Host: 216.39.139.192

/wp-atom.php
Http Code: 200 Date: Jun 30 17:41:18 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 19232
Referer: -
Agent: Krow’s RSSEngine/0.2

This RSS crawler is so new that only a few entries appear for it in any of the big the search engines. No known details about what project or web site that it is affiliated with. The only substantial clue is that the IP address is at a hosting company in Seattle.

[tags]site logs, crawlers, RSS[/tags]

Saw this in my user logs not long ago: Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Alcohol Search; SV1; Creative ZENcast v1.00.12)

Creative ZENcast is sorta like iTunes for the Creative Zen mp3 player.

[tags]podcast, podcasting, creative zen[/tags]

One of my dear intrepid readers has reported that the OS X 10.4.7 update rendered his 2.0Ghz MacBookPro inoperable. To the extent that the machine rebooted after update and hung at the gray screen…forever and ever and ever. After the hang, single user mode didn’t work and safe mode also failed. For reference, this is the same machine that inspired the Panic! At the MacBook Pro post.

The only way to get the MacBookPro operable again was to reinstall OS X. Not good at all.

[tags]Apple, Mac, MacBookPro, OS X, technical difficulties, I drank the kool aid but it made my stomach hurt later[/tags]

Or a wacky marketer, but if you send out a press release to bloggers, you may want to make sure the URL of the site you’re promoting, you know, can be reached. On this news release, Waxxi.com is announced, but waxxi.com doesn’t resolve or redirect to the operational URL of Waxxi.us. Whoops.

The site’s concept sounds interesting, as it’s taking an interactive audio conference format and translating that to an interactive podcast.

[tags]PR, public relations, marketing podcasting, this will cure cancer[/tags]

I’m throwing 404s in WordPress tonight as I updated the permalink structure a few days ago and got rid of the /archives/ subdirectory.

Googlebot has been up and down my site tonight, but I’m wondering about whether to go and research a method to redirect the broken URLs with /archives/ or to just let the URLs to fade away as the site gets crawled by the search engines. If I let things be, the only problem would be incoming links to posts from the outside world - which I do not have that many. Most people just link to my home page.

[tags]site info [/tags]

Come to think of it, during the past week or so I’ve watched more YouTube than regular cable and tv. I can also say that I’m thrilled to be able to choose what I want to see rather than wait for a show or movie to come on. Am I on top of this user generated content trend or what?

[tags] Web, YouTube, cable and broadcast networks will be withering away soon [/tags]

This is like so Web 2.0 man, let’s go ahead and comment about a Web site collaboratively in a chat room! I got to admit the chime isn’t too bad.

[tags] Web, Web 2.0, stupid Web 2.0 tricks, did any VC money get invested in this?[/tags]

Well, I just burned a Sunday night playing around with WordPress URIs and the .htaccess file. Bottom line, if you adjust your permalink structure in Options>Permalinks, lines are added to the .htaccess file.

The problem I thought I was trying to solve was how to redirect my podcasts feed to a new permalink structure….after much playing around and figuring I’d go through my .htaccess file line by line I eventually deleted a few lines that determined a permalink behavior which I wanted to control.

So, now my old feed links work, but my category links give 404s, which isn’t bothering me all that much. I should really look into getting a tagging structure going on here anyway.

Update: the podcasts feed at the old URL structure is broken http://cleverhack.com/archives/category/podcasts/feed/ and any redirect for it is currently failing. However, the new podcasts feed at http://cleverhack.com/category/podcasts/feed/ works just fine.

Update 2: Upgraded to the newest version of podpress 6.3, which seems to have improved the situation and most importantly changed my itunes feed URL. Still working on redirecting the old feed URL - I’m trying all sorts of things and getting myriad 404s, etc.

Update 3: For cryin’ out loud, the following redirectmatch works and gives the desired 301, but only after way too much messing around…what I missed in a way too obvious “your missing glasses are sitting on your head” kind of way was that I needed the ?$ wildcards after the initial file declaration. And now my podcasts feeds are redirected.

RedirectMatch permanent ^/archives/category/podcasts/feed/?$ http://cleverhack.com/category/podcasts/feed/

Fourth cleverhack podcast featuring: Annoying ringtones, Broken hard drives, Bluetooth troubles, Thoughts about Apple, Google advertising, Music and more.

Note: for those of you using iTunes, there may be a problem with the feed, I’m trying to fix that.

Download Podcast

The sunday podcast is going a little slow because of some technical difficulties involving hard drives and backup hardrives clicking loudly. :-( I’m hoping to get something up within the next few hours.

[tags]site info, hardware[/tags]

Yet another third party crawler for a company that is selling what it aggregates. Of course we can’t see what they are aggregating. Their client list is interesting to say the least. Here’s the WebmasterWorld thread about this crawler.

Agent: ConveraCrawler/0.9d (+http://www.authoritativeweb.com/crawl)

[tags]Internet, Web, site logs, crawlers, user agents[/tags]

There’s a nice review of Devi, a vegetarian Indian restaurant and one of my favorites in the Philadelphia Inquirer today, although I’d probably rate the place three stars rather than just two. Also, it’s relatively unknown as the place is busy but not crowded during a weekend night - while there will be hour long waits at every other restaurant in Exton.

I have only eaten at the restaurant during dinner and usually go for the buffet, because I can’t make up my mind from the menu offerings. As was noted in the review the menu is dominated by lentil and rice based dishes such as the dosas, which was a shock the first time I went there. The last time I was at the restaurant, they had a vegetable curry (it wasn’t the tomato based one with the cheese mentioned in the review) which was great…and their mango ice cream is definitely worth saving a little room for dessert. Also, the waitstaff is understanding when one might order a dish by it’s northern Indian name.

[tags] Restaurants, Philly area dining, Chester county restaurants [/tags]