While Wired might not get it there was a nice article with links in the Google Code Blog.

If you're one of the folks who is testing out (or using the now released) new Firefox then you've probably seen an error message saying something like "Security Error: Domain Name Mismatch" and then it says a bunch of jargony stuff and then you see that the domain is for "sb-ssl.google.com error 12263... however the security certificate presented belongs to www.google.com...If you suspect the certificate shown does not belong to sb-ssl.google.com please cancel the connection and notify the site administrator". What the heck is that?

Images are fun. A little while ago Mozilla told the Debian folks that if Debian wanted to keep shipping the browser as "Firefox" and use the Firefox art then they have to follow the rules for using the Firefox name and art. These are in place to protect the Mozilla brand and security - e.g. you can't recompile Firefox with a cookie/traffic snooper and still call it Firefox.

Several Debian folks got upset about this because it didn't feel Free enough to them. Interestingly, Debian has a very similar policy about the use of their artwork:

1. This logo may only be used if:
   • the product it is used for is made using a documented procedure as published on www.debian.org (for example official CD-creation)
   • official approval is given by Debian for its use in this purpose
2. May be used if an official part of debian (decided using the rules in I) is part of the complete product, if it is made clear that only this part is officially approved
3. We reserve the right to revoke a license for a product

This morning I was reading stuff from planet mozilla which pointed me to the below photo (original source).

Well, this was frustrating to me. So, I decided to grab a little Debian artwork and have some fun in Inkscape.

Resolution to the Problem

And just so that I'm not another log on the fire - it would be nice if some folks (e.g. Mitchell Baker and Anthony Towns) to say "Enough is enough, we're both great and well respected Open Source projects that have to protect our respective trademarks and we will honor the each other's trademark terms - no hypocritical criticism necessary".

There are several new companies coming out of the woodwork to help smaller publishers make money from their blog or blogs. I see this as just another step on the path from traditional media to distributed citizen media. It's also a great development in terms of enabling individuals to take control of their financial destiny.

History and Progress

Newspapers, radio shows, and other traditional media have always written favorable articles about advertisers. That is, after all, a big part of the motivation for Consumer Reports - to provide unbiased reviews of products. There are also several watchdog agencies that are pointing out the commercial bias in traditional media as Andy Hagans points out in the ReviewMe Blog. So, this is just a further step in an existing trend. And, as a further step, it's not surprising that a lot of the same contentious issues play out.

If you send a free gadget to a reviewer is that a "pay per review" situation? Martin Varsavsky debates this point but in his case he's lucky to just have a $5 product! But, when jounalists given over $500 worth of multimedia/cell phone kit, can you really expect them to be totally unbiased in writing about Nokia? Some people are bashing this new wave of "paid blogging" as biasing the blogosphere, but it's not as cut/clear of an issue as some

At the same time we've all heard the statistics about people ignoring advertising more and more - so marketers are a bit concerned about how to keep getting their ideas passed along in meme sex.

Review of the Companies

I want a personal injury lawyer for spam. For a variety of reasons I have to keep various email addresses that I use public. Some of these are used for work related to my neighborhood in Denver. We consistently get spam on those addresses from all sorts of places, and yeah, I want to sue those folks. But that's pretty hard. They hide and do all sorts of shady stuff that would prevent finding them.

Living in Denver's Baker Neighborhood is interesting for me - there are many many artistic people who choose this neighborhood which makes the landscaping, home painting, home architecture really neat. The other benefit is that lots of my neighbors are artists and grahpic designers - handy when I do web development.

On September 14th I went to get the data for another round of geographic analysis of FON (density by country and Fonero Growth by country). I was surprised to see the maps had been completely redone and the data I need is no longer readily available. Well, a quick visit to the Google cache of the maps overview page gave me the data I wanted from September 7th. So, I've got snapshots from July 14, August 21, and September 7th which makes monthly growth information a little skewed, but interesting all the same.

This month I have three charts - The 10 most dense countries, the 10 countries with the fastest growth in my sample period, and then a larger chart with some more growth and density information for all countries. Germany is perhaps the most exciting country in these since they are in the top 10 of both: they've really grown quickly and their density, while still not at the highest quality, is getting better fast.

Top 10 most Dense Countries with Foneros

Top 10 countries with the fastest FON Router Growth