Tag Archives: Internet

Read this if you’re wondering whether your cell phone is covered with fecal matter



Talking on the Phone While Sitting on the Toilet
Talking on the Phone While Sitting on the Toilet

Show of hands — how many of you have used your cell phone while using the bathroom?

Web Watch has one friend who does most of their best talking while sitting… although they are polite enough to not flush while the call is going on (we hope that they are only being that courteous while at home rather than being THAT person at the office who doesn’t flush).

Women, we can understand — they’re used to having full-blown conversations with the other gaggle of women who go to the bathroom en masse.  So picking up the phone to take care of business while they’re actually Taking Care of Business is not a surprise.   But men have that unwritten rule about no talking in the restroom, so when some D-Bag come barrelling in, yammering away on their Bluetooth headset as if they’re More Important Than Everyone Else kinda ruins the silent sanctity of the Men’s Room.

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Are you a Showroomer? When retail stores fight back against the Internet, we all lose



Showroom: The Saga of a Family, a Car Business and the Seven Deadly Sins
Showroom: The Saga of a Family, a Car Business and the Seven Deadly Sins

By now, Web Watch is sure that you’ve heard of the term “showrooming“, where consumers go to Target, Best Buy, or other major retailers simply to browse the aisles – cell phone in hand – with the explicit purpose to NOT buy anything that day.

Web Watch will admit, we’ve done this on plenty of occasions:  we go to an electronics department to look for a specific item — maybe so we can get a close-up of the box, or a better idea of the specs — and we do our own little bit of online price comparison.

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Amazon.com has the Best Customer Service. (Zappos ranks high, too)



Amazon.com Gift Card
Amazon.com Gift Card

When it comes to Customer Service, what retail companies come to mind?

We’ve heard countless stories about companies like Costco taking back anything that they sell, no matter how long ago you purchased it… but while Costco is an awesome place to shop, the long lines and lack of salespeople on the shopping floor can turn some potential shoppers off, as getting out of there with a purchase can be a bit more difficult than it needs to be.

Web Watch enjoys the staff at the local Home Depot and Lowe’s, but there are times when both stores struggle to answer our seemingly simple questions.

We do’t ask for much – we just want each shopping experience to be superior to the last outing.

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How much money do porn sites make?



The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google
The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google

In 2006, the US adult industry made over $13 billion in revenue.

In revenue, porn brings in more money than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix, and Earthlink combined.

Let’s say that last word again:  combined.

Yes, online (and elsewhere) we can safely say, “porn is king”.  Just like the porn industry is credited with the rise of VHS over Beta, the porn industry is also credited with pushing the technology envelope and make today’s Internet what it has become.

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Is that YouTube video legal? Check out the YouTube Copyright School to learn more



Harry Potter and the Order of the Court: The J.K. Rowling Copyright Case and the Question of Fair Use
Harry Potter and the Order of the Court:
The J.K. Rowling Copyright Case and the Question of Fair Use

Copyright is an important aspect of online life today, and not very many people understand it.

“The Internet is FREE”, they claim.  “Everything on the Internet is free for the taking!”

No, not so much.  Rule number one of Internet legalities:  Just because someone posted it on the Internet doesn’t mean that there is no copyright or that the material is free to be shared/taken. 

Fact is, the very act of writing something yourself gives you an automatic copyright to that material that YOU created.  Let’s emphasize that YOU created portion again.  It has to be original work from YOU for you to claim the copyright – and even then, you can only claim the copyright on the portion that YOU edited.

Even large mass-edited projects like Wikipedia have a copyright… but Wikipedia explicitly says that the individual Wikipedia editors can’t claim copyright on the text that is contributed directly to Wikipedia articles — just adding the text to Wikipedia grants Wikipedia a licence to make that text available for public use.  (Content that is already copyrighted outside of Wikipedia and still contributed by the original author falls under a different set of copyright guidelines — be sure to read that WP article for all the copyright details that may pertain to you.)

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How much bandwidth does your cell service provider give you?



Will Work for Bandwidth
Will Work for Bandwidth

Do you know how much bandwidth your cell phone provider gives you on your mobile phone contract?

We know – why does it matter how much our providers charge us for bandwidth?  The Internet is free, right?

Yeah… not so much.

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Year in Review: 2011′s most popular Web Watch articles and searches



2011: Living in the Future
2011: Living in the Future

Thanks to everyone who took the time to visit Web Watch in 2011. For those of you who haven’t been able to visit every day, let’s take a look at what you did come and see while you were here:

The top ten most viewed Web Watch articles for 2011 were:

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An open letter to MGM, Caesars, Sands, and other casino companies regarding social media



Fountains of Bellagio
Fountains of Bellagio

This is an open letter to the marketing staff at MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, Sands, and other casino corporations.  And if you’re part of the marketing staff at a different type of company, you may want to pay attention to this as well – since the core takeaway here applies to you as well.

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Top 10 Reasons You Are No Longer a Facebook Friend



HATE / LIKE Facebook Icons
HATE / LIKE Facebook Icons

How many Facebook friends do you have?

No, really — how many of the people you have “friended” on Facebook are really, honestly your friends?  People that you know IRL (that’s “In Real Life” for those of you who don’t know), that you would talk to anyway over the matter of course?

Yeah, we thought so.  You really only know about what – 130 people, tops?  So whatcha doing with that Facebook friend list that’s hovering around the 462 person mark?

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What PS3, Xbox360, and Wii owners really do with their systems



Xbox 360 with Kinect
Xbox 360 with Kinect

So Web Watch is in the process of packing up some of our video game systems and putting them away.  The PS2 and Xbox Classic are no longer needed, and don’t even get us started on the TurboGrafx or Sega Genesis that were also taking up precious shelf space.

We’ll leave the Wii and PS3 where they are as we still use those regularly, as we anxiously await the long-rumored Xbox 720 to come out to replace the Xbox 360.

So what does all this mean?  We’re not the only ones with older gaming systems still hanging around and being used.

But what are they being used for?  It’s not always what you think.

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How to remove Carrier IQ from your phone



Android figure toy
Google Android Figure

By now, you probably have heard about CARRIER IQ, that software that many cell phone manufacturers and service providers had installed on all sorts of cellphones in order to track how well their networks were performing.

The issue, if you didn’t know, is that CARRIER IQ wasn’t a very well-designed application and was recording a lot of each user’s phone actions without that person’s knowledge.  Now, Congress has gotten involved and it’s turned into a big ugly mess.

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If you have ever downloaded anything illegally, you may want to visit this site



BitTorrent for Dummies
BitTorrent for Dummies

Remember how much fun Napster was, back in the day?

Yeah, well Napster is officially gone now.

What about LimeWire?  KaZaa?   Yeah, you shouldn’t be using those either.

Nope, whether you agree with the legalities (or lack thereof) of those sites, none of the old fun “file sharing” apps and websites are valid anymore, thanks to the movie and music industry.

And the proliferation of $0.99 songs and apps on the iTunes store.  That kinda helped a little bit.

Of course, you always have that peer-to-peer sharing via BitTorrent, which is a legitimate way to legally share giant files amongst people who need them.  Unfortunately, a few bad apples had to go and ruin BitTorrent for everyone else too, by using BT as a way to throw around pirated movies and music.

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How much money do porn websites make?



Digital Boudoir Photography: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Fabulous Images of Any Woman
Digital Boudoir Photography:
A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Fabulous Images of Any Woman

As is almost always the case with technology, porn leads the way.

It was the case with VHS vs Beta video tapes.  It’s been the case with online payments.  And it’s been the case with social media. 

Porn is a big money-making industry, and the Internet has just made it easy for Anyone to do it.  And we’re not just talking about those leaked celebrity sex tapes, either.

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The Worst Passwords for 2011



Post-it Notes
Post-it Notes

Web Watch was visiting an office a few weeks ago when the people we were visiting were trying to log onto the shared computer in the conference room.

They thought they knew the password, but something wasn’t right.  After about 20 minutes of trying, they called their IT guy for help.  He walked in, went over to the computer, and read the correct password off of a Post-It Note that had been taped to the machine specifically for this purpose.

This was in a high-security building, in a room that only a few people had keys for — and the password was taped to the machine for anyone to use.  It probably wouldn’t be a problem, as many people would need to use that same computer, but we’ve been told for years not to post passwords on Post-It Notes.

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How big of a nerd are you? Try taking the 2011 Geek Test



The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth:
Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School

Web Watch knows that we’re a bit of a computer nerd.  Some would say that “geek” would be the more appropriate term.  To paraphrase a recent episode of CSI, a “freak” is someone who is naturally talented in unusual ways; a “geek” is one who learns how to do the same things.

So we’ll go with “geek”, as all computer knowledge is learned – whether it be via formal school education or by tinkering around with gadgets and on the Internet for hours/days/weeks/years on end to see how things works and to make thinks work better.

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were nerds, and they’re proud of it.

Which brings us to our initial question: How big of a geek are you?

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