So here goes: if you want to keep Google off of your site - the easiest way is to add a file called robots.txt to the root directory of your website:

An example to disallow all robots would be:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

With those 2 lines, all robots (including Google) will leave your site entirely alone.

If you wanted to disallow Google, but allow all others (like Yahoo, etc)
User-agent: Google
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Everything you never wanted to know about the use of the robots.txt file is available at: http://www.robotstxt.org.

The best thing to keep in mind is that the “bad” bots will ignore robots.txt with wild abandon - doing their best to leave spammy comments for shoddy websites.  For those bad boys you’ll need to block them by IP address, something we’ll address another day.

The management software is intuitive and easy to use, and provides remote, end-to-end management. It works through a web browser (IE and Firefox), yet feels like you’re standing right in front of the rack. The same interface is used for everything from storage, KVM, and power management.

The designers obviously had the middle-market in mind, because this offering sidesteps all of the issues have made implementing a blade solution in a SMB situation problematic. The system runs on either 110 or 240V AC, eliminating the need for a costly 220-240 UPS upgrade.  At 70 dB maximum sound output, I wouldn’t want it under my desk, but it wouldn’t overwhelm an office.  Running at a fairly cool 75 degrees, it won’t overwhelm the cooling ability of a small equipment room. The availability of the chassis as a pedestal base for situations where there is not a rack available is a first in the blade market, as far as I’m aware.

If the Modular Server had an A/C module, it would truly be a data center in a box, providing everything a small business needed except an Internet connection.  I’m interested to see how it fares against HP’s c-Class blade system, or IBM’s BladeCenter S, which have similar capabilities.  With it’s significantly lower cost than HP and IBM, it’s sure to hit the sweet spot for many SMB customers.

If you look at my latest earning reports, you can see that I’ve been making slow but steady progress at increasing my websites’ revenue through Google Adsense and eBook sales. I seem to be coming up short in affiliate programs, though. I’ve been running a variety of Commission Junction ads on a couple of our sites for just under a year now. In this time, there have been 222,059 impressions but only 276 clicks - for a CTR of 0.12% which is pathetic in itself. Even worse is that not one of those 276 clicks converted into a referral or sale so I’ve made a grand total of $0 for the entire year on CJ. I’m not sure if the advertisers I’ve been choosing aren’t a good fit for the websites they are on, or if I’m missing even more basic than that. I’m completely at a loss why my site visitors will click on AdSense ads for a topic on my sites, but completely ignore very similar affiliate ads in the same location.

Now you may be thinking - “there’s more affiliate programs than CJ, T.J.”…. Sure there are. Google has an affiliate advertising add-on to Adsense. Can you guess how much I’ve made off of them? If you guessed $0, you’re right! Last month I made I applied for several others: and they all told me the same thing: denied. Even WalMart!

I will admit that I’ve done a little better with WidgetBucks and Amazon averaging about $2.00 and $1.25 a month respectively. With WidgetBucks‘ $25 sign-up bonus, and a $50 minimum payout, I’m only 10 months away from my first payout, and two years after that until my 2nd payout. I think I’d be doing much better if I had a site that meshed better with one of the categories. I’ve got some sites in the works that may bring the monthly total up significantly. Amazon makes it a little easier to get payouts if you’re willing to take it in Amazon credit. The threshold there is a measly $10, meaning I’ll get paid in another 7 months.

Don’t get me wrong - I know there is money to be made in the affiliate business. John Chow made $6,579.67 from it last month, and it was his #2 moneymaker after private ad sales. I just think that the site needs to align better with an in demand big-ticket affiliate product. Web hosting, advertising networks, and expensive hardware and software all seem to lend themselves to the affiliate game than cute babies or gluten free recipes. I would imagine a site about AutoCAD or PhotoShop could make a pretty penny with an Amazon affiliate link to those high-priced products. John Chow obviously gets affiliate bonuses for people who sign up for advertising networks using his affiliate links. I’d love to have a site about Plasma TVs, but that market is a little saturated. I need a great product that is in demand, high-priced, under-represented online and has an affiliate program with high% payouts. I wonder if anyone has an affiliate program for dentures?

Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful - I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet

I hope he’s right, because:

a) I love taking little “mini vacations” to the Discworld (by reading his books),  and without him the place just won’t be the same.

b) I have given my wife the latest Pratchett book as a Christmas present every year for as long as I can remember. My kids will ‘get’ her jewelery and clothes and bath and body lotions, but my official present has been a Discworld book.  It says a lot about an author that he’s that reliable in chunking out a fairly large novel every year, and they continue to be hilariously well written.  It will kind of be like Old Faithful shutting down once Mr. Pratchett is done writing.

I guess all the fans can do is keep the same positive outlook as their favorite author:

I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think.

I hope you’re right Mr. Pratchett!

My initial research said that I would need to get my hosting company to increase the memory allocation of PHP on the server, or add the line ini_set("memory_limit","16M"); to any offending .php file. Since my hosting company is takes days to get to any problems, and I was having this issue with every .php file in the /wp-admin/ directory, these seemed like non-solutions. When I came across the idea of adding php_value memory_limit 32000000 to my .htaccess file, my hopes of a quick fix were restored. I added the line to the .htaccess file in the root of my website (/public_html) and the problem disappeared instantly, for all of my blogs hosted on this server. Hurray for quick, easy fixes!

An hour later I had a bunch of installers on my desktop, but nothing that worked well, or quickly. I decided to give VLC a try. I like VLC as it’s free, opens anything I throw at it, and with the portable version, I always have it available to use wherever I go. When opening a file, stream or disc, you can pick the “stream output” option. I usually save the files as QuickTime .mov files. Here is what the settings window looks like:

Here’s what each of them means:

• Target - ignore this box - VLC will fill it in for you as you make settings in the fields below. If you can fill this box in by hand, you are just one step away from dreaming in binary.
• Play locally - plays the video as you convert it. Checking this box will allow you to see/hear what’s going on. Unchecking it will make the conversion go MUCH faster.
• File - the location of the file you want to save to. Unless you’re overwriting an existing file, you’ll need to make one up.
• Encapsulation method - the type of file you are saving to. Best results come from matching this with the related video & audio codecs below
• Video/Audio codec - the software & algorithm used to compress the audio/video to make it take up less space.

I rarely have to change these settings, but if you’re having an audio problem, you may try changing the audio codec setting.

All of my wife’s files converted flawlessly with VLC, and now I’ve got to figure out all of the differences between Premiere Pro 1.0, which I’ve used at work and Premiere Elements 4.0 that I just installed. With any luck the cooking videos will be done by the end of the week.

TestOut

A few days after starting with TestOut, I got a phone call from the folks at ExamSavers. They had a pitch for their entire
suite (17 vendors) in a “Platinum Edition” offering free lifetime updates for a small fraction of the $3K list price on their website. I negotiated a bit with them on the phone and told them I’d think about it. That’s when the high-pressure sales tactics kicked in. The offer was good for “today only”, and wouldn’t be offered again. I politely declined, but was given an ‘extra day’ to think it over. After reading some mixed reviews I decided to give it a try for two reasons: First, you got a book as training material for each exam - and sometimes I just prefer reading over watching a video. Second, the actual testing part was supposed to be strong, adaptively focusing the tests on sections you did poorly in. Third, the practice tests on audio CD sounded like a great way to sneak in extra prep time during my daily commute. It sounded like a good supplement to the TestOut materials I already had. The only thing I really didn’t like about it was the provision for getting two tests worth of training materials at a time - you have to send a copy of your test results to get the next set of materials. After getting the first test (MS70-290) from them, I’m fairly underwhelmed. The book is OK, the audio CD is just as expected, but the testing software is… lacking.  It doesn’t seem adaptive to me at all - I kept getting the same questions over and over again - even when I keet answering them correctly.  In hindsight I wouldn’t purchase it again - and I can see where the people who bought it as their only study resource could be frustrated.

I can see why TestOut has demos and ExamSavers don’t.  I could also recommend  TestOut, but because of their demo I don’t need to  - you can find for yourself.

Are we doomed to choose between memory leaks and features? Some may say yes, but I say “maybe not”. There are two different ways to trick your add-ons into thinking they are compatible with newer versions of Firefox. Be forewarned, though - doing so can seriously reduce the stability of Firefox. But, hey - you’re running beta software, right? You’re the kind of person who’s not afraid to take a little risk. So here goes:

Method 1 - editing the .xpi file:

Firefox add-ons are bundled up in .xpi files that are nothing more than zipped archives containing the necessary files. Add a “.zip” to the end of them and you can extract their contents for a little magic. Once you have the contents extracted, open the INSTALL.RDF file with a text editor. Look for the section that says
“<em:maxVersion>2.0.0</em:maxVersion>” change the 2.0.0 to 3.0.0, or even better 5.0.0. re-zip up the file and change the file extension to be just .xpi (no .zip). You can then open the file with Firefox and install it. Voila! Working plug-in. Now some new fancy plugins (like the Google Search Toolbar) are digitally signed, and making these changes somehow breaks the voodoo that holds them together. Firefox will refuse to install them, which is probably not a bad thing with all the crappy malware out there these days trying to get a piece of oyur computer. In a worst case, you can try…

Method 2 - using the Nightly Tester Tools add-on:

Install the add-on before updating to 3.x (or after, it just adds to the number of restarts needed). Once you’ve completed the upgrade, go to your add-ons manager (Tools | Add Ons). You can then right click on the add-on you want to test and pick “make compatible“. I’d recommend doing just a couple at a time, as about 1/3 of the add-ons I tried completely b0rked 3.0. If you run into this problem simply re-start in FF 2.x, and disable the offending add-on(s) from the add-ons manager. Later, rinse and repeat until you have a lustrous set of working add-ons.

I usually do a combination of the two - editing the .xpi file of all that I can, and using the Nightly Tester Tool to get the few that wouldn’t work that way. Either way, after you spend a day and a half getting everything working just right, the add-on coders will get off of their lazy duffs and eventually get a version out that works with the new beta. But you’ll have the satisfaction that you were able to run your favorite add-on before anyone else.

This amazing little gadget combines a 2GB flash memory SD card and a full-blown Wi-Fi adapter into one tiny bundle. With this bad boy in your camera, you can take pictures and wirelessly upload them to your computer or one of a bazillion web hosting sites (like Flickr, Facebook, Vox, Picasa, etc.

With them selling for under $100, I just may need to get two. Grandma and Grandpa may just get one for Christmas. The time saved in not having to be the camera jockey every time someone in my family fills up a memory card could be priceless.