7 Things You Don’t Know, and Probably Don’t Care, About Me

Better said, 7 Things You Don’t Know, and Probably Don’t Care, About Us.

This post is an answer to Andrew Wise who decided to call us out. No, you won’t see a chicken-fight, but some things you probably don’t know about us, very likely you don’t even care about them.
Since Devoracles is a multi-author blog, we’ll say things which are common in all the authors.
So, here are the 7 things:

1. We adore coffee; we drink a lot of coffee. And when I say coffee, I don’t mean the brown water you can buy at Starbucks. No, that’s just not enough for us. We buy the coffee beans, grind it in the office and prepare it in the following way:
   • the finely ground coffee, optionally sugar, and water are placed in a narrow-topped pot and brought to the boil then immediately removed from the heat. Wait until it cools a bit, then boil it again. This way you extract everything from the coffee and what you obtain will be as strong as a horse’s kick. I think in the US this coffee is called “mud coffee”
2. We are all heavy smokers. Maybe it’s a stupid and useless habit, but at least we are not afraid to say that we do love to smoke. For those who are interested we all smoke American cigarettes (imported Lucky Strike and Marlboro)
3. We all have Uni degrees. Some of us have IT related, two of us have journalism related degree and myself, well, I’m the black sheep as per my papers I’m a construction engineer. Ironically, only the journalists work in their own field
4. The favorite movies are the following: The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings (all of them), Schindler’s List and the War Photographer.
   OK, the first two needs some explication: they are almost 100% made on computers and the result is just fantastic.
   It is weird, but when asked the authors all of them agreed on the above as the greatest movies of the post 90’s
5. We destroy any electrical device right after the guarantee expires in order to “see what’s inside”. Sigmund Freud would have say that this habit is inherited from our childhood. Probably he’d be right.
6. Even though all of the authors — including me — did obtain the Certificate of Advanced English issued by the Cambridge University, if you’d call us, you wouldn’t understand what are we babbling about. This because even though we write a lot in English, we neglect to actually talk. Not that our written English would be better…
   None of us have English as native tongue and we’re all Europeans
7. Neither of us maintain an active social profile. None of us publish the real names online, nor pictures about ourselves… but if you live in Europe, you probably saw all of us either in the news or in other media. That’s the internet guys; incognito rocks… even in Google Chrome

This was our summary; additionally, we would like to thank for our parents, staff and our fans that they supported us on getting through the 15 band freeway. All we want is worldwide peace, stop hunting the whales and stop cloning humans. I hope this is enough to get featured in the Miss Universe 2009.

OK, that was a side note; now we name seven other blogs which should post a similar article on their own blog… of course it’s not a must, but it would be nice… and they wouldn’t ruin the socialization of the web… nor our fun… so, the blogs; some big fishes, but since we follow their posts it would be really nice if they’d answer, so, worth a try:

• Darren Rowse from Problogger.net
• Matt Cutts from MattCutts.com
• Matt Mullenweg from Ma.tt
• Adam Lasnik from blAdam.com
• Kyle Eslick from WPHacks
• Jonny B. from Private Secret Diary
• and finally: Brian Clark from CopyBlogger

Note: maybe we intentionally posted these people because we’re 100% sure they won’t answer

The Acer AS6930 - Simply wow

I think I owe a pack of beer to our supplier for letting me testing this notebook. I tested in the past year about 10 notebooks –also wrote review about 5 or 6 –, but the Acer AS6930 crowned the past year with its performance, stability and, well, coolness.

The Acer AS6930 is simply beautiful: it’s amongst the first Acer notebooks which takes the advantages of the new “Gemstone Blue” (TM) design. And the first advantage for Acer is that — as our supplier said –, the people falls in love with the notebooks which follows the Gemstone Blue line.

The AS6930 notebook is advertised as multimedia notebook. It’s the first notebook which has a 16 inch (yeah, 16″) display and is capable of 16:9 aspect ratio. The 16″ is almost 15% more than what you get with a 15,4″ and this advantage makes the AS6930 perfect for watching HD movies. It has integrated HDMI output which makes perfect for linking the notebook to HDMI projectors or flat-screens.
The native resolution of the Acer HD CineCrystal display is 1366×758 and it performs well in almost any light. I say any, because in heavy sunshine it’s just as useless as any other LCD.

The native Dolby Home Theater support with True 5.1 channel output and the HDMI output revolutionizes the multimedia notebook concept.

The gaming tests were the coolest. We didn’t find ANY game at our supplier which didn’t work well on the Acer AS6930, and we didn’t have mercy when tested it as we’ve found the most resource eating games on the shelves: The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, FEAR, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto IV.
The good performance is the result of the high-end hardware from within the shell:

• the graphics board, a GeForce 9600 GT with 512 MB DDR3 dedicated(!) RAM
• Intel Core 2 Due, T5800 processor working at 2GHz
• 4Gigs of DDR2 RAM

The storage space is kinda generous: 320 Gigs on a hard disk which spins up to max. 5400 revolutions per minute. Installing OSes was easy. Every Microsoft operating system recognized most of the hardware. Switching off AHCI (from the BIOS) in case of ANY Microsoft OS is necessary in this notebook’s case, too.
Finding the drivers for Vista was easy as Acer provided every driver for this notebook on the official support website. In XP’s case there is one issue: there are no drivers provided, because Microsoft hand in hand with the manufacturers makes everything possible to put Vista on as many PCs as possible.
To obtain drivers for the unrecognized hardware, we had to download the XP drivers from each hardware manufacturer’s support website.

The ergonomics were neither forgotten when Acer designed the AS6930. It has a full size keyboard which means that it has all the keys you have on the keyboard of your PC. The reversed “T” touch-pad is sensitive enough and it also has incorporated a biometric fingerprint scanner which assures the AS6930’s user that no one can access the files stored on the notebook. The battery life of the 6-cell LiIon battery is satisfactory, it averages around 3 hours.

And finally my personal thoughts. Where I live the Acer Aspire AS6930 is $1100 with 19% VAT included (around 820 euros). The notebook performed well in any situation and has a quite good battery life, so I think if you have the money to purchase it, do it. The Acer Aspire AS6930 is both beautiful and a power-plant.

How to wash laundry…ahem, money - by Dr. Roger Amar

Dr. Roger Amara, a doc from Malaysia explained me today how his client and himself wanted to transfer money from one account to another in order, probably to loose it’s track. Only one problem appeared: his client died, and now I would be the one who’d need to continue the process. Too bad it’s a scam.

ESTEEM GREETINGS

Good day to you.I would have contacted you through surface
mail, but because of time and for security reasons,I had
to reach you by email I apologize for breaking into your
privacy.

Meanwhile,let me introduce myself to you.I am Dr.Roger E.
Amar,I am a doctor at Hospital Queen Elizabeth
Malaysia,For the past six years,I have been the private
doctor to her Excellency,Chief Mrs.Stella Chincona
Obi.Last month,she came to our clinic for a liver
transplant and my assistant (Agathe Dawson) helped me in
the transplant operation.

The liver transplant was successful,but minutes later she
had some Complications that threw her into a terrible
coma.all the efforts we made,she died.A day before the
transplant operation,she came to my apartment to finalize
a deal with me,She has already called me from her country
two weeks before her arrival in Malaysia,to inform me
about this transaction and what she want me to do for
her.the main plan is to use my position as a reputable
doctor with the hospital,to remit the sum of $4.5 million
into Hospital Queen Elizabeth account with our bank.

The whole arrangement was completed and the fund was
carefully deposited with our bank.Her plans was to
transfer the fund into some private bank accounts in
Switzerland once she gets back to her country,so that the
management of the hospital will not know about the fund
and claim it. But unfortunately.she died some hours after
the liver transplant.

My main reason for contacting you is for you to assist in
transferring this sum of $4.5 million by presenting you
as a business partner or beneficiary to the deceased since
she has no next of kin,and more over no one knew about
this funds apart from me and her,because some auditors
will be coming in to check and balance Hospital Queen
Elizabeth account by next month and they will surely
discover the fund. Then,the hospital management will claim
the fund.

based on this secrecy of this fund,I would not be able to
handle this transaction alone.I need somebody that is not
related or connected to me in anyway,to be able to secure
this fund,as soon as possible.So,I consider it necessary
to intimate you on the profitable venture.I am even
thinking of us going into partnership,we can invest the
fund in any profitable business there in your country and
you will be in charge of all the affairs there.Which ever
way you want it is okay by me.

We don.t have much time to waste,so please,reply
immediately to enable us arrange on how to get this fund
transferred before the hospital claims it.

My sincere regards,

Dr.Roger E. Amar.
d602rogar@pisem.net
d601rogar@krovatka.su

Oh well, I got another million… by Mr. Song Li

I have to be the most lucky guy in the world: there’s no day when I don’t inherit or win a few millions. At least that’s what the emails i get state. Like the one below:

Good Day

Compliment of the day to you, although you may be skeptical receiving this
email as we have not met before, I am Mr.Song Lile I work with Hang Seng
Bank Ltd.I have a business proposition involving the sum of
$24,500,000.00usd in my bank which I know we will be of mutual benefit to
both of us, and I believe we can handle together, once we have a common
understanding and mutual cooperation in the execution of the modalities.

Should you be interested, please forward the following to me:

1.Full names,
2.Occupation,
3.Private phone number,
4.Current residential address.

Via this email address: info_songlile02@yahoo.com.hk
Your earliest response to this mail will be highly appreciated.

Best Regards

Song Li.

It is clearly a scam. I’m not going to answer this one, but if I would, the phisher most likely would ask me to wire or deposit some money in a bank account which would cover the expenses of the transfer. Nonetheless to say that I would see nothing in return. He would be happy, me not.

Confidential Spam from Ahmed Moola

Since is extremely confidential, I’m going to publish it.
The mail arrived to me in this format, without linebreaks or any formatting whatsoever, so don’t blame me, please.
This is a scam and if you received this e-mail too, please, don’t answer it.

Mr. Ahmed Moola. CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT ABSA BANK LTD. JOHANBNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA. TELL: 27732401244 Re: to accountant-moola@webmail.co.za ahmed.charteredaccountant.mool@gmail.com URGENT REPLY NEEDED Attn: I am Mr. Ahmed Moola, Chartered Accountant of AMALGAMETED BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA.(ABSA)I have decided to contact you through this medium based on a business proposal which will be of mutual benefit to both of us. However, I got your contact through a BUSINESS TRADE MANUAL in South African Chamber Of Commerce in my search for a foreign business partner whom I will transfer this fund in his personal or company’s account . During the annual bank auditing, we discovered an abandoned sum of US$ 42,000 000:00 (FORTY TWO MILLION US DOLLARS ONLY) in an account that belong to one of our foreign customers (Dr. Mohamed Gale) a citizen of Saudi Arabia, who lost his life aboard Egypt Air Flight 990, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on October 31, 2003.View this website;(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/502503.stm ). Since we got the information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money, because we can not release it unless some bodies apply for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines. Unfortunately, nobody has come forward to claim this money. It is based on this, that some officials in my department and I have decided to establish a cordial business relationship with you, hence my contacting you. If you indicate interest in this transaction I will let you know they steps to take for a smooth transaction for the approval of this fund from the Bank in your favor. The mode of sharing after the transfer of the money into your nominated bank account will be as follows: 65% for me and my colleagues, 30% will be given to you for your assistance and 5% will be mapped out to offset expenses during the course of the transaction. In receipt of this mail, call me immediately via the above phone or email and kindly send me your private telephone and fax numbers for easy communication. Please treat this business proposal STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. Hoping to hear from you soon. Best Regards, Mr. Ahmed Moola. http://www.absa.co.za/absacoza/content.jsp?/Home/Personal/Our-Customers/Islamic-Banking/About-Islamic-Banking/Management-&-People

How to write a content scraper or feed aggregator for Wordpress in 10 minutes with PHP and cURL

A few days ago we published an article which sheds some light on the ethics of content scraping.

Content scraping — in short –means that a webmaster copies a 3rd party’s content in an automated way. If you copy the whole article, then then this is content theft, if you republish the excerpt of the article and link back to your source, then you created a service similar to Technorati.

So, what will you need for this script? Obviously, You will need PHP installed. CURL is also needed as it’s much more fast than — for example — fopen(). If you want to automate the publishing of the scraped content on your blog, then you have to have Wordpress installed and configured to receive the posts via e-mail. And that’s all.

In this post we will scrape the content using the 3rd party blogs’ RSS feeds. So, think about some feed URLs for your own script, we will use Technorati’s developer API cos it’s easier for us.

Let’s see the script, step by step. First we create two arrays: one will be empty by default, this will contain the fetched RSS items, and another one which will contain the RSS URLs. The second array can be also grabbed from a database, we hardcoded it in the source because it’s not likely we’ll ever modify the script again. Then write some functions which can parse the RSS feed as in it’s original format it’s pretty useless for us. So, here’s the script, if something is unclear, ask in the comments.

/*construct our arrays, first is empty, will be filled by the functions*/

$rss_items = array();

/*the below array contains the URLs we'll grab the RSS from*/

$RSS_URI = array("http://api.technorati.com/search?key=YOUR-API-KEY&query=health&format=rss&language=en",
			"http://api.technorati.com/search?key=YOUR-API-KEY&query=medical&format=rss&language=en");

/*simple function to parse the XML file, aka the RSS and push the contents in the $rss_items array*/

function parseRSS($xml){
global $rss_items;
    $cnt = count($xml->channel->item);
	if($cnt > 1){
	    for($i=0; $i<=5; $i++){
			$url 	= $xml->channel->item[$i]->link;
			$title 	= $xml->channel->item[$i]->title;
			$desc = $xml->channel->item[$i]->description;
			$poster = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_HOST);
			$cont = $desc."[...] \r\n";
			$cont .= "More on $poster\r\n";
			$titem = array(	"url" 	=> $url,
						"title"	=> $title,
						"desc"=> $cont,
						"auth"=> $poster);
			$rss_items[] = $titem;
    	}
	}
}

/*grab the content of every URL we specified in the $RSS_URI array*/

foreach ($RSS_URI as $rss){
	$ch = curl_init($rss);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
	$data = curl_exec($ch);
	curl_close($ch);
	$doc = new SimpleXmlElement($data, LIBXML_NOCDATA);
	if(isset($doc->channel)){
	    parseRSS($doc);
	}
}

/*construct and send the mails to Wordpress's post-by-email address*/

foreach($rss_items as $rss_item){
	$subject = $rss_item['title'];
	$content = $rss_item['desc'];
	$from = "YOUR-ADMIN-MAIL-ADDRESS";
	$headers = "From: $from";
	mail('WORDPRESS-MAIL-BY-POST-ADDRESS',$subject,$content,$headers);
}

/*contact our Wordpress engine to post the grabbed items*/

$ch = curl_init('http://YOUR-BLOG-URL/wp-mail.php');
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
	$posted = curl_exec($ch);
	curl_close($ch);

Final step, save this file somewhere on your webserver. Be sure to hide well because if you put it in a publicly accessible place and someone wants to play, it accesses the script then your automated blog is filled with posts in no time.

Now let’s decode the script in human readable format:

1. Will take every URL from the $RSS_URI array, grab the URLs’ content and transform it in a big multidimensional array
2. For every item it grabbed and pushed in the $rss_items array, it will build and send an email — using PHP’s native mail() function — to the address you specified as post-by-email address
3. Will open the http://YOUR-BLOG-URL/wp-mail.php address to make Wordpress to post the e-mails

A nice addition to this content scraper on Unix based systems can be to set up a cron job, which will automate the whole process. Making you to not touch your Wordpress for a very, very long time.
If you don’t like the cron idea, you will have to access the script using your browser, pointing it to the address where you’ve saved the file.

Have questions? Ask below.

Mr. Zafar Habib Khan sais I’m a millionaire… again

United Arab Emirates. One of the coolest places on the planet. This time I got a letter from Mr. Zafar Habib Khan, who, as he states works for a bank in the UAE. As usual, his client died, money is frozen in his bank and he needs my help to grab the money. Here’s the full story:

Greetings from Dubai,

This letter must come to you as a big surprise, but I believe
it is only a day that people meet and become great friends
and business partners. I am Mr. Zafar Habib Khan,currently
Chief Investment Officer with a reputable bank here in U. A. E.
I write you this proposal in good faith,believing that I can
trust you with the information I am about to reveal to you.

I have an urgent and very confidential business proposition
for you. On November 6, 2000, an Iraqi Foreign Oil consultant
/contractor with the CHEVRON PETROLEUM CORPORATION, MR MOHAMMAD
AL NASSER made a (Fixed deposit) for 36 calendar months,valued
at US$17,500,000.00 (seventeen Million Five hundred Thousand
Dollars only) in my bank and I happen to be his account officer
before I was moved to my present position recently. Upon
maturity in 2003, as his account officer and as well the bank
manger, it is my duty to notify him on the maturity date so I
sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but the
letter was returned undelivered.

After sometime, I tried sending back the letter, but it was
again returned and finally I discovered from his contract
employers, Chevron Petroleum Corporation that Mr. Mohammad Al
Nasser died as a result of torture in the hand of Saddam
Hussein (former Iraqi President) during one of his trips to
his country Iraq, as he was accused of leaking information
to the Americans. On further investigation, I discovered
that Mr. Al Nasser’s family wife and two sons died during
the Gulf War in Iraq and was the reason why he did not declare
any next of kin or relation in all his official documents,
including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank and did not
leave any WILL. This sum of US$17,500,000.00 have been
floating and placed under dormant/unserviceable account by my
bank management since no one have heard from the owner since
2003. I wish to let you know that all the investigation I
have made so far, my bank management is not aware of it, I am
the only one that have the information.

With the recent change of government in my country and with
their efforts to support the United Nations in checkmating
terrorism aid in the U. A. E. By end of this year, the
government will pass a new financial control law which will
give the government authority to interrogate account owners
of above $5,000,000.00 to explain the source of the funds,
making sure it is not for terrorism support. If I do not
move this money out of the country immediately, by end of
the year the government will definitely confiscate the money,
because my bank cannot provide the account owner to explain
the source of the money.

I cannot directly transfer out this money without the help
of a foreigner and that is why I am contacting you for an
assistance. As the Account Officer to late Al Nasser,coupled
with my present position and status in the bank as Chief
Credit & Risk Officer , I have the power to influence the
release of the funds to any foreigner that comes up as the
next of kin to the account, with the correct information
concerning the account, which I shall give you. All documents
to enable you claim this fund will be carefully worked out and
there is practically no risk involved, the transaction will be
executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you
from any breach of law, beside U. A. E is porous and anything
goes.

If you accept to work with me, I want you to state how you
wish us to share the funds in percentage, so that both
parties will be satisfied. If you are interested, contact
me as soon as you receive this message so we can go over
the details. Thanking you in advance and may God bless you.
Please, treat with utmost confidentiality. I shall send
you copy of the

deposit certificate issued to Al Nasser when the deposit
was made for your perusal.

I wait your urgent response.

Regards,

Mr. Zafar Habib Khan.

Google Analytics integrated in AdSense: A Complete Failure?

We were excited when first heard that Google Analytics will be able to track AdSense. Truth is that first we didn’t believe it, when it was announced we were the first who commented on the official AdSense blog and thanked for the feature, now we are amongst the first who complain about it.

Why? Look on the above two graphs:

The two graphs shows the AdSense earnings in the past 7 days. Since we’re not allowed to publish our earnings, the numbers on the left represents our earnings as units, so 1 can mean anything from $1 to $1000.

The problem is that while AdSense reported 7.74 earning units on the past 7 days, Google Analytics reported only 3.93 . Since AdSense hand-in-hand with AdWords is the bottom of Google’s heart and they do anything possible to keep it accurate as possible, we take that the earnings reported by AdSense are correct. But then Google Analytics is a complete failure.

And what if the rest of the reports are the same inaccurate?

Note: the graphs shows aggregate report for all the channels and domains AdSense ads are running.

21st of Decemeber : Where my traffic went?

First of all, it’s not just you. As news sources reported, a major internet fiber optic cable was cut. The cable we are talking about links Europe with Africa and most likely it was hit by a ship’s anchor. Another possibility would be a minor earthquake but since no earthquake was reported in the area, this version is not plausible.

Since some of the Asian traffic is also routed through this particular cable, some routers practically had and still have 100% packet loss. Diligent efforts were made to route the traffic on other cables, but since some routers still reports 100% pocket loss, seemingly the efforts were useless.

The so called issue happened at the shores of Egypt and caused serious headaches for more than a dozen of countries. Interesting fact is, that this year this is the second time when a ship hits this particular cable with its anchor. The first time was at the end of January, beginning of February 2008; conspiracy theories didn’t wait too long to appear regarding the US army cutting the cables to cut Iran off the Internet. Possibly, this cable rupture will blame the NSA or CIA doing malicious activity with the cables.

At the time of this post the following countries’ have difficulties routing the internet traffic (incomplete list, provided by InternetTrafficMonitor.com):

1. Iran
2. Japan
3. China
4. India

If your website is hosted in western Europe or in the US and usually gets massive traffic from Africa or Asia, this is a plausible reason of why the traffic drop. But it is still unclear for me how a ship’s anchor can hit such an expensive object, why is not protected in a way to not let things like this happen.

Ethics of content scraping and feed aggregation

Nowadays’ one of the most interesting phenomenon of the internet is content scraping and blogs’ feed aggregation. Many complain about it, but I think not all of the cases are a good reason for complaining.

There are two type of content scarping: when the scraper links back to your website making it clear that the published content is “borrowed” from a 3rd party, and another case when the content is stolen as is, without linking back to the author and published as it would be the scraper’s own content.

The second case is considered plagiarism and it does give headaches for the original author because even though he worked hard to publish an article, there is no profit in return. This is bad and action should be taken in every case. Mammoth sites like CNN or BBC have dedicated teams which handles these cases; usually they contact the host of the scraper with a take-down notice. If they fail they either give up — unlikely –, or they contact a DMCA attorney which handles the case in a legal manner. Small websites usually have the only option to contact the webmaster of the website which stolen the content with a take-down or link-back inquiry, but what will happen, depends solely on the scraper: if he is in good mood, he will link back or take the content down; if he’s not, will ‘forget’ to answer.

Another form of scraping is when the webmaster posts an excerpt of your content and links back. This is how Technorati works like: they grab your RSS feed and takes the excerpt of your posts, then republish it on their website, linking back to the original article.

The latter case is in your benefit as search engines counts the link to your article as an inbound link, thus increasing — slightly — your page’s rank. Additionally, if a user of Technorati finds your post’s excerpt interesting, they will visit your site to read the whole article.

The conclusion is, if you decide to scrape content keep in mind the following:

1. Publish only the excerpt of the original post, thus forcing the users to visit the author’s website if they find the excerpt interesting
2. Never forget to link back to the original article with a — possibly — nofollow-free link

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