Blag

Somehow or other, this blog (blag) has somehow made it into the indexes of over 15 search engines including Google, Yahoo, Live/Bing, Ask, Alexa & Netcraft. Amazing, considering there weren’t any inbound links to theparanoidtroll.com in the beginning yet somehow Google caught on within days of the domain being registered, and all the other followed suit.

Stats make for interesting reading -

• Average of 6-7 unique visitors per day (excludes RSS feeds, and returning visitors)
• 72.8% of visitors use Internet Explorer, 15.2% use Safari, 8% use Firefox, 0.9% use Chrome and the remainder are all random browsers/feed readers
• 95.9% of visitors are Windows users, Macintosh accoutns for 1.2% and <0.1% use Linux. I have no idea what the remainder is.
• Top 5 keywords were  – “cheap”, “discount”, “billion”, “KFC” and ”pointless”
• Top 10 countries are – Australia, US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Spain, Brazil, Russia and Germany

I actually received 3 offers via e-mail from various dodgy SEO companies offering to ‘promote’ my site to make it to the front page of Google. It already does, thank you very much -.- No thanks to you, J. Walker, H. Ellis, and K. Lampton. All you succeeded in doing is wasting 15 kilobytes of space in my inbox.

In other news, more server changes to come

I’ll wait until I’ve moved all my websites and domains away from host “X”, before I tear into them, lambast their shitty service and name them publicly. The server load of 70.34 and memory usage of 88.20% is atrocious, let alone the support staff who ignore support tickets, or take 4-5 days before replying to those marked as ‘crtical’, or the high packet loss and latency. And that’s before I start complaining about corrupted SSL data, terrible PHP/SQL performance and the intermittent FTP service. -.- *rage*

For those not in the know, a typical server packed with hundreds of websites only has a load of 1 to 4, and memory usage around the 40-60% usage mark under normal conditions.

So, time to shift all my domain names to Layered Networks, and move my other sites to IGXHosting. (Free plug for Layered Networks here actually, they have very cheap domain names which come with free WHOIS privacy, which still beat Australian registrars for price, despite the AUD to USD exchange rate and conversion). This blog shouldn’t be affected as it’s already hosted by Layered Networks and the domain is already pointed towards their nameservers. Still, if something does bugger up, max downtime should be 24-48 hours, while your ISP re-caches DNS lookups.

I can’t say I’m a fan of all the Hitler hates X rip-offs that have flooded the interwebs (notably Youtube), but I’ll give this one by mambo9jambo a plug. It shares a common ideology that unites all (sane) HSC English students, that creative writing (and HSC English for that matter) sucks. You could say, we all… belong?

*ducks fusillade of flak*

It’s good, as far as Downfall (movie) spoofs go – there are a lot of much lamer parodies out there e.g. “Hitler wants ADSL2+ in Tasmania”.

Jaycar /  Electus seems to have stocked up on surplus HDMI cables and are flogging them at dirt cheap prices:

$9.95 for a 1.8m 1.3b compliant HDMI cable – 99.99% pure copper, 24k gold plated with triple shielding. And if you buy 4+, the price drops to $6.25ea, or $5.60 for 10+

Now that’s a bargain, unlike the $129.99 Monster THX bullshit all the retailers seem to flog… like really, unless your running a 50m HDMI cable in the vicinity of a 75W FM radio transmission tower, you don’t need quad shielded, 99.997% purity OFC copper, hand terminated with 99.99% purity silver solder, Teflon dielectric, Kevlar reinforced, 24K gold plated earth first connectors, patent pending strain relief THX certified HDMI cables.

Click here for details.

And now, put your hands together for everyone’s favourite ISP!

Dodo, Dodo, Internet that flies,

For nine-ninety cheap a month,

Connect yourself with Dodo!

And they’re back! Not content with being one of the most complained about ISPs in Australia, or offering the most ridiculous plans and outrageous terms & conditions, comes Dodo Electricity & Gas!

Dodo Electricity & Gas

For when your electricity and gas supplies just ‘aint unreliable enough. Do you want:

• Minimum 4 outages per fortnight?
• Brownouts if you consume excessive electricity?
• Low gas pressure?
• Restrictive on-peak and off-peak hours?
• Patented FairConsumption* policy?
• Blackouts when your grandma on life support comes over to visit?

Well you’re in luck, as here comes Dodo to the rescue.

Ok, well not really. They haven’t started offering those plans yet, but it’s a scary thought. And yes I am aware they have a PDF available listing the supplies and rates in Victoria. But it IS fun to pile shit on Dodo – not like it’s undeserved anyway.

*Excessive use of Dodo gas and electricity resources is a breach of the FairConsumption policy. Dodo is a reseller of AGL (natural gas) and Energy Australia (electricity). Excessive use is defined as 1. Electricity or Gas consumption of more than 5kWh or 150kJ per day 2. Use of more than 750W of electricity between the hours of 1 am and 6:30am 3. Using Dodo gas for barbecues or hot water boilers. Dodo Electricity & Gas is for residential use only. Customers who use Dodo Electricity & Gas for business purposes may be asked to purchase a private generator and LPG tank at the customers expense. Dodo will try to meet a 65% availability for electricity and natural gas services, but blackouts and supply loss are not guaranteed.

And now, my favourite celebrity of all time:

Lady GaGa Kermit Jacket

What can I say?

*pukes*