//beconfused

Oh no! MSNBC reports the Justice Department on Thursday said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic.

Justice Dept. against ‘Net neutrality’

Several phone and cable companies, such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., have previously said they want the option to charge some users more money for loading certain content or Web sites faster than others.

The Justice Department said imposing a Net neutrality regulation could hamper development of the Internet and prevent service providers from upgrading or expanding their networks. It could also shift the “entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements onto consumers,” the agency said in its filing.

Such a result could diminish or delay network expansion and improvement, it added.

Supporters of Internet regulation have said that phone and cable companies could discriminate against certain Web site and services.

Source: MSNBC

What happens if participants in a business meeting behave like Internet commenters? NSFW due to audio, consider turning down the volume.

This is what happens when corporations change pwn3rship.

Internet Commenter Business Meeting

[via Digg]

Everyone is talking about Web 2.0 these days. Honestly, I don’t really like to use that term a lot as it has been overused and has, in my opinion, kinda lost its meaning.

Today, Web 2.0 can mean anything - video content, social networking, social news, social bookmarking, Ajax, Prototype libraries, JSON, accordion visual effects, mash-ups, Ruby on Rails, XML, and whatever.

It’s a marketing term for any webservice that is published after 2005. Google managed to revolutionize the way people understand ‘beta’. Today, some products is following some sort of a perpectual beta idea, meaning it’s just beta forever. That, once again, is pure marketing.

(Facebook has communities for Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web 4.0, Web 5.0 and in case you haven’t noticed - Web �??.0.)

Has the web really changed that much? Sure it has, but it didn’t just come overnight. It came a long way and Web 2.0 describes the awakening - the awakening of ordinary people such as my mom and my elephant - and the reintroduction of these technologies. Magazines that cover whatever Web 2.0 ideas are selling like hotcakes and if you actually read a couple of them you’ll realize none is particularly clear of what Web 2.0 is.

Because it just is so many things! But ultimately, I think Web 2.0 is about you and me addicted to connecting and sharing information. It’s as if we allow ourselves to be part of a whole movement. Just thinking of that scares me, but the thought never fails to make me tingle with excitement.

One of the websites (not //beconfused) I managed got hacked. My host pointed out an exploit in WordPress and said that intruders have planted a spam email sender. The WordPress installed is 2.2 and yeah I didn’t update when 2.2.1 was out. But the exploit is not among those that are fixed which is puzzling. Perhaps it’s really a new exploit, I’m still waiting for the web host to give me more details. Honestly… I am a little confused, I don’t know how to handle these stuff.

And my blog is going to max out the bandwidth again it seems. I am already using a business plan and it seems to be insufficient. My bandwidth is 40 GB per month and I am hitting the limit. I just upgraded 3 months back actually, it used to be 20 GB per month. I didn’t explain it to outgrow that quickly! I thought I would probably grow to using more than 30 GB per month probably the start of next year at the earliest. (Yes, I kinda got it charted out.) (more…)

Online phishing is getting more and more common and it is important to safeguard your identity and passwords. There are numerous tell-tale signs that you can look out for. Check out this quiz by McAfee to see how vigilant you are towards internet scams. I scored a 10 out of 10.

McAfee SiteAdvisor Phishing Quiz

YOU ANSWERED 10 OF 10 QUESTIONS CORRECTLY

Rating: Safety Guru

Nice work! Your practically clairvoyant knowledge of the Web allows you to spot even the most realistic looking spoofed sites. We’re impressed!

But remember that even one misstep on a deceptive Web site can put your personal information at risk which could lead to identity theft or financial losses.

Don’t let scammers fool you! SiteAdvisor can help protect your identity by warning you before you visit a risky site.

And McAfee didn’t forget to do product plugging to and quickly pointed out that ‘Even the savviest expert can use a little help sometimes’ and recommends me the McAfee SiteAdvisor plugin. It’s free by the way.

I was looking around blogs today and there’s some discussion on web hosting in Singapore. I’ve been thinking about hosting some websites locally. But the prices don’t seem to be very right. Worse - it’s not reputable enough.

Searching for reliable webhosts is probably the most time consuming thing, it’s worse than doing sai-kang in army I tell you. I went through countless reviews and forums to finally decide what to get. I had a couple of bad experiences and it’s enough to make to say no to really cheap hosting.

My previous host just suspended me and say I use too much resources. I was like “What? What resources? But I didn’t exceed my bandwidth limit for the month!” Their reply to me is in a form of a kiddy email, “your website is affecting our other customers hosting in the same machine as you.” They recommended me a dedicated machine which I said no too. I think it’s US$48, ah crap.

So I left when I had a chance to ICD Soft. My experience with ICD Soft is pretty good. They seem to know what they are doing at least. I pay US$10 per month to get some crappy disk space and rather limiting transfer rates. But the service is good (very pleased with them actually), they never complained to me before. The best nights to sleep in are those you know your website will still function at 4 AM in the morning. Opps, that sounds awfully geeky. Sorry! (more…)

I’ve been thinking about how computers work together lately and it’s amazing that one device can connect to the next and then to the next and so on to form the internet. I never really thought much about it. You can say I sort of took things for grants. I started using it almost a decade ago and it’s really exciting to watch it grow. In recent years, the growth seem to be accelerating. Perhaps the dot-com boom is back. Erm, sorry I take that back, speaking of the words ‘dot-com boom’ brings bad luck.

You knoiw - one of the reasons Singapore broadband prices aren’t really cheap is because Singaporeans love to go to the other countries websites. The data has to travel half the globe to reach you! In contrast, countries like Korea, Japan, China, United States, United Kingdom and - erm, United States - have most of their citizens visiting their own country’s website.

Is this because they make better websites than us? Is this because they are more loyal and prefer localized content? Is it because they have cheaper broadband?

Actually the answers for the above questions are all ‘yes’ in my opinion. Our favorite websites are probably YouTube and Friendster. I for one can testify to it, I love United States websites. I do not visit local websites for example (with the exception of ChannelNewsAsia.com and blogs, I love local blogs).

Is there any local websites that you know of? Any top-secret plan to start one? I love to hear what people has to say about this.