Monthly Archives: January 2010

Panopticlick: How Unique and Trackable is your Browser?

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What fingerprints does your browser leave behind as you surf the web?

Traditionally, people assume they can prevent a website from identifying them by disabling cookies on their web browser. Unfortunately, this is not the whole story.

When you visit a website, you are allowing that site to access a lot of information about your computer's configuration. Combined, this information can create a kind of fingerprint — a signature that could be used to identify you and your computer. Some companies are already using technology to try to identify individual computers. But how effective would this kind of online tracking be?

EFF is running an experiment to find out. Panopticlick will anonymously log the configuration and version information from your operating system, your browser, and your plug-ins, and compare it to our database of many other Internet users' configurations. Then, it will give you a uniqueness score — letting you see how easily identifiable you might be as you surf the web.

Adding your information to our database will help EFF evaluate the capabilities of Internet tracking and advertising companies, who are in the business of finding as many ways as possible to record your online activities. They develop these methods in secret, and don't always tell the world what they've found. But this experiment should give us more insight into the future of online tracking, and what web users can do to protect themselves.

Is your browser configuration rare or unique? If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies.

Panopticlick tests your browser to see how unique it is based on the information it will share with sites it visits. Click below and you will be given a uniqueness score, letting you see how easily identifiable you might be as you surf the web.

Test yourself at: https://panopticlick.eff.org/

via Panopticlick | About.

Polymorphic Nature of Knowledge

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“Knowledge is a polymorphic concept” (Moteleb & Bakry 2004). Knowledge, information, and data are different facets to the same thing. One thing could mean data in a certain context and the same thing could mean information or knowledge in different contexts.

Full article at the source: Polymorphic Nature of Knowledge.

Swim lane – in Business Process Management

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Swim lane

A swim lane (or swimlane) is a visual element used in process flow diagrams that depict what or who is working on a particular subset of a process. Swim lanes are arranged either horizontally or vertically and are used for grouping the sub-processes according to the responsibilities of those swim lanes. In the accompanying example, the swimlanes are named Customer, Sales, Contracts, Legal, and Fulfillment.

Swim Lane flowchart

The swim lane flowchart differs from other flowcharts in that processes and decisions are grouped visually by placing them in lanes. Parallel lines divide the chart into lanes, with one lane for each person, group or subprocess. Lanes are labelled to show how the chart is organized.

In the accompanying example, the longitudinal direction represents the sequence of events in the overall process, while the lateral divisions depict what subprocess is performing that step. Arrows between the lanes represent how information or material is passed between the subprocesses.

Optionally, the flow can be rotated so that the sequence reads horizontally from left to right, with the roles involved being shown at the left edge. This can be easier to read and design, Microsoft Visio typically operates from left to right, as normally screen sizes are wider than they are deep which gives an improved view of the flow.

Use of standard symbols enable clear linkage to be shown between related flow charts when charting flows with complex relationships: use of hyperlinking capability makes movement between activities on different sheets easy and reliable.

It is typically but not exclusively used in manufacturing-related applications. It aims to help clarify the overall layout of the processes, for use in optimizing floor capacity and efficiency.

When used to diagram a business process that involves more than one department, it can clarify not only the steps and who is responsible for each one, but how delays, mistakes or cheating are most likely to occur.

Many process modeling methodologies utilize the concept of swimlanes as a mechanism to organize activities into separate visual categories in order to illustrate different functional capabilities or responsibilities. Swimlanes are used in Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and Unified Modeling Language Activity diagram modeling methodologies.

via Swim lane – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

PDCA – Plan Do Check Act

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PDCA (plan-do-check-act) is an iterative four-step problem-solving process typically used in business process improvement. It is also known as the Deming cycle, Shewhart cycle, Deming wheel, or plan-do-study-act.

PLAN

Establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the expected output. By making the expected output the focus, it differs from other techniques in that the completeness and accuracy of the specification is also part of the improvement.

DO

Implement the new processes. Often on a small scale if possible.

CHECK

Measure the new processes and compare the results against the expected results to ascertain any differences.

ACT

Analyze the differences to determine their cause. Each will be part of either one or more of the P-D-C-A steps. Determine where to apply changes that will include improvement. When a pass through these four steps does not result in the need to improve, refine the scope to which PDCA is applied until there is a plan that involves improvement.

via PDCA – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Store and share files in the cloud with Google Docs

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Let’s say you’re about to make a very important presentation to a prospective client on the other side of the country. Before you depart on your business trip, you download all of your presentation materials and InDesign® hand-outs onto your trusty thumbdrive. Just in case, you also email the files to yourself.

But while you're in the air, your colleagues back at the office are making last minute edits to the files and your copies are now out of date. Worse yet, when you arrive at your destination, you realize you left your thumbdrive at home.

Sound familiar? The good news is that things are about to become a whole lot easier.

Over the next couple of weeks, we are rolling out the ability for Google Apps users to easily upload and securely share any type of file internally and externally using Google Docs. You get 1 GB of storage per user, and you can upload files up to 250 MB in size.

Now accessing your work files doesn't require a connection to your internal office network. Nor do you need to email files to yourself, carry around a thumbdrive, or use a company network drive – you can access your files using Google Docs from any web-enabled computer.

Combined with shared folders in Google Docs, the upload feature is a great way to collaborate on files with coworkers and external parties. Instead of using cumbersome email attachments, you can upload files to a folder and share it with coworkers, who can then access and edit the files from a single place. You can even have your sales team securely share contracts with external clients for review.

And of course, by using Google Docs, you can quickly and easily search across all your files from one place, getting access to the right file when and where you need it.

Google Apps Premier Edition users can also use the Google Documents List Data API to upload files to Google Docs in batch, or purchase applications offered by third parties that enable you to migrate and sync your files to Google Docs:

Memeo Connect for Google Apps is a new desktop application that offers an easy way to access, migrate, and synchronize files to Google Docs across multiple computers. (PC and Mac)

Syncplicity offers businesses automated back-up and file management with Google Docs. (PC)

Manymoon is an online project management platform that makes it simple to organize and share tasks and documents with coworkers and partners, including uploading files to Google Docs.

We're always looking for ways to make it easier for you to access and organize your information online and we hope you find the ability to store, share, and collaborate on files in Google Docs helpful. In the coming months, we will enable Google Apps Premier Edition customers to purchase additional storage for $3.50/GB/yr (or €3.00/gb/yr in the EU). If you'd like to be notified when additional storage can be purchased, please fill out this form and we will contact you as soon as it's available. As always, we’d love your feedback and if you have any questions, please check out our help forum.

via Official Google Enterprise Blog: Store and share files in the cloud with Google Docs.