Friday August 13, 2004

Thanks Rusty

While trying to make Roller more friendly to non-ascii users we ran into the issue of non-ascii characters used in entry titles. These munged the permalinks we generated, until someone (Jaap, was it you?) was clever enough to escape these characters. Today Rusty announced the posting of the Internationalized Resource Identifiers draft, a standard which could really help to alleviate the current problems with non-ascii text in URLs.
( Aug 13 2004, 01:03:51 PM ) Technology Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/thanks_rusty

Monday August 09, 2004

Another "Perfect Weblog System" post

This post is an interesting mix of subjective and objective requirements.

I find it interesting that so many people (who already use MoveableType) assert that /YYYY/MM/DD/ is the best (most un-crufty) URL structure. I started with Blogger, took a look at Radio, and now use Roller. They all do things a bit different, and I think it is all on preferences. Of course, one of my "dream features" for Roller is that you could use any one of the 'popular' URL formats to get to the same place.

In any case, it is a good rundown and does highlight several important bits on how to present good (semantic) content. Make sure to follow his link to Henri Sivonen: Outlining the 'Ultimate' Blogging Server which in turn links to Matthew "mpt" Thomas' outline of "The ultimate Weblogging system", on which I've commented before. ( Aug 09 2004, 10:33:35 AM ) Technology Permalink Comments [2]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/another_perfect_weblog_system_post

For further reading on today's posts:

Blogging Roller : Lance on the perfect weblog system and gender issues | Comments [0]

Thursday August 05, 2004

Tech '54, Where Are You?

I read this article in a chiropractor's waiting room while visiting my folks down in Arkansas. I liked it.

( Aug 05 2004, 02:12:29 PM ) Technology Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/tech_54_where_are_you

Referer Spammer Management in Roller

As it stands now, each user is responsible for maintaining their own Referer Spam blocking list. I do this fairly religiously, but my wife does not. Her blog doesn't seem to attract as much spam as mine, but why shouldn't she benefit from my list? I think I'll add a Roller-wide blocking list to my To-Do list.
( Aug 05 2004, 11:00:25 AM ) Roller Permalink Comments [2]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/referer_spammer_management_in_roller

Block By IP

I still haven't been able to build a new machine to host Brainopolis, so it's been running off of my personal/development machine. At times I notice Roller's JVM taking 99% of my CPU. Last night I jumped right into my access logs and noticed a particular IP has been pounding my box (with no referer). I tried accessing the IP directly, and did a reverse DNS lookup on it. Both failed to deliver me a website. So I googled it. The top entry was someone's /baniplist page (sorry, this was last night and I don't have the info handy).

Looking further down the google results I saw that the IP had been used to post several Comments on other sites, each referring to a site I recognized from my Referer Spam list. I'd like to ban this IP myself, but I don't use Apache. I use Resin directly and am unaware of any IP banning built in.

So I'll likely revive an old project, HoneyPot, which was an experiment of mine in detecting 'email harvesting' bots and banning them through a Java Servlet Filter. The question is, should I then bundle this ability into Roller, or is this better left out? I'm leaning toward the latter, your comments are welcome.
( Aug 05 2004, 10:53:58 AM ) Technology Permalink Comments [1]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/block_by_ip

Re: PC EZ-Bake Oven looks cool, but I see no evidence of a crumb-tray. Lack of such convenience would make this a dangerous, or at least odorous, device to insert into a computer.
( Aug 05 2004, 10:49:38 AM ) Technology Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/re_pc_ez_bake_oven

Thursday July 29, 2004

War is a Racket [Link] ( Jul 29 2004, 10:18:00 AM ) Personal Permalink Comments [1]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/war_is_a_racket

Wednesday July 28, 2004

The Great American Illiteracy Scare

I see this sort of doom at least every other year: Americans are reading less!

While I am no internationaly recognized research body, I have trouble reconciling this fear with the wave of "mass reading" that occurs with each new Harry Potter book release. I'd say every 10 years of so a new book arrives which captures childrens' imaginations and hooks them on reading.

Or maybe I'm just deluding myself.
( Jul 28 2004, 10:30:15 AM ) Personal Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/the_great_american_illiteracy_scare