Technically Speaking

In case you were ready to uninstall Chrome because of what I said in this post, Google updated the EULA for Chrome to the following:

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

So, I guess there is less to worry about now.

I like new software, and I like Google. Generally speaking, that is.

Has Google gone off its rocker with Chrome? Does Google’s Motto “Do No Evil” not mean the same thing to them as it does to me?

Yesterday I downloaded Google’s new browser, Chrome, and I’m heading back to Firefox. (I won’t pass GO, and I won’t collect $200.) The browser is nice and clean, but it has its problems: (1) for some reason, I can’t add Facebook friends using Chrome. I have to open the page in Firefox to do that. (2) Chrome won’t display the web application we develop at work (AJAX [thus JavaScript] based, which is supposed to be a STRENGTH of Chrome). Oh and (3) Chrome users give Google a license to do WHATEVER THEY WANT with any content that we view or upload using the browser.

“By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. “

(I first read about this story here, on Gizmodo.com.)

Let’s consider the implications of that:

• Any content I submit to my blog using Chrome gives Google a perpetual, irrevocable license to publish, publicly display, or distribute any way they want.
• And e-mails I sent using Chrome gives Google the same license to share my private information with anybody they want however they want.
• When I access my banking information, Google has the right to reproduce my balance and transaction information, and publish that information publicly.
• I help people build websites on the side. Any content I create for my clients and upload or view through Chrome gives Google the right to modify, reproduce, adapt, and publish wherever and however they want.
• I work for a company that produces Web-based software. If I view our proprietary information with Chrome, Google has the right to harness that information and use it wherever or however they want.
• If my employer uses Chrome to administer confidential employee data, Google can intercept, store, publish, store, and broadcast that information.

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.

So their license allows them to do it in order to “display, distribute, or promote the Service.” That’s pretty vague, and I imagine it could be argued that a lot of what Google does falls into that category.

Um, thanks, but NO THANKS.

Off to uninstall Chrome until this has been resolved.

Maybe you’ve heard about the “next generation” search engine, brought to you by the people who designed Google? The new search engine, called Cuil (pronounced “cool”), debuted yesterday, and in my opinion, it didn’t live up to the hype.

What was the hype? Cuil claims that it indexes far more web pages than does Google, but I don’t know that I  believe them. My first search in Cuil was a vanity search for my own name, Paul Pehrson. I was intrigued by the results window, which puts results in three columns with more information about each search result, but my blog, and my writing portfolio were noticibally absent from the results. There were lots of things that talked about me, but not my websites. I even did a search on site:paulpehrson.com and found no results, so Cuil simply isn’t indexing my site, which is being indexed by all the four major search engines.

Cuil reportedly got in excess of 30 million dollars in venture capital funding (pretty good, in today’s economy), but the results don’t feel as relevant to me (but I’m biased because my main presence on the web has been excluded). TIME published an article today that reports that Cuil had so many visitors yesterday that Cuil’s servers crashed, returning no results for a time. They also report the following:

Cuil has a distinctive, if old-fashioned, approach to indexing websites. Instead of ranking them based on popularity, as Google does, it focuses on the content of each page. That may make sense in theory — after all, the most popular restaurants, for example, rarely serve the best food — but it is precisely the model that Google broke away from in order to give users more relevant results. That could explain why a Cuil search on “insomnia” directs the user to the American Insomnia Association rather than to the Wikipedia entry on the subject pulled up first by most other search engines.

And I’m not the only detractor. Here is a list of headline articles today:

• Why Cuil is no threat to Google (TIME)
• Google is Cooler than Cuil (Motley Fool) (Say this one out loud)
• Ex-Googlers launch Cuil, but maybe too early? (ZDNet)
• Cuil is cold (Network World.com)
• Google-Wannabe Cuil: Worst. Launch. Ever. (Silicon Alley Insider)

That’s not to say that there aren’t some benefits to Cuil. The interface is clean. I like the results layout. TIME reports that Cuil’s privacy policy will make privacy rights groups very happy. But all that isn’t enought to get me to use a search engine unless I can trust the search results to be complete and relevant.

So it’s back to Google for me. Cuil just didn’t cut it. Makes you feel a little sorry for the investors, doesn’t it?

So, I lied. Sorry about that. I didn’t know I was lying. In fact, I thought I was telling the truth. However, I’ve since discovered that my blog was, in fact, hosting malware. See, I was still running WordPress 2.2.2 (the current version is 2.5.1) because I knew that I had plugins that would break if I switched to a newer version of WordPress. (WordPress is the back-end software that runs my blog.)

It turns out that when WordPress developers said there were security fixes in newer versions, they weren’t kidding. Somehow somebody has been able to gain access to my blog to insert hidden frames that download malicious content to people’s computers.

At the database level, I’ve removed every instance to the iframes that cause the problem, I’ve removed every reference to <noscript>, which is another way hidden content is injected into pages, and I’ve checked for any outgoing links to the server that was the target of the injection.

At the software level, I’ve upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, which caused some plugins to fail. I haven’t had time to diagnose all of the plugins yet, but I know for sure that my image-based headlines no longer work with WordPress, so I disabled that plugin. If you find other ones that aren’t working like you expect, please contact me.

At the admin level, I’ve changed my login credentials for WordPress, plus I’ve changed my database credentials; hopefully this will ensure my content remains secure from future injections.

I’ve notified Google of the changes I’ve made, and I’ve requested that they review my site to see if it is safe to browse again. (I’ve cleaned everything, so I know that it is.) Hopefully I’ll be off their black list soon!

In the next few weeks, I will be upgrading all the plugins to the latest versions, and I’ll probably be changing my theme (to a widget- and tag-friendly version), so you’ll be seeing some changes. In the mean time, I’ll keep working on ensuring my server is safe for all my visitors!

Thanks for your patience!

In my spare time I occasionally do some web design and web hosting work for a couple of different clients. Mostly these are my family members, friends, and neighbors who need a relatively simple website and a place to host it.

Recently I started helping out an uncle with a site for his new business. He had already worked with a designer to create some printed letterhead, and he wanted to use the same stuff for the header on his website. He said he’d send me a copy of the letterhead so I could put it on the site.

The letterhead came as a Word document, and I didn’t love the font choice, so I told him. He said he did like it, and he’d already used it to send out some letters and create business cards, so he wanted to keep it. I said I’d get it up on the site.

The Word document had the following font (I’ve only reproduced part of it, for the sake of my client’s privacy):

I thought the font wasn’t very professional, and I couldn’t get the font out of the Word document, and I wanted to make it a bit clearer for the website, so I found a close font which looked like this:

It wasn’t a perfect replica, but I thought it looked better than what he had. He contacted me and wanted the font changed back to the original. This didn’t look like his letterhead, and he wanted a consistent look and feel. I told him that without the font file I couldn’t re-create the logo in Photoshop, so I’d have to just take a screen shot of the Word document and make that the header image. He thought that was a fine solution. I took a screen shot of the Word document, and up went the original image:

The next day he contacted me again and said he still didn’t like the image. He thought it looked unprofessional and by the way, weren’t we going to just take a screen shot of the Word document?

Then it dawned on my wife that what he was seeing in his Word document was different from what we were seeing in our Word document. In fact, he hadn’t embedded the font into the Word document, so when I opened the document on my machine, Word did a silent replacement of the font.

After he embedded the font in the Word document, I was able to see the same letterhead he was seeing:

No wonder he didn’t like the first two attempts!

We both thought we were communicating, because we were both looking at the same source document, when in fact, we were seeing something completely different, but didn’t know how to talk about it. That was due, in part, to our family relationship; he didn’t want to tell me how ugly it was, and how it didn’t look anything like what he was seeing. Our family relationship hindered our ability to communicate properly in a business relationship.

At least now we have the right font on the site. And next time, we’ll make sure we’re both talking about the same thing when there is an apparent disagreement.