IanVisits…

Following on from my “where am I posting” a few weeks ago, this morning I notice a very weird reaction to the Geo-IP issues of tracking people’s location. I use Google Reader for my RSS feed tracking, and this morning it has decided to put all the Google supplied text into German.

Now that is just plain daft.

Even if I am actually in Germany, does it mean I then want my computer to switch to German? Of course not!

Quite why Google would switch my RSS reader over to the German language completely defies understanding.

I’m in Germany this morning - or so claims The Internet™. As it happens, I am sitting inside my usual coffee shop in Canary Wharf and sitting at my usual table (after it was vacated by interlopers) - but the internet is convinced that I am in Germany.

As it happens, this is not a new occurrence and every time I log on to the T-Mobile Wi-Fi service in the UK, all the adverts on websites switch to German. Google is usually better at knowing my real location, but even they sometimes get it wrong and just now tried to bounce me over to the German Google website.

As the location data is based on IP address tables, I could understand some glitches, but it does seem that either T-Mobile UK is routing all its internet traffic via a German proxy, which would be very odd - or they are identifying themselves as German to query systems - which would be equally odd.

However, as a diversion - it could once have been possible for me to be sitting in London - and also be in Germany. Where Cannon Street train station now stands used to be a German enclave between the 13th and 15th centuries. Queen Elizabeth 1 finally rescinded their privileges but the land itself remained the property of the Hanse merchants right up to 1853. It was only eventually sold to make way for the train station.

There is a plaque by the train station commemorating this heritage - and a photo of it (take by myself) is on Wikipedia

So - had the internet been around in the 14th century and I was sat inside the German enclave, then the adverts I am seeing today on my web browser would indeed be correct. But I am not - so they are wrong.

(Oh, and the Y button on my laptop seems to be glitchy this morning - damn)

Despite being bashed all the time by Greenpeace for decidedly non-environmentally friendly behaviour, it seems that Apple is still a bit fluffy on some issues.

Indeed, the end user license agreement (EULA) which we all just click “I accept” on without reading when installing Apple’s iTunes software contains an interesting clause:

“Licensee also agrees that Licensee will not use the Apple Software for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.“

So there you have it - you can (somehow) use iTunes to design a replacement for the ubiquitous AK47 machine gun, but if you use it to build a nuclear bomb, then Apple’s lawyers will be after you.

Source - New Scientist

As it happens, when bored - I do often read the EULA (or actually skim down it quickly) as they do sometimes contain very odd things indeed.

I forget the details, but one I read some years ago banned the export of the software to any country which supplied goods prohibited under some US law to countries on a specific list. As the law included items which also happen to be components in ordinary televisions - that effectively banned the software being used anywhere in the world. Not quite what the lawyers had in mind I guess.

After being told how wonderful the latest version of Firefox is, I with some trepidation decided to “upgrade”.

I was wary about this as I had downloaded a beta version a few months ago, and they have scrapped the conventional url location bar for the new “awesome bar” - and I hate it. I hate it so much that even though the beta version I had was stable, I ran back to Firefox 2 within half a day.

For me, the url location bar is a place where I occasionally type urls, but mainly I use it as a place to keep regular urls which I am using on that day - but which I probably won’t bother bookmarking for posterity.

Fortunatly, I found “oldbar” - a Firefox plug-in which reskins the the new design back to the much easier to use older version, so if like me you looked at Firefox 3 and vomited over the monitor - here is a solution.

There is another change you need to make though, is a behaviour changer as the oldbar only changes the look of the url bar, not the weird way it works - so you will also need to fiddle with the configuration of the browser.

Open a new window or tab and type about:config in the url bar, then copy/paste browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped into the seach box. A single line should appear and click on it.  Click it and the value should change to “True”. Exit the browser, restart, and Firefox will no longer show your private bookmarks. I should say “Caveat Emptor” though for anyone fiddling with the config settings.

Those two changes seem to return the url bar back to good old FF 2 mode.

Considering the howls of protest which have been on the Firefox developer site forums ever since the “awesome bar” was proposed, it is a damn pity that the developers didn’t think to offer a simple off-switch for the new so called feature so that those of us who hate it can get back to the sort of url bar we have been used to ever since Netscape first lauched a web browser.

Changes are often good - but when changing something which has been around since the very beginings of the web and then ignore the complaints is the height of arrogance.

Oh, a final tip which is not that well documented and I find quite useful - you can delete urls from the location bar list when you click on the drop down by moving the mouse over the url, then clicking on SHIFT+DELETE. Now that is a good feature, unlike the awesome bar, which is bloody awful.

Today, the tech bloggers of the world will have a collective heart attack and utter wows, goshes and other such suitable exclamations (imagine Dan Cruickshank on drugs) as Apple unleashes its latest products.

The only thing you wont hear is objective, impartial commentary - such is the power of the Steve Jobs Distortion Effect.

It’s not to say that I don’t like the products, I happen to think the iPhone is a competent product - but the way people talk about it would be to suggest that it has been impossible to visit a webpage in the past on mobile phones, which I have been doing for years.

People tell me that it is not possible to do all the things the iPhone does on my current mobile. That is hardly surprising, as the current mobile I use costs a mere fraction of the cost of the iPhone.

Yes, the iPhone is a good smartphone - but its sales represent a tiny fraction of the sales of mobile phones every week, and I am sorry, but I am not going to fall in love with a product simply because it is made by Apple. It has to be suitable for my needs as well - and the iPhone actually isn’t.

Talking to an Apple fanboy is a bit like talking to a Christian fundamentalist - quite scary.

Personally, I shall retreat into my underground bunker and hide for a few days until the blog-storm has passed by.