Well, even though dieInter.net hasn't been very active in the past few months, I am still keeping an eye here, and maintaining the site, until the Facebook craze has dispersed a little.

What I noticed recently, is a lot of very smart little spam comments appearing on my site. Here's what they do nowadays..
Instead of just leaving a comment, saying "visit so-and-so site right now to increase your chances of getting lucky....etc etc"

They (the spammers) now has a very unique new technique of leaving comments which is vaguely tied to the topic. It really doesn't look like blatant spam right away... you have to read it twice to notice that this spammer left this comment, but what he is actually doing is just linking to his own website.

You see, it works like this: if Google sees a lot of big and well-known sites linking to your site, inevitably your site must be good/valuable in the eyes of those of the maintainers of those sites. Therefore Google increases your "pagerank".

Think for instance... if CNN.com's homepage had a link directly to dieInter.net in large bold letters... Google already knows CNN.com being a valuable site with good and valid content, and CNN is a highly rated site. So if CNN links to dieInter.net, that means they like dieInter.net, and this website's "pagerank" would improve.

On the other hand... If CNN wants to mention my website, but they don't want to be connected or affiliated with me at all, they can always put a small piece of code right next to the link. This is called the rel="nofollow attribute.

This tells Google not to follow the link from CNN to my website.
...and that's exactly what I have done now... I have added the nofollow tag to all new, and existing comments. Maybe this will discourage the spammers a little...

It essentially means they are spamming, but there would be no potential gain for them. What's the point....  read more »

I don't write technical blog posts very often, but I thought I'd share this handy and very basic utility I wrote. Someone out there might find this useful. (I hope..... Well, as a matter of fact, I actually couldn't care less... hehehe)

Some background first:
I often write little batch programs for various tasks, which sends it's output to a log file.
When I initially implement a batch file which will be used in a production environment, I usually want to monitor the results for a while, to make sure it is robust enough. i.e. I keep an eye on the log file for a period of time and look at the results.

How I do this currently, is to have a Windows Explorer window open at the folder where the log file will be created, and then periodically check the window to see if the file is there. This can be rather difficult to keep track of, and messy if there's a bunch of other files cluttering the same folder.

For these reasons, every time I wanted to "continually check if a file exists" (If you are familiar with ping in TCP/IP, you'll understand why I called it a File Ping), I would briefly search Google for a utility that does this, not find anything, forget about it and deal with the "Monitor an Explorer window" method instead.

Anyways... to get back to the point...

This morning, when I had the same situation again, I actually thought about the logic behind this for the first time, and realized that this is Very easy to do. (It was never a big enough problem that I had to really think about it a lot)

You can use the fileping utility attached to this post with the following syntax:

fileping

where is the full path to the file you want to monitor. (for paths with spaces, you can enclose the "path in quotes")

an example:

fileping c:\pagefile.sys

It is recommended to save the "Fileping.bat" batch file into your "C:\Windows\System32" location on your PC, as this will ensure it is included in your entire environment path. (...Thus you will be able to execute it from anywhere.)

Here is an example of pinging a file called ~temp.pid on a network location (UNC path)

Download the fileping utility here (Right click the link and select "Save Target as..". Save to your c:\windows\system32 folder.)

The source code to the program is:


@echo off
REM Fileping utility by Jacques Aucamp.
Echo ** Now Pinging %1. Press CTRL-C to exit.**

:TEST
IF EXIST %1 GOTO REPLY
IF NOT EXIST %1 GOTO TIMEOUT

:REPLY
echo Reply from %1 - File exists
Sleep 1
GOTO TEST

:TIMEOUT
echo Request timed out.
Sleep 1
GOTO TEST


(as you can probably see, this is not exactly the most intricate application ever written, but it works like a charm! Very handy!)

The script can also be used to check for the existence of a drive (like trying to detect when a flash-drive is plugged into the system)
For example:

Hope someone out there can make use of this. Suggestions Welcome!

Die koue maak my sentimenteel. Aan die een kant haat ek dit en voel ek dat dit nie mooi gel met my deesdae head-on te veel idees en filosofie lees vibe nie. Mense beskou dit mos dikwels as weak en corny as jy verlang na lang vermiste mense, landscapes en plekke wat jy nog nooit eers gesien nie maar weet jy goed ken. Soos vanoggend toe die Jozi-view uit my nuwe woonstel voel soos die plaas waarop ek grootgeword het.

Ok - hier is sommer 'n liedjie wat ons almal seker uit hoërskool onthou om die sentimentele-winter-weakness verder te beklemtoon.

Ek hoop ek is darem nie die enigste ou wat soms so voel nie.

Omaha - Counting Crows

Start tearing the old man down
Run past the heather and down to the old road
Start turning the grain into the ground
Roll a new leaf over
In the middle of the night there's an old man
Treading around in the gathered rain
Hey mister if you gonna on water
Would you drop a line my way
Omaha
Somewhere in middle America
Get right to the heart of matters
It's the heart that matters more
I think you'd better turn your ticket in
And get your money back at the door

Start threading a needle
Brush past the shuttle that slides through the cold room
Start turning the wool across the wire
Roll a new life over
In the middle of the night there's an old man
Threading his toes through a bucket of rain
Hey mister you dont want to walk on water
Cause you're only going to walk all over me
Somewhere in middle America
Get right to the heart of matters
It's the heart that matters more
I think you'd better turn your ticket in
And get your money back at the door

Start running the banner down
Drop past the color come up through the summer rain
Start turning the girl into the ground
Roll a new love over
In the middle of the day there's a young man
Rolling around in the earth and rain
Hey mister if you're going to walk on water, you know
You're only going to walk all over me
Somewhere in middle America  read more »

Ek weet nie of enige van julle nog die Manic Street Preachers se album “Holy Bible” onthou nie. Ek moet sê dit was nogals openbarend as 14-jarige terroris en van die tunes daarop is steeds van my favourite rebelwysies. Ongelukkig het ek die album op ‘n dronk studentepartytjie frenzy aan 'n complete stranger gegee. Ek was gedurende daardie tyd moerse voortvarend en grootbek (nie veel het verander nie) en het waarskynlik iets soos "Musiek is meer as net klank pel, dit kan ‘n politiese tool wees en in die moderne wêreld baie bepalend ten opsigte van…bla…bla…bla…”

Passionate bullshit. Dalk was dit ‘n girl wat ek wou im(n)press. Wie weet?

Op die agterkant van die CD was daar hierdie quote (wat ek steeds teen my badkamerspieël het en dalk my oudste “poster” is) van 'n ene Octave Mirbeau:

“You’re obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That’s the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.”

Mens kan seker moerse daarteen redeneer maar hy hou my rebels en jonk en oppervlakkig en kortsigtig-arrogant-anti-system al vir baie lank.  read more »