Gmail vulnerability being exploited by spammers

I knew something was fishy, when I started getting emails from my father inviting me to desktopdating.net. Doing a closer inspection of the email properties, I found it was not sent from Gmail, but from desktopdating.net.

There have been quite a few cases of emails being sent in the name of Gmail (Google Email) users to their contacts which have not been authored by the holders of those Gmail accounts. Known websites that have beeing using this technique are desktopdating.net, yaari.com & gazzag.com. These websites send invites and other spam in someone else's name to their contacts. An easy way to spot such a false email is to see the details or properties - it will show the from address as someone@gmail.com, but the mailed by server will not be gmail, for example it may be desktopdating.net.

These sites have also been mentioned in a blog post of 'Ill-mannered websites'.

If you can, block or filter these websites in your email accounts, web servers an any other online channels. If you have become a member on these, I would strongly recommend that you unregister and remove any personal or social contact details. Finally, if you do recieve any email mentioning links to these websites, do not click on any of these links, as that will start a program that attempts to read through your entire contact list and store it for spamming purposes. Simply delete such email, marking as spam may be tricky as that may block the email address.

Gmail vulnerability

Gmail used to carry all the contact address for an account in its active Javascript for a logged-in email account. Other sites found that in today's multi-tab browsers, if a user is presuaded to visit another web page while keeping their Gmail accounts open, it would be possible to extract those contact list addresses from the Javascript using the new web page. There is more information on this vulnerability in this blog post - GMail Vulnerable To Contact List Hijacking.

Though this vulnerability has since been fixed by Gmail, in the time window that was open some spammers had been able to harvest and collect contact lists for many email holders.

Windows XP Themes - free and easy

Customizable interfaces that's what we love. Users today spend a large part of the day staring at the same screens, sometimes they want a change but there's not much to have.

Microsoft Vista, window operating system's new avatar, did come out with a lot of that stuff - but it turned out to be something that doesn't go smoothly on your average computer. The result is that many, including me, are now choosing to use the older Windows XP. Seeing the problems in Vista, we are learning to appreciate the relative stability of WinXP, it's compatibility with nearly all popular software products, and ability to get the job done without too much fuss.

Yet, there's still much left to be desired. This blog is about the limited 'themes' in WinXP. By default, you'll find that out-of-the-box you get only 3 themes in WinXP - Windows XP, Windows Classic and 'My Current Theme'. Not very inspiring. 'M themes online...' link never leads anywhere useful.


Now since Microsoft is not very helpful, we end up seeing third party software such as StyleXP. Many of these are not free, which these days is means unusable. Some have custom software to do the configuration. Ideally one should just be able to get themes online and set them using the default WinXP setup shown above.

There had to be an easier way, I found it with Multipatcher - here's how to use it:

• Get the software here (file is uxpatcher.zip), currently it is at version 5.5. Note that this software will only work on Windows XP/SP1/SP2 or Windows Server 2003 (with Themes enabled)
  
• Unzip this to get the file UXTheme Multi-Patcher 5.5.exe. Run this program. This edits the Windows dynamic link library file uxtheme.dll, so that it can accept theme files that have not been signed off by Microsoft, otherwise any other theme files will not be recognised.
• On running you will get the following dialogue widow:
  
  
• click the 'Patch' button to go ahead with the install. Following window will then appear:
  
  

• This checks out your windows system. Click the 'OK' button. A new window will appear:
  
  
• This warns you about the Windows File Protection dialogue appearing. I'll explain about that further, for now click 'OK'. Next window is:
  
  
• To restart the computer after install, click OK. Make sure any unsaved work on your computer is saved before doing so.
• Before you restart a Windows File Protection dialogue may appear:
  
  
• For which click 'Cancel', or the following may appear:
  
  
• for which you can click 'Yes'
  
• If you are uncomfortable with patching your uxtheme.dll file, note that running this program again will un-patch the file.

Installing Themes

• You can find WinXP themes at varous online locations such as - here and here.
  
• To install these, put the *.theme file and any associated folders in C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes
• Then double-click on the file *.theme and it will open in the standard Display properties window shown above. Choose the theme and click 'Apply'.

New way to resize images automatically

At the SIGGRAPH 2007 conference, in the session named Image Slicing and Stretching there has been a notable technology presented by two researchers from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL).

Called Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing, it's described as

Seam carving is a method for content-aware resizing that changes the size of an image according to its content. This paper shows applications to aspect-ratio change, image retargeting, and object removal.

Resizing images to make them fit in the required internet form factor without distorting its contents has always been a bit of a challenge. The demonstration of this tool, seems to make the work involved a lot easier and automated. The ability of a page to resize with the browser window is called liquidity. Here the images in the page also support that concept.

It also demonstrates the capability of locating areas of that are least important or have the 'least energy' and removing them without any noticeable distortions. However, there are limitations, especially where there are large composition elements such as faces and people that cannot be skewed without obvious effects.

To see these very interesting image transformation capabilities see the following video.



The two researchers, Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir have been promptly recruited by Adobe Systems Incorporated, who in-fact chaired the conference session. I fear this tool may also just get incorporated into Adobe's proprietary image manipulation software, instead of becoming available in the open source arena.

Meanwhile, traditionalists moan the manipulations possible in digital images and note that it undermines the integrity of photographs and the art of photography.

Blog Addict

I just tried out a quiz on 'How Addicted to Blogging are you?' I got the following

70%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

If you feel like trying out the quiz yourself, click on the above picture to go to the site. Feel free to post your score to this post as comment.

Chemistry of the Internet

My colleague, Simon, passed on this website to our group today morning. A lot of frivolity, guffaws and laughter ensued.

It seems to be a chemists attempt to make sense of things on the internet, by following the model of the Periodic Table of Elements. A number of well-known (and not so well-known) online websites, services and software are organised in the table, represented as boxes. Columns stand for categories such as 'Search Engines', 'Internet Tools, 'Blogs', 'Operating Systems', and the row is used to mark the rankings of the website. Each box shows the Symbol, Sit URL
and Rank. By clicking on any of the boxes you're taken to the corresponding website.

I can be very addictive serendipitous experience. It took some effort to tear my attention away onto more 'pressing' matters.



The website can be found here.

BarCamp

We had BarCamp at work.

BarCamp, you say? Wikipedia begins to define it as an 'unconference', but that was where the similarity ended. Normally, a BarCamp is about Information Technology professionals getting together and sharing their knowledge in an open communicative environment. When it comes to geeks (mostly unmarried) and communications it means - Laptops, Wi-Fi, Blogs, Wikis, Coding, Sleeping Bags and so on. However in our building we have more librarians then techies.

There was basically an open schedule board, where participants could sign up to give a presentation, or be a moderator. In this case, no topic was off-topic. The schedule was to be finalised, hardly 5 minute before the event. It was planned that each session, the presenter had a few minutes to showcase his/her idea and then the audience joins into a discussion. Of course, depending on the topic there were variations.

I moderated a couple of very significant sessions, presented by a fellow techie colleague related to hotdesking with terminals and remote access to office applications. There was a lot of interest from the audience/participants in what's-in-it-for-us fashion. In my turn, I presented a unprepared session (in the spirit of the un-conference) on Google Earth and our interest there (picture below). I gave a demo in 3-dimensional modeling in Google Sketchup, attempting to show how easy it is. I also presented a few ready-made models from Google's 3D Warehouse such as the Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower. I was taken aback to notice that our CEO was also in the audience - she asked some very good questions related to importing of CAD drawings into Sketchup software. Everybody was interested in the technology and wanted to know more on how to get into this and what was required to contribute.



Overall, the event generated a lot of involvement, buzz and energy - above normal levels. I enjoyed playing the roles of organising team member, moderator and presenter.There's a plan to follow up with a similar and longer event in a month or so.

From Microsoft Labs ... Seadragon and Photosynth

Webstock Mini-June
We were given a brief glimpse of this technology at Webstock Mini-June conference held here in Wellington last week. The presenter was Leigh Blackall, he showed us some features of Second Life virtual world. Proceeding on that topic he also gave us a brief glimpse of Photosynth. Curiosity drove me to the source.

TED
With the competition in internet innovation hotting up these days a lot of brilliant ideas are finding voice. An exciting development to come out of Microsoft Labs was demonstrated at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks held every year in California, United States.

Seadragon
This was the first of the two technologies presented. Using the new Windows Media Photo Format, examples were shown of collages of photographs, that can be zoomed endlessly down to the tiniest level, smoothly and effortlessly. At one stage the software architect Blaise Aguera Y Arcas, mentioned that they were using 300 MegaPixel images. To put that in perspective, most images we get from digital cameras are only around 3 to 5 MegaPixels, and these are capable of being printed in large poster format without distortion. To facilitate this kind of technology I would normally assume that the software that can manipulate objects of this size would be very sophisticated and complex, requiring machines at super-computer level including giant memory stores connected to a very large bandwidth network. Yet, this project, which is under incubation at Microsoft Live Labs promises:

1. Speed of navigation is independent of the size or number of objects.


2. Performance depends only on the ratio of bandwidth to pixels on the screen.


3. Transitions are smooth as butter.


4. Scaling is near perfect and rapid for screens of any resolution.

PhotoSynth
This other project from Microsoft Live Labs allows one to see the photos in a context of 3D virtual world representation of the place where the photograph was taken. The model seems to map the position of the camera, the position of the photographed subject, and the photograph itself. Now, integrated with countless other photographs in the same area. What you effectively build up is a 3D world showing the view from any point in any direction using available photographic detail of the area.

Some latest digital cameras that come with built in Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors could, theoretically, encode the photograph itself with the data (or metadata) of where it was taken. To get the effective 3D coordinates, the metadata should also include the height in terms of 'above sea-level' of the photographer. However, Photosynth works from the other end - it takes your photographs, analyzes them, and working from familiar features in the photo - such as the architectural lines of a known building, determines the position and angle of the camera. Thus, the onus is lifted from the user to provide the location metadata for the photo.

There are further benefits envisaged to this technology such as Smart Photos - the idea of taking a photo of some item with your cellphone-camera, and sending it to a service that determines what's in the picture and sending you back information about the subject. Great for tourists!

You can install and try out the software, but note the system requirements before you begin.

One particular word said by the presenter is going to stick around in my mind - metaverse. It seems to be a reference to a universe built by amalgamation of all kinds of related objects, facilitated by the metadata of those objects.

The TED Presentation

Facebook v MySpace - defining a 'cool' site

Facebook, MySpace and their ilk are websites where you can put up your profile, details, blog and invite friends. These days with the denizens of the world in greater transience, people keep moving all over the place. These are useful tools to keep in touch, promote your interests etc.

MySpace is a very configurable platform - you can turn your web page into almost any form. There's been a flurry of activity recently from Facebook too - to make it's web page more malleable by releasing the Facebook Platform. However, there continues to be a difference in the culture of these two online communities. See below:

Video from CNET

Note-starts with an advertisement


Cartoon from BLaugh



At this stage MySpace is the leader by far, but this market can swing unpredictably.

Other interesting links
Feature Comparison between MySpace and Facebook
Tipping Point for Facebook
Related BBC Article, passed on to me by a colleague

The Developer - Power Down

No technology can survive without power, and one technology is dependent on another ...

Book Review: The First $20 million is Always the Hardest

I read this book around 5 years ago, but it's passages keep coming back to me. It's quite superb and written for anyone to read, though techies will identify with it and enjoy it the most. I laughed and nodded my head through many of the pages. It was published in March 1997 and is authored by Po Bronson, who has been described as: "Po Bronson is a genuine voice of a new generation, the bard of Silicon Valley." by Lewis Lapham

It is written in the time and about the time when information technology was a boom story. Everybody was inflating the internet bubble without any conception of a possible bust at the end. Many techies were working feverishly to turn their expertise and ideas into fortune. Riches and Glory never seemed so near as in those early years. It may seem so long ago, but we are only talking the 1990's.

In the beginning of the book an employee, the main character Andy Caspar, goes through the process of leaving his company - yeah, you simply can't just walk out. He's on a bright-eyed quest to join the league of enterprising individuals out there engaging in research and making a difference. At the other end is a seasoned project manager, Francis Benoit who's already had a string of achievements under his belt and is now trying to form a new team. He's past the hype and trying to push the realistic boundaries. The starting setting is 'LaHonda research center', the place where Francis Benoit works and where Andy Caspar is looking to join.

Excerpt:

Benoit chipped in. "I want him to keep my friend Ronny Banks, but Hank here has been trying to convince me that we should keep you instead. Maybe you would care to help us."

Andy was caught off guard. What could he possibly say about himself that would earn their respect? What did they want? "Look, I’m not a conventional engineer," he started out, "I didn’t even study engineering in college, but maybe that makes me … different." He was just saying something, but Francis Benoit leapt at it.

"Different? Now that’s an interesting theorem. How do you think it would make you different?"

"Well, I might approach a problem differently."

Francis baited him. "Are you saying you are different because you approach things differently, or you approach things differently because you are different?"

Now Andy wished he hadn’t said anything. "Sometimes I think I see simpler solutions …" he offered.

"Ahhh, now we have something. You said before that you approach things differently, therefore you are different. Now you say that you have simpler solutions, so I am to conclude that you are simple?"

Andy looked to Hank Menzinger for help. He was still there grinning away, as if we all should be enjoying our merry selves right now!

"Perhaps Andrews would be a little more comfortable if you asked him some questions," Menzinger offered.

Yes, do that, Andy thought. But wait—Andrews? Plural? Menzinger had said Andrews again. Menzinger thought his name was Caspar Andrews! Menzinger was his supposed advocate in this debate, the one small chance he had at being reinvited, and Menzinger didn’t even know his name!

"Uh, it’s Andy …"

Francis said, "You used to work at Omega, huh? Did you ever sell the Falcon chip?" Francis had designed the Falcon.

"I left before the Falcon. I was selling the Eagle, the 486."

"Did you like it there?"

Should he tell the truth? Probably not. "Yeah, I guess."

"Then why did you leave?"

"Dunno. They don’t really let marketing people become programmers. The usual career path is the other way around, programmers burn out after five years, move to marketing."

Francis said, "Why do you think they burn out so fast?"

This was a delicate question, but Andy couldn’t avoid the truth, even if Omega was a big sponsor for La Honda. "In that environment, programmers have to make so many compromises … it’s hard to keep the desire, the will, when half your work gets thrown out every year."

That brought a bit of a smile to Francis’ mouth. Andy wondered if maybe he’d said something right.

In the end Francis banishes Andy and a bunch of usual suspects to a shed to work on an impossible project, essentially to get them out of his main team. The project is to make the first $100 PC. Now what would happen if Andy's disgruntled bunch - somehow, maybe, actually succeed. That's where you'll have to read the book. It was one of those books that kept me in a happy mood for weeks.

If you don't like reading then there's the Movie. It is a disappointing Hollywood adaptation, mainly goofy without any of the intelligent sparks, and it ruins the advanced interesting makeup of many of characters.

At present, as the digital economy matures, the benchmarks for a successful idea are getting harder. In this year's Sun (Microsystems) Developers Day conference, the keynote speaker emphasized that investors look to see some sort of return on their investment within 6 months, they used to be patient for years.

Read Book Prologue
Read First Chapter
Amazon Link

Vista follows Unaffordable Suite

I mentioned in my last blog that the huge price difference between Academic and Normal versions of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Suite is just waiting to be exploited. Now here are examples of individuals making profits off the inflated price of the Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.

The following is a screenshot of ongoing auction on Trademe, considered New Zealand's most popular website.



So why are they selling it, instead of using it? Apart from the obvious profit motive, here's samples of what is described on Trademe:

"Picked this up at a Microsoft conference and have no need for it."

"I won it at a product show and I cannot use it as it needs a better computer than what I have."

"Purchased and realised it would run in the computer but with limited feature so decided to sell - make sure you have good system."

Most users don't want half-baked versions, they want everything available under the brand. Vista is a much better version of the Windows operating system, with a lot of nice features for monitoring and enhancing PC performance, not to mention the updated look. Everybody wants Windows Vista Ultimate with all the features working on their current computers. Microsoft is propagating, if not highlighting, an economic class-structure of users. And who doesn't want to climb a class-structure?

The price of Vista Ultimate in the New Zealand market is listed by Dick Smith Electronics is nearly NZ$1000. Now that's much more than you would have to pay for a current above-average configuration desktop computer or an average configuration laptop. Consider in India, it costs above Rs. 30,000, an amount many times the monthly salary for most Indians.

Vista is also working very hard to avoid piracy at all costs. I would really like to see that succeed, because if Vista becomes hard to get at anything less than the full price, people will start discovering the joy and freedom of using Open Source operating systems such as Linux. Sun Microsystems has also recently released a free version of the Solaris operating system. There are going to be exciting times ahead. There are many agencies, including the United Nations, advocating free open source software alternatives especially in economic vulnerable areas such as found in developing countries. High costs don't help the Digital Literacy Divide.

MS Office goes Academic

I went to the Warehouse today and noticed that MS Office 2007 Professional was selling for NZ$398. That made me pause and I saw a sticker saying 'Academic Only'. I checked the back panel listing and comparing all the Office Suites. The feature column for the Professional version was highlighted, and there was no column for 'Academic only'.

Even more curious, I checked on Dick Smith Electronics prices online. MS Office 2007 Professional was listed at NZ$1148 ! But Wait, there's also an 'Academic' version listed at NZ$399, again.

Hmmm ... What's the difference? I've checked the Microsoft web site, there's no clarification. I've checked Google, still can't find any confirmed clarification.

The only thing needed to buy the Academic version is a student ID card. But surely The NZ$750 difference leaves space for money under the table. Hear ye, all students, here's how you pay off those burgeoning student loans! You can accept hefty commissions from the hapless non-students, and buy the poor folks some MS Office 2007 Professional editions at prices that cost less than a laptop.

Seeing such wide margins I wonder what Microsoft's profit calculations are? Does Bill Gates want more money? But then so do we all.

See ongoing conversation initiated in Geekzone

P.S. Oh Yeah, fyi ... I'm not a student :( , but I do already have MS Office 2007 Professional edition :S

Turning point for Browsers

Both Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Firefox 2.0 became available around October 2006. Since then their rise has been fast and steady. At this point, it looks like they are not taking over each other's market share, rather they are replacing their previous versions - Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 1.5. Internet Explorer 7 may reach a plateau at around 80% at the most, then we'll see if starts going down as Firefox goes up.

These new versions are built to address the evolving changes in the internet. Whereas Firefox has been continuously changing with frequent updates, MS Internet Explorer development had been stalled for the past 6 years. I was able to attend a Webstock conference in May last year, where Tony Chor, the Program Manager of the Internet Explorer 7 team explained the circumstances. After the launch of Windows XP operating system, most of the Internet explorer team had disbanded and there was lack of expertise to pick up the threads again. The start of the Internet Explorer 7 project mostly consisting of bringing these people together again. Tony promised that they plan to issue updates more frequently in the future. Ben Goodger, Google employee and lead designer of Firefox, at the same conference, was focused more on the future, all the way up to Firefox 3 and its possible features.


Ben Goodger and Tony Chor

At Tony's session, one of the participants asked him, "If there was an arm-wrestling match between you and Ben, who would win?". After the laughter had died down, Tony good-naturedly replied, "probably Ben". In the conclusion of the conference, Kathy Sierra remarked that somehow Tony didn't look very sincere when he said it.

Both Firefox and Internet Explorer have implemented a plug-in architecture, where users can find other small programs that can be fitted into the browser to perform 'cool' features. In Firefox, many of these plug-ins go on to become part of the standard installation in the next version. Independent developer enthusiasts contribute these plug-ins. This architecture has already been around in Firefox for some time, and the browser has a large community contributing lots of plug-ins. Internet Explorer has just started on this path, and it's community is minuscule. Microsoft is actively encouraging corporate partners and its developer community to become contributors.

As for Safari, nobody except Apple technology enthusiasts use this, and that's restricted to 5% of the computers market for now.

If mobile phones become a significant platform for access to the internet, then the whole scenario might change. For example, if Apple's iPhone becomes as popular as the iPod, there will be far more people using the phone to access the internet than computers, and the mobile phone browsers will dominate and determine web interface design. A likely scenario is that all models of mobile phones are going to evolve to provide internet access. Whether that access is practical or satisfactory remains to be seen.

The future of browsers is important to us techies as browsers are increasingly the basis of delivering software services, and we have to design the web pages to work on as many browsers as possible. For believe it or not, not all the browsers follow the standards correctly or in the same manner - the same web page will behave differently on different browsers. In taking care of all possibilities, resource and time constraints force us to choose which browser to build for and which browser to ignore.

Looks like it's Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Firefox 2.0 for now.

Google bomb: from Bang to Fizz

It took an entertaining event to bring this concept to my attention. All of you know how when you search for something on Google you get a list of results. Now, what comes at the top of that list tends to get associated with that search. So, if you search for apple on Google, what do you get? The local fruitseller's location? No way - the whole list shows links to Apple Computers Inc., the famous seller of iMac, iPod etc. In the internet world this may seem all right, but for a non-technophile this is ridiculous.

These lists are formed by Google's programs based on their analysis of the web (see, I'm not referring to a spider's web). One of the program's methods is to analyse all links (the words with underlines below them, which on clicking lead somewhere else) and where they lead to. So now the Google program has found that the majority of 'Apple' links lead to the company. This causes Apple Inc. to appear top of the Google results list, rather than say 'apple' which leads to a shop where you can get apple products.

Such distortions or conflicts are happy ground for the techies with a sense of humour. Now, they realise that if several hundred of them (at least) set up a bunch of links over several web pages that they control, such as set up 'orange' which points to Apple Inc. this will help shift the Google search on 'orange' to show Apple Inc. at the top of the results list. This is a Google bomb.

Now, the entertaining event. Some time ago, several wits got together and decided that let's create links all over the place to connect to the official George W. Bush biography from the US White House web site with a couple of words. And the words chosen? - 'Miserable Failure'. So now if you, for some reason, were to write 'miserable failure' in the Google search box, you will get the white house as the first result in the list. No kidding! There are more details on this here.



Other Google bombs:

• google search on "French Military Victories" ...

Show's over. All these had been working since 2004, but apparently changed recently when Google has reworked it's programs to avoid this discrepancy. So now, if you were planning to create your own google bomb, you'll have to find some other way.

How to make a site inaccessible

The publication Indian Newslink of New Zealand Indian community seems headed for a negative spiral. They had a very nice HTML delivered web page with full contents available for free for all to see. Then suddenly some old-timer must have protested that it doesn't look like their printed newspaper and he doesn't understand it.

So somebody must have had a brainstorm to go an deliver the whole publication as a printed page look alike. There was an grand announcement that the publication is tying up with India's Bodhtree software company to apply their Pressmart ePaper solution to deliver their publication in much more amazing way.

Now that it has been done, though this solution is interesting, it's mostly a flashy novelty. It delivers the print page onscreen to view, and the user can move the mouse over any of the article areas to get a hover-view popup of the summary. The article print is an image and usually too small to be readable. So to actually read it, you have to click the dang thing which opens up a pop-up page which is lo-and-behold a normal HTML page. "Why couldn't they have normal HTML pages anyway", you ask? Good question. In addition there are also the following faults. The whole paper is delivered through a standard application that - get this - doesn't work in Firefox! They seem to have used .Net technologies but in a way that's not cross-browser compatible.

The application delivers one edition of the publication at a time on screen. Though you can use a calendar drop-down to navigate to previous editions, note that only the edition which is currently visible is actively loaded in the application. That means that the searches that happen only search the current edition, and there's not archival search available. That makes a very poor tool for researchers. Then their are RSS feeds which are non-dynamic. No kidding, the RSS feeds provided correspond to a single page on a single date. Sooo, that means that you can load that RSS link to your RSS reader and the contents will never change!

Recently I read someone saying that "the current delivery of data has to be at the point where the user needs it". But this novelty application absolutely refused to confirm to this principle. I've noticed that some of the other clients of this software such as Times of India, mainly provide a normal HTML website with this as a side feature.

On top of all this the publication which as basic-HTML was free for the community, now requires a subscription fee before it lets you take a look at its precious contents. What must have happened was that now that they are using this propriety software to deliver their publication, they have to pay a recurring license fee, and that cannot be handled by a simple community budget.

In the end I was roused up enough to send them some feedback about it :

"Hello,

I would like to offer the following suggestions.
1. Provide an RSS feed URL for all the news, that gets updated automatically when each new editon is published. Your current RSS Url's seem tied down to a specific page on a specific date. This defeats the very purpose of RSS which are supposed to remain constant and their content is dynamically updated. It's ridiculous to be expected to manually copy the RSS each time for a new edition from the site.
2. You are no doubt aware that the current site application architecture does not allow it to function in Firefox browser. As Firefox is currently considered to be the most advanced browser and it's use is rising - you are severely limiting the accessibility of this publication. I would recommend that an alternative simple HTML equivalent of the publication be also made available, or that Java applets be used to deliver the application which are compatible across all browsers.
3. I understand that you are focussing on delivering a print equivalent of your publication online, but it is important that you want to make the contents available on the web so it would be good to follow basic web conventions and standards.

In a competitive environment it would not be in your interest to have publication whose accessibility is restricted, while there may be other more easily available sources of equivalent news. The fact that I have to pay for it is another factor that increases your responsibility to provide responsible access.

My father who used to follow your publication with keen interest, has been so frustrated with your current interface, that he has given up reading it."

Hope somebody's listening, else I see a failed publication.