Technology in Society

Two articles that I came across, one old and one new, point to a new trend of "caching in on the internet".

The first article is one year old, and it came to my attention via an acquaintance (an MBA!) who wanted to copycat this idea. He read about it in Forbes, went ahead and bought some 50+ domain names and wants me to do "internet real estate development" with him. The second article is from the New York Times today.

Obviously, I refused to do that work due to my aversion to content free sites that have only ads on them.

A while ago, I came across Morten Wulff's Drupal-on-a-stick page. A few days ago, Matt Cheney posted instructions for getting Drupal on a keychain using Ubuntu. Of course, these require a PC to run.

Doing physical exercise is normally not fun. It is more of a chore. Therefore, for someone who uses the computer and internet as the primary source of information/news, it would make a lot of sense to make time pass by easier if one was reading news, catching up on RSS feeds, ...etc. while on the treadmill.In order to do that, one can use an old laptop fitted to the treadmill.Well, after more than a year of thinking of this, Mayo Clinic has done exactly that. Will this be the office of the future?

Some scam emails are meant for identify theft. Having got your information, the scammers pose as you for various things without your knowledge or consent.

Service Canada is warning the public about phoney emails that some people receive asking for private information so Employment Insurance (EI) claims can be expedited. The emails ask the potential victim to divulge information such as the Social Insurance Number (SIN), birth date, and credit card information. If you receive such emails, contact police. More on the CBC. 

Here is a classic advance fee fraud scam email. It is the classic "widow of wealthy man wants someone to help her with a large amount of money".

Here is another job offer type scam. This is most likely a money laundering operation, with the victim collecting the money order and cashier cheques from other victims of other types of scams, and forwrad the ill gotten gains to the scammers.

This is the e-Learning portal that Egypt's Ministry of Education has setup. Seems like a good cause, and would be useful inside Egypt as well as for other Arabic speakers abroad.E-Learning Portal for Egypt's Ministry of Education بوابة لتعليم الإلكتروني - وزارة التربية والتعليم