Monday, May 4, 2009

I can see the finish line

With three finals remaining, I am begining to see the finish line. I cannot wait until I am able to relax at the end of the week. As stressful and unnerving as this week is, it is also challenging and helpful to my personal development. I understand why I take a final. I understand that it is to basically call me out. It is to challenge me and say, "you have a tight time situation over the next few days, go out and prove me that you can digest this knowledge."

Okay, maybe that is not what finals week is trying to drive out. Maybe it is just a way to see if I learned anything over the course of the semester. Consequently, I will be using this finals week as a challenge. I am viewing it as an opportunity to challenge myself, to push my limits. Can I ace a final with two hours of sleep leading into it? Can I juggle a social life along side of my academic life?

Bring it on.

B.K.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Cybersquatting

If you have the time, please take a listen to the youtube version of The Pensblog staff on the WDVE morning show. WDVE morning show is a syndicated morning radio show out of Pittsburgh, PA. Bascially the guys from The Pensblog describe thier Cyber Squatting situation.

A little more background that I can supply includes the rinkotology explanation. Rinkotology was created by the founders of The Pensblog as a way for fans to get into the Stanley Cup playoffs by submitting their picks for the current Stanley Cup Playoffs bracket. It is similar to a March Madness bracket pool manager that you might find at sportsline.com or espn.com. The participants (myself included) donate money to the Mario Lemieux Foundation in order to submit their entry to the bracket contest. The winner of the contest gets signed memorabilia, Penguins gear, etc.



And since it couldn't fit into one video:



This cyber squatting think has gotten a little out of hand. It makes me wonder if I should go out today and buy myname.com so that when I get famous, I won't have to worry about someone linking some smut to my name.

B.K.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Cyber Squatting

I was reading a post on one of my favorite sports blogs, The Pensblog, and I came across this post: Sad State of Affairs. This post brings the issue of "Cyber Squatting" to the forefront. For those readers out there who are unfamiliar with the issue, I will provide a brief synopsis. Basically, cyber squatters are people who try to cash in on a web site's popularity by buying domain names that are very similar to that very popular website. For example, when I type in penguins.com, I don't get linked to the Pittsburgh Penguins' homepage, I get a cyber squatter's page. The site has very little to do with penguins (aside from the picture of a few emperor penguins on the front page). It is littered with sponsored ads that are intended to make the web site operator money. This has force many popular web site operators to spend hundreds of dollars buying domain names that are close to theirs in an effort to automatically link to the intended site.

The most classic example of cybersquatting probably occurred with the whitehouse.com/.gov scandal. Whitehouse.com was actually a porn site that was not affiliated with the government. Many people, including young children, were directed to this site when they were looking to find out more about the president or the most famous residence in the country. The website they were looking for was whitehouse.gov. However, since a cybersquatter or opportunistic indivicual (choose your own characterizaton) purchased the .com, millions of people were directed to a site that they did not intend to see.

More to come on cybersquatting. . .

B.K.