Lumpy's Corner

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.

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.

I am still the irregular blogger. I have done some work on the site of the late. Most of my recent blogs have been in my My Personal Blog (UPDATE -- I simply keep it all here now) which, I feel is my the most boring thing I work on. So if you are anxious for an update or suffer from insomnia, go there.

Short of that I have been busy dealing with a rather harsh barrage of spam comment posts to my blogs. Do they really think that people who are reading up on hard drive partitions and backing up data are concerned about the length of their penis? Furthermore do they really think that this site actually gets traffic?.. heh

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.

Hey all...

Real busy in the real world...
:(

Sorry bout the lack of updates but. if you know me, you know I always have some type of music on. Scroll down and look to the right.
;)
l8tr

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.

Now for those of you who do not know me personally or through IRC, I warn you... I can talk, I will talk, and I do talk.

What is less known is that I read. I read like a shark in frenzy. I used to drag around a half ton of books. Now I just carry my lappy or my USB drive. (My laptop actually contains an entire shelf's worth of Bibles and commentaries and my USB drive is like a small library.)

; I am, more than slightly, hooked on blogs. They are the kewlest new media. Today's blog is all about blogs out there. It all started by looking through this really kewl list of the top 55 places to submit your blog.

My intentions were, of course, self-serving. I was going to submit Lumpy's Corner to each and every one of them. I ended up just becoming more and more hooked. Before I continue, I must commend the author of the list. It is awesome. I should also mention that he offers a premium list for just 5.55 a month. I am not one to buy much in lines of web services. I am just too geeked about finding stuff for free. To me, the search is analogies the "thrill of the chase". I do however feel that is a reasonable price based on what I saw on in the free list. The list I linked to is currently one year old and still a goldmine of information.

I ended, just as I am now, straying far from what I intended. I ended up lost in blog after blog after blog after... Well I think you get the idea. I did, however, still submit. More important to this geek though, I found a lot of interesting links.

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.

In my last blog on this topic, I began to go through a list of blog submission sites. I ended up getting very sidetracked. I discovered blog after blog and service after service.

Before I am sidetracked, let me continue. Next item I came across was Gaurdian Weblog which is, unfortunately, no longer being updated. It now refers you to newsblog which is quite alive and viable.

Actually, WTG Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress. I wonder if WordPress users feel Used?

This bugs me. I think it is SPAM.

While I empathize with having to pay for hosting and such, I do not think that covering expenses in the manner he did is an acceptable solution.

The damage to his reputation is likely to cost him far more than any revenue generated by this stunt.

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.

This is too kewl.

Seems like my adsense has shot me in the foot. After blogin' about "texas holdem spam", that is the theme of the ads.

My apologies

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.

Any geek worth his/her salt should read this post. Amy Gahran is very much driving the nail right though the board with this observation. (She often does this in her blog.)

I know I have been a bad bloggin' boy of the late. At least that is how it looks, truth is I have been very busy on a number of projects. Much is going on which is not visible from this page.

Exios and I have now completed our fifth podcast and secured the radiostatic.am domain.

Exios and I would like to thank the hundreds on hundreds of individuals who are downloading our podcast. We never expected it to take off so quickly. The bandwidth issue is one we have managed to stay ahead on. We are working on other methods to remedy any future potential issues in this area. (And, yes, bit torrent is one of them.)

Hey all you fellow cyberjunkies!
Sorry I have not blogged of late but I have been very, very busy with Radio Static. I have not stopped writting though and will be pulling an all nighter soon.

Also check out this new news site.

I have been doing a "podcast" a week now for about a two months now. I am amazed at how most people gaze at me as if I am some type of dark-voodoo practicing witch doctor when I use the term "podcast". There seems to be several areas of confusion and/or misunderstanding. A partial list would include:

1. Podcast are some type of high-tech technobable that only a web savy geek with an Einstienian IQ could comprehend.
2. Special equipment and software are needed to use this technogy.
3. A podcast is some type of special audio format, which requires all of the above to play

I would like to spend a few screens of text and de-mystify these three points. I assure you that even I, Ultra-Perma-n00b, Also known as Lumpy, is able to do so. Therfore, it can't be so hard.

Using the referances here, you should be able to easily find, save and listen to podcasts. So please stop dowsing me with holy water.

This is absolutely not true. If you can surf the internet and/or operate a radio, you can listen to podcast. In fact, Lumpy is confident that he could teach most monkeys to download podcasts. It really is as simple as point and click.

This Video shows us all just how simple it is. The video is only three minutes long and tells you all you need to start listening.

An IRC freind did a great guide to getting pod cast and is also nice enough to share his list of podcasts.

There are many, many places to find podcasts. In the very near future we will have a list of podcast directories in the left hand column of this site.

This is also not entirely true. If you have a media player, you can point, click and listen. Podcasts are nothing more than media files. If you can watch video and listen to audio on your PC, you can listen to and/or watch podcasts. If you wish to automatically download the newest version of your podcast, then you will need some software.

There are several good programs available for this. Lumpy's personal choice is Doppler. Others are also listed here for almost every OS known to man.

Well, yes and no... As I mentioned above, podcast files are nothing more than media files, but they do have RSS associated with them. It is this RSS that allows the above mentioned software to know when a new podcast has been released.

Short of that it is just an audio or video file.

Now get out there and listen. If you have any questions, I would be glad to reply. Send my a message at noise-at-radiostatic{dot}am.

For the record and the curious, I am still very much alive and well.

I have been busy with radiostatic.am and work. I am still managing to write something every single day. I am not getting past the draft stage too often.

By the way remember all of those Gmail invites we had... I think they are now useless.

There seems to be a lotta hype about bloggin' communities of the late. I have noticed a good number of posts about blogs in a geographic area. I did a search for my blog and found an interesting list of blogs at globe of blogs. I was in a quick surf mode so I spent about a half hour of my life skimming the following:

• Filtering Craig - A kewl blog on rock and roll and other things, perfect for the Rock N' Roll Capitol of the world.
• I like to eat and my figure proves it. I never realized that this rap was actually about a real place until I happened on this blog. I bet I shall visit again.
• fricative - a nice personal blog
• I like plants so, naturally, I found garden gal interesting
• Jack/zen an nice personal blog
• Improvised Schema - a very neat blog on architecture
• The Joyful Parent - a Christian blog on parenting
• delightful taste - a personal blog with a nice pink girlish look

So there you have it, welcome to my bloghood.

Stick the National Geographic Environmental News Feed into your favorite feed reader. You will not have to wait long to see "how not to" incorporate ads into your feeds. First off, it does not give you the whole feed. You get an ad, a headline, an ad, a headline, etcetera... If you click on any of the headlines (those are the single lines in between the ad feeds), you will also see how to make me hit the unsubscribe button.

The first thing that happens is you are greeted by this screen-sized advertisement. It will take forever to load, be nothing related to the subject of the feed and, almost certainly, annoying. Thank God for bloglines unsubscribe button.

I was actually wondering if someone would try and do something like this. There seems to be an AdSense Trojan that replaces Google Ads with imposters.

There is more information avialable at Tech Crunch. There is also a give away for the sites that run the Google referal. (Like the one below the banner ad in the right column.) If your PC is infected, the referals will be text links and not graphics.

Seems that some people find this blond joke pretty funny. I wonder how much time blondes have spent figuring this one out?

It is supposed to be the best blond joke ever. Check it out and let me know what you think.

This site is collecting stories about 911.

I think this is a good example of how powerful a tool the Internet can be for the purpose of historical archiving. Gone are the days where an elite few will decide who gets printed and an elite few will be printed. I am talking potential here.

I realize that much of what I have said is rather obvious but have we given serious thought on the consequences of these facts? Are we ready for the impact of the new era? And honestly, is it going to even really matter? I also realize that my thoughts are a bit of a stretch on this particular site. I could mention other sites that are a factor here as well but that is not my intent. I am fascinated by a process occurring in our world and this site is an example. Are we going to end up more connected, enlightened or are we going to end up smoke screened by information overload?

I just happened to notice this in the daily rotation at the bottom of my page. Is it really a a flying car?

I find it interesting and frightening. Are we not scary enough with four wheels on the road?

I have mention several times before my love for IRC (Internet Relay Chat). I was cruising through my many feeds the other morning, commented on a post by one of my favorite authors regarding missing the conversation for the blog. It dawned on me that although I have frequently mentioned feeds as resource but have not, of late, made any mention of one of my more frequently used tools... IRC. Simpy put one of the best resources on the web for connecting with knowledgable people.

I beg the reader to read Amy's above mentioned article to better understand the context of what I am "bloging" about and, hopefully, what we are "conversing" about. (Actually, I recommended you bookmark her site and/or subscribe to her Contentious. It is good brain food.)

IRC is all about conversation. Unfortunately, many channels are only for purposeless chatter or ASL (Age, Sex, and Location). Others are dark corners of the web to be used for hackers, malware writers and pirates. I am not inviting you to that type of dialogue. I am a wyldrydeholic.

I wish to tell you about (and welcome your comments on) 3 things

1. A specific example of how I benefited from IRC
2. Reasons why I feel IRC is a valuable resource
3. A list of some topic specific IRC channels and, if they have one, their homepage

Remeber my post about the best blond joke ever?. This is how it was done. Scoble mentioned it caused a traffic jam. Well, so did "melisa" at least ths was funny.

I am cruising through my feeds and read this blog.

It makes me glad and sad. Glad to live where I live and sad for those who don't.

Let us just be honest though. Google is not a search engine company. They are not a software company.

Google sells ads. Google analyzes consumer behavior and markets product. So really what else should we expect?

I recall hearing blog articles about Microsoft doing the same. If these companies want the Chinese buck that is what they are going to do to get it. Is it morally correct? I suppose not. Is it morally evil? I think not. Am I glad that the author brought this up? Definitely. AM I glad Google is in China? Just as definitely.

I commented on his post but I think there is a bit more I could say on this one. History repeats. Centuries ago someone converted a wine press into a device that could print on paper. This caused quite a still for the governments at the time. They tried to repress that device as well. In the end however, knowledge is like a hole in a dam. Once the water starts going through it, it only gets bigger.

No doubt China is censoring Google and Google is cooperating. It will still get some information out there. Let the water flow.

Sometimes you find things by hard searching and other times you are simply in the right place at the right time. This time Lumpy credits the