Archive for the 'Web Tools' Category

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Attribution and Plagiarism

Published on October 15, 2006 in Web Tools. 0 Comments

The following clip is from a post featured in the Weblog Tools Collection, dealing with the lack of attribution and problem of plaigiarism on the Web today. It’s something any even remotely successful site has to deal with at some point. As for me, I’ve only had to deal with it a couple of times, but most of the time the issues have been resolved without much confrontation.

I really like the word attribution and I find the lack of attribution disturbing. I bring this up because there are thousands of websites that absorb and regurgitate information published elsewhere for monetary gain without so much as a line stating where the original item was published. I used to have a major problem with them until I realized that there were just too many to deal with. There are lots of very good resources on how to deal with content theft. I applaud and support Lorelle and everyone conrcerned in their efforts.

By the way, when you read the article, also check out the comments, which just bring the point home (and are more than simple “right on, brother!” replies).

Fun With Web Content Management Software

Published on October 3, 2006 in Web Tools. 0 Comments

Installing software can sometimes be fun, especially when it’s easy. In the short time after my move, I’ve started to play around with other software for possible later uses. You can check out what I’ve just now started to work with at the following locations

I haven’t done much with these, so what you see is pretty much what you’ll get after installing these.

From the back end, my favorites up to now are Xoops and Joomla. With Xoops I like the built-in banner-tracking features (which can be used for personal banners for featured articles or advertisers). With Joomla I like the robustness. That said, all of these packages look like they’re very well built and I’m looking forward to learning more about them, although it looks like I’ll really have to hunker down and learn me some PHP.

Anyway, check them out and if you’ve used any of these, I’d like to hear what you think.

Google Analytics

Published on September 29, 2006 in SEO and Web Tools. 0 Comments

Ok, 2005 tapped me on the shoulder last night and told me to check out the Google Analytics page. Basically, if you own a site, Google Analytics will help you see where your traffic is coming from, where it’s leaving from, and will generally help you optimize your site for your audience. From everything I see, my audience is mostly made up of horny males who find me via Google by looking for the term “Elita Loresca”, which of course takes them to the Elita Loresca Pics and Info page I put up a while back. (Never did I guess that page would end up becoming so popular. Behold the power of sex, I guess.) That aside, it seems people enjoy the Bloody Penguin Baseball game an awful (and I do mean “awful”) lot. I guess violence sells, too.

Hmm… sex and violence… Interesting that while I work pretty hard not to include any of those things in most of my posts, in the end, those end up being the most popular. Maybe I should take a hint…?

BloodRayne

Nah. Unless she did the weather every morning. “Today, it will rain… BLOOD!” *bites cameraman*. Then it’d be different. Somehow.

I plan to keep playing around with that tool (uhm… Google Analytics… not what you’re thinking… after seeing that picture…) to make the site better, but in the mean time you may have to “pardon my dust” to turn a phrase. If you see strange things happening with the RSS feeds and the site layout you’ll know what’s happening and why. I’ll keep off the whole “sex and violence” thing, though. Unless Square-Enix changes their formula for Final Fantasy, in which case… well, I’ll get off of that subject.

(By the way, for those of you not familiar with the image above, that’s the main character of the BloodRayne video game.)

Le Linkage #9

Published on September 21, 2006 in Humor, Le Linkage, Linux and Open Source, Movies and Music, Online Games, Theology and Philosophy and Web Tools. 1 Comment

Alright, too much car talk, as was recently pointed out by a reader. Time for another edition of Le Linkage to move things in another direction! (Actually it was moving in another direction anyway, and there are another couple of car posts coming up. My sister’s car was just stolen, so I’m helping her find a car. Not that I’ll be discussing that, but I have a few more bits of info I think would be helpful for people looking to buy a used car. Now I’ll shut up and start this episode of Le Linkage.)

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Searching for Free Music with Google: Using this page, look for any artist or any song and with the help of a special a Google search query, this site may well just find it for you. Heck, I even found stuff by Sun Yan Zi, which is almost impossible to come by in this side of the world.

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Strangest grammatically correct English sentence: Really, if you’re into grammar and the weirdness of the English language then you’ll love this short article on the strangest grammatically correct sentence in English. After reading that, I thought of my own: “Dogs dogs dog dog dogs dogs dog,” which translates to “Dogs other dogs chase, chase dogs other dogs chase.” Can you come up with others?

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Drivers! Glorious Windows Drivers!: There’s nothing I hate more about software than having to find drivers. The problem is especially bad if you’re using Windows, since the OS is pretty much useless unless you have the drivers needed for it to work properly with your computer. (In Linux this isn’t much of a problem.) Anyway, if you’re stuck for drivers, this site may just have what you need.

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Hope, Despair and Memory: An essay by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel discusses why for him, hope without memory is like memory without hope. “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” This essay is especially powerful given recent world events.

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Ubuntu System on a Memory Drive: The coolest thing about CD-based Linux distributions is the fact that you can have your Linux distro just about anywhere. The bad part is that with those distros, you really can’t save anything so you’re pretty much relegated to single session computing. Sure, you can set up printers, have programs load up at lightning speed, and even download stuff off the Web. But if you’re the type to tote your OS around on a CD for use in different places, you’re also probably the type that likes to customize his environment, and that’s where the problem is: one reboot and it’s all over. Well now, if you use Ubuntu, you can save your system settings (and other items) on a memory drive! Just plug this baby in and you have YOUR computer with YOUR stuff back, with just a CD and a memory card. How cool is that?!

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Alan Watts MP3′s and Podcasts: If you enjoy eastern philosophy, but don’t have the time to read a bunch of texts, then the downloadable Alan Watts lessons are definitely for you. If you know who Watts is you’ll know the value of these recordings. If you’ve never heard of the guy, click on one of the links and find out a bit about him.

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Online Game: Proximity: This game’s pretty simple: Place your pieces in such a way as to make most of the board yours. What gets complicated is the strategy involved in order to make it happen. Very addicting, fun game.