Lumpy's Corner

So much for a short, sweet, goodnight blog, insomnia set in so I thought I might try to get the movable type thing going except it is now five AM and It's still waiting for it to finish it's FTP. Then all I get to do is debug it!!.

Ahh the pleasure of being a complete, moronic n00b! And MySQL takes forever to run on the server.

Well it is almost now noon. Still haven't figured it out. I can't find where to set the file authorization. Time to give up' I have to go to work.

Well 34 hours later and I think i got everything all debugged. I do have a valid CSS. After I post this I am praying for the valid page.

I got to meet Foofy finally. But i really didn't get to say much to the blog master because i was too busy trying to work all the kinks out of this. It was really a mixed bag because I also got to meet Randy....

I see what you mean dil... My n00b ass even had to kick him around.

Maybe i will extend this in a bit but i am more concerned with validating the code tonight than much else...

l8tr

A few days ago I raved about the pleasure of getting together with with my fraternity brothers. I promised that it was a segue into the next days rant. Alas, I wrote about something else... And then there was the power outage...Sorry. Let's just say I exercised my poetic license to postpone it.

I intended to talk about another room I frequent. That would be a chat room, specifically the lockergnome chat room.

I have been subscriber lockergnome for years. Not only has Chris Pirillo's E-zine been my largest single source of my online education but the man himself has been more than good to me. For starters, he actually replies to my E-mail s and, almost always, the next day, taking all he does into account, that says a lot.

What this site is about.

For those of you who have visited here before, you will have noticed things have changed much. I have opted to go with a simpler cleaner look in blog format. I owe much of this look to Blogmaster Foofy, Dilandou and Geek who have all helped me in their own way.

First off Foofy's site Blogstyles.com is where I got the style sheet and templates for this site. This made the whole process much easier than had I started from scratch.

Then there is Dilandou. I aptly refer to this man as "Dil the Jedi Code Master". He sat for hours in front of his PC an ocean away and coached me through the process of writing my first page of valid XHTML code.

Dil convinced me to go KISS and I promptly burned my "Dreamweamer" CD (with lighter fluid) and switched over to GVIM. This really got me going. Then he brought up the idea of using a style sheet. Again with Dil online, a simple CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) emerged next. It was this direction from then on. Of course, school comes first.

Sadly it was going to have to end. My course load would be just too demanding. But into a certain chat room entered a Canadian nicked Geek who likes to blog and even has a blog-support IRC channel. By the time I met him, I was ready to try "Movable Type"... Guess who walked me through that process? So I then had a blog running as an experiment. I blogged and liked it. Lumpy's Rabid Rants and Lunatic Ravings was born.

Well I finally got the "look" right.

Thanks to Geek, Dil, and diligence all you Internet Explorer users can even read it now. Funny what comment lines can do to ie.....

I have spent a few hours tonight modifying the blog rollling list so that will be all until after Christmas weekend. I will be going home to my parents and doubt I will blog much then. But when I get back, I plan to write like the fiend I am.

Well, I asked for questions regarding what you needed this fine friend of mine was quick to oblige so lets start with her question.

I have a question for you. My friend is trying to format his computer and reinstall windows again, but when he's trying to do that it tells him that he has to change the partition of the disk. Do you know what it means and how to fix it? Because I have no clue... thanks and talk to you soon.

M

There are couple things we should cover here. First, but from the sound of the e-mail it might be too late; your friend should have made sure to back everything up. There are numerous ways to do this and I will cover that topic at some future time. For those of wishing to learn more on backing up a drive I would suggest you try this article which is good " starting point " article.

I have been busting my butt of the late to make sure that this little corner is one hundred percent XHTML valid code. Some of you have asked why? Well, first off, I have this major anal streak in me which just makes me that way (and tend to get a bit ornery when people ask me "why?"). Second, you are SUPPOSED to write valid code. It is just a matter of good practice. I mean don't you want to do things right?

On that note let me get my soapbox out and talk about valid code. Valid code is a standard set by the World Wide Web Consortium . This organization, the W3C for short, is trying to set a uniform standard so that the whole world is on the same page. This guarantees that browsers for the blind, deaf and other special devices such as brail printers will know how to function with the given web page.

This is actually a major improvement in things for HTML which was rather forgiving in terms of code but could be ambiguous. XHTML is stricter but more specific and powerful. Using XHTML instead of HTML allows one to "extend" the language and allow it to do much more than HTML. (The "X" stands for "eXtensible".) It can properly display math equations with MathML, make full use of XMLwhich allows one to really change the static nature of HTML. In short, it is just better just think of it as HTML on steroids and crack.

I asked that same question in the lockergnome channel and good ol' flatrabbit told me it stood for Really Simple Syndication. Not to sound ungrateful to any of the lockergnomies but it hardly helps. Now I know what it stands for. Well that was almost a year ago and I did not really pursue this matter much further. I simply tucked the information away in an empty place in my brain (trust me there is gobs of room up there) and waited for my new found trivia to be put to use swooning young women at the clubs. (I am not claiming it ever works but the geek in me keeps trying things like that.) I did however decide to explore it now.

RSS is basically a dialect of XML and means that it extends XHTML. (If you are not sure what any of that means read my blog on XHTML.) By being a special type of XML it has specific keywords that have specific meanings. This allows programs, commonly called readers or news aggregators, to organize this data for its users. It allows one to custom choose what type of news and stuff one gets via the web. It also checks for updates. It is really THE method for finding your news items you desire. It is also THE method to keep up with your favorite blogs.

Now I have explained a little bit about what RSS is. Harvard has some good information on that subject (again this link was given to me by flatrabbit) as does this article if you wish to learn more. My goal is to get all my HTML e-zines into a RSS reader.

"I f#$ked up and had to reinstall my OS by format last night, losing all my mail, favorites, and another 20 GB of files"

I heard just that the other night as I typed away in a chat room. The reality is that, in one, way, shape or form, we all have heard it 1000 times.

Keeping consistent with my obsessive-compulsive nature and my general tendency of consistent excess, I shall ramble to you the 1001st. Admit it, at one point or another, we have all lost at least one file. I can't count how many times I have heard stories of people losing entire hard drives and not having backed up!

Furthermore, in keeping with Lumpy's tradition of putting his foot in his mouth, I demonstrate by thrusting 2 size 10 and a half EEEs ankle deep. The day after my friend and I spoke, I managed to fry my USB RAM Drive!

Fortunately, I only lost two files. Everything else was backed-up. However, they were also the two files I had been working on for the better part of week.

It could have been worse. Like I said, you hear about it all the time, I could lave lost everything. I usually back up data every week. Likely a factor in why I have never lost "everything".

I know I have heard a good bit about my web site lameness of the late. Well I am finally getting a chance to try and remedy that SIN on my part. (Honestly, I never recalled promising to write any minimum number of blogs but since I have heard about it so much it must mean that someone is reading what I write.. go figure...)

So what is new? First off, I have added a "personal" blog due to some repeated requests. Second, I am adding a new category to this already clustered mess I refer to as a web site. That is where this little mess of a blog falls to the category is "general Site News". (I also never promised to be overly creative.) And no, that is not all there is... If you know me, of course, more... Just keep your pants on OK?... (well most of you anyhow, those of you who I wish to see pantless already know who you are and are free to do as you wish. :)))

Odd thing that I live on IRC eh? Oh and yeah, I DO hear about it from time to time, er... actually daily... bout "how I live on the internet". This type of statement usually comes from the sort that tend to live life reclined in front of the tele... And they think "I" am wasting my time. Let me tell you a bit about why I am the way I am with it....

It all started with just one "channel", er that would be room to those of you who are total "n00bs" and/or brainwashed by AOL (which in my opinion truly means America Off Line). It started with a rather bizarre affiliation to a certain HTML daily newsletter... Well, not an affiliation... An addiction.

The channel was and is lockergnome. I am very fortunate for a certain op rather took a liking to me. Hmm... no, considering this op, it is better put that a certain op did not take a disliking to me. He, rather quickly, beat the n00b right out of me in several areas.

Now, due to the fact that I did not ask permission, I do not intend to mention this ops name or anything like that... I won't even hint at it... heh

In either case, this chance encounter with CP and this certain op really got the hook into me for IRC. It grew to even more channels and, now, I am, even starting to hit multiple networks.

Just in case you doubt the Bibles Creation Theory, you know have one more option.

This blog has been put off long enough. I was hoping to solicit a few other people's opinion but it looks like it is not going to happen. The original intent was to solicit the opinion of several people in the know on bloggin software. Of course, most of my contacts are also college students and major geeks. This means most of us disappear during the school year. That is exactly what happened here.

As far as what I prefer, I prefer Movable Type. I, however, am no expert. I like my older version because it supports multiple blogs and authors. (My old free version supports up to 5 authors and 5 blogs. The free 3.1 version supports 1 author and 3 blogs.) It works simple enough and well enough to meet all my needs. It is widely supported and numerous templates are available for it. I am comfortable with it, like it and endorse it.

As far as an expert, I turned to Geek who got me hooked on bloging and held my hand via Internet relay chat while I configured and modified Movable Type. All of what is written below, minus my comments in italics, is his penmanship.

Recent changes in the two most popular blogging tools, the buyout of Blogger and the revised licensing of Movable Type, have led many to look elsewhere for blogging software, and programmers, be they professional or beginner hobbyists, have stepped up to the plate to try to make the next Movable Type. There has also been an explosion in non-traditional blog uses, and I will also cover these, from PhotoBlogs to aggregate blogs.

I am just going through my inbox and having interesting thoughts. This time I am actually opening all the spam. It seems there are some misconceptions about me...

I don't know about you but;

1. In my entire life I have never had a problem with my "member" size and, having a background in math, I am amazed that "80%" of the male population is smaller than "average". The two males who are skewing that bell curve must need wheel barrels in order to walk around without stepping on it.
2. Okay it has been a while and it looks like it will be an even longer while but I am confident it still works. Actually, if you witnessed the tent I awake under, you would be sure it works just fine. I have even mastered the art of doing a handstand for my first trip to the bathroom in the morning. Besides, I am not too keen on buying prescription drugs from some one who can't spell. (If you are thinking of adding "viagra" to your keywords filter don't bother just load these.)
3. I am happy with the amount of debt I have. I do not want a loan or a charge card. I want to work hard and pay it off honestly and fairly
4. I doubt Bill Gates is going to share his wealth with me. I do not think he is into that and if he did could we just call it "monopoly" money?
5. I do not own a home nor a car and have no immediate need to insure a mountain bike.
6. I do not wish to help you transfer money from overseas. Spend it there. I am sure the third world country that so recently and tragically lost their monarch would love the economic boost. I will pass on my part of the fortune to benefit the cause.
7. I do not have some long lost rich relative. Trust me I am a descendant of the working class middle class to poor. We have lived, for generations, in the poorest city in the country.
8. I am flattered by the fact that women everywhere except where I live have the hots for me. I am somewhat perplexed as to why none of them live near me and they seem to move every time I relocate. (Since I began penning this, I have met someone. She is all I need thank you.)
9. No wait... Here is one, "M33t me now. I L1ve ne4r U"... oh n/m... need a charge card for that one... hmm... maybe I can tutor her on spelling and barter?

Yeah, I am talking spam here. It seems everywhere. Fact is it IS everywhere and it is likely here to stay.

How bad is it? It is real bad. According to the book, Black Hat by John Biggs, spam will account for 63 percent of all e-mail traffic and there were 15 million spam emails on Valentines Day alone.

So what can one do? Well that depends on a number of things. One thing for sure though, SPAM is here to stay. If you are looking for this article to be the total and complete solution, don't bother reading any further. Until we come up with some other means of electronic messaging, we are going to have to accept some SPAM. The current e-mail format and system is just too easy to abuse. That is the fact of the matter. We must look at it like some type of radiation and figure out how to get the minimum dose possible. That is what I am going to write spam. Limiting it. I am sorry but some spam will always get through.

Well all I have finally upgraded to MT (whatever the newer version is). I have also imported all of my other blogs into this site so excuse the temporary clutter.

I will be housecleaning soon.

BTW you can comment but I must approve it first. So if you think my member is small.. heh

Actually folks, it is the assimilation of several of my old looks. I am finished with the switch upgrade to Movable Type 3.15 and have imported everything into just one blog. It shall remain a few more days in this state of disarray but I shall have it looking decent again soon.

Lump has a busy boy. (Okay Sin, maybe better put a busy dirty old man.) I guess some one's writing tempted me to get busy with my site's CSS and such.

The site is now up and valid.

I hope to have a few more post up in a day or so.

Well, it should be simple enough.

All I want to do is take the content from a textbox, preserve its formatting and output into a php page. (Now, if you do not understand any of this, read no further.)

First of all there was this security issue of having it query the sql db and not allow an injection attack. Mucho thanks to Helio and Usrbingeek for help on that little issue. (And no, I did not forget, Helio does not have a website.)

It has been one of those days. A day where I desperately needed rest but could not find it. Actually I could find it fine but nobody was going to let me get there. What part of "I work nights and need to get some sleep" is so hard for whole world to understand? I am so annoyed by it. Wait... I never sleep anyhow so that can't be it.

Hmm... I wonder what is it?

I wonder if it is the website? The reality is that I should be used to it but, despite making some real progress, I am getting frustrated by my own desire to improve things. Is that it? If you read my previous post, you will see that I am fed up with my php efforts. Should I be?

Maybe, but I have learned a lot and, lets be honest, the last time the site worked was about two years ago. Maybe it is the moving thing?

I am not really moving so to speak though. I am simply moving most of my stuff out of storage and into Nami's place. I am simply getting my room at the Fraternity house where it always to where it always should have been, a temporary place to stay while I attend school. N0T a place where you stack all your possessions up like cases at a warehouse.

I had hoped to finish up with this by the end of March. Hey, wait its still February. Guess that is not it either.

Hmm...

Could it be that I just turned 41 and am getting cranky? NOT, people who have known me for years will vouch for the fact that I have always been a crank. Besides, I am referring to myself being crankier than normal here so normal crankiness does not count.

Below is a previously released issue. I will be repositn them all to this site, along with new ones. Enjoy...

Okay, I have been a bit active with the posting lately. Call it nervous energy, call it venting, call it whatever you wish but, please, enjoy it.

I have created a new category for the site "Links". (I know very creative.) This should make it easier to find something I mentioned before. I regret I can't make an inclusive list of all of them but making sure they are all valid is just too time consuming. (From time to time, I do check all of those in the left hand column.)

Here is a list of some links I have heard of lately:

• Trustwatch - ever wonder about a website? Check them out here.
• IceRocket - A search engine I heard about in lockergnome IRC.
• Neato photos - These images are a bit old but they are a kewl way to get through a winter.
• Are you a Library buff? Now you don't even have to leave your home.
• For those of you who are world travelers and wish to avoid viruses (or is that viri?), this PC infection zone map should help.
• For those of you who wish to keep you PC safe from spyware be sure and watch out for Anti-Spyware SCAMS. The Internet's wolf in sheep's clothing.
• Stupid Videos has added another one I really like it is titled "Bad Day at Work". Stay really, really, really far away from "aerobics".
• Peter said he never thought anyone would go this low. Lumpy wants this building!
• QuackTrack is just ducky. (I know I am gonna hear about that punny comment. Call me paronomasia. Vaudeville is not dead it is alive and well in Lumpy's head.) It is a really awesome catalog of blogs. Glad KJ mentioned it in her blog.

Well that is it for today. Have fun in cyberspace all and stay out of the bad cyberhoods.

I am not really doing much of a blog here. I am playing with my site's CSS and wanted to test something right quick.

I know it is not much but in the future any links which go to photographs (warning this one is REAL ugly) should look different than the other links on the site.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

well that was annoying.

Seems that when i use an achor tag for a photo an old extra tag for blog body would over ride it.

I really thought that the in-line tag would have precedence. Never thought of getting rid of the redundant tag so it took forever to locate but now photo links are different than page links.

Well it can, at times, be annoying. That is getting a web page to look the way you desire it to. I think, for now, I am content with the current look of this site.

I simply love CSS! It certainly beats the days of inline coding and having to re-invent the wheel for each and every page you did.

Links are now the color of this text and in bold. After you visit them, they end up normal weight and strikethrough style. Links to photos are a shade of blue, which is just a tad bit darker than sky blue and underlined. After you visit them the underline goes "poof" and it is strikethrough style. The collections of links to your right and left are now delimited by black text to make it easier to sort out.

Editing one file did all of this. Thanks to CSS it impacts every page on this site that links to that file. Yeah! CSS rawks!

Well, I fixed the comment spam... kinda, sorta, maybe?

Lump's ongoing battle with the spammers is a saga which reads a bit like this:

• Lumpy's Corner starts to get barraged with spam. Not any type of spectacular spam or anything like that but just your garden variety typical spam.
• Lumpy deletes the posts
• The spammers return
• Lumpy deletes
• The spammers return
• Lumpy deletes
• Lumpy notices a pattern
• Lumpy takes advice from Geek and upgrades to MT3.15
• The spammers return
• Lumpy deletes but takes joy in the fact that none of their comments actually got to the server because of comment moderation and enjoys the ability to delete enmasse
• The spammers return and trackback spam begins
• Lumpy deletes but with less joy
• Lumpy renames his comment script and trackback script
• Lumpy enjoys 10 spam free days
• Some "paster" starts to spam
• Lumpy uses IP banning
• Lumpy notices he is not getting anymore trackbacks
• Lumpy wonders if he dorked something
• Exios tries to set a trackback to me
• The trackback is dorked

Lumpy is a bit lost here. I dunno if it because I renamed the script or if it is a bug in and of itself. I took care of the entries in the config file, hid the index and can run the script. Track back just doesn't seem to be working.

Sorry, be patient while I figure this one out.

Yours in SPAM CyberSP4c3,
Lumpy

Greetings Fellow Cyber Junkies,
I hope all is well with you. I just wanted to comment on a few things:

1. Thank You all for your advice on the comment and trackback spam. I have noted all of it. Currently my renaming of things seems to have it well in check. I do agree with the many of you who feel that is temporary. i am simply experimenting a bit to see how well different methods work.
2. Thank You all for the legit comments and I thank all the blog listing sites for the sudden jump in my site's traffic.
3. As far as linking to all those blog sites goes, I am in the process of editing my templates and will be doing a good bit of reworking the next few days so keep checking.

Keep coming back to the corner all,
Nice seeing you here,
Lumpy

It seems the rumor mill is cranking away again. I am one of about 17000 people who reads spyware info's newsletter. Some sources are apparently reporting that there is spyware attacking the Firefox Browser. My sources, one of the more reliable being the above-mentioned newsletter, say it is not so. Once again, thanks for the timely accurate information. SpywareInfo.com is great for just that. This newsletter is largely the work of Mike who also owns malware.us which is a repository for malware.

The purpose of Mike's site is to exist as a service for those who develop software to combat malware. I have chatted with Mike in IRC (that would be internet chat for you Non-Cyber Junkies) and he is, in my opinion, a great guy. He was a major asset in my efforts to clean up the PC at my place of employment. (I do not have any problems with my lappy or home PC's because I use Firefox, Ad-Aware and SpyBotS&D. These measures seem more than adequate for my needs.)

Mike's SpywareInfo.com is a wealth of knowledge and has a very comprehensive list of download recommendations. What I am saying is that Mike and others like him provides a valuable service to Internet Users. Spyware, adware and other forms of malware are everywhere.

Mike, however, has a problem at the moment.

This is just a quick and dirty entry. I am putting it here just in case you haven't heard of "pingomatic". I somehow missed it until I heard Chris Pirillo mention it in an interview on his podcast show

It is a great service that pings as many as 14 different blog directories and indexes.

You can also enter their URL to ping them and they will ping the sources for you. The URL is http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

A long time web-friend of mine, Joe, wrote to me with "two questions". They are:

• What kind of "lappy" did I get?
• How do I block the RIAA from this website?

The first one is rather straightforward. I got the best kind of laptop anyone could buy on my budget. I got a good used one. My real world and cyberfreind exios gave me a great deal on a Compaq Presario 1500. It is a P4 2.2 GHz CPU with 512 MB of RAM, a 40 gig HD and a Cisco Wireless card. I know there are better machines out there but for this "old school" dude this is a great machine. It is, actually, the fastest one I own at present.

The second question is one, which shall be the subject of this blog. Although I would love to take the credit for how I do this, I cannot. It is not that difficult. It is as simple as a cut and paste

I find it most interesting that Lumpy's Corners became a comment spam magnet immediately after I wrote an article about the bare minimum one can do regarding e-mail spam. I am not implying that the article made me a target but merely amused by the timing.

Of course, this should not surprise me in the least for I had the bare minimum in place for comment spam protection. I was still using Movable Type 2.61, had the comments set to open and e-mail notification off. I was asking for it. I should have just re-named my URL to SPAMme.dumb. That, however, is another blog entirely.

Today, I wanted to tie off a loose end in my web log the blog I mentioned above dealt with how to prevent spam on your PC. More specifically, what you can do if you do not have direct access to a server. I also commented on what I foresaw as a worthelss legislative effort to combat it. (For the record, it has been in effect for a full year now and I have noticed no difference in my inbox. Many feel, myself included, it merely legalized SPAM and shall serve to make matters worse.) I promised to, at a later point in time, discuss some other options available if you happen to have a server.

I might as well just title this one "Kudos to Steve". In a previous blog, I ranted and raved about how I find all kinds of stuff on the web. I mentioned Amy Gahran, my IRC addiction and RSS feeds. At the close of the article, I mentioned that I often "spider" off of the links that I find. In other words, I find links inside the links.

Thanks to Chris Pirillo's pod cast and Steve's dummies guide, I have another source to spider from... Podcasting.

I know I mentioned in a previous blog that I thought it odd the timing of my site's spam baragge. I also mentioned that Geek had warned me of a rather serious flaw in my version of Movable Type. Seems like some freak likes to try and force us to play "Texas Hold em' Poker" by comment spamming my blog. Heck we have a poker night at my Fraternity house almost every month and i still don't attend it and I live there. (Okay, maybe i do live on the Internet but the whole point is poker is not for me.) It was getting a bit old though. I was spending almost an hour a day deleting comment spam.

So I upgraded to MT 3.15 which allowed me to moderate comment postings. This was one possible solution but there is an inherant flaw in it. I spend just as much time deleting them. (Well actually a little bit less cause MT lets you do it enmass now.) Unfortunately, things actually got worse. I started receiving trackback spam as well. I was recieving spams at a rate of about 60-90 comments and/or trackbacks per hour. I noticed the attack early one morning while I was at work. The script ate about 3% of my monthly bandwidth in, what appeared to be, about 6 hours.

What did I do? Well, I started off doing what I do best, I found the comment script and broke it. I know this may seem like a ridiculous place to start but I had to use the skills I had. I had a bit of an idea as to what else I could try but i wanted something rather expedient. I am, after all, the expert at making programs and scripts not work.

Jack Vinson who has a great blog posted a comment to my blog on comment spam. Dr. Vinson wrote;

Lumpy- The name change thing is a good start. I wouldn't mind more details on what you did to rearrange the order in the templates.

I assume with the plug-ins you will look into MT-Blacklist and the new SpamLookup. I've been using MTB for a while, and it seems to catch the majority of the garbage that is thrown my way by the robots. It's statistics on my site say that 9700 things have been blocked, and 300 have been moderated since earlier this year. Of those 300, most have been spam as well. So it isn't perfect.

SpamLookup is newer, and people have been saying good things about it.

(Lumpy converted his URLs to hyperlinks)

I sent him a hasty reply and informed him that I would write more on it soon. Thus today's blog. First more detail on what I initially did to my comment template and index template to deal with this issue.

A few days ago I mentioned the possibility that Google may have a browser in the works. Matt Hartley then mentioned it in lockergnome web developer and then it was mentioned in linkswarm. Within a few short hours, my post literally received hundreds of views. I had no idea just how many people were interested in this topic.

I also thought it was rather old news and put it up as a snippet. I guess this is the type of stuff that most folks simply do not follow. I decided, largely at the request of family and friends, to expand on it a little.

Seems like there is more in the rumor mill than I first thought. In fact, it seems, most likely, that Google is working on an Operating System. All of this has been the topic of discussion going back as far as April 2004. (That is about when the buzz started to show up in blogs.) One of my co-workers said that "they will never be able to replace Windows, Windows is too established..."

I am sitting here listening to geekcast podcast and I am hearing that Google has finally released google print is now up and running. (Leo Leporte is also being interviewed on this particular show.) While I am listening to it, I am running about dealing with issues at work. This is one of the nice things about Podcasting, you can feed your brain while you are dealing with other things. RSS text feeds are great but you can not usually work while reading them.

One of the nice things about my job, however, is that I often can squeeze a few RSS reads in and not have any repercussions from doing so. It is in those reads that I gathered the rest of the information that follows.

It seems Google has made arrangements to add several libraries, including New York Public Library, to its database. They have been given permission to digitize the entire collection of Standford and The university of Michigan. (Those two collections total about 14 million books.) I am not surprised and rather pleased about it. David Galbraith brings up a good point regarding the real reason this is being done. He feels it is for leverage. I would have to agree.

I am Reading my feeds and I am reading about pictures making blogs better. I got to wondering how easy or difficult it would be to put an image directly into a Movable Type blog.

So I figured I would give it a try. Now all that is left to see is if it is lilly true.