Classic Tech Tips Archive

Ok, so we've seen how to password protect directories to keep the web crawlers out, but I don't want to go through that. I want to keep the page open, but I don't want it spidered and indexed by the …

I just thought I'd do a quick post to mention that I've added a new category called "featured books" and it's a place where, well..... I'll ummmm feature books. I don't know I might feature other thi…

OK - someone has a sense of humor. In the hour after the browser statistics article where I said that on this site, Internet Explorer was being used by less than 50% of the viewers I saw an interesti…

In the last week or two, I've been playing around with a slightly different stat package for the individual sites, North Carolina Genealogy, South Carolina Genealogy and this site. Since it's a new s…

Along about the time I mentioned a beta review of KDE 3.5 it looks as though the latest in the stable line, KDE 3.4.2 was released. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, KDE is one of many grap…

I don't know how I ran across this link, but it's interesting and has a GREAT photo. The picture is supposedly of an Ice Lake on Mars Beautiful coloration, I'm not sure if it's false color or what. O…

The last post, I got sidetracked into another idea as I was doing a google search. Not uncommon. OK, what I was curious about is how many phishing sites are estimated to be "in the wild" at any given…

I mentioned that I had gone after another two phishing sites the other day. One was down within 24 hours. I was impressed with the responsiveness, but it's possible I wasn't the first to complain. St…

I just read a review over at techreviewcentral of the recent beta release of Internet Explorer 7. Now, I'll go ahead and say this. I'm not a Microsoft fan. I use Linux for my desktop operating system…

Ok, we've looked at controlling access to directories with .htaccess, but there are other neat tricks we can do that can add a bit of polish to your site. One that I've implemented lately is a custom…

Okay, in an earlier article I was looking at uses of Google that might reveal things you don't want revealed about your website. Maybe a test directory that you don't want to be spidered. I want to s…

One of my pet peeves is web sites that work with only one web browser. (Usually Internet Explorer) and break, sometimes badly with anything else. Recently I ran into this problem at a registrar. When…

Well, after the early week experience with getting a Bank of the West site taken down, I've taken on two more which have come in today. One of these was an ebay spoof, the other paypal. In both cases…

I just saw a good review of KDE 3.5 Currently KDE 3.4.1 is the stable release and so 3.5 is what is currently in development. It looks like quite a few nice user interface polish has been worked on. …

Of course, there was a time when delivery of many things relied heavily on the US Postal Service and the blame of a delay could be passed along. I saw an article lately about people using technology …

Finally, I just checked and ~80 hours since my first emails the Bank of the West phishing site is finally down. (~32 hours since contacting the ISP and 8-10 hours since contacting Bank of the West.) …

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the URL of the phishing site thus far. That is, in part, because I feel as though it would be irresponsible. That someone might come across this and take advantage o…

This is one that comes in handy a lot. Like many things in computing there are a number of ways to accomplish this. My favorite though is one fo the simplest. But first, it's probably worth asking wh…

Well, I'm trying. The first post I did on the Bank of the West phishing email I was somewhat down because there are people in the world that do phishing scams. Now I'm down because the company that h…

Well, since I did the summary of MSN's new Virtual Earth and compared it to Google Maps. I find this article at The Register that notes that Apple's Cupertino headquarters is missing from Virtual Ear…

This is one that can be handy from time to time, trying to find your ip address. If you're on a lan there aren't too many ways to find your public ip within the operating systems software. However, u…

Well, I've said good things about Google maps, so when I saw that Microsoft had rolled out Virtual Earth I wanted to take a look. I've been trying to get in for a little while. I think it's still ver…

I can't help but be a bit amused, but there is one (maybe 2?) business that's not. According to this article a small company called Vista sells business software and services. They're looking into th…

According to several sources, including a CNN story, it looks as though daylight savings time won't be quite the same. The House and Senate have agreed on a compromise Energy Bill which will add 4 we…

Just read this over at eweek.... USB devices can post a security risk. There's an "age old" adage in computer security (well - as far as computer security it's old...) You can control a machine if yo…