I normally stay away from laughing at dumb Americans because they’re too easy a target. This video was too funny to pass up. Featuring cryptic questions like “how many sides does a triangle have?” and “name a country starting with ‘U’”…
Originally seen on shoutfile.com.
Error messages are always a worrying sight, but thankfully this one was easily dealt with. Here’s the message I was seeing today on my newly upgraded to Wordpress v2.1 blog:
WordPress database error: [Can't find file: './homedir/wp_comments.frm' (errno: 13)] SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE …
A quick google tells me that it’s a MySQL error, and can be fixed with a simple MySQL command REPAIR TABLE wp_comments; (replacing wp_comments with the relevant table name if that’s not the right one). Alternatively you can do a repair within phpMyAdmin if GUIs are your thing.
I wonder whether this was related to my playing around with different themes, and the associated compromise of database integrity, or if it was related to the upgrade from 2.0.7 to 2.1…
Technorati Tags: Error, Wordpress v2.1, WordPress database error, MySQL error, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, upgrade, 2.0.7, 2.1
If you host your own Wordpress then take note - there’s a php exploit on the loose that’s taken out several well known SEO blogs. Advice is to update to Wordpress 2.0.7 right now. You have no excuse if you’re compromised because you have been warned!
Updated 23rd Jan: there’s a shiny new Wordpress v2.1 that’s just been released - I recommend you upgrade to this, which includes the fix I mentioned below, along with a host of minor and not so minor changes (e.g. database performance caching)
If you don’t know how to upgrade to the latest version it’s quite easy:
That was easy, right?
Technorati Tags: Wordpress, php exploit, Wordpress 2.0.7, how to upgrade
Igor over at bizmord.com posted about deeplinking to your own site early in your posts. It makes a lot of sense from an SEO point of view for couple of reasons:
Whenever your “content” is republished somewhere … many times you’ll notice that the website will show a brief intro to content (usually your first paragraph) and then offer a link to read further. Well, isn’t it nice when your deep links are right there on top, closer to the index page, visible not only to people who read the article but also to search engine’s spiders?
Of course as I discovered writing the first paragraph of this post, sometimes it’s fairly difficult to fit it in naturally!
P.S. Saw your syndicate post on WebPro getting all the link love, thought you should get some of the google juice you deserved, Igor 
Technorati Tags: SEO, syndicate, link love, google juice
Thanks to Jason for the heads-up - it seems that my Wordpress 2.0 blogs are vulnerable to the exploit listed in Wordpress issue #3142, but the effect is relatively minor.
Every logged in user can spy out the metadata of all other users by typing in the URL /wp-admin/user-edit.php?user_id=XXX irrespective if he has the right to do this or not. If not in fact there will be shown the error message “You do not have permission to edit this user.” but after that message the complete form with all data will also be shown.
Here’s the exploit in action:
I guess it’s a source of valid email addresses for spam, though I’m not sure that bloggers are the best demographic for email spam (not that spammers care). Anyway my blogs are theoretically vulnerable to this exploit, but since I don’t currently allow registered users it’s not an issue.
Technorati Tags: Wordpress, blogs, vulnerable, exploit, email
If you recently received a spam mail from amdsoft.com, well you didn’t. Some dirty, stinking scumbag email spammer configured his bulk-mailer to use this domain in the From: address.
But you can quit feeling sorry for yourself - I’ve received over 40 80 “delivery failed” notifications and counting!
This is a sponsored review
Lets talk about VOIP in-game options. It’s essential - last thing you want to be doing when working on something complicated and time-critical is trying to explain with text communication. Currently I use at least 4 different ways to talk to my teammates when playing games.
Mainly these days I’m using TS when multi-player Counter-Strike (4+) because the server is TS enabled, but occasionally I just leave Skype running in the background to my friend and we both jump on the same server. X-fire’s advantage comes in here because you can right-click your friends name and “Join server”.
What about Ventrillo? Well Dallas Xtreme asked me[1] to check out their Ventrillo hosting and I decided to see if it could match my TS experiences. If you check out their site you’ll see a list on the left hand side that shows London, England, Ashburn, Virginia, etc. These are test servers. I chose the London server as my testing ground since it’s close to Dublin here.
Was I impressed? With their server, yes. Voice quality was more than adequate, and lag was non-existent. With the non-server elements, well Ventrillo is a pretty polished piece of software.
Update
Chris has some interesting technical info in the comments section:
I wouldn’t say your experience was exactly typical. Heres the breakdown:
Teamspeak supports a number of quality levels (codecs). It ships with one of the lowest enabled, because it takes up less bandwidth. Teamspeak uses UDP, a connectionless protocol, to send data. This is faster than TCP/IP, but less reliable.
Ventrillo supports a number of codecs also. It ships with one of the highest enabled, because it sounds good. Vent uses TCP/IP, which can cause enormous lag if packets are dropped, but with guaranteed delivery you will always hear exactly what others said.
In summary: Vent sounds better out of the box, but may effect your game performance by hogging bandwidth. Teamspeak may occasionally sound worse, especially out of the box, but will have a much less noticable effect on gameplay.
Here’s my reply to his comment:
Thanks for the detail, I hadn’t seen it broken down as simply as TeamSpeak using UDP, Ventrillo using TCP before.
Regards sound quality vs lag… well I was going to say that that’s an easy one to answer - I’ll take the lower quality any day, but don’t lag me! But on consideration, that’s not quite true - it depends on circumstance.
In a hectic game of CounterStrike, where 1/100 of a second makes a difference then lag is unacceptable, but dropping voice packets is acceptable.
In the slower paced game of World of Warcraft at length discussion of your raid’s strategy is vital, but 1/100 of a second lag is normally dealt with quite well by the game network code.
So on that basis I would go for TeamSpeak with UDP. For WoW I would say that communication quality is more important, thus being more suited to Ventrillo.
Would I recommend dallasxtreme.com? I don’t know. I certainly don’t think you’re going to have any issue with the quality of communications. If I were you I’d first of all check out the test servers, and when happy, take a look at the pricing options and see if you’re happy with the price.
Ratings: overall: 7/10 (quality 8/10; value 6/10 (because their competitors at the low-end are free))
1. (ReviewMe does not require reviews to be positive, these are my true opinions)
I’ want to learn more about SEO. I have a strong understanding of all the basic principles, in the same way that a graduate knows the basics of their specialist topic, but taking it profession will take a lot of effort.
There are some great resources online, and there’s one that I keep getting pointed back at, everytime I look up something on SEO, This is either very ominous or a ringing endorsement. The resourse is “SEO book” which is a PDF ebook from Aaron Wall, an SEO expert.
The book sounds interesting, and I have yet to find a negative review. On the flip side, it seems a lot of the reviews are from paid affliates, which isn’t always a bad thing, but many don’t declare the fact that they’re on sales commission and all are very positive. One review on seobookreview.com is so enthusiastic in the extreme, and tied in very slickly with the SEO Book site that it’s actually off-putting. Aaron/Brendan, if you read this, be wary of the gush-effect, it’s not always positive. Tempered enthusiasm and cautious positiveness can be more effective. Maybe it’s a social or psychological thing.
The PDF ebook is $79 which seems pricey, especially when you’re not getting a nicely bound hard copy, but the great bonus of having updates constantly available when stuff like ranking algorithms change. I’m old skool, I like to have a dead tree in my hands… a good laser printer would do an acceptable job.
I’d love to find a negative review somewhere. There’s some crazy psychology going on there, I’m sure, but haven’t you heard the adage “too good to be true”? It’s a tough one to set aside on today’s web.
Update:
I followed Aaron’s “One question” request, and asked him “Where can I find a negative review of your book?”. He replied in a couple of hours, maybe even sooner with “here is a negative review of me: http://www.google-watch.org/gaming.html“. Fair play Aaron.
Update 2:
Aaron posted “Roast Me, Please!” on the basis of my feedback - cheers 
This fantastic add-on for Firefox counts down the number of days remaining in the world’s favourite cretin’s presidential term. Fantastic! Or should I cry - more than 2 years!
Get Firefox add-on: President Bush Countdown.
Small, unobtrusive countdown appears in your status bar.
Whaddya mean, you don’t have Firefox? HomeSec, we have a suspected terrorist!
This is a how-to on doing a Dire Maul:Tribute run. Part of my Warcraft Tips series - hope it’s of some use to you!
For druid tanks it’s all about getting the Unyielding Maul which is a weapon almost as good as the Warden Staff. Comments in quotes are originally from US WoW forums.
Pre-requisites:
Broken Trap requires:
I suggest bringing 16 bolts, 32 Rugged Leather, 8 Rune Thread, 4 Thorium Widgets and 4 Frost Oils so you can try 4 attempts in row for good chance to drop. I think you can get away with 50% of the suit mats if you’re a LW or tailor, but another person in my party made the suits so I can’t confirm. If you bring that amount you’re cool.
The outer door is opened with Crescent Key from DM: East. The Courtyard door is opened with Gordok Courtyard Key, which can be picked up during the run, from a chest on a pedestal near the door. The inner Courtyard door is opened with Gordok Inner Door Key, which is dropped by Guard Mol’dar. HOWEVER I suggest NOT killing him. If you avoid killing named guards, you will get more loot in the Tribute Chest. All doors can also be opened with Powerful Seaforium Charge/Truesilver Skeleton Key / rogue w/300 lockpicking so this really is the way to go.
All head left inside the entrance, clear all the mobs in the corridors, but skip side arches. Kill as little as possible, it speeds it up. In order of priority, kill mages first when in the corridors, and in the order Doomguards, Warlocks then melee classes when inside. Always kill “Eyes of Kilrog” if they appear asap, they summon Voidwalkers if they get enough time after detecting you.
When you see the goblin ahead on the right, don’t kill the patrolling Ogre - fix the Broken Trap using Thorium Widget and Frost Oil. He will walk into it and voila, trapped! Go to the goblin to get quest to make the suit and DON’T free him! Now go loot the tannin (upstairs near mobs) and he will make suit . You have to be a tailor or leatherworker to make it yourself, but it uses only 1/2 the mats, useful if you’re running several times.
“Use the suit and talk to the captain and he will be non-hostile and run to elsewhere in the instance.”
Yep, he does just that. Now you just need to clear a couple easy mobs (dogs etc) and head straight ahead to the King.
“Defeat the end boss (trying not to kill his named support if you can, but that makes it harder) and you will become “King” once you talk to an ogre that walks up. A tribute chest (with more/better stuff the fewer people you killed) will drop. Make sure every party member gets the “King” buff though. “
I disagree. This was the easiest fight of the entire thing. I tanked the King, all dps on him, hunter’s pet tanked the support guy. I pulled the King away from the other as otherwise the King gets healed. Only thing to watch for is a big knockback. King does that, then goes on a random (or maybe 2nd highest threat) party member. Use charge and pull him back away from his healer. He goes down fairly easy I think. YMMV.
Win! Talk to the guy, become King, loot tribute chest and have a fairly decent chance of getting the Maul. Don’t forget to talk to all the guys you didn’t kill and get the really cool 2 hour buffs.
Tags: Wow, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, tips, Dire Maul, Tribute
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