Submit Mobile Friendly Web Sites to Mobile.Chaos365.com Directory

Are you the developer or publisher of a mobile friendly Web site? Or perhaps you are looking for an easy to use free directory to access from your mobile phone.

Mobile.Chaos365.com is a free directory of mobile friendly Web site URLs for people on the go. Web site URLs are included based on usefulness for mobile users.

Inclusion in the directory is based on quality, not quantity of links.

Please use the Mobile Friendly Web site Submission Form to review the requirements and send your recommendations.

Thank you.
Roland

Google Commits to Change of Search Data Policy.

Google — one of the prime examples of a company collecting untold terrabytes of data on users like you and me — announced that they will implement a change in their policy of how long they will keep certain data and after what point will it no longer be traceable back to unique users.

It’s a positive step for an industry leader to finally define for how long data will be held.

“When you search on Google, we collect information about your search, such as the query itself, IP addresses and cookie details. Previously, we kept this data for as long as it was useful. Today we’re pleased to report a change in our privacy policy: Unless we’re legally required to retain log data for longer, we will anonymize our server logs after a limited period of time. When we implement this policy change in the coming months, we will continue to keep server log data (so that we can improve Google’s services and protect them from security and other abuses)—but will make this data much more anonymous, so that it can no longer be identified with individual users, after 18-24 months.”

Read more on the Google Blog

It will be interesting to see how Google will “make this data much more anonymous.” When AOL innocently released six months of search data last year to researchers, they removed IP addresses but failed to think about the personal info that might be in the keyword search itself. Such data was used by sleuths to trace unique search records back to original people to prove how careless this was of AOL.

Avoid Work at Home Scams

Finally, someone took the time to critique all these too good to be true opportunities you see on TV or in the magazines. I admit, from time to time, I waste time thinking about the viability of some of these opportunities. to achieve my own personal financial freedom. Luckily I come to my senses before doing something stupid.

Check out The Work at Home Scam Blog

Maybe you’ll recognize something you’ve thought about and stay away from it.

-Roland

Top Ten Office Cubicle Bad Behaviors

eWeek.com offers a slide show of its top ten Worst Cube-Dwelling Offenses.

Before we get to that, indulge me if you will on my tour of Cubeland.

Life in a cubicle is … well a living hell. It’s bad enough to be exposed, but there’s often a feudal system of who gets what height cube wall.

Of course Admins, Assistants and other pee-ons get the lowest cubicles — unless they have some sort of inappropriate relationship with a VP.

The mid-level managers (who do the most work and legitimately need privacy and space) get the crappy 5′ x 5′ cubes with slightly higher walls, usually with a giant building column smack in the middle of it.

The slugs who’ve worked in Cubeland the longest have the least motivation to do any actual work> It’s unlikely they will ever become a VP, but are unnaturally rewarded for sloth with the largest studio apartment-size, high wall cubes.

Okay, back to eWeek’s attempt at humor. It’s what you’d expect:

• Humming / music
• Obnoxious cell phone ring tones
• Smelly foods
• Telephone no no’s like too many personal calls or loud speaker phone conversations
• Yada yada yada

But check it out. Be sure to print out the slide(s) and leave them anonymously around your office for those vermin co-workers that are driving you wonky.

Don’t be afraid. You know you want to.

Best to do it early in the morning so that inconsiderate lout will have to simmer in his/her juices all day.

Have fun.
-Roland

View the eWeek.com slide show of its top ten Worst Cube-Dwelling Offenses

Spitting at a Person is a Simple Assault

Reuters San Francisco reports that the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that:

“Intentionally spitting on another person is an offensive touching that rises to the level of simple assault.”

Leap Forward… Into Time Zone Chaos

News.com kindly published an FAQ: What the daylight saving shift means to you. Many are in a tizzy because of this extremely disruptive initiative by the U.S. to extend daylight savings time by four weeks. It’s caused Y2K-like headaches for many software developers and businesses. The travel industry certainly has had it’s panties in a bunch about it.

This too shall pass. Don’t run to the grocer for milk and bread. But consider the following:

• Obviously, don’t forget to set your clocks (according to your time zone) when you go to bed Saturday night.
• Download and install your Operating System updates and security patches ASAP.
• Don’t worry about your cell phone. Time should be auto-updated by the carrier network.
• Sleep late Sunday morning.
• Expect everyone to be late to your meetings and conference calls on Monday. Better yet, call in sick and deal with it Tuesday.
• Live every day as if it were your last.

Sleep well.
-Roland

Amateur Home Video Tips

I’ve seen a lot of bad home videos lately, some of which was my own early work or when I trusted someone else to tape me with my video camera.

Here are some video recording tips that are easy to do:

• A steady hand helps a lot. Practice tucking your elbow tight against your body for stability.
• Use a tripod. Even a monopod (single leg) works well.
• Avoid using the zoom unless you can do it without that jerky look and feel.
• If you use zoom, use optical for the clearest image quality. Digital zoom is to extreme and your quality will suffer.
• When you pan (left-right movement), do it slowly and steadily.
• Don’t rock side-to-side like you might see on MTV. It just makes the viewers nauseous and limits how you can use the footage in the future. Keep it steady.
• Save fancy effects for when you are editing, not while shooting.
• Always start recording before the action begins and leave it on a few extra seconds after the action ends.
• Record multiple takes of each scene, preferably from different angles or mid shot vs close up.
• If you are using two video cameras, you may have a harder time in post-production making the footage look like it’s all from the same scene. Rather than spend lots of time trying to clean it up, commit to either a single camera shooting style, or use identical/similar video camera models.
• Lighting, lighting, lighting. Use reflectors and anything you can to mute the effects of interior incandescent and florescent light.
• Sound — Do whatever you can to make sure you can hear the subjects of the video. If you’re using the built-in video camera microphone, try to get in close and have the subjects speak up. If you have a mic input jack, run an external microphone closer to the action.
• If your footage looks great but you couldn’t hear the subjects, there’s not much you can do to fix. You may be better off replacing the audio with a music sound track while editing.

Above all, have fun. Enjoy it. Don’t let yourself get frustrated.

If you have a tip, please let me know.
Good luck!
-Roland