Category Archives: Uncategorized

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This story caught my eye – quite possibly as I’m flying tomorrow… 12,000 laptops EVERY WEEK, that’s 624,000 per year, or one for every 500 people. 

What’s even more astonishing is that 70% of those aren’t reclaimed.  Is everyone feeling that flush despite the crunch?

Ironically, 40% of the lost laptops are left at the security checkpoints. The departure gate (23%), toilets (9%) and restaurants (7%) are other places worth hanging around if you fancy picking up a free PC.

The article (In PC Pro magazine) finishes up by saying that 14% of the laptops have “intellectual property” on them – which is a bit worrying, as that means 86% had nothing at all on them, or maybe just a bunch of unintellectual property.

As an example of the data that a server can already pick up from a simple visit, have a look at the table below (visit a couple of those sites and come back and see the difference).

I’ve also added a widget to the right of this page which shows some of the other (quite simple) information that’s easily scraped from your visit – such as IP address (which can then locate you geographically, broadly), screen resolution, local time of day and so on.

None of this information should represent a privacy invasion – though you should be aware that it is collect-able (the broader mass market isn’t, generally). 

The great thing is that some of this information is actually very useful at telling a site more about you – and therefore providing you a better and more personal service. Getting the balance of privacy and personalisation is of course a challenge (and one of the most important things we’re working on at at Favy).  Right now, most of the information you see below and to the right is thrown away and not made use of.

Thanks to gemal for this script.