Archive for the ‘Random’ Category
Happy St. Patricks Day
March 17th, 2008
admin
We decided to post this today.
1988 vs 2008
February 28th, 2008
adminThink the iPhone is pricey? The cool cell phone of 1988 cost $4,382 in today’s dollars. A 150MB hard drive? $8,755. Take a trip with us down memory lane and you’ll never whine about the price of a gadget again.
Ever wax nostalgic about your first PC or cell phone? It’s easy to forgive your Tandy desktop or your Motorola portable for their limitations — after all, they were technological infants.
What we often forget, though, is how $%#@! expensive that crude neolithic junk was! So join us on a trip two decades back in technology’s history — and we bet that the next time you’re charged $895 for a small square of plastic and transistors, you’ll smile and say, “Wow, what a bargain!”
Home Desktop PCs
1988: Tandy 1000 TL
Price: $1,400 ($2,454 adjusted for inflation)CPU: Intel 80286RAM: 640KBStorage: 3.5-inch floppy
Monitor: 14-inch, 640-by-200 RGB CRT, 16 colors
By 1988, personal computers had found their way into about 15 percent of U.S. households. PCs dominated, but other home systems were popular as well – among them the Apple II, Macintosh, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Amiga 2000.
PCs came with DOS; Windows 2.0 was a $99 option, and one of many competing graphical interfaces. Radio Shack was home PC central, offering the Tandy 1000 TL for $1,400 in a configuration that included a 14-inch, 16-color monitor; 640KB of RAM; and a single 3.5-inch floppy drive.
Tandy’s DeskMate graphical interface provided an office suite, drawing and sound-editing apps and PC-Link online software, a precursor to AOL. The 16-color monitor, graphical OS and multimedia support were cutting-edge in an era still dominated by monochrome monitors and DOS. But the $1,400 price didn’t cover a mouse, a modem, a network card, or a hard drive, each of which was an expensive add-on. And CD-ROM drives were extremely rare. Microsoft had just released the first version of Bookshelf, a collection of reference materials on CD-ROM in September 1987, and it would be another couple years before the CD-ROM format really took off.
The situation in 2008 almost defies comparison with 1988. Instead of conserving RAM and disk space like gold, we store our entire lives on our hard drives and expect our PCs to double as home entertainment centers. For a total price of $1,000, the HP Pavilion Elite m9100z is available with Vista Home Premium, a 750GB hard drive, an HDMI graphics card, Wi-Fi, a CD/DVD recorder, an HDTV tuner, surround sound, and a 17-inch flat-panel monitor.
paypal phone number
January 25th, 2008
admin1-888-221-1161.
Notable 2008 CES products
January 16th, 2008
MatthewI am very disappointed that I did not make it out to vegas for this years CES. Maybe in 09?
Here are some of the most notable ones I’ve come across online so far:
Receive A Text Message From Your Dog… If You Can Afford It!
The economics of fear are ever-evolving. Now even dogs can have a cell phone: The bone-shaped Zoombak device attaches to your dog’s collar and sends you a text message when she goes out of a certain zone, with her GPS position. But as always with pet-related gizmos, they know you love your dog so the price is hefty: $199 for the device and $14.99 per month for the service plan. Crazy, isn’t it? But rejoice, since for that much, you will have the jaw-dropping excitement of tracking your dog in real time as she scours the streets.
In-phone Video Editing
The Motorola Z10 features in-phone video editing: Add a soundtrack and text to your videos right on your cell phone or go as far as cutting and inserting videos or images, just like a professional video editor. You can even send the final cut directly to Youtube.
Shake Control
The Sony Ericsson W760 has an accelerometer (just like the iPhone) but it doesn’t limit itself to switching the display from landscape to portrait. Moving it up and down will adjust the volume accordingly and shaking it sideways while pressing the Walkman key will skip to the next song. You can even control games by shaking it but at the Sony Ericsson booth at the CES, the demo’s battery died just as they were about to show me that feature.
Gesture Control: Wave At Your Phone
The Sony Ericsson Z555 lets you mute ringtones or snooze the wake up alarm (among other things) by waving your hand two times in front of the camera.
Morphing keypad:
The Motorola ROKR E8 is the latest Motorola music phone. It features 2GB of built-in memory but also a “morphing keypad”, which is in
fact a touch-sensitive flat keypad that only shows the keys you need for what you are doing. Music playback brings up music controls and camera
use, zoom in and out controls among others.
Character Salaries
August 22nd, 2007
adminTo be young, good-looking and fictional. Exemplified by exciting jobs and countless romantic conquests, the lives of television characters leave little to be desired — and much to be questioned. Don’t you ever wonder how so many of them sustain their glamorous lifestyles? After all, most live in luxurious digs, have a seemingly endless array of wardrobe choices and sport hairstyles that probably cost so much to maintain they’d make John Edwards blush.
In the spirit of awards season, we looked at what some Emmy nominees’ onscreen personas would be making in real life, and if these characters could get by without the help of Hollywood writers.
George O’Malley (T.R. Knight, "Grey’s Anatomy")
The job: Surgical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital
The salary: $50,968 in Seattle, Wash. (National average: $47,251)
The verdict: Pretty accurate, considering that George shares his living expenses with co-workers and that his only major expenditures seem to be drinks from the local pub.
Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco, "The Sopranos")
The job: Psychiatrist
The salary: $190,193 in New Jersey (National average: $150,210)
The verdict: With close ties to mob boss Tony Soprano, Dr. Melfi has her fair share of problems, but money probably isn’t one of them.
Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven, "Entourage")
The job: Hollywood agent
The salary: $86,454 in Los Angeles (National average: $69,282)
The verdict: Unless he’s taking far more than the standard 10 percent, the real Ari would be in debt up to his Armani collar trying to maintain his Hollywood mansion, luxury sports car and extravagant social life.
Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa L. Williams, "Ugly Betty")
The job: Creative director of Mode magazine
The salary: $51,996 in New York (National average: $37,277)
The verdict: Perhaps Ms. Slater has a little money pocketed away from her modeling days to help pay for her Botox treatments and designer wardrobe.
Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland, "24")
The job: Federal Agent
The salary: $49,057 in Los Angeles (National average: $44,587)
The verdict: L.A. is expensive, but Agent Bauer’s job doesn’t allow him much leisure time anyway; plus, with his MacGyver-like resiliency, he’ll always find a way to get by.
Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub, "Monk")
The job: Private detective
The salary: $73,909 in San Francisco (National average: $56,300)
The verdict: Luckily, Monk doesn’t have extravagant tastes, so he can probably live on this income despite San Francisco’s pricey cost of living.
Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick, "The Closer")
The job: Los Angeles police chief deputy
The salary: $59,890 in Los Angeles (National average: $39,088)
The verdict: Although Johnson’s a no-nonsense kind of gal when it comes to her job, the high-maintenance hairstyle is a dead giveaway that either this chief deputy is enjoying some kickbacks or the show’s writers aren’t playing by the coupon-cutting rules.
Liz Lemon (Tina Fey, "30 Rock")
The job: Head writer for a TV variety show
The salary: $58,851 in New York (National average: $47,536)
The verdict: Not one to spend money on fancy clothes, expensive wine or weekends in the country, Liz’s only extravagance seems to be an alarmingly high amount of takeout food, so she could easily maintain the same lifestyle on her real life counterpart’s salary.
Alan Shore (James Spader, "Boston Legal")
The job: Attorney
The salary: $94,416 in Boston (National average: $77,462)
The verdict: A grown-up version of the poor little rich kid Spader played in Pretty in Pink, the narcissistic, womanizing Shore could realistically live quite comfortably on what he makes, but if he goes through money the way he goes through women, he’s headed for trouble.
Pam Beesley (Jenna Fischer, "The Office")
The job: Receptionist
Average salary: About $19,254 in Scranton, Penn. (National average: $21,020)
The verdict: Pam doesn’t make much money, but with a lifestyle as unassuming as her demeanor, she really doesn’t need to. She’s not into flashy clothes or spa treatments, lives in a modest apartment, and needs little more than a few close friends nearby to have a good time.
When I Grow Up
August 3rd, 2007
MatthewI came across this and thought it was funny. About .44 seconds into it, is about web designers.
IT says: “When I grow up I want to be a web designer. A freak. Use terms nobody understands. And convince myself I’m no longer the geek I was in high school.
Careful Business Words
July 24th, 2007
MatthewThere are many reasons that these words are not appropriate for the business world. This doesn’t mean that I do not use them at home, or with very close clients whom are also friends. My point is that you should be aware that you use them at all and examine what message you are really trying to convey to the client.
just
ie. “I just think this design is what you should do.”
The problem as I’ve seen it with just is that it provides no factual or substantiated weight to your point. Rather, it makes your statement less important, as if there is no certain thought behind your statement at all. Most often we use the word in conjunction with the word think, which can be the most damaging from the client’s point of view.
honest
ie. “I honestly don’t know how that pixel got moved.”
I love the word honest. Honestly I do! In fact, I used to use it all the time, but what I have found is that when most people hear the word honest, they immediately think dishonest or lying. I think many clients also associate the word with sales, and the last thing a client wants to do is buy from a salesman, they want to by from a friend. This word also comes in the synonyms of frankly, truly, and the truth is.
simple
ie. “Its as simple as moving the database from the legacy system to MySQL.”
The great thing about the word simple is that it almost always can predict that the future of your statement will be anything but. To say something is simple, implies that it is too small for the client to worry about, but what really ends up happening is that it is usually this item that the client will fixate on because you have tried to downplay it. This word also comes in the synonyms of easy, no problem,and likity split. Yes, I’ve really heard a colleague say that last synonym before!
actually
ie. “Actually, the real objective is to design a new way for people to use toilet paper”
The word actually is always used to debunk a statement that has been already made. There is no way to use the word that would not force the listener to become on guard. If you use this word with a client then you are putting them down and trying to prove that you are right and they are wrong. Debate is fine and healthy in a client relationship but in this manner, and with this word in particular, you can do more harm than good.
Stuff to check out.
July 17th, 2007
MatthewGoogle Checkout: Google Checkout™ is a new way to process online transactions. Checkout can work independently to pay for or accept transactions or, in tandem with Google’s AdWords search advertising program, to increase sales and minimize expenses throughout the online purchasing process. Google Checkout also offers fraud protection as well as a unified page for tracking purchases. An added benefit, merchants can process sales from Google Checkout for free until the end of 2007.
Snap Preview Anywhere: Snap Preview Anywhere provides link previews for site visitors. Users can get a glimpse of the link destination without needing to click on the link and leave your site. Snap Preview Anywhere is a complimentary service and supports nine languages — English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Spanish and Portugese. In a world of information overload and short attention spans, tools like this are providing value to end-users and advanced functionality for websites.
ClipSyndicate: A new Web publishing platform that enables users to find relevant video clips for use on their sites. Search by keyword or browse content providers like AP, Bloomberg and others, or through pre-defined channels such as News, Entertainment or Health. Then reformat video content for your website or blog through various integration formats like HTML, JavaScript or RSS. The ClipSyndicate Media player is launched directly upon click, allowing users to view a selected video and browse deeper into a channel. Still in beta, ClipSyndicate presents an interesting alternative with an opportunity to share in revenue. It might be a competitor to big players like YouTube that will ultimately release a competing service.
AnswerTips: If your website is loaded with jargon or complex terminology, you may want to look into AnswerTips — a free product from Answers.com that displays small “bubbles” of information when users double click on a word in question. It’s quick and easy to integrate and won’t distract readers or cause site owners to lose visitors, as new browser windows are not initiated. Make sure your users are aware of the feature so that it does not get overlooked.
Websites to check out
June 22nd, 2007
adminWhat’s tomorrow’s YouTube? The Web’s next breakout hit may be one of these innovative, useful, and fun new sites.
Yahoo Pipes
Like Popfly, Yahoo Pipes lets you create your own mashups or “pipes.” As with Popfly, you drag and drop prebuilt modules, and then create connections between them. But Yahoo Pipes is much harder to use than Popfly, and the way to go about building your own mashup isn’t always obvious. But if you’re willing to do some digging and learning, you can build very useful stuff, such as a mashup that uses Yahoo maps to show the locations of all apartments for rent in a certain neighborhood. BuzzDash
Are foreign movies better watched with subtitles or with dubbed dialog? Is it okay to cry at work? Who is the best center fielder of all time–Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, or Ken Griffey, Jr.?If these are the kinds of issues that keep you awake at night, we have a Web site for you. BuzzDash lets you participate in, comment on, and see the results of numerous quick opinion polls. The polls are organized by topic, such as movies, football, and politicians; and if you have a burning question you want answered, you can create your own survey.
CircleUp
Anyone who has ever tried to organize an event–or to get a group of people to respond to a simple question like “Who can drive the kids to Little League this week?”–knows how tough it is to filter and organize the answers into coherent, usable form. That’s where CircleUp comes in handy. Use this site to send an e-mail or instant message to a group of people; then wait for it to return a consolidated summary of responses to you. It’s simple, it’s free, and it will liberate you from the recurring feeling that you’re herding cats whenever you try to coordinate an activity involving more than two people. Organizers, Searchers and OptimizersThe Web has so much information that it’s hard to keep track of everything. These sites will help you pull content together and move around the Internet more efficiently.
Pageflakes
The Web is just as chaotic as the world–but Pageflakes can organize both of them for you. This super-customizable version of a home page enables you to pick the news and information feeds you want to read, and to specify the “flakes,” or applets, you want to include. Flakes let you add all sorts of cool stuff to your page–movie times, to-do lists, a notepad, e-mail, a horoscope–even sudoku or a personal blog. If you’re looking for one-stop browsing, this is it. Spock
If you spend more time than you should googling folks, you need to check out Spock.com, a search engine designed to dig up information about people. Start by typing in a name, or a search term that describe a group of people–for example, Motown Singer, or Rastafarians. The site then searches through various social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster, along with more-general Web sites, and reports on what it finds.For many searches, you’ll get multiple categories of links. For instance, type in Barack Obama, and you’ll get groupings like ‘Democrat’, ‘Senator’, and ‘2008 Presidential Candidate’. Click any link, and you’ll find pages related to both Obama and the larger category. There are also links to photographs, tags, Obama’s Wikipedia entry, his Senate site, and so on. Spock is currently in beta form (its public launch is scheduled for sometime before September), and at the moment you need an invitation to gain access to it, but with luck you can wangle one by filling out the form on the site.
Swivel
Data and graph fanatics, you have a home. Swivel, holds a mind-boggling array of charts and graphs–from a line graph illustrating the relationship between wine consumption and crime in the United States over the past 30 years to a pie chart showing the percentage breakdown of bird flu cases in 14 Asian countries. But the site’s most outstanding feature is its ability to integrate different charts containing seemingly unrelated data. Want to compare the national murder rate to the cost of a first-class stamp, or to total hours of media use in U.S. households, over the same period of time? Now you can. Real Estate, Bookmarks, and BlogsWith these services, you can find a house, browse the Web from a single location, and make sure that your online prose never gets lost.
Trulia
There are plenty of real-estate sites on the Web, but this one comes with a twist. By combining social networking with mapping and search technology, Trulia gives you a high-tech way to find the home of your dreams. Use the different sliders and checkboxes to focus your search (price, square footage, and the all-important number of bathrooms), and Trulia will display qualifying homes that are for sale in the specified area, overlaid on a map. The site includes useful, city-specific real estate guides containing additional data on average home sale prices, most popular neighborhoods, crime statistics, and the like.The Trulia Voices section hooks you up with other people to discuss neighborhoods, housing issues, or real estate in general. Trulia is relatively new, so that section is as yet quite sparse. But if the site gains traction, Trulia Voices may prove to be the most useful tool of all.Tip: To view some cool time-lapse maps showing how an area (such as Las Vegas) has developed over time, hop to Trulia Hindsight. PopURLs
If you’re an information hound, you probably spend lots of time jumping from Digg to Del.icio.us to YouTube to Fark to Google News to anything-dot-com. With PopURLs, you no longer need to waste time hopping around the Internet. An aggregator of all things informative, PopURLs features massive lists of headlines, videos, blogs, and content from all of those sites, as well as plenty of others.One nice bonus is that you can search some of the sites–Del.icio.us, Flickr, and Wikipedia, among others–straight from PopURLs. It’s also easy to tweak the way PopURLs looks and works, too, including customizing the layout of the feeds so you can put the ones you view most regularly on top. The scrapbook is a particularly useful feature; just click the ‘Add to Scrapbook’ button next to any headline, and PopURLs will save it (and up to 19 other favorite items).
Ma.gnolia
If you’re a fan of the social bookmarking site Del.i.cio.us but wish that it were a little more social–and a little less geeky–check out Ma.gnolia. As with Del.icio.us, you can save and share bookmarks and tags. But Ma.gnolia presents a far more appealing design, and it has a few nice extra talents, such as the ability to let you save snapshots of your favorite pages.Ma.gnolia excels on the social networking front. You can join groups, share bookmarks, and browse groups and discussions for more bookmarks on topics that fascinate you. If you’re strictly interested in bookmarking and tagging, Del.i.cio.us remains the best place to go. But if you want to share your findings with others, Ma.gnolia is worth a taste. Five Ways to Create and ShareThese services help you put your thoughts together and publish them on the Web, whether you’re most comfortable talking, shooting video, or just typing.
Yodio
Of course your friends and family want to see all of your pictures from your Venetian vacation–but wouldn’t it be better if they could also hear your voice, telling you cool details about what they’re looking at, or narrating a story regarding some gondola hijinks?Yodio lets you combine photos with sound files to create an audio postcard. To make a recording, call a special Yodio phone number and start talking (or you can record your own MP3 file and upload it). Once you’ve transferred photos to the site, you can add sound and publish your postcard on the Web for others to admire. The site also has a scheme for making money from your productions, though we wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Meebo Rooms
You may have heard about Meebo, the Web-based instant messaging program that lets you communicate with people over various IM services, such as AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo. (See our review of Meebo.)Well equally cool is Meebo’s newest launch, Meebo Rooms, which lets you participate in multimedia chats. You’ll find chat rooms on everything from sports to SpongeBob Squarepants, and the rooms support videos and photos that you can discuss with fellow fans. If you can’t find a topic you’re interested in, simply create a new room and post visuals for others to discuss. You can even embed rooms into your site or blog, and use them to lure people to your own Web destination.
Squidoo
Got an obsession or special passion you want to convey to the world? Squidoo is your ticket. Using the site’s simple tools, you can build a “lens” (aka, a Web page) that includes information on any topic that’s close to your heart, whether it’s cats or Kafka.A lens can be quite different from a blog. With lenses, you share links to resources, book recommendations, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, eBay auction items, and other cool Web content related to a single subject. Even if you don’t build your own lens, the site is worth visiting to see what others have done. You can learn a lot more about lemonade or laptop bags than you ever thought possible. SplashCast
For anyone who has ever dreamed of becoming a broadcast mogul, here’s a quick (and free) way to get a taste of what it might be like. SplashCast lets you create your own streaming media channel that combines video, music, photos, text, narration, and RSS feeds. A wizard walks you through the steps of building your channel. Start by uploading media files from your hard drive, or point to files on other sites. Add captions, commentary, and RSS feeds, and your channel is ready to go. Once you’re done finessing your channel, you can send it to friends and family, or syndicate it to blogs and social networking sites. So far, there’s no way for you to make money from your channels, but the site plans to start a revenue-sharing model.
Eyespot
To create a video all you have to do is point your cell phone, digital camera, or camcorder at something, press a button, and stay focused. The result: an instant movie. What’s not so easy, though, is organizing, editing, and combining your video clips to create something aesthetically pleasing. Eyespot simplifies this process. Upload your videos to the site, and then use its tools to crop and mix them either with other clips you supply or with free video from the site. You can even add effects, transitions, and titles before publishing your video mix for the world to see. Sites for Collaborative Work and PlayWhether you’re putting together an important document or an anniversary party, these services will help get everybody involved. Also, check out a snazzy online photo editor and a new way to search.
Approver.com
Anyone who has collaborated with multiple people on a document knows the true meaning of frustration. You have to distribute the file to the entire group, convince every person to review it by a certain date and time, and get them all to sign off on it. Approver.com lowers the pain quotient considerably. Upload the document you want to track, and the site routes it to everyone who needs to see it. It also lets you set deadlines for reviewing the document, and keep track of approvals and comments. Approver.com works with a number of apps, including Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF, and Open Office; alternatively, you can use the site to create documents, and have your colleagues read them online. Pbwiki
Though the whole world seems to know about Wikipedia these days, many people and organizations don’t realize how useful it can be to build their own wiki. In business settings, it’s an ideal way to share information within a group. For individuals, it’s perfect for planning a get-together, organizing a fan club, or sharing memories with family members. Pbwiki makes creating miniature versions of Wikipedia a breeze. The site’s simple, Web-based tools are perfect for building a wiki–you don’t need to have any HTML know-how–and getting others in on the editing action.
MyPunchbowl
Planning a party, but unsure of what date works best for your friends? MyPunchbowl is basically Evite with a little extra kick. Like any self-respecting online invitation site, MyPunchbowl lets you create party invitations and then track who’s coming, who’s not, and who has yet to respond. But the site also enables you to send pick-a-date e-mail messages to see which day works best for people, set up message boards (useful for organizing things like who’s bringing the vino), and produce a map of the shindig’s location using Google Maps. You can also create an after-party message board where people can share comments, photos, and videos–if, um, appropriate. Quintura
Quintura provides a new way for you to search for things on the Internet. When you enter a search term, Quintura returns an ordinary list of results on the right-hand side, while on the left it offers a visual map (or “cloud”) of related terms. Click any of these words, and the list of results changes to encompass the new term as well, which can help you narrow your search. The process may sound clunky, but it’s surprisingly effective.
The 25 Worst Websites
June 22nd, 2007
adminPeople say hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to the Web, hindsight is more like X-ray vision: In retrospect, it’s easy to see what was wrong with dot coms that tried to make a business out of giving stuff away for free (but making it up later in volume), or to make fun of venture capitalists who handed millions to budding Web titans who had never run a lemonade stand before, let alone an enterprise.It’s so easy, in fact, we can’t help doing it ourselves. So as venture capitalists scramble to throw money at anything labeled Ajax or Web 2.0, and Web publishing becomes so simple that anyone with a working mouse hand can put up a site, we offer our list of the 25 worst Web sites of all time. Many of our bottom 25 date from the dot-com boom, when no bad idea went unfunded. Some sites were outright scams–at least two of our featured Net entrepreneurs spent some time in the pokey. Others are just examples of bad design, or sites that got a little too careless with users’ information, or tried to demand far too much personal data for too little benefit. And to prove we’re not afraid to pick on somebody much bigger than us, our pick for the worst Web site may be the hottest cyberspot on the planet right now.
25. Rentmychest.com
Look up the word hunk in any dictionary, and you will not find a picture of a bare-chested Chris Pirillo, the guy behind download sites such as lockergnome.com. But you used to be able to find several such pictures at this site, where the pasty, paunchy Pirillo auctioned off messages, written on his chest with magic marker, for $20 a pop. These days the marker-based messages are gone, replaced by a single background image that I wish I hadn’t seen and a bunch of linked keywords. Believe it or not, the keywords are actually more expensive, starting at $200. Look, Chris may know his downloads, but please, somebody buy this man a gym membership. 24. IKissYou.org
For a brief period in 1999, an accordion-playing Turk named Mahir Cagri was the most famous man on the Net, which really says more about us than it does about this mostly harmless Web destination. His site, which featured personal photos, charmingly fractured English, and the phrase “Welcome to my home page…I Kiss You!!!” became a minor Web sensation, for reasons that are now entirely obscure. Mahir’s legacy lives on in Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” character, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Turk.
23. InmatesForYou.com
This site helps you find that special someone, even if you have to wait 13 years for her parole to come up.22. Digital Entertainment Network (den.com)
This DEN of iniquity blew through more than $100 million before it shuttered its doors in January 2002. A sex scandal involving the site’s CEO didn’t help matters. 21. Golden Palace Casino
Web sites used to do just about anything to make headlines, and Golden Palace’s ad campaigns took that idea just about as far as it could go. From buying the “Holy Toast”–the grilled cheese sandwich that looks like the Virgin Mary–to buying William Shatner’s kidney stone, no promotional gimmick is too cheesy for this online casino.
20. Hotmail.com
In the mid to late nineties, Hotmail was a virtual Switzerland for spammers, who operated with impunity across the free e-mail service. Hotmail account holders were routinely buried in a blizzard of junk–in part because new subscribers were automatically added to a public directory of e-mail addresses, making them easy pickings for spam harvesters. A massive “dictionary attack” on the site’s user base in August 2002 didn’t help matters. Later that year Microsoft finally began implementing serious antispam measures, but by then many subscribers had already had their fill of canned luncheon meat. 19. WebVan
The big daddy of dot bombs, WebVan ripped through $1.2 billion of investment capital before checking out for the final time in July 2001. The costs of building a national network of grocery distribution centers proved too great for the online grocer. It’s a classic example of a great idea without a viable business model. The only reason it’s not higher on our list is that its delivery service was actually pretty good, while it lasted.
18. Beenz.com and Flooz.com (tie)
These ambitious schemes to float a Web-based e-currency both sank like a rock in August 2001. The sites hoped wary Netizens would rather trade credits for goods online than use credit cards, but consumers said No Sale. The biggest difference between the two? Flooz featured Whoopi Goldberg as spokesperson. Her career hasn’t been the same since, either. 17. Boo.com
This symbol of dot-com excess burned through cash so fast you’d think its executives worked for the federal government. The fashion retail site featured a 3D avatar named Miss Boo, but the real stars of Boo were its founders, who spent money like it was going out of style–$120 million in six months on lavish apartments and expensive gifts, as well as a site that was too unwieldy for the largely dial-up world of 2000. Amazingly, Boo.com is scheduled for a comeback later this year under new owners. Be afraid, be very afraid.
16. Microsoft Windows Update
Microsoft could have escaped our notice if we didn’t have to visit this cryptic and difficult-to-use site so often. It’s the only reason to ever use Internet Explorer–and then simply because Microsoft’s update site won’t work with any other browser. But it’s not reason enough. 15. Neuticles.com
Are your pets embarrassed about being neutered? Their four-legged friends need never know, thanks to Neuticles–implants that restore the look if not the function of their recently removed body parts. In an especially nice touch, the site opens with a flash animation of a bouncing ball (naturally). Yes, these cosmetic cojones are no joke; prices start at $73 a pair. Not to be confused with BumperNuts, which provide a similar service for your car.
14. BidForSurgery.com
Sadly, this site is exactly what it says it is. Think Priceline for face-lifts and tummy tucks. No, we are not joking. 13. Whitehouse.com
Not the virtual home of our president–that’s Whitehouse.gov–Whitehouse.com began life during the Clinton era as a site devoted to political discourse. In September 1998 it helped distribute the Starr Report, but by then it had also become the most notoriously named porn site on the Web–featuring, among other things, a White House Intern of the Month. Today the site hosts a white-pages listing.
12. The Dancing Baby
Both strangely amusing and deeply disturbing, the famous dancing toddler boogied its way across the Internet and into the spotlight, appearing on both Ally McBeal and a Blockbuster video commercial during the mid-nineties. There are now dozens of variations on thousands of sites. If you’re looking for the parties responsible for giving birth to this phenomenon, blame its parents at Burning Pixel Productions. 11. Rabies for Kids
Here’s what happens when good intentions meet really bad design. Published by the Viral and Rickettsial Zoonoses Branch of the Centers for Disease Control, the Rabies for Kids site is an orgy of graphical offal. You’ll be foaming at the mouth long before you reach the “Activities” section, which features a photo of a dog’s brain being sliced with a scalpel.
10. MyLackey.com
This Seattle-based site offered to walk your dog, pick up your dry cleaning, and do all other manner of scut jobs for a fee. (Isn’t that what kids and younger siblings are for?) The dot com contracted with local service providers for the dirty work, but apparently applied the “lackey” notion to its own employees as well. An infamous memo from cofounder Brendon Barnicle berated the company’s 65 employees for not putting in 11-hour days, making MyLackey a symbol of the dot-com work ethic. Sixteen months after it began, the last lackey still standing closed the doors and shut off the lights. 9. Hamsterdance.com
Quite possibly the most irritating site on earth. Earplugs recommended.
8. BonziBuddy
This animated purple gibbon called itself “your best friend on the Internet,” but many who downloaded this free program weren’t feeling too friendly afterward. Buddy could tell jokes, recite your e-mail, manage your schedule, download files, and more. But the grape ape also tracked users’ surfing habits, hijacked home pages, and installed several of his adware buddies. Depending on your browser settings, merely visiting Bonzi’s Web site or clicking a banner ad could install Buddy on your machine. In 2002 annoyed Netizens had enough of this monkey business and sued Bonzi for deceptive advertising. By 2005 Buddy was history. 7. Pets.com
Who let this dog out? Back in the heady days of 1999 it must have seemed perfectly normal to spend $175 million making a sock puppet famous. But the notion of saving some coin on kibbles and kitty litter never caught on with consumers, and by November 2000 Pets.com had been euthanized–going from IPO to liquidation in just nine months. Before it got sent to the pound, however, the dot com filed suit against Triumph the Comic Insult Dog for allegedly defaming its moth-friendly mascot. Apparently, even sock puppets have feelings.
6. Pixelon.com
More dot con than dot com, this streaming media company boasted of a revolutionary new technology that would deliver high-quality audio and video over the Net. But Pixelon CEO and founder “Michael Fenne” was in reality a grifter named David Kim Stanley, who spent the majority of investors’ money–some $16 million–on a launch party in Las Vegas featuring Tony Bennett, KISS, and The Who. Prior to starting Pixelon, Stanley had pleaded guilty to swindling friends and neighbors out of $1.5 million; he was on the lam and living out of the back of his car when he founded the company. Pixelon’s revolutionary new streaming technology was equally spurious. 5. AllAdvantage
This site had the brilliant idea of paying people 50 cents an hour to surf and watch banner ads all day, plus another 10 cents per hour for every friend they convinced to sign up. All users had to do was install a “Viewbar” that displayed ads and clocked how much time they spent online. Stunningly, the company managed to raise $135 million in venture capital and convince 2 million users to sign up before it folded in February 2001. For some reason, advertisers failed to see any advantage in trying to reach the $4-a-day demographic. Go figure.
4. CD Universe
In December 1999 a Russian hacker named Maxim broke into the music retailer’s site, stole 350,000 credit card numbers, and then demanded $100,000 ransom. When CD Universe refused to pay, Maxim posted 25,000 of the numbers to a Web site. At the time CD Universe was owned by eUniverse, which combined its site and its customer database on an unprotected server. “Basically, they put the candy jar in plain sight and left the cover off,” says current CD Universe owner Chuck Beilman. “It was only a matter of time until someone stole the candy.” CD Universe’s customer database is now separate from the Web site, encrypted, and protected by a firewall. 3. Cartoonnetwok.com
No that’s not a typo; it’s “typosquatting,” where a site owner deliberately registers a misspelling of a popular domain in the hopes of attracting the actual site’s traffic. Cartoonnetwok was one of some 5500 deceptive domains owned by John Zuccarini, d/b/a/ “Cupcake Confidential.” But that wasn’t Zuccarini’s only nasty bit of business. FTC investigators visiting one of his sites found their screens filled with 29 new browser windows for instant credit, online psychics, gambling, and porn sites. When they hit the Back button, another 7 windows opened–a technique known as “mousetrapping.” Worse, many of Zuccarani’s typosquatting sites were aimed at children. In 2003 Zuccarini pleaded guilty to violating the Truth in Domain Names Act and was sentenced to 2.5 years in the federal pen.
2. CyberRebate
The phrase “the check’s in the mail” took on new meaning with this dot com. CyberRebate offered to refund 100 percent of what you paid for electronic goods, provided you a) paid up to 10 times their normal retail value, and b) let CyberRebate hold onto your money for at least 10 weeks. The site banked on people simply forgetting to apply for the refund. Unfortunately for CyberRebate, not enough of them did. The company filed for bankruptcy in May 2001 owing $60 million in refunds. Aggrieved customers had to settle for roughly 9 cents on the dollar. 1. MySpace.com
Yes, we know. With more than 90 million users, MySpace is now more popular than Elvis, “American Idol,” and ice cream. But the Web’s most visited destination is also its most poorly designed and counterproductive.The ease with which anyone of any age can create a page, upload photos, share deeply personal details of their lives, and make new “friends” quickly turned MySpace into a one-stop shopping mall for online predators. That in turn has made the site an easy target for politicians who pander for votes by playing on parental fears. In an era when the basic tenets of the Net are under attack by both Ma Bell and Uncle Sam, MySpace is a headache we don’t need.
2. But let’s put all that aside for a moment. Graphically, many MySpace pages look like a teenager’s bedroom after a tornado–a swirl of clashing backgrounds, boxes stacked inside other boxes, massive photos, and sonic disturbance. Try loading a few of those pages at once and watch what happens to your CPU. Watch out for spyware, too, since it turns out that MySpace has become a popular distribution vector for drive-by downloads and other exploits. And in a place where “U are soooooooo hot!!!” passes for wit, MySpace isn’t doing much to elevate the level of social discourse. In response to a public backlash and some well-publicized lawsuits, MySpace has begun modifying its policies–for example, limiting adults’ ability to contact minors. That’s hardly enough. Requiring some kind of authentication from MySpacers–or their parents–to validate their ages and identities would go a long way toward scaring off the creeps and making the site a kinder, gentler social network. Is MySpace totally bad? Not at all. Are we old farts? Yeah, probably. But the Web’s most popular site needs a serious security reboot. And probably a makeover. Until then, MySpace won’t ever be OurSpace. Taken from pc magazine