Sneak is indebted to reader Ben Goldsworthy, who helpfully pointed out what was happening behind the scenes in Sneak's Firefox browser, which somewhat surprisingly shuffled off to Microsoft.com in response to a broken link. "Thankfully there don't appear to be any moles in the Mozilla camp. When Firefox can't resolve a URL it assumes the text is a search query and searches Google for the entered address, in your case 'http'. The top result on Google.com for http is www.microsoft.com, so that's where you end up." This explanation does make a lot of sense, although it also begs the question of why Microsoft should be so closely associated with a protocol that it didn't invent and certainly doesn't own, despite Internet Explorer's ubiquity. Sneak for one will point now to a proper destination for queries about http, and encourages everyone else to do likewise, to bomb a little sense back into Google's index.

July 30, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak is pleased to announce the lucky winner of Sneak's highly-prized Gmail account. As you may recall, Sneak asked readers to send in their pleadings, with the most persuasive (or most pathetic) snatching up the valuable username "barrelofmonkeys" at gmail.com - the first and possibly only barrel of monkeys registered to use Google's innovative online service. And the winner is... Mr C. McDermott of Dundee. His winning bid follows: "PLEEEASE may I have it before my wife (much as I love her) completely ruins everything remotely technical that I have. This free Gmail account would be my last safe haven of sanity.... And if that doesn't persuade, I'm willing to trade her in for it."
Clearly a heartfelt plea and one that Sneak can certainly see eye-to-eye with - when Mrs Sneak is out of earshot, at least.

July 20, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sneak has stumbled across a piece of odd behaviour, brought to light by a malformed link at an otherwise innocent web site. Given a URL that began http://http Sneak's browser unaccountably ended up at Microsoft. Not so surprising, perhaps, except that unlike 95 percent of web users, Sneak doesn't use a Microsoft browser. It was actually the open source Mozilla Firefox 0.9 that performed this unexpected piece of network interconnection. Surprisingly, the same URL inserted into Microsoft's own IE 6.0 will, quite correctly, result in a "page cannot be displayed" message. Meanwhile both a copy of the main Mozilla browser and IE 5.1 on Mac OS 9 will happily trot off to SearchMachine.com given the same input, on the more comprehensible basis that this company happens to have registered the http.com domain. Perhaps other software combinations will act differently again, but Sneak has run out of systems to try here at Sneak central.
Sneak would welcome suggestions as to why the Firefox team has decided that inputting a malformed URL is equivalent to typing www.microsoft.com. A subtle comment on the company's malformed products, perhaps? An underhand way of co-ordinating a sustained, low-level denial of service attack? Or, worse, could some daring Microsoft moles have secretly infiltrated the Mozilla camp, leaving this as their only calling card?
Try it, see where you end up: http://http.

July 20, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sneak is often puzzled by the neologisms seized upon by IT suppliers. The latest oddity is Qosmio, imminently about to become the new brand used by Toshiba in what sounds to Sneak like an attack on Sony’s better-established Vaio range. New Qosmio laptops will offer integrated TV, DVD and audio functions and will benefit from being able to play multimedia files without first having to boot into Windows XP Media Center Edition, apparently. Vaio is of course an acronym, standing for Video Audio Integrated Operation, but Qosmio appears not to be. So what is the thinking? To Sneak’s eye at least, the new brand is a very short lexical hop from the name Quasimodo. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was of course kind-hearted by nature but pug-ugly to look at - making for an oddly inverted comparison to Windows-powered laptops for the style conscious. Then again, maybe Tosh is simply trying to say that its new products will ship with all the bells ... and whistles.

July 16, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak was very impressed to learn that storage giant Adaptec has agreed to buy Snap in a $100 million deal. That does seem like a lot of money, but then these future-cash plus stock deals are incomprehensible at the best of times. Could it really be that all those sampled electronic piano riffs, barked rap lyrics and poor dress sense have paid off so handsomely for the 90s dancefloor sensation? Adaptec would not comment on claims that the Snap agreement means it has now "got the power", or that the network-attached storage market has been gettin' kinda hectic. "Stay off my back / Or I will attack / And you don't want that!" said a spokesman.

July 14, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak hears that the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, better known as What WG, is now kicking itself over its short-sighted choice of name. The group, formed last month to work on ways to make building interactive online applications less like building 50-foot models of the Eiffel tower out of matchsticks, ought really to have called itself the Web Application Technology Task Force. The key difference? Nothing to do with a task force being better equipped than a working group to make quick, incisive decisions. No. It’s just that What WG is not nearly as memorable as What TF...
Incidentally, Sneak is not sure what UK consumer organisation Which? will make of the What WG logo.

July 12, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reader John Hamilton contacted Sneak following the recent item about Microsoft's controversial double-click patent, which seems to have secured rights to a most basic method of input. "I am most confused over the patent on using a 'pattern' of mouse/screen clicks to control functions," he writes. "Can I please put a patent on using Morse-code taps on a PDA screen as a data input method?" Well, almost certainly you can, John, as the US Patent & Trademark Office seems to hand out patents like toffees, after all. "Recognising patterns of input to identify requests was well established even long before Morse's useful code on telegraph lines," Hamilton adds. "I know folks arriving at my door simply by their knock." And oddly enough, the same principle works with the doorbell, too.

July 12, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even though the wonderful British summer (severe weather warnings, gales and torrential rain) put paid to the open-air performance of La Bohème in Trafalgar Square yesterday, sponsor O2 still got its three-penn'th. The performers put on an improvised version of the opera from deep within the bowels of the London Coliseum to a select audience - of which Sneak was naturally a member. As the opera reached its emotional climax with the death of Mimi, Sneak was only mildly surprised to hear the intrusive ringing of a mobile phone, cruelly puncturing the dramatic tension. If, following the washout, the English National Opera and sponsor O2 part company, perhaps they should bow out with a new operetta, called "I'm on the Train!" with occasional interruptions from Puccini...

July 8, 2004 Music | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak is much impressed by London Underground's ETA service, a web-page that can push out train arrival times to owners of wireless PDAs. In beta at present, it covers only the Bakerloo line but nonetheless allows Sneak to decide whether to amble, stroll or pelt down to Picadilly Circus at the end of a busy day. Sneak foresees just one problem. The times when Sneak will really, really, really want to get at ETA's precious data will be during those not-exactly-infrequent episodes when the tube trains all appear to be on holiday, and the platform indicators are up the spout. But, of course, at such a frustrating juncture, Sneak will already be underground, out of radio range, and so Sneak's GPRS-equipped palmtop will be incommunicado. There are, of course, reported plans to bring mobile services to the Tube network. With any luck, these will be limited to the stations, allowing ETA access but sustaining the Tube's considerable advantage over surface lines: namely, that you don't ever have to put up with people bellowing, "I'm on the train. What? No, I'm on the train..."

July 7, 2004 Travel | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak was annoyed to learn that Google has changed the terms of service of its still-in-beta Gmail service, to stem the tide of speculators buying and selling accounts via eBay. Sneak must therefore find something else to do with the highly-desirable account-name with which Sneak had intended to make a vast fortune. Apparently giving away a Gmail account is still permitted, so Sneak will grumpily offer up the password to one new, unused, one-careful-owner Gmail account to the person who mails in the most persuasive reason for needing one. Send your pleadings to Sneak's usual (non-Gmail) address. To try to keep spammers and their filthy-snouted address sniffers at bay, Sneak will avoid writing out the prize email account address here. Entrants need only know that it is "barrelofmonkeys" followed immediately by @gmail.com.

July 6, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

China may be playing catch up with the USA in terms of its per-capita income, carbon-dioxide output and overall obesity levels, but in at least one respect it is now well ahead. Or so it might seem. According to China Tech News, the world's most populous nation has taken a bold move to adopt IPv9 - while the rest of the world is still arguing about the merits of adopting IPv6. Interestingly, not many people had heard of IPv9 prior to the China Tech story, Sneak included, leading some to suspect a hoax. But if China were to develop its own internet protocol, then IPv9 would be the name of choice. According to a variety of web sites (meaning it must be true) Chinese people have traditionally ascribed different inherent qualities to different numbers. In yin and yang terms, for example, odd numbers are considered yang while even numbers are yin. Nine, being the yangest of yang numbers, stands for growth and prosperity, eternity and power. Four, on the other hand, sounds similar to the word for "death" in Cantonese, and apparently 24 sounds like "easily dies". So even if the IPv9 story proves false, at least now Sneak knows not to order dish number 4 or 24 from a Chinese takeaway.

July 6, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Electronics giant Sharp is currently testing out a software package called Himpact Sports, which automatically records only the highlights of televised sports events. For football, for example, it exploits the fact that important parts of the match are repeated in slow motion to work out which bits are worth seeing and which bits are just David Beckham. The New Scientist reports that in tests, the software has cut an hour of American football down to around 14 minutes, and an hour's baseball to 10 minutes. But Sneak feels that with a bit more work the Japanese boffins ought to be able to cut both these US sports down to zero. Apparently the next sport on Sharp's list is the bare-bottomed spectacle of sumo wrestling, but Sneak feels that a more impressive feat would be to boil down Formula One motor racing. On one level it should be easy to select the worthwhile moments: any frame that doesn't feature Michael Schumacher pointing in the right direction is bound to be a highlight. On another, it's a monumental challenge. How do you compile an interesting and engaging summary of two hours' racing, when nine out of ten times you know exactly who will win before the race has even started?

July 5, 2004 Sports | Permalink | Comments (0)

Voice over IP has been the nearly-here technology of the moment for as long as Sneak can remember, with next year continually tipped as the start of mass take up by anyone with a vested interest in flogging voice-enabled network gear. But as businesses weigh up the pros and cons of switching over to VoIP, perhaps they should note exactly who remains steadfastly opposed to the new technology. In the US, a senior Justice Department official last month told a Senate committee that the new technology might mean that the US intelligence services will no longer be able to tap phone calls. If users are free to choose their own encryption algorithms, the spooks will be powerless to sift shifty phone calls from all the other bits of encrypted IP traffic whizzing backwards and forwards from innocent e-commerce sites. So, it would seem to Sneak, immunity from the snuffling nose and prying ears of Uncle Sam must surely be the killer reason that VoIP vendors have been longing for all these years.

July 2, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

The days when we humans are left shaking our fists in frustration at a half-buried Statue of Liberty may be getting closer - our simian friends are grasping every opportunity for power that they can get their opposed-thumb mitts on. The apes at Lincoln Park zoo in the US are no longer powerless to act against the slack-jawed gawkers that press their dirty faces against the glass, Sneak hears. Thanks to a touch panel hidden from human view, the apes can direct a powerful blast of air into the unsuspecting faces of onlookers. According to Steve Ross, a behaviourist at the zoo, this system gives the creatures a safe way to vent their frustrations. It beats hurling rocks or more unpleasant objects at the glass, anyway. Sneak wonders how long it will be before the apes work out how to hack into the air supply, and start eating only the most over-ripe bananas whilst sitting directly in front of the intake valve.

July 1, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)