EFF: We're concerned about Google's Omnibox | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET

It never fails to astonish me that in the interest of anti-trust to make room for competition, that the world is completely ignoring the privacy issue.

Basically what Chrome will do is automatically send keystrokes in the Omnibox back to Google, where they will store a percentage of the info (they say 2%). Another words, they will know what you are looking for, track your behaviors, and who knows what else they are adding to their store of knowledge they already have about you.

Some key points:

1. While Google states they will only be storing about 2% of the data sent, think about how prolific Google is out there and how many millions of users there are. 2% really means a lot of data.

2. Yes, you can turn this off using their Incognito mode, however, will the average user really be doing this? Here is a good analogy. Think about Adobe's Flash player. The average user of the internet (and these far outnumber the advanced users), doesn't even think twice about loading Flash. The same tenant is true in this case. The data is going to be sent without the average user's knowledge, and Google knows this. They aren't going to advertise this fact clearly, rather they will tout Omnibox as a feature.

More and more the user is not in control of their data in the world of the internet (don't get me started about control of identity). And Google is only perpetuating this trend.

One last point. I wholeheartedly agree with the comment in this article that the tolerance of the regulators is wearing thin on this issue of privacy. The next big shake up in the world of technology and the regulators is going to be Google and their blasé attitude about privacy. Keep your eyes on the EU (European Union). I predict that this is about to become a big problem for Google, along the lines of "Microsoft-sized" fines.

Go ahead, read it. Read the comments too...

After reading through the comments, here are some of my thoughts about it.

I think that to have all of the killer apps is not the be all end all, in fact, I think that it eventually implodes on itself. There is no such thing as an unbeatable killer app either. The innovation and competition out there makes that impossible. Just look at Microsoft's Office Suite, and how there are open-source applications that are targeting that market share.

I think that interop is key to the cloud. While you may have stuff stored in one place, or even in multiple, I would prefer to have multiple tools, best of breed from whichever vendor, or whatever I find that fits how I work, to access that data.

It is impossible to have one vendor to rule them all, and in my opinion, would not be a place I would want my business. I thought the post about Google taking over the world was funny, because I truly think it is impossible to do. Would you not think that is a form of benevolent dictatorship? Our regulatory organizations globally frown upon that business practice. Microsoft is definitely a case in point.

Remember, people are fickle, and opinions change on a dime.

There were a lot of differing opinions out there that went from loving the ability to access their applications/data from anywhere to those who liked the mix of having desktop applications to reach into the cloud. This is one of the tenets of Microsoft's vision of Software + Services (S+S), having that flexibility of putting everything online at one end of the spectrum, to having rich client applications reaching into the cloud at the other.

Just my opinions on the opinions!

Everyone knows what LEGO's® are...at least I hope they do. I can remember my brother playing with them, creating huge battle saga's that spanned our family room floor. And my mom, forever vacuuming them up (I can still hear the horrible rattling sound as they met their end), and everyone in my family stepping on them...

Well who knew that you would actually be able to PLAY with them again, at WORK no less. Check this out...

I wanted to point out to everyone a really cool workshop being held at PDC called WomenBuild: Inspiring Career Paths in Technology. This is going to be a tremendous workshop, where Microsoft and the LEGO® Serious Play Program (LSP) have teamed up to use a rich, interactive way of modeling real-life business challenges using LEGO® Bricks.

This is such a neat way of using models in a collaborative and visual way to stimulate creative thinking. The challenge: becoming thought leaders in the technical world, and inspiring other women in the technical industry. The payoff: creating long lasting relationships with other women in the technology industry, learning to think creatively and applying that to reality, and most importantly NETWORKING.

I encourage anyone who is interested to register for this workshop! Hope to see you there!

Hi everyone!

One of the things that I am particularly passionate about is getting young women more interested in the technology industry. If you look back to a post I did a long time ago, you will see that women in tech never have to wait in line for the restrooms at technical conferences and such ;0

In honor of National Women’s History Month Microsoft is supporting the YWCA with the iGive program.  YWCA organization’s mission is to eliminate racism and empower women. The YWCA  helps build strong women leaders and serves as an advocate for women's rights and civil rights in Congress. 

So if you are at MIX '08 in Las Vegas on March 7th or are going to the Financial Services Developers Conference in New York City on March 12th & 13th, check this out! You can give these wonderful, limited edition T-shirts to your daughters or significant others. Men are welcome to wear the ladies shirts, just as we always do with men’s shirts :).

Look for the team roaming around, help a GREAT cause, and get a COOL T-shirt!

Read on for the details...

If you are at MIX, on March 7^th, come collect a shirt by sending off the Code Trip team on their adventures. The bus will be leaving from the Sands Expo loading area which is part of the Venetian conference centers.  Simply go to the first floor of the convention room areas (instead of heading up the escalator to MIX, head down) and follow the signs to the Sands Expo area.

If you want to participate, follow these 5 easy steps:

Step1. Donate to the YWCA.

Step2. Print out your receipt (if you don't have access to a printer, find one of the Developer & Platform Evangelism Team members for alternatives)

Step3. Attend MIX08 or the FSDevCon. Mix 08 on March 7 & 8^th in Las Vegas or FSDevCon March 12 & 13^th in New York City.

Step4. Find a member of Microsoft’s Developer Platform & Evangelism group at either event.

Step 5. Make the trade. Swap your receipt for a limited edition Swarovski crystal studded iGive serialized shirt. One serial shirt per person (2 in series : Vegas & NYC).

). This is hilarious (and kinda scary too)!

https://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=MWWzrp3xkYY

She just recently published THREE PodCasts on Arizona State University's site (WAY TO GO MOM!). This is amazing to me.Why? Because we always hear so much about "yeah, but can my GRANDMOTHER do it?"

Well my mom is a grandmother, and YES SHE CAN DO IT and indeed she did. I think that this is indicative of how our digital world is evolving and is bleeding across generational lines. I can remember teachning my mom how to use a mouse by playing solitare. Now she is doing podcasts, uses powerpoint like a pro, and has her OWN laptop. She is just about as obsessed as I am about looking at email.

Our digital world is growing, and is getting easier and easier to use. We are seeing more blogs, social podcasts, community growth on a viral level...from an enterprise perspective, we are seeing more companies plugging into these trends. I just got done checking out ShopLocal.com, and they have community links, a shopping guru blogger...Very cool.

So for all of you out there who sit and think about whether things are easy enough for your mom, or grandmother to use, don't underestimate that generation.

I have been slowly picking up Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (affectionately known as MOSS 2007) over the past year. I just got done doing a crash course in authentication and federation using Alternate Access Mappings and using ADFS with it. Whew that was interesting! I will blog on that experience later...

For those out there that are in the Chicago area, there is going to be a MOSS Camp held by Clarity Consulting, Sogeti, The Revere Group, and Microsoft.

Larry Clarkin, fellow Architect Evangelist on my team, has a blog post that tells you ALL about it.

Or you can go to the MOSSCamp site for all the details and to register.

Hope to see you there! I will most likely be one of the only female Infrastructure Architects there (just call me Server Girl). Just look for the girl struggling with Visual Studio and cursing :)

Hope there are marshmallows for making S'mores...mmmmm gooey.....

Did you know that you can help improve upon what we already have? MICROSOFT WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU. You can send feedback right to the people who are working on its development!

Grab the beta bits here. Load it up, kick the tires!

Don't have a spare machine? That's OK, use one of our Virtual Labs or grab one of the Virtual Hard Drives to use with Virtual Server 2005 R2.

Then go and VOTE and GIVE FEEDBACK on the best scenarios, get some How-To's, learn about the capabilities!

It also seems that I have been hearing an awful lot about Captcha's. In truth, i learned about these two weeks ago when I attended a conference for women bloggers called BlogHer. Interesting conference to say the least. Pretty Google and FireFox centric, but that is a topic for another post.

So one of the discussions that I heard during one of the sessions was about Captcha's, and how one should really consider incorporating that into their sites. I did a bit more reading and chatting about these (yes, another Arm Chair Discussion with my man after he listened to a podcast on this very subject) , and it is a very interesting technique for determining if you are a human being.

<from the movie The Fifth Element during random police raid>

Police: Are you classified as human?
Korben Dallas: Negative, I am a meat popsicle.

</end>

I find it very funny that we, as humans, develop programs to automate things, and then develop programs to determine if something is automated and block it. Just a random thought, kinda funny, I digress...

So Captcha (an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), is exactly what the acronym describes, and is trademarked by Carnegie Mellon University. It is to help with many things, from helping to prevent email spam, and blog comment spam. You can read more about what this is all about on wikipedia on Captcha's. These are those wierd distorted letters you see thatyou have to verify by typing in so that you can get access to something (like sigining up for a new service such as an email account).

Well we humans, being smart, clever, devious things, are getting better at programming around the standard psychedelic letters. So the other side of the is trying to outsmart the computers (or is it ourselves, wierd) by finding other ways to determine if you are human. This was an interesting article that was posted up on InfoWorld last week about using pictures and having people identify what is in the picture. It goes on to note, that instead of identifying a person (like who is the hottie in this group of photos), they are switching to using animals, like kitties.

Pretty cool stuff I must say. Go check it out here.