Google Instant means no one will see the same web anymore, making optimizing it virtually impossible. Real-time feedback will change and personalize people’s search behaviors.

What the heck does that even mean?!? Google made their searches run as you type; it’s not like they shot a cybernetic monkey into the sun. This is a stupid article and Steve Rubel probably needs help turning on his computer. My biggest clue? His bio on the side of his blog: “[Steve] is charged with helping clients identify emerging technologies and trends that can be applied in marketing communications programs.” And his name is Steve, this seems like a foolish combination.*

Google Instant does not kill SEO. Feedback changes aspects of the search [moreover the advertising] game…yes. But you’re still typing in words….it’s still the same queries. If suddenly we started being sent to random web pages based on biometrics, radiation from our cell phones, or by selecting a series of colors to represent our mood then THAT would kill SEO. The fact that Google is using the same exact algorithms on the back end that they always have (well, sort of….[isn't that image goofy?]) only shows you how preposterous the idea is. They’re still returning the exact same results! The only argument he could possibly have is that it’s guessing the remainder of the word you’re trying to type. Watch out people! Start keeping your pets indoors because SEO is about to fly off the rails and through your backyard.  It doesn’t matter how many times I

*I’m sure Steve Rubel is a very nice man with immense talent and a nice car to match. I don’t mean to criticize. It’s just that when some guy says idiotic things about the internet in an idiotic way to get his idiotic blog to the top of Google’s idiotic Instant Search it makes me think that he may, in fact, be…well, you get my point. Please don’t take offense, sir, I think it had to be said. I’m almost proud that you said it first. You’re kind of like the first guy who said “cigarettes are good for the lungs!”

EDIT: This guy didn’t come through Techmeme until later, but much more thorough. Go read a real journalist’s opinion.

I’d like to highlight briefly the lyrics of the song because learning more about the imagery that Cohen borrows really helps to add significance to the song.  Most of it ties around two interesting figures from the Old Testament: David and Samson. While entirely unrelated, save for the pesky-Philistines, both characters experienced very similar life stories. They experienced selection by God (David selected as the King of Israel, Samson a savior to the Jews under Philistine rule), great feats and love of God (David slew Goliath, Samson killed quite a few), failure and destruction in the face of temptation (David and Bathsheba “saw her bathing on the roof”, Samson and Delilah “she cut your hair”), and eventual return to faith and redemption after their great suffering.

The last point is rough to go into as Samson is tortured and forced to live in slavery until he sees the inside of a temple collapse, and he was lucky. David did more dubious things after the Bathsheba incident (read up on Uriah the Hittite), and his kingdom fell apart: the child born out of wedlock dies, his third son rebels and is killed, his oldest son rapes his daughter and is killed, and many other trials. David’s and, to a lesser degree, Samson’s stories are incredibly tragic, but the significance comes in the height from which they fell…from absolute favor with their God. David, as the song points out, is often thought of as communing directly with God through the Psalms that he wrote. Without knowledge of the great peaks and depths that these men experienced it’s hard to understand the complications of ‘the Hallelujah’ that Cohen brings out.

“…But love is not a victory march, It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”

For a while I’ve been trying to find a list of all the major (and a few minor) versions of this classic. Finding them was interesting enough, but trying to rank them has been almost impossible. Still, I’ve built a completely subjective list. You can listen to them individually, or listen to the whole playlist (in reverse order).

1. Jeff Buckley – Hands down winner every time
2. Alexandra Burke – Went back to the original with the chorus, but modern flare. Lot of credit.
3. Allison Crowe -Piano is underwhelming, and the end gets a bit crazy (“And IT IS A” tell me if you notice it)
4. K.D. Lang – She slides into eeEEvry sssSIiingle nnNOote.
5. Brandi Carlile – Not a great voice, but her spirit is locked in
6. Kate Voegele – EDIT: Forgot about Kate! Really crisp, but her voice gets in the way in spots.
7. Justin Timberlake et als. – Some flaws in the recording, too many frills and poor harmonies
8. John Cale – His air control seems lacking in spots
9. Imogen Heap – A capella  is bold, and lovely voice, I just need more
10. Bon Jovi – Listen to how he hugs the mic
11. Rufus Wainwright – Really, this should be better, but it sounds like he’s reading the lyrics fo-net-ick-ly
12. Willie Nelson – Yeah.
13. Le0nard Cohen – The original, I think this is purely a style problem. I like the digital age too much.
14. Charity Mondok – Don’t know who she is, but her’s is pretty, pretty bad.

If you’ve got modifications to the list I’d love to hear them; I don’t know if anyone else is that interested.

As an aside, Cohen said, in that same CBC interview, “I was just reading a review of a movie…and the reviewer said – ‘Can we please have a moratorium on Hallelujah in movies and television shows?’ And I kind of feel the same way. I think it’s a good song, but I think too many people sing it. I think people ought to stop singing it for a little while.”

Dear Raymond B.,

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple’s iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala’s Terms of Service.

Thank you.

Lala

This letter was probably written the day that Apple purchased Lala over four months ago. It further solidifies my disgust with Apple and the way they do their business. In this acquisition and destruction of a perfectly good company, they’ve literally promised services to me in exchange for my money and now backed out of our agreement. I currently have over $25 in store credit on Lala and over one hundred songs to which I’ve purchased streaming rights. Beyond that, I’ve given dozens of songs to friends and family on the service.

Lala was the most innovative approach to music that I’ve seen in years, and I was extremely excited to evangelize the service and partake in it like some sort of Dionysian zealot. Now that’s all gone because Apple saw competition, they wanted technology, and when they had it they didn’t want to share. If Apple wants to make me happy they can give me copies of my MP3′s at a loss to them or send me a check for $50. Until that time, I’m looking to warn others of what happens when a closed, heavily proprietary company in bed with numerous neerdowells. This closure makes me furious, and I’m eager to see significant blow-back from Apple’s consumer-base.

UPDATE: It would cost me over $155 to get MP3 copies of the music I’ve purchased. Screw you, Apple.

To verify this I added all of the individual seasons together, again priced at Amazon.   The result? $202.  This was disheartening. You could basically get a 5% discount by buying each item individually, but it’s not impressive enough to be anything more than  a blip. Something is wrong at Amazon, and I don’t like it. While I love Babylon 5, there’s got to be a better way.

At this point I checked eBay and put in a few bids. Most sets seemed to be going for anywhere between $90 and $140. This is 50% cheaper than the Amazon prices, but you’ve got to take your chances with the unknown sellers of the massive, online-sales supergiant.  I was further restricted from this option by my terrible bidding skills;  I kept losing every bid.

Returning to the world I love of higher prices with no bidding skill required, I decided to check Buy.com to see what they had in store for me.  I’ve been using this site on and off when Amazon’s prices border on the insane. The full series of Babylon 5 is available for $153 with shipping!!! How can this be? This price is 25% lower than the Amazon options.  At $30 per season we’re almost in business. It’s still quite the investment, but we’re talking about one of the best sci-fi shows of all time.

The last test was to see if the blip in Amazon’s pricing also applied to here.  Individual pricing of the seasons was $20 per season resulting in a flat $100 for all 5 seasons of B5. This cost is less than 50% of the Amazon prices, and 30% less than Buy.com complete set. The best news is how comparable the Buy.com price is to eBay listings without any of the hassle or dangers of bidding sales. If you haven’t noticed, I hate bidding on things. It makes me feel so…..dirty.

BONUS:

The Amazon Video Store is asking $2 per episode with discounts bringing the 20-something-episode seasons down to between $36 and $38. This puts their Video on Demand price for the full series at about $185. I’m a big fan of streaming video (Hulu, Netflix, and the Roku), but this price seems outrageous to me.  The distribution costs of the electronic versions are drastically lower than physical discs. While there will be continuing maintenance/bandwidth costs for electronic distribution, it’s completely absurd to think that this market will be successful without drastically reduced prices. I think Amazon is basing their VoD pricing on iTunes’ Store and Amazon’s own cloud services. It doesn’t make any sense to the end consumer right now to be spending this much on intangible product. Even if they see profit margin reduction in these early days it seems like they couldn’t afford the long term cost of losing any potential consumer base to Netflix, Blockbuster, and other video services.

How can something be “one million times smaller” than anything? Is small a measurement?  What is twice as small as I am? Or twelve times as small as a planet? Is it a redneck term for mass? Are they saying it is a percentage of another object? As far as I know, small is a descriptive and relational term that has zero scientific meaning.  Maybe I’ve gone crazy, but it just doesn’t make any sense.

At this time I would like to say that I’m 3.6 times smaller than Darth Vader, but I smell twice as nice.

Social:

• Twitter I have joined the ranks of the unclean! Alright, that was cruel, but I -am- full of the shallow Twitter fuzzies, my friends. Please feel free to follow me (raymondberg), I promise to be 5% funny! It’s an interesting form of communication, and it’s actually a very productive means for casual communication. Some people may not agree, but most of you know my response to that is “they’re wrong”.
• Digsby Every 4 months or so I try a new desktop client for my communication needs. Every client I use must have 2 features: instant messaging and email notification. The last two I used, in order, were Pidgin(unreliable with google) and Google Talk. I then heard about this Twitter/Linked In/Mail Notifying IM client. It’s got more services than that and you can disable ones you don’t use. TRY IT.
• Skype I am currently without cell phone due to various personal problems. Fortunately, a $10 investment in Skype has allowed me to continue life uninterrupted. I predominently use it to talk to my parents back home, but it’s been fantastic. It’s a daily part of my life and I hope you all use it on some level.

Multimedia:

• TED This is probably the best part of my current online life. I didn’t know these talks even existed last year, and now I don’t miss any of them via TED’s YouTube channel. I’ve been energized to both continue research and volunteer time to helping others by watching these delightful talks. If you’re interested in new ideas and multiple disciplines then this is a MUST SEE series.
• Twit.tv My childhood (early teens) memories with Leo Laporte sharing ideas of technology far beyond my imagination was partially responsible for my foray and eventual passion for technology. Now he continues to work hard to educate and entertain the world, and I love him for it. His broadcast studio is amazing, and the shows are very valuable chunks of time. (see also Stickam)
• Netflix I’ve been subscribing to Netflix since December (not long) and I’ve enjoyed every single moment of it. To be honest I’ve had the same DVD for 2 months, lost in my apartment somewhere, but I only really use the online streaming. I might run out soon, so I hope Netflix hurries up their conversion of MORE MEDIA for their streamers (everyone should pray for Roku success). I’ll be excited if they start a streaming only account.
• Revision3 Now, I have to admit that I’ve just started looking at this, but I’ve been fairly excited by what I see. I don’t go for the less valuable stuff like Scam School, but I’m looking at even more resources for my nerdtainment and this looks like the spot.

Work:

• Java Multi-threading I’ve been digging into this pretty heavily in my NetSec project (ground up IDS). It’s remarkably easy to manage threads in Java, but I’m running those pesky race conditions.  I just crossed the 1500 line mark, and I’ve started locking up the threads pretty tightly. I’m loving it.
• SVN/Eclipse My development is now almost based in  Eclipse.  Since moving to the new office and stabilizing my schedule, I’ve been able to really settle in to a good routine (using PyDev, Metrics). I’m also working with my cohorts like a MADMAN with Subversion. It was originally just a productivity enhancement, it’s turned into an essential part of my life (using Subclipse, Tortoise SVN).
• Python is slowly becoming a cornerstone of my development lifestyle. I do enjoy it, but I’m not ready to pledge my soul to the Python leaders. I am prreeeetty excited to see if anything comes from the new research I just heard about today (Python sped up 3x)

Utilities:

• Prio Wonderfully neat tool that allows for 3 things in the windows task manager process manager tab:
  1. Sticky Priorities on tasks
  2. Color coded “Trusted” processes (for you paranoids)
  3. Hover-over details about processes (Including process paths!~!!)
• KatMouse Great tool that allows for “smarter” scroll wheel use. It removes the need to take focus of an object to scroll it. Basically, if you have a window in the foreground, you can then scroll a scrollable field in the background or a sub-window scroll field without clicking to get focus. Great!
• allSnap Make all Windows’s windows (hmmm) lock against each other. It’s not full docking, but it’s good enough. Those who know me know that I like to control the really small aspects of my life.[ I think it's because I'm a control freak, and the big things are registered as "In Progress" in my brain. You can't afford that luxury with small things like desktop layout.]

I originally started this post with the idea that I didn’t have much time to blog, so I’d just put something short out. After 880 words and an hour or so, I think I realize that I like the sound of my own fingers typing.

Most people I know would same I’m a pretty nice guy. I can be trouble at times, but by-and-large I’m a nice dude. Especially when I comes to customer service representatives. Man, those people have it rough. I get really frustrated when I hear people ragging on offshore call reps or anybody else that deal with moronic customers who demand perfection. But there’s a point at which I stop being a nice guy.

There’s a point at which I snap, I lose control. Like a mother bear and her cubs, it’s not a good idea to come between me and that which I cherish beyond any mortal. It’s not a good idea to come between me and my….Internet. It is for this reason that I write. I won’t berate you with the details, I’ll just inform you that Cox Cable is one of (if not chief) the worst customer care groups I’ve dealt with in Oklahoma.

Okay, so I lied. Get ready for a detail hailstorm.

Sunday, I move my stuff over to my new apartment. It’s the Holiday weekend, I’m cool with the fact that no one is picking up any phone any time soon. Alright, so I plan. I go to bed at 8pm Sunday night in preparation for the attack. I’m not kidding, I mean serious business when I work with my Internet. When my Internet is in danger I will run 14 miles through sleet and snow, run barefoot across hot mall parking lots, and lift Volvo’s just for a minute or two of that high speed goodness. So I’m ready for this trivial task. When 7:30am rolls around I make the call. It goes something like this:

• Cox: Hello
• Ray: Hello! I need to switch my internet over from my previous apartment to my new one.
• Cox: Alright, I need your pin.
• Ray: What pin?
• Cox: The pin on your bill, for the account, I need it to authorize the movement of the account
• Ray: Uh, no bill. I just moved, everything is everywhere and simultaneously nowhere. Everywhere I turn is a vast space filled with trinkets, baubles, dioramas and food. Can I get the pin sent somewhere or give you some other information? I mean I know everything about me. My mothers maiden name, the credit card used to make payments, my social security number, my blood type, the number of cheeses in my refrigerator, my secret passcode-handshake-dance?
• Cox: No, just the pin. Just check the bill, it’s on the front of the bill.
• Ray: Ohhh, well I don’t have my bill available. Let’s just assume, for the sake of this completely ridiculous and hypothetical scenario, that I shredded my bill by accident. What do I do? Can you email me the pin on my Cox email account?
• Cox: No, I can’t give the pin out. I could call you on a Cox account phone, do you have one of those?
• Ray: No. IDEA! Can you call me on the phone number registered with my Cox account and give it to me over that number? Will that work?
• Cox: No, it has to be a Cox phone. Sorry, sir.
• Ray: That doesn’t make any sense, aren’t both numbers equally linked to the account?? You have my phone number that I own, or you have my phone number that you own. Either way, it’s my number and it’s worked so far in identifying me.  Isn’t that the point to keeping information on file? Is there any other reason that you would use my phone number…except to call me on it?
• Cox: Sorry, sir. I can’t do that.
• Ray: Okay, well we’re at an impasse, Ms. Cox. What shall we do?
• Cox: You can come down to the corporate office and request the move with two valid forms of I.D.
• Voiceover:At this moment I’m swimming in murky pools of non-logic, so I cling to the only reality within my field of perception. “YES!”, I shout emphatically, “YES! That I can do. You see, Ms. Cox, I have both a car and two forms of ID. This is entirely within my reaches. You’ve given me hope!”

Now, this hurts my chances of getting cable in the same day: my original hope. However, I think that even if I lost cable for one night, that would be alright. My only goal is to maximize my options. I continue and call 2 other customer reps for other companies, both of which reaffirm my faith in customer service and capitalism.

I proceed 6 miles to the Cox center and request my service get changed. That went something like this.

• Cox:Hello
• Ray: Hello! I need to switch my internet over from my previous apartment to my new one.
• Cox: Alright, what’s the old address?
• Raymond: %address_old%
• Cox: New Address?
• Raymond: %address_new%
• Cox: Okay, by the end of the day! Wait tomorrow….yeah, tomorrow…end of the day.
• Raymond: Darn, I was hoping for today. Wait, that’s it?
• Cox: That’s it!
• Raymond: Where does my PIN come into play?
• Cox: What pin?
• Raymond: Didn’t I need a PIN or 2 forms of ID? I didn’t need to drive 12 miles round trip? This is worse than what happened to Abraham, you know that! At least he got to keep his son. I still don’t have Internet.
• Cox: Eh, not so much.
• Raymond: ……….

At this point I show great restraint and honor. So I don’t. But when 3 o’clock rolls around I ask myself where the dude is.  I call, here’s the abbreviated version. “Should be working man! I’ll send to to tech support….Yeah, should be working. Nope, I’ll have to send a technician. Tomorrow? (me: ARRRRRGH) Oh wait! They haven’t come yet. Give them until seven!” How did you not know whether your own technician had done the job or not? Okay, so I’ll wait.

I notice the power gets shut off in the old apartment, so now running the wireless from there isn’t an option any more. I move the modem to my place and get no signal. I wait. I talk to Bryan. I wait. I consider talking to Bryan again, but stop myself.  Then I try again. By some sort of mysterious magic…the signal has changed…and yet this change comes without the ability to access the internet. What could have happened?

Apparently….apparently, the technician untrapped the line and let the connection through. HOWEVER. I guess it’s not policy to give a courtesy knock on the tenents door to let them know you set it up. So there was no point at which I could say..”It’s up? Wait, no it’s not. Could you look at this?” No. No point. So what did he do today? What did the guy do…today? He cost Cox money, and me time. And sanity….don’t forget…sanity.

So what’s the final damage? Thursday afternoon between 4 and 7 I will be getting the visit from a technician. Thursday. In my big book of Internet outages, I saw it written that a Monday-Tuesday was alright. Worst case stretches over Monday-Wednesday. But because of 3 poor phone support reps and a technician with somewhere better to be I am now out of cable for 4 days.

Do I realize that there are children starving around the world? Do I realize that I have enough food to last me for a month in case of emergency? SURE. But what I hate is that something tragic like me not having my Internet could have been avoided with some simple steps and better business planning. Plus, the money I would normally donate to starving children is now going to me finding otherways of getting my internet access and writing this blog post.

The focus of the piece is reconsidering the driving force behind security advancement. The classic direction is in implementing best practices available to engineers in order to minimize risk, although the paper didn’t speak to these principles directly. While using the previous direction as log from Frogger, it proposes the chief factor that drives advancement in security is liability and the transfer thereof. It tries the case through several examples focused primarily on security systems used in United Kingdom banks.

It’s hard to simplify in less than five pages, but overall it points out how litigation following incident lead to the most change in the way the UK banks operated and how this system differed from the American cousins. This may seem obvious, but he also tries to tease out the notion that the flaws in the systems did may have resulted from poor designs or because the industry as a whole was not handling these types of issues despite an abundance of technology that could have stopped many of these errors.

The premise is one that I can see merit in, but the application is quite limited in my mind.  The shortcoming of this analysis is that thec cases cited showed that loss due to failure of security mechanisms could be mitigated by an insurer or other liable body. This is not a common issue. In fact, banks and other asset management systems are the only groups that fall into this category, from my view. The only way you can restore most, let alone all, losses resulting from a security incident is if the lost material is of an entirely non-unique, exchangable nature.

I’ve become intimately familiar the concepts of risk as it pertains to reputation, trade secrets, and personal data. These are the pillars of risk, and they are regarded as the very purpose for security in our age. If you look at each element of risk you can see where Anderson’s model doesn’t apply. There are far too many groups out there to determine that liability transferrance is even an option for most cases.

Can Oracle transfer liabile risk of reputation damage to an insurer if they write poor software? Google’s search algorithm is worth trillions of dollars if potential earnings considered, and they could not insure their systems against loss of that information. And how would the Department of Defense transfer liability of operations information being leaked through an insecure system?

These cases are just a few of the corporate and government organizations that represent a vast majority. It’s unreasonable to think that any of these situations would have liability driving their security design and implementation. Why would it then be a driving force for the industry as a whole? It is unlikely, at best.

Again, I do not disagree with Anderson’s paper entirely; I feel that it is quite limited in it’s potency on a broader scope. I applaud his introduction of litigation and liability to the process, but it has far less impact on security than he believes it to be. Liability will always be a concern for any organization, but that does not mean that purpose or method changes because if it.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a portable MP3 player….too long. Rather than bearing with the burden for years and years before I die due to lack of soothing tunes, I decided to satisfy that need. The object of my aural delight is a 2GB Creative Zen.

To all of you technophiles out there, “no, it’s not a Zune or an iPod”. I can’t justify spending over $100 bucks on a device, especially if it has software dependencies. I respect the options out there, particularly the proper potential of Wi-Fi synchronization in the Zune. If I were going to switch to a main player, it would probably be the Zune. That is, of course, if I didn’t get an option to pick up an iPhone first.  There’s no contest there.

But anyways, here’s a quick rundown…nothing to earth shattering.

What do I like:

• Physical Size (near credit-card HxW and just large enough for 3/8in plug deep)
• Expandable Storage using Secure Digital Cards
• Drivers compatible with all Windows installs so far (no pc software needed)
• Great WAV Recording Filtering for Clarity and Good Stream Rates
• Loads of standard video support (Even my weirdly formatted videos look great)
• Nice 2.5″ Display
• FM Radio Displat
• Simple Menu Interfaces
• Photo Support (fantastic images)
• Price ($80 new)

What don’t I like:

• No “Play by Folder” Options (I’m an addict)
• No support for Ogg Vorbis formats
• No Soft key buttons (Starting/Stopping recordings is a pain)
• Apparently they don’t use iCal format for calendar
• Integrated Battery (It may be a must for size, but I don’t have to like it)
• Poor earbuds included

But it’s a great product over all. I’ve been more inclined to record meetings now that I have it on my body so I can review discussions after the fact. And the WAV sampling is great, so fair quality speech at the 10 foot range is coming out at about 15 minutes per 2.5 megs. Not to mention everyone who has seen it has asked what it is; it’s very sleek.

If you’re looking for something fairly inexpensive but still sexy I’d advise you to check out the Creative Zen.

Important Note: I have a hard time talking about portable players without saying this but all the MP3′s on my Zen are legal.  I know just about everyone might have carryover stuff that may be of questionable legal background from your childhood (when you had no money and didn’t know any better), but it’s no excuse to keep taking money from people who earn it. 99 cents a song isn’t bad. And if you play 100+ hours of that video game, isn’t it worth $40-50?

I also like to take issue with the anachronism that is the modern day music conglomorate and DRM licensing. If I can purchase a player that can just let me use my music the way I need to use it. When I buy it, I should be able to put it on any device that I need without paying more royalties. I’m not advocating sharing and reselling, but the rights of use are there when it comes to entertainment.

Consumers Unite! Please buy your music, software, and movies and buy players that let you use them the way you want. It’s irresponsible to steal from artists and developers, but it’s not time to give money to these companies by locking into a software use nightmare or DRM fiascos.  Buy and use freely, respect and enjoy.