by R.I. Pienaar | Dec 30, 2003 | Usefull Things
I noticed a new repeating query in my blog log files, quoting from the BlogPulse web site:
BlogPulse Key Phrases, Key People, BlogBites, and Top Links are mined daily from new entries in over 80,000 weblogs using machine learning algorithms and natural language processing techniques. BlogPulse mines for bursty phrases and person names instead of for the most popular ones. The most popular phrases and names change very slowly over time. The burstiest phrases and names are those whose frequency of occurrence has increased significantly over the past two weeks, often dramatically
A quick play with it shows that it is rather interesting but not perfect, it’s language algorithms needs tuning a bit but it looks like a great start.
by R.I. Pienaar | Dec 7, 2003 | Usefull Things
Via BSD Vault links to two papers on FreeBSD optimisation: Optimising FreeBSD and it’s kernel and Tuning FreeBSD for different applications.
by R.I. Pienaar | Nov 27, 2003 | Usefull Things
Geek News Central points out a fine selection of freeware. These are obviously all for Windows but well worth checking if you are a Windows user. For more freeware check out Nonags it is brilliant.
by R.I. Pienaar | Nov 27, 2003 | Usefull Things
The Gallery team recently released the latest version of their product and I must say it is rather nice. They have done some nice work, from the release notes the following ones are in my mind the most important:
- New image frame styles
- Cleaner, easier to follow Config Wizard
- Nineteen different looks for your gallery
The new themes look a lot nicer than before, take a look at my Gallery for a example of it.
I really wish you could have per album themes that would make it perfect for a multi user hosting system like I am using it for, but I guess things happen in small steps. If you use gallery, it is time for a upgrade!
by R.I. Pienaar | Nov 17, 2003 | Usefull Things
I am sick of Newzcrawler. It used to have a really useful liberal parser that would work with most things, now is using the MSXML as its core parser and it has been turned into the worlds strictest parser. This is all fine and well in a perfect world however we do not live in one. Earlier today I posted a quote about the Technorati growing pains and it stated that it has 1.2 Million weblogs and is adding 4 000 to 5 000 new ones every day. For a feed reader to expect all these blogs to have valid XML is ludicrous.
The developers of Newzcrawler has stated that they are working on this problem and have released a Beta that has a new parser. Their previous “stable” release was a joke of crashes and instabilities and regardless of these being reported on their forums they still released it as a stable version. Now we are back in Beta stage and it is even worse.
So my search for a replacement reader got me to Sharpreader a rather nice looking aggregator for windows, it is written in .Net so you will need the 20 Meg worth of .Net framework but so far its been well worth the hassle. Sharpreader – while still Beta – is very usable and attractive and it is a lot better at parsging dodgy RSS but still not perfect, it has issues with sites like Rootprompt but their feed does indeed suck. The only feature that I am going to miss in newzcrawler so far is NNTP as I read quite a few mailing lists via Gmane. The Author believes in Parsing At All Costs so that is encouraging.
by R.I. Pienaar | Nov 13, 2003 | Usefull Things
Microsoft has published a list of ports used by its applications in XLS format, very handy for trying to figure out firewall requirements. If the link stops working search for “Port Requirements for Microsoft Windows Server System”
