Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

At least, if you’re using Chrome. While I’m not the only one to notice this, no action has yet been taken by either The Independent or Google. Here’s the problem, as seen on The Independent home page:

As you can see, they show a yellow toolbar across the top of their site with the text: “The Independent now has a Google Chrome Extension. Get the latest news on the topics you like, direct to your browser.” There is an install button and a grey x to hide the bar. However, this is mimicking the kosher Chrome UX for extensions. For example, when extensions crash, they display a similar bar:

I’m not sure what’s to be done; the marketing is deceptive and shady, tricking people into thinking that Google/Chrome/their browser is encouraging them to install a new/cool/shiny extension for The Independent’s website. The extension itself, which I am not installing ever, seems relatively innocuous.

I received the following warning from Chase bank via email and a series of harried transactions. Apparently someone decided to try to use my Chase British Airways BA Visa card to signup for an e-dating site. The baddie was doing this from London, Ireland, and had tried four times today with different expiration dates and CSV confirmation codes:

URGENT: Confirmation of Recent Transaction
Your Account Ending in XXXX

Dear ELLIOTT:

As part of our ongoing effort to protect your account and our relationship, we monitor your account for possible fraudulent activity. We have recently attempted to contact you by phone and/or text message but we have been unsuccessful in reaching you. We need to confirm that you or someone authorized to use your account made the following transaction on your British Airways Visa account ending in XXXX:

Transaction for $54.94 at ZOOSK.COM was declined on or around 10/17/2010 in LONDON, Ireland.

Zoosk is some kind of scammy online dating site that I definitely did not sign up for. Currently, it looks like this:

Apparently a lot of people think Zoosk itself sucks. I wonder if it’s the company itself is behind this. I can’t really see people using stolen credit cards to sign up for a dating service. Maybe it’s just a test run? Or an accident?

Windows 7 decided to rebuild the font cache, leading to a brief moment of confusion when all the icons looked the same:

This should be considered huge progress–many years ago when installing iTunes and quicktime you would be required to reboot your computer. Welcome to 2010; iTunes is up and running again without a reboot. I remember fondly multi-disk software installations (say, a series of 10 floppies) and multi-reboot installations on older versions of windows.

Maybe someday soon Apple will make a version of iTunes for windows that feels snappy and native, and then all will be well with the world.