2007-10-23

Various Notable Links around the net

I come across TONS of interesting things on a day to day basis. I usually just stuff interesting things into a folder called "interesting" which I then sort through at the end of each month.

Ive decided to start making regular brief posts highlighting some of the interesting/notable things I come across. 

RagePank has an interesting article about Disabling PHPSESSID's to avoid duplicate content issues in the SERP's

Here is an interesting online View Source Tool  that lets you do some reconnaissance on whatever website you are currently researching. Sure there's Firebug, Live HTTP Headers, Tamper Data and more, but this is still neat. There's potential to leverage this for small amounts of data extraction, but it doesnt follow redirects.

Jason Stallings talked about a feature I never knew Google Images had: The ability to recognize your face.

V-nessa.net has a ton of WICKED articles. Her latest is on Mass Moving CPanel accounts, something which I personally have struggled with.  

There's your link love for the day.

Enjoy! 

2007-10-24

Security oversights & more

For today's link love, I want to showcase a little security oversight that gives me a chuckle.

In a ruby on rails app, there is a yml file that declares all the database connection info. It is typically stored in the /config/database.yml folder. Now if a rails app is properly set up, this folder is never publically accessible.

But some people are idiots, as we all know.

Bonus points go out to the person who can figure out the google query that turns up database.yml files :)

OK, that was fun. What else do we have here today......

Going one step beyond the View Source Tool I linked to yesterday, today I want to show you the SEO Text Browser. This little tool returns some salient SEO information for the target URL plus its content. Annnnnnnd.....wait for it.......it follows redirects.

DabbleDB is really cool. I used to work with a lovely young lady who's partner is one of the lead guys on that project.  Last I heard they were digging around for some VC funding...I dont know if they ever got it, but regardless, DabbleDB is very very cool. This project is pretty ground breaking in my opinion, and has serious implications for the way data is stored, gathered, and shared on the intertube.

Check out this DabbleDB application of XSS Vectors

There's your link love for the day! Enjoy! 

2007-10-26

A great post I found on assertica.co.uk

<?
$bots=array('googlebot', 'yahoo', 'live', 'msn');
$y=0; for($i=0; $i<sizeof ($bots); $i++) if(strstr(strtolower($_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"]), strtolower($bots[$i]))) $y=1;
if($y){
  include('your_links_file.html'); 
}
?>

2007-10-30

It's like "Copyright Infrigment Lite"

Look at you, you're a mess.  You're bland, and pale and white, and completely boring....

....you scrape, you steal, you 'borrow' other peoples intellectual copyright, you engage in trackback spamming, you manipulate technorati and the SERPs......

...Hell, I bet you'd step over your own mother for a backlink......

...I mean, look at you! Just look at yourself; living on the edge of the internet; you're a scofflaw! A hooligan of the interweb! A digital ner'do'well!

How do you sleep at night?!?!

Oh, what am I saying...I know you sleep well, because you're an aggregator.

You sleep SOUNDLY, because what you do isn't wrong. In fact, what you do is encouraged in web 2.0 web-two-point-oh.

You're a purveyor of content, a go-between for readers and publishers! You're the grease in the cogs of the blogosphere! Huzzah!

Oh, ectio.us, I don't care if you slam adsense ads into every one of your 172,000 pages in Googles index, I love you anyways.

2007-10-31

Sorry, but I can't pass up an opportunity to mouth off

Alright, Im on a roll tonight, so why stop now....why not squeeze one more post out before I hit the sack.

I've decided (on a whim as usual) to enter this contest on Shoemoney.com

Apparently, all I have to do to win tickets to Las Vegas and a ticket to PubCon is explain to you all why I deserve to "Roll With The Rockstars".

Now, you'll all have to bear with me here, and be gentle. Because I'm a virgin.

You see, this is a first for me in two ways: This will be the very first Internet based contest I've ever entered, and also, it will be the first time I've publically associated my good name with Shoemoney.com and it's affiliates. I can't say I'm overly thrilled by the latter, as you'll read about later in my entry; but nevertheless, I'll do my best to put forth an entry worthy of a trip to Las Vegas and tickets to PubCon......between you and I, I don't think this will be too difficult to do, given the caliber of the competition I'm up against.

If you will, allow me to indulge for a moment and share with you a sampling of some of the shills that have come before me:

1)
Title: Party Like a Rockstar with Shoemister
Entry:

Alright this post will be A LOT different than my usual web creation updates and business strategies [TRANSLATION: I'm insecure about my blogs purpose, and I think my readers are fucking morons. Let me remind you why you usually come to my blog]...In the "competition" people interested write up a blog and basically explain why they are better than the next person. Why they can party their ass off and still maintain a certain sense of baller-Esq the next morning (or hours later in my case). Then after you write up the reasons and explain why you are better than anyone else you post up a link to it. [TRANSLATION: I don't actually know what I'm going to write, so Im going to write about what I am supposed to be writing about while I figure out what the hell I'm actually going to write about]...So I thought why the hell not. Looking over the competition, or lack thereof, I find nothing more than wanna-be people who seem to think "partying like a rock star" is spreading your ass-checks [TRANSLATION: I don't deserve to goto PubCon because I don't know how to spell the word 'cheeks']...

2)
Title: I'm Party Deprived, Send me to Vegas
Entry:

I used to party all the time. [TRANSLATION: I am no longer fun to be around] I lived in the DC suburbs. [TRANSLATION: I carry a gun at all times] You can’t live in the land of government corruption, special interest groups, and the highest rate of wine consumption in the country and not party [TRANSLATION: Once I get drunk, I am going to talk your fucking ear off about politics]. My best friend Cathy lived in a huge house that used to be a tiny church. [TRANSLATION: I'm probably gay] She had 5 other roommates and they had legendary parties. I became the 7th roommate much like fans at a basketball game become the 6th man. [TRANSLATION: ***gibberish*** ].....I pre-partied. I partied. I crashed. [TRANSLATION: I am definately no fun to be around].....A series of unfortunate events led me back to NC. I’m not complaining. I have a good life now. I’ve done some light partying after improv shows and classes. And I did some serious partying when the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup (in ‘06). [TRANSLATION: Once Im drunk, I'm going to talk your ear off about whatever the fuck I feel like]

3)
Title: Technology Information: Party Like a RockStar!
Entry:

...........I'm not here to talk about business
If you start bragging about your SEO tricks
I'll be up in your grill, screaming "I don't give a shit!"
Let's be real, homie.
I don't want to relax, I want to party all night long
And only worry about fillin' up my glass.

Mixin' bourbon with whiskey, and chase it down with a beer
that's how I roll while I'm playin' the roulette wheel.
When you're in Vegas, baby, there's no time to kick back
There are hundreds of casinos and girls to holler at.........

[TRANSLATION: Once I get a few drinks in me, I will be trying to fornicate with you. ]


As you can see, there really is no contest. That said, I'm not an arrogant man. I don't necessarily think that this is a sure-thing. So I'll now take an opportunity to share a few amusing anecdotes:

- I once woke up in a pile of garbage behind a strip club in Montreal called "Super-Sex". It's was 8pm.
- I once drunkenly attempted to smash a beer bottle over the head of my best friend, who was at the time trying to take a piss. The beer bottle didnt break. It bounced. He still has a scar.
- Later that night, to make amends, I let him smash a beer bottle over my head. It broke. I still have a scar.
- I am a rugby player. You know what that means.
- Not only am I Canadian, I'm also Irish.
....I could go on, but.....why bother?

Ain't that 'nuf said?  Think I deserve to win this contest?

I agree.

PS: That $500 bucks? It's gonna be used to bail one of your sorry asses out of jail 

2007-11-05

I really really do

UPDATE: Ronald is a fucking bastard

lol 

The Hacker Webzine is apparently going private.

Whodathunk?!?

Ronald has an excellent website, and I have LOVED reading it whenever he posts something new. He's extremely bright and on the ball, and always has a quirky sort of spin on the topics he writes about.

Now he has decided to go private, saying " I'm pretty tired of the useless bandwidth costs due to automated scanners, silly hack attempts, and the spamming of server logs. To give a good idea: My error logs are about 19MB each day, and it's time to stop this madness."   OUCH!

While 19MB error logs are no laughing matter, you know what IS a laughing matter? His meta-tags:

<meta name="keywords" content="PHP, PEE AGE PEE, Gurgle, Noam Chomsky,
Irish Whiskey, Homer Simpson, Nigerian Letter Scams, Intel Inside, A screw,
Stumblebumbletumbleupon, French Fries, Burger King, Nightvision, Family Guy,
Keyword, Another keyword, Tomato sauce, Yet another keyword..., SPAM,
Beans, Mr., HAM, Cheese, Bacon is SPAM, Confusing Google et al..,
Mythbusters, American Chopper, MC Hammer, Al capone, Teddy Ruxpin,
Dr. Snuggles, Sponge Bomb, Beads, Maps, Flash charts on maps,
Kross Side Sciptors, ESQUELL Injectie, HAHATEETEEPEE Splitting" />

That's right, dude includes Teddy Ruxpin in his meta tags. If that ain't l33t, I don't know what is. 

Ronald, good luck with the changes happening over at The Hacker Webzine!
I look forward to seeing what you come up with! 

2007-12-05

I'm buried under a mountain of POs, Emails, and Invoices

Yo!

I haven't been posting here regularly, I know. I'm launching a couple new projects in the coming weeks and also finishing up the FINAL pieces of development for Datapresser. 

Things never go as quickly as I'd like, but thats the reality of being a one-man shop and running your own business as well.  Chances are I won't be posting much before the New Year, but I hope to get back to more regularity come January. I'm heading down to Mexico this month for a get-away, but will be back in the new year. So come Jan. things will be back to normal around here and I'll be keeping it real on the regular.

In the meantime, I wanted to shoot out some links and some reading for you all to do, since I'm sure some of you are aching for a fix.

http://www.nickycakes.com/

 Nickycakes (despite having a sissy name) has some real gems on his blog, especially regarding Facebook.

http://www.slightlyshadyseo.com/

    Slightlyshady is just getting his blog off the ground but it aint bad....I'll be interested to see where he goes with it. 

http://www.14thc.com/

    I dont have much to say about 14th colony, but I found a few articles of interest there, so give it a read. 

http://linkdump.f0wl.org/ 

    Lots of interesting articles to be found here

http://deanhunt.com/ 

    Seriously? A lot of what this guy says is crap. CRAP! You really shouldn't waste your time by subscribing to his blog, but you should read some of his stuff. Why? Because he has a GREAT writing style. Pay attention to the way he writes and the tone he uses. It ain't exactly eloquent, but it's hard hitting; dude knows how to write good copy. I know I dont have to remind you folks to not subscribe to any of his ebook/report shit, you're all smarter then that.

Oh and I almost forgot:

http://syndk8.net/blogs/emonk/2007/12/05/free-edu-blogs/

Word, emonk. Great tip. 

2008-01-15

Some random links n' stuff

So I was reading about Jott and got to thinking, "I wonder if I can use this to create spam?"

Allow me to present a brief illustration of how I presumed I'd go about using Jott to spam the intertubes:

By the way: They've got "Justin dials Jott" on the left and content getting posted on "James' Blog" on the right. So hey, Those guys may have raised $5.4 million but somewhere in the company I bet there's a marketing coordinator who really isn't pulling his weight.

Anyways, turns out Jott has a 30 second time limit to your message so its not like I can have it transpose Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson or something.  Oh well, pretty diagram at least.

Moving on.....

Here are some free chunks of data I came across lately. Most of them are statistical sets but there is one file called bankresearch that I think is a score

Being the type of guy who loves a cheat sheet / set of crib notes. I really like what Wobblelab has created. 

An oldie that I recently found useful again, the Typetester  tool is incredibly useful.

And lastly, but certainly not least, have you heard of Dapper yet?

2008-02-15

I've been remiss in updating my blog

OK, sorry things have been so dead around here lately.

Don't blame me! Blame Twitter!!!! I seem to do so much more talking on Twitter about things I'd normally write on this blog.  It's shameful I know.

Let's recap some stuff that's been going on recently.

- I found a pretty awesome collection of downloadable dictionary databases, which is exactly the kind of thing that I get excited about. It's like finding buried treasure. We all know about Word Net, but there are some other really great pieces of data in there as well. 

- Esrun outed a trick I told him about a while back.

Never mind the fact that I asked him not to talk about it...who cares....Esrun is practically a fucking saint for giving you all his little Gmail Account Creator script.  So he can say whatever he wants. 

Basically, when you are mass creating google accounts, after a few accounts are created, google will start serving you" sorry" messages instead of a captcha. The trick to get around this is to request the google captcha from one IP, but submit the form data from a second IP. Google doesn't cross reference the submitting IP with the requesting IP. I think this is somewhat tied into the fact that Google uses the same captcha/account provisioning service for several of its different web properties (Gmail, Blogger, etc).

So basically, all you need to create unlimited Gmail accounts is two IPs because Google isn't cross referencing them.

You know...come to think of it, I am somewhat depressed that Esrun stole my thunder on this one. You filthy sonuvabitch..... :)

Anyways, now Google will most likely patch it up pretty quick, so get on it now my friends!

- Thar be drama a brewin' over at WickedFire, as Jon baits Shoemoney and then receives a C&D, which of course leads to more drama. I have always liked Wicked Fire, but I feel that this is a little bit....much.  Anyways, I posted my thoughts over there so I wont repeat them here. 

And with that, I'm off to enjoy a well deserved weekend.

Play nice kids.