Backlinking, is there are better way?

Posted on October 31, 2002 by Pace Arko

Happy Halloween!

Anyway, while reading the redesigned Blogdex, I came across an article about backlinking and web logs. This interested me so I figured I’d add a little heat and noise to the conversation.

So far as I know, there are basically two ways to trace links to a page back to the pages that link to them:

  • Use a search engine. Many of the major engines have advanced settings to allow you to do something like this.
  • Use your web server log files. Browsers, unless they’re using a proxy or something to hide this information, often send web servers location information about the page they’ve previously requested when requesting new pages.

The problem with using a search engine is that the search engines don’t spider more obscure sites as frequently as others which means their database is often a few weeks out of date. For example, I wasn’t aware that Graham Leuschke, a guy I don’t even know, mistook me for someone else back in August until today. (Just to set to set the record straight, I am not the Web Nouveau guy. I had a few brief conversations with him back when I added a few of my sites to his list but that was about it.)

The problems with using server logs is that they can be spammed by robots and they meaningless if a visitor is using a browser set up that hides referrer information. Mark Pilgrim has thought about ways to deal with the spambot problem but he hasn’t said anything about browsers that hide page references.

It’s kind of a moot point in my case anyway. The Fish doesn’t run MySQL on this server anyway so I can’t use Movable Type, which has an automated way of assembling backlinks to other servers that use Movable Type. I guess that’s a call for me to start setting these things up myself.

Posted in The Internet, Webmastering | Comments Off on Backlinking, is there are better way?

Junkbuster Update and the Human Clock

Posted on October 30, 2002 by Pace Arko
  • Privoxy is the geek’s tool (Read that as, “you have to have a vague understanding how HTTP and proxies work in order to use it.”) for combating popups and other forms of obnoxious Web advertising. It is a revision of the original Internet Junkbuster code and greatly extends its power and functionality. Joe Bob says check it out.
  • The Human Clock is a site that shows a new image of a person holding the current time once every minute, 24 hours a day. You can set it to be digital or analog and set it to your correct timezone.
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A better keyboard and MEMS

Posted on October 23, 2002 by Pace Arko

Can’t think of anything compelling to write today so, I offer the following:

  • Peter Klausler attempts to answer the following question: Could an evolutionary design algorithm and a huge input sample discover a better keyboard arrangement?
  • While not quite nanotech, micro-electromechanical systems can do many of the same things as nanotech and they pose many similar engineering challanges. This image gallery at Sandia Labs has some interesting scanning electron micrographs of some simple MEMS.
Posted in Science and Engineering | Comments Off on A better keyboard and MEMS

When Consumer Society Went Wrong

Posted on October 22, 2002 by Pace Arko

Today, I fixed my old Emerson Electric desk fan. This monster was built back in the nineteen-forties or the nineteen thirties and it really shows–solid steel everywhere and everything is designed to be taken apart and reassembled. It could probably survive a nuclear weapon detonation at 1000 meters and still work! It weighs a ton and you could probably power the drive-train of a minivan with the torque the electric motor puts out. How come they don’t build consumer goods that way anymore?

As I was repairing the fan, I thought about the disposability of consumer goods. When did this begin? My generation simply throws things away when they break; it’s almost automatic. A button comes off a shirt and you give it to charity. Your shoes wear out and you toss them in the trash. If your chair breaks, you can’t burn it so, into the bin it goes.

When did this start? It seems like there was once a time when they designed things to be repaired. Why did they start building tools so that you couldn’t easily separate materials? They could have kept a lot of things out of landfills if they did.

If a part breaks on my fan, only that part has to be replaced and that part is usually made of one type of material so it’s easily recycled. When I look at modern fans (Or most modern gadgets for that matter.) it’s all plastic molded directly to the metal and everything is held together with glue or easily broken clips and tabs. If something breaks, that’s it: Throw it away. People don’t have the time to fix things anymore but even still, it seems like modern consumer design actively discourages any attempts at repair. I guess it’s just cheaper to manufacture things that way. It’s kind of sad.

I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to learn how to fix their own possessions, there are paid technicians for that. It’s just that somethings are difficult to impossible for even them to repair, given this merged, composite, build-once-repair-never design of things.

And now we are paying for it. Many plastics can’t be classified for recycling because their composition isn’t standardized. Many landfill items are a monolithic–part glass, part metal, part wood and part plastic with no easy way to separate components into different materials. Of course recycling technology keeps getting better–eventually nanotech will allow us to recycle anything made of ordinary matter–but until then it looks like we are wasting a lot of money that could be avoided.

Posted in Personal, The Future | Comments Off on When Consumer Society Went Wrong

CSS, nuclear materials tracking and the loose, wanton ways of Windows

Posted on October 16, 2002 by Pace Arko
  • For quick summation of some great CSS hacks, visit Real World Style.
  • If you have NT 4, Windows 2000 or XP and you’ve looked at the service settings in MMC, you’ll find something called Windows Messenger service. Windows systems, including Win9x, use this service to send some system error messages and network alerts to you. By default this service is switched on and starts everytime you start Windows. Not too surprisingly, considering the loose ways of Windows in its attempts to be easy and functional for everyone, someone has figured out a way to send spam via this service. Install and configure your firewalls folks. Or learn if you can turn the service off. Errors tend to be written to log files anyway, at least in NT they do.
  • Bush the Sequel, instead of attempting to revive the boondoggle of SDI, would spend our money more wisely if he tells Congress to invest in a network of active and passive gamma ray sensors on our country’s streets, ports and air fields.
Posted in Security and Privacy | Comments Off on CSS, nuclear materials tracking and the loose, wanton ways of Windows

The Penny is Garbage Money!

Posted on October 14, 2002 by Pace Arko

I hate that jar of pennies I have. I hate having to pack pennies into little rolls to take to the bank. I have a little pocket on my equipment vest just for pennies and other useless change and, I make it a point to always leave my apartment with 4 pennies from my jar in hopes that I can get rid of them but, this isn’t enough. It doesn’t empty my penny jar.

I think a law should be passed: metal change can only come in quarter units. The quarter is only thing that buys anything anymore now that more and mover vending slots, pay phones and parking meters take only quarters–pretty soon dimes and nickles will be as hard to get rid of as pennies.

There is only one good thing that comes out of all this garbage coinage that I get as change, I can donate it to various charities. But only if they provide a jar to throw the stuff in as I leave the till.

I guess I could avoid all this and just use point of sale and credit cards and stuff but I like the accounting of cash. With cash there is no checks floating in hardmail, waiting to cash out. There is no unexpected bills waiting for me at the end of the month. With cash I know the money is mine and it’s gone when I spend it. That’s direct accountability. Cash is much easier in terms of bookkeeping–either I have the money or I don’t. But if I wanna do everything in cash, I have to accept the penny. Grumble. If I were king–

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on The Penny is Garbage Money!

Radio-acoustic shaping and space elevators

Posted on October 13, 2002 by Pace Arko

New Scientist details a microgravity construction technique that uses radio waves and interference patterns to shape clouds of small particles into solid objects. I imagine by the time this technique becomes widely used, it will be supplemented with zillions of MEMS and nanobots. A few months back there was a conference here in Jet City about space elevators and, Science News covered it. Unfortunately, unlike the robotics conference I went to way back in August of last year, I didn’t go to this. Oh well.

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Announcing a new policy here at Factory Floor

Posted on October 11, 2002 by Pace Arko

As you may see, looking over the archive, I am not a very frequent poster to my log. I want to change this. I hereby promise to write at least one entry every weekday from here in. I may even throw a few weekend entries in for extra measure. This will be hard to do and I am sure that most entries will be utter junk but, I think I need to do this. Besides, this is the new century. I can always change my mind later.

Posted in Webmastering | Comments Off on Announcing a new policy here at Factory Floor

Microsoft, Wired and Standards

Posted on October 11, 2002 by Pace Arko

Personally I am hoping that the rest of the big companies, in redesigning their own sites, follow Wired’s example as opposed to Microsoft’s.

Posted in Webmastering | Comments Off on Microsoft, Wired and Standards

Pretty soon all the kids will be doing this.

Posted on October 9, 2002 by Pace Arko

A senatorial candidate in Montana, after a few years of imbibing colloidal silver, turns his skin blue permanently. Maybe it’s just me but, why isn’t it surprising that his party afiliation is Libertarian?

Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Pretty soon all the kids will be doing this.