quoi9

Another stab at informing us – just what is actually going on – in 5 minutes flat … and then ends by asking us what it all means.

It sounds like we were all born yesterday and the Internet is 10 minutes old. How should we know?

At least now I know that during the course of me writing these few lines 87 babies were born in China.

A few interesting sound image bites -  void of all reference – but worth a scratch for the old noggin.

Src: www.britanica.com

Europeana

Europeana err…how’s it described again, the ‘Google Books Competitor’ the ‘digital library of European literature, art, history, and culture’ etc. anyway it hit the ground running head first today on it’s official launch date.

But then again we shouldn’t worry, in fact it’s been a poor victim of it’s own (sic)success (?) if you read some of the articles posted today.

Here’s just one example from GNT “Europeana titille la curiosité des internautes” – “Europeana titillates the curiosity of web users”! Too much traffic blah blah, just shows you how great it all is blah blah - Read: A lot of interested and potential users, after waiting over 3 years, would have liked to have seen what the digital library looked like, instead found the whole thing was down – non-existant.

Mon Dieu! Did they not expect we’d be interested? Who was it again that said “Build it and they will come”  they didn’t scan that one, not European maybe…

Incroyable, does this come as a surprise to those who have followed the winding road that got us here, I wonder?

Europeana cost the French Gov €3.3 million in 2006, then another €10 million in 2007. In August the European Commission announced a further €120 million is on it’s way.

In a press release on this much awaited launch date, the President of the European Commission José Manuel Durão Barroso, reiterated the EC (and therefore OUR) support of the project:

“Europeana: A shop window on Europe’s cultural heritage”

…don’t be fooled by the fast and easy access that Europeana provides to our continent’s rich cultural heritage. Behind this door lies an incredible amount of hard work…the Commission will continue to support this project, and digitisation in general. Over the next two years, €69 million will be available for research on digital libraries, and another €50 million will help improve access to Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage.

Europeana itself will receive €2 million a year from the Commission in 2009-11, with Member States, cultural institutions and the private sector gradually increasing their share of funding as the project develops.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In a letter written in 1500 to his friend Jacob Batt, the great humanist Erasmus said that as soon as he got some money, he would buy books; he would buy clothes with any money left over.

Today, thanks to Europeana, lovers of art, culture, and knowledge no longer have to make such a difficult choice! So let me end by wishing this project every success for the future.

Thank you.

I wonder what Erasmus would have thought to a shabby dressed subdomain dev. page and a “see the new look” crappy logo, for his money?

The fact remains: it is an important undertaking:

The book-lover from Bulgaria who can gaze at illuminated manuscripts from medieval Irish monasteries – without travelling to Dublin; The music-lover from Malta who can study the original score of Mozart’s Requiem – written in the composer’s own hand; The art-lover from Austria who can compare works by a favourite artist side-by-side – even though they are scattered across many galleries in several Member States.

Ancient and rare manuscripts are not very accessible for good reason: they are susceptible to wear and tear, and the ravages of time. Digital versions of old works not only reach a much wider audience without causing any risk to the original copy, they also guarantee their survival.

Fingers crossed when it does finally show itself it’s been worth the wait and the lucre.

Free file hosting services ?

Common as muck (see Mashable list)

Unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth – no capping, files that will never (never is a long time!) be erased?

Err, no don’t think I’ve seen that before. Think I’ll just sign up sharpish.

Impression?

Impressed.

Having said that, just remembered MediaFire have been doing much the same thing for a while now no? Though not with a flexy interface I grant you.  MyBloop does seem slicker and is trying to be more community based maybe. But what a crap name, whoever let that one out ?

I kif maps and map mashups and this is a natty little map-mash from Gaiagi to add to the photo explorer and flight tracker. It uses the Google Earth browser plugin which is still Windows only unfortunately.

Not only does Gaiagi take you on a virtual drive through Google Maps driving directions with the browser plug-in but it also throws Street View and Virtual Earth’s ‘Bird’s Eye’ view into the mix #googlemapsmania

3d driving simulator from Gaiagi

Lets dispell a little FUD about WordPress blogs being hacked into and used to dish-out porn, link-scams or pharm spam whatever.

1. It’s unlikely you’re going to receive any attention from Hackers including automated scripts, unless you have high PageRank and big PageView numbers.
2. If you keep up with the updated versions of WP this ‘unlikely’ wanes to near zero.

Anonymous : “Yes but updating’s a pain in the neck, I get FUD just thinking about it”

1. WP 2.7 is out in its final release by the end of the month, it has automatic updates included – so no more excuses.
2. Anyone can find out what version of WP you’re using by a simple right-click ‘view page source’. This should’nt be a problem from 2.7 onwards. There’s a simple plugin that takes that info out as well if you feel the need, over at blog.security.net – direct link for download.
3. Old plugin versions can be a way in for hackers, but WP already notifies you when a new plugin version is available with a little red signal next to ‘plugins’ on the dashboard and from the plugin page new versions can be installed directly now.

Anonymous : So how come, when I go into Google Webmaster Tools and click ‘What Googlebot sees’ I’ve got lots of anchor text porn words linking to me?

@Anon : (is there a name for people who write to themselves?) I have this and when I noticed it it gave me the screaming abdabs which I’m sure you all know, is far worse than a simple dose of FUD. A lot of other people have noticed it too and as usual there’s quite a bit of contradictory advice on the subject. A good pointer is the Google team that were asked about it (concerning how this could affect PR) during the live Q&A session last month:

Valentin, Oltenita: If i have backlinks from porn sites do this affect my PR or anything else ?

JohnMu: Hi Valentin, those links might be positively affecting your PageRank (PageRank does not go down from “bad” links like those from adult sites). In general, you don’t have to worry about bad links like that which point to your site which aren’t under your control.

Those backlinks are used in external links to your blog, the reasons they are there could be varied – like possible credibility from linking to ‘normal’ blogs instead of splogs perhaps?

From Google Webmaster Help Groups:

“What Googlebot Sees” is the anchor text of externallinks to your site, so it is out of your control. If someone links to your site with the words “porn spam,” then that will show up there. It’s probably scrapers that are linking to you that is causing this problem.

If you still have FUD knocking on your neurons and you need some kind of extra protection then have a look at the 3 tips to protect your WordPress installation from Matt Cutts. He suggests a quick tweek of the /.htaccess file to filter IP addresses. Relax – he’s a doctor.

Finally, here’s a little tip I came across recently from BlogStorm: How to use Google Alerts to find out if your site gets hacked The idea is to set up a Google alert looking for suspicious words that could be hidden in your site somewhere – like this “viagra OR cialis OR levitra OR Phentermine OR Xanax site:yourSiteNameHere” Not sure about the real value of this but I thought I’d thow it in!