Author: Tim...

I’ve been getting loads of link spam recently. Unfortunately, I get it from many angles:

• Blog Comments – I installed the “WP-Hashcash” plugin and so far it has prevented all link spam, but I’m a bit fed up of deleting the moderated spam. It is a great plugin though!
• Article Comments – I don’t have any anti-spam protection on these, so I guess I need to do a bit of programming.
• Forum Posts – I use phpBB, so I guess I need to hunt for some plugins to help me out.
• Forum Users – I get loads of users signing up who don’t post, but have dodgy homepage URLs. I guess they are all trying to use my forum as a link farm. I have a visual confirmation check on signup, so either they are signing up manually, or they have a way round this security feature.

I usually get rid of these spam posts pretty quickly, but it does get a bit depressing having to clean up on a daily basis. Drastic measure may be taken soon 🙂

On a lighter note, I got kicked in the solar plexus last night at Karate. It was a perfectly timed heel bang on target and it doubled me over straight away. After a few seconds of not breathing I dropped to my hands and knees and waited for a few more seconds before my lungs started to work again. It was a rather odd because I remember feeling like I wanted to breath, puke and laugh all at the same time. Not the most normal combinaton. The funniest thing was, even though I couldn’t breath I managed to croak out the words, “That was a good kick!”. You gotta laugh 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Update: I’ve used the “WP-Hashcash” plugin approach on my article comments, so now they must be posted from my page, and the comment must be posted within 15 minutes of the initial request for the page. Let’s see how that works 🙂

If you think your network is safe, take a look at this. It would have been fine if it wasn’t for those pesky users!

Cheers

Tim…

This is totally cool!

http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/

Cheers

Tim…

It seems like every other post I read mentions AJAX somewhere. The whole AJAX thing seems like a total farse to me. Let’s take a quick walk through the recent history of application development:

• Back in the day everything was host-based. Everyone had dumb terminals linked to the corporate mainframe.
• Fast forward a few years and host-based computing is evil and client-server rules.
• Fast forward a few years and client-server is evil and everybody wants multi-tier architecture and browser clients, which has essentially moved us back to a variation on the host-based systems with clunky interfaces.
• Bringing us to the present, where people still want their multi-tier environments, but they want client-server style flexibility in their interfaces.

So AJAX comes to the rescue, providing client-server style controls and functionality in web pages by roping together lots of stuff we’ve been using for years. The problem is, it brings all those old problems of cross-browser compatibility back into focus.

I read an article by Frank Nimphius this morning, where he mentions some of the problems with running AJAX applications in browsers, like the “Back” button, and asks if we need an AJAX client, rather than a browser. I understand what he’s saying, but I think he’s asking the wrong question. AJAX is a cobbled together solution for a bigger problem. The problem is the browser environment, so I say fix the problem.

Browsers are good at what they were designed for, but they don’t do complex client-server type work without using poor makeshift solutions like AJAX. You can use ActiveX controls or Java Applets, but neither is universally accepted and both suffer similar problems to AJAX with respect to browser navigation. What we really need is a new standard web application client or runtime environment with all the required functionality built in. That way complex web development can move out of the dark ages. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but it’s got to beat the rag-tag AJAX solutions I’ve seen so far!

Cheers

Tim…

It’s one year ago today that I started blogging and here is the first blog post.

It’s been a year of random posts, with the odd bit of Oracle information thrown in for good measure. Thanks to anyone who’s followed the blog. I’ll try and maintain the low quality nature of this publication 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

During lane swimming, when using a lane marked as clockwise, do you:

1. Float on your back in the middle of the lane.
2. Walk a bit, swim a bit, then walk a bit more.
3. Swim anti-clockwise.
4. Swim up and down the middle of the lane, making it impossible for others to overtake.
5. Swim diagonally.
6. Stop and rest part way through the length.
7. All of the above.

Judging by the actions of one woman today, number (7) seems to be the correct answer! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…