racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Great! Now I can reactivate my Google Analytics account. A few months back, I accidentally deleted my website profiles, and I couldn’t create new ones, with Google temporarily suspending creation of new accounts and profiles.

I’m not so sure, though, whether Analytics is as good as it’s hyped to be.

(via DIGG)

Something interesting over at the Register: the results of the “Spot the black helicopter” competition.

Not exactly breaking news (it’s so four months ago!), but go check out how many black choppers people got to find over at Google Earth.

Yup – it’s a miracle you can go out of your house in the morning without tripping over a black helicopter. Something slightly rarer, but no less black, is the SR-71

Do check out the SR-71s (wait, I thought they were non-existent).

Who needs the NSA to spy on people when Google does such a great job?

Just got word from Migs that SoPinoy “news” (linked, but rel=”nofollow”) has been scraping content from Pinoy.tech.blog and inq7.net.

And they have the gall to claim “Copyright © 2006″ on their site.

Content scrapers and sploggers are the scum of the blogging world!

Gary over at pisces-iscariot posts developments on the Epixtar vs. the blogosphere incident.

I haven’t had the chance to write about it here, so you can check out these articles:

• Migs Paraz: Epixtar bankrupt
  


• Migs on PTB: IBM in, Epixtar out 
  


• Gary Mercado: Epixtar must be a fun place to work
  


• Gary: Epixtar doesn’t like bloggers
  


• Abe Olandres: Epixtar threatens to sue blog for comments
  


• Epixtar facing raps from employees (related)

The skinny: an anonymous commenter posts some salary information as comments on all three blogs (PTB, Migs’ Randon takes and Gary’s pisces-iscariot). Epixtar SVP for client services Jeff Myers (or so, he claims–he doesn’t seem to have presented supporting docs as to his identity) asks the authors to delete the posts–actually comments–pertaining to the salary info, then later on threatens to sue.

Looks like someone–likely formerly with Epixtar–has a score to settle, and he’s been using blogs to post private/proprietary info. And Epixtar’s officials seem peeved, with how they’ve been reacting to the blog posts so far.

Where will this go? I think Epixtar is just going to get bad publicity with the way they’re handling the issue.

If you found the story interesting, then DIGG it (links to Gary’s post)!

An article at MSNBC cautions parents against social networking sites like MySpace.

It’s free, easy to join, and easy to message its members. Kids chat about everything from school, to sports, to fundraisers for Katrina victims. It all seems like innocent fun, and it can be. But many parents and teens are unaware there are hidden dangers.

Now isn’t this old news? Check out the MySpace monsters (close relatives of the Friendster atrocities) and maybe you’ll get the shivers thinking of what your kids may be doing with their MySpace accounts.

Seriously, as a techie parent, I haven’t been too concerned about my kids posting their info all around the ‘net (especially since Pia is 2.5 and Cate is a year old–too young to surf!). But most parents are likely to be unaware of what dangers may be lurking at the other side of the broadband connection.

So parents, be sure to provide adequate guidance on what your kids can and cannot do on the Web.

And kids, do listen to your parents. No matter how technologically superior you think you are over them, they’re still your parents, and they do love you. Otherwise, they’d have probably whacked you by now, with the nasty stuff you’ve been doing on Friendster, MySpace, or even Yahoo Messenger.