Updates, this that and those other things... · Monday July 29, 2013 by colin newell
Nothing like staying awake several hours in the night worried about the fact that two of your main websites are dysfunctional after a suggested system update.
In this case, a software update was made to my main coffee website and my main telecom/radio website.
The radio website has a huge technical library on board with a modest subscription service…
meaning I get some coins when someone wants to browse the growing library.
And that makes sense – In many years, my tech library gets upwards of 60,000 document downloads.
That is bandwidth that I have to pay for.
Since instituting a fee subscription service (and a request for donations to keep the service running), the response has been very favorable.
Meaning if you need something, all you need do is ask.
Because everyone is generous… for the most part.
And what of the guitar? I am currently testing out an amazing “black box” for a company that I cannot currently name – it is actually a vocal processor that does natural sounding harmonizing, pitch correction, commercial grade effects rack, phantom power for commercial microphones and lots more. At some point, if I get permission I will review it – and you will get to hear me sing… in many different ways.
Yea. Look forward to that!
Comment [1]
Shaming the forum/comment referral spammers - chapter 1 · Saturday February 23, 2013 by colin newell
Forum spam and website defacement in the form of comment/blog/forum unsolicited shills and ads cost webmasters and editors millions of dollars a year.
I got so fed up with it on one of my websites that I instituted a new registration policy that requires an authentic e-mail address for the user to post anything on my site – As a result I have been regularly harvesting the most notorious of these vandals – with fresh e-mails ready to post to sites like: http://www.stopforumspam.com/ their mission to out these shameful crumbs and the large corporations that they work for.
Here are some examples of actual authenticated e-mail addresses that were used to register on one of my websites that would likely vandalize, deface and spam my forums with referral ads:
reoton@onlinepharmacy-levitra.com – via@viagranowdirect.com – xcvss@lvbagsjapan.com – weeraitale@gmail.com (username – buy zithromax ) – lfqaq@louisvuittonhandbagsprices.info – kevin@onlinepharmacy-order.com –
Forum and comment spammers cost us web folks millions of dollars in clean up every year – they are the lowest form of life on the World wide web and need to be shamed and stopped. They benefit by riding on the success of popular websites and are, sadly, a common method for large corporations to cheaply get their message out.
I have e-mailed hundreds of companies over the years asking why they roam the internet defacing websites to improve their bottom line: Quite often they respond with “We did not know this was going on…” or “We will definitely get to the bottom of this!” I have even been threatened with a law suit after outing a series of forum spammers on the very website they were spamming!
Like I said, they are the lowest form of internet life.
How can you help? Visit support sites like StopForumSpam and out these hucksters and their billionaire partners.
Growing it for a cause - Movember · Friday November 2, 2012 by colin newell
Here is a photo of my UVic – Systems Movember team – feel free to help the cause against cancer – we are growing it, not mowing it – to raise awareness and fight a nasty disease.
Left to right: Paul S. (CIO UVic Systems), Matt S, Donny L, Yours truly, Ryan P, Ryan E, Corey S.
Click here to toss us a couple bucks.
Thanks!
Summer Food Fun and Drink 15 Life in the now lane · Thursday July 29, 2010 by colin newell
One of the neat things about being over 40 – and being fairly hip to what is hot and happening in the early part of the 21st Century…
Is the fact that I am old enough to remember going into a record store to buy LP’s – when cassettes were actually available…
Photo at right: New copyright protection laws and digital locks – technology and new media – Stephen Harper wants to know: What’s on your iPod!?
(And)Seeing the arrival of CD’s in the early eighties was way cool as well.
I can recall shopping out my first CD Player (a Sony) with my one CD I owned… and then previewing the performance of new systems with Dire Straits “Brother in Arms” release (which by the way was the first million selling CD in 1985) – yes, I waited until at least 1985 to get my first CD player.
My Amp was (and is with my Mom now) a Class-A JVC high end amp with a pair of Boston Acoustic speakers (that I think need a re-coning by now…)
There was a time in the late 70’s when home video tape arrived in the form of the VHS and Beta tape – ushering in an era of home video rentals – something that is quickly going the route of DVD rentals. When DVD rentals arrived I think a lot of us figured that “this was it…” – this is the medium for home entertainment that was here to stay.
Then Blue-ray. And in some senses, that technology has hardly dug in its heels and the rental market is entirely drying up as viable internet downloading of individual shows as well as broadband on demand is becoming more available to the average person.
My point? I have seen it all – from the late sixties and album oriented masterpieces on vinyl from the likes of Led Zeppelin – and I heard ever album as they were released!
Nowadays one does not even need to leave their living room to acquire every bit of “entertainment” that is available. No need for video or DVD rental. No need for record stores. Game rentals? History my friend.
And I think that we are all poorer without the whole community experience. One wonders what kind of people we will become when we only need to go out for work or food. I wonder.
As of today, I have still managed to not download one song off of the internet – and I have never downloaded a TV show or movie. Call me square if you want – but I work with this technology all day. Which might explain something.
Currently, what is left of the music industry (and movie empire) is quickly trying to come up with some tough new standards on protecting intellectual property. I am all for supporting the artist – but everything so far has not worked.
Anyway. Stay tuned. Let’s see what is next.
Comment [1]
Summer Food Fun and Drink 14 Six years later and a re-launch · Wednesday July 28, 2010 by colin newell
Who is writing a book on global microfinance for Bloomsbury, puzzle maker for the New York Times op-ed section, travel writer, Forbes Traveler, author of Who Hates Whom, a pocket guide to global conflict outlining more than 30 of the world’s active wars and hot spots?
He is a former writer for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – season 3 in which yours truly had a minute writing role – and a freelance writer for the show “Bones”…
Deep breath…
And a consulting producer for El Pantera, Mexico’s top original action series, former AP award-winning nationally syndicated radio commentator, former on-camera presenter for the TLC series Mostly True Stories, and a winner of over $350,000 in cash and prizes on Jeopardy! and other quiz shows…
He is Bob Harris of Los Angeles California and I have been his web specialist since 2004!
In the last couple of weeks we have been doing a soft launch of the new BobHarris.com online phenomenon. Bob, in the upcoming days, weeks and months will add to the nearly 1600 articles on the classic BobHarris.com website.
And integrate the other social media elements of Bob’s life into one great big shiny experience; Twitter, Facebook meets Web 2.0
Enjoy Bob’s website – and let me know if something is not working quite right.
