Spam is a huge problem on the Internet. Anyone with an Internet account is well aware of this issue.
One way to deal with spam is by filtering it out before or after you download your email. I use InBoxer for this purpose.
The shortcoming of simply filtering spam is that it has very little impact on the spammers themselves and therefore makes their job no harder. The result is that they just keep on sending out spam. There is another way…
One way to thwart the attempts of email harvesters (those the run “spiders” to scan sites for email addresses) is the spam spider loop technique. What the heck is that? Well, it works like this. You put a link on your page that goes to a page with a list of random fake email addresses. At the end of that list is a link that goes to a similar page of more random fake email addresses. At the end of that list is yet another link… ad infinitum. This puts the spider into an infinite loop.
I am not sure what impact this has at the end of the day. But I think it is a neat idea. If you wish to participate in fighting back against spammers in this way then check out the following:
Anti Spam - Antispam fights spam and is free a tool that’s easy to use
Technorati : anti spam
If you are serious about having your web content seen by the public it is vital to have your site scanned and monitored by the various major search engines. One means of achieving this is through the use of site-maps. A site map might be an actual web page on your site (that the public can view to see an overview of your site) or it might just be a special site map file that only the search engines use—literally providing the search engine with a map of what you would like it so scan and record from your website and blog.
There are many tools available for generating site maps. Some you pay for, and some are free.
There’s a great free site map service available on AuditMyPC. Check it out.
Technorati : free site map generator
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Ice Rocket : free site map generator
Flickr : free site map generator
Zooomr : free site map generator
Buzznet : free site map generator
Riya : free site map generator
Accurate speed test at AuditMyPC
Do you want to accurately test the speed of your internet connection? It’s not as easy as it seems.
I’ve tried the tool from www.tcpiq.com which also provides monitoring of other users results. I found, however, that the results were always much lower than testing the speed myself by downloading a large file and monitoring the average speed. This led me to look for other online testing options. The best one I have found so far is located on the AuditMyPC site.
The internet connection speed test at AuditMyPC uses a small Java applet (so you will need to have a fairly recent version of the Java virtual machine installed). As far as I can ascertain if provides very accurate results. The site claims it is the most accurate internet speed tester on the internet.
To test your internet connection speed now or any time you wish to know just how fast or slow it is go directly to the test here (http://www.auditmypc.com/internet-speed-test.asp)
Technorati : speed test adsl cable
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Flickr : speed test adsl cable
Zooomr : speed test adsl cable
Buzznet : speed test adsl cable
This little plug-in has a very simple, silent, and useful feature. Essentially it ensures that your blog will only ping the various blog tracking servers when you publish a new blog entry, and not when you edit an existing entry. There is really no reason to ping these servers when you have updated.
This plug-in can be found at: http://www.daven.se/usefulstuff/wordpress-plugins.html
It took me some time to figure this one out. I found many sites / blogs / wikis / forums giving very elaborate instructions on how to do this, but they all seemed much to complicated. What I wanted to do seemed like a simple “want” to me. How do I access my Ubuntu linux box remotely (over the LAN) from a windows xp machine? My linux machine runs Ubuntu. If you are trying to RD into another distro you will have to modify these instructions accordingly. So here is what I did:
- Activate XDMCP on Ubuntu - SYSTEM >> Preferences >> Remote Desktop - “Allow other users to view your desktop” - “Allow other users to control your desktop”
- Install Cygwin/X onto the Windows XP machine. - Download and run setup.exe from http://www.cygwin.com/ - Install the standard packages on Cycwin/X along with :
- X11 –> X-Startup-scripts - X11 –> xorg-x11-base (this will set a lot of x11 dependencies to install also — you want to install these)
- Run Cycgwin
- In the Cgywim terminal enter the following command: $ XWin.exe :1.0 -unixkill -scrollbars -screen 0 1280 1024 -emulate3buttons -once -query (NAME / IP) & Put the name of the linux computer or its IP address
- You should then see the Ubuntu login page. Voila.
It’s possible I installed one or two other things on the Ubuntu system. I don’t recall just now as I tried so many other ways to get this functionality working I now forget exactly what was done for what. If you try the above and it does not work, let me know and I’ll figure out what else has to go onto the Ubuntu system. I know I installed freeNX although I am not sure if this was for the Cygwin connection or not. If you want to use SSH to Ubuntu via Cygwin there are some instructions here. I tried various SSH related ways of going about this. SSH from Windows directly and SSH via the Cygwin terminal. I kept getting the error that the port was not open. I tried port 177 (which XDCMP users) and 5901 and others, all to no avail. I am not sure how to make these ports available from Ubuntu. But the Xwin route works great.
A little extra info on this tip can be found here, along with links for further research
There are many ways to create Acrobat PDF files. The expensive way is by using Adobe Acrobat Professional. Unless you plan on making high-grade Press Ready postscript PDF files for offset print production (and the like) it is likely the pricey Acrobat Professional is not required for your PDF creation requirements. There are many other tools available, some free and some you pay for. One I found today is Nitro PDF.
Nitro PDF Professional is a high-quality, affordable PDF creation and editing application that puts the full power of PDF within everyone’s reach. In addition to providing the basics — powerful, robust PDF creation at an extremely affordable price — Nitro PDF Professional includes the full range of top-shelf PDF functionality, opening up new vistas for current and new users of PDF.
The investment is US$89.10
Check it out on there site at www.nitropdf.com
I am a great advocate of mind mapping. I’ve utilising mind maps since I was a teenager at school when I was taking notes in class. If you are not sure what mind mapping is then find out more on the Wikipedia. Essentially mind mapping is a non-linear way of organising information that more closely resembles the way your brain stores data and makes associations between units of data. Working with information externally (outside your brain) in a way that is similar to how your brains works with that data internally has a lot of benefits.
For the last few years I have been using an excellent mind mapping application called MindManager. It costs a couple of hundred US$, so it ain’t cheap. It also won’t run on Linux and Mindjet (the developer of MindManager) indicated to me they have no intention of porting it over to Linux.
Now there is another option… free and with cross-platform support.
Freemind
“FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map) software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click “fold / unfold” and “follow link” operations. So you want to write a completely new metaphysics? Why don’t you use FreeMind? You have a tool at hand that remarkably resembles the tray slips of Robert Pirsig, described in his sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance called Lila. Do you want to refactor your essays in a similar way you would refactor software? Or do you want to keep personal knowledge base, which is easy to manage? Why don’t you try FreeMind? Do you want to prioritize, know where you are, where you’ve been and where you are heading, as Stephen Covey would advise you? Have you tried FreeMind to keep track of all the things that are needed for that?”
Main Page - FreeMind - free mind mapping software
Cross compatability?
MindManager is able to import mind maps made with Freemind. There is an add-on freely available here on the MindJet site.
Freemind also has some capability to import and export MindManager maps. More info can be found here.
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