From an undisclosed source, I got a hit in my logs for what appears to be the newest version of the Mac OS X Safari Web browser. It’s at version 3.0 now.

Http Code: 200 Date: May 08 19:23:52 Http Version: HTTP/1.1
Size in Bytes: 15822
Referer: -
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/522.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Safari/522.6

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac OS X, Safari, Web browser, User Agent

So, just in the past couple of days, I started seeing the referrer URLs from Google.com in the following format.

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://cleverhack.com/category/tech/page/3/&sa=D&usg=AFrqEzf8B4L3sqq1hwGNYSLtBbO9HB8P3g

What’s unique about the referrer URL is that it’s a redirect and my logs are showing the incoming search term as http://cleverhack.com/category/tech/page/3/ from Google, which doesn’t seem right at all. In a perfect world you’d want to see incoming search terms such as “cleverhack” or “tech blogger” or “needs a date on Friday” not the URL that Google served and the person clicked through on.

I’ve been seeing IP addresses from all over - lots of Comcast, Verizon, Bell South, so it’s definitely real people making the requests, but why Google is using a redirect, I don’t know. Is this a side effect of iGoogle?

Technorati Tags: Google, iGoogle, Google Referrer, Google URL, Can I get a job at Google?

I was browsing the news sites today, and stumbled upon this wire article mentioning Apple battery issues, I just had to take a look.

Apparently MacBooks and MacBook Pros manufactured between Feb 2006 and April 2007 could be affected by the problems - which are said to be underperforming batteries, but could include batteries that are visibly deformed.

Aside from the possible deformed batteries, which should be returned to Apple no matter what, if your battery seems to be underperforming, there’s a new battery update patch. If your battery still does not perform properly, then you should contact Apple about returning your battery and getting a new one.

The official Apple writeup with recall instructions can be found here.

I haven’t really used my MacBook Pro on battery, so I can’t really tell if it’s underperforming. However, I installed the patch just to be sure.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple laptops, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Apple Battery Recall

Idiot spammer trying to use my domain as a reply-to address. Interesting things to note about this bounce message. This looks like some sort of mess up on the spammer’s part since the headers are riddled with html tags and spaces in the email addresses, which is probably due in part to whatever email harvester program the spammer was using.

There is a a lot of fake information in the header. For example, the X-Originating-IP: [02.721.783.4] is not a true IP address. While usually IP addresses are denoted in square brackets, the IP address and other information in the X- headers in this case are not valid. The originating IP is really 88.154.224.126, an IP address from Bezeqint, an Israeli ISP. This address that looks like some sort of static cable based IP address. In other words, probably a PC on a botnet.

Good job spammer! (Not really.)

——————————–Begin Message—————————–

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

webmedia@server.serversite2.com (generated from webmaster@clevelandwebmedia.co.uk) retry timeout exceeded

—— This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ——

Return-path: webmaster @cleverhack.com
Received: from [88.154.224.126] (helo=bzq-88-154-224-126.red.bezeqint.net)
by server.serversite2.com with smtp (Exim 4.63)
(envelope-from webmaster @cleverhack.com)
id 1Hh962-0007jz-5M
for webmaster@clevelandwebmedia.co.uk; Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:53:38 -0400
X-Originating-IP: [02.721.783.4]
X-Originating-Email: [webmaster@clevelandwebmedia.co.uk]
X-Sender: webmaster@clevelandwebmedia.co.uk
Received: (qmail 5303 by uid 305); Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:53:24 +0200
Message-Id: <20070426115324.5305.qmail@bzq-88-154-224-126.red.bezeqint.net>
To: webmaster @clevelandwebmedia.co.uk
Subject: All Investors Message 2127335568591326
From: Investor Elma webmaster @clevelandwebmedia.co.uk
MIME-Version: 1.0
Importance: High
Content-Type: text/html

Technorati Tags: email headers, spam, spammer, spammers must die

Marjolein turned me onto uncov, a group blog with some pithy, informed, jaundiced analysis about the pure promotional and technological goofiness of Web 2.0 from a developer’s view. (Well, I don’t know that they are developers, but they sure sound like them.)

It’s a really good, giggly (if I may say so myself) from the belly of the beast read.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, uncov, jaundiced developers, javascript sucks, Ajax

Does anyone know how to get gum (yes, chewing gum) off of an iMac display without ruining the display? I have a feeling peanut butter won’t work.

Technorati Tags: iMac display

Oh, boy this is an oldie but goodie kind of question…

I’m dorking around with my music collection when I realize that I’ve got tracks with no album or artist info. I’m trying to import this all into iTunes where, of course, I can’t grab CCDB info because a number of these are compilations. Any ideas on how I can grab these names without having to resort to googling lyrics?

Technorati Tags: music, iTunes, track names

Why I was motivated to perfect my desktop setup here at casa de cleverhack and plug in the external monitor I bought a way while back to the MacBook Pro. This time around, the MacBook Pro’s video card handles the LCD beautifully with the DVI to VGA adapter.

I am stoked. The image below is via my cell phone cam.

Technorati Tags: hardware, external monitor, dual display hotness

Miscellaneous links for your Sunday morning clicking pleasure…

-Here’s an insighful up and coming Mac blog - from the eyes of a technically savvy switcher.

-Viciously mocking the Web 2.0.

-Marjolein Hoekstra created OnePipe, a browser bookmarklet created to filter any feed by topic.

-Explode is a much talked about blogging community site, much talked about because it’s not MyBlogLog. I don’t know what to think of it yet.

-I liked the chart comparing Digg like news sites on this post.

-Also, in a somewhat similar vein, I find myself checking out Techmeme a few times a day. Sometimes, using one person’s biases is good enough.

-Finally, I’ve been using Safari to browse the World Wide Web since I fired up the new MacBook Pro. It’s fast enough, but I’ve started to see the beach ball on a few Web pages with dynamic elements such as the MSNBC homepage.

Technorati Tags: Mac blogging, Keynote2Keynote, 2.0rly, OnePipe, Explode, Digg like, Techmeme, Web 2.0

Kind of not surprised to learn that Microsoft has finally announced an EOL for that “more robust than Access ever will be” database language Visual FoxPro.

This does not surprise me as all of the FoxPro programmers I’ve known are a bit older than myself.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft VisualFoxPro, database programming, old guys, punch cards

I do think the trusty PowerBook is going to be replaced before June, when Leopard is supposedly released. I just have a a feeling about that.

Not that I can really complain, the PowerBook has served me well on a daily basis these past 3 and a half years.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, PowerBook, the keyboard is failing

There is a part of me that is impressed…The NY times discusses blog bling, those little mini application widgets you see on blog sidebars. Like, for example the MyBlogLog widget I display.

Technorati Tags: NY Times, blog bling