Category Archives: Internet

Google Suggest

Google’s latest toy is Google Suggest, which suggests search terms as you type. Mucho neato. Here’s the Google Blog announcement and some stuff on how it works.

So, what’s your Google Suggest number? That is, how many letters of your name do you have to type into Google Suggest before your name appears on the suggestion list, and at what position does it first appear? (Plus where in the rankings are you when you search?)

Daniel Bowen 10.2.1

Toxic Custard 6.9.1

Geekrant doesn’t show up, dammit. Obviously we need to start GoogleBombing.

More briefs

“You people should be ashamed of yourself! I did not ask to have 3 pop ups come across my screen when I visit you. I do not visit singles sites, and I don’t want to add 4 inches to my penis. As a matter of fact, I don’t use any of the services that pop up on my screen. I think it is disgusting that you money hungry bastards have infringed on my computer for your own selfish gain. From this moment on, I am boycotting you, and I am advising EVERYONE I know to do the same thing. Down with you and your pop up ads.” — User quoted by Jakob Nielsen (who it turns out probably had spyware on his machine. Umm, the user that is, not Jakob.)

This sounds pretty cool: Do you regularly rebuild your PC? This site has a guide to creating the ultimate Windows XP installation disk, with all your favourite applications, patches, settings and hacks built-in. (via David).

I used to wonder why the WinAPI GetTickCount() call always gave back a value that was a multiple of 55ms. Now I know why.

MS hits blogging. The blogosphere hits MS for its limitations. Oh well, that’s classic MSN… they do consumer products, not power tools. The whole censorship thing seems a bit drastic though.

These friendly freebie web hosters (Boss factor: risque, and note the URL) have a page where they expose people who abuse the facilities.

Lycos vs spammers

Lycos, remember them? I think they might have been my search engine of choice around 1997, somewhere between Infoseek and AltaVista, way before young upstarts like LookSmart and Google arrived on the scene.

Well according to the Reg (via AndyN), Lycos are behind a new screensaver designed to launch DDOS attacks on spammers! Well okay, not to completely shut spam servers down, but to slow them down markedly.

Hmm. I hate spam as much as the next man, but I’m not sure about this. Could do nasty things to your local traffic (watch out if you pay by the Mb when you’re over your limit). You wouldn’t want to be trying to use bits of the Innanet close by to the spammers, and you sure as hell wouldn’t want to get yourself falsely identified as running a spam server. (Hey, if I can be identified as running a hacker/phreaking journal, anything can happen).

And of course, way for Lycos to come under fire by the spammers, who have apparently already hacked the page with a message saying “Yes, attacking spammers is wrong, you know this, you shouldn’t be doing it. Your ip address and request have been logged and will be reported to your ISP for further action.”

This could be war. (Lycos Europe deny their server was hacked, that the spammers rigged it so people get a different one.)

WTF bounce department

Weirdarse email bounce today…

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at byron.aussiehosts.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<gipbexd@yahoo.com>:
67.28.114.36 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account (gipbexd@yahoo.com) [0] - mta193.mail.dcn.yahoo.com

<gipbexd@yahoo.com>:
64.156.215.8 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account (gipbexd@yahoo.com) [0] - mta283.mail.scd.yahoo.com

<gipbexd@yahoo.com>:
64.157.4.78 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account (gipbexd@yahoo.com) [0] - mta149.mail.sc5.yahoo.com

<gipbexd@yahoo.com>:
64.156.215.8 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account (gipbexd@yahoo.com) [0] - mta314.mail.scd.yahoo.com

<gipbexd@yahoo.com>:
67.28.113.11 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account (gipbexd@yahoo.com) [0] - mta190.mail.re2.yahoo.com

Why is this so weird? Well because neither myself nor the recipient are on yahoo.com, no way did I address the mail to “gipbexd”, and thirdly, the recipient told me she received four copies of the mail anyway.

I should add that this was sent via Squirrelmail webmail, so it’s not like my Outlook got a virus…

Wi-erd.

Dictionary ads

I find dictionary.com to be a very handy resource. But boy are their ads annoying. And it looks like they’ve gone that extra mile to get their popup ads to dodge around Firefox and IE+Google Toolbar’s popup defences. (At least I assume it’s them, not some other site with popups sitting in the background).

Not to mention the fact that the popup ads are the worst kind – the ones that look to people of limited computer-literacy like legitimate system messages, for instance:

Fake warning

Oh sure, they have “advertisement” written in tiny tiny greyed writing in the corner. That makes it all better, doesn’t it. I wonder if Cancel actually closes it? (I clicked the X in the corner.)

Snippets

Hax0r gameshow contestant wagers $1337 on Jeopardy. (via Rick)

Gary Schare, Director of Windows Product Management at Microsoft, talks about the future of IE, its features and security. (Via Cameron Reilly)

Speaking of ADO (which I was yesterday), trying to figure out the black magic that is an OLEDB connection string? Try here.

Feel like writing a little C++ or Java applet for your phone? Here’s tech specs for Nokia phones. For me that’s the kind of project I’d love to do, but it will have to happen after I invent a time machine so I’ve got the time to do it in.