Internet

Yahoo Publishes Style Guide For Web Writing

May 30, 2023 by noemi

Writing for the web is not an excuse for poor writing. This has always been a problem since there are a lot of bloggers and web site writers who have great ideas and excellent know how, but are sorely lacking in writing skills.

On the other hand, there are some good writers – in the traditional sense – who have encountered problems when writing for blogs and other web sites. Tech terms may prove to be difficult; formatting is another issue; and the list goes on and on.

Unlike academic writing, there really are no clear cut rules about writing for the web. Well, there are many rules – it’s just that we haven’t all agreed on one particular way of writing. That is, until Yahoo published its own Style Guide.

I am not that big of a Yahoo fan, but I am quite impressed that they took the initiative to create this Style Guide. It contains a huge amount of information covering the many aspects of writing for the Internet. From word lists (e.g., it’s 3D and not 3-D) to formatting tips to tips on how to write strong headlines – the Style Guide has a lot to offer.

Now I haven’t had the time to look at the Style Guide intently, but it does look promising. Access Yahoo’s Style Guide, the online version, and see for yourself. If you want the hard copy, you have to wait for it to be released on the 6th of July. I am happy to take a look at the online version first.

Let us know what you think about it.

Cyber Security Bill Approved, Feared By Many

May 30, 2023 by noemi

The Internet has become so big that the government just can’t seem to “ignore” it. In fact, laws have been cropping up left and right, so as to impose some measure of control over activities online. The most recent one is the Cyber Security Bill which the Senate Committee has just approved.

If you’re unaware of what the bill is all about, here’s a short description, courtesy of Politic365:

• Would establish a White House office for cyberspace policy and a national center for cybersecurity and communications, which would work with private U.S. companies to create cybersecurity requirements for the electrical grid, telecommunication networks and other critical “infrastructure” (water, electricity, banking, traffic lights and electronic health records)
• Allow the U.S. president to take emergency action to protect critical parts of the Internet, including ordering owners of critical infrastructure to implement emergency response plans during a cyber emergency
• The president would need congressional approval to extend a national cyber emergency beyond 120 days under an amendment to the legislation approved by the committee

Naturally, controversy has arisen, primarily because of the fear of the creation of an “Internet kill switch.” Imagine the power that any one person has if he has access to this kill switch. You can read through the Myth versus Reality document that Homeland Security has created, though, and decide for yourself if your fears are unfounded or not.

On the one hand, the concept seems sound – an attack is bound to happen one of these days and the government is being proactive in passing this bill. On the other hand, we know that it is open to abuse, and there are so many loopholes.

What are your thoughts and sentiments on the Cyber Security Bill?

Google Buzz Now Has Reshare, Not Rebuzz

May 25, 2023 by Arnold Zafra

For Buzz users, have you wanted to share an interesting buzz that you want to share with your other Google Buzz followers? Are you tired of the copying the buzz and pasting it to a new buzz just to let your followers find it? Google finally gives a solution. Nope, sorry folks its not called “rebuzz” but rather a more correct and dandy tag called “reshare.”

If you’re familiar with Twitter’s “retweet,” well Google Buzz Reshare practically works the same way. You found and interesting Google buzz post from your followers, click on a link, add an annotation or any comment and then hit the button to publish it as a new buzz on your Google buzz account. Yes, in two clicks, Google made its Buzz product more social.

In addition, “resharing” a buzz creates a new buzz that contains link to the original post. And it creates a buzz thread as soon as more followers started resharing the buzz to their followers as well. Now, when two or more Google Buzz users share the same thing to you, the buzz is collapsed to avoid cluttering your Google Buzz inbox. Sounds fair?

On why Google implemented its buzz sharing feature this way, the Official Gmail Blog tells us the following explanations: [Read more…] about Google Buzz Now Has Reshare, Not Rebuzz

Are You Happy with Facebook’s New and Simpler Privacy Controls?

May 24, 2023 by Arnold Zafra

Here’s could probably be Facebook’s last ditch effort at convincing everyone of us that it minds user privacy. And this could possibly make or break Facebook, either retaining loyal users to driving them away to other “more secured” social networking sites.

So as Facebook is confronted with issues about its “complex” privacy policy, it now announces a simpler privacy control measures via a long post on the Official Facebook blog. But essentially, there are three major issues addressed by Facebook’s new privacy controls.

First thing which Facebook did was to build one simple control for setting who can see content that you post. You can now specify whether the content is viewable by everyone, friends of your friends or just by your friends. Which ever settings you choose will be applied to new products which Facebook will introduce in the future. You don’t need to set them up once new products are introduced.

Then Facebook also reduced the amount of basic information that are visible to everyone. The connections privacy model was also removed. You now have the ability to control who can see your friends and pages and those information are no longer default to public. Of course, as these are basic information, it is but logical to have these for public viewing since its the only way for other people to find you. Otherwise, there’s no point in maintaining your Facebook account anymore.

Finally, Facebook also made it simpler to control how apps and websites access any of your information. Turning this off is now easier and can be easily done via a simple click. Turning off instant personalization is also easier now and gives you the facility to allow only partner sites to see things you’ve made visible to everyone.

With that, Facebook is proud to announced that its privacy model is now complete. And it hopes that issues concerning user privacy would be finally put to a rest.

These new privacy controls will be rolled out to everyone in the next few weeks. By then, we will know whether users are satisfied with the measures and make them stay with Facebook.