Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
By now, most WordPress.com bloggers will have found they now have the ability to flag a referrer link as spam.
WordPress.com, the free service that hosts WordPress blogs, quietly rolled out the new feature on Friday in response to a two-month deluge of referrer spam, all generated by one Website.
The Website, semalt.com, was raining spam disguised as post views down on thousands of blogs, not just those powered by the WordPress content management system (CMS).
It wasn't exactly a rain of terror but it still left bloggers curious, worried, and ultimately pissed off -- the spam hits were skewing everyone's traffic stats!
I was writing a post about Low Orbit Ion Cannons (really) but then this Kate Upton in zero gravity story broke.
At first blush I'm inclined to declare that it's the greatest event in aviation history -- I could be overreacting.
But probably not. Forget about putting a man on the moon! Putting a woman -- Kate Upton -- in a zero gravity plane along with a pile of photographers and stylists and then repeatedly looping-the-loop, all for the 2014 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. That's aerospace history in the making.
And they filmed it! Mesmerizing!
Monday, February 10, hackers are reported to have exploited a fundamental weakness in the Internet itself to stage a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against unidentified computer servers in Europe.
Rather than exploiting flaws in a computer operating system, Monday's attack instead used known weaknesses in the Network Time Protocol (NTP), a nearly 30-year-old Internet system used to synchronize computer clocks around the world.
The attack was against a client of the online security firm Cloudflare,
Cloudflare's CEO Matthew Prince tweeted word of the attack on one of his clients, describing it as "very big" -- about 400 gigabits per second (Gbps) -- the "biggest" of its kind. 100Gbps larger than an attack on anti-spam service Spamhaus last year. He also said his company was mitigating the effects of the attack.
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1960 ad for Ohio Art's Etch A Sketch. Look familiar?[/caption]
For better or worse the baby boomer generation of post-Second World War babies are amazing. Never have so many people been born in such a short time: Seventy-eight-or-so million children were born in the U.S. alone between 1945 and 1964 -- the broadest time span for Boomerdom.
Even their dreams are amazing: so many boomers have the same dreams at the same time, they can't help but become everyone's dreams.
I'm typing this post on one of those dreams: a laptop.
Boomers didn't invent computers, they invented personal computers, to replace the impersonal kind of main- and mini-frame computers their parents invented and which they used in colleges and universities around the world -- they were the most educated generation in human history after all.
1960 ad for Ohio Art's Etch A Sketch. Look familiar?[/caption]For better or worse the baby boomer generation of post-Second World War babies are amazing. Never have so many people been born in such a short time: Seventy-eight-or-so million children were born in the U.S. alone between 1945 and 1964 -- the broadest time span for Boomerdom.
Even their dreams are amazing: so many boomers have the same dreams at the same time, they can't help but become everyone's dreams.
I'm typing this post on one of those dreams: a laptop.
Boomers didn't invent computers, they invented personal computers, to replace the impersonal kind of main- and mini-frame computers their parents invented and which they used in colleges and universities around the world -- they were the most educated generation in human history after all.
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Maybe you can use your old "feature" phone as more than just an emergency paper clip.[/caption]
The most popular tablets are essentially scaled up smart phones that don't make phone calls. Critics who pointed this out back in 2010, asked why people with an iPhone would ever want an iPad. Today the question is reversed: people with iPads and Android tablets are actually beginning to wonder if they still need their smart phones. Maybe all they need are their smart tablets and a dumb phone.
Predictions of the death of old-school "feature phones" (that flip-phone you have in a box with your Palm organizer and VHS tapes) at the hands of iOS- and Android-based smart phones may have been premature. The same features that made smart phones look so good: touchscreens, applications, cameras and Internet connectivity, actually look and work much better on tablet computers.
Maybe you can use your old "feature" phone as more than just an emergency paper clip.[/caption]The most popular tablets are essentially scaled up smart phones that don't make phone calls. Critics who pointed this out back in 2010, asked why people with an iPhone would ever want an iPad. Today the question is reversed: people with iPads and Android tablets are actually beginning to wonder if they still need their smart phones. Maybe all they need are their smart tablets and a dumb phone.
Predictions of the death of old-school "feature phones" (that flip-phone you have in a box with your Palm organizer and VHS tapes) at the hands of iOS- and Android-based smart phones may have been premature. The same features that made smart phones look so good: touchscreens, applications, cameras and Internet connectivity, actually look and work much better on tablet computers.
Note: This trick only applies to blogs hosted on wordpress.com. It doesn't apply to self-hosted blogs using the wordpress.org application.
When you create or edit a post on your wordpress.com blog, you can select a word range or an image and use the "Insert/edit link" tool to create a clickable Hyperlink to an external Web site, or another post on your blog.
In the "Insert/edit link" window there are two fields: "URL" -- where you enter the address of the Web site or post, and "Title" -- anything you type in this field appears as a floating "tooltip" when the the mouse cursor hovers over the link.
You can use the Link feature to add just a tooltip -- if you want. It's very simple.
- Add a link as normal. use any proper Web site address, and enter your tooltip.
- Ignore the "Open link in a new window/tab" checkbox.
- Click "Add link."
- Switch the editing view tab (top right corner) from "Visual" to "Text"
- Find your link and title in the HTML text.
If one lump turns out to be a <a title="Not a word but it
should be!" href="https://www.sqwabb.wordpress.com/">hypothermic
</a> panhandler...
- Carefully delete just the Web site URL (in red):
If one lump turns out to be a <a title="Not a word but it
should be!">hypothermic</a> panhandler...
Switch the editing view back to "Visual."
Now in Preview mode, when you hover your mouse over your "neutered" link word it will turn red and display the tooltip title, but that's all. In the actual post where I made a title link I used the "Select text colour" tool to colour the word similar to a Hyperlink to hint that that it might be worth mousing over.
That's it. I didn't say it was a really good trick.
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The lights on your router blink Morse Code messages... Okay, that's a lie.[/caption]
After a thief stole my friend's iPad last Friday. Apple made sure that the new one she bought had the content and settings of the old one. There was only one glitch: she couldn't connect to her Wi-Fi at home.
Her home network was visible in the iPad's list of available networks, It's entry showed a locked icon denoting it was encrypted and required a password. When she clicked on he home network it just failed to connect, except occasionally for a moment. It never asked for a password.
She spoke on the phone with two tech support people and one technician from Shaw Communications, her Internet provider. She also made one or two trips to her Apple reseller. The technician suggested her wireless router wasn't broadcasting a strong enough signal, but no one she spoke to could give her a solution. A service visit was scheduled for Thursday.
The lights on your router blink Morse Code messages... Okay, that's a lie.[/caption]After a thief stole my friend's iPad last Friday. Apple made sure that the new one she bought had the content and settings of the old one. There was only one glitch: she couldn't connect to her Wi-Fi at home.
Her home network was visible in the iPad's list of available networks, It's entry showed a locked icon denoting it was encrypted and required a password. When she clicked on he home network it just failed to connect, except occasionally for a moment. It never asked for a password.
She spoke on the phone with two tech support people and one technician from Shaw Communications, her Internet provider. She also made one or two trips to her Apple reseller. The technician suggested her wireless router wasn't broadcasting a strong enough signal, but no one she spoke to could give her a solution. A service visit was scheduled for Thursday.
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How's it snowing at 12th and Hemlock if it's not snowing at Broadway and Granville?[/caption]
Pusher, a digital creative agency in Australia, created an online Christmas card back in 2011 which is still impressing people two years later. The revised Pusher Christmas 2012 uses your address to show a scene of it snowing where you live. Neat trick.
A friend of mine received a link to the card from a friend of hers; both of them were amazed. My friend showed it to me, and I was also suitably impressed, but I could see how they did it. It was a clever use of the Google Maps Street View API.
Pusher is using a Google API (Application Programming Interface) to pipe the search results from Google Maps Street View onto their own page result and overlaying it with a transparent looping animation made using Adobe Flash.
How's it snowing at 12th and Hemlock if it's not snowing at Broadway and Granville?[/caption]Pusher, a digital creative agency in Australia, created an online Christmas card back in 2011 which is still impressing people two years later. The revised Pusher Christmas 2012 uses your address to show a scene of it snowing where you live. Neat trick.
A friend of mine received a link to the card from a friend of hers; both of them were amazed. My friend showed it to me, and I was also suitably impressed, but I could see how they did it. It was a clever use of the Google Maps Street View API.
Pusher is using a Google API (Application Programming Interface) to pipe the search results from Google Maps Street View onto their own page result and overlaying it with a transparent looping animation made using Adobe Flash.
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There are computer viruses, malware, spyware, and the variously named Conduit Toolbars.[/caption]
Today I got to once again eXPerience Microsoft's most venerable, and vulnerable, operating system as I cleaned up the doo-doo after a friend's update of Adobe's desktop Flash.
Adobe thinks nothing of letting out-and-out spyware piggyback on it's Flash installers and updaters; it's called a "bundled download." Adobe give you the chance to disallow the third-party ware to install along with Flash,but you have to be paying attention. Lots of people trust Adobe, like my friend did. These days, trusting in Adobe updaters gets you not just Flash, but new Web browser features in the form of the Conduit Search spyware.
There are computer viruses, malware, spyware, and the variously named Conduit Toolbars.[/caption]Today I got to once again eXPerience Microsoft's most venerable, and vulnerable, operating system as I cleaned up the doo-doo after a friend's update of Adobe's desktop Flash.
Adobe thinks nothing of letting out-and-out spyware piggyback on it's Flash installers and updaters; it's called a "bundled download." Adobe give you the chance to disallow the third-party ware to install along with Flash,but you have to be paying attention. Lots of people trust Adobe, like my friend did. These days, trusting in Adobe updaters gets you not just Flash, but new Web browser features in the form of the Conduit Search spyware.
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The owl-eyed will notice changes to the former investigative offices of the Vancouver Police.[/caption]
There's lots to see in the neighbourhood around the Go Green bottle depot at 7th Avenue and Ontario Street. But none of us customers are there to sight-see, we're there to return our bottles and get our money. While some of the other binners only give a hoot about taking their money and going downtown to get a hoot, once I've cashed in, I'm willing to look around.
One street south, on Ontario Street, there's the historic Anza Club, and across from the Anza is another interesting building, well it looks more like a fortress. and -- speaking of hoots, wouldn't you know it -- that's where the social media company HootSuite Media, Inc. has taken roost.
The owl-eyed will notice changes to the former investigative offices of the Vancouver Police.[/caption]There's lots to see in the neighbourhood around the Go Green bottle depot at 7th Avenue and Ontario Street. But none of us customers are there to sight-see, we're there to return our bottles and get our money. While some of the other binners only give a hoot about taking their money and going downtown to get a hoot, once I've cashed in, I'm willing to look around.
One street south, on Ontario Street, there's the historic Anza Club, and across from the Anza is another interesting building, well it looks more like a fortress. and -- speaking of hoots, wouldn't you know it -- that's where the social media company HootSuite Media, Inc. has taken roost.
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The building block of a new wireless future is the size of a box of Fererro Rocher chocolates.[/caption]
Alcatel-Lucent may have the answer to one of the wireless broadband industry's biggest problems -- their cumbersome, expensive-to-expand, network infrastructure. Over a year ago, the former Bell Labs unveiled a radically new system for broadcasting a wireless network. It's called LightRadio, and it can put much of a giant cell tower in the palm of your hand. It promises to be everything the current wireless networks aren't: Easily scaleable, low on power consumption, and high on performance.
The building block of a new wireless future is the size of a box of Fererro Rocher chocolates.[/caption]Alcatel-Lucent may have the answer to one of the wireless broadband industry's biggest problems -- their cumbersome, expensive-to-expand, network infrastructure. Over a year ago, the former Bell Labs unveiled a radically new system for broadcasting a wireless network. It's called LightRadio, and it can put much of a giant cell tower in the palm of your hand. It promises to be everything the current wireless networks aren't: Easily scaleable, low on power consumption, and high on performance.
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