I couldn’t believe my eyes: A Detroit institution for great steaks, tender chicken wings and delicious beers got closed down. I’ve been visiting the Big Buck at least once a week when on a trip in Detroit. Are the rumors about shop and restaurant closures and people moving away from Detroit actually true?
[Update] Big Buck was not willing (or able) to pay the increased lease, people say. The owner has boosted the lease by about 30% according to insiders. Is this part of a bigger plan to get the smaller business leaving that area and merging it with the industrial neighbour sites? I don’t like this idea since Big Buck was one of the breweries around.

My Spam folder usually contains up to 100 postings that I don’t just delete. No, I often browse through the subject lines to have a little laugh. They can be quite funny, indeed.

Recently, I found one that really stood out compared to the usual “advertisements” on cheap medication, larger cocks, money for nothing and the chicks for free. Who needs his cum volume increased by 500%?! I briefly thought about, but then dropped it to save it for next year when I’m 30

I want to take the current postings about Google security holes [1] [2] as impulse to let you know about the experiences I made with the so loved web this very young year 2007.

Living (in) the internet

Like millions of people around the globe I’m a guy who “lives in the internet” to a pretty large extend by blogging every now and then, putting photos online, actively using networking pages, emailing with response times < 24 hours (usually), chatting,... You get the point.

While doing that, I wouldn't describe myself as an end user and I'm not at all resistant to new technologies that ease the processes involved in above activities. Long before the concept Web 2.0 was created and spread, I tried to get the best out of the web. But especially with this new current, many public web applications became that famous, that more and more users started using services they wouldn't even have come across before.

Transition to Web 2.0

Take Yahoo with flickr, Google with GMail, Google Maps, Google Search. Don’t want to mention all the others like del.icio.us, community-driven web sites for students, business people and other groups. They all started creating valuable services with their web pages. Services, that became easier to use, got closer to the user by being driven by the user’s content and with all that sexy compared to read-only web sites known before.

It always takes a critical mass to make those ideas live and by combining different useful building blocks, the big companies achieved the goal of getting such a critical mass of end consumers.

Sexy services for free?

Not being a classical end consumer, I really try using the bleeding edge technology as soon as possible myself: flickr API, Google Maps API, Google Calendering and Spreadsheet, Web 2.0 technologies. Did you recognize getting kind of blindly focussed on new ideas, technologies and services that each of the companies release? Well, I really like it and start using it! And this is exactly what the companies want.

Didn’t you ever ask yourself why they release those services?

I now do. And the answer is simple and not surprising at all: Money. Money, which they figured out to earn a lot of even with cost-free services. With information, YOUR information!

GMail and eBay hijacked

Let’s step back for a second and have a look at Friday January 5th: I found myself locked out from my GMail account. Being sure that the password I provided was correct, I made use of the “forgot password” link. This one tends to send a link with a password question to the secondary email registered for the GMail account.

But instead of an email from Google I found 5 emails from eBay members in my secondary account, congratulating me for selling a Sony PSP Value Pack, 13 (!!!) Nokia E61 cell phones and two rubber dolls. I didn’t ever own any of these items. A login attempt to eBay didn’t succeed, the password must had been changed like the GMail password.

You can imagine how I felt. All of a sudden, I saw all emails lost, that guy getting tons of accounts created under my name, people buying stuff from me I never had, my banking account turning (more) negative…

The good news: eBay’s response to that fraud was really quick: One hour after my call, all the transactions were deleted and the customers informed. No problem there. I even had different contacts with eBay members who intended to buy that stuff. They told me about the name and banking account that guy separately sent them after finishing the auctions. Together with the IP address that guy used for changing my eBay password, this was good data for to be reported to the police at last.

As a friend of adrenaline-driven leisure planning, I’m always looking for some ununsual sports activities. While getting into space is not an option yet (oh yes, Getting into orbit is one of my dreams!), I put together a shotr list of interresting links for you.

Zero G: Want to feel weightless? Parable flights with a specially prepared aircraft can bring you there [www.gozerog.com].

Hot Air Ballooning: Want to take a ride over the alps? There are several associations planning hot-air-balloon trips that really kick! [www.ballonremstal.de], [www.tannheim.at], [www.dollyair.de]

Fascination Alps: Bergfühlung offers everything you can do in combination with snow, ice and mountains. Like ski tours, ice climbing, mountain biking or an avalanche training? Look at [www.bergfuehlung.de]!

Still not sure? MyDays.de will help you find the right thing! From Flight Simulation, Bungee Jumping, ESA Space Training, Jetfighter Flights to Edge of Space Flights - You can book it all online here. You can even select a nice gift box [www.mydays.de]!

Yes! According to a heise article, European cell phone carriers are highly interested in bringing the new Apple iPhone to the European market. As they say, it perfectly matches their strategy to combine telephone service with multimedia and music content. What they did not say is how the business and office functionalities fit into their portfolio.

Will be interesting to see what price strategy they will decide for. Opposed to the American market, European carriers like T-Mobile, D2 and eplus directly market mobile phones while subsidizing a major part of the hardware price.