The Attached Strings of Things
You know, I get really bothered when a company wants to give me an offer, but wants to get something out of me above and beyond my money. The reason I bring this up is because H&M sent out a 25% off promotion to some people. A friend forwarded it to me and just to keep my options open, I wanted to get the coupon.
Now, I rarely shop at H&M anymore as they use sweatshops and 3rd world labor to make just about everything they sell. But on the off chance, something in there isn't from one of these places, I might feel tempted to buy it, thus the interest in having a 25% coupon.
So, going to their site to get the coupon at www.hmfriendsandfamily.com I was more than slightly perturbed by the fact they wanted a rather large slew of my personal information to get this coupon. I'm not happy about that, but I proceeded through the hoops to get to the final page to download the coupon. But as it turns out, you don't need to do this, just to this link - here and you can keep all your private info to yourself if you want.
I might add that this coupon is only good from December 7, 2007 to December 9, 2007, so if you happened upon this article sometime in the future, it ain't gonna do you much good. Happy shopping and watch those labels!
30 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: better buying, consumerism
I've Been 85% Spoofed
Damn you Onion! I knew that one day you would find me and spoof me up good.
It pretty much all revolves around the article about a fellow they call "Fancy Man". You can read it and if you know me, you're bound to see some similarities. The most poignant being that the guy in the article is a web designer and he likes tea. Oh yeah, he also happens to be 29, when I'm 30. Oh yeah, there's also the "hoity-toity copper-bottomed tea kettle" that he uses and I admit, I'm rather in to the one I've got since yes, it does make a difference to nuke it or boil it. Microwaves do strange things to food and beverage. It's the last bits in the article that stray from me. Oh yeah, they also make no mention of a blog, although I'm guessing that would be implied.
I suppose that the really disturbing thing about this is not that I feel someone who knows me, spoofed me. I'm just not that cool. It's more the fact that there are apparently more of me out there in such great numbers that The Onion could write a whole article about. That my friends, is by far more disturbing.
27 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: hudin, tea
When a Photo is Good to Me
I'm no expert at photography. I've only taken about 25,000 shots which sounds like a lot until you realize that most pros take millions--each year. In fact, I don't really think that you can even call yourself any kind of a professional until you've taken at least 100,000 and sold some of them. Naturally, there are those natural born talents who don't need all this practice, but they are far and few between those of us who do.
Even though I am still, for all purposes, a hobbiest when it comes to photography, I have developed a very discerning level for what I consider to be a good shot. This ultimately means nothing as photography is an art form and art by its very nature is completely subjective. So, a shot of someone's family where the heads are cut off and it's out of focus may be a masterpiece to them, while I think it's garbage. But, being this as it may, I realize that I like photos where what they've photographed seems like it is artificial because it's so good. When the scene is just hanging there and you can imagine what happened before and what will happen afterward, that, in my mind, is perfection. It doesn't even need to be technically perfect for me to find it a perfect shot, just so long as there is an emotion to it.
A good example of what I'm talking about is a shot that is below. It's from the San Francisco Chronicle's website and is part of an article about the wildfires happening in Malibu currently. Skip down to take a look at it if you haven't already. See what I mean? Those chairs sitting there and the still smoldering ashes in the background just make this a great shot for me. Sure, you could read all kinds of garbage art school stuff in to it like how it's a statement of this or that. But all that is secondary nonsense. The photo stands on its own and just happens in such a way that it almost seems fake because it's so real.
A good example I've seen recently of where a photographer goes too far and makes a work too artificial, was at the Open Studios in San Francisco. There was one photographer there who had photos of Burma, but these photos were ridiculous. While technically quite sound, they were so posed and so fake looking that they would have worked better as cologne ads, as opposed to a work of art for the home. Now, some people may be in to this, but for me, posed and staged photos are for the most part dull (portraits being an exception) and they feel so commercial that any hint of artistic depth is wiped clean away. But, this is ultimately just me two cents and that doesn't really buy that much these days now, does it?
23 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: photography
Damn you Spam. Damn. You.
So for anyone that's really in to it, I had to take comments offline for a bit today. There's nothing wrong with the system, it's just that some bastard spam bot has decided that I'm a very lovable target, which sucks.
There is no overall problem, because most of my mantraps seem to work well. So, these buggers just keep posting and I keep seeing crap email because of it. And frankly, due to the fact that I get so few comments on the site, I just don't want to have a new email notification every five minutes about a new comment that really isn't a new comment and didn't even get posted on the site.
But, this isn't a probably that just my site has. It affects pretty much anyone who allows the public to submit information to their site. We all have to deal with it and some of those ways to deal with it are really annoying, such as those annoying groups of letters and numbers you have to enter.
I really don't want to saddle and end user with that, so I try to take on the fight behind the scenes. This is done in four parts:
1. Get the offending IP and block that user in .htaccess. This is really useful (albeit heavy-handed) when you have a site in say, Spanish and you've got spammers coming from China. You can block whole networks and it works pretty well.
2. See if the user is just tossing data at your site. Setting up an authentication "session" for users works well for some spammers because they will try to post information at your site from their server without actually viewing your site. Giving someone a token when they visit a page and then checking for that token really goes a long way. Of course, there are plenty of ways around this.
3. See if they're human. A human being can't type a comment in five seconds, but a machine can since there is no typing going on. If you check to see if they spent that long writing a comment and block them if they did. This works well and has yet to snare any real people.
4. In rare instances on some sites, I require any comment with links to be approved. Most users on most general sites never leave link comments. Spam bots do though, since that is the main reason they're doing what they're doing. Checking for a bit of link code, or better yet, just dropping comment with five or more links can catch other annoyances.
So, that's it. A couple of the tricks I use to keep my site crap free. Now I just need a filter to run whenever I write about things that piss me off, so that I can make the site totally crap free. I'll probably enable comments again after the holiday if it's causing you a lot of pain not to have them.
20 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: internet, site update, spam
Sitemaps. Reviewing the Tools of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft
Sitemaps are back and the best that they've ever been. They're a far cry from putting up some half-assed page with maybe 25% of all your site's URLs. Those were pretty useless and really just for the search engine spiders anyways, so why not take the page out of the equation? The Sitemaps protocol does just that and being that it is supported by Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft/Live, it has the teeth that a standardization needs to catch on.
I've been using the sitemap XML format for some time now with my sites and it really does work. The spiders find everything on your site. The only catch is that you need to submit your sitemap to the search engines for it to get read. Yeah, I know, you should just be able to use the SITEMAP: http://www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml bit in your robots.txt file, but the search spiders really don't seem to pick it up like they do when you manually submit it. Being that this is the case, management tools have been build for dealing with your sitemap feeds. Google was the first. Yahoo! soon followed. Microsoft, as is usually the case was markedly behind the curve, but has released their system to the public just four days ago.
What follows is a review of the three systems. Generally, they all do the same thing, but much unlike the standardization that when in to the sitemaps protocol, their system are rather different from one another...
Far and away my favorite. They have been tinkering with it for a great long time and have gotten it to a place, where I feel that it's a solid application.
The thing that I like the best about this system is that it just seems to get better. It's like there are a team of guys sitting around who are actually using it on sites and when they think of something that could make it better, they do it. But beyond this novelty, I'd have to say that my favorite part is the Statistics tool. There are tools in there above and beyond other sections, where you don't need to use this system to pull off those functions; just phrase a query right. With Statistics, you can find out when you were last crawled and the overall PageRank of your site.
One tool that I find to be something of a downfall is Diagnostics - Web Crawl tool. At first it seems very informative, but then you realize the the 404 errors it finds on your site were really just flukes on the server and the pages are still there.
For a little while, things were getting kinda clunky with this system, but now, everything seems to be heading in the right directions. They even have a mobile section developing in there, which is pretty cool.
The middle-comer to the game and a good system. Unlike Google and Microsoft, I think that they took longer to work on the system behind the scenes (or just bought out a smaller company.) So, when it came out, it was working very slickly from the start.
First of all though, I apologize for the URL. The site isn't the easiest thing to find, at least for me. I think going here, clicking on "Site Explorer Home" and then logging in will get you to the management page. This was of course my first initial annoyance with the system overall--trying to find it. Once in though, I've found it to be a nicely setup page with different levels to manage different feeds for your sites. But, that's about it. There are not any additional functions in here. In some way, I appreciate that. No goofing around. You want to submit a sitemap? Then this is where you do it.
They do have some gimmicky items you can put in there under the Badges section if you want. They also have a blog if you want to keep up on the latest and greatest. Although, it's ironic that the one really big stumbling block that I see for their system is that their updates aren't so late and great. I have yet to see a notification that my sitemap has been crawled before I tell it to do so and I've waited up to a month with some sites. So, that's not so cool and requires a great deal of handwork, whereas the Google system swoops across your site very often.
Still, very, very much in beta. The basic system is functioning, but like most things Microsoft, it was released a bit too soon. This was of course after dropping the ball for some time on getting a system like this going. As you can see in the comments, people have repeatedly asked, "Um, why are you telling us to do this, when you don't have a system to work with it?"
Since MS really is far out of the #1 and #2 spots, it would be expected that they would bring out a set of tools that aren't all that amazing. But, oddly enough, they're actually pretty decent currently. I happen to like the Website Status section under Summary. It's the closest that I've seen MS get to creating a PageRank score. But, it does show how pathetic MS has been in indexing. For this site, they only having 53 pages, which falls far short of the 3,200 or so that actually exist.
And then they have some keywords scorings in there are well. This tool set is not nearly as robust as Google's, but if they keep working on it, it might get somewhere yet.
There are a couple of serious bugs with the system. For one, it appears to be much happier in Internet Explorer, which is no surprise. Another is that the FAQ links to nothing. Another is that their "click to expand" function to list all your sites keeps tossing the one you just clicked on to the bottom. I find this annoying and would prefer a static list that was alphabetical. Ah, and then some of the sections just vanish. For instance, while writing this, all the Summary for a site was gone. An hour later, it was back. Yes, beta. Very beta.
I don't know how their spider regularity is at this point, since this service is very new. As of using it for three days, they still don't appear to have picked up any new pages. Then again, this could be a reporting bug. We'll have to see how this plays out over time.
Summary
Which one do I love the best? Google, of course. But the truth of the matter is, you're going to have to use all three, so get used to it! It would just be nice if you could use the account on all three systems to manage your account. Microsoft is actually better than Yahoo! and Google on this because you only need to have a one of their IDs which can be set up with any email.
In the end, I think we should all be thankful there aren't XML hacks like what you have to do to get a site working in Explorer 6...
18 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: google, internet, microsoft, sitemaps, yahoo
Watch Out Paris, London is Just Around the Corner
In London, they just started Eurostar service to the new St. Pancras station. Beyond the fact that you don't have to wind your way through wacky Waterloo station, you can now make it to Gare du Nord in just two hours as opposed to previous two and a half.
Due to this new, speedier, faster, truly high speed train service, they have launched a rather bold advertising campaign. You can see the most striking example below. Essentially it says, "Attention, London is just around the corner." It's clever, funny, and definitely gets attention, but does it purvey the message that they want? I don't know and I don't have anyone in Paris (whom I assume they're targeting this at) to ask at the moment. I would think that you'd want some French guy timidly poking the Queen with a baguette to encourage the French to go to London. This just speaks more like an air raid siren in that, you'd better get ready and put out your most room temperature beer possible, because the Brits? Yeah, they're a comin'!
Ah, but according to Sky News, this one was targeted at the Belgian market. Still, it doesn't seem to have the effect that I think in should in that you really want to get people to London and not vice versa. Maybe slapping the Queen with a waffle would present the message that I think they were trying to present.
Hey, I'd love to see the John Cleese Silly Walks one if anyone can find it!
17 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: england, london, the europe, trains
Hey, Want a King? Oh Yeah? Por qué no te callas?
For those of us, living in the US, the idea of royalty is enchanting. It seems like every girl has the dream of being a princess with a herd[flock?] of unicorns to ride on. And when we travel, who are all the nitwits agape as they look at the castles in Europe? Yeah, Americans.
I'm as guilty of it as anyone. I flirted with the idea of getting married in a castle in Spain recently, until I realized the the cost of the whole shebang would make my dreams smash into the cold hard face of reality. Even still, I do love castles and when I mentioned to my cousin in Slovenia that I'd like to visit some of the castles around his town, I got the simple answer of, "Oh? Really? Why?". Castles are everywhere over there after all.
But, beyond castles, there is the dream of having a royal family. This, I don't get in to. Countries in Europe waste millions and millions of dollars supporting royal families each year. I might add that these are millions and millions of dollars that do nothing but support a tradition that people think they need, which they could really be "wasted" on social programs such as feeding the homeless. Nowhere is this more the case than in Spain, where, once Franco died, their king managed to weasel himself back in to power and re-establish the throne and more importantly the kingdom. This is why it is the "Kingdom of Spain" and not the "Republic of Spain" not matter what the Bush family says. A rather silly thing given that they formed this "new" kingdom in 1978.
This year in Spain has been one of those years that has forcefully and repeatedly begged the question as to why the royal is really needed there anymore. One the biggest flaps came with the cover of El Jueves that took a serious jab at the prince and was recently fined because of it. You can see the cover below. I think it's hilarious, but then again, that's not my royal family on the cover.
But, the latest deal has been that the king told the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, to shut up. Naturally, it was called for, but very surprising for the king to say. And, no it wasn't some simple, "Please now sir, kindly wait your turn to speak.", because you can't do that with Chavez the Thickheaded. No, the king said, "¿Por qué no te callas?" which is the informal and impolite way to say something along the lines of, "Hey dude, shut your pie hole." Not the kind of thing you say at a diplomatic meeting like Ibero-America. For reference, you can have a look at the video below to see how it all went down.
It's really quick, so watch it again if you missed Juan-Carlos coming in with the right-handed hook that for a very brief second in time, made Chavez pause.
The bigger deal in all of this, is how Spain reacted to it. This video was remixed. And of course, it's been the talk of all media in Spain for the last week. And of course, other media and the blogosphere at large.
Naturally, the big question is, why? Obviously, it's because he's a king and he shouldn't be speaking like this. But really, who cares? The media, that's who. We need to all sit back for a moment and realize that no matter how hard we're working for the dollars (or euros) we get, that in Western Europe, the USA, and Canada, life is pretty damned good and we don't have the problems that plague the rest of the world. So, in lieu of actual news, we get to see the king of Spain telling a despot to shut up. Silly yes, but let's see if you can find news that's more important. Oh, you did? Huh. Well, por qué no te callas?
16 11 2007 1 comment
Tags: royalty, spain, the europe
Hudin Hits 1,000--Crowds Largely Uncommential
Well, the moment that was bound to happen has finally happened. This, right here and now, is the site's 1,000th article. Yeah, I know, some might say, "Astounding!", "How'd you do it?", "Zads!", or "Where's the the naked pictures?" Obviously the most important thing to say at moments like these are that the naked pictures are in the Bay to Breakers sections: 2006 and 2007, as well as the Folsom Street Fair.
With cheap thrills out of the way, it's probably time to look at where the site is now, which is what I feel to be in a good shape. As mentioned before and probably will be mentioned again, there are 1,000 articles. I'm guessing that there are about 10% that are really good, 20% that are decent, 30% that are something to read if you're bored, and then 40% that are pretty bad. I tip my hat to those that have been with me the whole time. I looked back at some of the older articles and they're nothing more than my blatherings. In fact, I have been going back to re-tag older articles, and have been adding in ramblings as a tag. I might even make it so that some point in the future, if you prefer to only read the writings that I feel are prime, you could stop seeing these. And yes, I know that reading posts about the Academy of Art or how much I don't like certain haircuts can get old.
Despite all this, there were a few articles that I really liked, which if you are in an office somewhere, stuck in middle management, you might enjoy wasting some time to read:
Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik Re-Visited, and Dubrovnik Re-Re-Visited
Everything on Praving
How Do Budget Airlines Make Money?
Seven Rules for Contract Web Developers
That's probably enough to choke anyone. As you'll see in this list, most of these articles are relatively recent. There is a reason for this and it is my Number 1 Fan who challenges me to write articles that are more substantive and interesting. Without her, there would undoubtedly be more "80 Year Old Man" posts and really, the world of the blog needs no more of those.
Beyond the articles though, it appears that I've posted 1630 photos to the site. This is something of a bigger deal than the articles because a) I think my photos are a lot better and b) I've only been putting them up for the last two years with most of that focused on the last year and a half when I made the switch to a proper SLR.
Much like the articles, my shots have been readily improving with time. I must admit that while the vast bulk of these shots are mine, there are some from Number 1 Fan in there as well, since we travel and do just about everything together. So, if you see a wide shot that's particularly cool, that's most likely going to be hers. But, looking over all of these, I originally thought that my favorite gallery as of late was going to be Sarajevo. I do like that gallery a lot, but the one that I think is the most interesting is Belgrade. Both are wild places, but the haphazard collision of multiple empires in Belgrade really made for some interesting shots.
Well, enough of all this. Back to my day job that allows the stories to unfold. (That happens to be recounted in The Sometimes Office from time to time...) Oh, and leave a comment, so I know who is out there! People hardly ever comment and that makes me feel sad.
14 11 2007 3 comments
Tags: blogs, hudin, site update
And yet More of what My Friends Can Do
The adventures of Chick continue. In this episode, we get to meet his brother, a retired uranium salesman. They make beautiful music together.
13 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: film, indie
Armed and Driving
I was forwarded this article about a guy trying to use a gun on a tire.
I suppose when you get down to it, the honor of a Darwin Award is really earned by the recipient of one. I mean, what is the pattern of synapses firing in a decision like this? "Hmm, tire is stuck. Gun unstucks things with bullet things. Use gun on tire to unstuck it? Yes, unstuck tire means getting to home, to watch game and each pork rinds more. But wait, pork rinds already in car with stuck tire. Stay here with stuck tire and eat pork rinds? Stupid logic brain, no game in car! Oh yeah, sorry gun brain, forgot about that. Shoot stupid tire!"
And thus you end up with a man in Washington State injured in both legs for shooting a tire with a 12 gauge shotgun. Really makes a solid case for that whole 2nd Amendment thing.
12 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: cars, guns, us america
