SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc., the Internet’s most profitable company, is giving $2 million to support Wikipedia, a volunteer-driven reference tool that has emerged as one of the Web’s most-read sites.
The donation announced Wednesday matches the largest grant made so far to Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group that oversees the 7-year-old Wikipedia. Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar also donated $2 million to Wikimedia six months ago through one of his investment arms.
The latest largesse has catapulted Wikimedia beyond its $10.6 million revenue target for its fiscal year ending in June. That goal had looked ambitious, given that it represented an increase of more than 20 percent from $8.7 million a year earlier.
But the worst recession since World War II evidently didn’t dampen support for the Internet’s most popular encyclopedia, which has more than 14 million entries written and edited by some 100,000 unpaid contributors in about 270 languages.
Wikimedia, which gets most of its revenue from donations, has collected contributions from more than 240,000 individuals so far this fiscal year, mostly in small sums.
I think Wikipedia is great and use it a great deal so I am glad that Google made a big donation.
I use Wikipedia a lot in my blogs. I always try and give credit when I do.
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I watch a lot of videos on YouTube. They have been making a lot of changes to their system since Google took over. I have not been happy with many of the changes they have made.
I just found a new change on YouTube. I like The Young Turks videos. I went to watch one and this is what I saw:
Yes, you can view the video, rent it, for 99 cents. This is the first time I have run into this. I do not like it. Now do not get me wrong.. I am not one of those people that thinks everything should be free on the Internet. I often pay for things and I often make donations.
I just do not want to be clicking on things and expecting to see it and then have a notice that I have to rent it.
I read some of the comments and a lot of people are pissed off. But many of those are saying that videos should be free on YouTube and saying that Google has lots of money.
My guess is that YouTube is losing lots of money. I do not think they are in the black. I think they are in the red big time. If I was Google I would want YouTube to operate in the black and not have to get money from Google.
Like I said I am not happy with the direction that YouTube is going. I guess one little thing they could do is give me the option of checking a box that says never show me something that I have to pay for.
I watch a lot of YouTube videos. I am very poor. I wonder if they went to a membership system if I would be willing to subscribe. I do not think I would with the new YouTube. With the old YouTube I might have been willing to pay a monthly fee.
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I just installed “The fastest browser on Earth” Opera 10.50.
“Opera Software's beta of Opera 10.5 leapfrogged every rival to become the world's fastest browser, benchmark tests show.
Released on Thursday and powered by a new JavaScript engine, Opera 10.5 beat all comers to easily take the top speed spot.
According to tests run by Computerworld , Opera 10.5 was nearly 15% faster than Safari for Windows and almost 20% faster than Google 's Chrome, the previous No. 1 and No. 2 browsers. Opera's preview was more than twice as fast as Mozilla's Firefox 3.6, over eight times faster than Opera 10.10, and 10 times faster thanMicrosoft 's Internet Explorer 8 (IE8)…” PCWorld
I just installed it and I will let you know what I think about it soon.
Update: I had problems with Opera 10.5 beta. It would just be gone. I would have to re-start it. It gave me a couple of warnings. Now it is beta so that is to be expected but I removed it. My recommendation is wait until it is not beta. I am back using Chrome.
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ShowMeBlog did have a Goggle Page Rank of 4 for a long time. I was pretty happy about that page rank. I may have mentioned it here a few times. SMILE
Back in 2008 our Goggle Page Rank went to 0 and it has stayed at zero. I have no idea why it went to zero. What I find interesting is that it is almost two years to the day since we went to zero and now we are at a PR of 2.
We were not the only one that had a good PR rating and at that time had it go to zero. There was some discussion on blogs that Google was not happy that so many small blogs had high Page Rank ratings. I do not know if that reason we all lost our PR or not.
Having a zero rating was sort of a slap in the face so I am glad I have at least a rating now. Even if it is half of what we had for years.
Howard’s Notebook has had a Google Page Rank of 2 for some time and we still have it.
Something that I find interesting is that my YouTube page has a PR of 5. Now the YouTube site has a PR of 9. I checked other YouTube pages and The Young Turks has a page rank of 8. Barely Political is 7.
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“Turns out that Comcast, the media conglomerate with over 47.1 million cable, Internet and telephone customers, won’t just have to fret about integrating a struggling brand (NBC) into its fold. Now, the company has to deal with all the jokes about the new name for its core products. Though the parent company will retain the Comcast name, next week its cable, telephone and Internet services will be rebranded XFinity in 11 markets, and nationwide thereafter.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1960553,00.html?hpt=T2#ixzz0exVdtHUz”
I think it is a pretty neat name. But it looks like people do not agree with me.. read on..
“XFinity? Huh? It’s no surprise that the blogosphere had a field day with the name. Gizmodo called it the "worst, pseudo-pornographic, retrofuturistic marketing dollars can buy." Another well-trafficked blog, The Consumerist, also said Xfinity sounded like a porn company. "Sorry, it just does," the site wrote. In a very unscientific poll, I asked a few people for their first thoughts when I mention the word XFinity. The responses: "Porn." "Porn." "Stupid." "An energy drink or a porn site." "Stupid name." "Not positive." "Extreme sports." "A satellite something." "A car." "Drugs and porn."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1960553,00.html?hpt=T2#ixzz0exVnlaCQ”
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I did a little checking on the Internet and I am not a news media organization and I do not have a staff and I am just a retired night watchman so keep that in mind.
I did a little checking on the Fox News web site and the CNN web site. I sort of looked at them side by side. Now keep in mind this is not a study or comment about their cable channels. This was looking at their web sites. Take it for what it is worth.
Web site Traffic Rank US Traffic Rank Linking Sites
Fox News 211 37 35,406
CNN 60 17 85,968
Looks like CNN is the big winner when it comes to web sites.
Now in the world CNN is by far the leader and that should not surprise any of us.
Just as an example in China CNN is ranked 561 and Fox is 5,815.
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“By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn, Ap Aerospace Writer – 1 hr 50 mins ago
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In a high tech first — really, really high — astronauts in space finally have Internet access.
Space station resident Timothy (TJ) Creamer had been working with flight controllers to establish Internet access from his orbital post ever since he moved in last month. On Friday, his effort paid off. He posted the first live Twitter post truly from space.
"Hello Twitterverse!" he wrote. "We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! 
More soon, send your ?s"
Before, orbiting astronauts had to send such Twitter updates by e-mail to Mission Control in Houston. Then controllers posted the tweets.
The International Space Station crew can now use an on-board laptop to reach a desktop computer at Mission Control, and thereby browse the Web. This remote Internet access is possible whenever there is a solid high-speed communication link.
It’s expected to provide a big morale boost…”
I am surprised I did not know they did not have Internet access. Very strange that they just now are getting it. I wonder how much bandwidth they have and if they will be watching a movie or something and using up all the bandwidth.
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"(WIRED) — Google's much-anticipated new phone, the HTC-designed Nexus One, could make its debut next week.
Google has scheduled a press event for Tuesday, January 5 at its Mountain View, California, headquarters. Though the company hasn't mentioned Nexus One, the invitation mentions Android, Google's mobile operating system for phones, and the company is widely expected to show the device that has had smartphone industry watchers buzzing for weeks…"
I hope that Google does announce tomorrow the release of their Google Nexus phone. I hope it is unlocked and I hope we can just buy it for x amount of money. We will see what happens tomorrow.
Reports are that it will be; GMS-device, 3.7 inch touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, and a accelerometer and compass. It sounds good.
If I can afford it and it runs advertising to help make it affordable I do not have a problem with that happening. I am looking for a neat phone that I can afford to buy and I am willing to pay as much as $50.00 a month but $40.00 a month max would be much better.
It would be great if it sold unlocked for $200.00 but I fear it is going to cost $400.00 and if that is the case that is out of my price range. I might go for $300.00 but I hope they come up with someway to sell them for $300.00 each.
We will see what happens tomorrow.
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I have Charter Communications for cable Internet service and I am paying for 10 Mb/s down service. I get like 3.8 Mb/s most of the time. I am going to call them Monday and ask them to check and make sure everything is working correct.
I use www.speedtest.net to check my Internet speed. I was looking at their site and they have a list of download speeds; Europe 7.23, North America 6.59, Australasia 5.10, Asia 4.87, South America 2.13 and Africa 1.28. Well Thank God I am doing better than South America and Africa is all I can say.
The top countries by download speed are Korea 23.59, Japan 16.81, Latvia 15.58 and on and on it goes and in case you are wondering the United States is number 29 on the list with 7.33 Mb/s.
The top of up load speed countries are Lithuania 9.25, Japan 7.95, Latvia 6.16, Bulgaria 6.07 and at number 30 the United States with 1.69 Mb/s.
I just did the speedtest again and I got 3.11 down and 1.98 up.
It seems like the United States should not be number 29 and 30 on the list of Internet speeds.
OK OK.. sure I do not want to live in any of those other nations because they have faster Internet speed. But I am sort of tired of waiting for high speed broadband Internet speed. I do not think 3.11 Mb/s is it. Keep in mind when I started people connected to my bulletin board system at 300 baud. I paid hundreds of dollars so that people could connect at 1200 baud. I have seen and been part of the start of all of this… I just think it is time to move ahead to high speed Internet for the United States. We should not be at the bottom of the list.
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A lot of very smart and skilled people read Howard’s Notebook. Do you think the above “high speed Internet” is worth $55.00 a month? (Truth is I get it for $45.00 a month for 24 months. When you do see above a nice connection it is a connection to Fort Worth. I am in Fort Worth and am getting my Internet from Charter in Fort Worth.
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“He is 5 years old now.
He speaks Japanese.
I and he touched an ukulele for the first time just one year ago.
We learned the uke to watch a TV program(NHK) first.
The program was finished in three months.
Camera : Panasonic GF1
※I am weak in English like him. I’m sorry if there is an inappropriate sentence!”
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I am not sure why but traffic to Howard’s Notebook is down 40%. I am not sure that is correct but it is what traffic sites are showing now. It took place in like the last seven days or so.
I am not sure if it is the Christmas season and people are busy or if something else is going on.
All the traffic that ShowMeBlog was getting I sent over here and I wonder if Google’s spider has removed those search links. I am not sure how that works it is over my head.
I am not even sure why I tell you these things…I think only people that run their own site or blog even care about about this sort of thing. I am just glad you came to HNB and I hope you found something of interest and you will come back.
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So much data and so little time and on my part so few brain cells.
I need a smart girl friend.
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Before I left Miami I checked to see who the cable service company was for Fort Worth. I was not happy to hear that it was Charter. We had their service when we first moved to Miami until they sold out or did something and we got a different company.
I was not happy with Charter Internet service.
They do not get good reviews…I checked on the Internet before I moved here.
My ex-wife and son, that live here in Fort Worth, have DSL service from AT&T. So I told my ex-wife that I would give her $100.00 a month and that Russell and I would use their service via WiFi. I had them upgrade to 5 M down. Now $100.00 is more than it cost them for Internet and phone service. I made it more to help them out.
Well Russ and I been using their service via WiFi. Russ is playing games online and watching TV via his XBox 360 and I do not know what all he is doing.. My son is down stairs playing online games sometimes.
My ex-wife does some eBay stuff online to try and make a few dollars.
I use almost no band width.. What I do posting to the blog and reading my email….that is about it.. The Internet service that I am getting sucks …
Are you ready for this?
Charter sent out their special offer: Basic Limited cable TV $9.99 for 12 months, High Speed Internet $29.99 for 12 months and telephone service $19.99 for 12 months. Their “high speed” Internet service is 5 M down. For $10.00 more a month I can get 10 M down or for $25.00 more a month I could get 20 M down.
The total is $59.97 a month. I called and signed up for the service. I do not own a phone and I do not own a TV set. All I care about, right now, is the Internet service.
They did lock in the Internet service price for 24 months. I can upgrade the speed anytime I want and I might just do that one day.
I will keep paying Darlene $100.00 a month to help her out and Russ is going to keep on using their WiFi connection. He is sleeping and does not know that I have ordered cable service. But I need dependable Internet service so he can keep using their WiFi service and I will be the only one using the cable Internet service.
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People are starting to say that Google is to big and has to much information on people. Google has set up a service they call “Google Dashboard.” It looks like you have to have a Google account and then you can log into the service.
It will then show you what information they have on you and allow you to make changes to the information.
I do not see how this helps the privacy issues. It is just the sort of information you would expect them to have about you if you use any of their services.
I think the problem areas would be information they get from you if you use Google Mail and the information they get on you when you do a search using Google.
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“…On October 29, 1969 Kleinrock led a team that got a computer at UCLA to "talk" to one at a research institute.
Kleinrock was driven by a certainty that computers were destined to speak to each other and that the resulting network should be as simple to use as telephones.
US telecom colossus AT&T ran lines connecting the computers for ARPANET, a project backed with money from a research arm of the US military.
A key to getting computers to exchange data was breaking digitized information into packets fired between on-demand with no wasting of time, according to Kleinrock.
Engineers began typing "LOG" to log into the distant computer, which crashed after getting the "O."
"So, the first message was ‘Lo’ as in ‘Lo and behold’," Kleinrock recounted. "We couldn’t have a better, more succinct first message."
Kleinrock’s team logged in on the second try, sending digital data packets between computers on the ARPANET. Computers at two other US universities were added to the network by the end of that year. ..”
The Kleinrock is Leonard Kleinrock. Keep in mind that the world wide web did not come around until 1995. See Internet for information.
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Well I do not want Charter service in Fort Worth. I checked and my ex-wife and son have AT&T DSL service. They like the service.
They have the AT&T High Speed Internet Express service for $25.00 a month and that gives them 1.5 Mbps Down and 384 Kbps Up.
AT&T has these other two plans:
So I told my ex-wife we could upgrade to the AT&T High Speed Internet Elite service and that would be 6 Mbps Down and 768 Kbps Up and I would pay for the Internet service and in fact give her $15.00 extra each month. Then Russ and I could get the service via Wifi since we will just be upstairs.
I often pay for an extra IP number or two and we might want to do that and I would pay for those.
I have not heard back from my ex-wife yet. I am sure she will go for the deal. I would be paying for the entire Internet package and they would get faster Internet service.
That is a win win for them.
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“Worldwide spam has surged by nine times and now makes up 86 percent of all emails, says Symantec.
According to the security firm’s October State of Spam report, ‘toxic’ spam or spam that contains malware accounts for 4.5 percent of all spam.Symantec also said that spammers were concentrating their efforts of exploiting the ‘holiday’ period. As well as targeting web users with Halloween and Christmas related spam, spammers have expanded their remit to include the Indian festival of light Diwali and the Chinese Moon Festival, both of which are celebrated in October.
The most common subject lines in spam messages are ‘Delivery Status Notification (Failure)’, ‘Return mail’ and ‘Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender’.
Symantec also said Phishing attacks were down five percent on last month and non-English phishing sites has decreased by 33 percent on last month…” PC World
We all know that those numbers sound correct. I am sent more of this spam than most because my email addresses are all over the place. I never see any of the spam because I use SpamArrest. Well let me correct that…From time to time I go to SpamArrest to check what they have filtered and make sure no real email messages are their by error. So I do get to scan the junk and see the lists of all crap being sent. I wish someone could hunt down the senders of junk mail and beat the crap out of them.
What we need is a system that IDs everyone on the Internet. I think life would be much better for all of us. I know none of you agree. Many of you want to have the ability to hide your ID.
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Today the power went off at the house for about five seconds. I was posting to ShowMeBlog. I have a new UPS unit that I got a couple of months ago. It was pretty neat. I just kept on posting to the blog. A message came up on my screen sent by the UPS software that I had lost power and it was going to shut down in 5 minutes.
Then the power came back on…I think that was neat.
I am not sure why I am so impressed…I worked hospital security and safety for years and the hospitals would lose power sometimes and the standby power would kick in right away and most of the hospital would have the power to keep on working.
It just seems neat, I guess, because it was more personal and because I have not had a UPS device for many years.
I have a FL Lotto ticket for tonight…It is for $11 million dollars. If I win I can live someplace that has standby power. I could also have very fast Internet service. Smile
I just tested my Internet service speed (at www.speedtest.com) and I am getting 12.42 Mb/s down and 1.97 Mb/s up. Not bad. It helps that my grandson is sleeping right now. Smile
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Welcome to the wild wild west and welcome to the wonderful world of the Internet.
“(CNN) — A Pennsylvania soccer mom was chatting with a friend via webcam when she was shot to death by her husband, who then went upstairs and shot himself, police said Friday.
Meleanie Hain, 31, made national headlines last year as the mother who carried a loaded, holstered handgun to her 5-year-old daughter’s soccer game.
She was found dead in her Lebanon, Pennsylvania, home along with her husband, Scott Hain, 33, on Wednesday evening, Lebanon police said.
Hain was in her kitchen talking with a friend via webcam just before her death, police said.
Watch why Hain caused controversy »
The friend, who police will not name, was looking away from the computer screen when he heard a shot and a scream, police said. He turned back to the monitor, he told police, and no longer saw Meleanie Hain but instead saw Scott Hain firing several rounds from a handgun toward where his wife had been…”
I think the problem is when you have guns around like this and then someone gets mad or upset the first thing they do is get the gun. This sort of thing happens to often.
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"love their masthead today, Wednesday. They're overdoing it with the
commemorative mastheads but this is sort of fun – they're so well
established they can disguise their own name now – this one it
commemorates the invention of the bar code.
Imagine rolling that out - an act of faith that the entire
commercial world would accept that as a standard and it did
happen. I guess the big grocery chains were behind it
initally. Must have been massive planning and in that case I think
it was all industry driven- no government requirement or standard
involved. It's a wonder the whacko right doesn't come up with
something sinister about bar codes and go around obliterating them." Dick Williams
Funny I would get this email from Dick just now. I had just done a Google search and I was saying what the heck. I just woke up and had just made an install or two to my O/S Ubuntu (Linux) and I was thinking what happened to Google.
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