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Why Does Google Buzz Suck?

Reviews

Txaaa i normally don’t use this blog for rants about products, heheh anyways, google just launched buzz, its a gmail addon for small talk and sharing of media with your friends, i just don’t understand the point, gmail is awesome because it is simple and to the point, it makes managing your e-mail a breeze, now we have chat and buzz and all kinds of random stuff in there.

We have flickr for photo sharing and photo communities and we have facebook for small talk and basic sharing, nowadays we have all this crossover sharing like posting on twitter also posts on facebook and gmail has chat and i see less and less value in it, why would i use buzz? it just adds more clutter to my e-mail its just a time waster, if you go photo sharing you will still want to post it on flickr as well, if you go talk small or just random sharing you will still want to go to facebook or twitter, so whats the point?

Google should clean up their job with orkut or jaiku, or finally launch a quality skype/pidgin gtalk software that can connect to all the major IM networks as well as provide affordable voice services (connecting with google voice) and quit this idiotic social experiments, its like all the shit with google reader, its too much bloat, after a while it stops being a feed reader, one thing is adding value (gmail labs is a awesome idea), another is adding random stuff that has no obvious purpose and just duplicates functions other sites do better, kinda like google friend connect (com)

Timetables and Expectations

News

Hehehe, yeah i’ve been incredibly busy working on a lot of stuff outside of s2r (personal things, friends sites and was hired to do some other stuff), anyways most of it is done by now, so i’m moving back into s2r mode, still in these last couple of months i’ve merged and moved a lot of my websites around (so i was indeed also busy with s2r), basically i merged some of my shared hosting and one vps into just one “cloud storage” kind of vps, so performance should be way better all through the s2r network of sites (taking some more popular sites out of a vps or shared helps the other sites that remain), sooo what can everyone expect?

 Hummm well first i’m going to cleaned up a lot of code in a lot of sites, then re-start some of my stalled projects, then finish some sites that i’ve been working on… thats pretty much it, so expect panchira.org, hentaish.com, fiendish.org or vidcult.com to have their makeovers and some new stuff to pop up ^_^’

As a side note i’ve released my personal site Hugo Silva (my name…) hehehe, yeah bland, but its more to join my social profiles in one place and later on my cv, thats the whole point of it.

Alternative to All in One SEO Pack

Reviews 16 Comments

Well we do have a lot of wordpress installs (not only for blogging, wordpress has come a long way and its almost at the point of becoming a full fledged cms like drupal or joomla), so having a good SEO pack to take care of the little tidbits of SEO is almost mandatory, so using the 2nd most popular wordpress plugin “All in One SEO Pack”, seems like a no-brainer, that is… it used to be, now more than ever its a nuisance, and moved from a very simple helpful plugin to a major bloated beast filled with plenty of idiotic choices, and i’ll gladly name a few:

1. Constant Updates, ohhh i’m all for updates, but come on, put it all in a bigger update, instead of pushing the equivalent of nightly builds, unless its a security risk (that i have my doubts, with this kind of plugin), it should be pushed with big updates, i guess they do this because of my second gripe…

2. When Updating they Deactivate the Script, yep, you activate on the plugins page, but you have to always go to the plugin itself to activate, thats just moronic and abusive, pushing ads/promotion/donations, jeez

3. Bloated or Useless Functions, stuff like pushing added keywords on single posts/pages, its not only pretty much useless these days, but its kinda promoting keyword stuffing, using excerpts as descriptions, talk about added bloat…

4. Adding Idiotic Stuff, to the code in the head like…

<– All in One SEO Pack 1.6.7 by Michael Torbert of Semper Fi Web Design –>

e in the head like… not only is it bloat to the code, but it also announces the freaking version, so if there is a security problem… yayyy

So as of now we are moving all of our wordpress installs from using the “All in One SEO Pack” to HeadSpace 2 and Platinum SEO Pack ^_^.oO( to see who performs better)

UPDATE: After a year i’ve done a more through Comparison of WordPress SEO Plugins heheheh and yes we do have a winner ^_^

How to Deal with Web Scraping

Tech

Hummmm since i have several galleries, one thing i encounter often is web scrapers, personally i don’t mind if anybody takes the entire gallery home or even if they re-post it somewhere else, that is fine with me, this is the web, if i wanted the gallery to be private i would made it so, if its public and free then go right ahead…



However the content itself is not the problem, the problem here is that the vast majority of web scrapers has bad default settings or the users that use them put too aggressive settings, its not uncommon for the load on the server to go from 0.10 to 1 in a heartbeat or even go down, i know its partly my fault i personally like to restrict as little as possible the server or the software (i could use several methods to restrict connections or to ban ip’s if there are too many connections), however because i don’t, sometimes i get into trouble, so this is what i normally do.

First of all i have this on the .htaccces (mod_rewrite), that helps blocking most of scrapping software (unless it spoofs as a browsers hehehe):

RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BlackWidow [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Bot\ mailto:craftbot@yahoo.com [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ChinaClaw [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Custo [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^DISCo [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Download\ Demon [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^eCatch [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EirGrabber [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailSiphon [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailWolf [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Express\ WebPictures [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ExtractorPro [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EyeNetIE [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^FlashGet [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetRight [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetWeb! [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go!Zilla [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go-Ahead-Got-It [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GrabNet [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Grafula [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^HMView [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} HTTrack [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image\ Stripper [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image\ Sucker [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Indy\ Library [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^InterGET [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Internet\ Ninja [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JetCar [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JOC\ Web\ Spider [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^larbin [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LeechFTP [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mass\ Downloader [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^MIDown\ tool [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mister\ PiX [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Navroad [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NearSite [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetAnts [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetSpider [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Net\ Vampire [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetZIP [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Octopus [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline\ Explorer [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline\ Navigator [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^PageGrabber [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Papa\ Foto [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pavuk [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pcBrowser [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^RealDownload [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ReGet [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SiteSnagger [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SmartDownload [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperBot [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperHTTP [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Surfbot [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^tAkeOut [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Teleport\ Pro [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^VoidEYE [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web\ Image\ Collector [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web\ Sucker [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebAuto [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebCopier [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebFetch [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebGo\ IS [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebLeacher [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebReaper [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebSauger [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website\ eXtractor [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website\ Quester [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebStripper [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebWhacker [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebZIP [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Widow [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WWWOFFLE [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Xaldon\ WebSpider [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Zeus

RewriteRule ^.* – [F,L]

I monitor the load of the server if the load as a spike for more than a couple of minutes i check the apache log, if there are lots of connections to the same site from the same ip, i ban this ip with .htaccess, adding this line:

Order allow,deny
Deny from 100.100.100.100
Allow from all

(100.100.100.100 is the ip on the logs) and check the load after a couple of minutes, if its down fine, if they jumped ip’s, i’ll do one of two things, if they keep on the same ip range i’ll just block that ip range, like so:

Order allow,deny
Deny from 100.100.100.
Allow from all

If they aren’t then i limit the connections to 10 on the cache or image directory (not on all the site), i know it will hurt all users but its better than nothing, just adding this line:

MaxClients 10

If it still persists, i’ll just close the image directory,adding this line again on the cache or image directory (depending on the type of image gallery software you are using):

deny from all

So the site stays up as well as the thumbnails, just the images won’t be accessible for a while, all of these are temporary measures, but for now, for me they do the trick, most of the times banning the ip is enough of a cure, and those i always leave on the .htaccess the other options i normally remove them the next day after the connections storm has passed, bottom line is if you want to scrape instead of bombing the server for an hour, make it so it downloads slowly during a couple of hours it makes a big diference and everyone gets what they want.

Downtime on Server 1

Update

Seems Jaguarpc is having some problems with their network… grrrr this is becoming troublesome, its not the first time in this past few months there have been a couple (comparing with basically years of stability…) and they are always very vague about it, the server is rock solid, but the network performance is not on par, so because of this server 1 is down, so a lot of sites, including s2r.org are down as well ^_^’ lets see how long does this drag…. and if i have to start moving to one of my other providers….

Micro Update

Update

Humm sorry for the lack of updates, kinda going to change how this work, now all hostcult/s2r updates will come from here, and i’ll push the older s2r blog to here hehehe, keeping it simple and nice to everyone, more updates in a couple of days, trying to improve performance on a couple of sites and opening a couple of new ones before August is gone hehehe ^-^

Quick Improvement and New Site

Update

Hummm i’ve just moved panchira.org to a new server, in preparation for some changes (social features and video), also i’ve made several improvements in yime.org ( mostly around opensearch ) and launched besigh.com torrent engine ( kinda mostly did this one for me… i’m sick of all other hentai search engines that are always down or searching weird torrents, this way i have full control of content ^_^ ), also changed the look of this browser for a more clean a readable look hehehe

ImageBoard Spam List

Tech

Since i run several successful anonymous imageboards, one of the ways to prevent spam is to have a sort of spam list (i would say blacklist) of all the domains url’s that are not able to be posted on the board (since one of the main reasons to spam the boards is to post links to fishing or illegal sites), this way this prevents them being posted by bots altogether.

So its an essential tool to have a clean board and to keep things clean, even if later on more automated tools like akismet or defensio are included, this is still a nice clean and fast way to keep most spam or idiotic posts from the site, so the file is a simple spam.txt file on the root of the site, one domain/site per line, this of course is most useful to other imageboard hosts that use the same system (wakaba or kusaba clone software), so here is our very own custom spam.txt list hehehe for free yayy 1131 domains (i’m actually thinking about making our own system, so anyone can add links and have the latest version for their board so their system is always protected heheheh)

UPDATE (from tentakle and neechan):

Uhh since the last post we have added a bunch more, so there ya go an updated spam.txt this new list has 1372 domains that are/were used in spam posting on imageboards, the old link as well hehehe, you can use something like WinMerge or TextOpus to help merge your existing spam file with my awesome one ^^

Faster Faster! FASTER!

Update

Yep, been doing a lot of improvements, mostly speed and optimisation, almost every site was improved, stuff like css compression and image optimisation, also i’ve created a cnd/mirror system to help improve speed of mostly used stuff (layouts and stuff), so you will probably see an increased speed on most sites ^-^ <br />
<br />
on other news, been working on a couple of new projects as well as major reconstruction of tentakle and minor improvements on smutish … ahhh think thats all

How to Change Hosts Files

Tech

The hosts file is a computer file used to store information on where to find a node on a computer network. This file maps hostnames to IP addresses (like 10.0.0.1 points to www.google.com). The hosts file is used as a supplement to (or a replacement of) the Domain Name System (DNS) on networks of varying sizes. Unlike DNS, the hosts file is under the control of the local computer’s administrator (as in you). The hosts file has no extension and can be edited using most text editors.

The hosts file is loaded into memory (cache) at startup, then Windows checks the Hosts file before it queries any DNS servers, which enables it to override addresses in the DNS. This prevents access to the listed sites by redirecting any connection attempts back to the local (your) machine (ip address 127.0.0.1). Another feature of the HOSTS file is its ability to block other applications from connecting to the Internet, providing the entry exists.

So you can use a HOSTS file to block ads, banners, 3rd party Cookies, 3rd party page counters, web bugs, and even most hijackers, so here are some instructions to do so and some sites with already made hosts files (you just overwrite your own hosts file):

The host files location is:
Windows XP at c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc
Windows Vista at c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc
Windows 2000 at c:\Winnt\System32\Drivers\etc

There you will find a file named hosts (no extension), like we said above you can edit it with any text editor, and function is simple, you map ip addresses to hostnames, so the files will be mostly like this…

127.0.0.1    localhost
127.0.0.1    www.bad-spyware-site.com
127.0.0.1    www.site-with-virus.com
127.0.0.1    www.publicity-ads-site.com

if you want to add any domain, just add a new line right 127.0.0.1 for the localhost (this way when that domain comes up in the browser the browser will search for it on your computer and not online, because the hosts file told him that), so for example:

127.0.0.1    localhost
127.0.0.1    www.bad-spyware-site.com
127.0.0.1    www.site-with-virus.com
127.0.0.1    www.publicity-ads-site.com
127.0.0.1    google.com

so now if i put google.com on the address bar of the browser it will give me a blank page and google.com wont work anymore, if you want to delete a entry, just delete the line or put a # in front

127.0.0.1    localhost
127.0.0.1    www.bad-spyware-site.com
127.0.0.1    www.site-with-virus.com
127.0.0.1    www.publicity-ads-site.com
#127.0.0.1    google.com (google.com will work now)

so the idea is to use the hosts file to block unwanted or bad sites ^-^ clean and easy hehehe

Here are some sites that provide awesome host files ^_^ .oO (choose one of them)

Hostman : Its an automated hosts file updating software
Host File : Pretty cool and clean hosts file
Someone Who Cares : A compreensive hosts file
MVPS : A hosts towards blocking unwanted stuff