St. Petersburg Web Design Blog

Dream Designs has launched another on-site Data Services contract. We are happy to be providing data services and tech support for another MSFH contractor. This contractor, W. B Sanders Construction inc, is located in Ft Myers, Florida.

We are maintianing their older data flow system until the MSFH rolls out their new data system called WINGS. Yes we’ve heard the rumors that WINGS is based on my old web application for my last client. While we’ll have to wait and see, we don’t really think Florida’s Department of Financial Services really is imitating us. A web based approach is just simply the best solution for these massive data flow requirements.

Because of the large scale time demands of the MSFH and redoing of this contractors systems, Dream Designs by Texx Smith LLC is not currently taking any new clients.

Want to know more about the My Safe Florida Home Program and it’s massive data flow? Then either visit their web site or just type MSFH into the search box on the right.

In the war against free speech on the internet the Telcos are quietly winning. Here’s the latest blows:

• In December, Rogers Communications ( a Telecommunications and Internet Service provider), essentially hacked Google, adding a message to Google’s home page that appeared to it’s customers that where getting close to the ISP’s bandwidth limit.
• Comcast has admitted to blocking file-sharing traffic. link
• Comcast is discovered to blocking non file-sharing software as well. link
•      – BTW, the methods they use are illegal (packet forging and/or spoofing) are not just illegal but felonies (each act) under federal law.
•      – Ironicly, comcast reported this story on their own site, I quess they are proud of their censorship efforts
• Time Warner/AOL blocked e-mails from and to subscribers that were critical of thier “pay-to-send” (a method that ensure that spam will reach AOL users for a fee) email plan. link
• Verizon prevented the abortion rights group Naral Pro-Choice America from getting a “short code” that would allow the group to send text messages to supporters. They claim they have a right to block anything they’d like.link
• Comcast blocks other companies VOIP traffic a few days before they begin offering their own VOIP services for twice as much as others. link
• Telus (an ISP in Canada) blocked 766 websites in an effort to block one Pro-Union web site during a lock-out by the company. link. NOTE: This is a very extremely sloppy and lazy way to block one site.
• AT&T cut off the webcast of a Pearl Jam concert just when lead singer Eddie Veder was critical of U.S. President George Bush. link

The Telco’s argument in justification of all this is twofold as is their battle plan:

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Click Forensics has released their latest report on Click Fraud. Click Fraud effects people and businesses who buy “pay per click” advertisements on web sites and search engines like google. It becomes fraud when:

• It’s not a human doing the clicking
• It’s human who is doing the clicking but his or her only intend is to cause the advertiser to be charged for the click, not because they are interested in the content advertised

The two most common sources of click fraud are competitors who want to see your budget eaten up without any legitimate customers going to your site. They also get the added benefit of being able to bid on those keyphrases for much less money once your budget is blown. This is by far the most common type of click fraud.
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Domain tasting exploits a loophole in the domain name registration procedure where people can “return” a domain name for a full refund. I’m betting your domain name registrar didn’t tell you that was even possible). Read the Wikipedia entry on domain tasting for more info.

Over the next few weeks, Google will start looking for names that are repeatedly registered and dropped within a five-day grace period for full refunds.

Google’s AdSense program would exclude those names so no one can generate advertising revenue from claiming them temporarily.

Since Google profits greatly from this and other unscrupulous internet marketing practices, we’ll see if they implement something that actually does what it sounds like it’ll do or whether they do something that still allows them to profit from this but say they are trying to help the internet.

read quoted news story