• Xenforo: Server Logs with RK=0/RS=2 …. I now know what these are
• The Blackboard: IT Q: “.. //RK=0/RS=foo-” in URI

• Chase (Ink Cash Business Card)
• Comcast (six mailings in the eight weeks)
• TCG (Theatre Communications Group)
• Hendrick Honda
• Community OWL (Form 1500 filed with the Post Office)
• Best Pick Reports (a huge waste of money for this catalog report about local home services).

I also am receiving junk mail from the Domain Registry of America again. I can’t believe I haven’t written about them before. DRoA sends out junk mail that looks like an invoice for your domain name registration. It is a scam! While the mailing itself is legal, it is also targeted to make it look like the bill is for services you’ve already agreed to. The fine print acknowledges that if you pay the bill, you are actually transferring your domain name from your current registrar to DRoA. Their rates are horrible, anything over $10/year and you are paying too much! I’ve had several clients pay the bill and then I’d only find out what happened when I get the transfer request via email. I think I’ll need to file a Form 1500 on them as well.

On a positive note, I have stopped receiving the The Washington Post/PostPlus mailer. Call 202-334-7730. You’ll get the voice mail for a gentleman who works at the Post. Be polite, leave a message with your mailing address, and the mailings will stop in about two weeks.

TBD is a web publication focusing on news, sports, and events in the Washington DC region, and was launched on August 9, 2010. One portion of their strategy was to incorporate a network of DC area bloggers (the “Community Network”) into the site. Despite staff changes over the past six months, TBD and Albritton have publicly said they will continue the TBD experiment. Today’s news also revealed that TBD will “become a niche site on arts and entertainment.” (Disclaimer: my site ShowBizRadio.net is a member of the TBD community network, and will apparently be a partial competitor to the next incarnation of TBD.)

With today’s announcement, it looks like TBD as a general news site will be gone forever. I wonder if the TBD.com web site was a success? Last week, WJLA General Manager Bill Lord said “We need to be more cost conscious, and we need more page views.” (Source: Poynter.org) Should that success be measured by the number of people reading the site? Here are a few charts created using publicly available statistics at Compete.com. I compared TBD.com with the other three DC area television stations NBCWashington.com, WUSA9.com and MyFoxDC.com. Click each chart to see a larger version.

Unique Visitors to the site:

Number of Visits to the site:

Compete Rank (one year):

Compete Rank (six months):

What I’m seeing on these charts is that TBD.com, after only six months, was beating the other three local television stations’ web sites in both traffic (both unique visitors, and the number of visits to the site). I’m not really sure what Mr. Lord is concerned about. Albritton’s decision to inflict layoffs to TBD makes no sense at all, unless he was simply using “page views” as a smoke screen for employee costs.

It appears to me that the TBD model for local news reporting was successful. It’s a shame that Albritton is apparently cutting off their nose to spite their face.

1. Repeat the same tweet day after day. People may forget your information, they need to hear it multiple times.

1b. Corollary: If your information is really important, post the same tweet multiple times per day.

2. Post inane information, such as what you had for lunch. People are interested, and besides, you can’t really say anything substantive in 140 characters anyways.

2b. Corollary: Post more than ten times per hour. For eight to ten hours a day. People want to know what you’re doing throughout the day. “Good morning” or “Good afternoon” posts are helpful.

3. Customize your twitter background with a tiny image that repeats many times. Your artwork isn’t at all distracting when reading an individual post.

3b. Corollary: Customize your avatar with the same image as your background image. Using your existing logo as an avatar is silly.

4. Customize the appearance of twitter pages with different colors and fonts than your existing web site. Using your existing branding and style is silly.

4b. Corollary: Make the fonts and colors you choose as different as possible from your existing marketing materials. Differing styles makes your organization look larger.

5. Only provide links to your own web site. Why take the chance a reader may visit the competition?

5b. Corollary: Only link to your home page. Once someone is there, they can navigate your site to find the details they are looking for.

I’m not a fan of adding lots of stuff to my core system files. So I simply put the rules in a file called “perishable-press-blacklist.conf” in my /etc/httpd/conf.d/ directory. If I put them in one of the regular configuration files, such as httpd.conf, I may overwrite the file or forget it’s there. By keeping it in its own separate file, I can more easily tweak the settings.

From the Pixelpost introduction:

Meet Pixelpost, a small photoblog application that’s a no-brainer to set up and use. It’s perfect for anyone wishing to regularly post their photos on the web like a blog.

Unlike other blog engines out there, Pixelpost doesn’t try to solve all of the worlds problems. Pixelpost simply does photoblogs, and it does them well. If you are looking for a full blown CMS or text-blog, Pixelpost isn’t for you. But if you want something simple, and designed from the ground up for photobloggers, like yourself, you’ve found the perfect app.

Pixelpost is free to use, and is open-source software.

The Pixelpost templating system is a little klunky, but I like that the system is easily extended through the use of addons (the addon concept is similar to WordPress plugins). Check out Pixelpost.

Update 2010-03-05: Also blocked 218.28.29.236.

It’s fools like this guy that almost make me want to remove my nofollow plugin. It’s another case of a few bad apples spoiling a good situation for everyone.

javascript:location.href=decodeURIComponent(window.location.pathname)+'?do=edit'