What is up with the lack of firewalls?

Four XP computers. Four days. Zero firewalls, even with SP2.

I don't understand it. It's supposed to be on by default, yet it seems nobody uses it or they turn it off and wonder why things start to go wonky.

I use a mac and although behind a NAT router, I keep my firewall up. Security 101. But, people want their computers to just work and not have to be security experts. So, if that's the case, get a mac.

Cable Networks Block Ad Auctions

IHT is covering this interesting story -

Apparently, the cable networks are blocking eBay from selling ad time on their properties by refusing to participate.

EBay was hired to build the exchange last year by a group of large marketers, including Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot and Intel. The group, which had pledged $50 million to test the project, has said that it thought placing ads in many types of media could be done more efficiently using an Internet auction rather than human negotiation.

I understand why. This could eliminate almost all salespeople in this industry and cut off a huge revenue stream for agencies (which is what the marketers who funded this, I'm sure had in mind). After all, if you can create the material, send the material, and buy the space, a CEO could be left asking, "what is the value of the agency and or salespeople? I could just contract the parts myself and save the overhead, or put it all on my interactive provider."

However, being as involved in online media as we are, we see automated bid systems as part of every new initiative or media network (an example would be Federated Media), allowing you to spend $100,000 or $10,000 or $100, leveling the playing field.

And yes, it would seem to lower prices - but it does so mostly by taking the commission cut away from the (in this new model) now non-existant salesperson and instead of having two go-betweens (the buyer's agency and the selling agency) it's a direct representative - so the buying company itself buys (as opposed to having an agency buy for them) directly from the selling representative.

Ad executives not involved with the eBay project expressed similar concerns.

"By going to this online bidding system that eBay was sharing with us, we'd be taking a step backwards," said John Muszynski, chief executive of Starcom USA, an agency in the Publicis Groupe that buys ads.

"Years ago, you basically bought for the tonnage, you bought slots and you bought for the price," he said. "We have now integrated the buying process into the marketing process. We're doing product integrations. We're doing significant added-value. We're doing promotions."

I don't know how exactly I feel about it all, as we're content creators and could benefit either way, but it's pretty obvious to me this is the way media is starting to go...

MadTV iRack Skit

Very funny - not only pokes fun at Apple (which as much as I love them, I could imagine even Steve Jobs laughing at this) - but a great play on words.