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Biking Directions with Google Maps

/ Google, Internet, Local DC area, Search

Google recently added biking directions with Google Maps. See Bicycling as a drop-down option when looking for directions.

Google Biking

Beta Warning

The yellow note at the bottom to use caution isn’t just for legal reasons. Many have reported mistakes, such as directions to bike through Arlington Cemetery.

But, like everything Google, it seems to get better over time. People report these mistakes to Google by either clicking the here link at the bottom of the Beta warning or clicking Report a Problem at the bottom right of any Google Map.

Report Biking Direction Problem to Google

With the snow melting away in DC, it should be fun to bike again soon. Give Google Maps biking directions a try.

New eBay fees raise prices yet again

/ Internet, Shopping

eBay has recently announced new seller fee prices to take effect at the end of March. While they announced “lower insertion fees”, if you are selling something that sells for between $50 and $1500, your total fees will end up much higher.

The new fee structure will have no listing fees for the typical auction seller. The old way was usually $0.15. Both assume you start your auction at $0.99. The old final value fees had a tiered structure where you pay 8.75% for the first $25 and then 3.5% for $25-$1000 and so on. The new fees have a flat 9% final value fee but with a maximum of $50.

The following table shows how the total fees will change. It assumes you start your auction at $0.99.

Sale Price Old Fee New Fee
$10 $1.03 $0.90
$25 $2.43 $2.25
$50 $3.21 $4.50
$100 $4.97 $9.00
$250 $10.22 $22.50
$500 $18.97 $45.00
$1000 $36.47 $50.00
$1500 $43.96 $50.00
$2000 $51.46 $50.00


So unfortunately, most items you sell will have much greater fees, especially around the sweet spot range of $100-$500 where fees are about double to triple what they were. eBay has done this before where they announced the lowering of insertion fees but in reality it is an increase in total fees.

Don’t Use Internet Explorer

/ Apple, Google, Internet, Software, Viruses

Internet ExplorerI used to tell people that the newest Internet Explorer 8 was safe enough. But recent events have changed my mind. The Chinese attacks on Google over Christmas were perpetrated using a vulnerability that exists in all versions of Internet Explorer. Microsoft still hasn’t fixed this.

Because of security concerns, both the German and French governments have officially recommended that people not use Internet Explorer. One could attribute this to the EU’s dislike of Microsoft, but Mircrosoft has a more fundamental problem.

Closed Source

Many people say that Internet Explorer isn’t as safe because it has the largest market share (over 60%). Hackers want to attack the largest market they can. But I think that the real problem is that Internet Explorer is written with closed source code.

Unlike the Gecko engine powering Firefox or the Webkit engine powering Chrome and Safari, Internet Explorer has its own broswer engine that is closed source. This means that people can not look at how it is written. While you might initially think that this makes Internet Explorer more protected, it’s actually the opposite. Open source code can be reviewed and improved by the entire development community. Once a problem is seen, any developer can suggest a solution. The response time of Firefox for fixing exploits is typically days compared to Internet Explorer taking weeks or months.

Other Browsers

The fastest browsers use Webkit as their engine. These include Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari browsers.

Mozilla Firefox is slower but remains the current leader among alternative browsers, largely due to its popular add-ons. Google is working on growing out its extensions to compete with Firefox add-ons.

Give one or more of these browsers a try.

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