Posted by ljmacphee on November 2, 2007 under blogging, security, things you should know | 
A few weeks back I found some trackbacks on my Houston Garden Blog that had been pulled by Akismet as spam. I didn’t think they were spam but it took a few days before I could investigate.
I traced them back to a Splog who was and probably still is scraping garden blogs and stealing posts. Posts are published in part not full and link back to the original blog. The reason it is done this way is two fold. By publishing part posts key words are denser. Publishing the trackback link creates a link back to the splog increasing incoming links.
What can you do?
First delete the trackback link so there isn’t a link to that splog. Or put a link somewhere to that blog but put ’spam’ or ’splog’ as the reference in the link.
Block the IP number. .htaccess lets you do this easily. Add the following to your .htaccess file:
Deny from 192.168.0.1
But replace the 192.168.0.1 with the spam IP address. How to block users from accessing your site based on IP. Mostly you have to pay attention and catch thieves as quickly as you can. The less profitable this business becomes, the less we’ll see it.
Also prevent hotlinking of your images.
Another thing to do is to try to include a hard link in every post to another post on your blog. That way if the content is republished you might at least get a link back to yourself.
Posted by ljmacphee on October 24, 2007 under blogging, how to |
You can just as easily blog to your Wordpress blog as to your Blogger blog from Flickr.
First set things up with Flickr
->Log on
->Go to You->YourAccount
->Go to Extending Flickr
->Go to Your Blogs->Edit
You can then add a blog [Blogger and Wordpress are painless to set up] Just give it the url and user name and password. You can also adjust the how the layout of the post will appear. Now when you upload a photo to Flickr it will appear on your blog along with the title and description you give to it.
Or you can set up an email address with Flickr when setting up your blog with Flickr. Then when you send an emailed photo from your phone to the special email address Flickr gives you it will post to your blog. [Example Blog post from phone through Flickr ]
Posted by ljmacphee on October 8, 2007 under blogging |
What would we do for fun with out fanatics in the world? This guy blocks Firefox users from visiting his website on the grounds that Firefox users can block ads, thereby depriving him of revenue. It’s the most interesting page on his site and the one that receives the most hits since it has been Slashdotted. It created a heated discussion on Slashdot that keeps flaring back up, The morality of web advertising blocking. This discussion has also come up in other areas such as TV and TIVO and is not likely to go away.
I’m of the old school. When I first came across the internet in 1995 it was a place to share information and TimesToCome has been doing that since 1997, though now it is split across seven websites and domains. The internet was a place to connect with other like minded souls, and to gather information, it was and is the world’s encyclopedia.
Times changed. Commercial interests moved into the web and where would we be with out Google? Google Maps? AOL AIM? The various news organizations? Some of the commercial growth has been good for us all and for the internet. Other things such as spam and pop up ads have not been so good and so we developed tools to block those things.
I’m a big fan of ad blocking software, I use it myself. I can’t stand all the animations. I find them too distracting when I’m trying to work. Today I had Safari open while I was working on some templates and it asked me if I wanted a free iPhone? Who can work with interruptions like that? Is it stealing from corporations to advertise and distract workers who are trying to do research or other work online?
If I forced ads on more readers would ad revenue increase? That is likely. Many who ad block claim that they themselves wouldn’t click on ads anyhow. I don’t think that is true. The reason the ad companies make more invasive ads is because they do work and people do click on them more often. But it is also likely those same people would not visit my site a second time.
So are you stealing revenue from a website if you block ads? Or is it your right not to be advertised to? Freedom of speech laws protect those annoying door to door sales people and telemarketers. But those same protected telemarketers are dropping like flies in a world where phones don’t ring for numbers not in their contact list. Properly done, advertising benefits all parties. Improperly done it will kill your business. Remember Bonsai Buddy anyone?
Is it your right to not see advertising or is it the advertisers right to show you his ad? That is still to be worked out. For myself, I’ll let my visitors decide for themselves. Are you visiting the web for paid content or non-paid content? Is the content you are viewing worth paying for beyond your internet provider’s fee?
Firefox ad-blocker extension causes agnst
What happens when the advertisements are wiped clean from a website?
Firefox User Agent Switcher
Posted by ljmacphee on September 21, 2007 under blogging, how to |
Technorati uses thumbnail images of your blog provided by Alexa. If you want to update the image Technorati shows for your blog you do so at Alexa.
Go to Alexa. You’ll see a box ‘Site Info’ type your blog url in there and hit ‘go’. It will bring up information Alexa has on your blog. Now click the little button that says ‘edit info’ near the top middle. It will take you to a new page with a link that says “Update Thumbnail Image of yourblog.com’ Just click that link. In one or two days your new thumbnail image will appear.