Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent for Christians across the world. It is customary to “give up” something during Lent, and many people give up using Facebook.
If you’re like me, it’s hard to forget the muscle memory of typing “facebook.com” into the address bar of my web browser. Because of this, I use use the Windows Hosts File to block my browser (and in fact, the entire OS) from accessing Facebook.
To do this, open Windows Notepad in “Run as Administrator” mode. Open this file (you may need to select “All Files” in the Open dialog box):
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
At the end of the file, add the following lines to the file:
# Block Facebook
127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 facebook.com
127.0.0.1 static.ak.fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1 www.static.ak.fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1 login.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 www.login.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1 www.fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1 fbcdn.com
127.0.0.1 www.fbcdn.com
127.0.0.1 static.ak.connect.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 www.static.ak.connect.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 *.facebook.com
Save the file, and then restart your computer. After a restart, going to Facebook in your browser should not work. This method has an added benefit that Facebook Like Buttons on sites across the internet will not show up, disabling the tracking that Facebook does that is enabled by these buttons.
Posted in Internet, technology | No Comments »
Saturday, February 11th, 2012
I was talking to some friends yesterday about the Chicago flag, and they pointed out that St. Louis has a flag, which apparently was voted fifth best design among United States.
That 2004 North American Vexillological Association Poll also lists some of the worst flags. The Pocatello, ID flag, for example, is number 150.
Posted in Internet, News | No Comments »
Saturday, January 21st, 2012
I just got an exciting email from WordPress StackExchange.
From: rebecca@stackexchange.com
Subject: WordPress Answers swag for top users
Thank you for being one of the top http://wordpress.stackexchange.com users!
As a small token of our appreciation, we’d like to send you a totally sweet, completely free WordPress Answers swag package, as documented here.
p.s. you rock!
Posted in Internet | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
SEO is not hard. Create great content that others want to link to, and you’ll be home free. This does not happen overnight, and does not happen easy, but it is doable.
I recently read a blog entitled SEO for Non Dicks. I thought it was a great piece that echos my opinions on SEO. Some of his points inlude:
- Use descriptive URLs
- Make sure the page title matches the first heading
- Use titles that are relevant to the content
- Use descriptive anchor-text for links
.. and more. All these guys offering “easy” ways to increase search engine rankings are just sleezy characters who may increase your rankings temporarily, but once the search engines find out about the schemes, your participation in them will be your ticket to Google’s black list.
Another way to employ ethical, quality methods to make sure your search engine ranking is as high as it should be is to follow Google’s SEO Starter Guide. That’s right – a guide published by Google telling you how to make sure Google will index your site properly. Make sure you read this and take the appropriate recommendations to heart.
Lastly, a there are two great tools created and offered for free by Google to help you analyze your SEO and site performance. These tools are Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. You should have your site connected to both of these tools so you can analyze your site’s search engine ranking optimally.
Posted in Internet | No Comments »
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
As I was cross posting an Instagram photo to Flickr the other day, I found a cool little trick.
Instagram applies to images that you upload to Flickr certain tags like “instagram,” “square format,” and “iphoneography.” It also adds tags for the type of filter you applied to the image, if any. You can use these tags to do searches for photos with only those filters.
Posted in Internet, Photography | No Comments »
