Techie :: Techno ::: January 2005 Archives

Tom has written an interesting piece on Irish web development companies and web standards He mentioned our company site on the list which was nice. What he didn't mention was that a lot of companies charge a premium for developing sites that comply with web standards!! When I was looking into getting Blacknight's site redone I got about 15 quotes from 15 different companies and individuals. Some quite high profile companies seem to think that they still can charge extra for putting in a form to mail script!! Mention w3c standards and the price starts to climb....

Google have released a beta API for the adwords service. The provide sample code in php, perl, .net and XML, so you can start "playing" around with it. Full documentation describing the API, its functions and more can be found here You can gain access to reports, keyword estimates and even create new content directly through the API. Imagine being able to run your adwords campaign directly from your desktop? You could even incorporate it into something like SugarCRM. Now that would be an interesting application. I'm not a coder, so I'll have to wait for other people to do interesting things with it, but the possibilities are fascinating.

I've been meaning to try out Ubuntu linux for a while. Everybody seems to have got CDs, so getting my hands on the media wasn't much of a challenge. The CD pack comes with 2 CDs: - live CD - install CD As I hadn't ever tried ubuntu and my cd-rom drive has been known to be tempermental I first gave the live CD a go. It was up and running in a couple of minutes with a gnome desktop of some kind. I then went ahead with the install from CD ROM. The installer is quite straightforward and not unlike those I've used in the past. You have your usual set of questions relating to language preferences and location and then you setup your partitions. Of the install sequence I found the partition tool to be the least intuitive. My hard disk had a number of existing partitions. One for Windows, which I rarely use, and the others for my current, soon to be previous, install of Debian. The partition tool did not offer me what I would have considered "sane" defaults apart from wiping the entire hard disk. Editing the partitions once I had got over this minor hiccup was not hard, however I could not get it to accept the mount options on /tmp, as I wanted to mount that with a couple of extra flags. The network configuration during the install sequence was extremely easy. It detected my Cisco aironet immediately and then tried to work out my IP address using DHCP. As I don't use DHCP and there is no DHCP server available it soon gave up and asked me to configure the network manually. All I needed to do was feed it the IP and subnet mask and it worked out the gateway. Pretty simple. You also need to give it one DNS IP address. Previous experience with Debian had taught me that I could get a base install up and running in a few minutes. However the base install would be virtually useless, as you would be "dropped" at a shell with no windows manager and nothing but the absolute minimum of tools installed. You would then have to go off and feed apt a list of all the packages and dummy packages that you wanted it to install, which meant waiting at least another hour (depending on connection speeds) while it downloaded all the necessary stuff. Not so on Ubuntu. After going through the initial setup it asked me (politely) to remove any media and rebooted. As soon as the reboot was more or less complete it recommended that I check for updates and proceeded to downloads patches and updates for its base system. By comparison with the Debian concept of a base system the Ubuntu one is extremely advanced! After booting (with update etc applied) I was greeted with a fully functional desktop with my usual set of applications already installed: - firefox - evolution - gaim - xchat - open office and a number of others. Just to make sure that everything was correctly configured I decided to check my networking settings. It had even managed to work out my laptops full host name! I am impressed.

Sugar CRM 2.5 was released yesterday. This latest release adds even more functionality to the open source CRM application. New features include:

• RSS
• Portal functions
• Custom menus
• Customise areas of the application via the web interface
• Improved security for shared hosting

The graphs have also been greatly improved. For users running any previous version of Sugar CRM a database update script is available which you need to run before installing the rest of the application. I upgraded our install in a couple of minutes.

In what could best be described as "madness" US ISP Verizon has decided to block all of Europe to stop spam. Full article available here Thanks Verizon!

If you are going to run a mailing list you need to be very conscious of the problems you face. At the technical/design level you need to send emails that people will be able to read. Plain text emails are obviously going to be legible in all email clients, but are not as attractive as HTML ones. Unfortunately no two email clients are going to render your emails in exactly the same way. You need to check against the most common email clients and webmail interfaces to get a "feel" for how the final product is going to look. Bear in mind that just because an email client can display HTML does not mean that you should try to use the same methods as you would when designing a web page. Do not include any client-side scripting (javascript etc) as this will be blocked by any good system. Do not include forms, as these will probably be stripped out. If you ensure that your HTML is valid you are less likely to find your email being blocked by spam filters. If you are sending from your desktop make sure that your PC's date and time are correct. If you are sending from a server make sure that your mails are being sent out by a user ie. Not being sent by nobody@ or apache@ If sending from a server make sure it has reverse DNS setup - lack of a reverse can lead to email being blocked Make sure that you keep your list clean ie. That you do not generate large numbers of bounces Make sure that your list conforms to permission based standards: "The difference between senders of legitimate bulk email and spammers couldn't be clearer, the legitimate bulk email sender has verifiable permission from the recipients before sending, the spammer does not." Putting a simple footer in each email explaining not only how to unsubscribe but where the person subscribed from will help avoid issues Including unsubscribe instructions is NOT enough Subscribing people to your list without their permission is NOT acceptable Sending mail to people/companies because you feel that they "may be interested" in your products or services is NOT acceptable If you have an existing relationship with clients / suppliers or potential clients you may send them email, however you should always make it clear how you got their email address if you do not use some form of subscription confirmation. If you get reported for spamming it can ruin your business. References: http://www.spamhaus.org/mailinglists.html http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml

If you are bored with people being able to actually remember your web address and your email then do not despair! HugeURL as the name suggests is the complete opposite of tinyurl (et al). For example: http://www.mneylon.com/blog is transformed into: http://www.hugeurl.com/?YWI1NjcxMjcyM2IwZWU5NGZhMGZjMzRlOGQz NmQ3MGImMTImVm0wd2QyUXlVWGxXYTJoV1YwZG9WVll3Wkc5alJsWjBUVlpP V0Zac2JETlhhMUpUVmpGYWMySkVUbGhoTWsweFZqQmFTMk15U2tWVWJHaG9U VmhDVVZadGVGWmxSbGw1Vkd0c2FsSnRhRzlVVjNOM1pVWmFkR05GZEZSTlZU VkpWbTEwYTFkSFNrZGpTRUpYVFVad1NGUlVSbUZqVmtaMFVteFNUbUY2UlRG V1ZFb3dWakZhV0ZOcmJGSmlSMmhZV1d4b2IwMHhXbGRYYlVaclVsUkdXbGt3 WkRSVk1rcElaSHBHVjJFeVVYZFpWRVpyVTBaT2NscEhjRlJTVlhCWlZrWldh MVV5VW5OalJtUllZbFZhY1ZscldtRmxWbVJ5VjI1a1YwMUVSa1pWYkZKRFZq QXhkVlZ1V2xaaGExcFlXa1ZhVDJOdFNrZFRiV3hYVWpOb1dGWnRNSGRsUjBs NFUydGthVk5GV2xSWmJHaFRWMVpXY1ZKcmRGUldiRm93V2xWb2ExWXdNVVZT YTFwWFlrZG9jbFpxU2tabFZsWlpXa1prYUdFeGNGaFhiRnBoVkRKT2RGSnJh R2hTYXpWeldXeG9iMWRHV25STlNHaFBVbTE0VjFSVmFHOVhSMHBJVld4c1dt SkhhRlJXTUZwVFZqRmtkRkp0ZUZkaWEwcElWbXBKZUUxR1dsaFRhMlJxVWtW YVYxWnFUbTlsYkZweFUydGthbUpWVmpaWlZWcGhZVWRGZUdOR2JGaGhNVnBv VmtSS1QyUkdUbkphUmxKcFZqTm9kbFpHVm05Uk1XUnpWMWhvV0dKRk5WUlVW bVEwVjFaV2RHUkhkRmhTYlZKSldWVmFjMWR0U2tkWGJXaFhZa1p3V0ZreFdr dGtSa3B6Vld4a2FXRXdjRWxXYlhCTFRrWlJlRmRzYUZSaE1sSnhWVzE0ZDFk R2JITmhSazVyWWtad2VGVnRkREJWTWtwSVZXcENXbFpXY0ROWmEyUkdaVWRP U0dGR2FHbFNia0p2Vmxod1MxUXhXWGhqUld4VllrWmFjRlpxVG05a2JGcEhW bTA1VWsxWFVucFdNV2h2V1ZaS1JsTnRSbGRpV0U0MFZHdGFXbVZIUmtoUFYy aHBVbGhCZDFac1pEUmpNV1IwVTJ0b2FGSnNTbGhVVmxwM1YwWnJlRmRyZEd0 U2EzQjZWa2R6TVZZeVJYaGhNMlJYWWxoQ1MxcFZWWGhUUmtweVdrWm9hV0Y2 Vm5oV1ZFSnZVVEZzVjFWc1dsaGliVkp6V1d0YWQyVkdWblJOVldSV1RXdHdW MVp0Y0dGWGJGcFhZMGhLVjJGcldreFdha3BQVTBVNVYxcEdaRk5XV0VKMlZt MTBVMU14VlhoWFdHaFdZbXhhVlZsclZrdFhSbXh6V2tjNVYxWnNjREJhVldN MVZXc3hXRlZyYUZkTmFsWlVWa2Q0UzFKc1pIVlRiRlpYWWtad05sWkhkR0Za VmxsNVVtdG9VRlp0VW5CVmFrWkxVMnhrVjFadFJsWk5WbXcxVld4b2MxWnNX a1pUYkdoWFlXczFkbGxWV21GalZrcHpXa1pvVjJKclNrbFdWbVEwV1ZaWmVG TnJXbE5XUlZVNQ== Pure madness! As for email addresses.. Who really wants an email address that people can actually remember? You could always opt for a free email from ABCDE You too could have an email address that nobody can remember: someuser@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com Full details of the service are available here

For the last couple of months we have been tracking our logs using Vispan with the GeoIP. We can easily see where viruses and spam are coming from and thus draw up a top list of countries. For example, so far this month the top sources of spam have been:

• United States
• Korea, Republic of
• China
• Ireland
• United Kingdom

NB A percentage of these emails would have been tagged as spam even though they are actually viruses as some of the DNSBLs and rulesets will pick up on viral emails A simple solution to the spams from Asia would be to block those countries completely, however that would cause issues as we have clients who trade actively with those countries. A better solution is to apply some form of weighting to email from certain countries. We are based in Ireland, so a large proportion of our clients and their contacts are too, so assigning a certain degree of "trust" to Irish IP space would seem to be a logical step. This does not mean that email from Irish IPs is trusted, however we are going to assume that the likelihood of spam coming from an Irish IP is slightly lower than from a non-Irish IP. We then take the countries that are most problematic, such as Korea and Hong Kong. All email from those countries is considered untrustworthy and weighted appropriately. The rest of the world is treated equally. The results of this scoring can be best illustrated by looking at a couple of border line cases: Jan 14 22:36:54 av MailScanner[29107]: Message j0EMandY027564 from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx(xxxxx@xxxxx.ie) to xxxxx.ie is not spam , SpamAssassin (score=7.097, required 7.4, HTML_70_80 0.51, HTML_FONTCOLOR_MAGENTA 1.00, HTML_FONTCOLOR_UNSAFE 1.00, HTML_FONTCOLOR_YELLOW 1.00, HTML_MESSAGE 0.10, HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG 1.00, HTML_SHOUTING4 0.50, HTML_TAG_BALANCE_BODY 0.18, HTML_TAG_BALANCE_TABLE 0.19, HTML_TAG_EXISTS_TBODY 0.10, MIME_BASE64_NO_NAME 1.00, MIME_HTML_ONLY 0.10, RCVD_IN_NERDS_IE -2.00, SARE_HTML_NO_BODY1 1.03, SARE_URI_DIET 1.37) The header above is from a legitimate health newsletter. The Irish IP that sent it was assigned a negative score (-2) which brought an otherwise false positive safely down below the limit. On the other side we have an email that would otherwise have got through: Jan 15 13:39:26 av MailScanner[3774]: Message j0FDcoF8019064 from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx(xxxx@xxxxx.com) to xxxxx.com is spam, SpamAssassin (score=9.663, required 7.4, RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_51_100 1.00, RAZOR2_CHECK 2.06, RCVD_IN_NERDS_CN 3.50, RCVD_IN_SORBS_DUL 1.00, WS_URI_RBL 2.10) The email scored against two DNSBLs, but would have only scored 6.1, however the sending IP (from China) pushed it nicely over the limit. How are the scores assigned? We use a custom ruleset that polls the IP list provided by http://countries.nerd.dk/ and assigns a score based on the result. An example score is below: header __RCVD_IN_NERDS eval:check_rbl('nerds','zz.countries.nerd.dk.') describe __RCVD_IN_NERDS Received from a spam country tflags __RCVD_IN_NERDS net header RCVD_IN_NERDS_AR eval:check_rbl_sub('nerds','127.0.0.32') describe RCVD_IN_NERDS_AR Received from Argentina tflags RCVD_IN_NERDS_AR net score RCVD_IN_NERDS_AR 2.5 Thanks to a recent thread on the spamassassin users' list SpamAssassin

Google seems to have made some significant updates to page rank for a lot of sites in the last few days. SEO experts were expecting updates to the search index, but nothing seems to have changes as yet. This site now has a PR of 4, which is quite respectable for a personal blog site. The company site has now got a PR of 6 on the main page, which is nice, but not as impressive as the PR of the inner pages, which have risen to 5 in most cases. Considering that the site is relatively new and that all page names changed when we updated this is very good news. Needless to say we are really waiting for the search index to update to see what is really happening. At the moment Blacknight's search results are pretty bad, but this seems to be in part due to "duplicate content". Who knows what will happen after the next update....

Measuring a page's Google PR is important if you are doing online marketing. Although PR is not the only element in a successful online marketing campaign it is a good indicator of how Google "views" your site. Unfortunately Google's toolbar only works with Internet Explorer on Windows, so measuring PR on any other platform is awkward. I came across a handy extension for Firefox today that deals with this issue: Google Pagerank Status Unlike the IE version this simply provides the page rank in the status bar (bottom right of screen) See below for examples: Example 1: Simple PR details. Example 2 : Advanced PR details with directory details A very handy extension if you don't use Internet Explorer as your main browser. The only concern I would have is if the Google side of things changes so much that the extension ceases to work.