I read that Google will start offering SSL search to keep the search safe and encrypted.

Now this does indeed sound as a good thing, it means your searching will be more secure. All you'll need to do is use https instead of http.
So - is Google really only worried about the privacy of users? Let's dig a little deeper.

The encryption will naturally not mean anything for Google themselves - they'll continue to collect the data as they've always have. Anything else could be hurting their AdWords and peoples trust in them.

However enabling SSL in search via the https will mean the referrers will be turned off.
"As another layer of privacy, SSL search turns off a browser's referrers. Web browsers typically turn off referrers when going from HTTPS to HTTP mode to provide extra privacy. By clicking on a search result that takes you to an HTTP site, you could disable any customizations that the website provides based on the referrer information."

This looks to mean that the search terms aren't transmitted from the browser to the website, and means that the information about them aren't collected, by for example Google Analytics.

My first thought was "Google Analytics: Premium Service". 
Google as said still collects the information meaning they can still be coupled in with the website, however if they aren't immediately accessible from the client, and thus the JavaScript transmitting data to analytics it will mean analytics can't display them in the current setup.
Is it farfetched to think that Google might divide Analytics up in two services?
One free with basic features, and one premium to buy if you want to know the search terms people enter your site with?

I guess we will see eventually how this SSL affects Analytics.  But to return to the AdWords issue once more - if people don't know which search terms their sites pull in, how would you trust that Google AdWords are actually working and which AdWords to target? You can't check up on it other than trusting Google. Previously - you could couple the information with Analytics and make deductions on that information.

A side issue is SEO. If the search terms aren't displayed, then people will be unable to actually figure out which terms the visitors of a site use and how and where to optimize content for the audience.
SEO people often battle it out with search engines because they play the same game.
Search engines wants to provide the most relevant results to a search. SEO people want people to see their content. Google removing or hurting one factor could potentially be another move in that ongoing dance

As both a user of Google's search and Analytics - I'm torn myself. I welcome the privacy (although Google still records my searching, so privacy of course is to be taken with a grain of salt), but as a professional user of Analytics and SEO, I'm a bit wary of what this could mean as well in that area.

I saw the other day that YouTube now will start to allow "private" videos which means videos which are unlisted in the search result.
Now - this seems like a good idea, but I foresee two major problems with it.

1) How will this work with copyrighted material.
Google have gotten a lot of flak from copyright holders since they bought YouTube and many clips are pulled from YouTube due to infringement.
How will these companies who like to complain about copyrighted material handle the new unlisted service? If the movies are unlisted, how will companies be able to uphold the copyright?

One could imagine that perhaps the movies aren't as unlisted as claimed and certain individuals are allowed to search through them for material - or one could imagine that these companies aren't allowed to search them and the clips then will be a haven for copyrighted material.
Which is more likely? Well - given Google's behavior lately, I'd say scenario one is most likely.

2)  People have a strange tendency to share .... let's say rather private material online, thinking nobody but them in the world ever uses that strange thing called the internet.
My guess is that many people will use these unlisted postings for private - perhaps even rather much private - material and be very surprised that it finds itself publically all of the sudden.
Because you see - the privacy is just it is unlisted. If you have the URL you can still view it. That means you can basically just make a crawler and wade through content if the URLs follow a naming logic.
Given the lawsuit happy country - that might result in "funny" situations.

Well - time will tell.

Update: I've just noticed a "put porn on YouTube part 2" campaign. The jist of it is that people will swam YouTube with porn. This is now made much easier with these unlisted "private" services as people can upload their movies now, make them unlisted, to avoid getting them flagged too soon.
And then when the go-word is given, they can make all the clips public and listed and presto - YouTube can/will be full of pornography.

Apparently - Mythic/EA and their billing vendor have billed hundreds of people many times over for subscription to the Warhammer Online MMO.
This forum thread shows just how insane the whole thing is.

Some player report upwards to 20 times the subscription, others report having multiple erroneous withdrawals happening over two days, some incurring heavy overdraw fees and some even report it happening to inactive or trial accounts.
We're talking of many thousand dollars here, erroneously taken from peoples accounts.
To make matters somewhat worse, the information from Mythic seems rather .... insincere: "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this issue may be causing our players."
Inconvenience is the understatement of the year. (And saying "sincerely" does not automatically make you sincere)

Now anybody working within this field knows that errors can and will happen - also with billing procedures. However this looks to be on such massive scale and occurring up to and exceeding 20 times for some people that it looks like untested code somehow have made it into production.  I know I'm always paranoid when it comes to coding billing services, so this event just strikes me as completely odd.

It is a reminder to how much care one should take with credit card information. I also play MMOs and have had reoccurring subscription running (without problems), however next time I touch a (EA) MMO, I'll most likely consider time cards, unless I have the option to remove my credit card information after each subscription period to avoid accidental withdrawals. I also personally never use "save card information" on various sites even if purchasing there often.

This incident really is an eye opening experience. Now the question is - what repercussions this incident will have for EA/Mythic and their billing vendor.

Time to rant a bit about a "new technological advantage" I saw the other day.

I just got my BluRay player hooked up to the internet, so I can marvel at the genius of all the technologies now available for me.
Sure it is fun to watch YouTube videos on the BluRay/TV without having to hook up a computer - but well, this isn't about that....

I popped in some disc I just bought and there was a notice for some kind of "chat" system.
Interested to see what benefits I could take advantage off now that my player was finally hooked up, I navigated over with my remote.

Well - in essence it was just a basic chat system, which would place a big chat box in the side of the screen and I could then invite my friends to "watch the movie" with me and "chat with them" while doing it ..... all from the comfort of each our own couch.
Now that is stupid enough to begin with - if I want to watch movies with friends, I - you know - visit them, and if we watch movies, I sure as heck would not want a chat box taking up the screen.

But that was not what struck me .... one method of chatting was using the remote and the keys like on phones, but the alternative was using a computer to type on, which of course also needs to be online.
But if you have a computer, hooked up to the internet, and you can use to chat on - why on earth would you then chat via a BluRay movie system?

Isn't that what you would use a - you know - chat software on your computer for? Wouldn't it be much better to just use your usual IM client and chat on the computer, if you have a computer anyway? Seriously - How irrelevant can one technology be.....

(And yes, I understand the irony in me complaining about such technology after hooking my BluRay player up to the net)

I noticed this blog: thenextweb.com: Google Blocking Negative Search Recommendations On Islam – Why? today (a bit late possible).
It tells about how Google possible is censoring search suggestions which could be controversial - in this case towards Islam.

Most everybody knows about Google in China so we know Google does … lets call it fiddle to be neutral ... with the search results in various situations.
However this begs the question - how do we actually know that Google is acting fairly and doesn’t censor or cheat with the search results in ways we cannot know?

Their revenue comes from advertisement and being able to provide a clear picture of what people search for to provide targeted advertisement.
So it would stand to argue that they can’t really afford to suffer doubt about their objectivity and whether or not they alter or effect or even censor search results.
However how would anybody know?

Is Google now so big that it doesn’t matter if they do questionable things? Can … would … people even stop using Google if it was confirmed that they are actively censoring? Is it even possible? Or are Google now so big that they can do what they want, when they want?

One can only speculate but my trust in Google is diminishing as they keep growing bigger and spand more and more features of the web, and with situations like this and China.
I still use their services, however …for now.

Do no evil.

I experienced the following rather unhelpful exception at work today.
Padding is invalid and cannot be removed

With a stacktrace something along the following:

System.Security.Cryptography.RijndaelManagedTransform.DecryptData(Byte[] inputBuffer, Int32 inputOffset, Int32 inputCount, Byte[]& outputBuffer, Int32 outputOffset, PaddingMode paddingMode, Boolean fLast) +7596702
System.Security.Cryptography.RijndaelManagedTransform.TransformFinalBlock(Byte[] inputBuffer, Int32 inputOffset, Int32 inputCount) +208
System.Security.Cryptography.CryptoStream.FlushFinalBlock() +33
System.Web.Configuration.MachineKeySection.EncryptOrDecryptData(Boolean fEncrypt, Byte[] buf, Byte[] modifier, Int32 start, Int32 length, IVType ivType, Boolean useValidationSymAlgo) +225
System.Web.Security.FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(String encryptedTicket) +246

After doing some searching and more or less complex debugging, and resetting the application pool and what not, I find the simple solution.

I had two projects running on my localhost which both used the default cookie name for forms authentication, which then apparently conflicted with each other. Do’h.
But well, problem solved.

Some days ago a YouTube video appeared of a Danish women looking for the father of her child - which she supposedly met some evening and didn’t remember the name or nationality of.
The video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Seo5j_mNU
Now, many people thought it was real and it sort of vent “viral” which can be seen in the comments.

It has now been revealed that the video is a fake (oh the horrors - welcome to the Internet)  and is an advertisement from a Danish ad agency to promote “Denmark”, called “VisitDenmark“.
Well - that’s that to begin with, and I didn’t really care …. until I saw a representative for the agency in the news on a Danish TV station talking about he trick, which prompted my reaction.

The representative, sad there and kept repeating a memorized mantra that it was to promote awareness of the place called Denmark (duh)  and when asked if they had thought of the consequences and image they’d project of the Danish women, she repeated another memorized line of keywords - that they believed it promoted an image of “independent” women, taking “choices” in a “society” which allows them to take their own choice…….and other such keywords.
If I were a specialist in body language however, I’d also say she was lying about that - as she spoke those memorized keywords with erratic movements of upper body and head, and the attempts at emphasizing the keywords compared to the rest of the words, but I’m not a specialist - so..... It just looked like it wasn’t a reaction they had anticipated and needed to come up with excuses fast.

Funny though - my, and many others, impression of the messaged conveyed, was instead that they promoted Danish women as easy, willing to sleep with random tourists without knowing their names or nationality.
Visit Demark and try our easy women…. That’s the message they convey in my opinion.
The general reaction so far from people and politicians alike are also that it is distasteful attempt of promoting Denmark, and many remarks on both YouTube and elsewhere are the same interpretation as mine.

I guess we’ll see if this plan creates publicity and works or not…. Because I’m not a subscriber of the “any publicity is good publicity” theory - many people deliberate avoid products when displayed in stupid adverts or when companies lies to the public. This is no difference whether it is milk bought in the supermarket or awareness of a nation.

I can’t wait to see the consequences for VisitDenmark - because I’m sure we’ll see some and this case isn’t over yet.

Edit: I've added a new link because it seems the original one was pulled. Long live the internet. :)

So, finally got my VGA to DVI adapter only to find out that my monitor already supported VGA connection (d’oh), and then I got my old computer booted up.
Seems it contained a 700 MHz CPU and 256 RAM with a couple of gigs of hard drive. Plenty of power for my needs – perhaps a little too much for some of my old games, but we’ll see.

However it was extremely unstable, chrasing and locking up left and right and booting up very slowly – time to dig out a Win98 disc and reformat I think. Phew – can’t remember last time I reformatted a computer instead of just buying a new harddrive :D

Some other problems I noticed right off the bat was that even though there is a soundcard installed, it didn’t seem to produce any sound. So I will have to check whether it is installed properly, and if it even works.
The CPU fan made quite a lot of noise (dust problem I hope), so will have to look at that as well.
I’ll need to identify the graphics card, so I can install a proper version of direct X (5 or 6 most likely) which I’ll have to pull from an old disc, as I do not intend the computer to connect to the internet.
The running of a CD yielded a BSOD, which I hope will be fixed with a reformat – otherwise I might have to look into a new CD drive (properly around 4-16x speed) or burn my original CDs to new discs so I can test if it is scratches which cause the problem. Some of these CDs are old – back to mid 90s.
I’ll need to find drivers online for various things and get them burned down and installed. For example – drivers for my old Joystick (which is a Wingman Interceptor - best joystick ever), the soundcard (if it works), the graphic card and what else I find.

So there are still plenty of things to do to get it working properly – but with a bit of luck – I have the entire machine already build and only software problems remain and I don’t have to worry about hardware.

Here in Denmark we received a new tax structure just recently, and one of the items was that people could cash in a sort of “forced tax savings”, which had been 1% over a number of years when the economy was moving very fast. The economical aspect of this isn’t terrible interesting (for this discussion).

But apparently the interest for doing this have been so large that it has crashed the website of the organization which controls this forced saving, because people were interested in seeing how much money they had in their forced savings.
That is the true problem of the internet in its given form. Anything extraordinary happens – and websites can’t handle the traffic.  This has been seen multiple times throughout the years, and it is basically a distributed denial of service attack. Sites can’t handle traffic and shuts down. I tried this morning and could still not access the web site, and I tried yesterday around noon. It is a good thing it isn’t a critical service.

I remember back in 2001 when the twin towers were hit. Every news site I knew was down and where impossible to reach. Suddenly the television news channels received a significant boost, because people couldn’t get their news online and we were forced back to early 90s instead.

Imagine something important happens and you have to get access to your home bank, but the bank is down because everybody else is trying to access it as well. Not a comforting thought.

As more and more of our services and daily life starts to be accessible mainly (only) via the internet – this is a problem which will escalate.
Question is if the companies who aren’t ready will want to pay for being proactive with such things, or they’ll just ignore the problem because it is “extraordinary” events which cause it ….. well, extraordinary or just people wanting to get some money.

In a nostalgic spur of the moment – I’ve decided to try and build up a gaming computer to run games from the late 90s.

I’m especially interested in the Wing Commander/privateer series and other of these "interactive movie" games, Masters of Magic and a number of adventure games, I have stored.

Because I like many of the old games, I follow initiatives such as Good Old Games and support it by buying some of the games. But because I have a number of the games still laying around on CD’s – unfortunately I seem to have lost/misplaced my floppy – I thought I might as well try and boot them up properly.

So my first order of business will be to identify what kind of hardware I actually have laying around the place. I basically have one full computer, but I have no idea what specs it contains, so I need to get it booted up somehow – meaning I have to invest in a VGA to DVI adapter so I (hopefully) can run it on my LCD monitor at home. Have to get a hold of a PS/2 mouse and keyboard, well the keyboard I have, unsure about the mouse. But to judge the hardware I don’t really need the mouse.

I also have an old Wingman Extreme joystick lying around – really curious if it still works as it was a wonderful joystick.

But time will tell – but I do hope to manage to boot up some of my old games again without having to rely on DOSBox or similar.