Amazon Down
June 6, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
3comments Categories: Marketing, Puter Stuff, gnash-teeth
Tags: 503, amazon, websites
My friend Poem pointed out that http://www.amazon.com is down, receiving the following error.
Http/1.1 Service Unavailable
After poking about I noticed some spammy whois comments, but those appear in a whois for Google as well.
AMAZON.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
AMAZON.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
AMAZON.COM.IS.N0T.AS.1337.AS.WWW.GULLI.COM
AMAZON.COM
GOOGLE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
GOOGLE.COM.ZOMBIED.AND.HACKED.BY.WWW.WEB-HACK.COM
GOOGLE.COM.YAHOO.COM.MYSPACE.COM.YOUTUBE.COM.FACEBOOK.COM.THEYSUCK.DNSABOUT.COM
GOOGLE.COM.WORDT.DOOR.VEEL.WHTERS.GEBRUIKT.SERVERTJE.NET
GOOGLE.COM.VN
We did determine that http://amazon.co.uk is up as is https://www.amazon.com (note the https).
I’m not sure what’s going on other than this has been going on for about an hour I think.
The Hulk: More Powerful Than Superman
June 2, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
5comments Categories: Insider, Marketing, Religion, Science, gnash-teeth
Tags: comics, hulk, superman
This will probably be the first of many posts to address the misguided, fanboy, delusional belief that DC Comics Superman could defeat Marvel Comics The Incredible Hulk. This is a topic that has always bothered me and my friend Lauren Miller recently reminded me that this gross, almost religious denial of fact continues.
An excerpt from Wikipedia
The Hulk possesses the potential for limitless physical strength depending directly on his emotional state, particularly his anger.[32] This has been reflected in the repeated comment “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets.” His durability, healing, and endurance increase in relation to his temper.[33] The Hulk is also extremely resistant to most forms of injury or damage, including physical, psychic, environmental extremes, and is immune to disease and poisons. His powerful legs allow him to leap into lower Earth orbit or across continents.[34] He also has less commonly described powers, including abilities allowing him to “home in” to his place of origin in New Mexico, and to see and interact with astral forms. He has been shown to have both regenerative and adaptive healing abilities, including growing tissues to allow him to breathe underwater, surviving unprotected in space, and when injured, healing from almost any wound within seconds, including regenerating lost mass.
As Bruce Banner (and the Merged/Professor Hulk), he is considered one of the greatest minds on Earth. He has developed expertise in the fields of biology, chemistry, engineering, and physiology, and holds a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. He possesses “a mind so brilliant it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test”.[35]
The image ^ is from Incredible Hulk Vs Superman (1997) where the Hulk easily breaks the surprise hold Superman nabs him with and throws him into space.
So to summarize, the Hulks power (strength, durability & regeneration) is essentially unknown and possibly limitless. It’s important to note that magic, viruses, diseases, and psionics have no effect. He’s also the smartest man on the planet.
Let’s now take a look at this “Superman”.
Excerpt from Wikipedia.
As an influential archetype of the superhero genre, Superman possesses extraordinary powers, with the character traditionally described as “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound”, a phrase coined by Jay Morton and first used in the Superman radio serials and Max Fleischer animated shorts of the 1940s[75] as well as the TV series of the 1950s. For most of his existence, Superman’s famous arsenal of powers has included flight, super-strength, invulnerability to non-magical attacks, super-speed, vision powers (including x-ray, heat, telescopic, infra-red, and microscopic vision), super-hearing, and super-breath, which enables him to freeze objects by blowing on them, as well as exert the propulsive force of high-speed winds.[76]
As originally conceived and presented in his early stories, Superman’s powers were relatively limited, consisting of superhuman strength that allowed him to lift a car over his head, run at amazing speeds and leap one-eighth of a mile, as well as incredibly tough skin that could be pierced by nothing less than an exploding artillery shell.[76] Siegel and Shuster compared his strength and leaping abilities to an ant and a grasshopper.[77]
….The extent of his powers peaked during the 1970s and 1980s to the point where various writers found it difficult to create suitable challenges for the character.
Superman began as essentially that, a super man. Overtime though Superman was so over inflated with God like powers that it became too ridiculous of a storyline to continue. Ultimately though this alien, (but a very human alien) is charged with power from our sun Sol. His power is then finite and not able to increase depending upon his mood. His use of this power in turn must then diminish it. Additionally he is highly susceptible to psionics, magic, several viruses and of course Kryptonite.
It is simply too unbelievable that this little man, with his silly underwear, cape and boots could possibly pose a problem for the intelligence and raw power of the Hulk.
Javascript SEO Value
June 1, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
1 comment so far Categories: Castle, Marketing, SEO, Web Design & Dev
Tags: google, javascript, SEO
It’s long been said that JavaScript had no search engine optimization value. A few months back while running through my web server logs I realized that Google, among a few other search engine bots were indexing files that were only referenced through Javascript.
I created a few tests to determine the extent of this. Each test has its own URL which allows me to determine which was actually called and from where.
[Note: These links are no longer active.]
Test-1: Ability to process basic code. In this test the variable bob if processed will be a complete URL. I explicitly did not call the document.write function. This code was in the index page.
Result: The result of this one was as expected. The URL was never assembled and thus not crawled.
Test-2: Ability to extract a fully qualified URL from a relative, externally referenced, Javascript file in the HTML head tags. The contents of the file as follows.
var taco;
function megataco()
{
// are we good in a function?
taco = 'http://blog.alcastle.com/_gb/search.php?h=listing.js';
if( taco != null )
{
return taco.length;
}
}
megataco();
Result: The externally referenced .js file was pulled and the URL contained within the function was indexed.
Test-3: Ability to crawl a fully qualified URL from the index page.
var cran = 'http://blog.alcastle.com/_gb/search.php?h=index.php&t=literal';
Result: This test is not much different than the second, and likewise the results were the same.
Test-4 Crawling of a relative link from the index page.
EditInPlace.defaults['save_url'] = ‘/tagline_save.php’;
$(’editme’).editInPlace({
auto_adjust: true,
select_text: true
});
Result: The relatively URL here was not crawled.
Conclusion: In looking around at various webmaster forums, I’ve found evidence that some have been aware of this for awhile. My own tests are perhaps half hazard, but they do prove that while the Javascript may not be processed by search bots, some bots can and do extract links from the page source. Providing the links contained within the Javascript are complete URLs, you can expect Google at least to crawl those referenced pages.
linux community gathers for annual spring fun
April 17, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
4comments Categories: Castle, Friends, Marketing, Puter Stuff, Travel
Every April, a growing number of people from all walks of life gather in Bellingham, WA to share in the experience that is LinuxFest Northwest.
Attendees, sponsors, lecturers and exhibitors come from all over the Greater Northwest, including neighboring states and Vancouver, BC. For many enthusiasts of computers, software and technology, this is an event unlike any others.
Every year since it’s inception LinuxFest Northwest has been the diligent and hard work of a core group of the Bellingham Linux Users Group (BLUG) who shake the branches of our community and organize the nuts that fall out. Together with the Bellingham Technical College a strong supporter, providing the facility, and access to it’s many resources along with other neighboring and contributing computer users groups, the annual event comes together.
This is what makes LinuxFest unique. Everyone involved is a volunteer and everything is accomplished by pulling together. It’s not as glossy and shiny as MacWorld, nor expensive. The event is put on at no charge to the public. (And there’s better swag than at MacWorld.)
Anyone from any walk of life, any age, is more than welcome. You can learn about Linux and open source software, speak to industry leaders, authors, local businesses, and the guy across town who built something really cool in his garage. It’s all about sharing what you know and having a whole lot of fun.
Having attended and presented at previous fests, I’ve had a chance to meet and speak with some highly intelligent and creative people. Some of them famous in the technical arena, some not. My first time attending I was expecting boring lectures and presentations about how buying some corporate software would make me a happier person in life. Or a few dozen 30-somethings having crawled out of their basement wandering about.
Instead I met and talked to all kinds of interesting people. I remember sitting on a couch talking to a plain clothed police officer from the city of Blaine. We randomly started up a conversation about recovering files from a “perps” computer. Having some experience using several tools to recover files, but by no means an expert, I believe I pointed him in the right direction. The number of women and children attending was also surprising. This wasn’t an event just for the geeks.
It’s a free social event with a simple goal of sharing what we know about a piece of free software called Linux and the concept of open source. You may not be aware of it, but these things have and continue to reshape everything in your life. From your Tivo, to the the technology companies in your mutual fund. You may not be a “geek” or even know how to send an email let alone understand what “open source” means, and that’s okay. Come anyways, get involved in your community. A little knowledge can go along way and be fun.
- LinuxFest Northwest 2008 is a two day free event. April 26th - April 27th.
- Directions to the Bellingham Technical College.
- List of LinuxFest exhibitors.
- List of LinuxFest presentors.
- Official Website with more information including lodging.
More Info On The Black App
April 16, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
add a comment Categories: Castle, Marketing, OSX, Squirrels, TimeWaster, Web Design & Dev, gnash-teeth, iPhone
The Black App - A possible iPhone application of unknown coolness. For more info, you could go to the website. That was a joke.
They Hype::
All the references and blubs are essentially the same, I’m guessing it’s by their own people digging themselves and such. Since they hit dig, twitter and a few other places, it’s been syndicated and quoted all over the place.
No one knows anything though.
The Companies ::
Epic Apps is the company producing this and purchased the “theblackapp.com” domain via proxy in an effort to hide. They’re hosting at Media Temple, Inc. who provides services to big names and high traffic sites.
theblackapp.com was registered for only one year on Mar 31st 08
epicapps.com was also only registered for one year, 7 days later on Apr 6th 08 - redirects to theblackapp.com
epicapps.com ping responses come from godaddy.com though.
The Code ::
Since the web page is really simple there’s nothing to gleam from the markup accept that they are using google analytics. I’m sure they’re collecting a lot of good marketing data.
The registration page, now this is interesting, is posting to theblackapp.wufoo.com
Related ? ::
wufoo.com was registered Jan 16th 06 to Chris Campbell - http://wufoo.com/about/
So three guys with an idea and venture money from Ycombinator started Infinity Box Inc. and built wufoo.
What is wufoo?
Wufoo is an Internet application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun. Because we host everything, all you need is a browser, an Internet connection and a few minutes to build a form and start using it right away.
Chris also has a site called particletree.com, which is hosted and links to mediatemple and their venture backers.
Chris Campbell is too common of a name. I’ve yet to find anything relating him to even owning an iphone. I’ve also yet to dig around about his two other partners. So we’ll prematurely jump to the conclusion that this is probably just a tangent.
Or they were simply hired to setup the whole site. Which could mean that Ycombinator (the venture company) is also working with Epic Apps and recommended wufoo to them.
————
This is all from wee hours digging last night. I did find a few articles about social networking apps for the iPhone, nothing too exciting. As you can tell I’ve lost interest.
Let me know if I’ve got something wrong, you have more information or if Chris actually does own an iPhone.
Unthreaded Editable Tagline
April 15, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
4comments Categories: Castle, Friends, Marketing, Puter Stuff, Squirrels, TimeWaster, Web Design & Dev
For a long time I had a bit of code in my blog header, just beneath the blog title (Unthreaded), that randomly choose and displayed a quote, quip or blurb that I had written. Things like “Castlemonkey Speaks of Lemon Scented Victory” or “Castlemonkey Speaks of hotdogs with no cream cheese” and so on.
Sure to become a bore quickly, I’ve added in some code to make the tagline for this blog editable. By anyone. [Currently I'm not requiring you to identify yourself or login to do so. This may change later.]
Simply click on the text, whatever it may be, as anyone is free to change it, and you should see something like the picture above.
Type in whatever you like and click SAVE. The changes are global and saved to the database, meaning everyone who views the site right after you made that change, will see the new tagline. Until it’s changed again.
Dangerous huh?
Attribution Update: This idea was swiped from my amigo David. You can also see his version at Cranberry.
They Work Harder Than You Do
February 1, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
1 comment so far Categories: Castle, Marketing, Must Listen, Religion, TimeWaster, gnash-teeth
Loren Feldman from 1938 Media, has a video up from earlier last year, but I just now found it. It’s sort of a motivational, tough-love, speech about the American Dream. He also takes a moment to mention he hates Oprah - and I can’t argue with that.
Take a break and give it a listen - it’s pretty short.
Another Reason MySpace Sucks
January 31, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
1 comment so far Categories: Castle, Marketing, Religion, Science, gnash-teeth
I’ve never liked MySpace. From a developer & user perspective - the interface, design, performance, “features”, you name it. I consider it a complete waste of bandwidth. The core concept isn’t bad, but the implementation and follow-thru I simply can’t condone.
That said, take a look at this piece, where alledgedly MySapce has no space for Atheists.
Social networking site, MySpace.com, panders to religious intolerants by deleting atheist users, groups and content.
Early this month, MySpace again deleted the Atheist and Agnostic Group (35,000 members). This deletion, due largely to complaints from people who find atheism offensive, marks the second time MySpace has canceled the group since November 2007.
I’m not interested in voicing my own beliefs or hearing about anyone else’s. I’m entirely content to let people do or believe what they wish to do so long as it doesn’t interfere with my own happiness. I find most religious beliefs (& sports, ugly people, foods with sour cream, short people, etc) personally offensive, so I avoid them. Had I stumbled upon a website, a TV show, or radio station that I did not care for its message - I move on and don’t come back. No one is forcing anyone to goto a web page, to read the contents and take a test afterwards.
I’m not clear on the legal issues without more definitive information, but it would seem that from a moral standpoint - unless this group violated the terms of service they should be allowed to exist right next to every other group.
I ask all of you who read my blog or otherwise find this page to join me in the public ridicule and denouncement of MySpace for it’s crimes against common sense (as it relates to it’s site structure) and should this article prove true, then doubly so. Delete your MySpace account and setup shop elsewhere. Your friends will follow.
Here’s a blog post which makes a few design points that I’m too lazy to articulate myself. http://www.moundalexis.com/tm/archives/000124.php
Macworld Expo - Pictures
January 26, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
2comments Categories: Castle, Marketing, OSX, Picture of the Day, Puter Stuff, Travel, gnash-teeth
There were a ton of people at Macworld. Registration was a nightmare, I kept getting redirected to different registration stations by the staff even though I had registered online, but they sent the wrong ID badge. Finally I got it all straightened out and received a Macworld purse filled with MS Office M&M’s, a pen, notebook, lunch coupons for each day of the week, a magazine about the expo and a CDW 1GB flash drive. The number of Apple employees they had on hand to handle registration was impressive, it reminded me a lot of the INS.
Next was to tour all the booths and there were so many different vendors from the one man shops to the big names. The picture with the 3D glasses, yeah I have no idea. We were visiting a booth about backup software. Yet they were giving away 3D glasses, perhaps in an attempt to distract from the fact that with TimeMachine they really don’t have product anymore. This was perhaps one of the lamer marketing ideas, but I still had fun with it. Of course I can’t remember the name of the company so they get no plug here.
While wandering around, I noticed that comedian Sinbad had showed up. A crowd had gathered around him and he was being interviewed on camera. Not wanting to wait for the hub bub to die down I just ended up sneaking into the middle of the interview to get my picture taken.
Free WiFi was available, but it couldn’t realiably withstand the onslaught of thousands of geeks with their iPhones, iPodTouch, and notebooks all trying to connect to the Internet. While taking a break we headed outside of the Moscone Center, to a small corner where we happened upon a stronger signal to another business in the area. Here’s a lovely shot as we made camp to download some much needed iPhone upgrades and ate $6.00 cookies.
The place was pretty well packed the entire week, especially around the Macbook Air. We managed to fight our way through a crowd of disabled elderly people and actually play with one of the new notebooks. It’s a pretty slick looking peice of hardware, but a wee bit pricey.
While wandering about I noticed that someone from Apple Corp was making a fat joke about me. The enormous sign for everyone to see originally said “iPod Touch”, but Steve Jobs thought it would be cute to make fun of my extra pounds. At first I couldn’t believe it, but then we all had a good chuckle about it.
Nearby Intego’s “booth” was actually a giant green castle in my honor. All the attention was a bit embarrassing at first, but I just rolled with it. I wish they would have consulted me about the color though…
Since I was such a good sport about the whole “more to touch” thing, along with all the great work I’ve done over the years I was given an unexpected award. I was so excited I could barely contain it. I know during my acceptance speech I left out some very important people. I’m truly sorry, I was just so shocked by the whole thing and with the cameras flashing it was hard to focus. You all know who you are anyways.
Please note - This post *may* contain some satire, exageration, falsehoods, trophies, pictures, Apple products, me, Sinbad, misc people, green castles, my backpack and characters from the Roman alphabet. Yellow dye #6, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and berry juice.
Long term exposure to this post may cause retardation, compulsive masturbation and the desire to eat Mexican food. This post has not been approved by the FDA, NRA, CDC, ATF, JFK, LAX, or any letters brought to us by Sesame Street.
Macworld Expo - Wednesday
January 16, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
2comments Categories: Castle, Marketing, OSX, Puter Stuff, Travel, gnash-teeth, iPhone
Ok you’d think at the expo of one of the savviest, consumer satisfaction driven, technologically advanced computing companies of the century - wireless Internet would work. The expo is being held at the Moscone Center here in San Francisco, CA home to thousands of blockbuster movies, not a third world country. Most of the time I couldn’t get assigned a DHCP address, when addressing this issue to one of the Apple/Moscone liaisons she had no clue. I asked if there was someone else I could talk to, but apparently everyone would have referred me to her. Big help.
While outside for a smoke during the afternoon I managed to pickup a free wifi signal with good pipe and downloaded the IPhone and iTunes updates. Later as we sat inside and tried to install the iTunes update, I found out iTunes needed the Quicktime update as well. That’s when we met Nate and Nenu who work for an un-named defense contractor - too cool. Nenu had the Quicktime update, but not the iPhone update, so we searched our computers for the stashed download. Copied them to our CDW branded, 1GB flash drive, swag that we each got at registration and between the four of us managed to trade all the updates. Meeting those guys was one of the highlights of my day.
Later on the walk home, in the wrong direction, we met a group from the Griffin booth. I borrowed a light, so I could smoke from one of them and we had a good conversation until we realized our misreading of Google Maps.
This is one of the cooler updates I was waiting for. Basically the Google Maps application of the iPhone received an interface and features update. What’s really slick is a ghetto GPS that attempts to triangulate your current position within 20 meters via a company known as Skyhook. I typed in the address to our hotel and asked how to get there from my “Current Location” - too cool. I was actually on 4th St, but it gave me directions from 3rd to my hotel so still just as good. Unfortunately as anyone who knows me well, knows I can’t find my way out of a paper bag. I have zero sense of direction. My roomie I come to find out also suffers from this debilitating affliction.
Finally back at our hotel, the Internet in our room still just as bad, we head down stairs to reverse the $30 charge and get a comped wifi access code for the lobby wifi. Which at times is marginally better. We headed over to the attached cafe for some 7-Up to calm my upset tummy from either last nights seafood bonanza or todays burger and milkshake.
It took 5 minutes to just get a signal. I waited while I drank my $2.35 can of soda. I’ve got ping times to the router ranging from 100 milliseconds to 2.5 minutes. It’s not good enough to download all my email or do anything worthwhile. After waiting for far too long, I was able to load this blog posting page though.
I don’t have enough bandwidth to actually upload any photos, so those will have to wait. So many things to see, everyone peddling their wares - it’s a high-tech bazaar . Small booth stages replace soap boxes, wireless headsets and speaker systems allow their testimonials of how the end to software as we know it is over, their application/product will change everything - so each claims.
I played with the Apple Macbook Air, it’s cooler up close. Surprisingly thin, light weight, stylish and sturdy. I asked a ton of questions and played with the new features they took from the iPhone. Such as taking two fingers to stretch or squeeze a picture. You can also use three fingers as a forward or backward browser navigation, and two fingers to rotate a picture. The specs are reasonable considering they had to take into account heat from the CPU and hard drive, elimination of most of the ports, including ethernet and firewire as well as no optical drive. There’s a small area that drops down to provide USB and DVI video I believe. They still managed to squeeze in the built-in iSight though.
It comes with and is maxed out at 2GB of RAM which is half of what the Macbook Pro can handle. After searching through all of the specs and giving the Apple employee a good inquisition I realized that I’ve taken my Macbook Pro for granted. Most notebooks that are light aren’t powerful enough to be used as an actual daily workstation. Not true with the Macbook Pro, it is and has been my portable workstation. Thus the Macbook Air is a little less beefy and more sub-notebook indeed. I’m still tempted to get one…
It was at the small stations (not even a partial booth) that we found the coolest people and gear. What I first mistook for a girl hitting on me (what?! It could happen. Couldn’t it?), was actually a wily booth lady for a company called Eye-FI. They make and sell a 2GB SD memory card common to most digital cameras. What’s special about this card is it has built-in wireless capabilities. The card looks exactly the same as any other, same size, but is able (once set up) to send pictures directly from your camera (provided that it’s in range of your wireless home router) to your computer. You have the option to also have the images wireless transmitted to any number of Internet sites - Flickr, Photobucket, Facebook, Shutterfly, Costco and more. It works with Linux, Mac and Windows. Costs $99 and one sits in my room right now which I can’t wait to use.
My wireless pass is about to expire, so I’m cutting this short. I’ll try to post more tomorrow - bandwidth willing.
