August 2007 Archives
Just a quick shameless plug
You can nominate anyone you want under the various categories
And don't forget ... Nominations for the IIA Net Visionary Awards are still open
You can nominate anyone you want under the various categories
And don't forget ... Nominations for the IIA Net Visionary Awards are still open
I posted a howto on migrating from Wordpress to MovableType 4.
Hopefully it will be of use to some people.
Hopefully it will be of use to some people.
Over the last few months there has been news about a new data centre opening in Limerick.
They're meant to be giving a brief talk at the next INEX meeting in Dublin...
So why on earth are they using "domain privacy" on their only domain name?
Nobody serious is going to do business with a company that doesn't list proper contact details in WHOIS. It would be silly to do so. Of course if they were serious about the Irish market you'd think they'd have registered the .ie domain...
Maybe they'll turn out to be a wonderful company, but they really need to get some of the basic right from the start.
They're meant to be giving a brief talk at the next INEX meeting in Dublin...
So why on earth are they using "domain privacy" on their only domain name?
Nobody serious is going to do business with a company that doesn't list proper contact details in WHOIS. It would be silly to do so. Of course if they were serious about the Irish market you'd think they'd have registered the .ie domain...
Maybe they'll turn out to be a wonderful company, but they really need to get some of the basic right from the start.
I keep a very close eye on our abuse desk.
Most of the time it's fairly quiet. Sometimes there are legitimate abuse reports and sometimes there are reports that make no sense.
In some instances this is because the person submitting the report is clueless and thinks we are responsible for websites hosted in Sweden (or anywhere else really - Sweden just popped into my head!)
In other instances you need to decipher their mumbo-jumbo to work out what they are actually complaining about.
Two incidents in the past couple of weeks were in the "WTF?" category.
In one case someone reported suspected abuse to us. We replied and they then reported us to our own abuse desk.
I'll try that again slowly in case you didn't quite catch it.
They sent a report to our abuse@. We replied. They reported the reply back to abuse@
You've got to love the logic!
To make matters worse they then replied to our second reply suggesting that they would take legal action against us!!
The second case isn't as amusing, but should definitely fall into the "dumb spammer" category.
If you want to send spam check that your list does not include any abuse@ email addresses. I mean really. Why don't you just ring the ISPs and yell down the phone at them instead?
You've guessed it. Yet another "wonderful" newsletter was sent to the abuse desk.
You have to feel sorry for them really...
Has anyone published a "Spamming for Dummies" guide yet? It would be an instant bestseller!
Most of the time it's fairly quiet. Sometimes there are legitimate abuse reports and sometimes there are reports that make no sense.
In some instances this is because the person submitting the report is clueless and thinks we are responsible for websites hosted in Sweden (or anywhere else really - Sweden just popped into my head!)
In other instances you need to decipher their mumbo-jumbo to work out what they are actually complaining about.
Two incidents in the past couple of weeks were in the "WTF?" category.
In one case someone reported suspected abuse to us. We replied and they then reported us to our own abuse desk.
I'll try that again slowly in case you didn't quite catch it.
They sent a report to our abuse@. We replied. They reported the reply back to abuse@
You've got to love the logic!
To make matters worse they then replied to our second reply suggesting that they would take legal action against us!!
The second case isn't as amusing, but should definitely fall into the "dumb spammer" category.
If you want to send spam check that your list does not include any abuse@ email addresses. I mean really. Why don't you just ring the ISPs and yell down the phone at them instead?
You've guessed it. Yet another "wonderful" newsletter was sent to the abuse desk.
You have to feel sorry for them really...
Has anyone published a "Spamming for Dummies" guide yet? It would be an instant bestseller!
Krystian is back in Poland at the moment so I can imagine he's had a chance to catch up on all the latest changes over there.
His most recent blog post, however, is really quite worrying.
According to Krystian's article any site, including blogs, that is hosted in Poland must be considered a publication and register formally.
I had to reread that a couple of times to get the full meaning.
Under Irish law you can be held responsible for what you write and publish, but nobody is going to demand that you formally register.
I can see it now, Twenty Major being granted a rating by the censor's office...
His most recent blog post, however, is really quite worrying.
According to Krystian's article any site, including blogs, that is hosted in Poland must be considered a publication and register formally.
I had to reread that a couple of times to get the full meaning.
Under Irish law you can be held responsible for what you write and publish, but nobody is going to demand that you formally register.
I can see it now, Twenty Major being granted a rating by the censor's office...
Why on earth doesn't the Apple shop for Ireland list any of the EA games titles?
If I go to the Irish site I can buy plenty of "productivity" software, but the choice of games is pathetic, whereas my American friends are all probably off playing BF 2142 already.
Is there any reasonable explanation for this or is Apple's marketing team simply dumb?
If I go to the Irish site I can buy plenty of "productivity" software, but the choice of games is pathetic, whereas my American friends are all probably off playing BF 2142 already.
Is there any reasonable explanation for this or is Apple's marketing team simply dumb?
Comment spam is really annoying. It's one of the reasons we all end up resorting to captcha etc., to block junk.
Todaynic, who I mentioned previously, are still at it.
It's a pity that the RAA doesn't cover spam ...
Todaynic, who I mentioned previously, are still at it.
It's a pity that the RAA doesn't cover spam ...
Just on my way to bed ...
Don't ask!
I've recently started reading feeds again (I had cut back quite a bit) and I've started reading some of the more "hip" ones.
One thing I've noticed is that only a tiny portion of bloggers have any original content. Most of them are rehashing other people's content WITHOUT citing the source.
I don't have time to read every single "in" blog / news site / news source / cool site on the planet, so I like hearing about things from the sources I do read - don't get me wrong! How hard would it be for people to simply say "I spotted this over on ... "?
Don't ask!
I've recently started reading feeds again (I had cut back quite a bit) and I've started reading some of the more "hip" ones.
One thing I've noticed is that only a tiny portion of bloggers have any original content. Most of them are rehashing other people's content WITHOUT citing the source.
I don't have time to read every single "in" blog / news site / news source / cool site on the planet, so I like hearing about things from the sources I do read - don't get me wrong! How hard would it be for people to simply say "I spotted this over on ... "?
I pre-ordered Kathy Reichs' new novel months ago.
I got an email a short time ago politely informing me that not only was it shipping, but that my pre-order had saved me money!
I got an email a short time ago politely informing me that not only was it shipping, but that my pre-order had saved me money!
I've mentioned the Golden Spiders on here several times in the past.
Last year I actually got to attend the night and it was thoroughly enjoyable.
However it's not about the night itself. It's the actual awards themselves that concern me.
Other awards, such as the Net Visionaries, are open to the public in all regards, though there are no actual judges involved. A comparison could be easily drawn to the dot net magazine awards, which allow anyone to nominate anyone else but has a panel of judges (including several names that look familiar). (Disclosure: We're sponsors)
As I mentioned several times in the past, both here and elsewhere, the nomination fee will dissuade many excellent sites from being nominated. When I raised this with the organisers their glib response was to dimiss the €100 - €150 nomination fee as being required for administrative charges / costs and that any "real" business would be able to afford it. Having started my own business from nothing I can assure you dear reader that every euro matters and tossing away €100 on a nomination for an award is not something I'd have done. Even now, with over a dozen full time staff etc., etc. I'd still take issue with paying that kind of fee.
According to the image only email (yes - no links or HTML - they actually send an image in an email!) they were sending around the other day the "new" site will be launching soon. Damien picked up on their inclusion of a couple of new categories, but RedCardinal, myself and others have been left in the dark ... See this thread for more
Wouldn't it be great if this year's awards took into consideration:
I for one won't be holding my breath...
Last year I actually got to attend the night and it was thoroughly enjoyable.
However it's not about the night itself. It's the actual awards themselves that concern me.
Other awards, such as the Net Visionaries, are open to the public in all regards, though there are no actual judges involved. A comparison could be easily drawn to the dot net magazine awards, which allow anyone to nominate anyone else but has a panel of judges (including several names that look familiar). (Disclosure: We're sponsors)
As I mentioned several times in the past, both here and elsewhere, the nomination fee will dissuade many excellent sites from being nominated. When I raised this with the organisers their glib response was to dimiss the €100 - €150 nomination fee as being required for administrative charges / costs and that any "real" business would be able to afford it. Having started my own business from nothing I can assure you dear reader that every euro matters and tossing away €100 on a nomination for an award is not something I'd have done. Even now, with over a dozen full time staff etc., etc. I'd still take issue with paying that kind of fee.
According to the image only email (yes - no links or HTML - they actually send an image in an email!) they were sending around the other day the "new" site will be launching soon. Damien picked up on their inclusion of a couple of new categories, but RedCardinal, myself and others have been left in the dark ... See this thread for more
Wouldn't it be great if this year's awards took into consideration:
- design
- web standards
- accessibility
I for one won't be holding my breath...
I've mentioned DNS blacklists several times in the past.
They can be a very powerful tool in the war on spam, but they can also cause you headaches. You can think of them as the "nuclear option" or "the last resort" if you wish.
Before you implement DNSBL checks at the SMTP level you need to check and doublecheck how the blacklist you are considering works. Please please please check this and check it again.
On my personal mail server, which isn't running Mailscanner, I rely almost entirely on two things to keep spam out:
In any case if you want to add DNSBLs into exim these are the basic steps that you could / should follow.
You will need to edit exim.conf, so make sure you have a backup first:
cp exim.conf exim.conf.backup
Once you have got your backup you will then need to add in the DNSBLs you want to use.
In exim.conf there should be a section labelled "ACLs", which might be around line 300 (or thereabouts).
This section basically controls what or who has access to your SMTP and how to treat mails.
We added in a couple of basis blocks after the first set:
#nuclear customisation to take load off
deny
dnslists = sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org
message = $sender_host_address is listed in $dnslist_domain\
${if def:dnslist_text { ($dnslist_text)}}
So in the example above we're blocking based on SpamHaus' sbl-xbl list.
There may have been other customisations, but that's the main one.
NB: This will also stop users from accessing your SMTP to send mail if their IPs are listed.
Someone asked me to post this example. It may work. It may not. The information is provided as is in good faith. YMMV
They can be a very powerful tool in the war on spam, but they can also cause you headaches. You can think of them as the "nuclear option" or "the last resort" if you wish.
Before you implement DNSBL checks at the SMTP level you need to check and doublecheck how the blacklist you are considering works. Please please please check this and check it again.
On my personal mail server, which isn't running Mailscanner, I rely almost entirely on two things to keep spam out:
- Greylisting
- DNSBLs
In any case if you want to add DNSBLs into exim these are the basic steps that you could / should follow.
You will need to edit exim.conf, so make sure you have a backup first:
cp exim.conf exim.conf.backup
Once you have got your backup you will then need to add in the DNSBLs you want to use.
In exim.conf there should be a section labelled "ACLs", which might be around line 300 (or thereabouts).
This section basically controls what or who has access to your SMTP and how to treat mails.
We added in a couple of basis blocks after the first set:
#nuclear customisation to take load off
deny
dnslists = sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org
message = $sender_host_address is listed in $dnslist_domain\
${if def:dnslist_text { ($dnslist_text)}}
So in the example above we're blocking based on SpamHaus' sbl-xbl list.
There may have been other customisations, but that's the main one.
NB: This will also stop users from accessing your SMTP to send mail if their IPs are listed.
Someone asked me to post this example. It may work. It may not. The information is provided as is in good faith. YMMV
Continue reading Adding DNSBLs Into Exim.
I'm not sure how well this Facebook application will work for non-US users, but Facebook seems to be "en vogue" at the moment ...
These days mobile phones do a lot more than simply make telephone calls.
Personally I really on my phone to get me out of bed in the morning and to keep me there (multiple alarms!).
I haven't got a huge number of contacts in my phone, but the ones I have are probably going to be quite hard to replace.
I got an email earlier today from a colleague in industry who is obviously facing the task of rebuilding his entire phonebook from scratch as his phone was stolen. I don't envy him!
So what are the options for people?
Are there any sane online backup solutions that people can use?
I know there was one Irish company trying to do something in this area, but they stopped answering my emails when I queried the veracity of their claims (which I would do when it comes to storing important data - wouldn't you?)
Has anyone used an online service for this and if so who?
Personally I really on my phone to get me out of bed in the morning and to keep me there (multiple alarms!).
I haven't got a huge number of contacts in my phone, but the ones I have are probably going to be quite hard to replace.
I got an email earlier today from a colleague in industry who is obviously facing the task of rebuilding his entire phonebook from scratch as his phone was stolen. I don't envy him!
So what are the options for people?
Are there any sane online backup solutions that people can use?
I know there was one Irish company trying to do something in this area, but they stopped answering my emails when I queried the veracity of their claims (which I would do when it comes to storing important data - wouldn't you?)
Has anyone used an online service for this and if so who?
If you are running a high profile blog people will submit comments.
If you don't act on the comments ie. moderating them so that they get published (or marked as spam) people will get annoyed, frustrated and simply move on.
It doesn't take that much time to check comments and if you don't do it why the hell are you even pretending to run a blog? To jump on the web 2.0 fanboy wagon perchance?
If you don't act on the comments ie. moderating them so that they get published (or marked as spam) people will get annoyed, frustrated and simply move on.
It doesn't take that much time to check comments and if you don't do it why the hell are you even pretending to run a blog? To jump on the web 2.0 fanboy wagon perchance?
What's the significance of that number?
It's the number of lines in the Wordpress "XML" export that I used to migrate from Wordpress to Movabletype.
I put the XML in inverted commas as it doesn't validate. You have to "massage" it quite a bit to get rid of junk and make it pass a simple validation test.
Thanks to Niall for pointing me in the direction of XML Starlet, which is a command line XML validator.
Using XML Starlet and gvim I was able to edit and hack the XML file into a state where it was usable. One of the Japanese engineers in SixApart had already been doing some work on the importer, so the permalinks (basenames) weren't being messed with.
I'll provide a full write up on how the migration was done once I've ironed out a couple of minor annoyances (of my own creation)
It's the number of lines in the Wordpress "XML" export that I used to migrate from Wordpress to Movabletype.
I put the XML in inverted commas as it doesn't validate. You have to "massage" it quite a bit to get rid of junk and make it pass a simple validation test.
Thanks to Niall for pointing me in the direction of XML Starlet, which is a command line XML validator.
Using XML Starlet and gvim I was able to edit and hack the XML file into a state where it was usable. One of the Japanese engineers in SixApart had already been doing some work on the importer, so the permalinks (basenames) weren't being messed with.
I'll provide a full write up on how the migration was done once I've ironed out a couple of minor annoyances (of my own creation)
What's going to happen with Irish blog aggregators and services?
IrishBlogs.info, which I run, is busy enough, but is a resource hog.
IrishBlogs.ie has been revamped, but any comments I've seen about it have been far from complimentary.
PlanetoftheBlogs became planet.journals.ie and seems to have died off
Is there a future for these sites / services or is everyone simply using technorati et al?
IrishBlogs.info, which I run, is busy enough, but is a resource hog.
IrishBlogs.ie has been revamped, but any comments I've seen about it have been far from complimentary.
PlanetoftheBlogs became planet.journals.ie and seems to have died off
Is there a future for these sites / services or is everyone simply using technorati et al?
David Raynes sent me an invite to MailPlane, so I've got a few invites up for grabs.
If you want one please let me know - I've only got a couple!
What is it?
It's a Mac OSX app that hooks into Gmail basically.
I haven't had a chance to really play with it and as I don't really use my Gmail account I can't see me being a heavy user any time soon, but it has some nice little features.
If you want one please let me know - I've only got a couple!
What is it?
It's a Mac OSX app that hooks into Gmail basically.
I haven't had a chance to really play with it and as I don't really use my Gmail account I can't see me being a heavy user any time soon, but it has some nice little features.
I'm still cleaning up after the migration from Wordpress to Movabletype, so if anyone spots any weird errors or anything please let me know.
If you're seeing this entry in your browser or RSS reader you are looking at the new home for this site.
There are probably a few broken things, but they'll get fixed (I hope!)
There are probably a few broken things, but they'll get fixed (I hope!)
Sky are currently pushing Sky HD by offering a lower rate to existing customers. The longer you've been with Sky the cheaper it is, though admittedly the reductions aren't exactly the most generous.
Of course you'll need a HD ready TV as well, so the entire thing gets a bit expensive :)
If you're serious about your home cinema setup upgrading your TV probably isn't a bad idea - I know I'm seriously considering it.
Of course you'll need a HD ready TV as well, so the entire thing gets a bit expensive :)
If you're serious about your home cinema setup upgrading your TV probably isn't a bad idea - I know I'm seriously considering it.
I've been playing with my new mac over the last day or so and I will be posting a few thoughts once I've had a chance to try out more of the functions. I'm still in the "what does that do?" and "how do I do that?" stage, so I'm not going to make any comments as yet.
One of the things that I am looking for is a reasonable graphics editor. I've no interest in forking out for PhotoShop as it would be overkill for my needs. I've heard The Gimp is available for OSX, but I hate it, so that's not an option.
Ideally I'd be looking for something along the lines of Fireworks or PaintShop Pro. Commercial software would be fine, but I don't want to spend more than $100.
Any sane recommendations welcome
(please don't start telling me how wonderful the Gimp is. You're just going to annoy me!)
I meant to mention this a couple of days ago ...
There's an email doing the rounds at present from Euro Business Guide.
Make sure you read the small print - over 900 euro for an entry!
I am more than happy to mention new products and services if I think they're interesting.
I'm human, so I can only read so many blogs, sites, newspapers, emails, RSS feeds etc., in a day, so telling me about something directly isn't a bad idea.
However there are ways to pitch an idea and there are ways to pitch an idea.
Sending me an email with a word document attached and very little else in it is not a good way of attracting positive attention from me.
Yes I got it. Did I read it? Probably not.
Why not? I didn't have any reason to and your "inspiring" email did not motivate me enough to take the time to read it.
The email I got yesterday afternoon was a wonderful example of how NOT to get my attention.
While the subject line was pretty catchy the content wasn't:
Please find attached press conferenceIf you ignore the obvious mistake (I'd love to see someone send me a press conference in a Word document!) what are you left with? Is there a call to action? No. Is there anything in there to catch my attention even on a really really slow day? No. Maybe someone who only gets 3 or 4 emails a day will take the time to read this kind of email, but I certainly won't. (On an average day I probably get between 600 and 1500 emails. I don't read a lot of them (obviously) as they don't require my attention immediately, but I still need to have them when something goes wrong and I need to reconstruct a chain of events.) If I contrast that with the email I got from Lar Veale regarding IQContent they are worlds apart. Lar sent me a short succint email asking me politely if I wouldn't mind mentioning their vacancies on here. The request was simple and to the point. I didn't have to open extra attachments or work harder to access the information I needed, as it was all contained within a succint email. Damien posted an article about contacting journalists a while back. There's no reason why people shouldn't treat bloggers any differently. (On a sidenote the press release that they sent me in the attachment had spelling mistakes and was totally uninspired even though it was supposedly prepared by a professional!)
Curses!
Business + weddings + shiny laptops = not having enough time to write
Anyhow ...
Fergal O'Byrne has posted to the IIA's blog about the squatters I mentioned elsewhere
The podcamp Ireland site looks fantastic and unlike so many of these *camp sites they seem to be actually using it to provide useful content that is related to the event but not totally centred on it. Go read it to see what I mean.
My Mac arrived about 15 minutes ago and boy is it shiny!
You'll have to forgive me if I vanish for a while as :
- it's really shiny
- I've got to go to a wedding
- did I mention it was shiny?
I posted this last night on my domain site.
I'm not sure if RTE make available the radio shows as easy downloads (their site seems to be a bit of a mess at the moment), so if you didn't grab the interview when you could you'll have to rely on 3rd party reporting
You'll need speakers and a sense of humour for this one.
I'd recommend you DO NOT put it on too loud if you're in a crowded office, as you will get odd looks from people.
Thanks to Niall for the link
I've been busy over the last couple of days and while I'd love to have had more time to post stuff here I simply haven't had the chance.
I don't normally do those "here's a few interesting things I saw" posts, but I guess I'll have to make an exception!
Krystian has a very odd looking photo on his blog. When I looked at it first I thought he'd been playing with Photoshop again.
Boards.ie seems to have been suffering some serious uptime issues (or downtime issues .. ) over the last few days and I keep finding threads on other boards wondering about it ...
A couple of posts on Techcrunch caught my eye during the day.
The first one - CIA et al get their own social networking site struck me as bizarre, but interesting - which was followed by Playboy getting in on the act.
I know I know. Social Networking is like the latest "thing", but how many of these sites are sustainable?
Again on Techcrunch there's mention of Wordpress' Matt Mullenweg giving out about open source developers / projects "profiteering". Interesting, but what about this? I remember it being a bit of a storm in a teacup at the time, but it just goes to show how things change .. or do they?
I've mentioned dotmobi in the past both here and over on my domain site so the new mobi sitebuilding service from Network Solutions caught my attention. At $2 / month it won't break the bank, but it's not clear if that price is the base monthly price or if it's calculated on a yearly plan.
If you're interested in business blogging, then the new guide from SixApart might be worth a read. They're doing some interesting stuff at the moment with their Movable Type platform (which this site will be moving to very very soon) and don't forget - they invented a lot of the stuff we all use!
Tomorrow is going to be an odd day at work as we're actually semi-closing our accounts department for the day due to weddings!
And the new "in" word according to those "in the know" is "bacn" - pronounced like "bacon" just spelt wrong! What is it? Well it's a cross between spam and ham obviously! Spam (when talking about email) you don't want ever. Ham you do want. Bacn is that stuff that you want, but probably not this minute. I hope it doesn't take off :)
A couple of months ago I was asking people about Mac laptops, as I was rather confused by the various options.
I've also been reading the rather excellent (sorry Ted!) MacBlogger site for the last couple of months and found it helpful.
A couple of threads on CI and queries also got me asking why on earth Mac users seem to be incapable of getting their heads around basic functions and tasks. ....
So this morning thanks to my nice new shiny American Express card I placed an order for a refurb Macbook Pro!
Before you ask... The spec is as follows:
Refurbished MacBook Pro,
15-inch,
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
15.4-inch display (1440x900 resolution)
2GB (two SODIMMs) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
120GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load 6x SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight Camera
Front Row and Apple Remote
I also added a copy of Parallels and a laptop bag since I knew I'd need them ...
So now all I have to do is wait for it to arrive ....
A couple of threads on CI and queries also got me asking why on earth Mac users seem to be incapable of getting their heads around basic functions and tasks. ....
So this morning thanks to my nice new shiny American Express card I placed an order for a refurb Macbook Pro!
Before you ask... The spec is as follows:
Refurbished MacBook Pro,
15-inch,
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
15.4-inch display (1440x900 resolution)
2GB (two SODIMMs) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
120GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load 6x SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight Camera
Front Row and Apple Remote
I also added a copy of Parallels and a laptop bag since I knew I'd need them ...
So now all I have to do is wait for it to arrive ....
According to a story on Techcrunch (who got it from Reuters) Social networking site Bebo is joining forces with Microsoft to offer users new messaging functionality using Windows Live instant messaging.
Bebo isn't that big in the US, but is absolutely huge in the UK and Ireland.
I *think* I even have an account, though I honestly can't remember the last time I logged in! Too many accounts .. so little time!
I'm not much of a Skype user these days. I have it installed on my desktops and laptop, but I use it mainly for instant messaging, as some of my contacts don't use ICQ, MSN, AIM, Y! or IRC.
Last week's outage seems to have upset quite a few people and I feel sorry for them. Though why so many people are that dependent on a free service is kind of disturbing.
So this morning Skype posted an explanation on their status site / blog claiming that it was a Windows update issue.
So let's see... the famous updates from Microsoft have been released on the same day for a long time.
So why would it only affect Skype now unless there was a more serious issue in their network topology?
Do they honestly believe that people will buy that excuse?
Obviously some people will, but others will simply laugh at them.
Infoworld's article echoes what a lot of networking and IT professionals have been saying:
Microsoft releases its security patches on the second Tuesday of each month, so this type of widespread restarting is nothing new. Skype hasn't said what in particular about August's updates led to the network crash, and its vagueness on the issue is causing some Skype users to cry foul.Maybe the more gullible users will accept Skype's explanation, but I'd be seriously examining other options if Skype was one of my main methods of communication.
It seems that Google is being sued yet again over trademark issues related to adwords, its pay per click search engine marketing service.
This time round it's American Airlines that is taking them to court.
The full story is over on Eric Goldman's site.
One of the questions he raises amused me:
I also wonder if American Airlines itself has ever bought third party trademarks as keywords--plenty of keyword plaintiffs have engaged in such duplicity, and I'd be surprised if American Airlines has run a completely clean shop.Of course the question that I'd be asking is why didn't American Airlines simply request that the keywords be blocked by Google. They may not act that quickly when smaller fish submit a request, but I would presume that when a big corporate sends one in that they act a bit faster.
It looks like hardcore porn is hitting the IE namespace.
Although it is not possible to register porn.ie the domain orn.ie has been registered and if you add a "p" you get p.orn.ie, which is now serving hardcore adult content. (Definitely NOT safe for work!)
Interestingly enough the site is actually hosted in Ireland as well.
Today's Sunday Times covers the EUBrowser squatters in some detail. I posted about it on my domain blog.
The thing that concerns me is that, apart from the squatting itself why is the Irish tax payer helping these guys out?
Although there is an official mobile version of IMDB it doesn't seem to be working and hasn't been working since I first tried it a couple of weeks ago.
There is, however, an alternative: Mdog's interface to IMDB
It's very functional and is perfect if you want to check some basic facts while watching TV or a DVD (more likely a DVD in my case). Admittedly some of the functions of the "normal" site don't work, but I can live without them. In any case it's better than having to boot up my laptop just to check some movie trivia :)
I was in Xtravision this evening spending money as usual when I spotted this new product
It's a mobile phone designed for kids.
The idea behind it is probably very attractive from a parent's perspective (I'm not one, so I can't speak personally) but I wonder how well it will do.
From their blurb:
Many parents are reluctant to give young children mobile phones because they cannot control the calls they receive or make. The Firefly phone is designed to allay these fears and puts you in charge of your little one’s calls. Firefly mobile is the first phone on the Irish market which is PIN protected and SIM free. Designed from a kids’ point of view, it has just five keys and is safe, accessible and fun to use. Firefly phones keep children connected to the people who matter mostHopefully you can set it up without using their online wizard, as that part of the site isn't online yet!
I've been working on the migration to Movable Type over the last couple of days.
Unfortunately doing it "cleanly" won't be easy due to WP's broken XML export :(
In any case I've posted some preliminary notes on what I'm taking into consideration and how I intend to deal with the issues if and when they arise.
So the question that a number of people have asked me, both in public and private, is a fairly obvious one:
Why are you moving away from Wordpress?
If you are a regular reader on here you may have come across a number of my previous posts where I was dealing with the performance issues.
Even though I have tweaked things and appreciate Donncha (and others) taking the time to help me squeeze more out of it, I'm really sick of Wordpress' inherent lack of decent performance. Rob went into some detail on his own testing and the results were truly shocking.
The number of queries to render an entry on this server, even with all the tweaking, is just plain silly (and most of the plugins that I'm currently using don't even add DB queries - they're more aesthetic).
And what about security?
Of course software will have bugs and need to be patched and upgraded, but over the last few months the number of times I've had to run around late at night upgrading installs to avoid serious issues was just getting on my nerves. And what's WP's response? They seem to avoid the issue. The last security upgrade isn't flagged as serious, yet the bug sounds serious. I may be missing something, but the number of upgrades I've had to conduct would show otherwise.
The other issue is management.
If you only write to one blog or possibly two then logging in twice might not be an issue for you. I, on the other hand, have over a dozen blogs. I looked into WPMU, but to get it working with multiple domains would have involved hacking the files and the database - and I'd still have to upgrade every X weeks when yet another security hole was discovered.
MovableType on the other hand is really slick.
I can login to one interface and then manage as many sites as I want. Not only that, but I only have ONE install to worry about upgrading!
Whereas a lot of the minor tweaks that you'd use on a WP install involve 3rd party plugins, MT makes it easy to customise and add functionality with its existing system.
Performance wise MT is a lot more attractive as the entries are real files on the filesystem and not just mod_rewrites or temporarily cached files (via yet another 3rd party plugin - notice a trend anyone?)
Another thing that bugs the life out of me is WP's attitude to their users and advocates.
Over the past 3 years I have probably recommended WP to several hundred people directly and possibly thousands more indirectly (pushing blog hosting for example). However Wordpress is more than happy to ignore Europeans and run adwords campaigns to promote their US partners ONLY.
SixApart, on the other hand, seem to have a much more open attitude to the rest of the world, possibly because they have staff and offices spread across the globe.
So in a nutshell I will be happily moving away to something that I am happier with on both a technical and philosophical / moral level.
You may find some of my reasoning a bit odd, but it's my reasoning and I'm quite happy with it :)
I don't have an issue with Flash sites if they're interesting and suitable.
Someone in A.D.D Marketing & Advertising is currently browsing one of my sites, so I thought I'd see what their site was like and WOW it is cool and funny.
It's Flash heavy, but the soundtrack and visuals are hilarious
It seems only yesterday that the guys behind SiteVista let me take a look at what they were cooking, but if you look at my original post it was over two years ago!
I gather that SiteVista was successful and I did see its name cropping up all over the place, but for whatever reasons they guys decided to revamp it and rename it - Litmus was born!
Paul gave me access to a beta account on the new system a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't get a chance to write about my experiences with it (besides they needed time to iron out some of the bugs).
The new interface is very slick and incredibly fast.
They've increased the number of browsers they're testing against dramatically to include a number of weird and wonderful combinations, so you too can cater for the oddballs :)
(I wish whoever was looking after sites like the CRO would use services like this! )
One of the really nice features they've added is the option to share tests with the public via an easy option in the dashboard.
So, for example, you could go here to see the tests I ran on an MT4 install.
They've also added an email testing suite, so that you can iron out potential issues across a wide range of email clients. Want to know how your newsletter looks in AOL for example? Now you can.
If you haven't got an account I'd heartily recommend you signup for a free 30 day trial. You can then whine at your web designers and back it up with proof! :)
After weeks of testing, retesting and hundreds of hours of blood, sweat and tears, the Movable Type team have released Movable Type 4 to the world.
You can read the full official announcement from Anil Dash which was published in the last half an hour or so
I'll be upgrading my main install to use the latest version of the code later this morning and intend to post in more detail about my migration from WP back to MT. I last did the migration about 4 years ago, but in the other direction!
The launch of MT4 also sees the relaunch of the MovableType site with its brand new look and feel which some of us were lucky enough to get a sneak peak at a couple of days ago.
The new site also includes a completely revamped plugin directory, which should be welcomed by users of all types.
IQ Content (one of those companies that does cool stuff (tm) ) is on the look out for a project manager
Why do I mention this?
Well they asked me nicely, so I couldn't think of any reason not to mention it!
Contrary to popular opinion I can be nice at times ....
On a not wholly unrelated topic, we're still looking for staff as always.. We've currently got openings in both technical support and sales, so if you'd like to work with a dynamic fast growing innovative company (I was running out of adjectives!) then pop your CV in PDF or RTF format to management@blacknight.ie
The 2007 Irish Internet Association Net Visionary awards are now open for nominations.
People I'd like to see win this year:
- Alan O Rourke
- Conn
- Red Cardinal
- 2Bscene
- Damien Mulley
- Dave Davis
If you want to use Lifeblog to post to MT4 have a look at this howto that I wrote up last night
I've started migrating all my various Wordpress based blogs over to Movable Type 4. It's still not a stable release, but I'm more than happy to start moving the less important ones over while the developers work on fixing various aspects of the importer utilities.
Unfortunately Wordpress' export is not proper XML, so that's not helping matters.
The first blog to move over to the new platform is MobileBlogr.com, which I picked up secondhand from Ken a few months ago.
Being able to use the MT interface to manage multiple sites makes life much much easier, plus I'll be able to post from my n95, which is an added bonus!
I've mentioned using the mobile web a bit recently, so in true "eat your own dogfood" fashion I pre-ordered Scrubs Season 6 on DVD using my n95!
I've been looking forward to the release of The Bourne Ultimatum for some time and judging by other people's comments I am not alone!
It went on general release in the US last week and has so far done very well.
It's officially released in Ireland this Friday and I can't wait!
You can click on that "thing" to see what I can currently see in my browser when I try to use a public service website - namely the Irish Companies' office (CRO)
It was working fine not so long ago, but an "upgrade" has broken it completely.
Seemingly it still works in Internet Explorer, but I don't use Internet Explorer and have no intention of being forced to use it when I should have access to site like this.
How hard would it have been to write compliant HTML and test the site?
So who is to blame?
Was it a $random CRO employee or the website developers?
Answers on a postcard please ..........
For the last few weeks any attempts to reach the Golden Pages website have met with failure... On a second or third attempt it *might* actually load ...
And they expect people to pay them for advertising?
Bret's blog won't allow me to post comments for some odd reason, so the comment I would have posted has to become a separate entry over here!
He mentions that iLife now allows Mac users to upload to their own hosting accounts if they have their own domain names, but they still have to have a .Mac membership.
It sounds like Apple wants to have their proverbial cake and eat it!
Following on from yesterday's "upgrade-a-thon" the Movable Type team will be running a "hackathon" this evening (Irish time).
If you want to participate join #movabletype over on Freenode.
It should be interesting / fun!
Byrne Reese and other members of the Movable Type team are holding an "upgrade-a-thon" this evening on the phone, by videocast and on IRC.
Byrne's been running through all the "gotchas" and new features that users upgrading to MT 4 could face.
Fascinating and exciting stuff!