Christian Biggins Design, Technology, SEO, General Ramblings. Something for everybody.

12Dec/081

Save the net!

Please sign the GetUp petition against internet censorship. If you feel strongly enough about it, you might consider making a small donation.
 

9Dec/080

Redundancy is a bitch

Well, today I found out that I am no longer required at REA Group (realestate.com.au). It doesn't come as a surprise but it is certainly not welcome.

I have a few things in the pipeline, but the most exciting is the partnership with Michael Little in Fliquid Studios which is a web application development company.

We have a lot of applications we are working on and will plan on launching shortly. I will keep everybody up to date with what is going on.

In the meantime, I plan on just relaxing a bit. Its been a busy few years and having a month off is very attractive right now.

12Sep/081

isearch, the people finder

Lifehacker today posted about a site called iSearch which allows its users to search for people online.

isearch 

I read the post and I thought “great, there are a bunch of people i’d love to contact”. I went to the site and was a bit bummed that it thought that ‘Sydney’ meant ‘Sydney, FL’ and not ‘Sydney, NSW’ but anyway… The site kinda freaked me out a little bit.

Not only did I find myself on there with incorrect details (I was never the treasurer of Skylines Australia, I was president of the club and owner of the site) but when I noticed that it had a list of ‘Associates of Christian Biggins’ and they were people I knew, I felt a little strange. Sure, it called ‘SAU Cotm’ (Skylines Australia Car of the month) an associate of mine, it still listed real people there. This site knew my friends.

If that wasn’t enough, it offered an email address for me.

isearch1

When you clicked on the link, it tried to sell you an email address for $1.69. Looking at the address and the strategically placed underscores, it does actually look like one of my addresses. Of course, anybody who actually knows me, knows that a simple google search of my name will bring up a helluva lot more info on me that this site.

But, it got me thinking. Where is this leading? What information of mine will be available to complete strangers (for a price?) in the future. I have always been a bit laid back about my online privacy as I am not an overly private guy to start with, but this has definitely got me thinking. Especially when you have contributed to as much of the internet as I have (and most of the time not using an alias).

Anyway. If you want to know anything about me. Just ask. :)

In the meantime, I am going to decide whether I respect iSearch or despise it.

1Jul/080

New police powers see them able to fine ‘annoying’ people.

Extreme dictator-like powers have been given to NSW police and other World Youth Day volunteers that see them able to fine people $5500 for wearing a T-Shirt that may annoy patrons of WYD services.

I wonder, if I am driving to a WYD service and some Shmo doesn’t indicate to change lanes in front of me (rendering me 100% annoyed) can I perform a citizens fining of said shitty driver? Or should I just call the cops?

Bleugh, bugger the fines. This gives me more reason to get out there and protest this nazism.

Thou shalt not annoy on Youth Day