This site will NOT harm your computer

I had few problems with Google in the last months. Java2me.org wordpress instance has been hacked by an hacker inserting some iframes on my blog posts, I had to remove them all (btw, if you had the same problem, it’s easy to identify them with a “SELECT * FROM `wp_posts` WHERE `post_content` like ‘%iframe%’”, I thought also to add a cron job on the server, just to monitor the situation…) and then I had to submit the site to google few times, since I was marked as a bad boy.

It took me ages to be reviewed again and Java2Me.Org is still considered bad, then I moved here and I put on the old website a permanent redirect. Surprise, now google says that this site is related to that one and it’s dangerous too. Fantastic.

Once a upon a time the web was a free place, where you can put any s*t on, now you need the Big G approval. Great, thanks for the service but I didn’t asked for it.

We all just rely on Google as we used to rely on Microsoft years ago, now it’s just worse.

Not related to this post, but just to make me feel less angry with this situation few tools to distract the big G-brother:

TrackMeNot is a lightweight browser extension that helps protect web searchers from surveillance and data-profiling by search engines. It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one’s tracks), but instead, paradoxically, by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation. With TrackMeNot, actual web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view. User-installed TrackMeNot works with the Firefox Browser and popular search engines (AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN) and requires no 3rd-party servers or services.

Did you know that every Google search you make is recorded and archived by the company?

Privacy-minded folks point out that as Google has become part of our everyday lives, our tastes and preferences on the net give away a lot more than we’d normally share with a stranger, let alone a corporation with nearly 14,000 employees worldwide.

While Google keeps your search terms until 2038, the folks at Scroogle delete the logs after 48 hours and vow to keep no cookies. What’s better is the search uses Google’s own technology. In technospeak, it randomly generates an IP number (the thing that allows your computer to be ID’d) and sends your request off to Google. When Google responds, it shows you the search results. Hence the name, as it “scrapes” the search engine giant to get results.

Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy, modifying web page data, managing HTTP cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user networks.

goosh.org – the unofficial google shell.

goosh.org – the unofficial google shell.: “Goosh goosh.org 0.4.4-beta #1 Tue, 03 Jun 08 22:59:00 UTC Google/Ajax

Welcome to goosh.org – the unofficial google shell.

This google-interface behaves similar to a unix-shell.
You type commands and the results are shown on this page.

goosh is powered by google.
”

don’t call them phones, the g-phone and i-phone battle

FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) – British chip designer ARM (ARM.L: Quote, Profile, Research) will demonstrate a prototype of Google Inc’s (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Android mobile phone platform in action next week at the world’s biggest wireless fair, a source close to the company said.

Source: Reuters

I’ve played a bit last week with Android, it’s a really promising technology.
It’s a full stack, based on Java, it’s open and it should be really a “write once run everywhere” technology (not like JavaME!).

It’s a big change: they first wrote the OS, the software and then finally they found an hardware to support it. It might really work.

I like to think that the Google team was so frustrated working with J2ME for their (very nice) JavaME apps like GMail and Maps that they suddenly decided to write a full OS to support their ideas.
I remember an old Cédric Beust post about his intense, crazy experience on writing the Gmail app.
Is it only a coincidence that he’s working on Android?

Android offers many things, missed for too many years by Sun on the JavaMe platform.

- Deep phone integration (ability to interoperate between apps, make calls and so on with the phone)
- Ready to use “widgets” like maps
- Pretty nice pattern to write an application: what was a MIDlet in the JavaME world is now and Activity.

- Easy to write apps from any platform (yes, also Mac!)

The battle begins now, I-Phone: closed source, basically only web apps, nice screen with nice features or G-Phone. I can’t predict who’s gonna win but I’m sure that there are some losers on this battle already: Sun Microsystem, Nokia, Microsoft: all the old good companies, unable to make any decent progress in the last years. (where is MIDP3?!!!)

I’ve been very frustrated with the JavaME technology, I hope that Google will change now how things works in the mobile world.

Google Gears API Developer’s Guide – Home

 Just found this thing here…

Google Gears API Developer’s Guide – Home
Google Gears: Enabling Offline Web Applications

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline.

Through this very good blog of this very good guy.