Peoii’s Place

SPAM, it’s gone from a humble potted meat product to something that everyone (except those making it) hates. Wait a second… ok, so it hasn’t changed in thought much, but it has changed in medium. Ok, yes, I kid. I actually do enjoy the SPAM meat product when prepared correctly, but hey, work with me on this one. At any rate, the digital form of SPAM has started to drive me insane. Fortunately thanks to the tools that the stock install of Wordpress provides me, I can easily capture and dispose of most of the spam before it even hits my blog walls. However, there are those slippery buggers that get thru from time to time, so I’m starting to focus on that now.

The next step in this series is to check out plugins that would allow me to fight back against this spam… And so, the first plugin I tested is known as Bot Check, which forces spam authors (at least in theory) to go thru an additional step of verifying a graphic string before allowing them to post random crap on my blog. Great idea, but upon attempt to install, I discovered my host is lacking one of the libraries I need to run it. Sure, I could email them and ask em to enable it… But I’m feeling rather lazy, and should I decide to move hosts, I don’t want to have to carry a huge list of addons I need for them to activate on my account before I can get up and running. So, on to the next option.

Next in line? A rather interesting non-wordpress specific package known as Bad Behavior. What’s it do? Well, I’ll let them explain it…

Bad Behavior is a set of PHP scripts which prevents spam bots from accessing your site by analyzing their actual HTTP requests and comparing them to profiles from known spam bots. It goes far beyond User-Agent and Referrer, however. Bad Behavior is available for several PHP-based software packages, and also can be integrated in seconds into any PHP script.

Sounds pretty cool huh? I thought so. Not only was the installation a BREEZE, but it allows me to log all the bad requests, find out what their doing and how, and even goes as far as to allow me to white list people in the event that they were blocked when they should not have been. All without me really having to modify anything at all in this package. Me like!

What do you know, tried out two packages, and the second one did everything I wanted and more. Not only that, but I get the peace of mind that now spammers will have to fight thru yet another iron curtain to get into my blogs comments. This is very very appealing to me, and I can’t wait to find out how much of an impact this is going to have on my current spam levels. My prediction? I think it’ll help significantly. But only time will tell, and here’s to hoping.

Yea, it’s been a while since I posted something here, however I’m working on that (yes, I know I’ve said that in the past, but hey, baby steps folks). I visited the site today, and realized how lame my header images looked, so I spruced them up a bit, in preparation for bigger things to come. I’m reforming the site to be much more professional than it has been in the past, and all the while maintaining it a comfortable and friendly place to visit and for me to share my thoughts with the world.

As I mentioned in my last post now over a month old, I have some big ideas for this site. There was a dream once that was my website, and I’ve got the drive to get it to that point now. I know what I want to do, and I’m working on that goal. Not only that, but I’ve realized that I’ve been hiding from some things now for far to long, and I’m going to change that.

This site has always been about reform in myself, my site, my life, and the way I think of things. It’s going to remain in that light, with some help from tools I plan on launching here shortly, that will empower me to make this an outlet with which I can share my experiences with the world.

Here is what I have on the table so far:

• More Articles - Whether they be a tutorial, a piece on something that bothers me or I feel I need to speak out in more than just a post, or whatever, they’re a very important thing I haven’t done in a while.
• Mini-Posts - For when I don’t have time to post an entire article, something that’s a tid-bit about something interesting I’ve found somewhere or something along those lines. These posts will be designed around directing people towards stories elsewhere that I feel you should check out.
• More Pictures - My digital camera needs to get a good workout. So I’m going to go around, take pictures, and share my world with everyone.
• Regular Posting Schedule - Working on setting up a schedule with which I’m going to start posting here. I’ve recently applied at 2 new jobs, and once I figure out my work schedule, I’ll be able to narrow down time where I can set aside for posting here and getting things off my chest.
• Theme Cleanup - I really like the look of the site as a whole, but there are certain elements that I’d like to expand on and improve.

And that’s just what I’m sharing right now. I’ve got some other ideas on the plate, but right now I’m not going to share those. Why? Because surprises are good for everyone, and I find if I don’t have an expectation of them getting done, I focus more on what I want it to become, than simply getting it done.

Anyway, Yes, I am alive, I am kicking, and I am reforming my life. I just got a backlog of email on one of my email addresses, so I’ll be responding to some people here in the next couple days. Sorry for not getting back to you earlier, but I was otherwise unable to check that email address. Which, btw, is another thing I’m working on fixing.

Well, more later.

I sat down tonight, curled up with a couple cats, and watched a movie. Sounds rather relaxing yes? You have no idea… “What movie?” would be a very valid question, and the answer: Gladiator. I havn’t watched the movie since the first time I saw it shortly after my wonderful sister bought it for me on DVD for my birthday some years ago. I remembered enjoying the movie, and thinking it had a great story line, but I couldn’t remember the specifics, so I figured tonight was a good time to watch it again. Boy was that the right choice.

You see, I now realize that movie falls into a category that few movies really do for me. The category being “movies that require a second time to fully appreciate”. It was good the first time, but the second time, I’m man enough to admit, I cried. It was a very moving film, and to say that it didn’t churn emotions in me would be a complete lie. I felt as though I wanted to help out with what was going on, I could feel the draw to do something, and it spured forth in me a sense of great loss when I was left helpless like those spectating in the film.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just very emotional right now, or maybe it just finally clicked in my head as to exactly what the movie meant. But this I will say for certain, it was the right choice of movie tonight.

Inspirational? Yes, it has filled me with a drive towards something great. What? Sorry folks, for now, that’s a secret… But soon my friends, soon.

Until the next post, I leave you with a quote from the movie which has my brain churning:

There was a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile. - Marcus Aurelius

I’ve been doing a great measure of organizing in my life of late. Lots of thoughts, lots of questions, lots of “need to figure this shit out” type things… It’s driven me to not be on things like ICQ & AIM, or to be responding much to my normal flow of email. Reason? When I do speak up, I want the words to be my own, without influence of something else, or as to come out overly emotional.

I’m writing this update to the website to attempt to explain this to the world, and even now, I question the words I’m placing into this textbox as being truely what I’m trying to say. But never the less, I’m giving it my best, because I don’t want people overly concerned about me. I’m just working thru some tuff things in my mind right now, and need some space and time to get them all sorted out.

For those who have been trying to contact me, I’m sorry for not getting back to you sooner. However, I’m going to leave this option out there as an available option for all people to contact me. You can always email me at peoiiREMOVE@THISmyrealbox.com (simply remove out the capital letters). Why is email prefered? Cause I can think thru what I’m trying to say, and not just blurt out something I’d later come to regret. I ask only that of anyone who wants to contact me… Just give me the time think things thru.

Soon enough, I’ll be back up and running in my own mind, and from there, things will proceed forward quite well I feel.

Thanks for understanding.

P.S.: To all those out there who’ve helped me in the past, I’d just like to say for the official record. Thank you. This list includes but is not limited to:

My Mom
My Sister
My Dad
Stephanie M.
Nonny & Bappa
Melissa H.
Seth & Liz
The whole Ense et Aratro Gang
Mindi
My friends from High School (who btw: if you’re reading this and havn’t emailed me, my address is there, and you better! )

Sorry for the melodramatic intro, but I couldn’t think of a more fitting title to what I’m going to talk about today. As many of you have probably heard by now, there was a bombing in London. I’ve been reading up on it as I get the chance, visiting sites like News.Com’s Coverage and Times Online for multiple viewpoints into this catastrophe, and in the end, the only feeling going thru my head is one of sickness. Let me explain.

I keep asking myself one very basic question (that is the bane of every parent ever on the planet)… “Why?” Why would an organization do something like this? Why would someone want to bomb innocent people? Why choose London of all places? Why Why Why Why Why? And then I started needing to fill in the answers to those questions which were driving me mad… And I came to a quick, and decisive reality. Yes, the group responsible had a reason for it. Will we ever truly understand it the way they do? No. But let here’s what I realized that might help out others with these many “why” questions…

A) London is a central hub for a great many things on the world wide stage. And in the eyes of some organization who would be out to cause panic, what better location in Europe than probably one of its most flaunted cities. This comes as no real surprise to me that it would have been chosen as the target, especially seeing how other attacks (namely the a certain one on September 11th) were targeted not at the most strategic places, but at the most boasted locations.

B) For many many years, Britain effectively controlled a great many countries around the world as part of their empire. So what do we have as a result of this? Odds are very good there are many small groups out there who hold a deep seeded hatred towards the Isle for this. I mean lets not beat around the bush here people… The queen of England was the empress of India! She never even went there… This can’t be expected to sit very well with people of a region. Sure, over time feelings would have been suppressed, but things like that are not simply forgotten. Hell, there are still religious wars going on over things that happened over 2000 years ago. It’s amazing how long the memory of a culture is.

C) When it comes to allies, Britain makes no question in anyones mind that they’ve got close ties with the United States, and for all intensive purposes, the USA is probably one of the most loathed countries on the face of the planet by many fundamentalist groups. But they couldn’t attack the USA again directly, that’d just be summed up to a “copy-cat” group, or some other trivial thing. So they chose to target one of the countries the USA calls friend. Am I saying that they this attack was indirectly aimed at the USA, and that they had no reason for attacking Britain on its own? No. I’m simply pointing out the relationship that does indeed exist, and crossed my mind… Believe me when I say, I don’t think this attack had anything to do with the USA, I’m just attempting to cover all bases.

So now you’ve heard my mind attempting to figure it out. These statements are still being worked thru in my head, and in the end, I doubt I’ll ever fully understand the reasoning behind it. However, I can say this with the utmost of certainty:

“To all those out there who were affected by this tragedy, I pass on my deepest thoughts and hopes for the safety of your friends, family, and loved ones. May you and yours make it out with as little of loss as possible, and whatever loss you do suffer, know that there are people out in the world who are mourning with you. You are not alone.“

I don’t know what’s been up with the weather around here as of late, but it’s been very very unpredictable. We’ll go from very hot weather one hour, to thunder, lightning, and rain the next hour… Almost reminds me of living on the Puget Sound. Only major difference being that what we call “rain” here, they’d call a “drizzle” over there, but hey, such is life.

The lightning storms are one of the things I really love about this area, as I’ve always enjoyed watching them whenever they happened where I was living. Bonus part to around here is, we’ve got 2 seasons where they’re fairly regular, though the ones this year seem a tad more severe than last year. Heck, we had the whole town go black for a while during this most recent one. Kinda a suprise as the power hasn’t been out that long in the area since I moved up here.

Other than that, things have been pretty status quo with the weather, though I’m very happy to report the summer is much more mild than previous ones. I’m not feeling the urge to go move to Alaska to escape the heat this year (though, I do think about a colder climate sometimes as a nice change to life, as I love that weather), so I can definately tell it’s cooler outside. Heck, the cats show it… I’m not getting the “Dad, it’s to damn hot” look everyday from them, so I know it’s an improvement.

Welp, thought I’d post a little update. Overall, things are good, working on a couple projects, and hopefully launching a new one here by the end of the weekend. Until then, cheers.

Browsing around the internet today while working on a computer in the house, I stumbled across this little diddy known as a “Gravatar”, and thought to myself “Hey, what is that all about?” So I took a minute while drinking a glass of water, and read the website to discover more about what this whole thing is. Come to find out, it stands for a “Global Avatar”, or an avatar which you can carry with you to all of the blogs you post on. Intrigueing…

So I signed up for an account using my normal “web blog posting” email address, and what do you know, I’ve now got a Gravatar of my own. That was easy… a little too easy… Ok, so it’s not a scary thing at all, but hey, sounded good at the time. I’ve now updated the website to support Gravatars, and I would encourage anyone who comments on various blogs to sign up for one. Not only that, but if you run a blog, please, make your site gravatar capable (heck, the instructions are right there on their website). I’ve always liked avatars in Forums, and this takes it to a whole new level. Love it.

So yeah, head on over to the Gravatar website, and check it out. It’s worth your time.

People have asked why I wasn’t posting for a while, and I feel it’s only fair to say something on that subject. Main reason being, I was simply busy. Yeah, I know, it’s a copout, but it’s sadly the truth. I’d go to work, get home, and just want to chill out and not have to think at all once getting home. Let me tell you all right now, call centers are the bane of existance on the planet. Avoid them at all costs.

I had just gotten to the point where I wanted to simply maximize my down time, and just try to get in the rest I needed whenever I could, so I started abandoning things sadly… Things in my life started going down hill, and I then one day I reached what you might consider a point of enlightenment. I realized that in an attempt to undo the damage done by my employment, I was giving up on the things I loved to do most in my spare time. Write on this website, work on various programming projects, catch up on my friends websites, and in general, socialize out here on the great world wide internet. So in an attempt to wipe the slate clean, and start-a-fresh, I posted up a faux index.html here on peoii.com, and started work on what would become my new presence on the internet.

What does the future hold in store for this website? Time will only tell, but as it stands right now, I’ve got a couple ideas that I’m working on seeing to light, and I’m atleast going to try to post here every once in a while to make sure people know I’m still alive and kicking.

The last incarnation of Peoii.com was focused on adding stuff that other people wanted to see on the site, and while I still enjoy doing things that other people want to see, I’m going to focus this incarnation on what I want to put out on the net. I want it to grow into something I can be proud of, while still maintaining my level of readership from those out there who might be interested. Yes, I’m going to work on more tutorials/etc, but I’m not going to bind myself on any schedule or anything. That additional stress at this time would most likely do more harm than good. So we’re going to play this by ear, and take it one step at a time.

That said, is there anything anyone would like to see re-added from the old site, or anything new they’d like to see added? I’m definately game to hear what you’d like to see, and I’ll make notes of anything that strikes my fancy as something I’d like to add anyway. I’m looking for some inspiration, anyone got some spare?

That’s right, I’ve decided it’s far enough to let the site go live. There are certain aspects of the old site which have not made a reappearance, however, I’m working on those slowly as time allows.

I hope you all enjoy the new site, it’s going to be an interesting ride rebuilding it, but I think the new direction I have in mind will be very good not only for myself, but for anyone who might stop by and do some light reading. So please, take a minute, sit back, and enjoy the show. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride, but it’ll be worth it.