Web

Looking at the stats for my sites, under browsers I see two unusual ones: ‘UofTDB_experiment leehyun@cs.toronto.edu’ and ‘larbin_2.6.3 larbin2.6.3@unspecified.mail’. Does anyone know what they are?

I’ve tried listening to a few podcasts with my new iPod & iTunes 4.9 and I just can’t get excited about it. I really hate talk radio and most podcasts I’ve listened to are full of the same boring chatter, lousy interviews, and annoying commentators. The only podcasts I really like are Benn loxo du taccu (one hand can’t clap) because it’s nothing but a single entire music track with no talk, and Tips from the top floor (although that one’s starting to annoy me a bit) because it’s short and gives useful digital photography tips, but it’s starting to have too much annoying gabbing & self-promotion.

I won’t listen to a podcast that’s more than 15 minutes and I can’t stand interviews. At that point I get sick of it and turn to my own music playlists.

It looks like the change I made to MacMegasite had a big effect on my bandwidth & CPU usage.

A few days ago I was seeing stats like this:

Since I’ve been using a permanent redirect in my .htaccess for the RSS feed, it looks more like this:

The difference corresponds roughly to the number of hits I get for the RSS feed.

I’ve temporarily disabled the random header image since I see this site is using a lot of CPU time. Since it executes some extra code for generating the image on each page load, I’ll see how much it reduces the CPU time.

After using Blosxom to render static archive pages for MacMegasite, I’m now falling in love with it. I like that Blosxom is simple, lightweight, and consists of only a single file. I’ll probably use it for other things in the future.

I got a warning from DreamHost that my account is using way too much CPU time. The problem seems to be with Drupal, especially at MacMegasite, which is getting heavy traffic. If that continues I may be forced to switch to a dedicated server. In that case I will most likely shut down macmegasite or switch to a much more lightweight & feature limited version using Blosxom.

An update on the LinkSynergy issue:

Later that day I received an email from Apple saying it was a mistake & she didn’t know why it was sent and would reactivate my account. I had already deactivated my LinkSynergy account and I don’t plan to re-activate it. If the program was administered directly by Apple, I would use it, but LinkSynergy is just too much of a pain to deal with.

The iTunes, Apple Store, and .Mac affiliate programs haven’t been profitable for me and they don’t seem to be worth the time & effort it takes to keep up with them. I’ve had great success with Google AdSense, MacResQ, and Amazon Associates, all of which require a lot less time & effort to maintain.

A few days ago I was considering whether to drop the iTunes Affiliate program. It looks like that decision was made for me. After going through LinkSynergy’s re-registration process, I received the following email:

We regret to inform you that iTunes has chosen not to accept your application for the iTunes Affiliate Program at this time. This may be because:

— The content is unrelated to iTunes
— Your site is temporarily down or under construction ¿-please make sure to apply again after 2 weeks.
— A wrong or misspelled URL given in the application. Please correct the problem and apply again.
— Your site is aesthetically unpleasing
— Your site promotes tobacco, alcoholic beverages or excessive drinking/drug use
— Your site contains extreme religious content
— Your site is international (with a majority of visitors based OUTSIDE the US. or written in a foreign language)

I was accepted as a member of the iTunes affiliate program in Sept. 2004 and now they’re treating this as a new application. I just cancelled my LinkSynergy account, since I don’t like any of their other programs and they make me jump through hoops for little or no profit. If they paid as much as Google AdSense, it would be different.

I’m thinking of dropping the iTunes affiliate program since I make very little from it and I really hate dealing with them. The program, along with .Mac & Apple Store is administrated by LinkShare, not directly by Apple. Did I mention I really hate LinkShare? They reek of spam marketing and they’re always trying to get me to join other programs I have no interest in and which have no relation to my sites. Their site is a huge pain to use. Every form on their page has a ‘captcha’ graphic. One is bad enough, but I don’t want to deal with it on every page.

So far I haven’t been paid anything from LinkShare and their program is very “high-maintenance”. On the other hand, Google AdSense and MacResQ pay nicely and are fairly low maintenace. Amazon pays very little – an occasional gift certificate – but it’s very easy to maintain. So far Google & MacResQ have paid more than enough to cover my web hosting for a full year.

All of my sites include Project Honeypot links to catch email address harvesters. My link at MacMegasite caught one today.