It's been awhile since I updated this page. I've picked up another cheap server to test along with the one running this site. I'm messing around with this cheap server since it was only $29.95 a month. For the price, it's fantastic. The amount of bandwidth it can push, as well as the fact it's an actual Linux machine means I'm able to run Apache 2 in the environment it should be run, and not a Windows one.

In other news, everything I'm working on will be moved under the Whitecalf name. My old plans for having a large site put together into different sections will be coming together soon. I'll have the motivation to work on it since I'll be in a more comfortable position as I do my work.

If you haven't yet, sign up at MK Web Services. For very reasonable rates, you can get web hosting, domain names, and other services like SSL certificates and domain name evaluations.

I'll be posting more news here soon. With a little reorganization, I'll have a better focus for what this site will be about.

I am pulling MKWeb out of mothballs in order to start focusing on web host reviews, and other information related to hosting. I'll be reorganizing the site around hosting reviews, and other Internet-related topics. Domain names are also likely, as I am a domain-name reseller.

I'm going to be promoting the best hosts I've encountered over the years, as we also discuss other hosts and the problems they have. This is going to be an open community that anyone can join, however we will have some rules that will need to be obeyed at all times. The site has a Wiki that will be opened up to have reference information for each webhost, as well as contact information and recommendations.

This is an exciting new venture that will change the pace of the hosting industry. This site is being built on trust and integrity. We want our users to find the host that suits them best, not through scamming, or being secretive about referral links, but by being open and encouraging them to go with the one that really does suit their needs.

It's so crazy, it may actually work!

One of the greatest things about the Internet is that you can find almost anything on it. When I say "almost anything", I really mean "almost anything". The only thing you won't find on the Internet is history. I'm not talking about History, but the history of small towns and other minor things that happened years upon years ago. Fortunately back then there was no such thing as "blogs". People actually had to write their thoughts down on a piece of paper, or in a binded book with paper. I know... it's downright stone age isn't it? Having written a letter recently, and sent it through the postal system, it's given me a better perspective on how the old folks used to communicate back when long-distance was expensive, and there was no such thing as the Internet. I have to give them credit, they did a good job roughing it.

Other than history though, it can oftentimes be difficult to find people. I have a friend who's trying to find many of her friends from years ago and I imagine with a bit of work she'll be able to find almost all of them with a little help from Google. I say this because I've found people I lost track of a long time ago, or vice versa. I leave the past in the past now 99% of the time though. It's nice to know people are getting along well with their lives, but there's no point in bothering them again. If it mattered that much, I wouldn't have lost track of them in the first place! With the Internet, it's hard to make the excuse that you can't get ahold of someone. Unless they completely closed up shop, killed their e-mail account, deleted any other accounts to other websites they might have, and left town, it should be relatively easy to find them using the Internet. With Google at your fingertips, nothing will remain hidden for long.

This brings me to the last thing, disappearing completely from the Internet is impossible. Even hiding behind a screenname is unlikely to protect you in the long-term, especially if you use it for more than one website. You'll just have to accept that once you've posted on the Internet, it's going to be there for a very long time. Needless to say, it would be wise to make sure that you're willing to stand behind what you say, or at least have a very good method for hiding your identity when you do say something. As more and more people become proficient with technology and the Internet, there's going to be more trouble with online stalking. You won't ever know about it until it's too late.

Note: I wrote this a bit late last night, so if it doesn't make much sense... well it'll be gone soon enough.

It seems like there isn't a day that goes by that the Internet and the freedom it represent isn't being attacked by some government official, a foreign power, or some mega-corporation out to make as much freaking money as they can at the expense of everyone else. Basically what they want to do is limit certain competitors' bandwidth and speed over their network so they can charge a "fee" for the right to get prioritized access to that particular network. Basically, if one company doesn't pay, and the other does, the company that pays will have their content loaded faster. They also want to shut out competitors who develop services that compete with their own, VoIP for example.

So now they're trying to charge at both ends of the route. As consumers, we're already paying for the bandwidth to view websites. Now they want the content producers of these websites to pay as well... similar to how cable television is; we pay the cable company to view the stations, and the stations pay the cable company to air them. Putting this into motion for the Internet would have drastic effects like damaging start-up companies, having the ability to completely shut out competitors and the ability to hold a website hostage and make them pay out in order for their content to be viewed by a particular ISP's customers. And in order to pay these "fees" every month or year, even more advertising would go up on these websites, making the overall Internet experience even more polluted.

I don't like this idea at all and I see one potential solution. If network operators feel as though they can dictate what goes through the pipes they invested so heavily in (with their customer's monthly payments), then website owners should be completely in the clear to deny access to all those customers who use that particular network. This wouldn't be effective if just one website were to do it, but if there were enough major sites boycotting a network, that network's customers would start complaining that they couldn't access their favorite websites anymore; basically turning the tables on the greedy network operators.

This has support from the big names like AT&T and BellSouth and comes a few weeks after the CEO of SBC suggested that they should have the right to charge money for anyone using their bandwidth, even though the customers have already paid for it in their monthly cable bill. It's not like they're giving this out for free right now or anything. They just want to make as much money as they can from every possible avenue, and it's going to take a strong negative response from the public and Congress to set these huge corporations straight.

To be honest, I'd rather have the government regulating what I'm seeing on the Internet than some huge corporation like AT&T or Comcast (they aren't that Comcastic). They'd all be regulating what I'm viewing online, but at least the government wouldn't be charging an arm and a leg while they're doing it. I'm completely against BellSouth's plans as are big Internet names like Amazon, eBay and Google, and they're fighting back by sending letters to Congress.

Hopefully the Internet in the United States will get through this like the Internet as a whole was saved from certain doom by being operated and regulated by the United Nations or a coalition of other fine, upstanding, freedom-loving governments including China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. I mean seriously, you wouldn't let the fox guard the hen house would you?

The original article is at The Washington Post.

It's been mentioned a few times before, but now Google Base is really opening up for business. So, "that's great" you say, "but what does it do?" Well, it's like a database for classified ads, news articles and just about anything else you'd like to store online. Some suggestions it gives are course schedules, jobs, recipes, reviews, and events. Basically it could be a blogger's paradise if they don't mind having a website to call their own and share it with everyone else.

Personally I prefer having my own, but I may use it to publish excerpts of my articles so they can catch a wider audience. So far I have up two test articles that you can view to see what Google Base looks like, one being the article I did on Iran, and the other on MMORPGs.

It looks like Google Base could be useful to people without websites of their own, or if they want to attract more attention to themselves. I don't know exactly what they're planning to do with it, but every day they roll out something like this, it reminds me of a fictional video someone did about the future of Google. In the end, Google took over the Internet with all of its different features, at the expense of quality. Everything became trivia and useless to all but the advanced users who could make use of the tools to their full potential.

It looks like this new feature may be one more step towards that future. Give it a shot though; all you need is a Gmail address to get started (at least that's how I did it). You may find it to be useful... I have, even if it's just to advertise stuff that I post elsewhere.