Preventing comment spam

Comment spam is one of the great scourges of the internet, which is why there are so many measures available to counter it. Some are more effective than others, some introduce more problems than they fix. Here I outline a few of the techniques that seem to have worked on this particular blog.

As far as I understand it, comment spam can be broken into three main methods:

1. Human: a genuine, real live person actually sits there and types a spam message into your comment form – unsurprisingly this is the least common form
2. Bot: an automated script scans your website, finds your comment form, generates a spam message and posts it to your site
3. Harvester: yet another script scans your website, finds your comment form and copies it – days, weeks or months later the offsite copy of your form is used to start submitting spam messages to your site

We’ll look at some methods for combating each of these in turn.

Read more...

Feb 24th 2010 16:19 // Web Design // 2 comments

Beating the blank page

Here's a quick tip that might help you if you have that age-old writer's problem: fear of the blank page. It's a very simple, practical way of making sure your encounters with the blank page are as brief and painless as possible.

The original title for this post? "Beating vacansopapurosophobia" (which, of course, means fear of blank paper). That headline would be enough to scare anyone away, so we'll just stick to the everyday wordage for now. Still, at least writing the above excuse has ploughed me nearly a hundred words into this particular blank page.

The blank page is the writer's worst enemy and best friend. It's a fearsome barrier that holds the promise of your greatest ever writing. You can spend hours, perhaps even days, starting at that white space while your brain picks over and rejects those first words, while you tear yourself apart with the certainty that what you actually end up writing will be a pale shadow of the genius that really lurks inside your head.

Read more...

Feb 21st 2010 13:18 // On Writing // No comments

Make the right choice, Mr Conroy

The following post is an open letter To Senator Stephen Conroy on the subject of the proposed mandatory internet filter. I will be sending slightly modified versions of this to Conroy, to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, to my local representative and to anyone else with a significant influence upon the internet filter.

Along with many other Australian residents I am deeply concerned about the proposed mandatory internet filter, as announced on December 15, 2009. It is my belief, and I am far from alone in this, that the filter will do little to protect the people it is designed to protect, will do nothing to prevent people from accessing illegal material if they want to, and represents a serious breach of civil liberties.

Read more...

Feb 17th 2010 13:28 // Miscilliness // 2 comments

The Gamer: defamed, defiled, reviled

Partly a response to Caroline Overton's ill-judged defamation of every single gamer on the planet, but also a look at the way twitter, and the internet in general, enables readers to hold journalists, writers and other publishers of irresponsible and objectionable material to account.

Let's start off with a few choice quotes from award-winning investigative journalist Caroline Overington:

"...anyone over the age of 30 who spends any time deep in some sagging sofa, console in one hand, the other down the front of their pants, imagining themselves to be a combatant in some pretend city, is lame.
...
I know what you're thinking. Gamers, who cares? They don't participate in life in any meaningful way. As a rule, they don't even have jobs."

- Caroline Overington, The Australian, February 11, 2010 (source)

You can read the full article by following the link above (or right here if you're just a bit lazy; a gamer, perhaps?). It's not my aim to dissect Overington's article line by line as I'm certain that anyone with even the smallest measure of intelligence can work out where someone might take offence and why. What does bear pointing out is that fact that here we have an award-winning investigative journalist publishing what is quite probably the laziest piece of writing I have ever cast my eyes over. What is equally shocking is that Overington has actually been paid to write this.

Read more...

Feb 15th 2010 22:20 // Miscilliness // No comments

On writing (or not)

In which I pledge to write more, make excuses for not writing enough, and (almost) marvel at those occasions when writing stops being the mere act of hammering out words and becomes something more

Almost every year I make a vow to myself that "this year I'm going to take my writing seriously". Naturally, almost every year I end up writing less than I did the previous year, but I think a whole lot about writing, and I also think a whole lot about not writing. This year it looks like I might actually succeeed in doing some good, honest, possibly rambly, maybe readable writing. It's exciting. You can tell I'm excited because, well, I'm telling you.

There's a genuine and practical reason for this post. For the last few months I've been quietly going - well, quietly unless you follow me on twitter, in which case I've been harping on relentlessly - about producing a few short stories on the assumption that once I start that ball rolling it'll carry on by itself. That's more or less the case, but I feel sufficiently confident now that I can make a vague commitment (by the mere act of saying so in public) that I intend to continue writing with some regularity from hereon.

Read more...

Feb 11th 2010 16:05 // On Writing // 2 comments

Words as Weapons

(or why Tony Abbott is an enormous knobend*)

"What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up."

- Tony Abbott (February 08, 2010) (full story)

"I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question ... [virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving, and don't give it to someone lightly."

- Tony Abbott (January 27, 2010) (full story)

In the last few weeks opposition leader Tony Abbott has managed to draw a generous number of headlines not through anything he's done, but through a couple of things he's said (see above). It's been a fascinating thing to watch from the sidelines, in large part because under very close analysis there's actually very little wrong with the content of what he says.

Read more...

Feb 9th 2010 20:57 // Miscilliness // 1 Comment

Why I don't watch broadcast TV

A somewhat extended whinge about why TV in Australia is so awful and I why I don't bother watching it anymore.

About a week ago I noticed an advert on one of the major channels here for the new version of the lizard-tastic V. It looked fairly interesting, but my overriding thought was: "Yeah, it looks good but there's no way I'm watching it on your channel!".

Even though I've been downloading most of my TV for a good few years now, it was my reaction to the V trailer to that made me realise how my viewing habits had irrevocably changed. I know for a fact that I'm not alone. I also know for a fact that if people don't watch broadcast TV then investment is ultimately going to suffer, quality is going to take a nosedive and decent content on TV will probably enter the halls of legend. So, why don't I watch broadcast TV?

Read more...

Feb 2nd 2010 12:48 // Miscilliness // No comments

Piracy: The Good, The Bad and The Indifferent

Here's a piece I wrote a couple of months ago and then more or less discarded due to the rapid pace at which issues surrounding copyright theft seem to develop. However, given Bono's recent attempts to alienate whatever proportion of his fanbase might still hold some dwindling respect for him, I've decided to finally post it. It's a bit out of date, and there will inevitably be points I've missed, useful links I haven't included, arguments I've skipped - so, if you've got anything to add, correct or even counter then please leave a comment and let the debate commence...

If you own any item of home entertainment hardware you’re almost certain to have been affected by piracy in one way or another. You might be an active consumer (i.e. you’ve downloaded or purchased pirated content), a passive viewer (e.g. you’ve watched, listened to or played pirated media provided by a friend or colleague), or you might have discovered that you can’t copy that recently purchased CD to your MP3 player. Either way, the ramifications of piracy are laced throughout our entertainment culture. Not surprisingly, there’s a whole bunch of misinformation and downright falsehoods being traded under its banner.

So let’s see if we can’t confuse the issue even further.

Before we start, this article isn’t intended to be a definitive guide either to, for, or against piracy. My own views on the matter will become abundantly clear as you read on. However, my aim is to highlight a few of the lesser discussed issues – issues which I’ve grouped under the banners: the good, the bad and the indifferent. 

Read more...

Jan 11th 2010 09:43 // Miscilliness // No comments

Converting integers to monthnames in PHP

It's a new year and a whole twelve months of brand new dates, so what better than a quick and easy tutorial all about converting months from integers to proper month names?

On several occasions I've had to look up methods for converting integers into monthnames in PHP. Most involve some form of calculation. Below you'll find an example of that method along with possibly the easiest alternative you'll ever find.

Read more...

Jan 4th 2010 08:51 // Web Design // No comments

Debugging CSS in multiple browsers

After several torturous years trying to debug websites in different browsers using hacks, virtual machines and all manner of inconvenience I’ve finally arrived at a setup whereby launching multiple versions of IE and Firefox is about as easy as it could possibly be. What follows is a simple tutorial on how to set up your PC to do the same. I’ll also mention a few crucial tools that no web developer should be without.

This article will start with Internet Explorer, since that's the browser that often requires the most amount of debugging, but follows with details on how to run multiple versions of Firefox. Developer techniques have reached a sufficient stage now where there should be no need for old-fashioned css or html hacks to be used.

IE has supported Conditional Comments for a long time now. Conditional comments enable you to write additional css styles to cater for different versions of IE and should definitely be your only method for dealing with IE inconsistencies. For other browsers or platforms (e.g. iphone) you can use browser sniffing techniques to identify how a visitor is viewing your site, using the $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] string for instance, and, if absolutely necessary, write alternative code accordingly.

For those who wish to get right down to it I've attached readme style text files for IE and Firefox at the end of this article. These will provide straightforward step by step instructions without all the chaff.

Read more...

Aug 26th 2009 13:01 // Web Design // No comments