September Site Updates

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

Early on in the month, we had a few very short outages which seemed to be associated with the internet connection. These outages lasted about five minutes apiece, but were in multiples.

08/23: Registered Zylblog.com

08/24: Began making DNS changes for Zylblog.info and Zylblog.com

08/25: Zylblog.info did not redirect domains properly for one day, Google searches went to the wrong pages. Reversed this change later

08/27: Zylblog.info inaccessible for two days

08/30 Successful forward of Zylblog.info to Zylblog.com while retaining permalinks — all issues fixed, site running normally again.

The issues with the domain were a hit to the traffic, but resolved now. We were not in an advertising period with per-post advertisers, and did not affect their possible revenue.

Visitor usage Up 53.33%

Top Pages

 

(I’ve purposely left in some of the page views)

  1. The Sims 3 Online Play | ZylBlog – 1,134 Views
  2. Accordion Fingering Chart (bass) | ZylBlog – 231 Views
  3. » Play the Sims 3 Online for Free (BETA/Trial) – 225 Views
  4. Open Clip Art: Open Source Clip Art | ZylBlog
  5. ZylBlog | Anything. Everything. (homepage)
Top Referrers

  1. zylblog.info
  2. google.com
  3. computerhope.com
  4. search.mywebsearch.com
  5. translate.google.com.ua
 Top Searches

  1. play sims 3 online – 201 Visits
  2. sims 3 online – 77 Visits
  3. the sims 3 online play
  4. sims 3 online play
  5. the sims 3 online
Posted in Website Updates | 2 Comments

Where Can I get a .com Domain Name?

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

Since we recently “upgraded” to a .COM domain name, I thoguht it would be interesting to revisit this post from the past, which is still quite accurate. Our .COM domain name is registered under GoDaddy, and was purchased (with coupon code FAN3 ) for ~$7.45 + ICANN tax. Why GoDaddy? It is still the easiest and one of the cheapest domain providers available. I don’t like their advertising, but I can deal with it to get a domain for cheap. Their reputation is stable now, with the exception of their ads.

I also want to note that GoDaddy recently re-designed their DNS manager, and it is easy as heck to use now. Their DNS manager was shifty a while ago, those problems are now resolved. (Though, I still use CloudFlare for most of my DNS management, GoDaddy manages DNS for the old domain to handle redirects)

Let us visit the past, 2009:

What is the best place to get a cheap .com domain name?

This is (like most of the other questions I answer) a very common question. It seems that there are two major domain sellers which you have probably already read about — to great misfortune, there isn’t really anything much cheaper.

GoDaddy.com — Around $10.69 per domain. From what I hear, GoDaddy is reliable, but support seems to be somewhat lacking. (Their support reputation, according to a few people I have talked to, is declining. This may change in the future as the problem is probably becoming more prevalent to the company itself) Continue reading →

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Ad: Boston IT Support | Spirinet

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

The following is a paid advertisement

Are you looking for Boston IT Support? If you need IT Support in Boston you need to check out Spirinet, a Boston IT Outsourcing company. Spirinet provides services for small and medium businesses. They provide a variety of networking services, including cloud computing consoltation, VoIP setup, full network setup, backup solutions, web design, and a full staff available to you for general IT support in your company. Spirinet has solutions for companys with 10 computer users, and even up to 500 users — a plan just right for you is available. Why put off IT support for your company? Every company should have an IT solution in place, Spirinet is a perfect option for your company.

Special Number: 1398
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Website Update: Zylblog.COM

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

Due to our increasing popularity and climbing search engine ranking, Zylblog has recently switched to a .com domain from a .info domain.

The old domain, .info, now redirects to the .com. Google’s search engine should begin to recognize and update this as well.

If you find an error, please report it using the contact page found at the top of the website.

P.S. Enjoy the new background image.

08/30: The old domain is now successfully forwarded to the new domain.

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Search, Images, Email, Calendar, Documents — and now Music from Google?

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

Contest! Want an invite to Google Music? Be one of the first 4 people to comment with “I want Google Music!” and win an invitation! Read the bottom of the post for more information! Google seems to offer everything. When … Continue reading →

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Stop all spam to your website, blog, or forum

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

The Internet is a great way to share your information with others, whether it be useful information related to computers or health, or the less-useful specialized information like training poodles (of which, I have no fear in offending anyone who does so..) Unfortunately, there are aspects of the Internet that can make it less pleasant and very difficult to share information. Spam, which seems to almost get into your websites from the inside. In this article, I will talk tools that assist with stopping spam of content management systems: Spambots, email harvesters, and other wrongdoers.

Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, SMF Forums, YaBB, and Joomla (amongst many) are prone to spam more than hand-coded websites because they are universally the same across the Internet. Most spam on a blogging system occurs in comments, and most spam on a forum occurs either through i. guest posting or ii. registration and then posting.

There are a few tools available to prevent spam which I personally use on this website.
At the time of posting, I am and have been using Akismet, NoSpamNX, and CloudFlare. Zero spam gets through to the site. A majority of spammers (about 3,000 a month) are blocked at the DNS level by CloudFlare — these spammers do not even see the site, it 100% blocks them with no effort on my servers part. The rest is normally caught by NoSpamNX. I don’t have a log that shows how many NoSpamNX blocks, as it simply does not even let spammers post. Akismet caught the rest, about 14 last month, which is fairly average.  Continue reading →

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August Site Updates

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

07/03: Upgraded to WordPress 3.1.4

07/06: Upgraded to WordPress 3.2

07/08: The site appeared to be responding slowly and was timing out at around 6PM. It is unknown why, however it is now back up.

07/08: A new feature was added that allows you to highlight any words on the website and hover your mouse over. Once you do, you will see the words “Learn More”. Click to do basic searches within the page, without leaving the site.

08/01: There were a few very short outages. There is a print server on the same network as the HTTP and IRCD servers that was having issues with the router, and settings were changed around and the router was restarted multiple times. Also, later that day, the router firmware was upgraded and some new equipment was installed.

07/30: One of the SCSI drives in the server failed. Retesting failed again. This did not affect any devices, as the second drive kicked in. Replacement will arrive soon.

No other events significant enough to report occurred. (Without any real math, this is still something along the lines of 97% uptime..)

Visits are Up 100.82% over the last 30 days.

Top Pages

  1. The Sims 3 Online Play | ZylBlog – 560 Views
  2. Accordion Fingering Chart (bass) | ZylBlog – 235 Views
  3. » Play the Sims 3 Online for Free (BETA/Trial) – 110 Views
  4. Run The Sims 3 under Linux | ZylBlog – 88 Views
  5. Linux Distributions: Fedora 15 | ZylBlog – 81 Views
Top Referrers

  1. zylblog.com – 35 Visits
  2. computerhope.com – 10 Visits
  3. google.com – 9 Visits
  4. search.mywebsearch.com – 5 Visits
  5. stumbleupon.com – 5 Visits
 Top Searches

  1. play sims 3 online – 56 Visits
  2. sims 3 online play – 37 Visits
  3. the sims 3 online – 32 Visits
  4. accordion finger chart – 30 Visits
  5. sims 3 online – 26 Visits
  1. The Sims 3 Online Play | ZylBlog – a HUGE hit!
  2. Accordion Fingering Chart (bass) | ZylBlog – still…
  3. » Play the Sims 3 Online for Free (BETA/Trial) – Related to the first
  4. Run The Sims 3 under Linux | ZylBlog – most requested in Linux
  5. Linux Distributions: Fedora 15 | ZylBlog
Top Referrers

  1. zylblog.com
  2. computerhope.com
  3. google.com
  4. search.mywebsearch.com
  5. stumbleupon.com
 Top Searches

  1. play sims 3 online
  2. sims 3 online play
  3. the sims 3 online
  4. accordion finger chart
  5. sims 3 online
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Image of the Week: IBM 1620

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

The IBM 1620

IBM 1620 image

The IBM 1620. Photo uploaded by Euthman on Flickr

Photo by euthman on Flickr

Released in October of 1959, the IBM 1620 was focused on the science market as an inexpensive scientific computer. Continue reading →

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Ad: How to Transfer Music and more from any iPod or iPhone

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

Want to know How to transfer music from iPod to iTunes? With all the technology available on a single device such as an iPhone, iPad, or a iTouch the necessity to back up and easily manage all of your portable device’s data is becoming increasingly important. Unfortunately, it is hard to manage so much data, all of the software on your phone seems separated. Fortunately, there are ways to unify all your resources and manage them in a much easier way. TouchCopy can help. TouchCopy can transfer music, podcasts, and videos with their artwork, playcount, and other meta data. You can also use TouchCopy to

Calendar in TouchCopy

manage your contacts, sms messages, notes, and calendars. TouchCopy can back up just about anything on your iPad, iTouch, or iPhone including your music, playlists, videos, contacts, photos, calendar, notes, sms and mms messages, voice mails, voice memos, and more. TouchCopy comes with free updates and customer support. TouchCopy is such an easy way to manage data, never again will you feel the dread of backing up your Apple portable devices. Obtain a copy and save yourself the work, manage and archive your data in an easy way, and always feel secure that you have your important data backed up.

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The Sims 3 Online Play

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Jesse Zylstra

Note: August 6, 2012, this has become the third most popular article on Zylblog.

EA is testing out a new technology developed by Gaikai with the Sims 3, allowing you to play The Sims 3 online, over the Internet, very similar to the way the regular installed version of the game works. You can check it out at www.thesims3.com/trial. Bear in mind, it is a trial, and it is in beta. You can not save your game. It does not have any expansion packs and is base-game only at this time, though I would expect this to change in the future.The trial is only for one hour.

Gaikai has very smooth remote processing. The game runs on their servers, not on your computer. I kind of expected it to be glitchy and choppy, however, it was quite smooth. I would not have guessed, had I not known what it was, that it was running on a computer elsewhere. The game starts fairly quickly, with very little time at the loading screen. This is my favorite part, since loading is mind-numbing and alone prevents me from playing many games. The graphics quality was good, and the sound quality was good as well. The screen resolution was slightly off, but this was only noticeable on the game interface (where there are circles and squares which make good flaw reference points). Full-screen mode did not fill my wide-screen display, and left black bars on the sides. I am guessing that this is simply a limitation of this technology at this time. The interface on my computer that the game ran in used Java

Create a Sim:
Being as there was a time restriction, I decided to go with an already created Sim. I went through some of the clothing options, accessories, etc and it all seemed to work. You can not, at this time at least, individually customize the personality traits. Upon creation of a Sim, you select a personality type, so to speak, that already contains your traits. Continue reading →

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