This pathetic business of unsecured Windows PCs littering my logfiles with bogus porn referers should stop today. I’ll still get the requests and the bandwidth waste will continue, but at least I won’t have to look at it everyday. If you’re being troubled by this, you’re welcome to use the Apache config snippets below. I *hope* this works: it’s hard to tell if you’ve been successful when you’re trying to make something invisible.
Continue reading “removing porn referer spam”
Month: July 2003
monks, cowled, and Monk, Thelonius
FOR all its woes, nowhere beats Silicon Valley for finding the next big thing in information technology. Unfortunately, the region’s entrepreneurs and engineers often fail to take into account how well their inventions mesh with social institutions. Vicky Reich and David Rosenthal, respectively a librarian and a researcher at Stanford University, are exceptions. Rather than invent a better mousetrap, they are using existing technology to imitate an important function of libraries. They want to ensure that readers will still be able to access electronic academic journals even centuries after they have been published.
Interesting: it’s not often we think of libraries as the logical progression of the old scriptoria . . .
Earlier today, I was browsing through my aggregator and found that Jenny was asking: Of course, the bigger question for me is how do libraries fit into a future where music is mostly digital and these types of services are the norm?
Is the LOCKSS project an answer? Will the music oligopoly let anyone but themselves keep archival copies? Are books — freely loaned at your local branch library — so different from music-bearing media? Yes, the duplication potential of the two forms is totally dissimilar. I still think that the solution to unlawful copying is a reasonable revenues model and sales of value-added stuff you can’t get elsewhere.
digital cocktail napkin tool
Group for User Interface Research – DENIM
DENIM is a system that helps web site designers in the early stages of design. DENIM supports sketching input, allows design at different refinement levels, and unifies the levels through zooming.
At first glance, this looks really interesting, but I’ve found it a little clunky. It would be better if I had a tablet interface, I expect: it seems to be geared toward that.
win an iPod, fame, fortune, and Ben Hammersley’s gratitude
Ben Hammersley’s Dangerous Precedent
I’m going to solicit redesigns of my sites – and the best one gets an iPod. Yep, that’s right: redesign my site into an aesthetic masterpiece, and I’ll buy you an iPod.
This should be interesting. I’d like to see some interesting design ideas from this.
the power of frameworks
Cocoa Dev Central: MyOneLineOfCodeBrowser using Cocoa and WebKit 1.0
One of the best features of Safari 1.0 is the Web Kit SDK (v1.0). This new Cocoa framework allows you to write a powerful browser with light and simple code. This easy tutorial will guide you in the making of a browser with only one line of Objective-C code.
I haven’t tried this so see if it’s really as easy as all that (if it works for me, it will work for anyone). But I like the idea of this: complete functions that anyone can use to build their own applications.
Hackers Hijack PC’s for Sex Sites
Hackers Hijack PC’s for Sex Sites
[M]ore than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have recently had their computers hijacked by hackers, who computer security experts say are using them for pornographic Web sites.
The hijacked computers, which are chosen by the hackers apparently because they have high-speed connections to the Internet, are secretly loaded with software that makes them send explicit Web pages advertising pornographic sites and offer to sign visitors up as customers.
[ . . . . ]
Computer owners can protect themselves by using firewall software or hardware, which prevent unauthorized entry and use of computers, Mr. Smith said. The rogue program does not affect the Apple Macintosh line of computers or computers running variants of the Unix operating system.
So what operating systems are affected?
alms
Paul Holbrook of Bluepenguin just dropped a sawbuck in the “replace my stolen bike” fund, bless him.
new weblog buttons
I noticed there weren’t any “Powered by FreeBSD” buttons. There are now. There’s a a gif version on this page, and I submitted that and the png version to the mother site to be added to the collection.
Fun.
trail markers for the STP
This is the only way I’ll see these, so I figured I’d take a picture.
an empty hook in my garage
I have been riding my bike into work all the week, and had a great ride in this morning, hit every light, never stopped once. Locked it up, went into work, and that was the last I saw of it.
I came out to ride home and the rack was empty, no lock, no nothing.
Just as well I hadn’t bought a bib number for the STP this weekend: it would be tough to ride to Portland without a bike.
So I’ll be looking to replace it. I found a good candidate on Ebay and the shop I bought mine from said they’d give a good deal on a replacement. And who knows, maybe someone is trying to sell it to a local shop right now. Personally, I hope they end up under a Metro bus . . . . . good thing my kids can’t read this.
There’s a Paypal link at the bottom if you feel like helping me get back on the road.