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reifman writes: I thought it might be a good time to revisit alternatives to now defunct Google Reader. Here, I walk through the installation of four newsreader apps: Selfoss, TinyRSS, GoRead and Fever. Of the four, two are free open source PHP-based readers (Selfoss and Tiny RSS), the third is an open source Python reader (GoRead) which runs easiest on Google App Engine and my favorite, Fever, whose PHP code costs $30 but can be easily self-hosted (no affiliation with the developer). All of them import OPML files — which is handy for migrating from another reader application. TinyRSS and GoRead offer an Android app client and there are third-party apps available for Fever.
reifman writes: So, you’ve been attacked by trolls? Here’s what to expect: Your phone will vibrate incessantly with Twitter mentions. You’ll receive angry, obscenity filled emails and anonymous comments on your blog. Bloggers will take you out of context (a columnist at The Guardian compared me to a mass murderer—seriously). And maybe, you’ll receive an inappropriate package at your home as I did. Taming Internet rage may seem impossible, but there are good reasons to respond to critics and constructive ways to do so.
reifman writes: Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is alleged to have 'attracted basketball talent to [his son's] wealthy school... with... a new basketball-focused nonprofit, cash for a coach, an unusual admissions process and weak enforcement of academic standards. One star player stayed at a $6 million mansion...' The report came after Ballmer purchased the NBA's Clippers and shortly before his withdrawal from Microsoft's Board of Directors. 'The school has an admirably diverse student body – nearly half (49 percent) are students of color – and has made outstanding efforts to connect with minorities and local students who are not from privileged backgrounds.' The school is also the alma mater and the meeting place of Microsoft's founder's Bill Gates & Paul Allen.
reifman writes: In June, the Washington State Supreme Court ordered the Legislature to appear on September 3rd to explain why it hasn't found the revenue to fully fund the education reforms required by its McCleary ruling, as much as $7.83 billion through 2019. One reason the state has such a huge shortfall is major tax breaks to corporations such as Boeing and Microsoft. In particular, Microsoft’s savings from lobbying and dodging the state royalty tax between 1997 and 2014 is $5.34 billion. Factoring in interest and the Department of Revenue’s typical 25 percent penalty on unpaid corporate taxes, that number jumps to $8.16 billion. In other words, the entire education shortfall which Microsoft's leaders regularly decry, would not likely exist if not for their tax practices, passing education dollars to its out of state and international shareholders.
jammag writes: A new trend has emerged where tech companies have realized that abusing users pays big. Examples include the highly publicized Comcast harassing service call, Facebook "experiments," Twitter timeline tinkering, rude Korean telecoms — tech is an area where the term "customer service" has an Orwellian slant. Isn't it time customer starting fleeing abusive tech outfits?
reifman writes: While the new Gmail API is a great step forward and offers a variety of new features, it provides no support for other mail providers to adopt it as a standard. For now, IMAP lives on as the lowest common denominator for building your own email applications across providers. Turns out that you can still accomplish a lot with just IMAP (video) , such as whitelisting, quiet hours, one step unsubscribe, digests which summarize filing destinations and unanswered emails as well as reporting on who sends you the most email every day. SimplifyEmail is meant to be an email playground for programmers.
reifman writes: In case you missed it, the Supreme Court granted rights of religious freedom to for profit corporations yesterday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. While the word corporation doesn't appear in the Constitution, SCOTUS has now granted corporations commerce and contracts clause protections, personhood, due process, protection from double jeopardy and unreasonable search and seizure and free speech rights. Almost all of these rights originate from the twisting of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection clause which was meant to provide rights for freed slaves.
reifman writes: Puget Sound Business Journal's suggests the goal of the public dog park planned for Amazon's giant dome is aimed at helping lonely Amazon employees get dates. Scott Wyatt, chairman of design firm NBBJ, says 'the project's design is aimed at making employees more innovative by exposing them to people other than their co-workers.' — building a giant public bubble to get them out of the private bubble created by their massive Lake Union headquarters.
An anonymous reader writes: Adrian Crenshaw, also known as Irongreek, is a regular face at Information Security conferences. He records many talks, processes them, and puts them online for all to learn from. His YouTube channel is one of the the largest archives of Information Security knowledge out there. In many cases, it's the only record of the research and knowledge presented at the small to medium sized security conferences in the United States. Tonight, Google decided to suspend his YouTube channel with no reason given. Our industry is reeling from this loss of collective knowledge. We ask if this is the beginning of censorship against security content? We hope not and we hope that Google will repeal its decision and bring back Irongeek's channel.
reifman writes: Last week, AT&T shut down my data service after I turned roaming on in Canada for one minute to check Google maps. I wasn't able to connect successfully but they reported my phone burned through 50 MB and that I owed more than $750. Google maps generally require 1.3 MB per cell. They adamantly refused to reactivate my U.S. data service unless I 'agreed' to purchase an international data roaming package to cover the usage. They eventually reversed the charges but it seems that the company's billing system had bundled my U.S. data usage prior to the border crossing with the one minute of international data roaming.
