Yet Another Web Site

Classmates.com sucks:

• $39/year to see content one can get for free on Facebook or MySpace
• Classmates.com periodically sends email informing one of new content that cannot be seen unless one is a paying customer
• Classmates.com has so many adds it puts MySpace to shame

MovableType: 3 Years Too Late?

I made the switch from Movable Type to WordPress a little over two years ago largely because WordPress is open source and MovableType was not at the time. If Movable Type had been open source from the beginning, it’s possible I’d still be using it.

Remembering the First Google Bomb

Earlier today, Matt Cutts and the Google software engineering team posted an update citing the progress they’ve been making fighting Google bombs. Back in the old days, these pranks were common practice, but they’ve become less prevalent thanks to Google’s diligence.

That’s OK — link bombs are so 2001.

In January, 2001, Wired News ran an article about a humor site called Hugedisk. During the run-up to the 2000 presidential election, it linked a particularly saucy two-word term to a site selling official George W. Bush campaign merchandise. We contacted one of the Hugedisk admins and offered him the opportunity to recount his side of the story and reclaim his stolen glory. So here it is, a first-hand telling of the bomb that started it all.

I remember the “dumb motherfucker” incident. The amusing part was the site selling official George W. Bush campaign merchandise (how lame is that?) went ballistic and sent a cease and desist to one of the originators of the Google bomb.

For what it’s worth, it looks like Microsoft’s search can still be link bombed…

(via Pharyngula)

Short Version: Link to this post in the name of science.  Ask others to do the same.  Results to be announced during the "Meet the Bloggers" panel at MLA 2006.

OK, I’ll play: http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2006/11/measuring_the_s.html

A few months ago, I set up a bulletin board type system to go along with my Drum and Bugle Corps web site. I originally used phpBB, but I found a bit too difficult to customize and a bit too bloated for the kind of community driven web site I’m trying to create.

I recently decided to try bbPress since I was already using WordPress and there’s some level of integration between them. I used this script to import the phpBB data into bbPress.

Even though it’s still not quite 1.0 yet (it’s currently 0.73) It looks like bbPress is a good fit for I want to do.

MySpace returns after power outage

The popular social-networking site, which recently topped Yahoo Mail as the most-visited Web site in the United States, was disabled entirely as of 6:40 p.m. Pacific time Sunday.

The home page was replaced by a placeholder with a message from MySpace founder Tom Anderson, who said that the site was dealing with a power outage in its data center. He cited the time as 6:40 p.m. Pacific and estimated that MySpace would “hopefully” be back up within the hour. “Wanna place a bet?” Anderson quipped in the note.

As of about 6 a.m. Pacific on Monday, the site was back up.

I find these social networking sites rather useless and MySpace is probably the worst one of the bunch. For the record, I do actually have a MySpace page, which is useless and redundant, but it is at least readable.

I’ve recently started learning Ruby. One could ask “why learn yet another scripting language, especially since Perl has served so well these past several years?” The only reason is the object oriented features of Perl seem tacked on as an afterthought, while Ruby is a is a complete, full, pure object oriented language: OOL (object oriented language).

While messing around with Ruby, I stumbled upon tDiary, a Web-based diary system (like weblog) written in Ruby. tDiary is pretty slick because it doesn’t require a database to set up. I decided to give it a try using the free web space provided by my isp.

Feel free to check it out: Yet Another Web Log

Abe Vigoda Status :

When Firefox starts up, this extension automatically fetches Abe Vigoda’s current status, and displays it in a small panel on the status bar. It periodically does so again every so often, so that you always have relatively recent information on Abe Vigoda’s status.

I’m going to have to learn to write Firefox extensions — you have to like a browser that lets you add cool and useless features.

Want to display this site’s Quote of the Day on your web site? Just copy the following code and insert it anywhere on your web page.

See it in action here. You can also check out the the last 30 quotes of the day.

(via the DNRC newsletter)

People who are trying to decide whether to create a blog or not go through a thought process much like this:

1. The world sure needs more of ME.
2. Maybe I’ll shout more often so that people nearby can experience the joy of knowing my thoughts.
3. No, wait, shouting looks too crazy.
4. I know – I’ll write down my daily thoughts and badger people to read them.
5. If only there was a description for this process that doesn’t involve the words egomaniac or unnecessary.
6. What? It’s called a blog? I’m there!

The blogger’s philosophy goes something like this:

Everything that I think about is more fascinating than the crap in your head.

The beauty of blogging, as compared to writing a book, is that no editor will be interfering with my random spelling and grammar, my complete disregard for the facts, and my wandering sentences that seem to go on and on and never end so that you feel like you need to take a breath and clear your head before you can even consider making it to the end of the sentence that probably didn’t need to be written anyhoo.

If that doesn’t inspire you to read my blog, I don’t know what will. You can find the Dilbert Blog at http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/.

Let’s not forget Dogbert’s take on the blogging phenomenon.

Now I can join WEIGHT WATCHERS!