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Status: Single
Age: 56
Sign: Sagittarius
City: MINNEAPOLIS
State: Minnesota
Country: US
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Friday, October 07, 2005
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What's Google Up To?
Current mood: uncomfortable
Category: Web, HTML, Tech
As you know if you read my newsletter, the StratVantage News Summary , I am now a Google business partner, having taken their coin to the tune of a righteous $9.47 since I started offering AdSense ads on the Website version of this newsletter. As part of the deal, I had to agree not to "engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google's reputation or goodwill." Despite that, I have to ask, "What the heck is Google up to?" They just announced free Wi-Fi for everyone in San Francisco. Prior to that, they announced Google Secure Access, a free Virtual Private Network service for anyone with any Wi-Fi connection. They recent bought a stealthy startup that purports to be working on wireless applications. And they bought Keyhole, which they turned into Google Earth. Are they out to rule the world? To find out, let's take a look at what these various recent moves have in common. They all are pieces of an advertising puzzle so brilliantly nefarious that you just couldn't call it evil. But first, a look at the facts. - Google is the world's most-used search engine
- They make most of their money from advertising (in a very non-evil way!)
- They launched Google Local, which allows for location-specific searches, in February 2005
- Their Gmail service allows them to scan your email for keywords so they can advertise to you
- Google Desktop search and Picasa allow you to index everything on your hard drive, and communicate some information back to Google
- Google Personal History/Personalized Search service allows you to store your searching history on Google's servers for later access
- Their Google Secure Access service sets up a Virtual Private Network connection between your wireless laptop and Google's proxy server. That means all your traffic is secure. It also means all your traffic flows through Google's server, where it is decrypted and sent out on the Internet. Google also has an application called Google Web Accelerator, which does much the same thing.
Here are some more facts. First, excerpts from Google Secure Access' terms of service:
- Google may log some information from your web page requests as may the websites that you visit.
- Google Secure Access does not log cookies and strips potentially sensitive query data from the end of requests to help better protect your privacy.
- Google also logs a small set of non-personally identifiable information -- such as routing information, session durations and operating system and Google Secure Access client version numbers -- in order to create your Google Secure Access connection, understand how people are using Google Secure Access and help us maintain the Google Secure Access client.
- Google will not sell or provide personally identifiable information to any third parties except under the limited circumstances described in the Google Privacy Policy.
- If Google concludes that we are required by law or have a good faith belief that collection, preservation or disclosure of additional information is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public, such as if we believe the Google Secure Access service is being abused, we may for a limited period of time preserve additional internet traffic or other information.
And here are Google Privacy Policy excerpts:
- We may store and process personal information collected on our site in the United States or any other country in which Google Inc. or its agents maintain facilities. By using our services, you consent to the transfer of your information among these facilities, including those located outside your country.
- We may share aggregated information with others. Examples of this include the number of users who searched for "Mars Rover" or how many users clicked on a particular advertisement.
- Google may present links in a format that enables us to understand whether they have been followed. We use this information to understand and improve the quality of Google's search technology. For instance, this data helps us determine how often users are satisfied with the first result of a query and how often they proceed to later results.
Next, excerpts from Google's Gmail terms of use:
- Because we keep back-up copies of data for the purposes of recovery from errors or system failure, residual copies of email may remain on our systems for some time, even after you have deleted messages from your mailbox or after the termination of your account [italics mine].
- Information displayed or clicked on in your Gmail account (including UI elements, ads, links, and other information) is also recorded.
Finally, excerpts from Google Desktop's terms of use:
- If you choose to enable Advanced Features, Google Desktop may send information about the websites that you visit to provide enhanced Google Desktop functions, such as personalizing news displayed in Sidebar.
- Enabling Advanced Features also allows Google Desktop to collect a limited amount of non-personal information from your computer and send it to Google. This includes summary information, such as the number of searches you do and the time it takes for you to see your results, and application reports we'll use to make the program better.
- Your copy of Google Desktop includes a unique application number. When you install Google Desktop, this number and a message indicating whether the installation succeeded is sent back to Google so that we can make the software work better.
Here are yet more facts � a list of Google's acquisitions over the years, courtesy of Adam Rifkin's blog, Wikipedia, and Kuro5hin. 2/2001: Deja � back in the day, there was, and still is, a threaded discussion service called USENET originally created by two Duke grad students back in nineteen-seventy-freakin'-nine; Deja archived 500 million messages, pretty much back to the beginning of the commercial Internet in 1995, and ran the Deja News service; Google bought the archive and turned it into Google Groups 9/2001: Outride - a spin-off of Xerox PARC�developers of state-of-the-art model-based search relevance technology 2/2003: Pyra Labs � creator of Blogger blogging software�content for the Google machine � the better to advertise to you 4/2003: Neotonic Software � e-mail customer support 4/2003: Applied Semantics (formerly known as Oingo) � domain name, contextual advertising and enterprise search solutions; most important for Google: technology that understands, organizes and extracts information from Web sites, built in to their AdSense product, to which I am now thrall 9/2003: Kaltix � personalized search to possibly replace or fix PageRank, which may have been broken in part by Google Bombing by bloggers! See the explanation behind the fact that President Bush's biography at whitehouse.gov is the first entry if you type the single word "failure" into Google. (It's number 4 on MSN Search and Yahoo, number 2 on Excite and Dumbfind, 7 on AltaVista, not mentioned on Hotbot or Lycos, and is replaced by Michael Moore's home page on the AOL version of Google, I kid you not!) 10/2003: Sprinks � advertising company that provided ads for Google competitors About.com, Metacrawler.com, and Mamma.com 10/2003: Genius Labs � a Boston-based blogging entity comprised entirely of a guy named Biz Stone; Stone resigned from Google last month. 4/2004: Ignite Logic � provides Web templates for law firms and other small businesses 6/2004: Baidu � Google bought part of Baidu, China's biggest independent Internet search engine 7/2004: Picasa � desktop photo management/storage/search 10/2004: Keyhole � view 3D images of any place on earth as well as tap a rich database of roads, businesses and many other points of interest; became Google Earth 2004: Zipdash � mobile/traffic/mapping company � now working with Google Maps; technology used to develop and launch Google Ride Finder 2004: Where2 � mapping software provider �Australian mapping company mentioned in the 2004 annual report, but not much is known about it. It also had something to do with Google Maps. 3/2005: Urchin � Web analytics company � tools that optimize content and track marketing performance 4/2005: Dodgeball � a two-person cell phone social networking/SMS meetup service � the service can provide you with addresses and directions in major cities; also has flash mob capabilities 7/2005: Akwan Information Technologies � Latin American search company in technology of search as a part of its plan to open an R&D office and expand its presence into Latin and South America. 8/2005: Android Inc. � mysterious mobile software provider So what is Google up to with all these acquisitions? Perhaps we can glean a little of their direction by examining their 10 Things manifesto. Listed as things Google has found to be true, they form the DNA of the company: - Focus on the user and all else will follow.
- It's best to do one thing really, really well.
- Fast is better than slow.
- Democracy on the web works.
- You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
- You can make money without doing evil.
- There's always more information out there.
- The need for information crosses all borders.
- You can be serious without a suit.
- Great just isn't good enough.
The only one of these principles that I see them violating in their acquisition strategy is number 2, It's best to do one thing really, really well. Yet, depending on where they're going, these acquisitions may add up to doing one thing; it's just not limited to what we think Google is doing today as a search engine. Their S-1 filing for their Initial Public Offering (IPO) states: "Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information. . . Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Now let's look at the parts of the machine Google is building. - Google has a killer advertising engine, also known as their search engine. They charge to deliver users to Websites, whose owners pay by the click. This ad engine represents the lion's share of Google's revenue.
- Google has a killer way to locate and even image every business and residence in the US, and soon the world. Further, they are developing services to allow people to meet based on location, and could thus advertise based on location.
- Google is working on the magic triangle of Internet success: Commerce, Content, and Community.
- Google has struggled to develop eCommerce capabilities. Their Froogle service has been available only as a beta for almost three years. Nonetheless, you have to figure that they'll work it out.
- Google is developing killer content, from the Google Groups archive to real-time traffic info delivered to cell phones to Google Earth to blogs. They also are planning on digitizing thousands of books. Google now allows you to turn their main page into a quasi-portal, a la Yahoo, with news and weather.
- Google is making many inroads into the blogosphere � buying blogger.com, for example � and trying to challenge Yahoo Groups with their Google Groups service and developing their community chops
- Google has many ways to personally identify your interests, wants, and needs � through Google Personalized search, the cookie they set in your browser (AKA the mark of the beast), and the statistics they gather through Google Desktop and Picasa
- Google has plans to offer free Wi-Fi access to the Internet in San Francisco, driving more users to its servers where their desires can be known
So what are they going to do with this machine? Here's what I think we'll see within the next few years:
- Nationwide free Wi-Fi sponsored by Google's ads and secured by Google Secure Access
- Google will increase their ability to know what you want by tracking searches, by tracking all access through their free Wi-Fi service, and by tracking what you're searching for on your own computer via Google Desktop
- Google will figure out how to make Froogle a killer eCommerce destination and may even spawn their own PayPal-like payment system, possibly involving cell phone-based payments
- Google will extend further into cell phones, powering social networking applications in order to achieve one of the holy grails of advertising: location-based ads. Google will be able to find you wherever you are and offer ads and coupons based on your location, tastes, and interests.
- Google will release a Linux-based operating system combined with Sun's OpenOffice running on cheap hardware and featuring Application Service Provider (ASP) applications hosted on Google servers. Of course, this offering will track user behavior.
- Google will build its Website analytics business and its Google Enterprise business to further integrate into the structure of the Web. There may be wink-wink agreements on how taking these services will improve one's PageRank.
- Google will improve or replace its PageRank service, which has come under criticism
- Google will expand its hegemony worldwide by buying, investing in, or out-competing any offshore competitors.
In other words, Google is building a system to know exactly what you want and deliver as much of it to you as it can wherever you are. Let's detail who will be hurt by the creation of this system: Internet Service Providers, Wi-Fi network providers (hey!), other search engines (natch), eCommerce sites, online retailers, cell phone users (hello, ads!), fledgling location-based advertising services, Microsoft, PC manufacturers (cheapo GooglePCs), Website analytics firms, and possibly, people who value their privacy. Is Google trying to take over the world? You decide. But it's a mighty good thing these guys promise not to be evil � although they have refused to talk to CNet for printing an article containing sensitive information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt � information that ironically was obtained via Google searches. That actually sounds a little bit evil. In fact, the New York Times thinks Google may be replacing Microsoft as the huge corporation people love to hate. So hang on to your privacy, if you can, and stay tuned.
8:29 AM
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Monday, October 17, 2005
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Why Do We Have Personal Computers?
Current mood: annoyed
I don't know about you, but I couldn't do without my personal computer, although I realize this is not a universal feeling. However, I know that if people like my technophobic wife can't do without their computers, then there are a whole lot of folks out there who have come to rely on their PCs. The reason I can't do without my PC is because I make my living with computers. That makes me a power user, and power users have a warped view of the world. Take, for example, a CNet online forum contributor who recently commented on a story about how Microsoft is worried Google will create a service, delivered over a thin-client architecture, that will eliminate the need for an operating system: Thin clients are yet another chunk of hype with no strong future. Why move everything off your system and use everything you did before on remote servers?
You will have to trust that your data is secure.
You have to deal with slower computing. If it makes you less productive, what is the point?
It will likely be more expensive. Why rent software? That makes as much sense as renting music or everyday clothes.
Gaming will not work on something like this. Thin clients- hype with no substance
Where to begin in pointing out the flaws in this screed? I'm the last guy to advocate the return to the mainframe-and-terminal, hierarchical, priesthood-dominated world prevalent up until the last decade or so. But given the extreme irritation of dealing with fat client MS Windows machines, I can definitely see the appeal of thin-client computing, at least for the non-power users among us. Think about it. How many times have you installed a program, uninstalled a program, or just looked at your PC wrong and all of a sudden the stupid thing doesn't work like it used to? Wouldn't it be nice if you could always get your email, always browse the Web without problems (like viruses and popups), and always do your word processing without annoying hiccups, incompatibilities and other major annoyances? Dealing with the mess that is your average Windows PC has forced me to reach a conclusion that is startling to those around me: I hate computers! If I could, I would take all seven of the little tyrants I own and purify them in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. In comparison, thin-client computing promises such an idyllic world. All the software you use runs on a server, maintained and installed by somebody else. You may have some local storage for data, or you might have vast reserves to store your stuff on the server. Then, wherever you go, there you are you log in, and, boom, your familiar desktop with all your applications and all your files is there. Marvelous! Yes, as the raving power user says above, you will have to trust that your data is secure. But sometimes trusting such a thing to professionals is better than trusting it to yourself. When was the last time your Mom or Dad backed up their data? (Of course, I assume you are backing your stuff up regularly to CD or DVD!) Just ask the client of mine (who shall remain nameless) who deleted his Outlook data file because his drive was filling up, despite me pleading with him on the phone at the time, "No, no, no! Don't do that! That's your address book and all your messages!" The second point our raver makes is that you will have to deal with slower computing. Well, most of the things that our light and medium users do aren't exactly heavy breathing, computing-wise. Otherwise people wouldn't be so fond of Web-based email services like Yahoo, Excite, and Gmail. Further, most folks don't type at 100 words per minute, nor do they usually create huge word processing files that might take a while to save. So big deal. It takes a little longer to open a document, a little longer to save. Let's face it: Most tasks ordinary people do with their computers don't really take much horsepower. I know what the raver is saying, though: You won't be able to play Battlefield Vietnam or other massively multiplayer shooter games on a thin client. He's right. For that, you will want your own fat PC. Ditto if you're a day trader, or any other user with high computing needs. It's just that most people aren't like that. The raver's third point, that thin-client computing will be more expensive, is hard to determine. In some sense, you're trading your own time and headaches for the ability to pay someone else to worry about it for you. Besides, this is an assertion, and, as I tell my sons, assertion is not proof. Once you factor in all the costs of owning and maintaining your own computing equipment, the premium for thin-client computing might not seem so large. As far as the raver's comment about renting music goes, you just wait. The recording industry is doing their best to make it so you can't so much as play the music you bought in the car as well as the house without their permission. As I mentioned, the raver is right on when he or she says that you won't be able to do serious gaming on thin client. But you could play the odd game of Tetris, or Spider Solitaire, or any number of role-playing games on thin devices. Now in the past, I have not been a fan of thin client appliances, especially back several years ago when they were all the rage. With full PCs now available at under $400, it's going to be hard to find a price point where the appliance approach makes sense, at least as far as up-front investment is concerned. Unless the thin-client is built into something you already buy like, say, a new TV. Sure, Microsoft's WebTV (now known as MSN TV) has been a failure, if something with more than a million subscribers can be termed a failure, but that doesn't mean the concept is totally wrong. People haven't been signing up in droves for a $200 poorly-performing Web appliance with lame applications and a $10 a month surcharge that looks crappy on your old TV. But have you noticed that many of the new flat-panel TVs also double as PC monitors? Or another possibility: The Tivo is already a pretty heavy duty computing appliance, and is available in some places for $100. What if it were bundled with a bunch of thin-client applications and marketed to the folks who are weary of dealing with the complexity of unreliable Windows PCs? Ready to chuck the boat anchor into Lake Minnetonka yet? Next issue, we'll take a look at some of the new technologies that will make thin-client applications work more and more like installed applications.
8:26 AM
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Thursday, December 01, 2005
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Seriously, What's Google Up To?
With the release of the oddly titled Google Base, Google promises to dominate yet another market: online classifieds. Not content with trying to index the world's Websites, the new beta service allows people to create even more content, including "all types of online and offline information and images." While the company insists Base is not a classified ad service, since this content will be searchable not only on Google Base but also on Google Search, Froogle and Google Local, you know doggone well it will be used for classified ads. Given the huge decline in newspaper readership, any significant competition in the classified ad business could prove to be the death knell for many metropolitan dailies. And given that many readers of newspapers are switching to online editions, supported by online ads, although not necessarily online classifieds � Google's service is even more troubling. According to a report in Editor & Publisher, the Audit Bureau of Circulations' showed a 2.6 percent decline in daily paid circulation for US newspapers, while Nielsen//NetRatings says newspaper Web site viewership grew 11 percent year-over-year to 39.3 million unique visitors in October 2005, or 26 percent of the active US Internet population.
Newspapers' online growth is greater than the growth of the active Internet universe as a whole, which rose 3 percent, so this flight to the Web is concerning for newspaper companies dependent on classified ads. Google says it is not planning at this point to offer its own ads on Google Base, but I can't believe that's not part of the ultimate plan. So we have to ask ourselves, if Google Base isn't about advertising, what the heck it is about? Certainly there are many different kinds of opportunities for people to post their own content on the Web � blogs, for example. Google did swallow Blogger, and so offers a blogging service of its own. Google even uses Blogger to make company announcements, like the announcement of the Google Base service.
Let's dig a little bit into Google Base and see what we can turn up. First off, Google offers various categories of entries, or you can make up your own. Here are their standard categories: Notice how Google has coyly put classified ads at the bottom by calling them Wanted Ads. Subtle but perhaps telling. Yet on the main Google Base page, among the several examples of entries include Cars for Sale, a category squarely in the classified ad space. Google offers helpful filters to let you search for cars by make and location. I found the Volvo dealer in my neighborhood had many cars listed, Google helpfully provides a map of the area so you can find it. Since there are perhaps eight other auto dealers in my immediate area, I'm not sure why Borton Volvo is the first one to come up. The listings appear to be ordered alphabetically, kind of like the other advertising medium being threatened by Google Base: the yellow pages. Don't be surprised if the businesses near you suddenly change to names like AAAAA Borton Volvo and so on. Of course, there are plenty of car sites out there, such as CarSoup and Cars.com, and there are other search engines who can find you a car, such as Yahoo, who uses AutoTrader's database, and the granddaddy of them all, Intellichoice. But Google's integration with Google Maps makes for an interesting edge. But enough about cars, Google Base will eat newspapers' lunch in apartment rentals, house sales, jobs, and all the other classified ad categories. Interestingly, the top company in Jobs is not alphabetically advantaged � workHaven. So Google must already be doing some sort of pay for placement scheme. So, on the one hand, Google is making a play to dominate content on the Web: Other ways to submit information to Google include Google Video, Google Print, and Google Sitemaps. On the other hand, Google uses content to drive advertising revenue. Therefore, despite protestations, Google Base is a key part of the company's strategy to dominate online advertising. Stay tuned. The term googlewatching may yet take its place beside the other common verb, googling.
8:22 AM
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Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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Replace Your Boat Anchor
Current mood: accomplished
Category: Web, HTML, Tech
In a recent article, I asked the question, "Why Do We Have Personal Computers?" The article dealt with the frustrations of dealing with Windows-based computers (yes, now all you superior Mac users can stand and jeer and claim you never have any problems with your transcendently fabulous computers; at least one guy begs to differ.) Yes, at least once a day I threaten to drop-kick my laptop into the garbage can. But what are you going to do? With 98 percent of the installed base of personal computers, Microsoft owns you, right? Or do they? You see, there are starting to be alternatives to the Microsoft hegemony (lots of Linux geeks stand up now and shout, "Linux on the desktop!"; yeah, just as soon as you fix your stupid user interface so that it doesn't require intimate familiarity with Linux command-line arcania: ps aux | grep doodoo.) Yes, once upon a time, there was a Linux PC sold at Wal-Mart. And now there isn't. The problem is: computers are too hard to use. And while there's little you can do to avoid having to learn the details of, say, how to reformat text you've cut and pasted from another Word document, there is something you can do to simplify your life: get thin. The term thin client computing refers to a method of computing that splits tasks between a local, light-weight device and a remote server. The two are commonly connected by the Internet, but the connection could be any network. The advantage of thin client computing is that you can leave all the tiresome software updating, operating system updating, driver installation, data backup/restore, and other arcane computer management tasks to experts at some remote data center. Most of the software you will use in thin computing resides on the remote server and is managed by experts. You merely load all or portions of the software into your thin client as you need to use it. Your thin device may have a hard drive for local storage, and you may connect peripherals like a scanner or an iPod to it, but in general, the thin client device doesn't need to be hugely powerful. As I mentioned in the previous SNS, thin client has made at least one run at mass acceptance years ago. The problem then was its backers tried to push it as an initial cost savings rather than as a concept that will save you hassles and maybe money in the long run. Several years ago, thin client vendors developed the NetPC specification, targeting a sub-$1,000 device. Well, take a look at your Sunday newspaper ads and you'll see you can get a sub-$400 personal computer at your choice of stores. But instead of using that $400 PC to host all sorts of software, and risk incompatibilities, security breaches, excessive rebooting, and lots of headaches, why not save yourself the hassle and rent the software instead? This was the idea behind another concept that surged into prominence about six years ago: the Application Service Provider (ASP) which has spawned a related concept, Software as a Service (SaaS). ASPs were all the rage around the turn of the century, and I've written about them in the past with varying degrees of enthusiasm. To be sure, there are very successful ASPs currently. Perhaps the most successful and visible ASP is salesforce.com, which provides a broad suite of sales management applications and features, all hosted remotely and accessible via browser all over the world. Why did salesforce.com succeed where others have failed? By targeting sales folks, that's how. Sales people have a skillset that is almost diametrically opposed to the geek skillset. They are the anti-geek material that the universe needs to avoid disturbances in the force. If they are not on the phone selling or selling in person, they better be preparing to do so, or they won't be successful. So they don't have time for crashes and incompatibilities and data losses. And they don't have either the time or the temperament to learn complicated programs. So salesforce.com made an easy-to-use sales support application that requires no installation and is always available at any Internet-connected PC worldwide. Genius. There are many other ASP applications that a person wanting to leave their boat anchor behind can use, including: SpreadsheetSecuresheet Jedox BadBlue Word Processor/Office ClonesWebOffice XO Office Zoho Virtual Office IBM Workplace PresentationsPresenterNet InstantPresenter HostPresentation EmailTons of free Webmail: Yahoo, Google, Excite, Netscape Hosted Microsoft Exchange: Unplugged Cities US Internet Back Office FunctionsNetSuite Authoria RightNow Salesforce.com GamesToo many to list, including massively multiplayer games like: Battleground Europe Dark Ages Final Fantasy XI Guild Wars Lord of the Rings Online
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. You don't need to deal with cryptic error messages, incompatible programs, security holes, or most of the other burdens of fat client ownership. You can get thin and win. And that's exactly what my business partner and odds on favorite to replace Microsoft as the company people love to hate, Google, seems to be thinking. Recent reports (and also here) speculate that Google will soon release either a Google PC, or a Google Cubes a small hardware box plays songs, videos and other digital files on TV sets. Further speculation contends that Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products, will show off a Google computing device at his keynote address Friday (1/6/06) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
ZDNet writer David Berlind speculated months ago that a Google PC is not a new or unexpected concept: It's a network computer with a few extra bells and whistles to support things like Google Talk. It looks feels, and smells like a svelte network computer but has 95 percent of the functionality of the PC that took me where no man should go last week. It can do everything a business PC can do because, hey, guess what: all our business apps can be SaaSyized anyway. But, at the end of the day, the Google PC (or maybe Yahoo will beat them) isn't much more than what today's cable boxes and cell phones are: remarkably thin clients (given what they do) that are customized to take full advantage of all that service provider has to offer. Oh, and produced in partnership with "the carrier." So let's see what happens on Friday at Page's address. It could be the birth of a whole new way to compute. .. href="http://www.gather.com/editlet/css/sample.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
8:09 AM
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