I seem to attract spammers like honey does bears. The count just crossed 100,000 spam comments that were taken care of by Akismet. Thanks to this awesome plugin I saved numerous of hours.
Read MoreTag "comment"
This post was written in reply to keasone.de kind of survey of website (and web2.0 elements) usage | Initially, the questions were asked in German, but due to the international audience over here, I am going to translate them to English.
English: Do you use Social Bookmarking/Networking pages such as Digg, Yigg, Mister Wong or Del.Icio.Us? If so, which?
German: Nutzt Du Social Bookmarking/Networking Seiten wie Digg, Yigg, Mister Wong oder Del.Icio.Us? Wenn ja, welche?
On my website h4x3d.com I am using digg, technorati, del.icio.us (hate to spell that!), sphere.com, blogmarks.net, ma.gnolia.com and furl to offer my users all the social bookmarking tools that are currently popular. Mr. Wong is not yet available in English, so a strict no-go for me. Personally I only use digg and del.icio.us.
English: Do you watch videos on video portals such as YouTube, Sevenload or DailyMotion? If so, what kind of Videos?
German: Schaust Dir Videos bei Videoportalen wie YouTube, Sevenload oder DailyMotion an? Wenn ja, was für Videos guckst Du Dir meistens an?
I do not waste time on YouTube, because for some reason it is extremely slow whenever I am trying to find something. DailyMotion is great, but Videos you watched one day are gone the other. I used to collect Simpsons videos on the internet, but with one swift move, DailyMotion deleted them all. From time to time I watch the remaining FamilyGuy episodes on bolt.com. Actually that’s only because I am lazy, since I do own the original FG DVDs.
English: Do you know/use Flickr?
German: Kennst bzw. nutzt Du Flickr?
Who does not know flickr? I am using flickr to share all my pictures from university, trance events or whatever I capture using my crappy cellphone camera. When I need to post newly accquired vinyl covers, I use the flickr API which comes built in with some cool plugin in WordPress. Really makes posting fun.
English: What do you think of services such as Twitter or Frazr?
German: Was hältst Du von Diensten wie Twitter oder Frazr?
I have been using Twitter only for testing their API (it’s actually only a RSS Feed…) and I am not using it daily. I think twitter is great waste of time and can be addictive for some people. Facebook offers similar twitter abilities. I don’t know Frazr. Cool name though! Oh btw. Alex, I deleted you from my friends list (it’s empty now), not as I don’t like you :p but as you were filling up my LifeStream (stupid RSS-Feed)!
English: How many RSS-Feeds are you subscribed to?
German: Wie viele RSS-Feeds hast Du abonniert?
Between 4 and 5, it really depends on the quality of content. I am subscribed to LifeHacker’s RSS-Feed and love it. However, sometimes it can become quite spammy, as they post 9–10 times a day. RSS-Feeds are a good way of catching up with other websites’ development, but again: also a great waste of time. I have subscribed to my own RSS-Feed in order to check if there are errors from time to time. I am using Feedburner to direct my posts to Feeds.
English: Do you read them daily?
German: Liest Du die alle täglich?
No, not really. Only if I need to waste time..
English: How many blogs do you maintain/author?
German: In wie vielen Weblogs bloggst Du? (Eigene oder Mitautor)
Only h4x3d.com and some minor small blogs that are not yet ready for public release.
English: Do you comment on other blogs? If so, what?
German: Kommentierst Du in anderen Blogs? Wenn ja was?
Yes, sure. Whenever I find something useful and commentworthy I leave my 5cent.
(there are more questions, but as I have to go now and have loads of other things to do today I am not going to comment on those. Thanks to keasone for throwing this stick to me, and hereby I am throwing back.. enjoy)
Read More-6- Closing commentary
When summarizing the facts given in this coursework I come to the conclusion, that George W. Bush, president of the United States of America, used the horrible attacks on the World Trade Center to not only justify the upcoming attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, but also to establish new laws that reduce the citizens freedom. (Patriot Act / Homeland security)
His administration created and distributed false facts, blatant lies and fairy tales, to persuade the people of America of their opinion. Several incidents have shown, that Bush bent reality far too much: All the lies about 9/11, the war in Afghanistan which was started without any real evidence and the war in Iraq, where everyday 1,98 US soldiers are killed.(based on the casualties until today, 30th march, 2004. Watch the Flash animations for further information). The whole story about the Weapons of Mass destruction was a lie. He, Bush, even jokes about the non-existing WMD. “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere … nope, no weapons over there … maybe under here?” Bush joked at the occasion of a dinner.” 41
I personally do not find this too funny. There were no WMD. That’s what Blix’ s detailed report said. Other sources verified this.42 I am really wondering if Mr. Bush thinks that killing people without any reason (that’s what the US did in the Iraq war in 2003), is funny to joke about. The whole idea sickens me.
Slowly, but maybe just in time for the US election 2004, criticism towards the Bush administration increases. Reports that had been withheld are now made public. Former White House employees and other government officials release secret information that were not accessible up to now, and that really puts pressure on Bush. It looks like that Bush tried to use the events of 9/11 to justify wars against other nations, but he did not say “We are declaring war on Iraq”, but “I declare war on terrorism”. This phrase marks history, as for the first time a war is not fought against a single country, but against a great number of countries that allegedly grant a safe haven for them. This vague term allows Bush to target any country he wants. Who will be next? So far, we have learnt, that no reason is a reason, which means, that the country accused of dealing with terrorists (Afghanistan e.g.) can be attacked on base of facts created by the Bush administration’s PR machine.
-7- Eigenständigkeitserklärung
Ich erkläre, dass ich die Facharbeit ohne fremde Hilfe angefertigt und nur die im Literaturverzeichnis angeführten Quellen und Hilfsmittel benutzt habe.
Ich bin der Autor dieser Facharbeit und beanspruche ein komplettes Copyright auf diese.
I am the author of this coursework. The author copyrights this coursework.
The following article was written by Lena as a part of her revision for the a-levels on English Language in 2005. I hope this will be handy for anyone having to revise for “English GK”
In his article “The definition of terrorism” Brian Whitaker points out the American state department’s definition of terrorism and the problems which are connected with it.
The Headline of the article seems to be a matter of fact. The reader expects a precise definition of terrorism. In the subtitle it becomes clear that Whitaker doesn’t want to give simply a definition of terrorism but rather wants to illustrate that many definitions are influenced by self-interests.
The article can be divided into four parts. The first part deals with international terrorism figures, which give the reader a first overview about the terrorism definition problem. It is striking that there exists almost twice more terrorism cases in Europe than in the Middle East. To underline the contradiction between the reality and the announced figures the author uses the imperative “Decide for yourself whether to believe this,” to show that the reader has to be skeptical by reading the figures. By using the word “meaningless” and the quotation of the report “no one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance” the author emphasizes that there does not exist one general definition of terrorism. It becomes clear that the figures he meant before seems to wrong because of the definition problem.
In the second part Whitaker refers to the state department’s definition of terrorism. He uses a quotation to reproduce the definition. By using the word “key point” Whitaker wants to illustrate that terrorism is very often politically motivated. The political aspect differs terrorism from murder. Whitaker doesn’t mention the religious aspect of terrorism which becomes especially after 9/11 very important. Due to the definition that terrorism must be politically motivated in Saudi Arabia there wasn’t a criminal act published as terrorism act. Another problem is that after the definition of the state department a criminal attack can only called terrorism if it is an attack against people and not against property. In the third part Whitaker uses an example of the attack against the pipeline in Colombia which wasn’t called a terror act to convince the reader that a new definition of terrorism is required. He underlines his statement by giving another example for the definition problem.
The following article was written by Lena as a part of her revision for the a-levels on English Language in 2005. I hope this will be handy for anyone having to revise for “English GK”
Modern machines replace mass labour more and more. In future modern machines will do the work of many factory workers. Without people developing these machines there won’t be any production. That’s the reason why the global economy depends on high skilled educated workers. Exactly these skilled workers invent modern technologies which are needed for future.
If more and more people become unemployed the social peace is in danger. Social peace is very important for a society, because it contributes to an increase in general prosperity. Another social problem is that increased unemployment leads to increased financial problems and thus to crime. Political effects could be that the retirement pension and the social security such as health insurances are not ensured anymore.
A variety of jobs can never be replaced. In many areas of labour human intuition and intelligence cannot be automated or replaced by machines. Kindergarten teachers, nurses, school teachers, doctors, therapists, social workers and priests rely on emotions and intuitions everyday they work. Machines aren’t able to feel emotions and have intuitions yet like human being. Those people who invent new technologies and new medicine are required for the future.
Read MoreA contemporary view and comment on WordPress themes
There is currently a new trend going on the internet among people that want to make money.
People (I am not going to defame them publicly here) are selling links on the WordPress themes’ footers for money and are so impudent to release their themes under special Terms of Use (such as the usually very fair Creative Commons license). Under those licenses it is (at least it is claimed) forbidden to remove the sponsored link.
But is it really?
Wordpress users such as Garry Conn and Lisa Sabin-Wilson strongly argument against using sponsored themes, or leaving the themes intact as the author (not even necessarily the designer!) demands it.
Why are sponsored links on themes so interesting for certain people?
Obviously because of the money. It is clearly not a matter of interest, because why would someone put to a Credit Card site or Thai vacations and cheap hotels in his footer or sidebar. Out of interest? Defiantly not!
Money, as always, plays an important role. Scammer companies, or those companies who have not really taken the time to read Google’s TOS (and would thus know that what they do is contrary to what they want to achieve) believe that many links on different people’s sites make them money. Indirectly of course, because they assume that more links from more sites leads to a higher pagerank, and thus to a better position on searches for specific terms (such as credit cards, thai vacation etc).
Garry describes it like that:
They don’t know that the theme they just downloaded has a link into a bad neighborhood and they don’t know that Google is penalizing their site for having the link on their site…
What options does ordinary joe new-user have?
Lisa offers these:
- Remove the sponsored link from the footer
- Contact the sponsored link owner
- Quote him/her a price for a text ad link on your domain
- Tell him/her you’ll replace it if he’s willing to pay your ad rate
- If he says no, use said theme minus the sponsored link
My view on this:
If the design is really good, and by good I mean like really lovely and time-intense, more than just a day of development, then one should contact the theme sponsor and ask him for a solution or leave their link and change the size to something like arial 8px or use the tag around the link plus add a rel=”nofollow”.
If the theme looks like it has been stolen or adopted from another page or has something in the footer such as “design by: (name) , hosting by: (name), random shit: (name)”, remove everything but the designer’s link, because after all it is his work. Everyone who has done some wordpress theming knows that porting a design (a finished design) over to wordpress templates is not that much work. After the some tries you get it done real quick. My point is that removing the footer is not the best way, but adopting the footer is. You can also add the designer’s website to your sidebar, if it looks better, I think that shouldn’t be the problem as long as you keep some sort of information that you were not the one who came up with the design (because that is just rude).
I truly share Lisa’s view on that, saying:
Is removing the links (sponsored, ads) illegal?
[...]
If released under GPL? then no.Under a different licensing – - like a CC Share-a-like, for instance – - attribution to the original creator of the work is required. I have NO problems providing a link to the creator of the work (read: the actual person who put in the blood, sweat, and tears to create the graphics, style and code of the template.)
The link to the Credit Card Finance site? Unless the Credit Card Finance Site is the “Original Author” (meaning the individual or entity who created the Work.) – then I am not obligated to keep the link there.
Actually, why am I writing this?
Some weeks ago I got approached by some guy, who (as it later on turned out) was pro-actively selling ad links/sponsored links on wordpress themes, porting old or free css themes over and marketing them.
It was Hans (zeebob.com) who recently approached me and asked me to upload his (scammed themes) to the wp theme viewer, offering $10 for each theme. But honestly, selling my soul for a mere $10 sounded so crappy to me that I turned him down and giving him some tips concerning the lame layout of his page (with like all ads on there). Also, all this sponsoring is really giving me the creeps, one link to the original author seems fair, maybe also link the person who the work or some elements are based on (icons by famfamfam e.g.), but 4-5 links is just the taking the piss.
I hope that people become aware of the sponsored links in the footers and that designers can once again share their themes without getting approached weekly by marketeers as described above. This comment is discontinued, if I find some time I will write a follow-up or answer any comments.
You probably think that all these tips you read on fancy pages like digg or blogs like
this are nothing new, but I am sure that you haven’t read the ones I have for you before:
1. Make Firefox remember open tabs after reboot/shutdown the QUICK way
2. Use Torpark to surf ‘really’ anonymous
3. Chill-out with soothing music
4. Work in blocks of 30 minutes
5. Sketch, map and scribble
Click those links above to get directly to the tip you are interested in.
1. Save open Firefox tabs the easy way (brain hack)
Sometimes it is just too much hassle saving (and later on deleting*) all the Tabs (sites) you have currently open
if you are either in a hurry (got to go due to phone call) or are just shit-house tired. So why not leave on the PC and use it when you are back? While nothing speaks against doing it for a short break (an hour or so), it might turn you nuts if you sleep in the same room. After all you are tired and don’t want any humming noise… so in rage you just rip out the power cable to silence your pc.
Of course this is not the best treatment for your hard drive, but the effect you will experience the next morning after booting your PC and clicking Firefox will be the same as I will describe you can achive without wasting your PC:
Of course you will want to restore your tabs, because this way you get them all back, don’t have to waste time deleting them from bookmarks and can continue your work where you left the evening before.
Now here is where the ‘what I call’
Brain hack
comes into play:
just be nice to your PC and hard drive, shut it down,
but make Firefox think your "system crashed"
by "killing the process firefox.exe".
Press CTRL + ALT + DEL at the same time,
you will then get an Windows Screen with various options,
press Task Manager (or T)
then press F till you arrive at "firefox.exe",
press "End Process". Voila!
Firefox is simply superior to Internet Explorer when it comes to tabs.
The new Internet Explorer 7.0 does also feature tabs, but in order to install it you have to run through loads of hassle such as Windows validation (got genuine?), downloading through ‘web-downloader’ etc.
So do me a favor and get Firefox, don’t surf with Internet Explorer, it’s evil and smells, also I get 1$ from Google for each installed Firefox from the below link (redirects to Google owned Firefox site).
*because then later on you will have to delete the ones you don’t need and this again will cost some time again =7
2. Use Torpark to surf ‘really’ anonymous
Torpark is a free program for windows which allows you to surf the internet anonymously. It requires no installation, leaves no track, is small, portable and does even fit on an USB-Stick.
It is partly based on Firefox and somewhat idiot safe to use. Nothing (unless you want) required to configure, just out of the box ready to surf with a different IP-address. It blocks cookies, javascript and other stuff that could eventually identify your PC and thus you. Torpark got build in routines that connect your browser to other PCs, proxies or whatever these ‘circuits’ are.
Some additional information from the Torpark website itself:
To run Torpark, just double click on the Torpark program. First you will see a notice about how Torpark should be used. It is important for your security that you understand the scope and limitations. Then you see a splash screen which shows you the version information and credits. It will display for a few seconds then disappear. Then Torpark will display a throbber in the form of a progress bar as Torpark begins to establish some tor circuits.It may take a little longer if you are running Torpark from a USB flash drive or using a slow internet connection because Torpark has to download directory information from the Tor network. After it has established at least one circuit, it will start the browser.
Source: http://www.torrify.com
3. Chill-out with soothing music
While working silence can be nice, but I found out that some chill-out soothing music really helps concentrating.
Opinions are controversial concerning this issue, but why not listen to the short excerpt below. It’s 1 minute long and encoded at 160kbps (certainly good quality).
[audio:http://mp3.trancin.com/chill-out.mp3]
4. Work in blocks of 30 minutes
After the results this semester I had quite some free time. Too much free time can eat you up,
so basically I tried working in 30 minutes blocks, concretely this means 30 minutes of work, 30 minutes of either reading on the web, chilling with music, watching The Simpsons, spinning a record or whatever just came handy.
It works similar to the rewarding method mentions on other sites. By rewarding yourself with something of your own choice you subliminally train yourself to work consequently and straight to the point. Of course again this is subject to contrary discussion.
5. Sketch, map and scribble
Often the easiest things are made too complicated: googling for mind mapping tools, downloading them, eventually applying a crack here and there (so I was told), then reading the manual and still after 30 minutes you don’t have a solution, a sketch to your problem.
So why not just draw a map yourself and scribble?!
It doesn’t take an artist to do a mind map or a sketch, just do it, you will be surprised by the effectiveness of this method.
Keep it simple, simplify your daily life.
I hope you enjoyed reading these tips and comment plenty
Read MoreDer folgende Artikel ist Bestandteil einer unregelmäßig ergänzten Serie ?ber die derzeitige Verm?gensgesetzlage, Altersvorsorge, private Krankenversicherung und Krankenversicherungsvergleiche. An sich alles trockene Themen die einer verst?ndlichen Darstellung bed?rfen.
Aktuelle Verm?gensfrage und Altersvorsorge (Steuerrecht)
Vor etwa zwei Jahren trat in Deutschland das Alterseinkünftegesetz in Kraft. Ursache und Auslöser dieses Rundumschlagpacketes war die geforderte Entscheidung, ob und wie man die Renten von (staatlichen) Beamten und (wirtschaftlich freiagierenden) Angestellten gleichstellen könnte. Das Bundesverfassungsgericht sorgte mit einer klaren Entscheidung für ein Durcheinander auf dem deutschen Altersversicherungsmarkt; zwar, so meinen Experten, zeige das neue Gesetz in eine neue fortschrittliche juristische Richtung, jedoch stellte das Regelwerk für Karl Standardstaatsbürger ein unversteh- und durchdringbares Regelwerk dar.
Die meisten Privatleute-praktisch jeder der nicht beruflich mit der Thematik zu tun hat- haben Probleme die einzelnen Schichten und Punkte der Altersvorsorge zu verstehen und die vielfältigen Anlagemöglichkeiten (private Altersvorsorge, Geldanlage bei Banken sowie Fonds, Aktienanlagen etc) und Versorgungsbezüge so zu verbinden, so dass als Resultat für eine abdeckende Altersvorsorge gesorgt ist.
Die neuen “Spielregeln” der Altersvorsorge bestehen zwar noch aus drei Blöcken, jedoch nicht mehr basierend auf dem ‘drei-Stützlen-Prinzip’, sondern auf dem drei (3) Schichten-Model. Konkret hei?t das:
- 1. Schicht: Basisversorgung→ Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung & Rierup-Rente*
- 2. Schicht: Zusatzversorgung→ Riester-Rente & betriebliche Altersvorsorge (auch bekannt als Betriebsrente).
- a. Direktzusage
- b. Unterst?tzungskasse
- c. Direktversicherung
- d. Pensionskasse
- e. Pensionsfonds
- 3. Schicht: private Altersvorsorge→ Kapitalanlageprodukte (Geldanlagen des Kapitalmarkts z.B. Lebensversicherung)
* sowie Berufsständische Versorgung und Alterssicherung der Landwirte (jedoch eher unbekannt)
Verpflichtend ist für Arbeitnehmer in Deutschland nur die 1. Schicht, die Basisversorgung, also die gesetzliche Rentenversicherung.
Zusätzlich, kann man sich mit Elementen der 2. Schicht absichern, jedoch ist speziell die Riester-Rente nicht empfehlenswert.
Die Riester-Rente erfreut sich derzeit starker Beliebtheit, jedoch ist ein in Anspruch nehmen dieser -vor allem für junge Unternehmer und Berufseinsteiger- unrentabel und daher fraglich. Die Basisversorgung rentiert sich bei einer regelmäßigen Einzahlung st?rker als die Riester-Rente im Verhältnis 2 zu 1 wenn alles klappt) von etwa 1000 Euro. Ein Schelm wer B?ses dabei denkt!
Die 3. Schicht, die private Altersvorsorge wird oft als ‘Lösung aller Probleme’ proklamiert, jedoch herrscht ein derartiges steuerliches Chaos, dass der Einsatz eines Finanzexperten Sinn macht: Komplett versteuert werden müssen Mieten und Zinsen; sogar Dividenden können nur zur Hälfte abgesetzt werden. Um dieses Chaos ein wenig zu bereinigen wurde das sog. Abgeltungssteuergesetz geplant, jedoch ist jetzt schon abzusehen, dass dieses höchstwahrscheinlich die Verwirrung nur erhöhen wird.
Meine hitzköpfige, bestimmt auch unqualifizierte Empfehlung an verdienende Unternehmer lautet daher: Monatlich eine solide Summe anlegen, bei einem Anlagezins von 5% und einem monatlichem Betrag von 670 Euro sind das nach einem gewissen Zeitraum (so um die 20 Jahre) schon etwa 216.000 Euro. Mit Sicherheit mehr, als man erzielt durch die diversen verlockenden Angebote des Marktes. Angenommen, der Anlagezins sei 6,25% bei gleichlanger Laufzeit (so um die 20 Jahre), so m?ssen ‘nur noch (für mich als Studenten eine riesen Summe)’ 476 Euro monatlich angelegt werden. (→ Direkt zum Anlagehöhen/Zinseszinsbetragsrechner)
Read More
DHL sucked.
ganz einfach deshalb, weil sie die Kunden abrippen, verarschen, unfreundlich sind (dort wo ich wohne), die Preise total ?berteuert sind und garkeinen Sinn machen.
Warum schicken die Leute ihre Packete via DHL?
Weil es DHL ueberall gibt?
Weil DHL eine Monopolstellung hat?
Der Preisvorteil bei Hermes ist ?berw?ltigend:
Packet S, GEWICHT Max. 25kg Seite a+b Max. 50 cm , also etwa Vinylgroe?e kostet 3.90 Euro.
Bei der Post 10.50 Euro.
Wobei es max. 11 kg wiegen darf. Sonst kostet es 14.00 Euro.
Pervers irgendwie.
DHL unterscheided nach Gewicht, Hermes nach Groe?e.
Oder sollte es doch Packet M sein?
a+b = 80 cm. Max. 25kg. Kostet: 5.90 Euro. Bei der Post 7.00 Euro, oder 10.50 Euro.
Danke aber nein. Ich nehm Hermes.
www.hermespaketshop.de > DHL
noch was neues:
Hermes ist einfach besser als DHL und anscheinend hat DHL das mittlerweile auch selbst erkannt.
Habe heute beim Media-screening gelesen, dass DHL nun doch auch langsam mal die Preise reduziert – und das nicht zu knapp. Preisfall von 10% fuers kleinste Paket, auf knapp ?ber den Hermes-Versand liegenden Preis von 3.90 Euro.
Jedoch sind die DHL – Pakete nicht versichert (die kleinen), bei Hermes jedoch schon (bis zu 500Euro).
Auch die gro?en Pakete die bei Hermes nur 5.90 Euro kosten, sollen bei DHL nicht mehr 14.00 und +++ Euro kosten, sondern massiv preislich fallen.
Dem Tagesspiegel nach (Berliner Zeitung), sollen die neuen Preise schon ab Mai 06 in Kraft treten. Also die Kleinen 43 cent billiger, auch auf 3.90 Euro, sowie das Verpackungs-Extra-Packet bis 20kg inkl. Paketmarke fuer 5.99 Euro. Lockend, aber DHL sucked trotzdem…
- Solange sich die DHL-Mitarbeiter weiterhin durchg?ngig derartig unfreundlich pr?sentieren, bleibe ich bei Hermes.
Spam'ed really bad today…
UPDATE: I installed “WP-SPAMFREE” and modified some files to cover this spam-issue. Seems to work out now – getting some 10 spams a day vs. 120 spams a day