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August 29, 2004

Random thought:

Tired of pop-ups?

One of the most annoying advertising techniques found on the Web involves advertisers who think it's clever to place an advertisement in front of what you're trying to read. There are utilities that help control these annoyances, but every time somebody develops a way to kill pop-ups, somebody else finds a way to make them visible again.

One of the sites that will help you find out how well your pop-up blocking software is working is PopUpCheck.com. I gave the site a try with Mozilla because it's a browser that has its own built-in pop-up blocker. I tried the test first with the built-in blocker turned off (left), then turned it on and ran the test a second time (right). AdSubtract, which also tries to block pop-ups was running but, as you can see, it wasn't very effective. I'm not using the latest version of AdSubtract and I should note that Intermute has developed a special standalone program called PopSubtract that's aimed squarely at pop-ups.

Mozilla's pop-up blocker is so effective that you probably won't need a third-party program. Of course, if you're using Internet Explorer, which has no built-in blocking mechanism, you'll need to obtain one of the blocking programs. PopUpCheck can help there, too. The site has links to every pop-up blocker I've ever heard of and to many I'd never heard of. Some are free. Some are shareware. Some are commercial applications.

Results of testing Mozilla 1.7 with its built-in pop-up blocker turned OFF but with AdSubtract turned ON.		Results of testing Mozilla 1.7 with its built-in pop-up blocker turned ON. AdSubtract is also ON.
To see a larger view of either screen capture, click the small image. This will open another window with a larger image.

If you'd like to test your browser, visit www.PopUpCheck.com.

If you'd like lower insurance rates, let the insurance company ride along with you!

Two insurance companies -- one in the US and one in England -- are testing programs that would allow them to identify better drivers and give them a break on rates.

Cars will be fitted with devices that track when, where, how far, and how fast the car is driven. Progressive began a trial of what it calls "TripSense" this week in Minnesota. Customers who want to try to qualify for a discount get a box that's not much bigger than a matchbook installed in their cars. The device records many many miles the car traveled, at what speed, and when.

they drive, giving insurers a way to reward low-risk driving. Now just experiments, the technology might be a glimpse of the future of car insurance. A few times a year, motorists unplug the device, attach it to their computer, and download the results to Progressive. The company has suggested that it will grant better drivers discounts ranging from 5% to 25%.

The discounts will depend on the motorist driving at or below the speed limit, but the company will also take into account when the driver is on the road. The overnight weekend hours (midnight to 4am) are considered the most dangerous times to be on the road.

At the end of each policy term, customers can download a program from Progressive and use it to analyze the data to see if their driving earned a discount. Then they have the option of uploading their driving information or not.

The British experiment will involve Norwich Union. That company will start its Pay As You Drive program in a few weeks. It's a more ambitious program that includes a GPS unit to track where the car goes and it will constantly send information back to the company. Progressive had considered a similar program, but decided not to proceed with it because of privacy concerns.

Oddities

How good am I at "fortune telling"? Most of my predictions are safe and obvious. Here are a few I've found in wandering back through some old programs.

In May of 1998, I wrote: "8GB drives — cheap! If you’ve wanted a big drive, now’s the time. Western Digital soon will be shipping 8.4GB Caviar drives that will carry a street price of about $350. So now we’re down to about 4¢ per megabyte. Can prices go any lower? Probably. Will they? Probably."

Today you can't even find drives that small. The smallest Seagate drive I could find is 20GB (250% the size of the drive I was talking about in 1998) and it sells for less than $60 (17% the cost of the device in 1998, and that doesn't take into account any change in the value of the dollar.)

In 1998, Corel started shipping Draw version 8 and the company suggested putting it on a pretty beefy computer. I suggested an even more powerful machine than what Corel suggested:

In October of 1997, I wrote "If you're one of those people who complain that I never say anything nice about Apple, listen up: I certainly wouldn't mind having a G4 system and even the funny-looking Ibook computers have great displays. Better yet, Apple has posted financial results for the quarter that exceeded expectations."

Since then, Apple has turned around. The company is again profitable and debt-free. They finally have an operating system, my younger daughter owns one of their computers for use in art school, and I own one for use in looking at software that runs on the Mac. After fighting against owning a Mac for several months, Kaydee accepted hers grudgingly. She now makes fun of Windows. Now that I own a Mac, I make fun of Windows, but I also make fun of the Mac's operating system.

In May of 2000, I wrote about some new faster network technology Time Warner was testing in Los Angeles: "The new modem will allow Roadrunner in LA to offer differentiated tiers of service, real-time audio/video streaming, and concurrent voice transmission. Keep an eye on this. If it works in Los Angeles, we'll probably see the new devices here."

Well, I'm no longer a Roadrunner customer, but the company I use does offer tiered services with three or four levels of download speed. I picked one of the faster services because I hate waiting and when I test it, it's generally operating at the advertised speed.

Nerdly News

Windows XP SP2 is knocking

Do you want to let it in? Most of the applications the service pack will break are old versions of various communications applications, but I'm still waiting to see what shakes out before installing it. I tried downloading the system administrator's version (nearly 300 MB) from Microsoft's website, but the download failed 3 times, so I've ordered the CD (free, with no shipping charge) from Microsoft.

Before you let Microsoft install SP2, you may want to visit Dan Wilson's website. Dan describes the steps you should take before downloading and installing the service pack. You'll find his information here.

If you have download problems and order the CD, don't expect to have it anytime soon. Thus spake Microsoft: "Thank you for ordering the Windows XP Service Pack 2 CD. Microsoft has received your Order, and it is being processed. You can expect to receive your CD within 4-6 weeks."

(Sigh.)

Postscript: I tried again on Saturday morning -- early enough that most people in the US were still in bed -- and the download took about 10 minutes.

A little progress in the battle against on-line crime

The Federal Trade Commission, the FBI, the Postal Inspection Service, and several foreign law enforcement agencies have been working since early in the year to round up on-line crooks. They've had some success.

Two men were arrested in June and charged with trying to steal the entire customer list of America Online. Their intent was to sell the list of 92 million e-mail addresses to spammers.

This week, the chief executive officer of Orbit Communications, located in Massachusetts, was charged with hiring computer criminals to run denial-of-service attacks on the websites of Orbit's competitors. The US Department of Justice says that DoS attacks ordered by Jay R. Echouafni cost his company's competitors more than $2 million and that they also disrupted service at Amazon.com and the Department of Homeland Security's website.

Overseas, Ukrainian Roman Vega was arrested in Cyprus and extradited to California where he is charged with buying and selling credit card numbers. Some of those numbers were obtained fraudulently online according to the complaint.

It's far too early to claim victory, but at least there's some progress.

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