Thanks to Doc Searls I’ve found a way to post your email address on a website without giving the spambots a way to harvest it.

Check out 2idi. For a mere $20 for a personal account, you’ll be able to generate a URL to display instead of an email address. Someone wishing to contact you is sent to an online form that will deliver the message to you without the sender having or being able to know your email address.

It would be really cool if it generated something that forms with pre-set fields would accept. Some will only accept something as an email address if it follows the normal format of blahblah@blah.com. A URL isn’t recognized.

Despite that limitation, I think this has a real usefullness in providing another layer of security for your online life.

Den ganzen Beitrag lesen…

Thanks to Andrea Bledsoe at Pearson Technology Group for sending this along. The publishing world is finding new ways to push content to their readers. This new format looks promising for those of us who often don’t have time to peruse an entire book when we need information.

Pearson Technology Group (PTG) announced today the launch of Short Cuts, a new digital product line. Short Cuts are concise PDF documents about a cutting-edge technology that shows great promise, or an existing technology that has reached the “tipping point” and is about to take off.

Authored by industry experts and best-selling authors, flagship Short Cuts include: Cheating Online Games by Gary McGraw and Greg Hoglund; Refactoring to Agility by Carol A. Wellington; and Using BusyBox by Christopher Hallinan. More than a dozen additional Short Cuts are scheduled to be published by the end of 2006.

Covering programming, databases, networking, engineering, security, and more, Short Cuts are developed to save readers time, show users how to solve a specific problem, or introduce a new topic. Varying from 50 to 150 pages in length, Short Cuts are available for sale on www.informit.com and the Pearson Technology Group imprint sites: Addison-Wesley Professional; Cisco Press; Exam Cram; IBM Press; Prentice Hall Professional; Que Publishing; Sams Publishing.

“Often when a hot topic emerges, our readers do not want to wait for the print book to publish,” said Kourtnaye Sturgeon, Director of Marketing, Pearson Technology Group. “Short Cuts are quick to publish and provide valuable technical information in a timely way.”

“PTG has a unique relationship with the authoring community,” said Paul Boger, Vice President and Publisher at Pearson Education. “Readers of Short Cuts can expect the same level of quality, accuracy, knowledge, and insight they receive from our printed books, and gain access to the information sooner, but in a more portable form.”

With a diverse lineup of published Short Cuts, including Using Google Spreadsheets, Understanding AJAX: Consuming the Sent Data with XML and JSON, What Is Six Sigma for Technical Processes?, a FileMaker 8 Calculation Functions, and array of Cisco certification Short Cuts helping candidates find the quickest way to exam success, the PTG imprints have even more digital products planned for 2007.

To view additional information on Short Cuts from PTG imprints, visit www.informit.com/shortcuts.

Why you should probably avoid blogging about hot topics;