ORDPRESS is finally most determinded to put a stop to comment spam. The introduction of rel='nofollow' never seemed to have done the trick. Yet, in then absence of this attribute, which was controversially introduced by Google (much like XML’d Site Maps), who knows what a jungle we would have lived in today.

The new spam prevention mechanism will be capable of serving all sites in principle (via API‘s), not only WordPress-powered sites. Meanwhile, I volunteered to be among the testers, but further details are not intended to be disclosed. I can only say that spam flagging is collaborative, much like Google Mail filtering (mentioned and recommended to the audience in my recent talk on security).

The spam protection plug-in presently has a test-bed on this domain. The following link will get things going, i.e. get spam to surge in:

http://www.schestowitz.com/Spam/

Prepare yourself to the end of comment spam!

Related items:

• Black Hat Search Engine Optimisation
• Spammers Map
• Spammer’s Death

Connect with Google, search with Google, E-mail with Google. Google machine and operating system yet to come?

OOGLE are high up in the headlines again as rumours have become a reality. It is said that “Big G” is yet to offer Wi-Fi and Virtual Private Networking (VPN) to America, starting with the San Francisco bay area.

Google already allow visitors to download necessary software from their site and the FAQ explains a little further. There appears to be somewhat of a ‘hit-and-run game’, whereby Google bring their download sub-site to life, but quickly make it unavailable again, re-directing to their main search page. I suspect this may only appear this way because I access Google from outside the United States. They intend to cover the States in the future as a full-scale ISP according to some rumours, which can finally be confirmed.

I still remember the days when Google boasted being a powerful search engine, later to become a fully-blown information management and centralisation body (e.g. Google Groups, Google Directories). Maps and E-mail have greatly extended its scope, yet now, as Internet services are unveiled, there appear to be no apparent limits.

What will be next to come: Google boxes and Google O/S near you?

OOGLE’S Search Quality Team pushes on with an initiative to remove pages which contain hidden text, JavaScript re-directs and the like. The main intention is to penalise sites that use questionable, if not black-hat, SEO techniques. It is rather encouraging to know that much effort is being put into refinement of search results — an effort considerable enough to justify formation of an entirely independent team.

While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that were outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here: [link]

In order to preserve the quality of our search engine, we have temporarily removed some webpages from our search results. Currently pages from [url removed] are scheduled to be removed for at least 30 days.”

There has been a fair bit of fuss about Microsoft’s use of Open Source software. In the past few days, I have come across numerous articles describing how Windows relied on some BSD network components in the early nineties. Above all, the incorporation of Open Source software for Message Passing Interface (MPI) in their server software makes many among the Open Source community bitter.

In a move that shows just how far Microsoft Corp. has come, and how pervasive open-source software is in certain areas, the software powerhouse is, for the first time, including open-source technology in one of its shipping products.

Related item: Software Communists – referring to software patents

Photo from around 1984

ORDS have leaked to my ear that I may have won this year’s rowing competition at the Midland Hotel health club. There is no official announcement yet, but I am rather excited to have heard it. I will definitely take a shot of the prize after the official ceremoney is held.

Having worked out consistently for 10 years, I am now managing to win a pleasant reward almost every year, which I am ecstatic about.

That’ll keep everyone away for a few hours

O anyone who wonders why I have not posted in 24 hours or so, I am working on a new Mandrake Linux machine at home (photo). The work primarily involves setup, customisation and data migration. The nature of my ‘disappearance’ is symbolised by the amusing picture above.

I have been settings everything up so that I can seamlessly work from all locations, including a Ubuntu machine (photo) at work and the SuSE machine (photo #1, photo #2)¹ at the University. In this state of affairs, I can handle data quite uniformly, keeping files and settings in a single place. I also need to work on installing some peripherals like scanner, digital camera and a Palm handheld. Linux on the desktop has made so much progress recently. Installation is, quite frankly, easier than that of Windows, assuming no prior experience with Windows. It is no wonder that Dell is beginning to ship pre-installed Linux machines, much as I predicted a several days ago and also mentioned briefly some months ago.

¹ I’d post pictures of my children when I am old enough to have a family. In the mean time, may computers be equivalent to kids ? I’ll take the risk making that perverse ,very sarcastic statement!

ULTIPLE sources I have come across are citing the same article from Reuters (first John Dvorak, now Slashdot). The facts are truly unbelievable. If it had not come from Reuters, I would not have quoted it. Judge for yourself:

An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.

…

“We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited,” Barton said.