Wait? Is this really a thing? Talk about disruption.
Category: Internet
Tim Wu, writing at the *New Yorker*:
> “The answer is yes,” Obama replied. “I am a strong supporter of net neutrality.” Explaining, he said, “What you’ve been seeing is some lobbying that says that the servers and the various portals through which you’re getting information over the Internet should be able to be gatekeepers and to charge different rates to different Web sites…. And that I think destroys one of the best things about the Internet—which is that there is this incredible equality there.”
If reports in the Wall Street Journal are correct, Obama’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Thomas Wheeler, has proposed a new rule that is an explicit and blatant violation of this promise. In fact, it permits and encourages exactly what Obama warned against: broadband carriers acting as gatekeepers and charging Web sites a payola payment to reach customers through a “fast lane.”
People in the tech industry are now starting to realize what everyone who opposed Obama said from the start: nothing he said on the campaign trail was true.
In his piece on [Media Temple being bought by GoDaddy](http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/10/16/4843104/alcs-game3-peralta-bad-call-one-run-games-red-sox-tigers), Marco makes some recommendations about where to host your website. I agree with this recommendation:
> For VPSes, I use and recommend [Linode](https://www.linode.com/?r=0a0ee6d9705b4ea2ace5f56965fd14bde1b69828). They’ve been remarkably consistent over the last couple of years, and their control panel is excellent. I ran some test servers on the cheaper, SSD-equipped [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/) over the last few months, but found them to be inconsistent and immature. I think they’re having trouble keeping up with their growth.
I have been using [Lindoe](https://www.linode.com/?r=0a0ee6d9705b4ea2ace5f56965fd14bde1b69828)[^fn1] for a couple of years to host all of my websites, and I really, really like it.
[^fn1]: Affiliate Link (as is the Linode link in the quote.)
> In 1Password 4 there is a brilliant new section called Security Audit. In the sidebar it shows you tabs for finding weak passwords, duplicate passwords, and old passwords.
> Clicking on the Duplicate Passwords tab gives you a list with every single login item that has a duplicate password. If you have any items here then you can begin working your way through each account, by logging in to the site and changing your password with a new unique one and saving that into 1Password.
Woah. I was in the beta and I never even noticed this. I am going to have to do this as a weekend project.
Categories
Instacast Cloud Sync Outage
> Yesterday evening (european time) something happened with Instacast Cloud’s sync server that made it completely inaccessible. After a failed attempt to restore from a recent backup, we contacted Host Europe, our provider, and escalated the issue. However, Host Europe’s personnel were not able to restore from the corrupt backup either, and they told us that all data on the server is GONE (yikes!). This, as you can imagine, is the worst possible scenario that could happen to Instacast Cloud. Backups are there for a reason, and if a backup system fails, and also fails to report that it failed, there is no chance of a quick recovery.
They had to re-setup the server from scratch, however, none of your sync information should be lost. Based on my minimal trials this morning, it appears that everything is working again.
One question: Why did he[^fn2] not call it Step Wrangler?
[^fn2]: Side note – I will now refer to David Smith as “Underscore” on this site.
From the “water is wet” and “the sky is blue” area of the newspaper.[^fn1]
[^fn1]: How about we figure out how much of a disaster Obamacare is before we try to crush Internet commerce with ridiculous regulations and taxes?
Great tip from Gabe Weatherhead over at MacDrifter about the new Do Not Link service:1
You can easily use the service by appending the target URL as follows:
-
The purpose of the service is to allow you to link to a website without helping that website's “Google Juice.” ↩
Categories
Reeder 2 now available
Reeder 2[^faff] is out. As a Feed Wrangler user, I have been waiting for this.
[^faff]: Affiliate Link (as is the post link.)
Categories
Oops
I mean, I now can post with multiple categories per post.
Categories
Simplenote Relaunch Coming
I used to use Simplenote as my primary note taking system, but I moved over to [Notesy](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notesy-for-dropbox/id386095500?mt=8&at=10l5TL) when Simplenote started to show its age. I hope that the new versions of Simplenote are great.
It now costs $6 a month to “rent” a modem from Time Warner Cable for your broadband service. That is ridiculous. Anyone who has Time Warner should go [buy a modem instead](http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-cable-modem-is-the-motorola-sb6141/).
I am one of the current 246 members of Ben’s site, and have been one since he first started with non-ad supported paywall. I support the site because I think the non-ad supported model has allowed Ben to write better, more in-depth, reviews and articles than the previous ad model allowed.
If you think you might be interested in reading quality writing, from a independent voice, check out a few of my favorite Ben Brooks pieces:
* [Private v. Public Networks](http://brooksreview.net/2013/04/first-class-baby/)
* [The Transporter (the device, not the movie)](http://brooksreview.net/2013/07/transporter-2/)
* [Coffee Shops trying to run off “WiFi Hobos](http://brooksreview.net/2013/07/coffee-shops-look-to-oust-laptop-hobos/)
* [Why Kickstarter’s Apology to the “Seduction Guide” Fiasco was not Good Enough](http://brooksreview.net/2013/06/good-for-nothing-chickenshits/)
* [Tips on Writing](http://brooksreview.net/2013/05/on-writing/)
If you like what you read, then consider [signing up for a membership](http://brooksreview.net/members/).
Justin gives a great summary of everything involved. His concluding section is especially strong:
> The vulnerability isn’t Baliç’s. It’s Apple’s. He just discovered it and Apple deemed it severe enough that their response was to take down their entire developer program until they can close the hole.
> I’ve been incredibly vocal about the inconvenience that the downtime has caused me, but knowing how big of an issue it is, I’m fine with Apple taking their time to get the fix right.
> I am not fine, however, with them trying to paint themselves the victim of malicious intent when in reality it looks as though someone properly reported a vulnerability in their code to them.
> No one comes out of this looking clean, but it could have been a lot worse if a more dark hacker discovered the vulnerability before Baliç.
It is great for searching new podcasts and search for specific topics within podcasts.
As I have [explained before](https://johnkiv.us/2013/06/27/picking-a-google-reader-replacement//), my post-Google Reader setup is very similar to Chris’s. Personally, I think he should give [Mr. Reader](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=https%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fmr.-reader%252Fid412874834%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30)[^fn1] a shot, especially since there is no estimate of when we might see a new version of Reeder. Also, after reading his take on [ReadKit](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=https%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Freadkit%252Fid588726889%253Fmt%253D12%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30):
> As I’ve mentioned in the past, I don’t own a Mac (yet). But if I did, I’d probably be using ReadKit. It’s not only an RSS reader that supports Feed Wrangler, but it can also tie into your Instapaper queue and other services.
> Items can even be moved back-and-forth between RSS and “read later” services within the app, which is really cool to me.
I think he will be disappointed in the way ReadKit integrates with sharing services. The lack of easy sharing for Feed Wrangler items without some kind of “drag and drop” transfer, made ReadKit pretty useable for me.
[^fn1]: Affiliate Link (as are all App Store links in this post)
Categories
Dr. Drang on RSS
> The issue of feature mismatch between a feed reading app and a syncing service is the subject of this post by Brent Simmons. He makes a good argument in favor of having the app and the service tightly integrated and suggests that that might be why Black Pixel is taking so long to add syncing to NetNewsWire. I think Brent’s paternal feelings toward NNW are coloring his judgement. Although having its own customized sync service makes sense in the long run, Black Pixel should have included syncing with one or more of the commonly available services as an interim measure. By having no syncing at all in NNW 4, they’ve made their product irrelevant to the many users who read feeds on two or more devices and will not use a reader that doesn’t sync. They’re going to have to come up with something extremely compelling to get those users to pay attention again.
I completely agree. Maybe Black Pixel will beat everyone else to the Mac with an app that syncs with various RSS service. It not, however, I doubt I will ever give them a second thought.
As an aside, my favorite paragraph from Dr. Drang’s article is actually:
> Although the Google Reader site is shut down, the Google Feedfetcher process is still going strong, valiantly visiting sites and grabbing their feeds for no apparent purpose. My site logs show it visiting here hundreds of times today, faithfully doing its job like WALL•E. Will someone at Google remember to flip its switch off?
Even though Google Reader shut down yesterday, I know a lot of people are still looking for an alternative to use. This breakdown from Robert Agcaoli is especially helpful for those who are concerned about how the solutions’ Web UI works.
An updated version of Reeder is out that includes sync with [Feed Wrangler](http://feedwrangler.net). Unfortunately, this update does not support Smart Streams[^fn1].
[^fn1]: Basically, this means I might use it sometimes, but that the native Feed Wrangler iOS app will be the primary way I read RSS feeds on my iPhone until the new version of Reeder comes along
Alternatives to using *Google Takeout* to backup your Google Reader data. Mihai Parparita’s [*reader_archive* tool](http://blog.persistent.info/2013/06/getting-all-your-data-out-of-google.html) sounds like the most comprehensive method of extraction.