Interesting histories and etymologies of web development technologies and other common terms

As a Developer there isn’t a day that goes by without making use of a name, acronym or phrase that doesn’t have an interesting history. Whilst we’re familiar with the usage of web technologies and concepts, not everyone knows much about their respective etymologies. I’ve looked up a few of them, and listed the more interesting ones here.

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Bond Girls: now and then

Tomorrow Never Dies – but it sure does wrinkle. Here’s a look at some of the Bond girls over the years, and how they’re faring in the present day.

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Is a recession good for digital media?

It’s kinda gloomy at the moment, hey? The big ‘R’ word being thrown around left, right and centre and companies downsizing where they can. Digital media, as an extension of the marketing industry is caught up in the growing concern about job security and the general future of advertising agencies.

Those concerns may not be as accurate as they may first appear. We haven’t seen the economy in such a downturn in nearly 30 years, so effectively this is the first time Internet industries have faced this situation (ignoring the dotcom bubble burting days, which arguably Internet businesses brought on by themselves).

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Use Gmail for free and easy database backups

I wrote a post about backing up databases to email a while ago, but didn’t really explain what could be done.

I use a budget web hosting company for a website that collects data that’s important to me. I don’t want to rely on the hosting company to maintain this by themselves, as I’ve been burnt this way before. I also don’t want to pay for a further hosting solution to look after my backups either.

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Darling, I need ya

New video from awesome Sydney band, Kid Confucius

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX5OVu4OP8Q

Hadron Collider – check out my new sweet toy

As the world divides over the risk versus the scientific merits of starting up the massive Hadron Collider today, I found this picture. As much faith as I instil in CERN scientists, seeing this researcher in a hoodie with his hard hat back-to-front doesn’t do much for the image of those supposedly enriching humankind with new knowledge and capabilities.

Technical Prowess & the Inability to Say Sorry

This is a rant. Just so you know.

At work it’s been a bad week for our hosting partner. We found out on Monday that they had been serving Webalizer on our server without telling us for a whole year. So that’s one year of confidential marketing reports freely available to anyone who stumbles on the URL (which was not hard to guess). After ignoring my first request (marked urgent) they replied with a snotty email telling me it stats are installed by default, but these days they don’t do that. Of course, I was overjoyed to hear that their new customers don’t suffer this embarrassing lapse in security.

No apology.

On Tuesday I chased a new account request with them that wasn’t done from the previous day. An equally unapologetic response.

On Wednesday we realised that after repeated requests to have somebody who has moved to another team in my company to be removed as a contact, it still wasn’t done. They told us to go through every individual domain registered with them and to change the contact name listed. We responded with a firm ‘hell no,’ as we’re the paying customer and will not spend hours going through our domains because of their inability to create an efficient management tool. They responded back with what was effectively flipping us the bird, saying they’re not willing to make the changes.

Today they told me that the Senior Developer at Host wasn’t an authorised contact onour account. I sent them email proof that I requested Werner has the same authorisation as I do back in January. Their response was to tell me that we’ve got two accounts, and Werner’s only authorised on one. No apology.

I understand how it can be hard to say sorry. When something goes wrong, putting a ’sorry’ in an email takes guts. Although when you don’t do it, it makes you look cowardly and a little pathetic. We don’t doubt they’re good at what they do, and an apology wouldn’t change that view but actually help us in that we’d know they understood something went wrong and will make sure it doesn’t happen again.

‘Sorry’ for the rant. See?

Cuil for School

Last week people started talking about Cuil, a new search engine with ambitions on taking on Google’s own search service. I guess it’s about a week after the PR machine swung into action and I can’t help but feel that the public’s enthusiasm is wavering from what wasn’t exactly the warmest reception in the first place.

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Technology Products Becoming Brands

Before the Internet, a brand was something you would trust and identify with. You’d have expectations about the quality and possibly put more value (that value might be monetary or emotional) into your relationship with the brand.

Today we have the same relationships with our brands, but some of the products they represent are intangible technology. Google is undoubtedly the prime example of this relationship. Much as you might ask for a Kleenex rather than a tissue, you will Google rather than search.

I’ve begun to question the reasons for my relationship with products like Google. Do I use Google for search, email, website tracking, RSS and my calendar because I believe the technology is the best or because  I want to conform?

I’ve been in meetings with other web-savvy types in the company I work for (in advertising) and when we talk of group calendars, SEO techniques,  IM solutions and such; Google is the solution. I have to admit it’s frustrating when people stick to what they think they know because the technology lives under a familiar brand. There’s lots of fantastic technology out there made by a vast community of talented and creative people. We should be trying to discover what we don’t know rather than stick to the beaten path.

To me, branded technology indicates an expected standard, not cutting edge innovation.

Australian TV News

Sometimes after a long day at work it’s nice to put my feet up and check out the news. I’ve been in Australia for nearly 2 and a half years now, in that time I’ve made conclusions about the television news in the country and the quality of the journalism behind it, and the quality of the newsreader who fronts it:

Personally I like SBS news, but sometimes it’s just nicer to spend an evening in front of Channel 9 News. Depends on my mood I guess.