Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

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Content Theft Worsens

If you follow my comment feed, then you may have noticed that I am getting huge amounts of trackback spam. Why not just turn off trackbacks? Because these people are stealing my content, and likely your content, for their own personal gain and the trackback is the easiest way to find them. Yes, they generate a link back to Reality Me which in theory should help my page rank but not when it is with duplicate content. I have installed the Antileech WordPress plugin but I am still figuring out how to use it without cutting off my feeds to legitimate readers. If you do end up getting a "this content is stolen" message instead of the actual post, please email juggler at gmail.com and I will fix it. That said, can you confirm which feedreader you use based upon the following:

  • Blogdigger/2.0 (http://www.blogdigger.com/; contact@blogdigger.com) Referred by: http://www.zimbio.com/Jaycees/trackers/7/Blog+Search+Tracker
  • Feedfetcher-Google; ( http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 6 subscribers; feed-id=3701543567382179734) Referred by: http://www.google.com/reader/view/
  • Feedfetcher-Google; ( http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 9 subscribers; feed-id=8604077678671105327) Referred by: http://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my
  • Feedster Crawler/3.0; Feedster, Inc. Referred by: http://ranchero.com/
  • Gregarius/0.5.4 ( http://devlog.gregarius.net/docs/ua) Referred by: http://blognetwork.knoxnews.com/feed.php?channel=81
  • Liferea/1.4.3b (Linux; en_US.UTF-8; http://liferea.sf.net/)
  • NewsGatorOnline/2.0 (http:/www.newsgator.com; 1 subscribers) Referred by: http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/WebEd2.aspx?fld=0
  • NewzCrawler/1.8 (compatible; MSIE 6.00; Newz Crawler 1.8; http://www.newzcrawler.com/ )
  • SharpReader/0.9.7.0 (.NET CLR 1.1.4322.2407; WinNT 5.1.2600.0) Referred by: http://127.0.0.1:12108/sharpreader/page.html
  • Wasabot/1.4 (+ http://www.wasalive.com ) Java/1.6.0_02

I am assuming that Blogdigger, Gregarius, and Wasabot are used by content thieves.

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Today’s Manly Lessons

Today I replaced the brake pads on the van and, seeing that the front tires look like racing slicks, I rotated the tires. A few reminders to those DIYer auto mechanics out there.

  1. When working on a vehicle on asphalt, place metal plates under your jack stands because unlike concrete, asphalt is soft. That’s why the vehicle keeps getting lower while you work on it. Also makes it a little difficult to get the jack stands out from under the vehicle when you are done but it does leave some neat looking marks in the road.
  2. When spinning the spider (lug nut tool) around because it looks cool and is fun, make sure you move your leg because nothing is funnier than a grown man trying to explain to the pre-schoolers that he’s crying because he loves working on his "land ship." That’s right! You heard me yell "land ship."
  3. The lung cancer you got came from changing the brakes without wearing a mask; not Oak Ridge.
  4. Test the brakes before you move the vehicle not once you have it coasting at 10 miles per hour even if you are "just pulling it ten feet out of the driveway into the road" particularly if you didn’t really tight the lug nuts.
  5. And, of course, when you break into irrational yelling at the wife and oldest child, just stop. Stop mid-sentence. Apologize and leave the room. That would have been nice.
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Can’t fight the force

Looks like it will be a struggle just to wade through today. My arms feel heavy. My head feels like it is in a vice. Light seems brighter. I’m going to do those things I have to do. I think I am subconsciously struggling between what needs to be done and what I want to do. Coffee might help fix this.

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How to get into programming mode

Have a ritual! Some morning I just want to stare at the computer and bemoan, "I’d rather be blogging." Today I have a video I want to make and other fun stuff like painting the kitchen but responsibility has to come first. How do you kickstart yourself? My ritual to start programming:

  1. Pour a cup of coffee
  2. Read a few blogs (get it out of the way) then CLOSE the feedreader
  3. Write a blog post
  4. Refill the coffee
  5. Light a stick of incense
  6. Get some music going
  7. Wear some ear plugs (kills the white noise and seems to make me focus better)
  8. Determine a milestone which will be my next break
  9. Begin typing like mad.
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What am I doing to my brain?

The mental exercise of jumping from one project to another at a rapid pace with breakneck deadlines is like making a bootleggers turn at interstate speeds particularly when the environment of each project changes slightly or even drastically such as CF with MS SQL to CF with MySQL to ASP with MS Access. I’m sure this either good for me or the seed for a tumor.

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Consultants – Warranties

Every now and then you get a phone call that goes something like this "That code you wrote for us a year (or more) ago doesn’t work anymore. We were thinking of doing more work with you but if we can’t get this fixed we may have to go with someone else." The proper answer is "No problem. That will be $x per hour to troubleshoot since we do not currently have a contract." The real answer is usually "ok. I’ll look into that real quick." because a) you know darn well the real answer will send them packing b) you are a nice guy and like them and c) you haven’t yet reached a level of financial stability to be blowing off customers (note: you’ll fix c if you use the real answer more often).

When your code doesn’t change and after a length of time it suddenly doesn’t work, the problem is almost always with the web host or the client. Sometimes they have discovered a very well hidden bug but rarely. In my case, the permissions on the directory which the application used to upload files had changed to not allow for uploading. How do permissions magically change? They don’t.