I’ve made a couple quick changes to the site. The first and probably most noticeable is that Google ads went from the sidebar to the content; the idea was to make it a bit less intrusive, and a bit more likely that readers will actually see stuff they’d want to click.
The other change was the addition of the two donation buttons. One goes to my Thinkgeek wishlist (I’m not expecting anyone to buy me a $299 RFID door lock), and one to a PayPal donation page — Morph said it’s actually possible to make a couple bucks off of it.
So, if you feel like supporting my hacking habits, well. :-)
I got a mysterious post at one of my blog entries. I googled Anandi Hristina, the poster’s name, and found some other random site that promises to solve the mystery of who the hell this person is, and what the hell they want.
The post came from 208.184.65.85, an AboveNet IP registered to “APS Communication” in San Jose, CA, under “Pablo Espana” at phone number 888-210-6539. It was spoofing (?) an MSN spider user-agent.
Is it a spambot checking for open posts on blogs? But, why bother? If it posts, just post it, and if it doesn’t, move on. Why verify?
A new worm, maybe, seeding its ground zero for an attack on Wordpress installations?
Or maybe just a spammer who got caught and didn’t update their spambot.
Newer versions of Wordpress have integrated widget functionality. (Meh.) At the moment, it’s a bit easier just to hard code everything, but I’ll probably end up twisting my own arm to implement it in my theme.
Also, when I was playing around with the collapsible menus on the sidebar, I got to thinking: is there a rule in Adsense’s TOS about loading the ads, but loading them invisibly (so they’re only displayed if the user wants them there)? I read through the TOS a couple times, but I didn’t see anything. I’ll probably just do some randomness with AJAX so it doesn’t load unless it’s going to be displayed.
