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I don't know if Amazon actually does anything with reviews until someone complains about one, to be honest. It seems to me that there are just too many products on Amazon for them to review all the reviews manually before they're posted.

One thing I'd like to see on Amazon is a way to add comments that don't affect the review average. But you _have_ to select a star value, even if all you want to do is clarify/correct someone else's review. I'd do that for my latest book :-) (Mind you, I'm not sure how much they'd appreciate comments like "Of course you don't like the book, you ninny, it's for non-techies!")

I used to get upset over bad reviews, but the truth is that if there are _enough_ reviews attached to a book, even the bad ones can be useful if they're constructive, because they may convince someone that the book really is appropriate for them even if it wasn't the right one for the reviewer. But that only works when you have a dozen or more reviews, I think. Two of three "this book sucks" reviews on their own isn't a good sign!

is there really a good reason to GPL this

As much of a reason (some would say more) as releasing personal ramblings that no one reads (most blogs) under the GFDL.

Use my handy HTTP request header viewer tool to see what user-agent string your browser's currently sending.

It is small, but I wouldn't describe as being "fingertip" in size. Sure, it balances on your finger, but I've yet to see a fingertip of those proportions, The Thing's notwithstanding!

there are methods other than cookies that work just as well

Indeed, session tracking without cookies is quite easy, see No Cookies Required for an example, and obviously useful for things like shopping carts. Most people probably don't mind session tracking via cookies. It's the permanent cookies that are more problematic.

Truth be told, it sounds more like an instruction manual for God-like beings:

"Tired of creating the same old night sky? Want to dazzle and confuse your sentient beings? Astronomy Hacks give you the tips and tricks you need to succeed."

Absolutely, it's still being used. I still get requests from the occasional OS/2 user to open source or update our old VX-REXX product (from the days when we were Watcom -- now known as iAnywhere). Funny how OS/2 never quite goes away, even though I think IBM has tried hard to bury it.

The reason Sun is open sourcing their app server is because no one uses it!

Sun's application server has actually been free to use (including production deployment) for quite some time now, so this further step of releasing the source code under a friendly license isn't that big a deal. Let's face it, basic application servers are pretty much commodities these days, making it hard for anyone to compete in that space. With at least three open source app server projects on the go (this one, JBoss, Geronimo) it's certainly a crowded market. It's certainly not the big deal that misleading headline makes it sound like.

For example, MS provided us the wonderful thing called Conditional Comments

I'm not sure I'd describe it as "wonderful", but it is certainly an option. Really, I wrote "How to Detect Internet Explorer" as a companion piece for my HTTP header viewer to show some of the things you can (very easily) do with the header information. As with most things in computing, there are various ways to accomplish the same basic goal.

Time to dust off this page:

How to Detect Internet Explorer

But only encourage switching to a different browser, don't harangue them into doing it. Remember that some companies/organizations still require the use of IE, especially to access internal systems. If your surfers are coming from such a place, getting mad at them won't help either of you.

Relying on the headers the browser sends to figure out stats on browser usage is a dicey proposition at best. A statistically significant survey of Internet users would yield better results, but who's going to pay for that?

See my HTTP Header Viewer tool to see what User-Agent header your browser is actually sending.

It has to do with the fact that the J2ME devices have limited RAM, and can't hold a large page.

Luckily, the memory limitations that once seriously constrained J2ME platforms are becoming a thing of the past with the newer devices, though it's still not an excuse to go and download megabytes of data. I still find it really slow, in Canada at least, to surf the web via cellphone/BlackBerry. Reminds me of WAP browsing, and we all know how people loved that.

It has to do with the fact that the J2ME devices have limited RAM, and can't hold a large page.

Luckily, the memory limitations that once seriously constrained J2ME platforms are becoming a thing of the past with the newer devices, though it's still not an excuse to go and download megabytes of data. I still find it really slow, in Canada at least, to surf the web via cellphone/BlackBerry. Reminds me of WAP browsing, and we all know how people loved that.

I assume his carrier doesn't offer flat-rate pricing for data, which can lead to some pretty stiff charges if you don't browse carefully, especially if you're downloading Slashdot pages that probably don't even format correctly for the small screen anyhow...

This is a blow for the Opera for Mobile product, it seems to me. I wonder how usable this new browser is without a proxying component like the one used by the Reqwireless WebViewer or even the BlackBerry's built-in browser?

I've used 4NT for so long now it's hard to remember what the standard shell can and can't (or couldn't) do. Although looking through the 4NT help, I can't see any support for named pipes there either, just regular unnamed pipes.

An obvious troll, but... if you are interested in Java, check out Joshua Bloch's Effective Java, written in the same style as Effective C++. Great book for similar reasons.

Anyone who's a fan of the original should also check out the soundtrack album, officially called The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Most of the classic sequences from the film are on there, along with some additional bits. Quite a riot. And I'm old enough that I have it in original LP form. (LP = long pants, youngster)

Everyone should always assume that anything they post on the internet will be somewhere forever.

No kidding. And this predates the Web. You'd be surprised at what people were posting on Usenet back in the '80s... If you post or email it, assume someone's kept a copy somewhere.

You can't yet. Follow the links in this blog entry for more information.

You're right, but I bet a lot (most?) sites don't do it right and Google figures this is the next best way... Easier to ask people to put up sitemaps than tell them to fix their pages/servers.

It depends on how many pages there are that match those keywords. If your title is unique enough, then sure, your site will show up first. But as soon as there's contention for the keywords, don't expect to stay up top.

I'm not currently using a database, no, because there aren't enough links to justify that. Some of the links aren't simple redirects, either, as in when an URL in my book points to a page that is actually a collection of links that the reader can navigate to. If I had a lot of links, I'd automate it like you said, though.

The point is to keep the paper book as current as possible to avoid reader frustration. E-books have the same problem, of course.

And no, you probably wouldn't have seen my books unless you were into some obscure topics like J2ME programming. My latest one is less obscure, although frankly the typical Slashdotter is not the target audience...

Indeed, see JavaScript is Not Java.

That, and they send this "x-forwarded-for" header. In my case, my IP followed by my ISP (non-anonymous) proxy's IP, followed by "unknown", all delimited using commas.

Yeah, that's real anonymous there...

Hmm... Google also responds with a Content-Location: header, causing Firefox to go directly to the actual page the second time.

I'm testing with this site (random Google result for "HTTP header viewer").

Yep, generally it's the lawsuit-related keywords that have high pay-per-click values. That's because Google uses a bidding system for the placement of text ads -- the more you bid, the more chances that your ad will be displayed more often. (There's a feedback system in there to weed out the non-paying ads, even if they have high bids.) So of course there are many lawyers willing to bid highly for certain keywords in an attempt to find clients looking to sue someone. It's a numbers game, they only need to find a few clients and win their cases to make it worthwhile. This happened with Vioxx, for example, although that's died down now.

Other high-paying keywords/phrases: domain name, consolidate loans, credit repair, web hosting, free online poker... etc. etc.

Maybe his All-Bran sponsorship is at an end and he needs to make some more money.

And the other alternative is to display pay-per-click text ads to offset some of your costs.

If you're based in the US, the Amazon Honor System is an option if your users are PayPal-wary.

Yes, but Google automated the process enough to open it up to small-time web publishers and bloggers. That's been the important difference so far.

Well, they seem to be doing it. See my analysis of the Yahoo! ad program for more details.

I got a check from AdSense and I haven't made $100 the whole time I've been using it

That's because up until a few months ago Google paid out AdSense balances whenever the balance reached $100 or at the end of the calendar year. They've dropped the year-end payout option, so now you have to wait.

I think the idiot explanation works best. Look at the source for one of the definition pages, you'll see the JavaScript code for an AdSense ad block near the bottom:

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
google_ad_client = 'ca-gurunet_120x600';
google_ad_width = 120;
google_ad_height = 600;
google_ad_format = '120x600_sln';
google_safe = 'high';
google_alternate_ad_url = 'http://www.answers.com/main/default_ad.html';
google_encoding = 'utf8';
google_contents = 'paradigm';
google_color_bg = 'ffffff';
google_color_text='000000';
google_color_link='003399';
google_color_url='529C00';
google_color_border='003399';
// -->
</script>
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/s how_ads.js"></script>

Now, there could be one explanation. For pages where AdSense can't find matching ads, Google lets publishers display alternate ads. However, the way AdSense does the ad matching takes the context of the entire website into account (see the AdSense patent application) and so it seems unlikely to me that there will be no definitions without ads shown. I did some testing with obscure terms and I always got at least one ad on every page.

This is actually the interesting part of the article:

answers.com does not use Google AdSense

It would seem a natural for them to do it, given all the traffic they get from Google... seems like a no-brainer, really.

What Slashdot hasn't covered about Google is Yahoo!'s answer to AdSense. Technically, it's Yahoo! news, but it could materially affect Google's profits...

Nah, he's just taken it off-road...

If you like this book, don't forget to check out Scott Meyers' Effective C++ or Joshua Bloch's Effective Java. Both are great. I devoured Meyers' book when it first came out, and I was happy to see Bloch's book was similarly useful. There is also an Effective Perl book out, but I don't know how good it is -- it follows the same general format, but hasn't been updated since 1997. (Neither has the C++ book, but C++ hasn't changed that much since then.)

Wrong market. WebSphere is an application server, not a web server. Yes, it has a web server included with it, but that's not its raison d'etre. You'd be better off comparing it to BEA's WebLogic Server or to the open source JBoss Application Server or the free Sun Java System Application Server.

In terms of market share, the last nubmers I saw had WebSphere first, with WebLogic close behind.

I suspect a lot of people use Lexmark printers because they came for "free" with their computer systems, and they feel obligated to use it instead of going out and buying a competitor's printer. That's the real loss-leader there, I think...

if Arkeia Network Backup had been open source software

Well, it kind of is open source software... install it and it opens up your source (and pretty much anything stored on your computer) to anyone who wants it!

Imagine there's no Google
It's easy if you try
All the good stuff is below
The crap above makes you cry
Imagine all the people
Longing for the day...

(With apologies to John Lennon)

It's definitely going to be an interesting time. RIM has announced a WiFi-only device, for example, that supports VoIP to a SIP server. It looks like they're aiming it at people who need access to email as they move through buildings and campuses with WiFi coverage. Something similar from other devices will surely prove popular.

... and in related news, Electronic Arts has announced that it's pursuing court certification for its Sims games series. "I'm absolutely certain they're certifiable," said a company spokesman, though it was unclear if he was referring to the games or the players. "And we've already incorporated sophisticated PC crash behaviors right into the game," he added. Details to follow at 11.

Apparently Bill doesn't like it, though: Microsoft's Gates Endures PC Crash During Keynote Speech.

If the Asimov estate sued, he'd just have to point them to the issue of Asimov's where Isaac himself stated that you can't copyright titles. Now, an argument could be made for trademarking titles in certain circumstances, but in general a title doesn't qualify for protection.

References:

• Copyright protection not available for names, titles, or short phrases
• Protection of literary titles

If the Asimov estate sued, he'd just have to point them to the issue of Asimov's where Isaac himself stated that you can't copyright titles. Now, an argument could be made for trademarking titles in certain circumstances, but in general a title doesn't qualify for protection.

References:

• Copyright protection not available for names, titles, or short phrases
• Protection of literary titles

Not sure why this is such a big deal. The VoIP providers up here in Canada already let you choose the area code you want. In fact, it's one of their big selling features for home-based businesses or for people who have family and friends in different area codes. The selection of area codes isn't unlimited, but it covers all the big urban areas.

A short Gaul whose best friend is Obelix... oh, wait, I thought you meant Asterix, not Asterisk...

It is funny how they're making a big deal of this. Good customer service is just Marketing 101 -- check any marketing textbook.

Contrast eBay with Google, whose customer service has always been exemplary. Whenever I have an AdSense question, I just shoot them an email. I get back an automated response saying they've gotten my email and then later -- a couple of days at most -- I get back a response from a human. If I'm not satisfied I just mail back to the person who sent my response... haven't had any problems I couldn't deal with that way. That's the way it should be.

Other than barely-visible Vesta, this is a first.

Then it isn't a first, is it? Or is this the same kind of logic that says that a "near miss" isn't actually a hit?