New Design, Ranking, Gmail Hosted, OS 2006 Finale and YouOS

Hope you like the new look Duey Finsters. Like Google style hoo-pah, we are still in “Beta” mode (or is it “Alpha”? Depends on who you ask!). I would be extremely grateful for people to report issues, with the folloxing browsers IE 5.5, 6 & 7, Opera 9, Firefox 1.5.X , Mozilla 1.X , Safari on all platforms Windows, Linux and Mac (BSD if you want!). Great news also in ranking, the site has gone from 8.5 millionth, to just under 4 million (#3,945,836 to be exact) in three and a half months! I am working on releasing the design to OSWD and in Wordpress theme format, for others to extend and enjoy (If you feel like helping out, contact me).

The latest Nokia 2006 tablet edition has just been released , I have yet to Flash my device, but I hope its good. The Beta lived up to its name, it was buggy. It has only been just over a month since that release, so I hope they fixed vast majority of the bugs, but to me it seems its rushed. This would go against Nokia’s ethos of quality software (you only have to look at Symbian, rock solid).

Speaking of Beta’s, I got Gmail hosted recently. It is not much different than normal Gmail, in fact it lags behind in the feature list of actual Gmail. For one it does not use pictures of contacts and is not linked to a Google account. I suspect that is intentional, to woo customers knowing that they won’t be fiddling with Googles latest toy. I had Spreadsheets on my Gmail account, but on hosted I could not use it, as I did not have a “Gmail” account. Same thing when I tryed Picasa Photo Albums.

I recently came across a fascinating website, one called YouOS ( www.youos.com). It is a virtual desktop which is 100% online. Although, it is the first of its kind, so don’t expect everything. Its features are impressive for the limitations of a website and it takes on a familiar look, that in the form of the GNOME Desktop. Check it out if you have time!

My Letter to U.S. Dept of Commerce, RE: The Future of the Internet

This is my letter to U.S. Dept. of Commerce, stating what I believe should happen to the Internet. Fell free to email your opinions to them directly: DNSTransition@ntia.doc.gov. As a net citizen, get your voice heard on the most important public debate of our times!

Dear Sir/Madam,

I, as a citizen of Ireland and the EU, think with respect, the Internet should have a world governing body, fairly appointed by each country who has more than 30% of their respective populations online. For those under 30% they should get to have a sub-committee, to prioritise and promote the Internet in their countries. I think while although ICANN has generally not been a bad governing body, vast improvements can be made, such as not allowing pressure from companies to increase domain prices, when the cost of providing them has come down dramatically over the past few years. I do recognise, that the Internet was partially created with the help of U.S. government funding, but this comes from the people of America, who would want the Internet to be a force for change, like for example, the way it is helping Chinese dissidents.Also, as with all US government generated ideas, it is free from patent and copyright which applies worldwide, such as NASA images, for example. This should be true of the Internet also, as it is with GPS (which I use regularly, Thanks for that!). I am not a whole believer in the U.N. however, I think the Internet governing body should be free form all Government and International organisational pressures (but not those that seek to limit abuse, such as child pornography, obviously). I thank you for offering a public debate on this issue and I sincerely hope the outcome will be of benefit to everyone living on earth.

Thank you,
Neil Grogan