The article «Warning: Google Docs Is NOT Safe» is an interesting and thorough discussion about the safety of using Google Docs. I actually came to the article whiling searching (googling) for Google Docs encryption. It seems that there are ways to make your documents in the Google Docs space as secure as possible.

That being said, collaboration using Google Docs is much more secure, not to mention much more convenient, than emailing documents back and forth. Unless you encrypt every piece of email message with its attachments, once you email something using any public email service, consider all bets on document security off. Period. With Google Docs, at least you can limit who may view and/or who may edit a document. It would be nice if Google adds another access right: Who may download a document.

I am going to try FireGPG, an add-on for Firefox, to see how it helps with online document encryption. Will report back later.

Drupal is a popular, well built and actively developed open source content management system (CMS) written in PHP and primarily supporting MySQL and PostgreSQL database systems. I have been using it and developing modules for it for some time now. I am familiar with Drupal but is kind of pleasantly surprised to see an ad online from Microsoft, promoting "Download, install and configure the latest version of Acquia Drupal with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer."

I guess even a monopoly as big as Microsoft has to face the reality some times.

Just read this series of articles on NetworkWorld and ComputerWorld: «Hacker leaks thousands of Hotmail passwords, says site», «Gmail, Yahoo Mail join Hotmail; passwords exposed», «Compromised Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail accounts exploited in fake shopping scam».

I saw this idea about concealing user identity: Store and transport user identity in hash rather than in clear text. That makes it much harder for a hacker to find out a user's identity to begin with. Maybe it is time for something like that.

Found an interesting article while reading over lunch break: «Drupal v. SharePoint from a Developer's Viewpoint».

At UMHS where I work as a Network Engineer, SharePoint is also being used, but merely as a glorified file manager and simple calendar for the management. I don't think it even compares to Confluence, which is a enterprise wiki software.

Read this in NetworkWorld today -- the approach is intriguing:

Eric Zeman got it all wrong in his article's title. The article itself is OK: It talked about secure access to Gmail using HTTPS instead of HTTP. But that is different from email encryption, which means making an email message only readable to its intended recipients and  nobody else.

More interesting is what the readers of the article left in their comments. I have always liked the idea of Google Apps, Docs, Gmail, and now Apps Engine as well as Sites for small businesses. In fact, I am doing everything for my own small business on Google. This website lives on Google Sites. I rely on Gmail for a number of email addresses I use.

Google's Enterprise Edition of all the above mentioned applications are geared towards businesses from tiny to large. But even the consumer edition is plenty useful for a really small business.

Interested? I can help set you or your small business up with all Google has to provide.

I needed a Google gadget for showing photos that I have hosted on Flickr. But searching around on Google returned a large number of Flickr gadgets but none of them seems to work for me. So I spent some time creating one.

It should be simple to use -- In fact the Add to Google button in the upper-right corner is supposed to help with adding the gadget to an iGoogle page. Anyone is welcome to give it a try and let me know how it works.

I have used this gadget on the Ann-Hua Rainbow Project website that I help operate. The gadget is also on this page to show landscape photos from the Best of China Landscape group on Flickr.

The source code is hosted on Google Code.

You may also add this gadget to your website if JavaScript is allowed.

I will likely improve this gadget further. Below is a list of features that I have thought of adding:

• Auto-sizing of the photos. [Done: 2009-09-28]
  
• Border, padding and margin on the photos.
• Photo information (EXIF, etc.) on mouse over.

Suggestions are welcome.

Results of a quick Google search for "Top-10 netbook":

• PC World: Top 10 Netbooks, Darren Gladstone, Aug 26, 2009
• March 10, 2009
• Netbook showdown: The top 10 mini laptops rated
• Laptopical: Top 10 Netbooks, Daniel Shain
  
• Gadgetophilia.com: Top 10 Netbooks of 2009, soumitra, March 31st, 2009
• Amazon’s top 10 netbooks, flung, July 7th, 2009
• Netbook Central: Top 10 Netbooks, for the current week
• ......

These little machines are great for many purposes, especially for taking one with you all the time. I had a refurbished Dell Mini 9 which I gave away. I have a refurbished Asus EeePC 901 for personal use and a 900 at home as a always-on MagicJack and Skype phone.

Readings on Google Web Toolkit Widgets:

• Google Web Toolkit Blog: Widget Best Practices / Widget Building
• Google Web Toolkit Blog: Hydro4GE — a PaaS built with GWT

Just read this article titled Two startups offer free 'computers' as cloud services by By Colt Mercer on Network World.

That seems to provide a nice environment for some one with a netbook, like me. With 15GB of storage, it makes a nice fall back companion. I have just registered an account on it and will report my experiences once I have done something on it.

If you are intrigued, give it a try. And please tell them that I (ww9rivers) referred you there. Thanks!