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Funnily and oddly, website traffic dropped approximately three fold. Bad, very bad. What could be the reason?
Being a blog hosted on Blogdrive, naturally at first instinct the blame would go to Blogdrive's bad down time.
Hey come on now, we (I above all  ) should all know better than just blaming Blogdrive. Some form of investigation was taken and guess what I found?
Google is the culprit:
 sigh...
An article on New York Times have a very good article about this trend.
At Facebook, a popular social networking site, the executive found the candidate's Web page with this description of his interests: "smokin' blunts" (cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana), shooting people and obsessive sex, all described in vivid slang. It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing. He was done. I know of a few friends who was hired by their company because of their blogs or personal social networking online profiles. Come on, if a company were to hire reliable worker an extensive background study has to be made. Isn't it? Looking through whatever is available online is just (honestly) very brief and basic. So people, be careful of how you express yourself online. Maybe Abby may want to add this to her research project.
But why can't I see my blog?
I hear you. It's not just you, me too (and as ARS reported it in the forums too)
As many of you know, I'm a computer nomad. I don't make love to the same computer all the time. It's not that I'm cheating or unloyal, I do have feelings for these machines but it's just that ... I'm non-commitment kinda guy. I just want to enjoy myself as much as the computer does. Live for the moment, Carpe Diem. You know what I mean?
Anyway, back to the main topic. I had no problem accessing the admin section or the Blogdrive forum but I can't get to my blog, or any other blog for that matter. The funny thing is, I can access all blogs that are FEATURED as Blogdrive Favorites. Not any others.
This is racism. Just because I'm not on the favorites, shouldn't I get to access my blog?
As I was saying, I travel around, a lot. I've had experience with young, beautiful and energetic new flat-screen desktops with smart, intelligent operating systems (winXP). To old, mature but rock solid late-90s computer who likes long walks around the lake, dogs and cats. One of these days, I'll try to get my pants into the new Vista baby. And no, it's not paedophile.
My point is, from all these different computers there are some times (especially these few days) where I CAN or can NOT reach my blog. And guess what, it has nothing to do with the differences of these computers. It's their location or rather ... their connection source, a.k.a. Internet Service Provider. It became harder to get to my blog if the internet connection I get is rather dodgy, like a wireless network, proxy connection or dynamic IP addresses.
SO,
speculation of the day is:
Blogdrive disables blogs connection to dodgy computers.
why?
 my guess, based on what I've been suffering for the pass few days is to fight spam. I've received more than 50 odd contact form spams in two days. Click on the image to have a better view.
Now, how is this fair? I'm a subscriber but I can't get to my blog. What about my visitors? For your information, my visitor stats have been down by 50%. It's a huge traffic blog so stats differences are very notable despite daily fluctuations.
Lets look on the brighter side of things. By cutting connection to dodgy computers, spam attacks can be reduced and this saves the server from crashing again. At least, Blogdrive isn't entirely down. Right?
But what about those that do have an account here, are loyal Blogdrive users and even are subscribers. Why can't they be exempt from being classified as dodgy? Why can't they get access to their own blog? at the very least.
Dear readers, do you have other ideas as to why I can't get access to my own blogs?
 UPDATE: ~justme~ » "Posting from this IP is not allowed. You are posting from an IP/proxy server that is known to distribute SPAM and the author of this blog blah blah blah
justme was having trouble commenting, whatever happened to the antispam feature introduced not too long ago?
Tags: Blogdrive, ISP, spams, internet service provider,
Good news! Remember the last time I talked about co.mments? I was just talking to Assaf yesterday and they have added support to track comments on Blogdrive. I must thank him for the quick response and how fast he wrote up a parser specifically for Blogdrive. I think it's a great service and I'm hoping that in the near future everyone will start using it.
 The great thing about this service is that you can track any comments, whether if it's your blog, other Blogdrive blogs or even other blog services. It works great! All you need to do is just "Bookmark" that blog.
Also, it is possible to generate a Comment RSS for your blog. Look at mine.
This would save me a lot of time going from blogs to blogs trying to see if I get a responce from a comment I left earlier. Or if there are comments by other people on a particular topic.
Go sign up an account now. Signing up for an account allows you to have all your conversations stored.
Tags: blogdrive, co.mments, comments, track,
While we are constantly complaining about how much Blogdrive can improve, let's take a moment to be reminded of all the good stuff we have here on Blogdrive that you shouldn't have known.
If you are reading this article right now you should turn off the lights and make sure there's nobody behind you. If you are discovered to have obtain these information, an assassin will be sent to murder you.
1) Built-in search feature - Search your own blog with the blogdrive's built-in search feature, it's originally only available for subscription blogs but if you use a GET method on your url, you'll get a free (temporary) feature. However, it only search your blog titles.
2) exceed your bandwidth - for free accounts, an allocated amount of 50mb monthly bandwidth can be exceeded even without any upgrades. If you have a subscription blog, your allocated monthly bandwidth will be higher but again your files will not fail to load in the event that you exceeded it. So, what are you complaining about? (please note: you can't store more than what you should)
3) store HTML / CSS / JS documents in your filemanager with .jpg extensions. Okay, this is supposed to be a techy hack but it works.
4) the amazing Seige - this isn't just a goodie thingy but the coolest lad I've ever known on Blogdrive. He's smart, brilliant and above all massively fantastic. Oh, did I mention that he's got a great sense of humour?
Do you have other ideas or suggestions?
Tags: blogdrive secrets goodies
Everyone's been lovey dovey over the new WYSIWYG editor (JfZ, future, forum guide, hacks) While I, despite my initial "enthusiasm", still think that it has lots of problem room for improvement.
The WYSIWYG editor is at the very core, the most important feature on Blogdrive. Without it... you would be wondering how a blog host can ever be a blog host. And we really don't expect writers to be able to write properly, right?
1)  Insert Link opens a new window? This has to be the most annoying small problem. Everytime I need to insert a link, I'll need to wait till the new window loads before I can do anything else. This is a pain especially on MSIE because it takes a long time for MSIE to open a new window. Blogdrive should really just reduce to using a "prompt" javascript function to do the magic. It's less complicated and faster. Not to mention no new HTTPrequest to the Blogdrive server while editing.
Another problem is that it'll not work if the text you highlighted contains an apostrophy ' or ' . For example if you write: "Seige's dog", and wanting to add a link to these words, it'll not copy the "Seige's dog" to the window. This is a Javascript bug.
2) Different browser syntax rendering - on Firefox it's "XHTML Transitional" while on MSIE it's "plain old HTML" with CAPITALS. You can notice the differences if you use the "HTML View" feature located at the right bottom of the editor. It's odd although
3) Up Down Left Right button doesn't work sometimes - can't move the focus of the text cursor basically but the weird thing about this is... it only happen sometimes. And as for me, I can't identify what is the source of this problem.
4) In HTML View, the text cursor isn't always where it should be - more often than not it appears to be one or two characters away. How and why this happens is a mystery. It usually happens when I have a long entry that I needed to edit. It has something to do with miscalculating the string lengths or something along those lines.
5)   Undo/Redo doesn't work sometimes - Again, this is odd and I can't tell why it doesn't work. It happens to both Firefox and MSIE.
6)   Outdent/Indent uses different elements sometimes - I would really prefer the editor to implement the <BLOCKQUOTE> elements, it works great on MSIE but on Firefox, it uses <div> with margins set to indent it... how cruel.
7) Save post to clip board works on MSIE only - it doesn't work on Firefox mainly because Firefox is stupid for not supporting the copy-to-clipboard function. Sadly.
8) Firefox browser crash when reloading editor sometimes - Again, this is another one of the "sometimes" problem. It's just weird and I just can't make it out why. Don't take me wrong that it could be other webpages I'm viewing because the window crashed a few times and it's always during reloading of the editor in Firefox.
9) Can't insert Scripts or Objects - That's due to security reasons but for someone like me who do need to use some Javascripts, it's . Though... I shouldn't fret because I still have the beloved PTE.
10) Help Guide is coming soon ever since the big bang - See that "?" up there on the top right hand corner? Ever clicked on it, No? Don't bother.
I somehow realise that all these problems have almost everything to do with browser inconsistencies. Still I don't see why an editor should be flawed just because of certain browser not working perfectly well.
Wondering if Blogdrive will ever be bothered to fix these minor things? Nah, never. Not in a century or two.
Ever since Blogdrive fixed the PTE, it has so far been a million times better than WYSIWYG editor. Although it doesn't mean it's all great (because it doesn't work all well in Firefox/Opera), it's still better than WYSIWYG editor.
Tags: Blogdrive, WYSIWYG, Plain Text Editor, PTE, Editor,
A little more than a year ago I made an entry about Studio Traffic, about how such business have no solid base and can't make no money. Today, I just found out that the website itself dissappeared and turned into something called myFileHut.com that offers free image and file hosting. How oddly obvious?
Curiosity and procrastination has brought me into Googling the latest news. Secretly laughing out loud inside repeating "Told you so". So anyway, I digged up some rather interesting news (and somewhat odd).
For those of you who doesn't know what StudioTraffic is, here are some quick links.
http://www.studiotraffic.co.uk/ - A Uk website with some pretty good coverage of the aftermaths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiotraffic - A pretty messy explanation, loads of grammars mistake as if it was done by some pretty unstable members of Studiotraffic who had their money stolen.
http://www.answers.com/topic/studiotraffic - A very good overview of the whole StudioTraffic. You should read this if you have no idea what I'm talking about until now.
Doing a trend-region study on Google return this interesting details. It appears South East Asian countries are the worst hit.
I don't know how to say this, but really. How can anybody be so stupid? I know I've probably asked this more than a million times, but I can only think of these:
1) Making money online is so COOL. - It's easy and you don't even have to leave your house. You can even make money in your underwear.
2) The so-called "John Horan" was very CONVINCING. - Okay, I got to admit to this one because I actually took the effort to study it's business model after reading his writings. He has a way of selling himself that even my mom would buy without second thoughts.
3) They don't know how to do MATHS. - The only reason I didn't believe this "scam" has everything to do with my mathematical ability and has totally nothing to do with my common sense and/or instincts (which I'm terrible at). As mentioned in my blog entry a year ago, I calculated using complex calculations (brag) and advanced numbering series (brag) along with Euler's partial differential equation (brag) the amounts of money involved in this business structure (brag) and it's flow patterns (brag). And then I compared them to what "John Horan" has said, it didn't made any sense at all. See, Maths is for love and not hate.
4) Strong StudioTraffic SUPPORTERS all over the Internet. - this has to be one of the most fascinating thing that I've ever come across (I'm still very impressed). A big supporter / fan / cheerleader club for a SCAM website. Anybody who initially regard it as a scam would believe it's real if so many people are defending it. It goes with the saying: "If everybody believes it, it's bound to be true!" It's like religion.
That's it, its' a religion.
5) The power of WORD of MOUTH. - "John Horan" obviously played the game very well, I'm not entirely sure how but I've received many recommendations from friends and relatives. They came to me only to be dissappointed when I told them it's a scam (having to explain with graphs and diagrams (brag)). I think this says a lot about building a network-based business. See, POWER of Networking!
6) They are Young, Naive and Ambitious. - As opposed to old, lonely and seeking attention. I might be wrong here but I'm pretty sure nobody will easily believe this form of scam again.
Well, I guess the supporter (part 4) can be reasoned by people who have actually "invested" some money and really can't bare to realise that they have been cheated. It becomes a sensitive issue and they form a cult-like army.
I know whatever I say here may potentially offend many especially those who have been faithful to the programme. I can't help but feel sorry for them (and writing this entry). A little community service brought to you by me.
Tags: studiotraffic, studio traffic, scams, ponzi scheme, make money online,
 |  | | Before | After | Year 2003, it was the best thing that happened to our tiny little existance.
It was user-friendly, great features, wonderful customer services, almost no down time.
It was ranked one of the top five blogging services around.
| Today, we are back to tiny little, almost non-existing creature.
Bugs are flying everywhere, spammers constant attack, poor customer service, downtime all the time (hey, it rhymes).
Not even considered for ranking.
| So people, tell me what exactly is wrong here?
The Cool Blogdrive Guy (one of the two Blogdrive admin) speaks in responce to a member's complain in the forum. Read the complain first.
Blogdrive has tortured me enough. I've been a customer for one year and I'm actively looking for other options. This is the third unannounced outage and unresponded to help tickets in less than 2 weeks. Even when it's "working" it takes over an hour to make one post due to crashes. I've had the patience of a saint, hoping and praying. Yet, Blogdrive appears to be flatlining. I've simply had enough. I'm not going to waste my time even commenting much more. It's time to get serious and find a host that is ready for prime time and living in the real world. I feel foolish for even giving my business to this company. Maybe, instead of Yahoo buying Blogdrive, we should see if Toys R Us would be willing to take over. Or maybe the Salvation Army. Message to Helpee: I get the sense that you're trying to help, that you want to help, but that you just can't help. People need a blog host to have things that work and it's simply not working. It's very sad, but it is just not working. It's not. If I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, that would be lovely. But, all I see are the pleas of my fellow members virtually begging for improvements to the pathetic levels of outages. Is everyone familiar with the oft-quoted definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That's really what staying on as a Blogdrive customer equals: insanity.
And here is his reply:
Hi Rich, I feel your pain. Any unexpected outages have been just that, unexpected. Earlier today there was a flood attack on the servers. The unusually high utilization caused a database error which propagated to the other servers. It took some time to correct it across all the servers, but all is well now with no data loss. We are now looking at implementing new measures to help protect against this type of scenario.
Most of the other "outages" you experienced before are do to spammers or spiders causing DOS attacks. We have been in the process of both a data center move and network overhaul to better supply us with the network capability and bandwidth necessary to handle these situations better. unfortunately do to the scale of both projects it is taking some time to complete.
I can't say it says a lot, but it certainly keeps the member's mouth shut for the moment. Let's see for how long.
Reference: Forum,
Tags: blogdrive, customer service
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