For the last few weeks Channel Five’s Gadget Show have been running a campaign for broadband suppliers to be honest with the public about the broadband speeds we can realistically expect. The point of contention is the term “upto” as in “upto 8MB”. This leaves the broadband suppliers with a massive loophole to take advantage of as “upto” could mean anything from the advertised speed down to Zero!

The Gadget Show web-site features a speed test to gauge what speed your broadband is at the time of the test. There’s also a form you can fill out with the recorded speed to help the Gadget Show collect enough information to take to the broadband suppliers.

So, using the speed test feature, I’ve just tested my broadband speed, which should be close to the 16MB I’m paying for. They recommend that you take the test a few times:

1. Dec 6th 2:30pm: 2.6MB
2. Dec 7th 8:37am: 2.8MB
3. Dec 7th 9:00am: 2.8MB
4. Dec 7th 2:00pm: 2.6MB

I think it’s safe to say that my broadband speed will never come close to the “upto 16MB” I’m currently paying for! Time to downgrade methinks!

Check out your broadband speed here and join the campaign if yours isn’t what you’re paying for.

Steve Jobs of Apple dropped a bomb at the World Wide Developers Conference by announcing that Apple would be releasing a Windows version of the Apple web browser, Safari.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, as faulty and web standards non-compliant as ever, still dominates the market at about 70% with the open source browser Firefox coming it at 15% and Apple’s Safari at 5%. Steve Jobs promised the Windows version of Safari would have twice the performance of Internet Explorer.

As a web developer and designer, this comes as good news as designers worldwide are having to continually design new sites for 2 markets - the smart market that uses browsers like Firefox and Opera and the market that continues to use Internet Explorer. Although Firefox has been making significant gains on market share in the last year or so, and especially after the dismal performance of Internet Explorer 7, any new Windows browser that takes even more market share from Internet Explorer will be welcomed with open arms by the web design community.

A beta version of Safari for Windows can be downloaded from Apple’s website here - http://www.apple.com/safari/

Kavit Haria, the UK’s #1 music coach interviewed me about marketing on the web for musicians.

Check it out at
http://kavit.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/chandesh-mik-parekh-interview/

The Internet can be a murky place especially where online business is concerned. Although online transactions are on the increase there is still a lack of confidence amongst consumers in using their credit cards online.

IBM has been working on a web-privacy tool in an attempt to raise consumer confidence. The tool, named ‘Identity Mixer’, encrypts a user’s details, like credit card information, during a transaction so that the middle-man, the online store, does not retain any information hackers would find interesting. The online store passes along the encrypted information to the bank for verification and payment. Once the transaction is complete the encrypted information, known as a ‘credential’, is destroyed. The next time the same consumer buys online a new credential is created.

A great tool, IBM has donated it to the Higgins Project, an open source initiative supported by IBM & Novell.

Last week China conducted a missile test where it used a MRBM (medium range ballistic missile) to destroy an old satellite. Of course, this got the West’s military machine all excited as it saw a new battlefield to play in.
Not a new concept, the US has already conducted similar tests in the 80’s, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, in a program called Star Wars.

Back in the 80’s, when I was just a kid, that name and the concept behind it was exciting to me - after all, that was the era of Star Wars, the best sci-fi movie ever!
Now, as a grown up, I realize the madness the world is about to witness. Let’s not play about - the Western economies rely heavily on the arms trade with governments investing billions (that you or I will never know about) in new technology.

As can be expected, there are various lobby groups pushing the American government to respond by upping their budget in space-based military weapons research. I guess it’s not enough that billions are wasted in terrestrial wars (never mind the lives lost) when they could be used more effectively in health and education the world over.

Thankfully, there are level-headed people calling for dialog with China to diffuse the ‘threat’ rather than return to the concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).

A new ’spider’ is crawling the Internet looking for tax cheats. A ’spider’ is a small program that trawls through the internet, traveling from site to site using hyperlinks, gathering information about the pages/sites it visits.

Usually, the ’spiders’ you’re likely to see in your web-server logs are those used by search engines like Google (Googlebot) and Yahoo, however this new one is being used by the tax services of 5 different countries namely Austria, Britain, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands with Sweden set to join later this year.

This is primarily to combat tax evasion by online businesses where it’s difficult to keep track of sales figures. So, all you eBayers out there not declaring your revenue, watch out!