Google DNS 8.8.8.8
Secondary 8.8.4.4
http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 03, 2009
Social Networks
Use the right social network for the purpose. The landscape as I personally see it may not be the same for others. If you have a different agenda with these web brands, I would greatly appreciate a comment below!
Twitter: useful for getting links to your works published, to an almost random audience, with the potential of turning interest streams into tsunami - somewhere - most of the time. A democratic engine if there ever was one.
Facebook: What starts to appear to be "keeping up" with old friends may provide opportunities to reconnect with them. Discrete communication that leaves an edible trail. Publishing too much of your inner idiot, or too much profound professorial-ness - both maybe traps to avoid.
Warning: Watch their content copyright terms. Not the place for original works of art.
myspace: a place to exhibit and advertise your art, interact with others, make new connections that do not necessarily result in anything. There appears to be a sort of "museum" culture, people do not remove things (they should!), and very little is actually "for sale" - links to individual sites are far more common. Some write their lives, other use it as an opportunity to opportunity to make connection with like minds.
Warning: Anything owned by Rupert Murdoch may suddenly "change direction".
trademe.co.nz: this is exactly like ebay only this is brilliantly designed. ebay has that utilitarian kind of look, is far far more successful of course - whereas trademe is the brainchild of one person that was sold to the local news media giant Fairfax for 750 million NZ$ (about US$600 million, at the time). It is a very successful social network embracing the huge second hand market and quite a lot of retail traders as well.
Warning: don't cheat the tax dept here - its all public record.
Linked in: professional relationships.
Warning: If you start socialising here -
Orkut: Important if travelling to South America. If you speak Spanish or Portugese there are lots of conversations to be had. Growing in other markets as well as it is Google's own early acquisition and now is extremely web 2.0'd and possibly useful.
Ning.com: a cloud (rather than "server based") system that can of course keep growing forever (as long as humans are interested in your subject - i.e. you domain name). But this is the Luxury model - fully featured and firing on many cylinders. Annoying things are some of its imposed limitations. But it works - it grows members if you have a good idea and can drive it with an appropriate dynamic.
Use the right social network for the purpose. The landscape as I personally see it may not be the same for others. If you have a different agenda with these web brands, I would greatly appreciate a comment below!
Twitter: useful for getting links to your works published, to an almost random audience, with the potential of turning interest streams into tsunami - somewhere - most of the time. A democratic engine if there ever was one.
Facebook: What starts to appear to be "keeping up" with old friends may provide opportunities to reconnect with them. Discrete communication that leaves an edible trail. Publishing too much of your inner idiot, or too much profound professorial-ness - both maybe traps to avoid.
Warning: Watch their content copyright terms. Not the place for original works of art.
myspace: a place to exhibit and advertise your art, interact with others, make new connections that do not necessarily result in anything. There appears to be a sort of "museum" culture, people do not remove things (they should!), and very little is actually "for sale" - links to individual sites are far more common. Some write their lives, other use it as an opportunity to opportunity to make connection with like minds.
Warning: Anything owned by Rupert Murdoch may suddenly "change direction".
trademe.co.nz: this is exactly like ebay only this is brilliantly designed. ebay has that utilitarian kind of look, is far far more successful of course - whereas trademe is the brainchild of one person that was sold to the local news media giant Fairfax for 750 million NZ$ (about US$600 million, at the time). It is a very successful social network embracing the huge second hand market and quite a lot of retail traders as well.
Warning: don't cheat the tax dept here - its all public record.
Linked in: professional relationships.
Warning: If you start socialising here -
Orkut: Important if travelling to South America. If you speak Spanish or Portugese there are lots of conversations to be had. Growing in other markets as well as it is Google's own early acquisition and now is extremely web 2.0'd and possibly useful.
Ning.com: a cloud (rather than "server based") system that can of course keep growing forever (as long as humans are interested in your subject - i.e. you domain name). But this is the Luxury model - fully featured and firing on many cylinders. Annoying things are some of its imposed limitations. But it works - it grows members if you have a good idea and can drive it with an appropriate dynamic.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Hunch.com
A new type of search engine pretends to be able to advise you when you need to make a choice and do not know what you want to do, in fact fairly aggressively surveys your inner opinions more randomly and coercively than a call centre on amphetamines.
Or it is an incredibly useful conversational thinking tool that helps you identify products that align with what they can sell you according to what you say about yourself.
Our inner need for gratification, recognition and interaction ensures that many people will have a lot of time doing patchwork marketing surveys. As a Web 2.0 application, it goes beyond the expectations of that medium - perhaps it is an early Web 3.0 application.
A new type of search engine pretends to be able to advise you when you need to make a choice and do not know what you want to do, in fact fairly aggressively surveys your inner opinions more randomly and coercively than a call centre on amphetamines.
Or it is an incredibly useful conversational thinking tool that helps you identify products that align with what they can sell you according to what you say about yourself.
Our inner need for gratification, recognition and interaction ensures that many people will have a lot of time doing patchwork marketing surveys. As a Web 2.0 application, it goes beyond the expectations of that medium - perhaps it is an early Web 3.0 application.
Social Media Safety
A recent media article points out the inherent danger in using social media sites explaining "what am I doing" as it may tell burglars when you are away from home, if they are tech saavy enough to monitor you, and stupid enough to want to burgle you. Tech saavy burglars are also aware that the forces of detection - although maybe a little behind their own level of criminal genius are right behind them, potentially tracking disturbing web activity.
The other side of this nonsense is not that social media sites necessary want to know where you are unless you are stupid enough to have your location publically tracked by owning a mobile phone and switching it on. No, when the media attacks social networking it is due to a fundamental mistake when it comes to social media. It is partly about getting invited to parties and it is partly about leading people along links to material online that you feel are important. A twitter feed that tells me a housewife in Ontario is cooking an omlette is simply not that fascinating or useful to me. But one who posts a link to the best omlette recipe on her twitter feed is doing me a service and at the same time building a following for her intellectual point of view, even if they are not all there all the time as some may think.
It is the combination of mobile phones and social media that invite people to say what they are "doing" and revealing location. But it is the phone that does that, rather than the social media concept - that is a marketing wet dream come true.
NZ Herald article
Monday, May 18, 2009
Questions to focus on what is important for a customer website.
1. publishing articles or notices
2. publishing surveys/polls and presenting results
3. making and publishing video
4. online face to face consultation via webcam
5. encrypted email services, mailing list
6. cutting edge design
7. social networking
8. guaranteed complete privacy
9. technical cutting edge advancement
10. market exposure
11. minimal fuss
12. income making
1. publishing articles or notices
2. publishing surveys/polls and presenting results
3. making and publishing video
4. online face to face consultation via webcam
5. encrypted email services, mailing list
6. cutting edge design
7. social networking
8. guaranteed complete privacy
9. technical cutting edge advancement
10. market exposure
11. minimal fuss
12. income making
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Microsoft Internet Explorer Users Exposed to Flaw
It's official. Do not use Microsoft Internet Explorer as your machine can be "taken over" by people who certainly do not have your interests at heart.
It's official. Do not use Microsoft Internet Explorer as your machine can be "taken over" by people who certainly do not have your interests at heart.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Basics of Computers - The elements of decision
Computers, at their very essential, are machines that have to make a decision. A choice between one logical path, item or object and another. Or none. If you have invented ways to store values and even letters of the alphabet, there has to be a way to access it, a system of repeatable addresses. Addresses must be based on a number system and when you start to see addresses at the machine level you will see things like this d50e:1b45 - now is that a number of something quite unpronouncible?
It is neither, and both. It is representative of a number, but using a number system that may seem unfamiliar, at first.
We think in Base 10, or Decimal. Why? When you consider the relative advantages of number systems, the old folk had it better with dozens, pence to the shilling, and most things came in dozens, e.g. eggs.
Base 12 has stronger mathematical advantages as it has more factors. 3 times 4, 2 times 6 and 1 times 12 all make 12. In other words: (1,2,3,4,6,12) is a list of the factors of 12. (1,2,5,10) is the same thing for 10. What about 16? (1,2,4,8,16] are the factors. What can you see with the factors of 16? They keep doubling. It is the only regular progression of factors until we hit, you guessed it, a multiple of 16, that all too familiar computer number 256. What about 256 ^ 2? Or 256 ^ 16?
All are rich with factors, but 16 is high enough for addressing memory. And that is what this number set is - hexadecimal: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F representing the base 16 values equivalent to Base 10: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15, respectively.
A number like ab5e is: (10 x 16^3) + (11 x 16^2) + (5 x 16^1) + (15 * 16^0)
It's decimal equivalent is derived in the same way that eleven millions, two hundred thousand is derived from: 11,200,000, or: (1 x 10^7) + (1 x 10^6) + (2 x 10^5)
The decimal equivalent of 0b5e is: ( 11 x 256 ) + ( 5 x 16 ) + ( 15 )
or, 40960 + 2816 + 80 + 15 = 43,870
As you may gather a memory address like d600e500 is a very large number. Hexadecimal is useful for expressing very large numbers in a compact form.
Consider the hex word like 0xffff. It's a nice and compact way of saying what 65535 says in decimal. The 0x means what follows is hexadecimal, usually called "hex".
0xffff = (15 * 16^3) + (15 * 16^2) + (15 * 16) + (15) = 65535.
So what is ffffffff?
And what is "binary"? What possible use is base two, consider the hex: 0xfefd - in binary it looks like this - (each 4 bit group is called a nibble) looks like this:
1111 1110 1111 1100
Put that into a binary stream, and you can see how hard it is to work with it.
1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100
If you lose sync in this stream, you have no idea what the value is. Remember - the space between the bit groups do not exist.
If we however condense the binary bits into bytes (8 bit chunks) we can shorten this down to:
0xfefd 0xfefd 0xfefd 0xfefd 0xfefd
0x followed by 4 hex characters is representative of two bytes, it may represent a value or simple address simply by loading it with its binary value.
Binary is simple - on or off. The only two states that electricity knows. Represents zero or one. 0 or 1.
What a computer's bare bones has to work with, a choice. The decision is going to be based on values (switches) in the programme. The programme will swap values (bytes) in memory via the CPU's registers, it will know what location in memory these bytes are to be written into by the values in its address bus.
Some devices on the address bus are PCI devices and some are IDE. Memory is made available to these devices via the address bus. The CPU sees them as objects in the computer's memory.
Computers, at their very essential, are machines that have to make a decision. A choice between one logical path, item or object and another. Or none. If you have invented ways to store values and even letters of the alphabet, there has to be a way to access it, a system of repeatable addresses. Addresses must be based on a number system and when you start to see addresses at the machine level you will see things like this d50e:1b45 - now is that a number of something quite unpronouncible?
It is neither, and both. It is representative of a number, but using a number system that may seem unfamiliar, at first.
We think in Base 10, or Decimal. Why? When you consider the relative advantages of number systems, the old folk had it better with dozens, pence to the shilling, and most things came in dozens, e.g. eggs.
Base 12 has stronger mathematical advantages as it has more factors. 3 times 4, 2 times 6 and 1 times 12 all make 12. In other words: (1,2,3,4,6,12) is a list of the factors of 12. (1,2,5,10) is the same thing for 10. What about 16? (1,2,4,8,16] are the factors. What can you see with the factors of 16? They keep doubling. It is the only regular progression of factors until we hit, you guessed it, a multiple of 16, that all too familiar computer number 256. What about 256 ^ 2? Or 256 ^ 16?
All are rich with factors, but 16 is high enough for addressing memory. And that is what this number set is - hexadecimal: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F representing the base 16 values equivalent to Base 10: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15, respectively.
A number like ab5e is: (10 x 16^3) + (11 x 16^2) + (5 x 16^1) + (15 * 16^0)
It's decimal equivalent is derived in the same way that eleven millions, two hundred thousand is derived from: 11,200,000, or: (1 x 10^7) + (1 x 10^6) + (2 x 10^5)
The decimal equivalent of 0b5e is: ( 11 x 256 ) + ( 5 x 16 ) + ( 15 )
or, 40960 + 2816 + 80 + 15 = 43,870
As you may gather a memory address like d600e500 is a very large number. Hexadecimal is useful for expressing very large numbers in a compact form.
Consider the hex word like 0xffff. It's a nice and compact way of saying what 65535 says in decimal. The 0x means what follows is hexadecimal, usually called "hex".
0xffff = (15 * 16^3) + (15 * 16^2) + (15 * 16) + (15) = 65535.
So what is ffffffff?
And what is "binary"? What possible use is base two, consider the hex: 0xfefd - in binary it looks like this - (each 4 bit group is called a nibble) looks like this:
1111 1110 1111 1100
Put that into a binary stream, and you can see how hard it is to work with it.
1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100 1111 1100 1111 1110 1111 1100
If you lose sync in this stream, you have no idea what the value is. Remember - the space between the bit groups do not exist.
If we however condense the binary bits into bytes (8 bit chunks) we can shorten this down to:
0xfefd 0xfefd 0xfefd 0xfefd 0xfefd
0x followed by 4 hex characters is representative of two bytes, it may represent a value or simple address simply by loading it with its binary value.
Binary is simple - on or off. The only two states that electricity knows. Represents zero or one. 0 or 1.
What a computer's bare bones has to work with, a choice. The decision is going to be based on values (switches) in the programme. The programme will swap values (bytes) in memory via the CPU's registers, it will know what location in memory these bytes are to be written into by the values in its address bus.
Some devices on the address bus are PCI devices and some are IDE. Memory is made available to these devices via the address bus. The CPU sees them as objects in the computer's memory.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The Dr Horrible effect
By linking to videos like this and it's website - and writing something about it in my blog, in this case sfsw-tips. Dr Horrible is an example of what I see becoming a new stream and an important platform for all sorts of well branded web art delivery. The DivX format has completely come of age. This tip sheet is saying the new format is a superior web delivery mechanism for video, though Flash is okay, DivX is capable of web movie delivery using DivX compression. And here it is - peaking in its first hours or release to be featured on google's rather revealing "trends" website. Want to know more about Trends - check the sfsw newsletter. Blogs all available from the Weblogs menu bar of sfsw.net.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Achieving growth in site visits
There are several proven methods of increasing site visit growth. The most important of which is to get the branding clear and clean. To make the site work in a way that people expect it to work then natural feel of the interface does not interupt their own work flow.
The website must be clear and concise. It must say something well, not a whole lot of things unclearly. The English must be good which adds huge value to English graduates and artists in general.
These are hard times, the message can not be cluttered. My own home page is a case in point. Why have three columns to say what can be better expressed in one? If three columns are visually simpler to sort out your content (like classified advertising) then well and good. But if it is a random organisation then it is probably not the correct layout.
Well organised systems require well organised thinking. This means keeping stress levels inexcessive. The same goes for any serious thinking career. Constant stress may sharpen our resolve to succeed but it don't help with the needs of an effective brain.
There are several proven methods of increasing site visit growth. The most important of which is to get the branding clear and clean. To make the site work in a way that people expect it to work then natural feel of the interface does not interupt their own work flow.
The website must be clear and concise. It must say something well, not a whole lot of things unclearly. The English must be good which adds huge value to English graduates and artists in general.
These are hard times, the message can not be cluttered. My own home page is a case in point. Why have three columns to say what can be better expressed in one? If three columns are visually simpler to sort out your content (like classified advertising) then well and good. But if it is a random organisation then it is probably not the correct layout.
Well organised systems require well organised thinking. This means keeping stress levels inexcessive. The same goes for any serious thinking career. Constant stress may sharpen our resolve to succeed but it don't help with the needs of an effective brain.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
RHEL 5 links
Recently had an issue with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 - installing the php language modules. Got into a right old mess which ended up with a broken php on a webserver. It was only a development server, so did not stay up all night - but sometimes the light of day brings about more clarity.
In this case it did. These links helped find the solution and like most solutions it was the simple one that worked. Trying to recompile the PHP modules was not working as it was only filling in part of the picture.
Here are the references:
Forums
Cyberciti
The actual procedure that saved my server was to ensure that all libraries for php were removed. My new install was not working due to a non-removed out of synch php-gd
RPM erase php php-gd php-mysql
then to install the lot using yum
yum install php php-mysql php-gd
and it all came back to life.
Recently had an issue with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 - installing the php language modules. Got into a right old mess which ended up with a broken php on a webserver. It was only a development server, so did not stay up all night - but sometimes the light of day brings about more clarity.
In this case it did. These links helped find the solution and like most solutions it was the simple one that worked. Trying to recompile the PHP modules was not working as it was only filling in part of the picture.
Here are the references:
Forums
Cyberciti
The actual procedure that saved my server was to ensure that all libraries for php were removed. My new install was not working due to a non-removed out of synch php-gd
RPM erase php php-gd php-mysql
then to install the lot using yum
yum install php php-mysql php-gd
and it all came back to life.
Friday, May 30, 2008
503 valid RCPT command must precede DATA.
A router in between your mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird) can not see who is sending. This is usually as the mail client does not have your credentials loaded correctly, a connected router device propbably objects because it wants to say who the email is sending from.
One solution is to receive mail before you send it - this usually lets connected routers know who you are, so when you are sending mail the channel with the sendmail programme is established.
Mail authentication may also help.
See http://forums.westnic.net/archive/index.php?t-72.html
A router in between your mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird) can not see who is sending. This is usually as the mail client does not have your credentials loaded correctly, a connected router device propbably objects because it wants to say who the email is sending from.
One solution is to receive mail before you send it - this usually lets connected routers know who you are, so when you are sending mail the channel with the sendmail programme is established.
Mail authentication may also help.
See http://forums.westnic.net/archive/index.php?t-72.html
Saturday, March 08, 2008
List of Microsoft codenames - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of Microsoft codenames - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not really useful dept. unless you are a geek.
A list of all the codenames of Microsoft software projects. Some of their names are very funny, indeed. The never released .Net module "Hailstorm" sounds interesting. But unpublished code is not usually interesting, but damaged or incomplete.
Good code is generally written quite quickly as simple ideas are far more powerful than busy complex ones which eventually break. Simple ideas do not break.
Not really useful dept. unless you are a geek.
A list of all the codenames of Microsoft software projects. Some of their names are very funny, indeed. The never released .Net module "Hailstorm" sounds interesting. But unpublished code is not usually interesting, but damaged or incomplete.
Good code is generally written quite quickly as simple ideas are far more powerful than busy complex ones which eventually break. Simple ideas do not break.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Online Privacy
There are more than one class of "privacy".
Software "privacy" - i.e. the ability of software to securely recognize where you normally login in from - denying this defeats much progress. It is not just marketing collection or accumulation, but workability that may be derived from IP addresses. In fact, as a "measure" of validation, software may prevent phishing, violation and ad brokers from illicitly targeting.
Over emphasize paranoia, and anonymize too much, and software starts to reveal far more about you.
Legal Privacy - now this one matters. If the Government can imprison you based on your IP address then you best anonymize it. Like anyone who wants to declare things against their taxes who morally should not, there are bits of law that protect you. If you rob a bank after showing your drivers license on their security video, you are asking for your privacy to be violated.
False accusations and invasion - Google is less likely to target individuals than Governments. If the USA accepts homeland security, why worry about who knows what you do on the internet?
There are more than one class of "privacy".
Software "privacy" - i.e. the ability of software to securely recognize where you normally login in from - denying this defeats much progress. It is not just marketing collection or accumulation, but workability that may be derived from IP addresses. In fact, as a "measure" of validation, software may prevent phishing, violation and ad brokers from illicitly targeting.
Over emphasize paranoia, and anonymize too much, and software starts to reveal far more about you.
Legal Privacy - now this one matters. If the Government can imprison you based on your IP address then you best anonymize it. Like anyone who wants to declare things against their taxes who morally should not, there are bits of law that protect you. If you rob a bank after showing your drivers license on their security video, you are asking for your privacy to be violated.
False accusations and invasion - Google is less likely to target individuals than Governments. If the USA accepts homeland security, why worry about who knows what you do on the internet?
Monday, November 05, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Net Writing | Writing and SEO tips for Bloggers
Net Writing | Writing and SEO tips for Bloggers
Great blog with some hot tips for you to burn your keyboard fingers on... but before you send another email and burn with embarrassment when you realise some of the classic mistakes we all make could affect - even your future. Read it here - click will open a fresh window .
Whereas the web has its own history site (the wayback engine at www.archive.org) some of the emails we used to write we believe are extinct when we delete them from our mailbox. Nothing is further from the truth. Everything that passes through the web is recorded somewhere. Probably forever. Every deleted email is part of digital history. And there is nothing anyone can do to stop that - it is the only direct personal->public medium that has ever been available. You do not have to produce a hit everyday to be a hit, but you do have to continue to produce content.
Content that really speaks about the subject matter of your site. Nothing else.
Great blog with some hot tips for you to burn your keyboard fingers on... but before you send another email and burn with embarrassment when you realise some of the classic mistakes we all make could affect - even your future. Read it here - click will open a fresh window .
Whereas the web has its own history site (the wayback engine at www.archive.org) some of the emails we used to write we believe are extinct when we delete them from our mailbox. Nothing is further from the truth. Everything that passes through the web is recorded somewhere. Probably forever. Every deleted email is part of digital history. And there is nothing anyone can do to stop that - it is the only direct personal->public medium that has ever been available. You do not have to produce a hit everyday to be a hit, but you do have to continue to produce content.
Content that really speaks about the subject matter of your site. Nothing else.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
StopBadware.org
StopBadware.org maintain a list of 230,000 (today's count) sites that contain or have been reported to distribute "badware" (spyware, phishing attempts, etc). If you really need to check a site to see if it is known to spread viruses, you can at the clearing house.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Faster mail
If you want near instant mail delivery, host a domain with sfsw.net
We will give you a free POP mail box for the name info@ for you to use on your website, e.g. info@yourdoman.com - while the domain is kept renewed with us, we will host it for you. If you set it up correctly it can normally provide very fast email services in the UK and Europe, and of course the USA.
Sometimes your local ISP is so busy it may delay mail delivery so it is useful to have a spare channel, dedicated to a new web product. So, sfsw.net provides you with a low-cost entry to our services, buy a domain and try out our email for no extra. You can host your website with us or elsewhere, your choice.
If you want near instant mail delivery, host a domain with sfsw.net
We will give you a free POP mail box for the name info@ for you to use on your website, e.g. info@yourdoman.com - while the domain is kept renewed with us, we will host it for you. If you set it up correctly it can normally provide very fast email services in the UK and Europe, and of course the USA.
Sometimes your local ISP is so busy it may delay mail delivery so it is useful to have a spare channel, dedicated to a new web product. So, sfsw.net provides you with a low-cost entry to our services, buy a domain and try out our email for no extra. You can host your website with us or elsewhere, your choice.
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