Just another WordPress weblog

I find it interesting when people are surprised by Google’s actions when it comes to privacy. The latest uproar has to do with Google’s new social networking service Buzz that is integrated into its email service GMail. A number of people feel that Google made a poor choice in opting everyone into the Buzz service instead of offering it as a opt-in service and leaving it up to the individual to decide if they want to enable the service or not.

What people seem to forget is that Google offers all of its services for one if not both of the fallowing reasons, to harvest information about its users and to use that information to display advertising that targets your needs and wants. Buzz is just one more way for them to get information about you.

If you don’t like the idea of Google collecting data about you then you should seriously consider your online life. Do you use facebook, myspace, amazon or some other online site? They all collect information about what you do, what you look at, who you talk to. They collect it, analyze it and target ads, applications, sales, and more to what you seem to like based on the information that they have collected on you.

You ever wonder about what information the FBI or the government has about you? I would worry more about what information some of the online sites have about you.

Socialism (according to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism):
“Socialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating state, worker or public ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with an egalitarian method of compensation. Contrary to popular belief, socialism is not a political system; it is an economic system distinct from capitalism.”

I find it funny or sad or I guess just scary that people think that a socialist health care program, witch is not exactly what Obama is asking for, is going to take there rights away, control there “right to freedom”, provide a health system that is worst then the one we currently have, create “death panels” (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8298267&page=1) or that people could even think that Obama is even like Hitler for purposing such a idea.

Its interesting to see comments like “Yes, but SOCIALISM. Better dead than Red!” posted around the internet. Really “Red” red like red China or Russia implies communism not socialism. I think this is the biggest misunderstanding of socialism. Socialism is as wikipedia puts it “socialism is not a political system;” such as communism, “it is an economic system”, like capitalism. Do people not see that in so many ways we are already a socialist state in part? Look at all the services that are socialist services, the fire departments, police departments, FBI, CIA, the military, social security (shit that has social in its name), are school system, fish and game, food stamps, almost any service that is run by the government is a social service. Would you feel comfortable having are military run privately?, or the FBI, you weary about your right to privacy being compromised see what happens if the FBI gets outsourced/privatized.

Well that’s my rant for now.

Over the last two weeks I’ve been working on a new web site. The site started out as a frustration I have with web sites that use email validation scripts to check users email addresses format. What I have noticed is that most email validation scripts check to see if the user name has alpha, alphanumeric or a few other standard characters such as a underscore “_”. Most of the validation scripts do not allow for a plus sign “+” to be in the email address even know a plus is an acceptable character, and one that I use in my email addresses.

After running into two or three site that do not use a validation script that is RFC5322 compliant in one day I decided to start a web site about it. I started to research what was an acceptable email address and found out that the RFC standard pretty much allows any character in the local part of an email address. The local part of the email address is the name or part before the last at symbol “@”. exp local@domain.tld

The site had turned into more then just a place for me to complain about validation script, it had turned into a tool for developers to use. It will check an email address to see if it is RFC5322 compliant, it will also check to see if the email address’s domain is listed on a number of spam blacklists and it will check to see if the email address is listed on forum spam blacklists.
At the moment the site is still in beta so not all functions are avalebe.

and the site is: http://legitimize.me

I’ve started a list of software, tools, utilitys, and web sites that I find useful (Software List)

Over the last year I have been to three weddings two for family and one for friends. I wanted to post some of the pictures that I took at the weddings.

My friends Steve and Erin’s wedding

My uncle Scott and his wife Jessica’s wedding.

My cousin’s Julie and her husben Andy’s wedding.