Archive for March, 2006

Over the past week or two, I’ve noticed increasing amounts of bogus referral links in my website statistics. This so called “referral spam” has nearly gotten out of control, so I’m employing yet another WordPress plugin (Referrer Bouncer) to combat this plague. The spammed referral links are interesting: poker sites, ring tone sites, and even “adult” sites. We’ll see how well this works out.

Posting may be slow over the upcoming days. I’m very busy with something that I’ll talk more about soon.

I surf Digg.com nearly every day. And the more I use the site, the more problems I see with it. Granted, the experience has improved over time, but we’re still a long way from perfection. One side effect of the democratic approach to news posting is the introduction of stories not worthy to be labeled news. Sensationalist stories show up there all the time, undoubtedly posted by people who know absolutely nothing about the topic. Recent headlines to this effect include “Autistic or just a geek? Take the test!” and “40+ suggestions for better desktop” (yes, that headline is grammatically incorrect). Do you see where we’re headed?

An internet “test” isn’t news, nor is it a scientific way of determining whether or not you have Asperger’s Syndrome. Likewise, a collection of suggestions for improving desktop software is purely opinion, not news. “So vote against the story,” you say. “It is, after all, a democratic process.”

Well, not exactly.

To “digg” a story, a user need only click once (after logging in) on the associated “digg it” button. But to vote against a story, a user has to click three times: once to open the “problem?” drop-down menu, once to select the problem, and then once on the JavaScript alert that pops up, indicating that the story has been “reported.” Reported? To whom? I thought this was a democratic process!

So, voting against a story requires three times the effort. No wonder so much crap makes the front page. If Digg would make it easier to vote against a story, using only a 1-click process, I predict things would get much better.

I’m beginning to spend more time thinking about how to upgrade my personal computer. As I have mentioned before, deciding what pieces of hardware to buy is frustratingly difficult, especially in today’s market. This time around, I’m trying to pay more attention to user reviews at sites like NewEgg, and less attention to the dedicated hardware “review” sites, which tend to consist of more previews than anything else.

I’m currently leaning towards getting the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ CPU. I’m still trying to track down a good motherboard, and then I’ll have to pick some memory and, quite possible, a new power supply. Throw in a couple of new SATA hard drives (the Maxtor drives I have are real crap), and a new graphics card, and you’ve got a brand new system.

I’m probably going to end up spending a large chunk of change on this upgrade, but I think it will be worth it. Selling my current components on eBay should offset the cost somewhat. I’ve always done a good job of taking care of my stuff, and I tend to keep the boxes that components come in, so that should help increase the price I get by auctioning them off. Plus, I’m getting a performance bonus at the end of this month at work, and that can only help.

Were I to have my way, and were I to know exactly what I want, I’d order the components today. But seeing as this upgrade is going to be rather expensive, I’m resigned to waiting a bit. I’ll clearly have to put Amazon purchases and the like on hold for several months after I make this move. The old bank account can only handle so much spending.

Born Geek now has a new look. Like it? Love it? Hate it? Comments are welcome. Lots of other stuff is going on over at our sister site, so head over and check it all out. Good times.

This looks so freaking awesome. And it seems to be getting really good reviews so far. I thoroughly enjoyed Morrowind (although the game had some annoying bugs), but I unfortunately never finished it. I lost my save games when I bought some new hard drives, and I didn’t feel like replaying 60 hours worth again (save early and often).

As I recently mentioned, I’ve been hungering for a new game to play. I don’t even recall what I bought last, and I’ve been replaying through Half-Life 2 recently; for what must be the seventh or eighth time (and it’s still a blast). Something like Oblivion will keep me hooked for hours (nearly 200 hours according to some reports), which has me very excited. Hopefully my machine can handle it. This game is apparently quite the resource hog.

It’s official: I’m an Amazon junkie. Perhaps their Prime service has spoiled me. Or perhaps it’s their incredible product selection. Regardless, last night I did something I’ve never done before online: I made an impulse purchase.

The latest Cingular Wireless ad was on television (I was watching Boston Legal with my mom), and I wondered who sang the song that they were playing. I knew it sounded a lot like Genesis, but I wasn’t sure. A quick Google search for the lyrics and a subsequent trip to Wikipedia answered my question and pointed me to the first Peter Gabriel album (the song is Solsbury Hill). So I went to Amazon, took one look, and bought the album (along with a few other items I’ve had my eye on). Is that crazy or what?

Born Geek serves an average of 1,475 page requests every day. In the last month alone, there have been over 26,500 successful page requests, resulting in over 705 megabytes of data served up (an average of 39 megabytes a day). That’s a fair amount of traffic for what I consider a tiny developer like myself.

This past Thursday over lunch, Brett Clippingdale jokingly suggested that, with as much traffic as I serve, I should look at Google’s AdSense program. And that got me to thinking…

Making some money would be great, but this is advertising: the bane of all people, everywhere. My dad pointed out that Google’s ads are often the least offensive (both visually and content-wise), which takes a little of the sting out of the idea of showing ads on my webpage. At some level, however, it just seems wrong.

My question to you, the reader, is this: have you had any experience with the AdSense program? Read about anyone who has? Actually Googling on it turns up lots of junk (interestingly enough), so I’m looking for real, honest opinions on the program as a whole. If you know of any, I’d appreciate you passing them along.

I have several projects cooking at the moment, and the following is a brief rundown on where I’m at with each:

Googlebar Lite 4.0
The new search history system is working like a charm and is now feature complete. I am currently wrestling with whether or not I should include a fix for the highlighting system (disabling highlighting within input fields). Unfortunately, implementing this fix has been a challenge and I have yet to find an appealing solution. Some general code cleanup still needs to take place (a number of old search history code will be removed), and the “Paste and Search” feature needs to get turned back on. If I decide not to work on the highlighting fix, this might be available in a couple of weeks. Otherwise, it’ll be somewhat longer.

Toolbar Tutorial Updates
I have two more chapters to complete in the Firefox 1.5 toolbar tutorial. It was my hope to get that done this weekend, but it’s looking more and more like that might not happen. Once the tutorial is done, I’ll begin considering how to phase out the older 1.0.x version.

Born Geek Redesign
My lack of artistic ability has been a real road block on this, but I’ve finally come up with a design that’s fresh, clean, and simple. I’m bound to tweak it further, but I think I’m ready to port the design over to my localhost website replica. Once I see the design imposed on every page, I can get a better feel for how things need to be tweaked (and whether the design as a whole works or not). I’m estimating another three or four weeks on this one.

Miscellaneous Stuff
Currently on the back burner are two more Firefox tutorials: advanced toolbars and a guide on profiles. Both are merely sparks of imagination at this point, but perhaps I can get something started in the next month or so. One day I’d also like to get around to updating my wallpaper application (Paper Plus). There are several needed features that I’ve been too lazy to implement.

I recently purchased a copy of Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar from my favorite online retail outlet, Amazon. The book takes a behind-the-scenes look at the artistic development of the game, including a number of things that were cut from the final product. At 288 pages, it provides a great glimpse of the game-making process, especially as far as art direction is concerned. I’ve only read a tiny fraction of the book, but so far it’s been enjoyable … a highly recommended read.

In the online world, Garry’s Mod for Half-Life 2 has resulted in some great online comics. My favorite is without a doubt Concerned, a strip that follows the “Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman.” The writing is excellent, the visuals are top-notch, and the entire strip is hilarious. You have to start from the beginning to fully appreciate the strip. Anyone who has played the game will certainly get a kick out of it. New comics are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. As such, I’ve added it to my weekly online funnies list (which includes the likes of Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny Arcade!, and The Joy of Tech). Some other good Half-Life related strips can be found at PHW Online. It’s great to see such clever use of gaming technology.

Two new updates over at Born Geek:

A brand new release (version 1.3) of my CoLT extension is now available. This new release adds an option to allow the “Copy Link Text and Location” menu item to appear as a sub-menu, providing quick access to all 3 copy formats.

Also, chapter 6 of my Firefox 1.5 toolbar tutorial has been posted. I’ve also fixed another bug that was lurking down in the toolbar style sheet. Please let me know if you find any other problems in the tutorial … I want to stamp them all out.