However, I then wondered which is faster, and whether I should in fact use cURL as standard and only fall back on the various fopen/etc functions if cURL is off? Mat/Rich/Dee etc.. looking at you guys here

I’ve no idea why I left this specific part until nearly the very end of the script, I guess it seemed a good idea at the time.

Given how quickly knowledge spreads on the Internet, it is no surprise therefore to see advertising companies applying this logic to their campaigns. Internet promotion, and more recently, television advertisements are encouraging users to search for “xyz” online rather than providing a specific URL. One particular ad’ that I recall quite vividly is for the Royal Navy. The careers advert ends with search for ‘navy jobs’ online, and as an Internet user this stuck in my mind more easily than a complex URL might have.

While I’m always excited to see any company embracing what is actually the norm rather than forcing a user to do it “their” way, I can’t help but consider the possibilities of abuse that are being opened by this approach.

There are many people who make a small fortune marketing their skills as a SEO consultant. So what is to stop one of these SEO experts from using an advert — funded by someone else altogether — from boosting their own rankings? Assuming they have the know-how and networking capabilities to successfully target a given set of keywords or keyphrases for normal clients, this same knowledge can be applied to ’stealing’ high rankings away from someone else. The result would be a boost in the organic traffic from search engines, because of the probably unrelated advert, and all without spending a penny themselves.

I don’t have the time to even begin trying it out, but I can see that if we are going to start accommodating regular users habits more readily, we have to consider the potential consequences too.

I went on a round the world tour on the back of a donkey.

A giant spider wrapped me in a silken web, and refused to let me go.

I ate too much chocolate, exploded, and have been in hospital having my organs sewn back together.

A portal to another world opened up in my garden, and I’ve been off exploring a different solar system.

…honest.

No thanks to the 150 or so spam messages in my inbox, here I am, online at last. Apparently I pissed someone off enough for them to want to sign my e-mail address up to 100+ newsletters. I’m guessing they didn’t count on the fact that in 3 clicks, I could run a filter on my inbox to delete them all. It’s then easy to set SpamAssassin to reject any future mails with “newsletter” in the body (yes, I care that little about false positives.) In fact, it probably took longer for them to sign up than it did for me to get rid of the mails. Aw, please try harder next time, n00bs.

Incidentally, this does make me wonder how mailing lists are regulated across the world. At work, we’re required to double opt-in users, with a single opt-out. This means that fake sign-ups are weeded out, which reduces bandwidth on our side, and limits the annoyance for the user (if its possible to have limited annoyance with bloody mailing lists). I’m guessing that’s not the same everywhere, as only a small fraction of those in my inbox were “Please confirm…” mails.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, my short break (including time off work, woot) is now over and thus all will return to normal tomorrow. Unfortunately.

Aside from visiting family, I have spent the past few days chilling out. I’ve actually played with my Wii for the first time in months, although have got stuck at a spot in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I’ve done the Forest Temple, got all the tears of light (or whatever they are) in Kakariko Village, tamed Epona, and learnt how to sumo. On heading back to Kakariko, one of the kids was stolen. I’m now on my horse chasing the baddie, with several other baddies on wild boars around me. I’ve tried chasing and ignoring the boar-riders; getting off my horse and killing the baddies that are riding the boars; running around in circles like a complete idiot… yes, I’m none the wiser. (Hints, please!)

In completely unrelated news, the recent bad weather (almost constant rain) has done wonders for my runner beans and yet the said same rain is killing my cabbages. Drainage is identical, I’m wondering if it’s more likely related to the depth of the soil and the size of the plants (one would assume that bigger plants ‘drink’ more water?) It’s not going to matter sooner or later anyway, because the bloody slugs are upping their game somewhat. I’m going to have to re-start my midnight campaigns with a torch and bucket of salt.

Still, I have a weird and wonderful collection of veg growing now. Turnips and radish in an old baby bath, some sort of chinese cabbage (if I recall correctly), cauliflower, my peppers and tomatoes, runner beans, courgette still going strong, lettuce, bunching onions and beetroot. Not bad for my first year of growing. (If any of you are thinking of starting a veg plot, I do have some book recommendations. Grow Your Own Vegetables by Joy Larkcom should be your very first purchase, with Grow Your Own Veg by Carol Klein a close second.)

I think the best part so far is the look on people’s faces when I tell them that I’ve recycled a plastic baby bath as a make-do planter. It was one of the many items of crap left in our garage when the previous tenant moved out. Unfortunately, going back to my mention of drainage earlier, it only has the one hole. I’m thinking of investing in some fold up planters (they have proper holes) for next year though, even if they are too conventional.

I bought a new pair of boots this month, to protect my little toesies from the rain when I’m walking to work. Regressing to my childhood somewhat, I decided a pair of Dr Martens would be most appropriate (I lived in a pair of worn out classic black Docs as a kid). I wanted their proper padded-ankle walking style boots but those were unavailable, so I decided on these boots in “TAUPE + PERGAMERIA IRIDE”. They’re probably the most feminine thing I own. Unfortunately, the backs of the heels are a bit stiff — as demonstrated by the large blisters on each foot — but it shouldn’t take too long to break them in.

So I think that’s about it for me? You’d have to hope so, with the amount I’ve waffled about…

Don’t miss me too much you guys

IF YOU HAVEN’T GRASPED THE BASICS, YOU SHOULDN’T BE WRITING TUTORIALS.

I’m hoping the caps will emphasise the seriousness of that point. I don’t care how shit your personal website is… they are after all there for experimentation and fun. Cover it in Britney Spears and your appalling grammar for all I care. However, the second you enter the realm of labelling yourself a web designer/developer and start charging people for your “services”, you are entering my world. There isn’t a morally superior, “I’m on my high horse” visitor to my site — loyally regular or otherwise — that is going to tell me I am not entitled to criticise people who think they’re capable of playing with the big boys.

If we cannot accept that there are things we do not know, then we will never advance or improve (personally, or professionally). Shit, I wish I had more people to bounce my code off and to tell me where I’m going wrong, because I get stuck in a rut and find it incredibly frustrating.

Anyway, that rant wasn’t the purpose of this entry. Indeed, it seems to have overwhelmed it somewhat (I do get carried away sometimes). In fact, I wanted to highlight exactly why being 13 is a poor excuse by showing you some great websites by people who are exactly that… 13 (or thereabouts).

“last full show”

This is Ellie’s site. She’s not updated in over a year, but she was 13 when she created the site. The layout is simple, attractive, and she’s successfully implemented it as a WordPress theme. Her blog entries are well written (grammatically) and I didn’t see the word “MySpace” anywhere, which made my evening.

Auberginer.org

Lisa’s site is not particularly superbly coded, but it’s cute, it works in Firefox and a quick glance seems to show that everything is spelt correctly and appropriately punctuated. “Could’ve” instead of “could of” made me a happy bunny. (You have no idea how quickly “could of” and “should of” annoys me.) Lisa is also 13, according to her “Facts” page.

“bat ears”

Justine was 12 years old when she created this site (another that has not been updated since last year, unfortunately). Her website is cute, and although the coding is not up to my standards by any stretch of the imagination, her spelling and grammar are again perfectly adequate. Her text is a good size and her artwork surpasses my shitty attempts at pixeling.

sodevious.net

Nicole is 14. I don’t think I need to tell you what’s done well on her site, it’s pretty obvious if you ask me. Nicole was featured in the New York Times in February this year.

–

So yes, you can sit there and tell me that 12/13/14 year old girls should be given a free ride, but when you’ve got children and teens demonstrating skills that I didn’t pick up until I was 17 or 18 (yes, I had people tell me I was shit too) I’m not going to care enough to listen. Spend less time bitching about how unfair and unjust life is because someone doesn’t like your site, and you might actually get somewhere… no?

Transport Tycoon is one of those games that I’ve heard a lot about but never actually played before. However, given my love for RollerCoaster Tycoon (particularly RCT2), by the same guy, I figured that it’d be an instant hit and I would start raking in the dosh, building the biggest and best railways etc. (It’s not as boring as it sounds, honestly.)

Unfortunately my logic doesn’t quite ring true. I am absolutely shite at Transport Tycoon. In fact, not since Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter — the ultimate keypad mashing games — have I failed on such an epic level. I have had to customise the difficulty level so that there’s no competitors and that everything works in my favour to even begin to make a profit each year.

Still, I keep trying. It’s oddly addictive… either that or I’m turning into a boring old fart.

1. Don’t direct link. Seriously, don’t waiste my bandwidth, or yeah. If something has been direct linked, I will delete it without warning and change its location, that way you’ll lose the image.
2. Don’t steal, trade, etc. Don’t claim these as your own. Not joking!
3. Don’t edit. Pieriod.
4. Don’t redistribute. These things are to be on trymegraphics.com and trymegraphics.com ONLY!!
5. Don’t edit codes if I have supplied you with them. I can just find out by viewing the source, it’s not hard.

(emphasis my own)

…the least you can bloody do is not direct-link my stuff. Hell, I distribute this shit under the GPL so you guys can do what you like with it and yet there’s still always one that has to take advantage.

PS. Your tutorials suck.