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Comment Any system needs human review (Score 1) 119

A few years back one company's software identified my site under "Illegal: Gambling." Since it's a movie site, that was way off. I contacted the company and explained the situation to them. After a short exchange with 2 of their techs, they removed the tag from my site in their system.

Any filtering software needs a system for site owners to submit trouble tickets, and also employees, who can think independently, to review them and make corrections.

Comment The software you need vs the software have (Score 1) 306

People, please stop selecting every option when you buy a computer. And stop installing everything you can find onto your new laptop. Whenever a friend or family member brings me a newly purchased Dell computer to look at, I spend no small amount of effort removing numerous programs that Dell, by default, thinks that every computer needs. Then I spend another 30 minutes removing various things that they or their offspring have installed, because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Them: "I just bought a new computer and installed some of my software on it. Now it's not working right. Can you take a look at it for me?"
Me: "Sure. Wait, did you just buy this computer in 2013?"
Them: "Yes."
Me: "Why does it have TurboTax 2001 installed?"
Them: "What if I need to open my 2001 tax return?"
Me: "When is the last time you opened your 2001 tax return?"
Them: "2002."
Me: "Is this Napster? Did you install Napster on this?"
Them: "Yes."
Me: "Arrrggggghhh!"

Comment I'll buy it... (Score 1) 339

...just to play "Questron" again.

And "Forbidden Forest"
And "Wizard's Crown"

While I'm making wishes, maybe they could let it run the 3DO version of "Star Control II" as well.

No, I don't want an emulator. I want all the same colors and the same beeps, though I do want it to run faster than my C64 did.

Comment This is common (Score 1) 330

This happens quite often. Usually, the bad guys are quite sneaky as well. They start a campaign running on the ad network that is served the bad guy's ad server. During the normal week, Monday to Friday, the ads behave and do nothing malicious. Come the weekend, when the ad network has limited staff (or for some networks, only on call support), the bad guys change the ad to serve malicious code. If they make it through the weekend without getting caught, they change the ad back to the normal one before Monday morning.

Sometimes the bad guys will impersonate a reputable company, and they can be quite convincing about it.

The only real way to stop this is to make it so that advertisers cannot change active ads without them being reviewed by the advertising firm. That means ads only being served from the ad network's servers (which will not go over well with all advertisers), more staff to ensure ads are reviewed in a timely fashion, and a number of other changes that everyone needs to adapt to.

A software solution to spot and halt bad ads would be ideal. However, it is difficult for most antivirus/antimalware software to scan the ads for malware, because new stuff pops up all the time.

Comment Webmasters hate slow ads too (Score 2, Informative) 387

There are quite a few webmasters who run their ads inside of iframes, as that usually avoids a slow ad holding up the rest of the page loading. The bad thing about that is that expandable ads (even polite, user-initiated) do not work. There are also some other tricks webmasters use, such as creating division tags and then using a bit of javascript trickery to move the ad loading to a point after the content loads.

Webmasters do hate slow ads (not to mention bad ads). I love direct sale campaigns on my site, because they almost always are run from my ad server. If that is slow, my whole site is slow anyway - and that happens very, very rarely (it has been months).

Comment Some other points (Score 1) 978

I am going to hit two points I didn't see mentioned.

The first is that the intensity of your exercise matters a lot. High intensity burns a lot more calories than medium or low intensity. Jog 3 miles at an easy pace. Now run 1.5 miles pushing yourself. You'll see a difference. The same goes for working other parts of the body. One routine I like to do is 10 pull-ups, 20 push-ups, 40 abs (bicycle crunches, obliques, etc.) - do 8 sets of that, then run 3 miles. When I'm trying to improve, I push myself and it works. However, I can do that same workout for weeks at just medium intensity (taking my time) and I don't see an improvement in my performance. High intensity also burns calories faster.

Oh, and a good exercise session will increase your metabolism for hours. Do it early.

Another issue is that when you eat your calories matters. Having a big meal helps to set your body's metabolism for the day. Your other meals should be sensible, but don't have a huge dinner and then go to bed 2 hours later. That's terrible for losing weight. I tell people trying to lose weight to have a healthy breakfast, decent lunch, and then keep dinner reasonable, and dinner cannot be right before bed. After dinner the only thing you should be doing is drinking water. Don't starve yourself; you have to take in calories or else your body slows down metabolism.

If someone is exercising and thinks they are watching what they eat, I also tell them to keep a journal of everything they eat and drink (except water). They often find they've picked up calories in expected places, like sports drinks or a food item.

There's a lot more to losing weight and getting in shape, but I'm pressed for time.

Comment Overselling hosts (Score 3, Insightful) 135

Unlimited is obviously a gimmick, as there are limits to anything. Most "unlimited" plans have rules about usage, be it CPU or other, that allows the host to suspend the account. "unlimited" plans that cost $9.95 a month should be viewed with a critical eye. You get what you pay for with hosting. Before buying a hosting plan do some research on what hosts provide quality service, what price they charge, and what can be expected in terms of support. Oh, and always keep local backups of your data, and never sign up for an extended contract.

1&1 does not have a great reputation on www.webhostingtalk.com. Anyone with an interest in reading about the perils of unlimited plans (or hosting in general) should browse around that site.

Comment This is why I lose sleep at night (Score 4, Funny) 233

I know that, somewhere, a crazy genetic engineer is holding one of those little venomous beasts in his hand and thinking to himself, "These are cool. I wish they were bigger!"

His office is right next door to the insane scientist who is trying to breed 40 lb tarantulas, and down the hall from the aquarium-hugging genius who wants to cross flying fish with piranhas.

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