technozid

What a strange coincidence. Matt Cutts gives a quick overview of the features of the new Google toolbar and I had some concerns about the privacy issues of the server side bookmarks. As I reported before, I use a Firefox extension to synchronize bookmarks among different PC’s, but I have some troubles with it. To store my bookmarks on the Google toolbar sounds like a good idea. But do I really want Google to know all my bookmarks. I asked for feedback on WebmasterWorld:

But then again, I am revealing ALL my bookmarks to Google. Including internal bookmarks, bookmarks with passwords in the URL. SEO bookmarks. Competitors sites (many of which are represented badly in Google). Personal interests. Ecommerce. Online financial services. Do I really like Google to know all these – and to associate them with myself?

There was a little controversy and the thread even made it to the front page. But the majority seems to say that nobody forces me to use it.
However, I just came accross a post on John Battelles blog. He had the chance to ask some privacy related questions to a Google rep:

1) “Given a list of search terms, can Google produce a list of people who searched for that term, identified by IP address and/or Google cookie value?”
2) “Given an IP address or Google cookie value, can Google produce a list of the terms searched by the user of that IP address or cookie value?”

I put these to Google. To its credit, it rapidly replied that the answer in both cases is “yes.”

Let’s hope they really are the Good Guys…

P.S. I blogged about this already last year: http://www.technozid.de/2005/09/12/paranoia/

A few days ago ther ewas a great buzz that GMail finally(!) has a “delete button”. I too was among those who missed it from the beginning on, but I got used to select the delete-function from the menu. Still, a button would have been nice. OK, now there is one – but, wait a minute – I’m in Germany. NO Delete button to be found!

The solution is as simple as it is annoying! Just switch the language of the user interface to English (US) and you get the delete-Button. Switch it back to German (or other languages) and its gone.

Either they are still too US-centric or their QA-department did not pay attention.

Being an AdWords advertiser for my company, I received a Seasons Greetings card from Google. Given the amount we spend each month (which I am not going to disclose in case someone from our competition stumbles accross this blog), it seems a little bit odd, especially since other people on webmaster and PPC forums report of various gifts like Google branded USB mice etc. being sent. There are reports from people spending less than my company who are receiving gifts, and reports from people spending more and not even getting a card…

It surprises me how erratic/chaotic Google handles such an obviously psychologically important thing. The AdWords advertisers are the ones who are responsible for the majority of Googles income. I think it should be no technological challenge to send a small appreciation to every AdWords advertiser worldwide (maybe draw the line at 100 US$ minimum spend per month). At least a card, reliably arriving prior to Christmas or New Years Eve, would have been enough to calm down most of the people participating in the discussions right now. As for gifts: I can understand that companies spending a month what we spend in a year get gifts. However our amount is substantial enough that I would have expected something small as well. But reading the reports, it seems I can consider myself lucky by getting that card… Oh well…

I like Firefox. I really do. One of its main advantages is the extensibility via plugins. For almost any task I ever wanted, there is an extension for Firefox. OK sometimes it’s a bit over the top to have 4 or more toolbars, but – hey – you can even tweak them and add or remove buttons!

But what gets me enraged everytime is: the extensions!

Don’t ask me why, but certain combinations of extensions block themselves, lock themselves, even lock the whole Firefox UI. If you have something in the range of 10 extensions, chances are good that two are interlocking themselves. Sometimes the full functionality vanishes, sometimes only partial functionality.

One of my most needed extension is called “Synchronize Bookmarks”. Normally, it downloads a bookmark file from an FTP server on startup, and uploads it upon exit. Thus, I can synchronize my bookmarks among 3 Firefox installations (home, office, laptop). BUT every once in a while, a (new) extension blocks partial functionality. Sometimes it doesn’t work automatic but only in manual mode, sometimes the upload-on-exit is blocked. Then the “Web Developer Toolbar” – a new update was announced today. And after I installed it, Firefox locked up completely until I unistalled the WebDev AND a few other extensions.

OK, Mozilla does a gret job with the extension repository. But have you EVER tried to contact something “Mozilla official”? I KNOW they don’t support 3rd party extensions, but they should at least know (or maintain) some forums etc.? But finding a contact address is even harder than sending an email to eBay or Amazon! No mail addresses listed, and those few you find have big “Do Not send Bug Reports” labels next to it.

It’s hard to believe that I am the ONLY person experiencing extension-interlocks. But a Google search reveals almost nothing, AND I’m browsing mozilla.org up and down and find nothing.

What’s wrong?