And I still stand by what I said back then: “for such a great idea, you think they would have thought up a less frumpy name“.
Category: Blogging
Largely older posts, mini blog entries and memes from the past… a vault of dusty nonsense.
bookmark_borderBlogger bug fixed
So it seems that Blogger have a solution for their recently introduced layout problems.
- Log in to Blogger.
- On the dashboard, select your blog.
- Select the Settings tab.
- Select the Formatting option.
- Scroll down and set Enable float alignment to No.
This will stop Blogger adding those nasty <div clear:both> tags. Everything is explained in this post although I think they might have been better advised broadcasting it a bit further.
bookmark_borderHandling Referrer Spam
Thankfully this is not an area I’ve had much experience in, so I’ve done a little Googling and come up with some interesting ideas and ways to handle referrer spam.
Firstly it helps to know if you are being hit hard by it, and for that you’ll need access to server logs or a basic statistics package for your website. If you start seeing odd names in your referrer logs and your bandwidth usage starts to skyrocket then read on.
Rather than waffle on at length I’ll quickly point you to a couple of articles, one short one “why are they doing it and what should we do about them?” and a more indepth article that also includes some proposals for handling referrer spam.
There is one simple way to handle referrer spam, that’s to block access to your site for the domain name that is being used. A lot of referrer spam will use sub-domains so blocking the top-level domain name handles all the sub-domains as well. For example:
If you are receiving refferer spam from naughty.example.com, bad.example.com, spammers.example.com and so on, then blocking “example.com” from accessing your site should block those other referrers.
Obviously the people behind referrer spam are aware of this and so use .com, .us, .tv and anything else they can get their hands on. For this reason, manually adding and blocking referrer spam sites is laborious, time-consuming and ultimately a losing battle.
However if, like me, you are only experiencing a small amount of referrer spam then here’s an article that explains how to create an “.htaccess” file to block referrer spam (scroll down to the “How to do this” section).
WordPress users try Referrer Karma (now running on this site), or bad behavior, and then anyone can use WannaBrowser to test if they are working.
So, hopefully I’ll be referrer spam free(ish) from here on out, ohh and if anyone gets a message along the lines of “Please click on the following link if you are not redirected automatically (sorry for the inconvenience)” then let me know.
bookmark_borderSnippets
Remember to download Beethoven’s 6th Symphony (Pastoral) from the Beeb today. Thankfully I’ll be able to get them all before we go on holiday. Symphonies 7, 8, 9 are released over the coming days.
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Blogger have admitted, as suspected, that they added some code to support their new offering of “Blogger Images”. They do offer a fix but it presumes you are using one of their templates, which frankly isn’t good enough. I know that it’s impossible for them to cope with all the differing layouts and uses but in my opinion their code changes are far too invasive and spanks of being a quick hack rather than something they’ve thought out properly.
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In further blog related information, HaloScan is currently having three new servers installed, so the service will be a tad flaky until they are up, running and synchronised. Hang in there folks, it’ll settle down soon (hey, whaddya expect for free!).
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Scheduled posting. I’ve a few posts lined up to publish when I’m away, but I always find it trickier thinking of topics ahead of time than pulling on current events, news, or comments for inspiration. Odd that. How do YOUR posts come about?
bookmark_borderDVD Meme
Lyle “tagged” me – what is with that anyway, so very American is it not? “Tag you’re it” I played TIG when I was a child, tee eye gee TIG! – so you get the joy of another meme. I have a love hate relationship with this. Love them cause the good ones can be quite interesting, hate them because they make me think..
The total number of DVDs, videos, and films I own.
Videos is around the 300 mark I think. DVDs (checks list) are at 112, although not all of them are bought – the joys of having a DVD recorder and Sky Movies!
The last film I bought.
Was… hmmm well I recently bought three for Louise’s birthday but I won’t count those… which would make the last film I bought… er… gosh I don’t recall it’s been so long. The Pianist? Honestly don’t remember, hardly buy any these days.
The last film I watched.
Revenge of the Sith – although if I don’t post this until later it’ll be Sin City. Ohh no that’s a lie, watched About Schmidt during the week.
My favourite five films of all time, ever.
Impossible and daft this kind of thing, a top 10 or 20 would be far more representative.
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Rear Window
- Pulp Fiction
- Sleuth
- The Usual Suspects
Just missing off that list are Memento, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, The Godfather, 12 Angry Men, North by Northwest, The Third Man, Fight Club, American Beauty, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, African Queen… etc etc…
Tag (tig!!) three people and have them blog this.
pixeldiva – to see which movies are best “to knit to”.
Hydragenic – to see if Forrest Gump really IS his favourite movie.
diamond geezer – because you just know he’ll do something clever with this.
bookmark_borderMiscellany
Tonight, Channel Four, 10.30pm (I think) Channel Five at 10pm. House. As previously mentioned. Worth a watch if you can get past Hugh’s American accent – his wonderfully acerbic character should help.
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Road charges. According to the Beeb there seems only to be some “outrage” and on the whole this idea seems to be gaining some momentum. Of course that’ll all change when the government publish proposed figures of how much it will cost a driver, and everyone sits down to do the arithmetic. As the numbers start to add up, it’s how far beyond what we currently pay that will make or break this idea, I think.
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G8 Protesters say “We demand the right to march past the gates of Gleneagles on Wednesday 6 July to have our voices heard.”. I say: “Wisen up, never gonna happen. Wouldn’t your efforts be better spent in other ways?”
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Today, Big Blogger begins. Who will win, you decide (but if you don’t vote for me… I’ll throw a hissy fit and stamp my foot! Again!).
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Just realised that I missed this sites sixth anniversary back on the 2nd of June. Six years since I started writing this nonsense, back in the days when a blog was just a mis-spelling (well it was to me), and homepages were the all rage. Funny thing is how, looking at how my site was back then we don’t seem to have come too far.
