Men Not Working - Slow Blog Ahead

After a few weeks it might seem like I've given up on the blog but that's hardly the case.

Just been using my blogging efforts in other places, stirring the pot here and there, and taking some heat for stupid comments.

If you missed some of the fun try these threads for giggles

Something AdSense:
Google Bugs May Contribute to Lower AdSense Income

Something Linux:
Making easy graph XML output from log files
Instantly List All Outbound Links

Something for Bot Blockers:
MJ12Bot Agrees To Try Bot Validation

Our old buddy Lord Majestic agreed to try to implement a simple way to allow webmasters to validate MJ12BOT's distributed crawler and avoid all those fake MJ12BOTs that are climbing in the backdoor spoofing MJ12's user agent.

So you can see things are happening, just not happening here at the moment!

If you get bored, just come over to Twitter and kick me in the nads, it seems to keep the people happy when you give them what they want.

Stop DNS Site Hijacking With Apache Redirect

There have been several instances of DNS hijacking reported lately so I thought it might be useful to briefly address this problem and it's easy resolution.

DNS hijacking occurs when someone using a different domain name aims their domain name at your server and it hijacks a domain on your server. Both domains, the hijackers and yours, now serve up the same exact content. The search engines aren't sure which one to believe so the hijackers domain, if it gets crawled, may suddenly inherit all your site pages and your domain goes away completely in the search engine index.

This has actually happened a couple of times to various people I know or I wouldn't bother sounding the alarm that this could also happen to you. Some cases appear to be accidental leftovers from people using 3rd party DNS services that still point to servers they no longer use. Others appear to possibly be deliberate, trying to hijack someone's site in Google or other search engines, and sometimes it works too!

If all your sites are using virtual hosting and share a single IP then it's a crap shoot which domain they'll hijack.

However, if you have a dedicated IP for a site that uses a dedicated SSL server then they can aim their DNS entry directly at your site and potentially take it for a search engine joy ride.

The easiest way to stop this is to add the following lines into your .htaccess file on every site in your server and replace example.com with your own domain name.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(example\.com)?$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

This also canonicalizes your domain to the non-www form of the domain name.

If you want your canonical domain to start with www. then you'll need to add that to the script.

Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Updating Apache Zaps Plesk 8 Suexec

Boy did I hit the panic button tonight when I did a server software update and suddenly everything running in a CGI-BIN folder started generating 500 errors.

I remembered this problem with earlier versions of the Plesk control panel I use, but it seems that back then it was a simple CHMOD problem, took a look and the SUEXEC group, owner and flags were all still proper.

Lots of stuff down, clock ticking, trying this and that, mild panic setting in...

Turns out the stock Apache SUEXEC isn't compatible with Plesk 8 whatsoever which is why everything was coughing up 500 errors.

Luckily for me there is a second copy of it laying around in a Plesk folder so a quick copy and everything is back running just fine.

cp /usr/local/psa/suexec/psa-suexec /usr/sbin/suexec

Most of you won't have a clue what any of this Linux gibberish is about so don't worry about it but if this happens to some other nerd using Plesk out there perhaps in his moment of nerd panic he'll find my post and know how to solve the problem quickly.

Bankrupt Silicon Valley Crybabies - Try Living Within Your Means

Reading this post on WebGuild about "Down and Out in Silicon Valley" really pisses me off.

The author is trying to make me feel bad about someone making $12K/month ($144K/year) that's now grabbing grub at the food pantry and using food stamps.

Give me a fucking break, why the hell did you spend it all?

What part of "bank" didn't you understand?

Back in the 90's someone I used to work with was a multi-millionaire just from his stock options in one company.

What did he do?

You probably already guessed it, he bought a million dollar house, hundred thousand dollar cars, all of it on credit of course and kept the money in the stock market.

Ujita just arranged for a new food pantry in Los Gatos where the median income is $175,000 and where many home owners have been wiped out. Their mortgages have overtaken the value of their homes and a layoff quickly depletes theirs saving and soon they find themselves in soup kitchens.

Classic mistake, when you can afford to pay cash, pay cash and keep your ass debt free within reason and have some of those things called assets, which you can sell when the shit hits the fan and you need money.

Well, of course my friend lost it all when the dot-com bubble burst and was sitting there with massive payments needing to be made and millions gone in a flash, POOF!

So ask yourself, if you can't afford to pay cash for a new Cadillac Escalade but you could pay cash for a Buick, maybe you stick to a Buick budget, or perhaps get a used car a couple of years old at nearly half the price.

People are out of their fucking minds trying to impress people with bigger better faster newer cooler and then when it hits the fan expect everyone to feel sorry for their plight, loan them money, cut them slack, bummer dude.

For instance when I worked in the corporate world of Silicon Valley almost everyone on my team was driving Mercedes and Porches while I was driving a Ford or a Buick and pressuring me to get with the program and get a car that went with the status of the job.

Guess what, that's $50K price difference between what I paid for my car vs. theirs and my cash went into the bank while their cash depreciated every time they drove that car.

I'm not jealous, if driving that $100K car makes you think your dick is bigger or harder than mine, then enjoy your big fucking expensive car but don't expect sympathy from me when the economy blows a gasket and you have no money because you spent it all.

Wah fucking wah.

I'll admit I blew a wad on a 50" plasma TV but of course I could afford it just off the interest earned from the money I saved not buying the overpriced German car.

If you can't afford it, don't buy it and the next time the economy takes a dump you'll survive with something called "savings", one of those magical things banks help you accomplish if you don't fucking spend it all trying to impress your goddamn friends and family.

Nobody will be impressed when you're homeless.

I can't blog anymore!

My blogging bone appears to be broken.

Got a few good rants backed up, will see what I can do about those.

Until then, read this post about Rich Snippets and Microformats