Blurts

If you have a new iPhone Touch, you should take a look at Dragon Dictate. It is an amazing dictation app. Translate nearly flawlessly. The only thing is could not figure out was my name.

I like this post from Smashing Magazine on web security. it is a little geeky, but it is difficult to describe problems such as SQL injection (one of my own battles) without moving past common knowledge. Of course, common knowledge is part of the problem.

The ReadWriteWeb offers two posts related to the Haiti Quake. The first explains an easy way to commit $10 to the International Red Cross. The second provides satellite imagery showing the devestation.

Donating $10 through your mobile phone account is about as easy as it gets. The NYTimes is reporting that fees on this donation are being waived. I know many people are concerned with scams that take advantage of people’s willingness to donate money. I have read about SMS method in several sources, but I guess we all make our own decisions. Obviously, it is easy. You text HAITI to the designated number. My experience was that I then received a response and was asked to confirm to the same number.

I first commented on Google modification of its policies to gain access to the China market almost four years ago. No, it seems Google may reverse course and back away from special concessions. The percipitating factor appears to be a cyber attack on Google computers intended to gain access to the mail accounts of human rights activists (NY Times). It appears Google feels used. Limiting access to content perceived as damaging to the government was one thing. Google agreed to this. Now, it appears Google feels that it has been used to jeopardize individuals who made good faith use of Google services.

It appears that Google has made some changes. Searching Google.cn no shows images that were previously blocked. I remember being in China and searching for information about Tiananmen Square and I know this access has been changed.

BTW – how the source of an attack is identified is interesting. This Ars Technica post discusses why the Chinese government was implicated. 

CNET News indicates that Google has increased the versatility of Google Docs to include the opportunity to upload more file types and to upload larger files. According to the article, the cap on these additional file types (in total) is one gig with a 250 megabyte limit on any specific file. Additional space can be purchased. While this story says available Tuesday (today), I tried to upload a jpg file larger than 500 KB and the upload was rejected as too large. Perhaps later today. The CNET piece describes this as the online equivalent of a flash (thumb) drive.

MacWorld verson of same story.

UberTwitter is my new Twitter app for my Blackberry. I tried to upgrade TwitterBerry and the new option gave me a lot of trouble. So far UberTwitter has worked well.