sIFR 2.0 RC4 released

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Monday Feb 28 2005

sIFR

Mike Davidson has just released sIFR version 2.0 RC4. Among other things it includes various speed improvements which is a good thing since things sometimes got a bit slow. If you wonder what is: It's responsible for the really nifty headers above my postings and other things on this site. If you want a website design with a special edge you should definitely check it out!

This site is now running sIFR 2.0RC4. Another nice addition is the fact that you can switch it on or off. Try it yourself!

Update: If you experience ugly tabs everywhere when using Mozilla's AdBlock extension: disable 'object tags' and all is fine!

For those who wonder which font I'm using: It's called 'Downcome' and it comes from the excellent collection at Misprinted Type
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Today's motto

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Monday Feb 28 2005

Coffee!!



Felt appropriate for today...
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A great blog template

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Sunday Feb 27 2005

screenshot of doenietzomoeilijk.nl




Every once in a while you find a that really captures the eye. I came across Doe Niet Zo Moeilijk and I really loved it. The site is in Dutch but it's worth a look nevertheless. A very cool Wordpress !
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Powerbook G5 (II)

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Friday Feb 25 2005

It's here! well not really




Spotted another funny artist's impression at Gizmodo of what a G5 would look like if release it right now. I'm afraid we'll have to wait for that for quite a bit due to excessive heat and power consumption issues with this (otherwise great) CPU.
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PimpZilla

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Friday Feb 25 2005

PimpZilla detail

So you're one of the MTV 'bling bling' generation? If that's the case then this Firefox theme is exactly what you need. Fur, leopard skin and golden elements galore. Get it and surf the web like a rap star!

get PimpZilla
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Pivot-Blacklist for phpBB

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Friday Feb 25 2005

phpBB logo

For use at the Pivot Forum which is running I have packaged a hacked version of for use with phpBB. It's a quick hack but it works very well. The Pivot-Blacklist for phpBB is useful for those who run phpBB forums with anonymous posting enabled (posting without being registered on the forum). It blocks very effectively. A subset of Pivot-Blacklist's features are available:
  • Classic MT-Blacklist spam scanning
  • Personal blacklist (additions to the MT blacklist entered by the administrator)
  • OSA (Owen's Spam Action, providing extra anti spam-bot protection)
  • SURBL checking (real time known spam domain list)
  • RDSBL checking (open proxies)
  • logging of spam attempts


If you run phpBB and you need to have unregistered posting enabled then this package is your rescue angel.

Get it while it's hot!
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A blast from the past!

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Thursday Feb 24 2005

a classic mail-me! animation

Being a & development 'veteran' myself (I created my first website in 1992) I had a really great time reading the presentation 'A Vernacular Web' by Olia Lialina. It brought back a lot of memories of what the was like back in the early nineties. If you were already around back then it will bring a smile on your face many times and if you weren't probably even more. Have a blast from the past. The early days of webpage design in a great extensive article. Be sure to read it if you have some time to spare because it's quite extensive. Worth every minute of your time!

The Vernacular Web
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Flash with Web Standards

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Thursday Feb 24 2005
After a small fight with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Flash in order to get my new clock to both work AND be web standards compliant I found an interesting link I'd like to share with you. on this page at deconcept.com you'll find a great explanation on how to embed movies and achieve all goals I just mentioned. It works in all AND it's compliant.

Read and learn!
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Thrown into jail for... blogging

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Thursday Feb 24 2005

comittee to protect bloggers

At antipixel.com I saw a posting with a good purpose. Even though it was monday apparently when it was "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day" I still think it's worthwhile to dedicate a posting to it. Even though even the government of the Netherlands is limiting free speech lately as a stupid response to 'terrorist threats' at least you don't get thrown in jail or persecuted here just yet for blogging things they don't want to hear. For Mojtaba and Arash things are different. Therefore, like Jeremy suggests, make some noise, make a posting, do something! Let's cherish free speech because it's a precious thing indeed.

Committee to protect bloggers
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Mugshots!

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Wednesday Feb 23 2005

my ugly mug

A while ago, Marcel Kampman fired a round of shots at me with his Ixus camera. This morning I received the finished in my mailbox. I really like the result. Finally some great * on my About me page. Thanks Marcel!

Check the about page

* Well, the subject isn't all that pretty of course but the photos are awesome!
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Online Poker

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Tuesday Feb 22 2005
Ozh has started a very nice initiative on his blog. I saw it last week already but to be honest I didn't think it was going to make a difference. However it seems I was wrong and therefore I'm joining in on the bandwagon. His idea is that us can take revenge on the by screwing up what they're carefully trying to achieve: . This is why I'm now making this post about with a link or two to Online Poker according to the Wikipedia. At the moment of writing it's already ranked #30 on Google. I'm sure we can improve upon that. Therefore (God, I never dreamed I was ever gonna write this) Check out some interesting information about Online Poker since Online Poker is the bomb since it's listed in the Wikipedia.

Happy Online Poker playing all!

Join the effort and make a post as well. For details check out Ozh!
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Ratings

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Monday Feb 21 2005
After reading a request on the pivot forum made a quick hack extension that adds 'rate this posting' functionality to Pivot. You can see it in action on this site.
The ratings extension includes the so called 'rate-o-meter' snippet, a graphical representation of the article's rating. It's the first 'skinnable' Pivot extension.

Samples:

3.5 (rated 3.5)
8.0 (rated 8.0)
6.5 (rated 6.5)

If you want on your too:

Get it here!
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Pivot 1.24 out: update!

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Monday Feb 21 2005
version 1.24 has been released. It fixes a potential security issue which is why I advise all of you Pivot users to upgrade as soon as possible! This site has just been updated to 1.24.

Go get it!
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Rockin' Fonts!

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Sunday Feb 20 2005

W000000t!!!

Before going to bed I just had to show you all this: Fonts based on rock band logo's. This is just too cool! There's tons of goodies out there for free download. Now if only they offered Mac versions...

Go get them!

Update: They DO work on Mac OS X!
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Cocoalicious

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Friday Feb 18 2005

Cocoalicious

For all of you enlightened users out there I spotted a nice client for grabs. It's called Cocoalicious and it seems to work very nice. It's definitely much easier than having to visit the actual del.icio.us site every time you want to add bookmarks.

So have a look at !
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Dumb blonde chick

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Thursday Feb 17 2005
If there's one thing I truly despise it's dumb blonde chicks 'criticizing' my country. In her 'columns' this tight-assed American conservative tart writes the following:

Then there’s today’s Netherlands. The country that values its legalized prostitutes and drugs has little value for human life. Anyone can be murdered by their doctors at the request of family members. There is no requirement the patient’s condition be terminal or the suffering be physical. Thousands of innocents are euthanized each year at the request of greedy or neglectful spouses and family. The slippery slope has begun.Debbie Schlussel, showing off her knowledge about the Netherlands.


This passage comes right after a passage about the holocaust, mind you.

It's clear a lot of Americans truly studied our country. What a load of crap...

Here's another one for Google: Debbie I think you're a dumb blonde chick

Here's some Technorati tags to chew on too:

, , , ,

Update: Apparently the Google bomb is working
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STOP SPAMMING ME!

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Thursday Feb 17 2005

Spam log

It hasn't happened often but this particular is really getting on my nerves right now:



Nutzu.com
Administrative Contact:
Adrienne, Kareem (NIC-10440) karadr56@tech-corner.us
Kareem Adrienne
Seven Springs Rd
Burnside
Maryland, US
10034
Phone: 2128723169
 (continue reading...)
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404: Page not found

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Tuesday Feb 15 2005
This posting isn't really a posting. It's the page! However, compared to other people's 404 pages it's a real deluxe incarnation! On this 404 page you can leave a message about how much you hate the fact that the page could not be found. Heck, you can even send a trackback to it from your blog. Anything is possible, the sky is the limit! It could be the next big thing on the ! Anyway, we looked everywhere, even in places you really don't want to look for anything, let alone a missing html page. I guess you get the picture. You could point a gun at my head, threaten to shoot my dog or have Fed-ex deliver me 10.000 Britney Spears CD's but nothing, and I mean absolutely NOTHING is gonna change the fact that you're not gonna get the page you just requested. Let's say it's just not your day, or something. And before you get funny ideas: tomorrow doesn't look particularly bright either. Give it up, already!

404


Anyway, enough rambling. Let's proceed with the regular business waffle that's supposed to be printed on a real serious 404 page: (continue reading...)
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A real world explanation
about tags

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Tuesday Feb 15 2005
Quite some people have asked me what these are actually all about. Most of them agreed that the looks really nice and all but the purpose of it all seems utterly unclear. Therefore I figured it's a good idea to write some explanation as for what one can really do with tags.

(continue reading...)
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Can't get enough of your Tags!

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Tuesday Feb 15 2005
I've slightly improved the extension for . It now also shows lists of postings with the same tag(s) under your blog entries. Check out This Pivot forum thread if your hands are now itching to get started with on your own Pivot !
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The tags work!

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Tuesday Feb 15 2005

My posting about tags on technorati




Great to see that the thing really works great. As you can see in this screengrab, picks up the tags posted on this weblog just fine!
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Taggerati v 2.0

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Monday Feb 14 2005
Earlier I released the extension for . Right now I've taken it a step further, inspired on what I've seen at , which is by the way. The owner of that site implemented a very complete system which I've tried to mimick in the form of a Pivot extension. At this point it's in testing phase on this site. If you are interested in the full blown extension you can of course always mail me. In the meanwhile, browse around in the recent messages on this site. I haven't added tags to all posts yet but I'll be doing that in the time to come so you'll see the tag cosmos grow. Click on the 'Tags' tab on top of this page for the current Tag cosmos on the site!

If you're using Pivot and you want to start tagging yourself, get the extension HERE!

Feedback is welcome!

Some related tags:


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Welcome to the Tag Universe

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Sunday Feb 13 2005
Introducing '', a new extension for Pivot.

are the next big thing on the , so they say. To be prepared for this I prepared an extension for that makes it very easy to use on your webpage. In addition to this, it will generate a list of tags used in the entry posted on your which link to your own Tag Universe page. On that page your site will generate a nice overview of relevant based on feeds on various sites. If you're interested in this extension, go to the Pivot Forum where you can download it!

This posting also serves as a nice demo for the Taggerati extension.
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World Press Photo 2004

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Friday Feb 11 2005

crappy mobile phone picture of the WPP press conference


Phew! The World Press Photo presentation at the official press conference went really well. This year's winner is definitely a quite impressive image. Since the World Press Photo site kindly requests visitors not to copy the photograph I'd say just click here to see World Press Photo 2004. The lineup of winners in all categories was definitely very impressive again this year! You can see them all here. A must see for any photo enthousiast!
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Tired... some random babble

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Thursday Feb 10 2005
Damn... this is one of these weeks in which I really long for the weekend. It's been quite a stressful week because I'm involved in the presentations of the World Press Photo 2004 winners which will be held in Amsterdam tomorrow. Kind of cool to already know which photo is going to be World Press Photo 2004 while the rest of the world will have to wait until tomorrow. Especially if you're a photography enthousiast like myself. Seeing all the excellent work by the world's best press photographers always gives me this tickling camera feeling. I guess it's time to start playing with my again. (continue reading...)
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Rant...

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Tuesday Feb 8 2005
Why is it that EVERYBODY can connect to pop.gmail.com except for me? I've enabled it, configured my email client as instructed but no no no, no popping for Marco. Sending through 's SMTP server works fine but I can't get anything out of it. What I need is a plumber!

Update: What I need is a set of glasses! setting the connection to an SSL one helped an awful lot
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Open letter to Google

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Tuesday Feb 8 2005
Email sent to google follows:

To whom it may concern at ,

My name is Marco van Hylckama Vlieg. I am the creator of a piece of software I wish I was never 'forced' to create. It serves no purpose, it doesn't make the internet any better, it simply does something that could have been completely irrelevant. The tool I'm talking about is , an anti-spam package for the well known weblog software called Pivot (www.pivotlog.net). It blocks comment spam, and referral spam. As you know, are the personal homepages of the 21st century. They are about people. They are our online presence. They are about communicating with the world. What they are NOT about is unsollicited marketing activities, unless the owner of the weblog has decided to allow some space on his/her site for commercial purposes, like many sites do with Google Ads for example. (continue reading...)
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War on terror in the lower lands

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Tuesday Feb 8 2005
Since the day Theo van Gogh was murdered by a religious fundamentalist and some of the politicians were threatened in a letter left by the murderer, is 'at war with '. Now of course this sounds like a whole mouthful but in the Netherlands people are very good at overreacting. Yesterday I saw a documentary about the German Rote Armee Fraktion which kept Germany in a firm grip of fear and horror for decades. A documentary that put things into the right perspective again. (continue reading...)
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A big thank you!

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Saturday Feb 5 2005
This posting is especially to thank everybody on weblogs all over the world for your warm reactions in postings, comments and emails to me about the Pivot Blacklist. I really appreciate all your praise and your support. It makes it great fun to keep working on it and making it better and better in each new release.

Thank you very much, merci beaucoup, danke schön, muchas gracias, hartelijk dank!
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Trackback spam the next major problem?

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Saturday Feb 5 2005
Lately it seems us bloggers have been getting a fair deal of shiny armor plating against comment . Of course we have Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist, the one that sort of started the anti-spam countermeasures for in general. WordPress has quite sophisticated anti spam modules and for Pivot we have my own Pivot-Blacklist which is maturing quite nicely as well. But then there came the nofollow attribute. An initiative in order to stop blog spam falsely inflating at . It seems like an almost altruistic act but of course for Google itself it's even more important than for us bloggers. Lots of spam-inflated pageranks makes the whole pagerank thing less valuable which is why Google just had to do something. "Now what?", will the spammers probably wonder. The answer is, I'm afraid, spam. (continue reading...)
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Trackback finally works

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Thursday Feb 3 2005
Just a small message to let you all know that trackback finally works the way I want it. Including a nice shiny anti-spam armor. Enjoy!
Note that the silly two-way trackback between this article and one on the Pivot-Blacklist site are just a test.
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Interview with the enemy

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Wednesday Feb 2 2005
Through Roy's blog I came across an interesting interview with (being the author of Pivot Blacklist) one of my enemies: a comment. The article is quite an interesting read. I guess my next focus will be spamming which is becoming a new problem. As 'Sam' indicates, "It's like a 1500-metre race. You get a little bit ahead but then the others catch up". I guess is still ahead and I intend to even widen the gap. Screw you, Sam. Nothing personal!

read the interview
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