Skype has been out for a while, but I’ve only just started playing with it. So far, I’m very impressed.
Skype is a free voice-over-Internet client. It lets you make phone-quality voice ‘calls’ to other Skype users, for free. The ‘free’ thing is a big seller, for me. Skype does have a for-pay option of calling land-line, regular numbers, but I haven’t tried that yet.
The application install and setup was very easy, and the sound quality is suprisingly good. I’m using it with my iBook, which has an integrated microphone. If you use it with your PC, you may need to attach an external mike.
Overall, Skype is a great app, and is great tech. If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend it, especially if you have family that live far away. Free beats paying long-distance charges any day.
Newsmap is a super-cool news headline aggregator. Take a look.
So far I’ve nuked comment-spam, by using embedded graphic security codes in my comments. It sucks to have to do this, but we all know that this is war.
Next up is referer-spam, which is at an all-time high. It seems that the developers of my stats analyzer, Awstats, either don’t care or don’t know how to set up an easy method for referer blacklisting. If anyone knows of a good way to do this with Awstats, or a better stats analyzer, let me know.
Meanwhile, I’ve had some luck with modifying my .htaccess file. Here’s a sample:
< limit GET HEAD POST>
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer ".*(porn).*" BadReferrer
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer ".*(casino).*" BadReferrer
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer ".*(sex).*" BadReferrer
#
order deny,allow
deny from env=BadReferrer
< /limit>
This method sucks, because it is manual and purely reactive, but it does help. I’ve also password-protected my stats page, making it completely un-crawlable by any web spider. If you’re having problems with referer spam, I recommend you make the same change. If you really want people to be able to see your stats, you can post the username/password as an image.
I truly loathe comment-spammers, as they’re following what has to be the stupidest marketing idea ever.
Check out Trencaspammer, which forces commenters to enter in a security code before accepting comments. It should be a nice stopgap measure against comment spam, at least until WordPress 1.3 is released.
Oh yeah, the site is in Spanish, but the installation instructions are in English, and it’s not that hard to install. Edit your wp-comment-* files, and add the plugin, and you’re done.
Austrumi is a handly little Linux-based rescue disk that I’ve recently used to recover lost passwords on a Windows XP laptop.
My friend and mentor, Doug Visniski, passed away this weekend.
Doug got me my first job in Atlanta, and was my shift lead in Sprint’s IBO NOC. He had an insane amount of knowledge about networking tucked in his head, and even more knowledge about automobile mechanics. He was the only guy I knew who could remotely troubleshoot obscure physical-layer issues while putting together engine parts at his desk.
He taught me a great deal about deep physical-layer troubleshooting, and was instrumental in maintaining the outstanding quality of service provided by the Sprint backbone during his many years with the company.
Doug is survived by his two children, Brett and Darion.
He will be missed.
For information regarding the memorial services, please see Kayvan’s site.
