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Mar 22
Invasion Of the Comment Spam Bots
Internet, Software, Word Press, Blogging No Comments »Since the blog makeover a couple of weeks ago I’ve been bombarded by comment spam for some reason. Its one of the things that makes blogging work and not fun. So, I finally activated Askimet (Automattic Kismet to give it its full name) on my WordPress install (didn’t really pay attention to it before for some reason?). Its actually working wonders right now and since activating the plug-in its halted more than 2,200 of the most bloodcurdlingly despicable types of spam you can imagine that up to now I’ve been having to edit manually daily.
Askimet comes installed by default in Word Press but you have to activate it in the Plugins area in your admin area and get a free APi key. A five minute task that’ll save you hours of work weekly.
Related Links
Askimet FAQ ( Askimet)
Blogging downloads Software Word PressMar 22
Gather Your Online ID’s with ShowYourself Widget
Internet, Social Networks, Bookmarking, Blogging No Comments »Here’s a really useful widget for people with blogs or multiple memberships at social networks, bookmarking sites and the like. If you’re like me you probably have profiles at a bunch of different websites, Flickr, MySpace, Digg, YouTube and such. With ShowYourself you can combine all your profiles on the web into one neat looking widget that you can put on your blog, your MySpace page or anywhere on the web.
With developer Dustin Bachrach’s app you type in your usernames for the sites you use and clear the checkboxes for those you don’t. The ShowYourself widget-builder lists around two dozen popular destinations, from AIM to Last.fm to YouTube, and you can easily add others.
Via Lifehacker.com
Related Links
Yahoo Widgets (Yahoo.com)
WordPress Widgets (Wordpress.com)
Mar 22
Travel Deals That Come to You, Using RSS and Firefox
Internet, Web 2.0, Search Engines, RSS No Comments »
I rambled on here about finding flights and deals online in the ‘traditional’ manner using meta-searchers so you dont have to visit each individual travel site etc, but there is an even more time efficient way by using RSS. I’m assuming that readers have some entry level knowledge of RSS, if not, read this to get some background on the format that’ll help save you bundles of time.
I use the Sage RSS reader in my Firefox browser. Its a great lightweight way of reading RSS feeds without having to log-in to an online reader or fire up a desktop stand alone ( I use Feed Demon for more heavy duty feed trawling). Once you’ve installed Sage in Firefox you can open it in a browser sidebar to view your feeds.
The “big three” online travel agents, Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz all now offer various RSS feeds.
internet RSS Search Engines travel Web 2.0Mar 21
Mar 21
The Hotwire Trip Starter
Internet, Web 2.0 No Comments »Joining in the fray of predictive holiday and flight search is Hotwire, following on the heels of Farecast and Fare Compare. A Fare Prediction shows if the lowest fare is rising or dropping over the next seven days for the specific dates and cities searched (according to the Farecast website). So, in laymans terms they basically ‘predict’ when its cheapest to go.
Hotwire’s offering is called Trip Starter and my seaching for a trip to Las Vegas from my local airport at Fort Myers returned a graph showing airfare and hotel price fluctuations by the month.
Best time to fly, according to Trip Starter is January, February and September. Best time to stay, July, August and December. They advise to avoid the crowds, go during the first three weeks in December or on weekdays in July.
One advantage Trip Starter has over its rivals is that by plugging in the results to Hotwire affiliate Trip Advisor they are able to offer local guides, events and maps, something Farecast and Fare Compare dont offer right now.
Courtesy iExploreFlorida.com
planners travel Web 2.0Mar 20
Greedy Torrent, A BT For Leechers
Hacks, File Sharing, Downloads, Bit Torrent 1 Comment »The Bit Torrent protocol has been well documented. BitTorrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the whole of the corresponding costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources.
So, filesharing in the truest sense if you like, where downloaders also upload as they download (if you follow). The more bandwidth and upload stream you share the faster your download (in theory).
Going against that whole equal sharing thing comes a new ratio cheating program called appropriately, ‘Greedy Torrent’. The India based software author Alex NJ calls his app “the survival kit for a leech” . What the freeware program promises to do in a nutshell is boost your bittorrent upload ratio.
GreedyTorrent promises to help you survive on trackers that enforce a minimum 1:1 trading ratio, and can keep you from getting banned for not uploading. It modifies the conversation between your bittorrent client and the tracker, suppressing the actual upload amount.
via Zero Paid
Related Reading
How To Cheat BitTorrent Ratio By Spoofing (Raymond.cc)
RatioMaster (Moofdev.org)
Is BitTorrent Share Ratio Enforcement Really Necessary? (Zeropaid.com)
Mar 20
Heroes Comic Books At NBC
Downloads, TV No Comments »I was speed reading through my usual pile of daily RSS feeds and came across the Digital TV Weblog who directed me to the NBC TV website where their big network smash ‘Heroes’ has a series of comic books which are a part of the plot of that show and can be accessed and downloaded in PDF or Flash versions.
There’s 25 episodes so far, all available for free (the comics, not the shows).
Related Links
Heroes Episodes 1-15 Replays (NBC TV)
downloads tv VideoMar 20
Google Buys Data Visualization Software
Internet, Software, Google, Desktop No Comments »Late last week Google quietly acquired data visualization software tool, Trendalyzer from its parent company, Gapminder. They are already making the tool available for free here and the software developers have moved into Google’s Mountain View HQ.
Trendalyzer generates moving graphics and other novel effects in the display of facts, figures, and statistics in presentations.
The Official Google Blog reports, “We hope to provide the resources necessary to bring such work to its deserved wider audience by improving and expanding Trendalyzer and making it freely available to any and all users capable of thinking outside the X and Y axes.”
via Paid Content
Related Reading
A Word In Motion (Official Google Blog)
Mar 20
Converting Word Docs to PDF
Hacks, Desktop, Email No Comments »
I was designing an invoice last week for a friends business using Word. I hate the way Word formats everything and although I was pleased with the end result it took me longer than I would have liked. Still, before I sent it off to my colleague I cleaned up the final article and made it more printer friendly by converting it to a PDF which gave it a final polish.
There’s a number of PDF converters online though the one I’m using right now is the excellent PDF Online. One of the beauties of the (free) service is the simplicity and speed of it. Upload your document, enter your email address and bingo, you’re done. Your document is emailed to you minutes later. Brilliant.
Desktop Email hacksMar 17
Mar 12
Power Up Your Business Email With GMail
Software, Google, Email No Comments »I mentioned the Gmail for your domain service back in July last year and things have moved along nicely since and now come under the umbrella of Google Apps which include being able to offer users all the features of Google email and Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets branded with your own domain name. The Google Apps Premier Edition sign ups remain free until the end of April so its a great service for clubs, schools, small enterprise and groups in either the premier (with 10gb email space per account) or the freebie edition.
Another new-ish feature for Gmail users (or at least some accounts, its still in beta, naturally) is the ability to download POP3 mail from other email accounts. In particular this could be useful if you own a few domain names and need to be able to send and receive mail from several accounts all in one place. At the moment you can add a further five POP3 accounts to your Gmail account. Used in conjunction with Gmail Manager its saving me a bunch of time by alerting me to not only my Gmail accounts but email from five separate domain names too.
To check if the extra POP3 features have been activated on your account open up your Gmail, go to Setting>Accounts> and look for “Get mail from other accounts (download mail using POP3)”. Its worth shelling out the $5.99 it costs for a domain name from somewhere like 1and1 to plug it in to your Gmail account to get all the benefits of the Google service but with your own personal name.
Email gmail google SoftwareMar 12
Excuse The Mess
Internet, Bookmarking No Comments »I’m having problems with the formatting on the del.icio.us daily posts plug-in at the moment which I am having to clean up manually so excuse the coding mess while I search out a solution.
Blogging Bookmarking del.icio.usMar 11
Mar 10
Paper and Productivity
Internet No Comments »Despite all my ramblings about technology, software app’s and blogs I simply cannot ever see myself going completely paperless. The majority of my note taking is still all done off line and I still write down URLs as well as bookmarking them in my browser.
Anyway, at the moment I’m burrowing my way through a ton of GTD resources online. GTD is an action management method, and the title of a book by David Allen. Its also a relatively new thing for me.
Wikipedia sums it up well here, “GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them somewhere. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.”
Before I go off on another axis I mention this because I stumbled across an excellent website in amongst all those GTD links promoting (maybe unusually in this day of Ajax obsessed Web 2.0 start ups) paper and productivity. DIY Planner is a kind of GTD methodology but promotes the use of “paper as a medium for planning, productivity, creative expression, and exploring ideas.” (quoting their website).
Great stuff.
There’s a whole host of like thinkers exchanging ideas, resources, documents and tools on the site and a bunch of free templates covering everything from creating an effective time management strategy to jump-starting one’s creativity.
Related Reading
Cutting Through The Clutter To Get Things Done (CNN.com)
Getting Things Done Outlook Add-in (Netcentrics.com)
A Beginners Guide to Making a DIY Planner (DIYPlanner.com)
Jello Dashboard (Jello.WordPress)
