One of the scariest parts of the recent security breaches involving a subsidiary of CIBC and the parent company of discount retail company Winners relates to a recent article I wrote about the disclosure of security breaches in Canada. Up to 3 million different Canadian identities are potentially at risk with these recent breaches in security, and this definitely brings the magnitude of the identity theft epidemic into the limelight. The biggest question I have is whether or not we would have heard anything about this if there had not been other countries affected by the breach. If, for example, Canadian Tire or Lordco, had a breach in security, would they alert the media (Note: As a publicly traded company, Canadian Tire may have other rules about this type of disclosure. Lordco, however, is privately held.)?

Click here or here for more information about the security breaches. The first link, from CBC, includes a comment about disclosure of these types of breaches in Canada.

With the release of Office 2007 for consumers right around the corner, talk of alternatives to Microsoft’s powerhouse suite of office applications has once again heated up. We’ve mentioned some of the alternatives in a couple posts, here and here, but Computer World offers an extensive look at four of the more prominent free, online offerings of Office applications.

Microsoft Corp.’s radical overhaul of Office 2007, already available to businesses and due for consumer release at the end of January, has left many users wondering about the alternatives. If we have to learn a new interface, why not try a whole different product? While we’re at it, why not investigate some of the new online-only office suites that everybody’s talking about?

Click here for the full story.

A partnership between a couple of tech heavyweights should go a long way in helping not only moving voice dictation software more mainstream, but also moving more users into the VoIP arena. A clip from a recent article from IT Business goes a long way in describing the potential of what these companies are working on:

In a demo, Microsoft showed how users would be able to use voice commands to access their calendar in Outlook and dictate a message to be sent if a meeting time had to be changed. The two companies will offer other technologies that will allow mixed use of voice, e-mail, instant messaging and video, Ballmer said.

Although many users have adapted their typing to nearly the speed of conversation, many IM users typically use shortened or slang words, almost to the point of an entire generation being dumbed-down, at least in my opinion. With users able to quickly dictate messages into emails, IM’s, and documents and memos, will users soon lose the ability to type, too?

U mite think ‘wtf am I talking about?’, but ur probably not 2 sure what this msg says, either. np. g2g, brb, will post soon. ttyl!

I have to laugh at how many people think they know what Web2 really is. I probably get asked this the most, more then new design, css, development and seo tips. I’m not going to define Web2 for you, you can go to Google or Wikipedia for that. Rather, lets talk about Web2 from other peoples standpoints.

What is a Web2 company
A Web2 company…

• - knows its role and position in the market. It has learned from the dot bombs that came before it and understands what it takes to be successful.
• - has a corporate blog.
• - looks to the community for support, and feedback because it knows the power of the mob, and it can not go at it alone.
• - may have a sound business model but understands traffic is king, and the king is valuable.
• now look to exit through acquisition rather then IPO’s.

What is a Web2 Application.
A Web2 Application is usually a rich application where the experience is not interrupted by page refresh or content being loaded. The experience should feel much like a desktop application. There are many examples of these types of applications online today such as GMail, Yahoo Mail Beta, Hotmail Beta and many more.

What is Web2 Design, Development.

Lets break this down into two parts:

Web2 design is now about CSS Layouts, and clear standards compliant markup. Images almost never sit in markup in favor of CSS backgrounds and pages are becoming multi-use were the content is folded away or is laid on top of existing content.

Development of Web2 relies heavily on JavaScript or ECMAScript for styling, moving, animating, and displaying content and pages. Data is typically not dumped onto a page, rather passed in using XML or JSON so it can be reused by the client. New Features like edit-in-place, user collaboration and tagging are becoming common in design and development.

What does Web2 mean to the End User?
Now the user will be able to experience the internet the way many experience their desktop applications. Things will work smoothly, respond quickly and be much more intuitive therefore providing more value because data will be accessed anywhere on demand.

First techFive of the year, and it’s been one heck of a week in the industry. Starting the year off right, I’m even trying to rank the stories in order of importance. Please remember, this is just one opinion…

5. Pirate Bay to purchase Sealand - A torrent/pirate/hacker website attempting to purchase their own country. This may prove that there is but one constant when dealing with computers and the Internet, there will always be those that strive to rise up against ‘the corporation’ or ‘the system.’ I’m not sure I would necessarily classify this as anarchy, but it does come close.

4. Google Ads expanding - Whether they are moving to radio or billboards, Google definitely understands that advertising is their bread and butter. Moving out into the traditional advertising markets and into an area that is so heavily congested is a bold move by the search giant.

3. Yahoo! purchases TheGoodBlogs - It was first announced by Techcrunch back in November, and I even thought it was big enough to make the techFive back then. Although there are those less than impressed with Yahoo!, I think it’s important that the company continues to expand and solidy its hold in the realm of social media.

2. Microsoft teams up with Ford - An excerpt from a previous post:

Ultimately, your handheld device will have to sync with everything, from your work PC, to your home PC, and yes, to your car. Microsoft already has the upper hand with more people using their PC’s, and have taken a step at tackling what I believe will be the second most important aspect of the whole equation, which is your car. By teaming up with Ford, Microsoft has tapped into a multinational producer and distributor that holds a fair amount of North America’s and the world’s automotive market.

1. The iPhone - Although Apple doesn’t seem to make any significant ground with computers, the iPod has become an important piece of popular culture. With the release of the iPhone, another appliance set to change pop culture, Apple had everyone talking. With the Cisco lawsuit, everyone will continue to discuss the device, whatever it really is, for months. And Americans won’t even have the chance to purchase one for themselves for at least half a year. Isn’t it interesting that it essentially makes their iPod somewhat extraneous?