the ADMIN pages

Another good article in today's Wall Street Journal.

The same Silicon Valley that outsourced thousands of IT jobs to India is bringing them back. Increasing salaries of skilled computer programmers are negating the value of keeping the jobs in India. An example from the article states salaries in India started at a mere quarter of what American programmers with similar experience would be paid, but the salaries demanded by skilled workers in India have now increased to 75% of a comparable American salary. This increase, combined with the time difference drawback, has caused companies to stop saving money by outsourcing high-level computer jobs.

The CEO of Intel was quoted as saying the wage inflation rate for engineers in India is four times that of America, and other estimates put it as much as 50%. America, by comparison, runs about a 3% wage inflation rate for the software industry.

This shift puts a new twist on the globalization debate. A 2005 study estimated that only 25% of India's computer engineers had the "language proficiency, cultural fit, and practical skills" to work for U.S. employers. Therefore, the highly skilled workers, supplemented by the half-million engineering graduates from India annually, have to keep up with the influx of U.S. software companies looking for their services. At the levels U.S. companies have been turning to outsourcing, answering this high level of demand was just improbable.

I'm a staunch libertarian at heart, but a (future) IT professional above all else, so I deviate slightly from the pro-outsourcing view of my political party. I'd like to think that a certain level of job security exists for those in my profession, so news like this gives me hope for the future (when I actually enter the job market).

Article: Tam, Pu-Wing, and Jackie Range. "Some in Silicon Valley Begin to Sour on India." Wall Street Journal 03 July 2007: A1, A15.

An article in the Wall Street Journal today discussed the increasing prevalence of "widgets" in marketing. More and more mainstream companies are turning to the small, embeddable, interactive tools as advertising media for their products. The article mentioned the web site for the upcoming film The Golden Compass, which allows users to create their own "daemon" (an animal spirit from the film/book) and post it on their blog or social networking profile.

As with all advertising, it isn't a sure thing. The film Hoot apparently had a downloadable owl that would float around a user's desktop (sounds pretty annoying to me), but the film was a box office failure.

Social networking sites that run traditional banner ads on users' profiles are understandably concerned with the onset of widgets, because they are out of the advertising loop. Traditional banner ads pay to the web site, but the advertisers behind widgets pay to the widget's designer. (The designer, therefore, must make the widget creative enough to appeal to users and make them want to put it on their profile.) From MySpace's ToS:

MySpace.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting... [such as] commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com

In layman's terms, MySpace can remove widgets from your profile on their site.

The idea behind widgets, while not necessarily new (affiliate codes and embeddable HTML have been around as long as the web itself), associates with the much-hated buzzword "Web 2.0". The social aspect often allows for personalization, and end-users must choose to place the widget along with the assumedly related content on their profile. These end-users dislike banner ads for the same reason: they can't choose the content of such forced ads.

A couple friends of mine are involved in a "top-secret" venture at the moment, making widgets for use on social networking sites such as MySpace. They're working with an industry veteran, who has started successful online businesses in the past, selling them for millions. His former ventures were in the online auction industry, but he's a businessman and long-time Internet user above all else. They're in the process of securing VC funding, and are programming using ActionScript and Flash for their widget designs. It's still in the early stages of development, so I can't give a link or name.

I myself designed a set of widgets (again, still "beta") for counting down various school-related events. There's no ad revenue involved, just a link back to the homepage. This particular one counts the days until I return to school:

Article: Steel, Emily. "Young Surfers Spurn Banner Ads, Embrace 'Widgets'." Wall Street Journal 02 July 2007: B3. (sorry, no URL-- the Journal's web site is a paid subscription service)

From Sunday's Chicago Tribune:

Truth or myth?
...

Myth: It's the rare teen who doesn't have a MySpace account.
Truth: More than half of teens ages 12 to 17 don't use social networking sites.

Not sure how reliable this statistic is, but regardless, I'm much more concerned that people need to realize that big, bad MySpace is only ONE of many MUCH BETTER social networking sites on the web.

Thing is, he actually did do these edits as he was filming the show.

The Wikipedia articles on his show and George Washington were both edited by the user Stephencolbert to reflect the changes he declared on air as he tapped at his computer around 23:35 UTC - which is 6:35pm on the East Coast, during the taping of his show, hours before it aired.

Subsequently, his account was blocked.

source

I saw this on E!'s "The Soup" while I was channel surfing this evening, and Googled around for a bit before locating the vid. Give it a digg!

A murder suspect in Southern California, on his way to turn himself in to the police, is stopped by an NBC reporter. Instead of "armed and dangerous," he had a soda from Jack in the Box.

read more | digg story

From Digg:

A Vancouver, WA coffee shop called the cops on a guy who had been mooching their free wireless over a three month period without buying anything. Fair game or foul play?

I think this is stupid. I've done this myself countless times: walk into Starbucks or Panera with a laptop, sit down, and surf the net for a few hours without buying anything. I think a loitering charge would be the extent of the punishment this guy should get.

via Rob

read more | digg story

It's things like this that make me cringe.

AUSTIN, Texas - A 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by another user of MySpace.com sued the social networking Web site Monday, claiming it does not take sufficient steps to protect underage members.

The girl says a 19-year-old man lied in his profile about being a senior on a football team to gain her trust and phone number.

Pete Solis was arrested in May on a charge of sexual assault of a child. He could not immediately be reached Monday evening.

The suit alleges that MySpace has “absolutely no meaningful protections or security measures to protect underage users.”

“(MySpace) has got to take this seriously,” said attorney Carl Barry, who is representing the girl and her mother. The suit seeks $30 million.

I disagree with Matt Hartley's thoughts (see [via] link below) on this. He thinks the fault lies with the parents. I do not think parents are still responsible for instilling basic common sense at the age of 14. The fault lies entirely with the 14-year-old who failed to use common sense (she is from Texas... maybe it is the parent's fault :-D).

As for "absolutely no meaningful protections or security measures to protect underage users," they're wrong. Users under 16 have their profiles hidden by default only to friends. (Just because I hate, despise, and will never visit MySpace doesn't mean I'm ignorant of it.)

Source: MSNBC [via Lockergnome]

Five teenage boys accused of plotting a shooting rampage at their high school on the anniversary of the Columbine massacre were arrested Thursday after details of the alleged scheme appeared on the Web site MySpace.com

via digg

Finally, people are using MySpace for catching REAL criminals.

read more | digg story

A DEA agent who was demonstrating gun safety to a group of kids shot himself in the foot. video

Now he's suing the DEA. story via TSG

What an idiot.