keeping the community informed...

DaniWeb is all about communication and community, bringing the two together to best serve you. Whether your needs are general IT business or web development support, solving specific programming queries, or just hanging around online with like minded individuals, DaniWeb is the place to be. But looking further than the forums, beyond the blogs and past the Personal Messaging facility there is one great communications tool which is not used as much as it could be: IRC.



Yep, we are happy to be running our very own Internet Relay Chat network for real-time, text-based, congenial conversation. If you are not an IRC old-timer and do not have a handy IRC client to use, then why not try the DaniWeb web-based Java client which is available free of charge?



You will find some of the longest serving and biggest posting members in the #daniweb channel, and no matter what the time of day there is usually someone around to talk to. A handy list of common IRC commands with simple explanations for usage can be found here.

helping us to help you…

In case you have missed them online, after all we cannot expect you to read every single posting in very single forum on DaniWeb, here is a round up of some of the questions posed about getting the most out of the community, along with the answers of course.

Q: What happened to the HTML and CSS forums?
A: They have not disappeared, but rather moved into a new Web Design sub-category which can be found here.

Q: How can I edit my member profile?
A: Either click on the ‘Control Panel’ link at the top of any page and take it from there, or go directly to editing your member profile here or your member options here.

Q: What is a member certificate?
A: This is a badge that you can display on your website or blog, and show the world that you are proud to be a member of DaniWeb. It also shows off your personal contributions with an automatically updated and refreshed posting count alongside your username, title and avatar. Simply hotlink to the DaniWeb server either using XHTML for web pages:
<a href="http://www.daniweb.com/forums/member67225.html"><img
src="http://www.daniweb.com/certificates/badge67225.jpg"
border="0" alt="happygeek has contributed to our community"
width="125" height="125" /></a>

Or BBCode for forum use:
[url=http://www.daniweb.com/forums/member67225.html]
[img]http://www.daniweb.com/certificates/badge67225.jpg[/img][/url]

Q: Can I edit my posts?
A: Yes, but only within the first 30 minutes of making them. After this the edit option times out.

every month one member makes the DaniWeb hall of fame

Our hall of famer for July 2007 is jbennet who gets his coveted ‘Featured Poster’ badge and our heartfelt thanks for continuing to be a friendly, helpful and pretty omnipresent member. Just look at his posting stats: 1450 in the Geeks’ Lounge, 562 in Posting Games, 419 in Windows NT/2000/XP/2003, 369 in Getting Started and Choosing a Distro, and 359 in the DaniWeb Community Feedback forum for starters. This is a member who enjoys kicking back and socializing with other DaniWeb folk, as well as rolling his sleeves up and helping out with their technical problems. We ask just what makes jbennet tick?
How old are you, where do you come from and what do you do?
“I am 17, live in England and am currently a computing student at 6th form college after which I hope to pursue a degree in computer networking at University.”

How did you arrive at DaniWeb?
“I came to DaniWeb when I was 15 as I got an old Compaq Proliant server from my school and was interested in using it for Linux.”

That Compaq is quite important as far as you and DaniWeb is concerned, is it not?
“Well, my old username was proliant_fan and it was my ordeal with it which brought me to DaniWeb via a Google search. I haven’t used much server-class hardware in my time but wow. The machine is old but runs my entire network now just fine using Linux. Debian is my favorite distribution although I like CentOS’s graphical tools. It was a bit of a love/hate relationship at first. When I first joined DaniWeb it was due to my desire to put Linux on the Proliant. I had used Linux before in the nineties, I think it was a Mandrake distro in fact, a very early version and I didn’t like it much because I didn’t understand it. But I always had a desire to understand it more and make Linux do something useful. The Proliant was to be the test case. I tried to install Fedora first and that worked, but I still didn’t really understand it. After that I was still dissatisfied by the Redhat package management. I had just discovered a world of open source software and I wanted it! APT was the answer to my problem and so began my love for Debian which continues to this day.”

So you are a Linux fanboy then?
“I don’t think any particular OS is best. I think that for home users, you just cant beat windows. I don’t like windows a huge amount but a properly setup windows system can be just as stable as Linux and the fact of the matter is that its compatible with 99% of all hardware and software and its much easier to get tech support. Linux and OSX do have a place however. At college many of my friends who do art, media, or music swear by Macs and I think that with the success of the iPod, and Apple’s new trendy image, sales are set to increase. Linux I think is very good if you want a free OS and an OS which is rock-solid stable. My Proliant has been running Debian for about 2 years straight (since Sarge was new) and it has never been down. Linux on the desktop has also made great advances. GNOME is my favorite desktop as it "just works" but I think that until there is greater cohesion in the community, Linux wont become mainstream The lack of WinModem (yes, many people still use dialup!) and WiFi (essential for the modern home) drivers and media codecs will put a lot of potential adopters off. On the other hand, the monumental failure that is Vista will force a lot of users to other operating systems.”

What were your first impressions of DaniWeb?
“I grew up on DOS and windows 3.11 and began learning VB5 when I was about 8 or 9 as my family has links with the IT industry so they were keen to get me into it. Back when I first joined up, DaniWeb was fairly new but it still gave me a really good first impression. Everyone was helpful and not condescending in any way. It seemed like the sort of place where you could ask anything and not be ridiculed. I have tried many other forums, but none have ever been like DaniWeb. Not even close.”

Is that why you are so helpful now?
“We were all a newbie once, and so I try and repay DaniWeb for all the experience it has given me by being nice to the new members. My favorite forums are Troubleshooting Dead Machines and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. I keep coming back because I just love helping people, and putting something back in the community. I help the elderly and computer-illiterate in my community too, outside of DaniWeb.”

You spend a lot of time in the Geeks’ Lounge, why is that?
“The community is a big draw but I also love the technical side of things. The main reason I like the lounge is due to good people like serunson (college friend) and christina-you. On the debate of the MySpace generation, there are a lot more forum games than before, that’s for sure, but I don’t think it’s all bad.

Is there anything that you would change about DaniWeb if it were within your power?
“I love DaniWeb too and the only thing I would change would be the tutorial section. I think people should aught to able to submit their own as it is deserted right now. On the subject of advertising, I think that is fine if it means that DaniWeb remains free. At least they are not flashy, noisy or full page! I would like to give a big thank you to the DaniWeb moderator and admin team by the way. Every time I flag spam or bad posts, they are always dealt with really quickly.

And finally, outside of DaniWeb what do you like to do?
“I like VB.NET and PHP and I like to play Battlefield 2. VB is a great language and anyone that thinks its just for noobs aught to be laughed at. For learning programming, and RAD, you cannot beat it. Visual Studio is an awesome piece of kit, and I think that Microsoft made a great decision by releasing the express editions
I have only just got into PHP/MySQL and was driven mainly by my Linux fascination.

by happygeek

Privacy International has accused Google of embarking upon a smear campaign within the media to discredit both PI and a report, to be published in full later in the year, which ranks the privacy performance of the top Internet service companies. The interim results which were published on the 9th Jun, places Google at the bottom of the privacy ranking league.

Google is slated for many reasons relating to privacy, including some worrying ones such as personal user information being retained for an indefinite period of time but without the use having an option to delete it, and the recording of search strings and IP addresses of its users with no clear policy regarding when that data is deleted, thought to be between 18 and 24 months.

PI obviously knew that a Google storm was going to break as a result of this, because it states within that interim report “we are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations. While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy.”

But perhaps it was not expecting to receive information from two European journalists who, independently of each other, revealed that Google representatives had contacted them with the claim that "Privacy International has a conflict of interest regarding Microsoft."

In an open letter to Google, dated 10th June, here’s what Privacy International has to say in response, in full:

June 10, 2007
Eric Schmidt,
CEO, Google Inc.

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway

Mountain View, CA 94043
USA

Dear Mr. Schmidt,
You may be aware that Privacy International yesterday published its first privacy ranking of leading companies operating on the Internet. Google Inc performed very poorly, scoring lowest among the other major companies that we surveyed.

I am writing to express my concern not just at this unfortunate result, but also at communications between Google Inc and members of the media during the period immediately prior to publication of our report. Two European journalists have independently told us that Google representatives have contacted them with the claim that "Privacy International has a conflict of interest regarding Microsoft". I presume this was motivated because Microsoft scored an overall better result than Google in the rankings.

Let me state here on the record that in the seventeen years of our existence, no company has ever made such a claim. Privacy International is a fiercely independent organization that has never shown fear nor favour. Again for the record, we have been fierce and relentless critics of Microsoft since our inception as a watchdog. You will see for example we that publicly supported the EU Commission investigation into Microsoft, that we nominated Microsoft for the US Big Brother Award in 2003, that we awarded Microsoft the "Worst Corporate Invader" award at the 1999 US Big Brother Awards, that we publicly accused Microsoft of subverting its software security, that we co-authored a critical submission to the US Federal Trade Commission against Microsoft, and that in 2001 we filed a joint complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission against Microsoft, alleging unfair and deceptive trade practices.

According to our sources, your representative or representatives made particular reference to one member of our 70-member international Advisory Board. This man is a current employee of Microsoft. I can confirm that he joined our Advisory Board well before he was headhunted by Microsoft. At the time he was the director of a leading UK non-governmental organization and had more than six years extensive involvement in the work of Privacy International. He is a decent, skilled and honorable man who upon his appointment with Microsoft offered us his resignation. We refused to accept it, and he continues to serve on the Board in a private capacity. As an exceptionally skilled IT and security expert he is a superb resource in our day-to-day work across many fields of privacy. To infer that he in any way influences our decisions with regard to Microsoft is not just inaccurate but it is also insulting.

Privacy International is and has always fought hard for its independence, often to our own great expense. With the very rare exception of expenses sponsorship for important public events we receive no corporate money, and certainly at no point have we received any from Microsoft.

Can I be so bold as to suggest that your company's actions stem from sour grapes that you achieved the lowest ranking amongst the Internet giants? We have no specific axe to grind with Google. It is one of many companies demonstrating a poor privacy performance, and in assessing that performance we are acting solely with the intention of raising public awareness. And while it is true that we have in the past taken legal action against Google's Gmail service, it is equally the case that we have campaigned against Amazon and eBay, both of which, regardless of this history, scored higher than Google in the rankings.

So do we have a vested interest in attacking Google? No. Some of the people we work with have Microsoft connections, but we work with many thousands of people as partners, collaborators and managers. One of our trustees, for example, works for a law firm that has Microsoft as one of its many clients. We agreed with this person that a legal document should be drawn up expressly fire-walling his professional from his private involvement with Privacy International. We socialise with Microsoft employees, but then again we socialise with employees of the UK Home Office, which in a recent celebrated chapter attempted to destroy our reputation following critical work on the UK ID card proposals. We are happy to reach out to anyone, regardless of their affiliation.

I believe an apology from you is in order, but if you cannot deliver this then I think you should reflect carefully on the actions of your representatives before embarking on what I believe amounts to a smear campaign. As with Microsoft, eBay and any other organization we are more than happy to work with you to help resolve the many privacy challenges for Google that our report has highlighted.

Yours sincerely
Simon Davies,
Director
Privacy International

The Google response should be interesting, to say the least. Expect this one to run and run, up to and beyond the date in September when that final report is published…