YouTube On The Blink

Most of the world's internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours after an attempt by Pakistan's government to block access domestically affected other countries.

The outage highlighted yet another of the internet's vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fibre-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt offline and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

An internet expert likened the cause of the outage to "identity theft" by a Pakistani telecommunications company, which accidentally started advertising itself as the fastest route to YouTube.

But instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

On Friday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 internet service providers to block access to YouTube.com, because of anti-Islamic movies on the video-sharing site, which is owned by Google Inc.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

The block was intended to cover only Pakistan, but extended to about two-thirds of the global internet population, starting at 1847 GMT yesterday (0547 AEDT Monday), according to Renesys Corp, a Manchester, New Hampshire, firm that keeps track of the pathways of the internet for telecommunications companies and other clients.

The greatest effect was in Asia, were the outage lasted for up to two hours, Renesys said.

YouTube confirmed the outage today, saying it was caused by a network in Pakistan.

"We are investigating and working with others in the internet community to prevent this from happening again," YouTube said in an emailed statement.

A YouTube spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an emailed question on whether the clips that offended Pakistan's government had been removed. Several clips with interviews of Wilders were still up on the site this afternoon.

Two apparent errors allowed the outage to propagate beyond Pakistan, according to Todd Underwood, vice-president and general manager of internet community services at Renesys.

Pakistan Telecom established a route that directed requests for YouTube videos from local internet subscribers to a "black hole", where the data was discarded, according to Renesys. Pakistan Telecom's mistake was that it then published that route to its international data carrier, PCCW Ltd of Hong Kong, Underwood said.

The second mistake was that PCCW accepted that route, Underwood said. It started directing requests from its customers for YouTube data to Pakistan. And since PCCW is one of the world's 20 largest data carriers, its routing table was passed along to other large carriers without any attempt at verification.

"Once a pretty big network gets an error like that, it propagates to most or all of the internet very quickly," Underwood said. As he put it, Pakistan Telecom was impersonating YouTube to much of the world.

Pakistan Telecom and the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority were unavailable for comment tonight local time.

Rex Stover, vice president of sales for PCCW Global in Herndon, Virginia, said the company was still trying to figure out what happened and why.

SMH

Disabling User Account Control in Windows Vista

User Account Control in Windows Vista is responsible for all of those irritating pop-ups that ask you whether a program can have permission to continue. Now, I understand Microsoft wanting to decrease security breaches in their operating systems but sometimes this is downright irritating. So, to turn it off just follow these steps:

1. Go into Control Panel.
2. Select User Accounts.
3. Select the account that you want to change.
4. Click the Turn User Account Control on or off link.
5. Reboot your machine.

No more irritating questions about running a program that you've just double-clicked and know you want opening...

Ion e-Business run a web site design company in Mission Beach, Far North Queensland.

Problems With Internet Explorer 7 and Flash on Vista

I have recently been having some problems with Internet Explorer running extremely slowly on Vista Ultimate. After a long drawn out process of disabling Add-Ons I found that it was a problem with Flash - that coupled with the occassional script errors I was getting gave it away! The thing that stopped me looking into it being a Flash problem straight away was that the same websites viewed on Firefox and Safari worked fine so don't let this fool you too.

Now, I thought that I had the latest version of Flash as I had downloaded Flash 9 a couple of weeks earlier but it seems that wasn't the case. There is a file that you need to run in order to get the version of Flash that works with Vista. It is at C:\Windows\System32\macromed\flash\FlashUtil9d.exe. Note that depending on your version of Flash the 9d may be 9b or 9e etc. Magically, after you run this file Flash will start working properly again.

Ion e-Business run a website design company in Mission Beach, far North Queensland.

Domain Registration Made Easy

A note to everybody thinking of registering a domain and having a website developed. Make sure you register the domain yourself. I'm saying this because of some nasty practices used by web developers in the Cairns region. Here are just two recent examples:

1. One client's domain was about to expire, the contact details at the domain registrar were to the previous web developer and even after repeated phone calls to said previous web developer, the client was ignored, the domain expired and was immediately picked up by one of those irritating automated processes that go around finding expired domains - the end result being that the client lost their established domain name

2. The second example pertains to the same previous 'web developer' (note the use of inverted commas for sarcasm purposes) whereby the domain registration was done by them on the client's behalf but the client was never given the domain registrar password. This time the email contact details were the client's email address but since registration the client has cancelled this email address and the previous web developer has lost the password. The mess we now find ourselves in is that we cannot login to the domain registrar, cannot follow the procedures for lost password and subsequently cannot re-host the website.

My advice to people who are thinking of registering a domain is:

1. Do it yourself.
2. Do it with a reputable domain registrar - we at Ion e-Business use www.studiocoast.com.au.
3. If you're an Australian business use a .com.au extension. By all means purchase the .com as well but the .com.au should be your main web address.
4. Make sure that the email you use on the contact details is one you're not going to cancel in the future.
5. Archive all emails you receive from the domain registrar during the registration process and print a couple of copies that you can file away somewhere safe.

Then, when you're ready to have your website developed, give these details to your web developer so they can do their thing.

Mission Beach Website Design

Ion e-Business are the local web site design company in Mission Beach and are specialists in content management systems and the integration of reat-time booking systems.

Oi Clot

Yes, the title sounds like a mis-quote at an abortion clinic but (hey no, ed) seriously, what is the point in wearing flip-flops/thongs on the beach..? Listen to me, the sand won't hurt your feet. We promise. Don't wear shoes on Mission Beach - I will be sending telepathic vibes to my dog to poo where you're walking.

Website Development With Video

I'm currently doing some website design work for Great Barrier Reef diving company Calypso Dive and have been putting together a nice way for them to display a video gallery to their website users. This has involved me trying to find a good tool for shrinking the videos that come off their cameras. Even the smallest clips have been 20MB which is just too much for most people to download. Anyway, I've found a free tool so if you're interested contact me at Ion e-Business and I'll let you know where to download it from.

Coral Reefs Declining Fast

Coral reefs in the Pacific and Indian oceans are disappearing faster than had previously been thought, a scientific study has shown.
Nearly 1,554 sq km (600 sq miles) of reef have disappeared each year since the 1960s - twice the speed at which rainforest is being lost.

The corals are vanishing at a rate of 1% per year, a decline that has begun decades earlier than expected.

Details of the survey appear in the journal Plos One.



Read more at BBC online.

Teachers - Are They Really This Stupid?

Teachers have called for websites such as YouTube to be shut down as part of efforts to prevent pupils and staff being bullied. Delegates at the conference of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) said bullying can continue outside school and work hours.


They said bullies can send abusive text messages or e-mails to victims.



A spokesman for the website YouTube said the vast majority of people used the site responsibly.



At the PAT annual conference in Harrogate, delegates heard that bullies have posted mobile phone videos on websites, showing teachers as well as pupils being attacked or humiliated.



Read more...

Silicon Valley Start Ups

According to the Wall Street Journal, half of the 20 most inventive towns in the US are in Silicon Valley.


Nowadays the place is not just about silicon chip makers; all technology is here.



It is a string of satellite towns full of clever people, incredibly successful tech companies, and hopefuls looking to make the big time.



This place was the centre of the dotcom bubble of the mid 90s, when investors were pouring money into anything with a dot in the title. Of course it was also the hardest hit when the bubble burst. For every surviving big player, hundreds went under.



Now the optimism is back, along with the money.



Read more at BBC online.

Zazz Rules

I love Zazz. They sell some great stuff at amazing prices. I buy a lot of gear from them for my web site design company and it always turns up and works too.

Zaz

I love Zazz. I've said it before and I'll say it again. They sell some great stuff at amazing prices. I buy a lot of 'stuff' for my web site design company through them and it always turns up and works.

Sony Shares Up

Sony profits for the April to June period have more than doubled as robust demand for its cameras and a weak yen offset losses at its games unit.
Net earnings for the first quarter at the electronics giant rose to 66.5bn yen ($552m; £269m), up from 32.3bn yen last year.
The fall in the Japanese currency against the US dollar and euro helped boost the firm's overseas earnings.
But its Playstation 3 console continued to struggle in a tough games market.
PS3 troubles
Problems with the company's next generation games console - designed to compete with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii - caused its launch to be delayed.
Despite Sony cutting the price of the PS3 in the US, sales of the system still significantly trail Nintendo's Wii machine. Sony's games division saw losses widen to 29.2bn yen.
Sony said it aimed to increase shipments of the PS3 to 11 million units by 2008. On Wednesday, Nintendo upgraded sales forecasts of its Wii console to 16.5 million machines for the year to March 2008, up from a previous forecast of 14 million.
Elsewhere, performance was strong in Sony's electronics division, which benefited from strong demand for Handycam video cameras and Bravia liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets.
With sales of conventional TV sets in decline, Sony faces a tough battle to win a share of the flat-panel market against LCD TV market leader Samsung Electronics.
Sony maintained its operating profit forecast for the year to March 2008 of 440bn yen. This is up sharply from 71.75bn yen in the 2006/07 financial year when it was hit by costs relating to the delayed launch of the PS3 and a recall of faulty laptop PC batteries.

E-Marketing growing Fast

The annual value of pan-European online advertising is set to reach 16bn euros ($22bn; £10.8bn) by 2012, more than double that of 2006, says a study.
The report by research body Forrester said online adverts would leap to 18% of market share, up from 9% currently.



It said 52% of people were now regularly online, spending more time doing so than watching television.



The UK will continue to see the most online advertising in the next four years, ahead of Germany and France.



European internet users now spend 14.3 hours a week online, compared with 11.3 hours watching TV, and 4.4 hours reading newspapers or magazines, the research group said.

As a result of this increased internet usage, 36% of people who go online said they spent less time looking at the television as a result.

The report said search engines would continue to dominate online advertising spend, followed by display advertisements and e-mails.



"After five years of dipping their toes into the online marketing waters, firms have come to realise that the net is a valuable medium for client acquisition, retention and market expansion," said the study.



For more information on Google Adwords campaigns call Ion e-Business for help.

FBI Tackles Zombies

The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals. The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.


The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.



The agency said the zombies or bots were "a growing threat to national security".



The FBI has been trying to tackle networks of zombies for some time as part of an initiative it has dubbed Operation Bot Roast.



This operation recently passed a significant milestone as it racked up more than one million individually identifiable computers known to be part of one bot net or another.



The law enforcement organisation said that part of the operation involved notifying people who owned PCs it knew were part of zombie or bot networks. In this way it said it expected to find more evidence of how they are being used by criminals.



"The majority of victims are not even aware that their computer has been compromised or their personal information exploited," said James Finch, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division.



Many people fall victim by opening an attachment on an e-mail message containing a virus or by visiting a booby-trapped webpage.



Many hi-tech criminals are now trying to subvert innocent webpages to act as proxies for their malicious programs. Once hijacked, PCs can be used to send out spam, spread spyware or as repositories for illegal content such as pirated movies or pornography.



Those in charge of botnets, called botherders, can have tens of thousands of machines under their control.



Operation Bot Roast has resulted in the arrest of three people known to have used bot nets for criminal ends.



One of those arrested, Robert Alan Soloway, could face 65 years in jail if found guilty of all the crimes with which he has been charged.



In a statement about Operation Bot Roast the FBI urged PC users to practice good computer security which includes using regularly updated anti-virus software and installing a firewall.



For those without basic protections anti-virus companies such as F Secure, Trend Micro, Kaspersky Labs and many others offer online scanning services that can help spot infections.



The organisation said it was difficult for people to know if their machine was part of a botnet.



However it said telltale signs could be if the machine ran slowly, had an e-mail outbox full of mail a user did not send or they get e-mail saying they are sending spam.

Record Demand For Final Harry Potter Book

Nearly 1.6m copies of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, have been pre-ordered online ahead of its release on 21 July.



According to online retailer Amazon, JK Rowling's seventh Potter book has become its most pre-ordered product.



Demand has surpassed a previous record of 1.5 million copies ordered ahead of the release of The Half-Blood Prince.



The latest film in the series, The Order of the Phoenix, has its European premiere in London on Tuesday.



The film opens across the globe on 11 July.

Cyber Attack on Pentagon Email

A hacker has managed to penetrate one of the Pentagon's e-mail systems, leading officials to take up to 1,500 accounts offline.
The e-mail system did not contain classified information relating to military operations, a spokesman said.

The Pentagon says it rebuffs hundreds of attempted attacks on its computer systems each day.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said that a "variety of precautionary measures" were being taken.

"Elements of the... unclassified email system were taken offline yesterday afternoon due to a detected penetration," Mr Gates said.

He said it was expected that the system would be online again very soon.

Few details were available about the exact nature of the attack.

A Pentagon spokesman said attacks could come from a variety of sources including: "recreational hackers, self-styled cyber-vigilantes, various groups with nationalistic and ideological agendas, trans-national actors and nation-states."

Officials would not say whether the hacker was able to read e-mails sent on the system.

Asked if his own e-mail account was affected, Mr Gates said: "I don't do e-mail. I'm a low-tech person."

Excerpt from BBC online.

V3 Accommodation Booking

Right now, there's a lot going on with the V3 accommodation booking system. It has been taken up by a number of large companies in the past few weeks - Total Travel have come online and WhatIf are coming soon. For those of you that don't know, V3 is a real-time availability search and booking system. You can have it on your computer for roughly £380 for 2 years which to me seems the bargain of the century. Integrating it with your website will cost you a few bucks with your website designer but you can do it in two steps - the first step would be just to put the link button to V3 on your site; the second would be providing branding files to V3 so that there are links back to your own website from the booking system and so that the booking system looks like an extension of your own website.

What you have to remember about anything like this though is that if you're website cannot be found on Google because it's performing poorly in the rankings then there's really not much point. It's a good idea to get a professional search engine optimisation company involved in moving your website up the rankings before or at the same time as you go ahead with adding new functionality. Currently, in Mission Beach there are very few accommodation providers who have their sites optimised so there is a hole in the market to be filled - get your site on the first page of Google and reap the benefits of your real-time availability booking system.

Can You Really?

I often get phone calls from potential customers in Mission Beach who think that website design is an easy thing to do and should cost less than $1000 for an e-commerce website! Well, let me put this misconception in the garbage right here, right now. Yes, you can buy template websites online that you can set up yourselves and if you're happy with one of those then go ahead and do it and, I really mean this, good luck to you. But be aware that you're setting yourself up for a number of problems.

Firstly, you've got a website but it won't have any of your branding on it so customers won't be able to recognise you or your products.

Secondly, how on earth are people going to find your website? You've just implemented an e-commerce facility but unless your customers actually know what your website is called then they are never going to find your website using Google. Google is a complex and highly annoying animal. Your website needs to be optimised for it and then there are a whole host of techniques that need to be applied for link building to make your site seem popular in its eyes. All of this work requires careful attention to detail and constant monitoring of your website after it has gone live in order to tweak it to get it up the rankings.

So, before you decide that you really need a website, get used to the fact that to have it built professionally is going to require an initial outlay that will be more than the $500 most people think a website should cost. To put this $500 in perspective, for a Cairns company this is less than 5 hours work. I will say it now that it is impossible to build a website from conception to finish including getting it looking just the way the customer wants in this timeframe. Anybody who says that they can is leading you up a path that ends in a croc-infested creek and isn't very good at their job.

If you still want a website after reading this then you're a realist; your website will be built professionally to exacting standards and will perform well in the search engines. The ongoing benefits of the web will become more apparent as your site moves up the rankings and the initial outlay will turn into a profit-making machine.

Safari...so goody

Apple's surprise announcement of a Windows version of Safari has led to inevitable questions about its motives in reigniting the browser war.

For some, the move is simply an essential element to its forthcoming iPhone launch, while others see it as a more aggressive move for browser market share or even the launch-pad for a raft of upcoming Apple software.

The fact that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs chose to announce the move at an Apple Developer's conference indicates that the focus is on web development.

"The more Safari users there are, the better support for Safari there will be from web developers. As it gets more popular, so it becomes essential that any new web application supports for Safari from day one," commented John Gruber on his blog Daring Fireball.

But perhaps, with its iPhone due to be launched at the end of the month, the key motivation for a Windows-compatible Safari is to make it easier for Windows-based web developers to write applications for that device.

"Apple needs to make sure that websites work with Safari. It is at the heart of its iPhone and probably for Apple TV, so it's got to make sure that websites work with it," said Ian Fogg, an analyst with Jupiter Research.

Read more at the BBC website.