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Internet bullying at work and school
Tech: Kids are becoming more adept with computers, but sometimes they turn into bullies. When I was a child, you had to insult someone to their face. Children who have grown up with technology may be...
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Baiters teach scammers a few lessons
This article first appeared on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=38 http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,71387–0.html “In Nigeria, we are always amazed that anyone...
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AOL looks for retribution in a spammer’s backyard
This article first appeared on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=50 http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/15/spammer.gold.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest “AOL said Tuesday it intends...
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95 percent of all e-mail is UCE
This just in from HowToWeb: a stunning 95 percent of all e-mail is unsolicited commercial e-mail. This Washington Post article from May details an anti-spamming effort that went awry when spammers...
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Weird characters in e-mail messages and PDFs
This article explains why your computer might substitute one character for another in an e-mail message. This is a common question in Hawaii and at my university, as we have many computer users who...
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The top 10 most dangerous online activities
This post first appeared on my old log at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=219 http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2006/10/25/microsoft-mozilla-malware-ent-tech-cx_sb_1025smallbizresource.html...
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Spam is back with a vengeance
This article was first posted on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=264 There’s much more spam slipping through filters and into e-mailboxes these days. The graphic from Yahoo’s...
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UNC congratulates 2700 students by mistake
University admissions departments rely on e-mail to communicate with prospective students, hoping to gain an edge by providing personalized service. However, two admissions staffers at the University...
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Flame first, retain data, ask questions later
“Flaming” is, according to this article in today’s New York Times, “thoughts expressed while sitting alone at the keyboard [that] would be put more diplomatically — or go unmentioned — face to face.”...
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Google wants to hear about your university email service
Google has been offering universities an academic version of the Gmail service for over a year now. As I mentioned on February 23, this suite of web-based applications includes Google’s word processor,...
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Mobile telcos search for new business model
Business Week reported yesterday that mobile phone carriers are desperately looking for new business models that will help these companies mantain control of their networks. Mobile data services remain...
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Blackberry service was out yesterday
CNN reports that millions of Blackberry customers in North America lost their data services late Tuesday. Phone calls were unaffected, and data services were restored a few hours later. Verizon claimed...
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The great Blackberry blackout
Brad Stone of the New York Times reported today about Tuesday’s Blackberry blackout. Approximately 5 million Blackberry users were affected, not 8 million as I had estimated yesterday. However, the...
View ArticleJust say “no” to HTML in email
Jeffrey Zeldman made a good point in this post from Friday: email is no place for HTML. HTML formatting is the sign of an amateur emailer. Email was never meant to look nice. Email is supposed to be...
View ArticleRumor: Google might buy Apple
Based on a quote from John Heilemann’s article on Steve Jobs, the Internet is bubbling with rumors that Google might buy Apple. Philip Elmer-Dewitt of Business 2.0 discusses the rumor here. The two...
View ArticleNot everyone wants an iPhone
The Apple iPhone has gone on sale in the Eastern and Central time zones as I write this post. I haven’t seen any lines at APple or AT&T stores in Honolulu, but I’ve been busy. BusinessWeek points...
View ArticleCXOs face malware email attacks
ZDNet reports that several hundred CXOs are receiving a new kind of email attack. Messages containin Word documents that include an executable file. If the recipient clicks on the file, it runs a...
View ArticleNine reasons not to use an iPhone in an enterprise
Now that the iPhone is out, users want corporate IT managers to let their iPhones work with corporate email servers. It’s tricky, as I’ve mentioned before on June 29. Several bloggers, including Jason...
View ArticleInvitations for Mailplane – first come, first served, for free
I’ve been testing a new Mac application called Mailplane this week. I first read about this app on Silver Mac. I have several Gmail accounts, including some from my Google Apps domains . Checking each...
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Got a question about my courses?
Just a quick reminder for my students: if you have a question about the course and you need an answer within 24 hours, send me an email message. My email address is in the Facebook badge on this page....
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Gartner: Expect an enterprise iPhone
Apple may not be announcing it tomorrow at their press conference, but the Gartner Group believes that an enterprise version of the iPhone is inevitable, according to ZDNet. I discussed some of the...
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TurnItIn.com vs WYSIWYG
Every semester, I get at least one student who asks about the paper submission process in TurnItIn.com. Paper 2 drafts are due on Wednesday in IS 6100 and Friday in IS 7010. I discussed this issue in...
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How to write a great email subject line
School’s back in session, and my email traffic now includes messages from my students. I receive hundreds of email messages every day. Most of these messages are unsolicited commercial email (UCE or...
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Tips on peer review assignments
Both of my courses have peer reviews that are due Monday at noon HT (IS 6100 details are here; the IS 7010 details are here). Students can get to the peer review feature by following these...
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Did you want a PC on your iPhone?
It is possible to use a Windows personal computer on an iPhone. Of course, the computer isn’t inside the phone. WebEx, a Cisco company that offers remote computing services, now supports iPhone on its...
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Skype loses its hype
Yesterday, Forbes reported on eBay’s continuing problems with Skype. Om Malik also discussed this development yesterday. eBay purchased the VoIP company in 2005. eBay CEO Deb Whitman wanted eBays...
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I’m offline for the next few days
Starting this afternoon, I will be offline until Monday, 15 October. Students who have questions about the current assignments should email me, but I might not respond until Tuesday, 16 October. I’m...
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Any Outlook 2007 RSS users out there?
If anyone’s reading my RSS feed with Outlook 2007, please let me know.
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Phishers are using shorter URLs
Organized crime is big business, so it’s no surprise that phishers have developed their own sets of best practices. It’s easier to get an unwitting victim to click a URL when that URL is short. ZDnet...
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Dual-key cryptography explained!
It’s easy to explain how a key principle of cryptography works. Just watch this two-minute video. I could look at a Wikipedia article to learn how dual-key cryptography keeps email messages and web...
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BlackBerry vs iPhone
I was rereading a student paper from last fall and came across a citation for this excellent comparison of the BlackBerry 8800 and the first generation iPhone. The reviewer compares the two devices...
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OpenDNS update
I mentioned OpenDNS on 3 September and 13 July of 2007. This is a free service that looks up domain names. Domain names represent the numeric IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that are used on every...
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IS 6100 Spring 2008 syllabus and schedule are available
I’ve posted a PDF file with the syllabus and schedule for my online IS 6100-AO course. Just click the preceding link and look for the PDF file icon. The course starts on Tuesday, 22 January 2008. I’ll...
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Google may expand into Malaysia
According to Reuters, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is discussing a possible expansion of his company’s facilities. Malaysia is the most likely location, as that country ranks number one in Google usage in...
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Cable company loses messages from 14000 email accounts
From the DSL Reports and the Associated Press: cable television company Charter revealed that its IT staff deleted all stored mail messages for over 14,000 subscriber email accounts. Charter has over...
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Do US Customs agents confiscate computers and phones at airports?
The Washington Post reported yesterday on allegations that US Customs agents have inspected and confiscated laptop computers, iPods, and mobile phones during passenger inspections. Passengers claim...
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Pakistan blocks YouTube, breaks trust
Earlier today, we noticed that YouTube was not available. An ISP in Pakistan, PieNet, single-handedly blocked global access to the popular video site for two hours, according to multiple reports on the...
View ArticleIt’s 2008 and email is still broken
I’ve said it before in 2004 and 2006: email is broken. It’s a great rant topic for my 1200th blog post. The credibility of email as a marketing medium was destroyed years ago by UCE (unsolicited...
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New iPhone will be subsidized, faster and thinner
According to Fortune, AT&T will sell the 2nd generation iPhone with a US$200 subsidy when it goes on sale on or around 27 June 2008. I’ve compiled a list of my billso.com iPhone articles below, as...
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Stop the spam from StopRailNow and ZeroShibai
Malia Zimmerman and her fellow travelers Cliff Slater and Charley’s Taxi president Dale Evans are busy promoting the construction of more roads and elevated HOV lanes on their remarkably ugly web...
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Is email in danger from microblogging?
I’ve claimed for several years now that email is broken. At best, email is the lowest common denominator (LCD) for sending messages to a specific Internet user. Every ISP subscription comes with some...
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State of Hawaii deletes email after 60 days
The State of Hawaii has an official policy regarding email messages: delete them after 60 days. It’s hard to believe, especially when the Honolulu Star-Bulletin discovered that “State Archivist Susan...
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RIP CAPTCHA
Long-time readers of billso.com may remember that I used reCAPTCHA to validate comments about my articles. reCAPCTHA is a web service that shows users pictures of two words. The service knows one of...
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Are Google Docs templates secure?
Google Docs, the company’s online office suite, now lets people create and use templates. There are many examples already posted in Google’s template gallery, including invoices, resumes, invitations,...
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Google Apps has 1 million education users
Google has announced that there are over 1 million users for the education version of Google Apps. this doesn’t surprise me at all, as Google is offering very low per seat pricing on these contracts....
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Divided attention and food in the classroom
I teach graduate courses on information systems. This fall, I’m teaching two undergraduate sections of an entry-level computer science course about Microsoft Office. I’ve been polishing up my syllabus,...
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A few new features
I’m testing a few new features here on billso.com, as I recover from a brief service outage earlier this week. I’ve added ShareThis to almost every page and post on this site. It’s a drop down menu...
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Gmail adds themes
I love Gmail. I like its clean, elegant user interface. Today, Gmail rolled out themes, so users can make their Gmail screen look as ugly as they’d like. The ASCII theme is nice enough. Green text on...
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The new-old billso.com RSS feed
If you’re reading billso.com via RSS, please change your subscription to this feed: http://billso.com/feed Yes, that link is the default WordPress RSS feed. The default feed actually works much better...
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My public Facebook page
I’ve set up a public page for myself on Facebook that will feature my work at Hawaii Pacific University and as an indepedent consultant. My public Facebook page is located here and I also have a short...
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