LIVEdigitally

I try to keep my clients’ work out of this blog (yet another reason for me starting a personal blog), but since this falls into gadgetland, I figured it’s okay to do so. In case that’s not abundantly obvious… Disclaimer: Bug Labs is a paying client.

This evening we put up a new version of the Bug Labs web site which incorporates real pictures of the BUG hardware platform. I’ve been working with the company since Winter of ’06, but I’m especially excited for the rest of the team, especially Peter, the founder. I vividly remember the first time I saw a production-quality Slingbox, and even back when the Denon NS-100 prototypes came out. All were extremely uplifting, proud moments. I didn’t play a part in designing the BUG, but I still have a great feeling about seeing the vision become a reality.

You can see all the pictures of the BUGbase and first four modules here, and the products page was updated as well. For more editorial opinion on the company, here’s coverage from Engadget, Gizmodo (ooh, video), Popular Science, Crunchgear, MAKE Magazine, and TechCrunch.

I received an email (well, 6 emails to be precise) last night with the subject line “Malware notification regarding livedigitally.com.” My first assumption was that it was my old friend Samuel Eze up to his crazy hijinks, but alas, it was from Google.  The letter continues…

We recently discovered that some of your pages can cause users to be
infected with malicious software. We have begun showing a warning page
to users who visit these pages by clicking a search result on Google.com.
Below are some example URLs on your site which can cause users to be
infected (space inserted to prevent accidental clicking in case your
mail client auto-links URLs):

http://www.livedigitally .com/
http://www.livedigitally .com/category/gaming/
http://www.livedigitally .com/category/convergence/

Here is a link to a sample warning page:
http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http%3A//www.livedigitally.com/

…

It proceeds to tell me how I can apply to get my site restored, via a site called StopBadware.org.   I’ve gone through all the HTML and links in the site, all looks pretty darn safe.  Here’s part of the automated response I got upon submission of the form:

Thank you for contacting StopBadware.org.  We are currently re-reviewing a number of websites via our request for review process, and we have added your site to that testing queue.

I must say, while it’s good there’s a way to apply to get out here, it’s pretty frustrating that I was not given more specific information as to the problem.  Feels very… witchhuntish.  Is that a word?   Considering I still believe Google is singlehandedly responsible for the growing amount of spam and fake Web sites, I hope this is a sign of good things to come.  Somehow, I doubt it, since most of the “bad” sites are contributing directly to Google’s soaring market cap.

I guess it comes down to whether or not they are “maybe just a teensy bit evil” or not…