artiss.blog

Category: Life

Random thoughts on life

  • Spam Magnet Blog Posts

    The website planetOzh has an excellent post about blog posts that attract spam.

    In it, he provides not only a piece of SQL that you can run to see how your site is affected, but even provided a PHP script that you can upload to your website to graph the results. Mine is to the right. I have my spam cleared out quite regularly, so the results are only recent ones.

    As you can see, one of my posts was generating nearly 47% of all the spam. This is usually due to keywords within the article – the fact that it’s about a forum is possible a key. The second place “magnet” is a my review of  a Microsoft keyboard. I have no idea why, maybe because of it being Microsoft related.

    I’ve resolved the first post by simply closing off comments (it was an old post and I think everything that needs to be said has been). The review, well, I’m not sure what to do there. I want to keep comments open on reviews. Others are mainly WordPress pages, which I need comments available for feedback and support. However, the fact that the plugins are related to PayPal, Facebook, AdSense, etc, I’m sure is no coincidence, and probably help to attract the spam.

    So, not a huge amount I can do (having said that, I’ve reduced my potential spam input by 47% – assuming they don’t just target another one of my posts!), but interesting to know none-the-less.

    Having said that, I’ve never really thought about closing comments on posts before and it’s something I will do in future – especially when I announce new or changed plugins, as comments can be placed on the main page itself.

    Update: A WordPress plugin has been released of the code to produce the spam charts.

  • Quidco – save money when shopping online!

    Quidco – save money when shopping online!

    There are quite a few sites around that offer money off vouchers and coupons for online retailers. Quidco, however, not only does that but, if you visit the retailer via them, you can earn money back as well. Indeed, it’s this last operation that Quidco was originally set up to provide – vouchers and coupons is only a recent addition.

    Simply sign up – it’s incredibly easy to do – and then search for an online retailer. Click on the link and you’re taken to the relevant website. Buy your item and you’ll find Quidco “tracks” a certain amount of cashback – this is listed on the site under your profile details, where you can also see payments (which occur regularly direct to your bank account).  The amount of cashback is dependant on retailer and is listed along with the retailers link.

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  • Amazon Kindle eBook Reader

    For a while I’ve been watching the eBook reader market with interest. Not necessarily for myself, but my wife is an avid book reader, and only a truly amazing device would probably move her away from the paper variety.

    Amazon’s Kindle was a start, but it relied on a limited 3G network arrangement in the UK (basically it was a US company providing it, so to keep costs down images, for instance, for newspapers were suppressed). However, it’s ability to easily download newspapers and magazines directly to the device was a real selling point.

    On July 29th, Amazon.co.uk started taking pre-orders for the all-new Kindle featuring a new electronic-ink screen with 50 percent better contrast than any other e-reader, a new sleek design with 21 percent smaller body than the previous Kindle, while still keeping the same 6-inch-size reading area, and a 15 percent lighter weight. The all-new Kindle with wi-fi is available for £109 and with free 3G wireless and wi-fi for £149. Both of these prices are, I have to say, are amazingly good.

    The UK Kindle Store features a vast selection of titles – including new releases and bestsellers. In addition, over 170 top UK and international newspapers and magazines are also available in the UK Kindle store for single purchase or subscription. All subscriptions are auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle and start with a free 14-day trial.

    The full of improvements in the new Kindle are…

    • All-New, High-Contrast E-Ink Screen – 50% better contrast than any other e-reader
    • Read in Bright Sunlight – No glare
    • New and Improved Fonts – New crisper, darker fonts
    • New Sleek Design – 21% smaller body while keeping the same 6″ size reading area
    • 15% Lighter – Only 247 grams, weighs less than a paperback
    • Battery Life of One Month – A single charge lasts up to one month with wireless off
    • Double the Storage – Up to 3,500 books
    • Books in 60 seconds – Download books anytime, anywhere
    • Free 3G Wireless – No monthly payments, no annual contracts
    • Built-In Wi-Fi – In addition to the 3G wireless, you can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots
    • 20% Faster Page Turns – Seamless reading
    • Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights
    • New WebKit-Based Browser – Free 3G web browsing (experimental)

    If you’ve been interested in an eBook reader and haven’t yet “taken the plunge” then I think this is an excellent time to finally give it a try.

  • Mole, R.I.P.

    Back in, oooo, the mid 1990’s, I set up about writing a new system at work. Named “Mole” it was designed to be a knowledge-base system with extensive search capabilities. It was written on the company mainframe, using an online language called RPF (Roscoe Programming Facility). At the time, we hadn’t long had PCs, so the mainframe was still where most development occurred.

    It was text only but I wrote intelligent search capabilities matching and, I think exceeding, those provided by the internet search engines at the time. I launched different versions, with names echoing those of Microsoft at the time. For example, Mole RX (which stood for “reduced indexing” – the number of index files was greatly reduced giving a greater search performance). The final version had a Beta search facility that really was (even if I do say so) exceptionally good.

    Indeed, Mole was a big hit. The support teams loved it and I even one an internal IT award for “Innovation”, beating a lot of other high-profile entrants.

    Sadly, the manager of the IT Help Desk (who was likely to be the biggest user) didn’t like it. The mainframe wasn’t the way forward – PC applications, particularly one built into their call logging systems was the way.

    Now it’s 2010 and the same Help Desk still lack a half decent knowledge-base – nothing was ever delivered other than the most basic facilities.

    A few months ago, I archived the Mole code away into a dataset. Sadly, unbeknown to myself, the dataset has been “housekept”. All that was left of Mole has gone. The manual I can no longer find. Not even the Mole logo.

    I’m quite sad about it really – it was something I put a lot of time into and I was very proud of.

  • Lucie’s early steps

    I took this video a little earlier. It’s only the second day she’s been walking to this extent (she’d taken the odd 2/3 steps over previous weeks). I’m a very proud Daddy.