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(canon g11 on Oct 2, 2009 9:07 AM) wonderful

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(prefabrike on Mar 25, 2008 4:28 PM) thank youu

For those you who have E-ZPass (EZPass or EZ-Pass, I can never spell it right) tags, you'd better take a look at your recent statement. No, this is not about phantom charges for some bridge you never crossed. It's about a $1 service charge that was quietly added in july.

Generally, when I receive my E-ZPass statements in the mail, I just glance over the balance amount and if it seems in line, I toss it. For some strange reason, I actually reviewed my last statement to see what kind of charges they have on it, and that is when I discovered the mysterious $1 account service fee.

The next day, I asked one of my coworkers if he knew anything about this. No, he said. But then he checked his account online and sure enough he was also being charged. So finally I decided to call E-ZPass and see what was up. It turns out that the E-ZPass tags are assigned by various authorities in new york, including Port Authority, New York State Thruway, and MTA. Mine was issued by the MTA. The Port Authority had been charging its E-ZPass customers the $1 service fee for a while, and the MTA, apparently feeling left-out, decided to silently add the fee.

What a perfect scam, bait and switch, swindle, robbery. First they sucker you into getting one of these tags so they can save money on toll collectors, then they charge you a service fee for the privilege of charging you at the toll plazas. And on top of it all, they sneak the charge in, hoping people wouldn't notice. When Kozlowski taps Tyco's money, that's fraud and embezzlement, and he must be punished. But when the government steals (and these outfits are quasi-government sorts), I guess it's called legitimate practice.

Hey Spitzer, are you awake?

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(jeans fetish on Jun 10, 2006 3:46 AM) Ill be back very soon to see any update!!!

(prefabrike on Mar 25, 2008 4:30 PM) What a perfect scam, bait and switch, swindle, robbery. First they sucker you into getting one of these tags so they can save money on toll collectors, then they charge you a service fee for the privilege of charging you at the toll plazas. this nice word.. thank you..

(kabin on Jul 16, 2008 8:42 AM) E-ZPass tags are assigned by various authorities in new york, including Port Authority, New York State Thruway, and MTA. Mine was issued by the MTA. The Port Authority had been charging its E-ZPass customers the $1 service fee for a while, and the MTA, apparently feeling left-out, decided to silently add the fee.

(Cheryes on Mar 3, 2009 7:25 AM) When Kozlowski taps Tyco's money, that's fraud and embezzlement, and he must be punished. But when the government steals (and these outfits are quasi-government sorts), I guess it's called legitimate practice. I want to mention to every one on this planet earth to always remember their gorvernment are just paties formed of regualar people who could be their neighbors or distant relatives or friends. Those people are no better than others. They don't have any rights to use governmental figures as fear to intimidate and to screw the population through systematic burocratic manipulation and hide behind governement shield when they break the law, so that they could go unpunished.

GWA is in effect a proxy client drawing from the vast Google cache content. This means that when you visit a site, in addition to your ISP, Google will also know about it, even if it doesn't supply the content from its cache. If you already have the Google toolbar installed, chances are Google is already collecting the information. The difference however is that with a decent network analyzer you could see what information is sent back to Google via the toolbar. With GWA, you can never be sure what is being collected since data is being supplied through Google itself.

Web operators are already having a hard time collecting data on their visitors. With paranoid users blocking cookies, disabling scripts and images, and cloaking browsers, now their IP addresses will also be masked by those of Google's. For some users, being IP-anonymized is a boon, but if you are a Web operator who depends on visitor's IP addresses for Web analytics, banned and private lists, site troubleshooting, or culture detection, life just became a whole lot more complicated.

To see what I mean, visit the Whoami page on my personal site with GWA turned on and then turned off and note the differences in the information presented.

Finally, will Google ever use GWA as a censorship or subjugation tool, displaying content based on its discretion? Google already wields so much power that many sites fear being banned from its index. Just imagine how much more anxiety they would have, if their site won't even load because GWA might decide to dump them and provide a 404 page instead. This is an unlikely and alarmist scenario of course, but it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility.

If GWA is ever released as a finished product, it has the potential of becoming as popular as Google's toolbar. Only time will tell whether its benefits outweigh the risks.

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(Jair Santos on Oct 25, 2005 12:38 PM) At some point Google will know everything aboput you !! Jair Santos Software Engineer Cliconnect Internet Telephony www.cliconnect.com

One of the newer products offered is Google Web Accelerator (GWA). It had been open for download for a while, but it was yanked offline citing too many users. the GWA home page is in some sort of a limbo now and sometimes it redirects to the Google toolbar's page, but GWA can still be downloaded from a number of other sites. Google it up if interested.

I recently downloaded it from one of these sites and gave it test run. It looks like a speedometer with a needle, sitting in the tray and the browser toolbar. The needle moves as the browser is used, indicating activity. A small text proclaims the amount of time saved using the tool. The idea behind GWA is simple, even though the implementation is a bit involved. Since Google has so many web pages cached in its distributed servers, it could rush content back to the browsers faster than the actual web sites can.

Making all of this work is a little proxy installed by GWA on the PC that attempts to pull content form the Google cache as the user browses to various sites. So far GWA claims to have saved me 15 minutes, but I don't have a sense of faster browsing yet.

I suppose GWA can be called a great innovation by a company that can leverage its massive cache content to facilitate browsing. But GWA also has some adverse effects. I'd discuss that in my next entry.

The GWA's home page is http://webaccelerator.Google.com/.

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(Anonymous on Jun 26, 2005 6:26 PM) Maybe this will cut loading TMCnet.com pages from 3 minutes to 2 minutes! Can't wait to install it.

 If you have ever scanned your web logs, you would undoubtedly noticed these agents. They come with different names like googlebot, msnbot, and yahoo slurp. Almost all legitimate robots ask for permission before crawling a site, and the way that's done is through a file named robots.txt. This capability has been around since the early days of the search engines, but it is perhaps one of those often forgotten details. The reason is that if a robot can't locate /robots.txt on a Web site's root, it takes that as a green light to crawl and index the whole site.

 robots.txt is flat ASCII file with a simple format. It is placed at the root directory of the Web site, so for example, it can be accessed this way: http://www.tmcnet.com/robots.txt. If you want search engines to crawl your whole site, you would specify this inside robots.txt:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

If you want to block robots from a certain location of your 

site, you would specify this:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

I won't bore you with the details. You can read about the stuff <a title="robots.txt" href=http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html>here</a>.

Now the question is: if a missing robots.txt file is an open permission to crawl, why bother creating one? The best reason is to save on bandwidth. Many sites are designed to deliver a standard page to help lost users with missing pages. A robot looking for a missing /robots.txt file would also receive this page, and while in most instances, the standard error page will not cause any harm, the robot would still have to parse it, wasting bandwidth and resources. A safe practice to avoid this waste is to place an empty robots.txt on your Web site.

Finally, understand that /robots.txt works based on the honor system. While most legitimate search engines follow its instructions, there is no way to enforce obedience via this file.

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(Ronen on Jun 3, 2008 6:42 AM) Am I missing something, or is it that the two "user-agent" examples are identical?

The expanding menu has been part of MSNBC's navigational feature for many years. As the user hovered over the different item, a submenu would branch off displaying links to the top news for that section and other relevant sub-sections within. The sub-section items, once hovered over, would in turn open up their own menus displaying relevant links.

I always liked this functionality. It provided a one-click access to the stories I wanted to view. Dynamic menus do come with some inherent issues. One of the most problematic is layering. Most dynamic menus have the unfortunate side-effect of being eclipsed by active controls on a web browser. Those controls comprise items such as drop-down lists, applets, and flash.

To solve that problem, MSNBC would hide the active controls on the page whenever the user hovered on a menu item, thus the expanded menu would not clash with other controls on the page. It meant that many times interactive banners would suddenly vanish, and I suspect the advertisers weren't so pleased about their banners doing the disappearing act.

Now, with the expandable menu gone (at least for now), MSNBC is reaping several benefits, albeit at the expense of upsetting the dynamic menu fans. The banners would no longer need to be hidden, the users who would need to click on and visit the various section pages to see the relevant links are now greeted with a sponsored splash page (read more page impressions), and MSNBC.com would no longer need to maintain the dynamic menu.

According to one of our Web designers most people dislike dynamic menus because they interfere with the page and irritate the user. Perhaps that was part of MSNBC's reasoning to kill its dynamic menu. But given the other benefits, I hardly doubt MSNBC agonized much over this decision.

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(Ed T on May 8, 2005 2:10 PM) I prefered the DHTML menues. They saved a lot of scrolling and searching.

Now I knew I had heard of this term before, but I just couldn't come up with a definitive answer. Was it a crater on the Moon? A rock formation on Mars? I was certain the term pertained to some off-earth object, but it's a big space with lots of objects.

So I promised her that we will look it up in the dictionary after dinner. Her response, "Let's look it up on Google first?" I was struck with how fast the Internet has endeared itself to even the elementary school kids today. The truth is that I do the same when I am looking for something, so why shouldn't she? But somehow I can't help feeling sad about how drastically the Web has mutated our culture.

Instead of opening a book or two, now we just Google it. In some ways we have been robbed from the fun and challenge of searching for something the old-fashioned way. But there is no defying progress.

As a compromise, I suggested for us to look the term up on wikipedia.com. At least that Web site has some semblance to a real encyclopedia. No dice, wikipedia was stumped, though it came up with some suggested links. But clicking on those would mean too much effort. And so Google became the clear the winner, and we didn't even have to click on any search results. In a flash of a page-load, the answer sat before us.

Olympus Mons, located on Mars, is the largest volcano in the solar system. A speedy answer, courtesy of the omniscient Google.

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This is good news indeed. Technology has already had a great impact on the health care industry and that is wonderful for patients. There is no doubt that this new initiative would further enhance how patients' vital data is handled. Electronic Medical Records (EMR) or Electronic Health Records (EHR) are nothing new. Plainly stated, they are patients' records on computer databases. But as new frontiers are explored, EMRs will become precariously closer to falling into wrong hands.

Consider the spate of news about stolen data from a number of prominent companies lately. LexisNexis, Polo Ralph Lauren, HSBC, NCR, and a number of renowned universities around the nation have had security breaches with customer data stolen. These are not fly-by-night companies with half-baked products. They are brands that most consumers trust and rely on.

If we are doomed to repeat past mistakes, then companies must be prepared to defend the EMR data with everything they have. But going a step further, they had better have plans in place for when security is breached and data is stolen. Because, let's face it, it is inevitable.

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(Muzaf on Apr 19, 2006 12:30 PM) EMR - Electronic Medical Records at Binary Spectrum, serves the necessary aspects of clinical care as well as healthcare information & practices.

(Muzaf on May 1, 2006 10:31 AM) EMR - Electronic Medical Records at Binary Spectrum, serves the necessary aspects of clinical care as well as healthcare information & practices.

(EMR on May 24, 2006 4:20 PM) EMR - Electronic Medical Records at Binary Spectrum, serves the necessary aspects of clinical care as well as healthcare information & practices.

(Avoiding the electronic Medical records pitfalls on Feb 21, 2007 4:19 PM) Points to consider when you purchase new EMR system Determine your Goals! Why are you looking at EMR? Has all the buzz made you think it is time? Do you want to improve patient care or efficiency of the office? Do you want to make more money? Do you want to go home earlier? Do you feel you have to? Have you even thought about it? Also you might want to ask the following preliminary questions to a vendor What is the cost per physician license? Do you have any existing clients in our specialty? Does your system come pre-loaded with templates for my specialty? Is your company the developers of the software or is it re-branded from another vendor? Is your system client/server based or ASP based? Does your system include practice management software? How many clients does your company have? Is your system HL7 compliant? How long has your company been in business? Is your development done overseas? Is support done overseas? Is your software CCHIT certified? If not, why? How often is the software updated?

(Jay Andrews on May 20, 2009 2:52 PM) There is one major problem in EMR system that is if it got stolen or got hacked. So the hospitals or clinics make sure EMR has no security breach and its access is limited to few peoples.

(Jay Andrews on May 21, 2009 11:16 PM) EMR is a very useful software as it improves and enhances the quality of medical practice. One way to make sure that you get the right EMR software is by asking a trial period. Many software providers will agree to such terms, putting their best foot forward to actually win your bid. Both the demo and the trial period will help the clients fully evaluate which type of software can actually provide the kind of service needed by their practice.

(Drug Safety Pharmacovigilance on May 22, 2009 2:14 AM) EMR is useful and allows a very streamlined and convenient way to have access to medical records.

(Andy Stones on May 27, 2009 12:58 PM) Jay You are right that the security issue in EMRs is always a threat. Last month Virginia Health Care records were stolen by some hacker, this would happen if the system has not built some kind of security in them to avoid such type of incident.

 Interestingly enough, these companies have crossed paths of sorts before. Nearly a decade ago, Adobe had a chance and declined to acquire FutureWave, which later on merged with Macromedia and its flagship product, FutureWave, became what is know as Flash today.

 Besides Flash, Macromedia has a full spectrum of Web products to offer Adobe. There's ColdFusion, a mature server-side Web application product, DreamWeaver, a superb Web page design and layout product, and FireWorks, a versatile image creator and editor geared mostly for the Web. It remains to be seen how FireWorks will be positioned against Photoshop which is a competing product from Adobe. It is possible for the two products to merge into one.

 The acquisition, while an expensive venture, will bolster Adobe's presence on the Internet and Web arenas as it jostles for a bigger market share. Is all this activity getting Apple's attention? With the iPod market nearing saturation, Apple could be on the prowl for areas of expansion. Both Adobe and Macromedia have products with Mac roots and almost all of their current products and their Web sites have that special clean and polished look most associated with Apple. One wonders.

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 The move comes two days after an LA Times columnist criticized the auto-maker for pushing its gas-guzzling SUVs rather than investing in hybrid technologies. Perhaps the columnist went too far by calling for the impeachment of two GM executives, but GM's action is just plain childish.

 It's a free press. People express a lot of opinions about a lot of subjects. Some may get a bit scathing, others a bit risqué perhaps, but advertisers should take criticism in stride and understand that the separation between the editorial and advertising departments is what keeps a publication vibrant. An uncontaminated editorial process can only help the credibility of its publication which leads to more interested readers which in turn translates to more eyeballs seeing the ads.

 If GM hadn't jumped the gun, they could have used their advertising space to subtly challenge the columnist's position. Instead they decided on this immature action, possibly handing the columnist even more credibility.

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I'm not sure what to attribute to this strange behavior. Google already had its April fool's fun with Google Gulp. But I just saw this story and  it appears that Gmail is indeed marching towards the 2 GB storage limit. It was only a few days ago that Yahoo! announced plans to augment their email storage to 1 GB.

So it seems that the storage wars are once again heating up between the email titans. Personally I can't see how anyone would exceed the 1 GB capacity, but I suppose there is some value in bragging rights here. Having the highest capacity in the industry is great PR after all.

Meanwhile Hotmail has been quiet during all this. I wonder if they're planning a 1 TB storage offer after the smoke has cleared. That should settle the race, or does it?

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Such is the case heard before the supreme court regarding the file sharing and file swapping products known as P2P or peer to peer software. No one in their right mind is going to admit that the products they create are intended to encourage people to break the law, but actions speak louder than words.

Napster, the original digital piracy tool wasn't heralded as a bootlegging product either, but once its true usage in swapping pirated music became obvious, the law had no choice but to shut it down.

Proponents of P2P products such as Kazaa, Grokster, and eMule claim that their creators have the right to innovate and can't be held liable for people's misuse of their creations. There is some merit to that argument, but when these wares become tools in the hands of millions to break the law and bilk others of their rightful living, the law has no choice but to intercede. If the purveyors of the P2P products are looking the other way and getting rich on the backs of others' hard work, even if it is inadvertent, they must bear some responsibility.

They would holler just the same if someone found a dubious method to unwittingly hijack their creations and dent their pocketbooks.

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Wonder what would have happened if I was at the deadline date (I wasn't) and I owed money (I didn't). I guess on top of the wasted time and postage money, I would have been slapped with late IRS penalties too.

Moral of the story? I'm not sure. I mean how much more certain can you be than taking your tax return envelope to the post office to send to the IRS? Maybe get a second opinion on the postage from a different post office?

For some, e-file may be an option. I tried it a couple of years ago and it worked out great, but last year I had some hassles with it and ended up mailing in the return. It's back to e-file for me this year. And, what are my chances of recovering my postage fee from the USPS? Yeah, right.

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