies. I accept the cookie and then it is deleted on exit. I also let it keep the Macromedia/Adobe Flashplayer settings cookie.

* CS Lite – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5207/
Puts a little icon on the bottom of the browser and allows you quickly and easily allow cookies permanently or for the session

*Google (DoubleClick) Advertising Cookie Opt-Out – http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/plugin/
Opts you out of tracking cookies from DoubleClick, now owned from Google.

* Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Addon – http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout – (also available for IE & Chrome)
Google analytics is ubiquitous on the net. If for some reason you have allowed Google Analytics in the NoScript settings, this will prevent it from communicating with the server about the site visit.

* Ref Control https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/953/
Simply control what is sent as refferer. I set it to forge. Thus the server at the destination site will see itself as the originator of the visit. This helps prevent profile building.

* Track Me Not – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3173/
Sends not quite random search requests in the background. This prevents accurate profiles being built from your real search queries.

*Bonus, possibly unnecessary, add-on as it replicates and consolidates some of the above : Ghostery
EDIT – October 15 2011:
Ghostery has been coming on leaps and bounds over the last year. It now blocks 600+ tracking bugs and cookies and is getting granular enough to use in concert with everything above. Using Ghostery is a good way to avoid places like Facebook tracking you even when you are logged out of Facebook.

*Visit the Mozilla plugin check once a month https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/

All of the above should work to protect you on all OSs. Also, the default installations of all of them is pretty protective and will require almost no extra configuration. It’s mostly “set it and forget it.”

I also keep an installation of Opera or Chrome around just in case I encounter a website which completely refuses to work under these conditions. I think of these installations as my “promiscuous” browsers and use them as little as possible. As I’m on Windows, when all else fails I use IE.

Some other things to do, not related to Firefox add-ons and mostly for Windows users:

*Use a host file with known tracking and malware addresses nulled. I use the one found here: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
It is an ugly page, but it is comprehensive and the information is good. As simple or as complicated as you care to make it. While a huge hosts file *may* slow down your browsing a little, most modern computers are able to deal with it well enough. Note that properly configured hosts file will prevent even your “promiscuous” browser from finding the site. All network connected computers use a hosts file of some sort, so this one is not just for Widows users.

*Use a good free anti-virus and a good free malware detector. Currently, I use Avira (http://www.avira.com/en/support-download-free-antivirus) and Malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org/). Microsoft Security Essentials is another good choice, but is not available for XP 64 bit.

*Set Windows to notify about updates automatically. Your choice as to whether to install automatically.

*Run Secunia PSI once a month to make sure your applications are up to date

*If you are on broadband, make sure your computer is behind a router and not connected directly to the modem.

*Don’t use Adobe Acrobat Reader for PDF reading. Use an alternative PDF reader. I use Foxit Reader with “Safe Reading” turned on.

Of course, there are many more things you can do with regard to particular services on the web (locking down Facebook and using its applications carefully comes to mind), but these steps are easy enough to do that even my technophobic ex-boss is able to follow the program easily and I don’t need to help him out of trouble every week.

Henry, you put petrol in your car, right? You also change the oil, check the fluids and tires regularly. Think of this as the same thing. Your car is a tool, so is your computer. They both require just a little effort to keep you safe while you are in them.

Do you have a favourite tool? Let us know in the comments.

I saw this spot during the Fulham / Man U match on Fox Soccer Channel today. I think it ran next to the ubiquitous Katy Perry ProActive spot. Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of youth oriented ad buys on the English Premiere League on FSC. And we know that soccer is a strong female sport in America.

“Air has no prejudice. It does not carry the opinions of a man faster than those of a woman. Does not filter out an idea because I am sixteen and not 30. Air is unaware if I am black or white. And wouldn’t care if it knew….”

When I saw the first half of this ad on TV I thought it must be a spot for Net Neutrality! Instead it is a spot for the very company fighting hardest to kill net neutrality in the wireless realm! Wow. Just wow.

Techcrunch mentioned this a coupla days ago: Hey Verizon, Whoever Made This Is Going To Hell

Could this be said to explain the sameness of the Nike/Fader mixes we mentioned the other day?

LP Square Frame (click on image for link to store)

The other just niiiiiiice:

LP Room Screen - click image for link to store