I came across the link to this youtube video at Digg this morning and figured it would at least be funny. Perhaps all of my humor has fled this morning but all I really wanted to do was find this dick and punch him in the nose for wasting so many people's valuable time. I suppose it could be worse.
One of the reasons that I have been looking at switching to another CMS package is due to all of the comment and trackback spam I get. I average several hundred to over a thousand spam comments each day, and around one trackback every two seconds. It's really starting to bog things down here.
Rather than that I have implemented captchas (which I hate with a passion) in the comments as well as renamed my comment and trackback scripts. Hopefully that will help a little bit.
The other reason is a bit more stupid and I decided it wasn't that important after all. I like Gravatars in the comments, but it only works about half the time for 25% of the people. I want to use mybloglog, but there is no plugin for Movabletype. I guess I just need to be patient.
There won't be a huge amount of posting today. I am going to take a short nap. After that I need to make a trip to the dump as well as get a bit of grocery shopping done to get ready for the weekend.
I am sure that I will be back online later with my poignant (nod your head) commentary later.
Apparently someone read my nasty post from yesterday morning about Sevenload because they stopped by and left this comment last night. Now that I am actually awake and have re-read the comment, I stand by my first post. Apparently if we don't agree with them about Guantanamo Bay we are uneducated people. That's a pretty heft portion of the U.S. Population.
Dear shadowscope,
we understand your concern that uneducated people might feel infuriated by what happened at Guantanamo. Let me assure you, though, that we do not feel we have a stance against America. We feel it is our duty to offer an unbiased access to topics that spring up in our community. In the wake of the Saddam execution video, the topic became part of the extended discussion on our site. We created a special to allow users to comment on both sides of the story. no more and no less than that. We only believe in a citizen's web of open discussion. However, we have withdrawn the special as this discussion has now passed it's prime and we are reflecting on a balanced way to lead that discussion. We cordially invite you to join in!
At least they had the nuts to stop by and comment. That's more than I can say for a lot of people. They have also taken down the section that I was referring to. I will stop by the site this afternoon and give it a proper review and at least change the title of the prior post. I don't need to stop by and look at anything, the comment they left tells me everything that I need to know. Apparently Sevenload has decided to take a political stance against the United States and thinks that bloggers like this are uneducated and not able to make decisions for ourselves unlike their surrender monkey selves, but then I guess we all have our opinions and like any other consumer, it is buyer beware. I vote with my feet, and my feet are carrying me back to Youtube
I see that Dave Berube also received the same comment from Sevenload that I did last night.
If you want to help spread this story, hit the Digg icon below.
This is my Open Track-back article for Tuesday, March 27th. If you are interested in open trackbacks, pay a visit to Linkfest Haven Deluxe via the link below.
I actually did this screenshot for a post I was doing over at my business blog about Callwave, but this is what my desktop looks like currently.
I keep hearing more and more about twitter and am starting to notice it on some of the really big sites. I saw where one guy had it on his sidebar, and also inserted into a post and basically said "hey, now you can know when I'm scratching my ass".
I have tried it twice and just really dislike it. That should be it for me. My choice whether to use it or not but am I missing something here? Does it do something else besides let me text message it and tell you when I'm going potty, or driving to work? Do you really care. I will be more than happy to put it back if everyone wants to know when I pick my nose or whatever. I could even set up Homeseer (my home automation software) to send an SMS message to it so that you know the second I arrive home.
Apparently I just don't get it.
When I first saw and heard about twitter back in February I tried it out. Hey, I like bling and gadgets. I didn't particularly like it. Recently it has apparently become all the rage again. I have been seeing posts about it all over the Internet. 'five ways to be productive with Twitter', 'five uses for twitter in business', 'twitter is the best thing next to sliced bread'. Well, maybe not the last one, but the other two are real posts I have read.
I figured maybe they had done something else with it, so I would try it out. Right now it's on two of my sites and it still sucks just as much as it did the last time I used it. Maybe I just don't 'get it' but it seems pointless to me so it is coming off of the sites after I post this.
Google announced on their blog a change they will be making soon. They will be anonymizing their server logs after 18-24 months unless 'legally' obligated not to.
When you search on Google, we collect information about your search, such as the query itself, IP addresses and cookie details. Previously, we kept this data for as long as it was useful. Today we're pleased to report a change in our privacy policy: Unless we're legally required to retain log data for longer, we will anonymize our server logs after a limited period of time. When we implement this policy change in the coming months, we will continue to keep server log data (so that we can improve Google's services and protect them from security and other abuses)-but will make this data much more anonymous, so that it can no longer be identified with individual users, after 18-24 months
More information can be found over at the Google Blog.
This isn't my skin, but I just downloaded it and am using it now. Adrenaline is a pretty sweet Windowblinds skin that PixelPirate released on March 12th. Click the link to go download it. Very cool.
*Crossposted to theapp.net
I have right at a gig of computer memory in my PC, but since I have upgraded to Windows Vista I have been considering getting at least another gig (at least). Memory Store has some decent prices and a decent selection, so that is more than likely where I will get it. When I worked in Norcross I used to buy everything locally, as there are a few stores near our corporate office that carried everything I need at a cheap price. Since I am back in the restaurants again, I usually get everything online. I try to shop around so with memory I go to the Memory Store for my computer memory.
What's really cool is that they have a memory detection module that will detect your motherboard type, filled slots, and all the other info. Not sure but it probably uses Windows WMI information. I know it works for me great. I have four slots in my PC, and they support up to eight gigs of memory.
I found a 1 gig Abit module (my motherboard is a UL8) for $99. I am thinking about going ahead and biting the bullet to get four of them. Four gigs of memory should do me for a couple of years before I need another upgrade. By then I will be ready to replace the entire thing anyway.
...and this one's for your cell phone or MySpace blog. U-Doo is a personalized ringtone thing that you create and download to your phone and/or to your myspace blog. It is an animated avatar that also speaks. It allows you to build a custom avatar, select a message from either one that you record on your phone, via using text to speech, or there are several prerecorded ones to choose from.
I got this cool little skeleton thing over at my MySpace page with a very short text to speech message. I created it in a minute or so, and then told it to upload to my myspace page and it was done about 30 seconds later. Very quick, and it pops it in the 'about me' box.
It also allows you to email it to someone else (or yourself). I did this as well, and after I told my webmail provider that mail from myself was not spam :) I received it in my mail client. It emails a link to the web page for you or your friends to check out.
U-Doo is available free for your web page or via email, and is offered as a subscription service through cell phone providers for a 60 day free trial, and then it's $4.99 a month after that.
My MOST downloaded skin (at 12000+ downloads) is Ryche. It also happens to be the most simple, but offers the most screen real estate. I did it in honor of the band Queensryche, the "thinking man's heavy metal band". Animated icons, band related sounds. Other than that it was a pretty simple theme. CPU monitor, clock, shadowed icons. Nothing spectacular, but definitely the most popular one.
Another one of my favorite skins that needs to be updated is my Gatekeeper theme for Desktopx. I ported this with permission from a skin for the Explorer replacement called Talisman. It has areas that are animated, and is just a pretty darn cool skin. That's one of the reasons I ported it for use. It's also my second most highly downloaded skin.
All of the little knobs and doodads in the lower left are switches that open little windows just to the right with menus inside. That's the start menu replacement. There are some other animated areas as well.
I did this one in September of 2000, so it is in desperate need of an update.
I am considering updating my port of the Ganymede Enlightenment theme. I originally did this one for Windowblinds and DesktopX (as well as a few other skinnable apps) back in 2000 and updated it on 2001. Over the last six years, Windows has come a long way, as have video cards, and the programs that use them. Here is a screenshot of it:
Hard to believe that is Windows. I originally did it under Windows 2000, although by then I was probably running XP beta. It's been awhile so I am not really sure. I may take some time to update all of my skins at that time. I have gotten a bit better with Photoshop since then, and there is a lot more stuff that can be done with anti-aliasing and transparency. All of my skins are up for download at http://dethnite.wincustomize.com/ and http://dethnite.deviantart.com.
Does anyone know much about Gravatar? There's not shit for help files at their site, and some of them show up here in the comments, but some don't, in particular mine.
I downloaded a Wordpress plugin to use mybloglog icons in the comments and have been trying to hack around that to use it with Movabletype, but I have been unsuccessful so far. I did notice over at their blog (which is at typepad.com) they ARE using them, so I know it has to be possible.
Over all I suppose it's no big deal, but I would like to get one of the two working properly, and mybloglog seems to be getting a lot more use than Gravatar now anyway.
For some reason several people have had issues when pinging my site. This is an issues particularly since I participate in open trackbacks posts. Looking through a couple of forums I found a couple of settings to tweak that might solve the issue and I mainly wanted someplace to 'write' them down in case I need to tweak them later. The error that people have been getting is 'failed: HTTP error: 403 Throttled'
I found this posting on a forum discussing MT
The configuration settings that control MT's trackback ping throttling are in your mt-config.cgi / mt.cfg file. There are three settings that affect trackback ping throttling:
OneHourMaxPings - The maximum number of pings that a weblog can receive in one hour. If this setting is not present, MT uses a default of 10 for this setting.
OneDayMaxPings - The maximum number of pings that a weblog can receive in one "day" (with one "day" being determined by the ThrottleSeconds setting below). If this setting is not present, MT uses a default of 50 for this setting.
ThrottleSeconds - This setting is the minimum number of seconds between comments from a single IP address. MT also uses this setting when deciding whether to throttle trackback pings with the OneDayMaxPings setting, with one "day" being (4000 * ThrottleSeconds -1) seconds. If this setting is not present, MT uses a default of 20 for this setting. With the default of 20 seconds, one "day" for the OneDayMaxPings setting is a little over 22 hours (80,000 seconds).
I have added the first two settings into my config file, so hopefully that will take care of the situation.
When I first moved into my house here in Temple I had no access to any kind of broadband whatsoever. Back in late 2000 or 2001, I was able to get DSL, and shortly thereafter Cable access to the Internet. I was really not aware of this, but apparently about 40% of Internet users are still using dial-up to connect. I honestly though that more people had access to high speed Internet.
Some of those people I am sure have access to it, but just don't want to pay anywhere from $30-$70 a month for the service. My next door neighbors that moved away a couple of months ago used dial-up, mainly because he wanted to save money. I also used to work with a guy, and he did it for the same reasons. Eventually they both migrated to high speed though.
PCDialup.com is an ISP, currently only serving the state of California, that offers dial-up access for $3.95 a month. That's a pretty good deal if you are looking to save money. The wave of 'free' internet access companies has all but disappeared, and this is most definitely the next best thing. With the fact that so much of the country is using broadband, companies like PCDialup are able to access equipment and phone lines much cheaper than they could ten years ago, and are able to pass that savings on to us.
They also offer accelerated web browsing for only $1 more per month. This is for basic 56k access. As I said before, it is currently only available in California, but they will be expanding their capacity to the rest of the U.S. shortly as the service grows.
LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.
On top of that list is to sit in my car and purposely get struck by lightning. Damn, check this out.
Charter has been misbehaving again. My Internet connection has been down most of the afternoon and evening. I'm not so desperate as to connect through my cell phone, mostly just pissed off. I was able to get online for a short while when I got home, but that was about it. I may post a little, and then more when I get home from work tonight, as I have to go in a few minutes.
I did manage to skate from the meeting, which was very cool. I hate meetings as some of you already know.
This is pretty cool. Not nearly as cool as my brother reading his book, but I am much lazier and prefer a computer to read the crap I have posted. I signed up for Odiogo's free Podiocast service which turns all of my blogposts into mp3 podcasts. Here's the post that I did earlier on 'More about Couey'.
Very weird. Now I am going to have to search through my site for the post with the most profanity just to listen to it and see if they bleep my ass. That might be difficult as there are so many to choose from. I curse even more than I post, although I have really been trying hard at work to keep my language clean, so that seems to have rolled over into my home life, at least until I get pissed off and then the stream of foul invectives issues out. Just can't help it.
Here's some links if you want to subscribe:
And here is the main page to get to them.
Have I told you how much I like cool gizmos and gadgets? This is much better than my audio-cast, but I will probably keep that link up. I have only used it twice but if I am without computer or iPaq I can post that from my cell phone.
If you have read the blog for awhile, you know I am into home automation. I mean really into it. I am always irritating the family by changing light switches to ones that can be turned on from the remote control, having the computer tell when it's time to take out the trash, or when it's time to go to work, or even turn the pond lights on at night. Very cool stuff. Recently Homeseer released the latest version which is now up to 2.2
It is by far the best automation software I have ever used. I posted their press release over at Technobabble yesterday if you are into that sort of stuff.
I noticed in some of my comments today that some people's gravatar icons show up, but mine does not. I double check the email address and it matches. Weird. Anyone else using Gravatar on an MT blog?
I also noticed that there is a wordpress plugin for mybloglog that does the same thing. I need to look at it and see how it is implemented. I think that might be too much for my meager perl skills to handle though.
I ran across this link on how to create a stop-motion movie over at Lifehacker. That looks pretty cool, something I may have to do on my next day off.
Speaking of movies, I have NOT forgotten about the drawing for that $30 that I should have done this past week. Life interferes sometimes. I will most definitely have it done this Friday, which is my next day off.
Cross-posted at technobabble
I finally finished working on that web page I have been fooling with over the weekend. I won't link to it yet as I don't know when she is making it public. I didn't actually do the template anyway, I just added the sidebar and fixed some html errors to make it more compliant with standards, as well as the stock Movabletype templates.
Now I have a couple of waitresses to do taxes for. One good thing about being home with RePete all day is that I can finish some of this stuff that I have been working on.
I am going to try and finish my sidebar here as well. I just do not like the template for some reason and my switch to the one I am using over at Technobabble. It is pretty plain, but I like it.
This sucks. I am going to go down to my basement and completely reset my router and cable modem. I can sit here and write for awhile in between straightening up the house, but I have some stuff I need to do online that I promised to take care of today.
OK, I have reset everything. The modem seems to have provisioned itself and the router connected. Now it's not even picking up an IP address from Charter. Damn, this sucks. Nothing in the log except where I tried to renew the IP address.
Oh well, I have other stuff to do anyway.
Jut checked again, it's about 11:30 now and my internet is still down. fucking shit.
It only took four hours, but I am back online. Jeesh.
I don't know about that shutdown day stuff.
We are having some pretty bad thunderstorms right now and my cable is out. Blogging from my iPaq is the coolest thing since sliced bread, when I am on a trip with no computer or Internet access, but it blows having to do it here.
I need to at least get myself a bluetooth PDA keyboard. That would make a world of difference.
I an ping the dhcp server and get a new IP address, but I can't reach the gateway router, much less get past it.
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