Category Archives: web site

Hmm, I really should cleanup this blog..

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It’s looking pretty sad at the moment. :-/ It’s because I haven’t fully recovered pics.tnir.org, so there are missing graphics here and there.

Maybe I will just use a pre-canned theme so that it looks ok or something. My main problem is that I turn off WordPress’ “translate returns into
tags” auto-filter, which isn’t a setting. I have to hand-edit the PHP code every time.

gmone.com

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I own the gmone.org domain, so about 2 months ago I started getting spam from several domain-selling companies that they would reserve “gmone.com” for me when it expired for a fee. That fee was pretty high.. at first. As time went by, the price fell lower and lower.

When the domain actually expired, I logged in to my Dreamhost account and bought the domain at the regular cost.

A rare instance of spam actually providing a service—in this instance, as a calendar-ish reminder alarm.
🙂

P.S. Luisa, this is the domain i was thinking of, not tnir.com (which I don’t think will ever be available)

ReidNews now on DreamHost

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.. and so are Tech Tok and
33 and a Third.

After my linux box seized up, I decided to finally get around to moving stuff off my personal server.
This *should* result in faster access for everyone but us here at home. 🙂

While I was at it, I added the capability of using your Facebook account to leave comments in the Disqus system.
But there are still many missing images.
I am rsync’ing them as fast as I’m able.
It’ll take a little while longer, I’m afraid.

Google banned rae.tnir.org

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Well, I think it’s more of a combination of Google and Firefox.

My site was hacked via a WordPress exploit.
I’ve updated to the latest (I was at 2.5, now at 2.6.1), which should fix the issue.

I’ve applied to Google to get rae.tnir.org re-evaluated.
But their form for re-evaluation says it will take “several weeks”!
So until then, my site will be red-eye-banned by all Firefox users.

Ye gods.

2008-09-18 13:05 Update:
Found out that Google is in cahoots with stopbadware.org, and applied to them to get my blog reviewed.
Their turnaround was significantly faster than that of Google (which hasn’t done anything yet).
I got this email reply from them a day or two after I asked them for a review:

We have received and processed your request for review of your website, rae.tnir.org/. Google’s most recent test of your website found no badware behaviors on the site. As such, the Google warning page for your site has either already been removed or should be removed shortly. In addition, if your site has been listed in our Badware Website Clearinghouse, we will remove your site from the Clearinghouse list.

Sometimes website owners are confused about why Google placed a warning in the search results for their site. In many cases, a website run by an innocent site owner has been hacked by a malicious third party, causing the site to distribute badware without the site owner’s knowledge. If your site was distributing badware because it has been hacked, then simply removing the bad code from your site is not enough to keep your site clean in the future. You will also need to work with your hosting provider to fix all security vulnerabilities associated with your site.

Please note that we will be retesting your website at periodic intervals in order to monitor that it remains free from badware. If we find that you are hosting or distributing badware in the future, the reviews process may take considerably longer than the original review.

Answers to commonly asked questions from site owners who are the subject of Google warnings can be found at: http://stopbadware.org/home/faq#partnerwarnings
For tips on keeping your website clean and secure, please visit:
http://stopbadware.org/home/security

The StopBadware Team

So with any luck, this blog will be out from under Googles Red Screen of Death sometime soon.

It’s time for the annual changing of the internet provider

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Well, it’s that time of year again.

Last year at this time, our then-internet-provider, istop.com,
dumped all of its DSL customers into the lap of another provider, known variously as cia.com, 3web.com, igs.net and other names.
I just call them 3Web.
It seemed okay for a while, but then we started getting outages, and then they became more frequent.

I checked my logs for last night and we had a one-minute outage about once every 45 minutes.
Needless to say, when Michael and Ronnie are plying WoW, a one minute outage is a major pain.
Especially when they have to spend 45 minutes waiting to do something in the game.

Michael did some research à la Google and found a place called
TekSavvy.
They offer 5 Mbps DSL, have a no-throttling policy, and also offer static IPs.
Sounds good to me!

So today I ordered our DSL from them to be activated on Mon Jul 16, 2007.
Which DSL provider you use is selected solely by the login id you use,
so for a couple of weeks I can go back and forth between them.

Hope it works out!

Vacation posts and Twitter updates

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I’ve posted two blog entries I wrote while aboard ship:
A Day at Sea, and
Mayan Ruins.
They don’t have any pictures yet, though.
I may add them later or maybe do a separate post about the pictures.

I posted them with the date when I wrote them, which is why they didn’t appear at the top of the page.
I have no idea how the RSS feeds will react to them!

I have installed the “twitter-tools” WordPress plugin, which amongst other things posts once a day to my blog with all my twitters.
Now you, too, can experience the ephemeral world of twitter by proxy.
Or you can just
visit my Twitter page ☺.

Update:
Oh, I’ve also installed a “Show unread comments” plugin.
I think it uses a cookie to show you commetns you haven’t read yet in the side bar there.
When you are reading a post there is a little blocky thingee to the right of each comment to show you its read/unread status.
Hope it’s useful for people.
Let me know!
(Um, by leaving a comment, obviously!)