Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook

Ackk!!! We all wondered if this was inevitable! They’re watching us through our windows, through our computers, through our CAT5e Internet connections!!! LOL! I’m kidding, of course. Well, I hope I’m kidding. I found this online– watch this terrific video– well done and very humorous take on the Google gods. Let’s just hope this never comes true. :S

So far the Google Mobile has not hit my neighborhood. Let’s hope it never does!

I’ve pulled away from Blogger for the most part (at least for the blogs I monetize), but I do still have a few blogs with them, and I do still pay attention to what they are doing. The latest feature just released is the ability to pre-schedule posts. Wordpress has had this feature for a long time, and I’m glad to see Blogger take it on. It’s a wonderful feature, and I use it a lot with Wordpress. This is from their news release post:

Scheduled post publishing, which we talked about testing on Blogger in draft last month, is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.

Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks? Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.

There are a few extra steps to take for “bumping” posts, but anything is an improvement here.

I kind of lost repect for Blogger after hearing that Google was arbitrarily deleting or suspending accounts they didn’t feel were “worthy.” Sure, some sites were probably spam– I’ve come across a lot of them– but not all of them were! If you had a harmless blog about the wonders of wood shutters and dared to monetize your blog without Google’s AdSense, you risked deletion. With a week after I heard about Google’s actions, I hopped on over to Bluehost web hosting and Wordpress. The transfer from Blogger to Wordpress was agonizing, but the risk of losing a year’s worth of posts just because I monetize my blogs was too great.

Anyway, Blogger is introducing new features every few months, it seems. They are doing a good job of keeping up with the big dogs. And Blogger is a terrific place for a beginner blogger. Plus, it’s still FREE!

The Internet is a wonderful thing. So is information. But some things we do not want plastered all over the Internet, like our health records, and the floor plans to the Pentagon. Right? Google thinks otherwise.

Pentagon Bans Google Team from Bases

WASHINGTON (AP) — Citing security risks, the Pentagon banned Google teams from making detailed street-level video maps of U.S. military bases after images of a Texas base ended up on the popular Internet site.

A message sent to all Defense Department bases and installations around the country late last week told officials not to allow the mapping Web site to take panoramic views inside the facilities. Google said taking such pictures is against its policy and that the incident was a mistake.

Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, said Thursday that that the decision to issue a formal ban was made after at least one Google crew requested and then was permitted access to a base, identified in the message as Fort Sam Houston. He said he was concerned that allowing the 360-degree, street-level view could provide sensitive information to potential adversaries and endanger base personnel.

It’s a worry, Renuart said, because such views can show ”where all the guards are, it shows how the barriers go up and down, it shows how to get in and out of buildings, and I think that poses a real security risk to our military installations.”

The story gets weirder and weirder. Especially the part about where Google shrugs shoulders and says “Oops.”

Google spokesman Larry Yu said a Google crew mistakenly asked for access to a base.

”It is against our policy to request access to military bases for the purpose of capturing imagery in Street View,” he said, adding that when Google was contacted, the imagery was taken off the site within about 24 hours.

Street View is a feature on Google Map pages that allows viewers to click on a location and see a panoramic view of that spot.

The issue emerged just a few days after published reports suggested that protesters used Google Earth to help plot their access to the roof of the Parliament building in London.

…According to the message sent by U.S. Northern Command to military installations around the country, Google representatives requested access to Fort Sam Houston and were granted permission.

”Once given access they took panoramic images of the area with roof-mounted recording equipment,” the message said. ”These images were placed on the Internet for public access.” The imagery included views of entry gates, barriers, the headquarters and other facilities.

Ummmmmm…. how can you “mistakenly” ask to see a base? I’m no military girl, but when I ask to see a base, I know that it’s a base. What did they do, call a wrong number and get Fort Houston instead? And the guys who make Google maps don’t know it’s a base?? Come on! They knew what they were doing.

Anyway, the government made sure to emphasize that their protest has nothing to do with making Google look bad.

Renuart stressed that this was not an attack against the Internet giant, and that it was more a concern about secondary effects of an otherwise good technology.

That’s right. You don’t want Google after you, man. Could be World War 3 or something. Google did, by the way, willingly remove the information at the military’s request. But wow.

Hat tip: NYCO’s Blog:

I was aghast to discover a few months ago the policies of search engine companies. The SEOs hold on to your searches information for inordinate periods of time. I’d read recently about a new policy by Ask.com. They are hoping their new policy will give them the edge over the giants (and you know who they are).

Jumping on the privacy bandwagon, Ask is offering users the chance to take charge of what happens with their search history.

An AskEraser link will feature prominently on the Ask.com homepage and, when enabled by the user, will delete all future search queries and associated cookie information from its servers.

The information it destroys includes IP address, user ID and session ID along with the complete text of a query.

I could wish all SEOs did such. MSN and Yahoo save the information for 18+ months, although policies bounce up and down more than stock market numbers. And when the Bush Administration demands the numbers from AOL, MSN, and Yahoo, they obediently hand it over. AOL might even broadcast that information– oopsie!

Google holds on to the info forever. Well, they say they’ve changed that to be 18 months, but who believes them?

Here’s a great comparison chart by CNet, showing the policies of the SEOs.

Moral of the story: your searches are monitored, and may be used against you. Be clean with your searches and use a variety of search engines frequently.

Eventually all the information will be condensed anyway, but at least we’re stemming the tide.

If there is one Google product you had to have, it would be Google Earth. I thought everyone had heard of Google Earth, but I was talking to some folks recently who’d never heard it! I like the program so much that I wanted to be sure to mention it.

The family has used it countless times. My kids are geography experts now. I have used it to map our travels, and my husband likes to look at air bases around the world. It is truly an amazing program.

You can find anywhere in the world (even your property). I love looking at other countries and cities, like the city of Amsterdam in Holland with its gorgeous canal system, and the Thames in London.

Google Earth has many other features besides looking at the earth’s surface. You can skew your view to look across (it’s a little cheesy looking because it’s computer generated, but the Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountains still looked neat). You can zoom all the way out and spin the earth with your mouse cursor (fun). You can track your journeys, as Google Earth will measure distances and place markers for you (a virtual pin board). It will show you major (and some minor) attractions in localities. And best of all, it will show roads, boundaries, names of rivers, lakes, and mountain ranges, and everything! It’s great and we love it.

You have to have an online connection to view Google Earth. I have been offline and it does work, but the maps will only show what is in your computer cache, and no new material.