Vigilance and common sense pay off

"Do you know what's in your credit report?" states a common TV commercial. More importantly do you know what NOT to do in regard to your credit rating? Most people pay little attention to the topic but in reality what you don't do is almost as important as what you have done. I found the following article via Digg which details 10 common mistakes people make when trying to repair their credit score. As my old personal finance professor would say, some of these items are the "kiss of death" when it comes to FICO ratings.

Security not primary focus of most new technologies

InformationWeek author Larry Greenemeier asks: is Google's recent vulnerability a sign of a broader Web 2.0 weakness? While implications that many of the Internet's hot new AJAX powered sites aren't secure isn't new, the recent article published on Jan 3rd highlights growing privacy concerns over social networking and other new technologies.

Most of the blame lies squarely on client-side or browser based functionality which for the most part is largely untested from a strict security standpoint. Still I find it hard to believe that solutions can not be found that will both patch existing vulnerabilities as well as prevent more serious flaws in the future.

The "Good Ole Days" were incredibly more so

Racing technology has progressed a long way over the past 100 years. It's hard to believe that in this day and age of HANS devices, carbon fiber monocoque and energy absorbing barriers that there was once a time when men drove without seat belts or helmets. As safety features have change so too has the attitude of racing drivers. Nothing illustrates this more than when former drivers from the "golden age of racing" set foot inside a modern racing machine.

The February 2007 Road and Track features an article on the Porsche RS Spyder in which sports car racing legend Brian Redman takes the car for a test drive. Redman won Targa Florio, the 12 Hours of Sebring twice, and was the last person to "drive the almighty Porsche 917-30 Can-Am car in anger". The drive took place at Porsche's Weissach test facility under the watchful eye of Porsche Motorsport boss Hartmut Kristen as well as ALMS series driver Sascha Maassen.

Has the company lost its "moral compass"?

Google isn't starting 2007 on the right foot, at least according to a host of commentators. The company's pristine reputation has recently tarnished in the wake of a security flaw in the company's Gmail service as well as accusations of "anti-competitive" behavior.

The former issue came to late in late December when several Gmail users noticed that their contact lists had been erased. Upon investigation Google's software team determined that code running on a malicious website could allow the site's owner to access Gmail if a user was at the same time signed in to the email service. Reports indicate that the flaw has been actively exploited for a number of weeks prior to its discovery.

Also Google has faced allegations of managing search engine results so its own services are on top. Firefox co-founder Blake Ross commented on his blog that terms such as "blog", "calendar" and "photo sharing" would show Google's own services as the "most relevant" result. He later commented that the company seems to have lost its "moral compass", no doubt a reference to the company's unofficial mantra of "don't be evil".

In reality criticism of Google is neither new nor unexpected. While the latest round of issues has made great headlines, they don't change the fact that some folks have always maintained doubts about Google's altruistic nature. As recent history has shown us no matter how much good will you generate some people will always view your company with distain and distrust.

The interesting thing is that as Google continues to grow and expand it will inevitably find its self in a similar place as Microsoft. Regardless of how good its products are or how much those products improve productivity or our lives, some will still find room to criticize the company. And honestly some of that criticism may be rightly leveled against the giant. However Google can avoid the Microsoft fate not in how much good will they do, but in how they deal with criticism and controversy. This has been an extreme sore spot for Microsoft and will ultimately determine Google's long lasting legacy.