Tracking cookies are small text files that can tell advertisers and Web analytics firms what you (or your computer or your IP address) are doing online, even though they usually don’t record your name or other identifiable information. They are used all over the Web, but in most cases, their presence is only disclosed deep inside privacy policies.

If the majority of the sites you vist are customers of the same one or two advertising companies, this would be useful in that you should only be served ads that have relevance to you. If you find this to be the case, then by all means keep the tracking cookies, if you wish. However, if you do want to know how to get rid of these tracking cookies, read on.

First of all, here are links to pages where you can opt out of the cookies set by double-click (probably the most common source of tracking cookies):

• http://www.doubleclick.com/us/about_doubleclick/privacy/
• http://www.omniture.com/privacy/2o7

I’d prefer a totally opt-in system, but obviously, it’s much more useful for the ad industry to require the opposite.

If you want to clean out all tracking cookies from all your Web sites, here are links where you can download three programs that can clean out tracking cookies:

• http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php
• http://www.spybot.info/en/download/index.html
• http://www.webroot.com/consumer/products/spysweeper/

You can also change the preferences or settings in your Web browser to control cookies. In some cases, you can choose to accept cookies from the primary site, but block them from third parties. In others, you can block cookies from specific sites or advertisers, or clear out all cookies.

Remember: Not all cookies are tracking cookies. For example, many Web sites place cookies on your computer to save information like your registration information or preferences for that site. They aren’t read by third parties (like advertisers) and can not tell the owning site about where you go online.

In the words of Jean Luc- Picard,

“We’ve made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther!”

Picard goes on to say that he will make the Borg pay, but that is not what I want. Rather, I want to stand and defend free speech. No religion (Islam included) is above question, criticism, critique, or examination. People the world over need to be reminded that the freedom of speech most certainly includes the freedom to offend.

However, the position of the Muslim community, even moderates, seems to be that Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you. In the words of Sam Harris at the Huffington Post (Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks)

Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence. 

….

Our capitulations in the face of these threats have had what is often called “a chilling effect” on our exercise of free speech. 

To paraphrase another writer (Mark Goldblatt’s post titled The Poet Versus the Prophet), we (and our Representatives in Government and Media) have failed. We are not walking the walk of our forebears, that gave us the freedoms we take for granted. We have failed to put ourselves on the line in order to defend the principles of free thought and free expression. Not just Christian principles, but the ideas of freedom of expression and belief, of tolerance — the very principles that are at the heart of the difference between the Judeo-Christian West and Islam.

People tend to think that having a great idea is enough, and they think the communication part will come naturally. We are in deep denial about the difficulty of getting a thought out of our own heads and into the heads of others. It’s just not true that, “If you think it, it will stick.”

And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.

Here’s the great cruelty of the Curse of Knowledge: The better we get at generating great ideas—new insights and novel solutions—in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That’s why knowledge is a curse. But notice we said “unnatural,” not “impossible.” Experts just need to devote a little time to applying the basic principles of stickiness.

JFK dodged the Curse [with “put a man on the moon in a decade”]. If he’d been a modern-day politician or CEO, he’d probably have said, “Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry, using our capacity for technological innovation to build a bridge towards humanity’s future.” That might have set a moon walk back fifteen years.

Google’s url shortener at goo.gl can also generate QR codes (See my previous post on how to use the QR Scanner included on Nokia Phones for more information) just by appending “.qr” after the goo.gl url.

So the url http://goo.gl/1hwd does a redirect to http://www.martin-english.com/whatsup/ just as it always did…

But now the url http://goo.gl/727X.qr will generate a QR code that also goes to http://www.martin-english.com/whatsup/. Check the source of the image below.

<image src="http://goo.gl/1hwd.qr" >

FWIW, I’ve also included a bookmarklet for using goo.gl. Drag the link to your toolbar or bookmark list, then when you want to goo.gl a page, just select the bookmarklet from your toolbar or bookmark list
Goo.gl this page

When Word Press introduced one click upgrade for pluggins, it was like Christmas in July. But this time maybe on the actual Christmas or perhaps slightly earlier with the release of Word Press 2.9, we will now be able to upgrade multiple pluggins with one click from our WordPress Admin Panel.

Optimize/Repair Database Functionality

WordPress has added a new feature to the core which allows you to repair and optimize your database. In order to activate this function, you will need to add this line in your wp-config.php

define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);

Once you have added it, you will now be able to run the script which is located at this URL:

http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php

WordPress Recycle Bin / Trash

One useful thing most desktop operating systems have is the trash bin or recycle bin. WordPress has now added similar functionality; instead of permanently deleting posts, pages, and the comments, you can now trash it and then later on empty the trash once you are completely done with what you were doing. By default WordPress will empty the trash every 30 days, but you can change the time limit by simply entering the following code in your wp-config.php:

define( ‘EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS’, 10 );

Image Editor

The image editor is something that a lot of users were waiting for and it is included in this release. This editor will let you make simple changes such as cropping, rotating, scaling, etc.

Ability to add Post Thumbnails

You have probably seen many sites displaying posts on the homepage with a post thumbnail. Or many sites having the post thumbnail next to each post in their index. Before version 2.9, it was done through custom fields. In this release, you can simply add the thumbnail when writing the post and displaying it in the template is even easier.

In order for you to have this functionality available in the admin panel, you must have a theme that supports this function. However, a quick way to add it now is to visit your theme’s functions.php and add the following code:

add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );

Once you choose the thumbnail, you display it on the template using the following code:

<?php the_post_thumbnail( ‘thumbnail’ ); ?>

Extend User Contact Info

The WordPress user profile page is quite old and many new networks have gain popularity such as twitter and facebook. Prior to version 2.9, it was really hard to add a custom field in the contact area, but thanks to Joost De Valk for his contribution, now this feature is available.

Simply open your functions.php and add the following function:

<?php
function my_new_contactmethods( $contactmethods ) {
// Add Twitter
$contactmethods['twitter'] = ‘Twitter’;
//add Facebook
$contactmethods['facebook'] = ‘Facebook’;

return $contactmethods;
}
add_filter(‘user_contactmethods’,’my_new_contactmethods’,10,1);

?>

This will add extra fields in your user profile pages.

You can display these on author profile page by using the normal $curauth variable or the_author_meta variable.

New Excerpt Filter

Up till WordPress 2.8.6, if you added the_excerpt code in the loop, it would display content with a 55 word limit and once the word limit was reached, it would add [...]. With this new ability, You can now specify a function and control both excerpt word count, and the more text. Implement this by opening your theme’s function.php file and add the following code:

// Changing excerpt length

function new_excerpt_length($length) {
return 60;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_length’, ‘new_excerpt_length’);

// Changing excerpt more
function new_excerpt_more($more) {
return ‘…’;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_more’, ‘new_excerpt_more’);

All thanks goes to Ramiy for suggesting this feature.

oEmbed making Embedding Easier

Thanks to ViperBond007 that this feature was added to the core of WordPress 2.9. It is a specification that allows media providers like Flickr, YouTube and others to provide data for consumer applications like WordPress about media.

There are many many more features that are being included in this version. To see a full list check out version 2.9 page in the codex.

Generation Y also have little job loyalty.

….

‘There can be a sense of “I am better than that” or, somehow, what you asking is beneath them. …. They don’t volunteer, or the ones that do really stand out,’ complains one senior accountant…

…Karen Young, business director for Hays Senior Finance, concedes this clash of expectations can be cause problems. ‘Often the managers or partners will have worked really hard to get to the top and these guys seem just to want a fast track,’ she says. ‘Often they do not fully realise the value of core work experience on their CV and, on top of this, have a very strong concept of work-life balance.’

However, as Dennis Howlett points out:

senior partners and staff in large firms are so busy running around to meetings, making sales and keeping clients happy that there is little time devoted to skills transference. That leaves less senior (and by definition less experienced/skilled) staff to pass on their knowledge to the next generation. Worse still, supervision that would act as back stops for errors or omissions are eroding. Is it therefore surprising when young hopefuls simply shrug, pack up their bags and move on to the next opportunity?

via The greasy pole | AccMan.

Blacklists are a flawed method of censorship; they are inaccurate and subjective. The subject matter (child pornorgrapohy) is transferred via other medium on the internet. The time and money being spent on this filter can be more usefully spent attacking those who are breaking the law with tools that work

And here’s a link for those of you who think you have nothing to hide.

The ACMA blacklist article on Wikileaks. Link to theie copy of the blacklist from there.