Well today and this week is turning out to be quite the day for web-tech related news. Perhaps calling it the web apocalypse is a bit much, but it certainly seems the past month or two has been filled with crisis, huge news stories, and other signs the web is growing ever more powerful and also struggling to maintain stability (oh, wait, the web will never be stable, it's constantly evolving).

Twitter is Down: Denial of Service

Twitter joins 4chan, reddit, and the Gawker Media sites as the latest to fall victim to a Denial of Service attacks. What is going on lately with these DDoS attacks? A few weeks back, a large number of internet users experienced a web-wide slowdown due to a DDoS attack against some of the biggest U.S. sites, and since then it seems there's been a new attack every few days against a huge site. With Twitter going down today, web geeks panicked as they had little recourse to send out messages about ___ being down.

As of 1 PM, Twitter is back up and functioning normally, but will they be attacked again? Who will be the next target? Is one group responsible for all these recent attacks or is there a copycat effect going on?

Facebook Struggles as Twitter Falls

Of course, the first place the majority of Twitter users would flock to would be Facebook. Unfortuanetly for them, Facebook too was having network issues today. As of 1 PM, I'm receiving errors at Facebook.

Facebook's Network Struggles

Die IE6, Die IE6, Die

CNN reports that the movement to kill off Internet Explorer 6 has been renewed with vigor. They're not the first to break the story but are the biggest mainstream media outlet to report on it. Back in July a few major web companies begin announcing they are dropping full support for Internet Explorer 6. Mashable reported on the trend as well as listing a plethora of reasons why IE6 should be killed off and forgotten. Since then, the kill IE6 movement has been snowballing, reaching new heights today with the CNN article.

But, at the end of the day, most IE6 users are stuck in the antiquated browser because the corporation they work for has too many applications developed in-house that break outside of IE6. I don't think anyone out there is willfully using IE6 because they think it rocks. Rather, they're stuck using it.

Warning: Internet Explorer 6 is in your PC!

Still, going back to my corporate days I remember that it wasn't exactly difficult to get Firefox running alongside IE6. Even Microsoft wants users to upgrade from IE6, but since it's not easy to get fully working, fully supported versions of IE6 and IE8 running on the same desktop (I have such a setup for testing purposes, but it isn't bug-free) we'll likely continue to see corporate IT departments holding back the web by keeping IE6 on the corporate desktop.

I'm all for this movement, but it'll take more than Youtube, Digg or Facebook not working properly to kill off IE6. It'll take a truly huge site that corporate users must have access to, something like Google. Until then, web developers have three choices, ignore IE6 users, create a skeleton version of the site for IE6, or handicap their overall site by ensuring it works in all browsers by default.

Paying for Online News

Last but not least, Rupert Murdoch announced that he'll be switching all News Corp. web-sites over to a paid format. The key quote from the announcement:

"Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,"

Does that mean the Fox News web-site will remain free?

Seriously, paying for news isn't a terrible thing. It's unlikely to work, but if the quality is truly there, meaning news is reported pro-actively instead of re-actively, and has investigation behind it and doesn't simply regurgitate press releases, then people will pay. How many is the real question.

Thanks to the Rich Man for the photo of the four horses.

As you may have heard, facebook allowed users to pick a username starting at 12:01 AM today. I logged in and tried to get myself a vanity URL ending with "adamp", but alas it was already gone. I settled on facebook.com/adampieniazek, which at least matches 95% of my other social network usernames.

I also grabbed a few vanity URLs for some clients and friends. In the end, it doesn't really affect me much since I use fbadam.com as a short, easy to remember and spell way to tell people about my facebook profile. Still, it's nice to clean up my facebook URL and get rid of all that profile="lotsofrandomnumbers" mess.

Did you get the facebook vanity URL you were hoping for?

If you haven't yet picked out a username, hop on over and give it a try. Quick note, the period does not matter and your address will resolve with or without a period. AKA, facebook.com/adampieniazek and facebook.com/adam.pieniazek and facebook.com/a.d.a.m.p.i.e.n.i.a.z.e.k all take you to my facebook profile.

A few days ago one of my facebook buddies (my profile on facebook) commented about how he was:

supporting Skynet by linking Facebook and Twitter.

Having earlier taken the "Could you survive a Zombie Invasion?" quiz, I knew we would be safe from zombies as I am apparently all that is man when it comes to destroying zombies. Skynet, however, worries me greatly. Thus, my comment in response to the Skynet connection was:

Lucky for us the zombies will come before Skynet. We've got a chance against zombies, Skynet will p0wn the heck out of us.

Oh no! It's already here!

To which his amazing comment was:

Vin Diesel + Zombies = Vin Diesel .... Vin Diesel + Skynet = Skynet .... I see what you are getting at....

Which brings us to the The Vin Diesel Formula for Whether You Should Proceed with Potentially Dangerous Technology, which is basically:

Vin Diesel + ___insert potentially dangerous technology____ = x

Where if x = Vin Diesel, you may proceed with the potentially dangerous technology (you hear that UMass BioMedical center directly across from the cemetery in Jamaica Plain? - keep doing what you do).

However, if x = potentially dangerous technology, immediately stop, halt, do not proceed further.

Thanks to @nmarsceill for the The Vin Diesel Formula for Whether You Should Proceed with Potentially Dangerous Technology. [Follow me on Twitter, so we can strategize during the zombie/Skynet/Cylon attack(s)].

Photo of Skynet by Ben Patio.

Quick post to point out the new social network buttons in the right sidebar. They come via Justin from Life Of Justin, and are available for free to use and abuse. If you have not done so yet, join the smartest people on the internet and add me on facebook, follow me on twitter or fave me on technorati. By getting social with me today, you may just win a million dollars. Or you may not, but it can't hurt!

Who do you think knows more about basic economic theories and principles, President George Walker Bush or a mass of facebook users? In a democracy, we subscribe to the idea that the majority knows better than a principled few. So from a democratic perspective, the facebook users should know more about economics than President George Walker Bush. As this poll on facebook shows, 76% of facebook users do not think the $150 billion economic stimulus package will help the economy.

What do I think?

I agree with the facebook users. Our economy does not need increased consumer spending, rather, it needs increased domestic spending from the government. We already spend too much money in this country on items that don't increase our productivity or standard of living in the long run. We need to stop borrowing money not borrow more of it. It's these economic stimulus packages from Bush that have gotten us in trouble. Our government is bankrupting our country.

We need to stop wasting money outside the U.S. borders and spend money here, within the United States of America. We have bridges and tunnels in desperate need of repair, schools literally crumbling apart and failing to teach kids basic principles, and families and individuals falling into debt due to massive health, energy, and college costs. Money should go into all of the areas I just mentioned, not to other countries and certainly we should not be borrowing money just to put it in people's pockets.

People might go out and spend a little bit more when their rebate checks come in, but it will only be a shot in the arm for an economy that needs open heart surgery. 76% of facebook users get it, why don't our elected officials?

I stumbled upon a pretty cool feature on facebook's redesign a few days ago, stats for categories such as music and movies for networks. If you're a facebook user and wanna check out what I'm seeing click on Networks, scroll down and you should see a "Network Statistics" section on the right side. If you're not a facebook user, check out the pics below:

University of Massachusetts at Amherst Network Stats:

No suprises here, Sublime and Family Guy top their respective charts, half the school is apparently not interested (or at least not affiliated) in politics, maybe that has something to do with the fact that a 1/3 of the campus is single and on the prowl?

Northeastern University Network Stats:

Northeastern has some similarities with Umass, a lot actually. 1/3 of the campus is single and 1/2 are not affiliated with a political view, the top TV show is Family Guy and the top book, like Umass is Harry Potter.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Network Stats:

Hey, here's something interesting, UNC has only 1% less students who call themselves "liberal" (18%) than Northeastern and Umass (both at 19%)! Harry Potter once again tops the books list, but the Bible (something not on either of the other two networks) comes in at #2! facebook also backs up the popular claim that there are more girls than boys at the campus (46% female to 35% male).

In general, all three campuses have pretty much the same interests even though they have slightly different demographics. There's some grumblings on the Northeastern network page about the "masculinity" of their campus due to Jack Johnson being the #1 musical artist but at least they don't have Coldplay topping their charts like UNC! Sorry Coldplay fans, no me gusta...and of course Ben Folds joins the top ten list (they are from Chapel Hill), and the Fray make it into UNC's top ten list.

University of Southern California Network Stats:

From my personal experience at USC, the campus was a great source of new music and movies as many of the students had connections within the music industry either through friends in bands, or internship experience and of course the USC Film School is one of the best such programs in the country so I was expecting for USC's musical and cinematic preferences to be different from other schools, yet the facebook network stats doesn't back up this hypothesis. There are some slight differences, for instance USC has Gladiator and Zoolander in it's top ten movies and John Mayer in it's top ten music list, but other than those two slight differences, USC students like the same things UNC, Umass, and Northeastern students like. Not a very groundbreaking statement there, considering how students from everywhere attend schools everywhere and we're all so connected it's tough not to watch the same movies and listen to the same songs.

Let's see if these stats change any for the City of Boston network:

Aaargh, Coldplay at #1 again. Other than Rap and R&ampB making their way into the top ten list, there's not much of a difference between the Boston network page and the four colleges we've looked at. Looking at a few of the other cities across the country generally leads to the same results. There are differences in musical tastes between say Cincinatti, Ohio and Boston, Massachusetts but not a huge difference. What does this conformity say about our society? Are we all really that similar?

Check it out:

A Tribute to the Virginia Tech Hokies

The power of facebook let us receive and compile more than 350 college logos into this collage.

Ah, college textbooks, the fine print on your college bill. It literally sickens me thinking about the literally thousands of dollars I've spent on college textbooks during my college, ahem, journey. Everywhere I've gone, students always complain about the high costs of textbooks and the low (if any) re-sale value. It seems colleges are listening to students complaints, as two deans at Harvard University are asking Harvard professors to either digitize their course content (which would require textbook manufacturer's doing so first, more on this later) or confirm what textbooks they'll be using for upcoming semesters sooner (Cut costs of books at Harvard, deans urge, via Boston.com), thus ensuring stores will buy back textbooks. A noble start, but the focus needs to go on textbook manufacturers to lower their costs, and thus pass on the savings to students.

Besides, Harvard's announcement is neither unique nor the best solution. The UNC Board of Governors voted several weeks ago to enforce similar deadlines for choosing on textbooks on professors; however the Board also voted to force public universities in North Carolina to either guarantee textbook buy-backs or provide textbook rental programs (UNC says cost of books must fall via newsobserver.com). The rental program looks promising, especially if schools begin to institute a semester fee, under which all your textbooks are available.

Still, there's a lot of work to be done to bring down the costs of textbooks and the elephant in the room is still the textbook manufactures themselves. College textbooks are an extremely profitable industry, and manufactures are not going to budge from their current strategies unless they need to (very similar to the RIIA in that respect). I'd like to see textbook publishers begin to offer their books online, in a .pdf format, for students to read through and print as need be. Imagine how many trees could be saved by not printing all of those textbooks!

In the mean time, I thought it'd be helpful to all the college students out there to present some methods I've developed/discovered to save on textbooks.

1. Order the International version on-line

During the summer of 2005, I discovered that some of my textbooks also have an international version, which appeared to differ from the regular version on three points: it was black & white, paperback, and a hell of a lot cheaper! After I checked with the book's publisher and confirmed that the actual textual content was identical, I went ahead and ordered the international versions and haven't noticed any differences between my greatly cheaper international version and the standard U.S. hardcover versions.

Since, then whenever I need to buy a textbook, the first thing I look for is the international version of the book. A few great resources are:

• Valorebooks.com
• Half.com
• Amazon.com
• textbooks.com
• ebay.com
• AbeBooks.com
• Bookbyte
• CampusBooks.com
• SafariX
2. Order the U.S. version...on-line

None of those places have the international version? Don't fret, they probably still have better deals than you'll find on campus.

Remember though, the internet is always a-changing and better sites will always come up, but if you search around you can easily beat the prices at your school's store.

3. facebook, facebook, myspace, craigslist and facebook

What, you thought facebook was just for poking, stalking, and procrastinating? Most of the people on facebook are college students and there's probably a ton who are taking the class you're signing up for, hit them up and see if they'd like to make a deal for the books. You're bound to get a cheaper price than through your school's store and so are they. It's win-win!

Remember to check myspace and craigslist too.

4. What? We have a library?

Huh, our library has textbooks? You bet they do! Almost all college campuses stock at least one copy of the textbooks for that semester in their campus library, but you may not be able to take the book outside of the building. Still, if the library has a scanner you can upload a textbook (chapter by chapter so you're not at the scanner for the whole semester) or just make plain copies of it. Better yet, if you have a photographic memory, just read the book there.

If you live in a large metropolitan area, say Boston, check with the public library too as they may have your textbook(s), especially if you're a English major.

5. Sell Yourself

NO! Not that way...get your mind out of the gutter and check out the the Freeload Press, where for the "price" of having to view ads, you can get textbooks for free! This site would be a lot higher on this list if they had a wider selection, still you can't beat free and some of the books on there you may want to check out even if you don't have a class in that subject.

6. Leave Campus

So you've tried all the above methods and still can't find the book or beat your school store's prices? Look outside the campus then. Many big schools, especially those in college towns, have book stores off-campus that routinely have better prices than the school store.

7. Sir Mooch-a-lot

Make friends with someone in your class, and repeatedly borrow their book. Note, you'll either need to be very persuasive, attractive, or poor to make this work, but trust me, it can be done. Or you could borrow it once or twice and make copies of what you need.

8. Become a Master Student

If you already know everything in the textbook, you really don't need it, do you? There's literally a plethora of resources all over the web to learn any subject. Bone up on the topic and you'll get great grades and save money!! Use at your own risk...

9. Google is your friend

This goes along with the Master Student suggestion, but remember you can find nearly anything on the web.

I discovered this gem while perusing facebook today:

Apparently, Intuit, the makers of Turbo Tax, are hosting a contest on YouTube for the best rap video about Turbo Tax. If you think that video is as funny as I do, please go here and vote for them. I've looked through some of the other entries, and these guys have them all beat, hands down.

Some of the best lines:

"...it's the best software since Oregon Trail."

"Don't wanna go toe to toe wit Uncle Sam, cuz you cooked your books like a Christmas ham."

"I been around, I seen some things, I throw tea in the harbor when I'm mad at the king."