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 Post subject: Website problem - Head's Up (didnt know where to put this)
PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:15 am 
In a few Thai net cafes now I have had the Gemologyonline Homepage crash the internet browser (the browser window just closes).

It seems to be some kind of 'java' (I know nothing about computers) problem which, I think, centres on that colour-changing tourmaline crystal on the front page.

Most of the time the problem just stopped me from viewing the website (the forum can still be accessed by googling it directly), but on one occasion I lost an in-progress 30 minute email to an insurance company that was open on another browser tab. I wanted to throw the monitor out of the window, and didnt have the motivation to re-write it all for a few days.

If this was only one net cafe, I wouldn't bothing mentioning it, but it's happened at 3 or 4 now - so the issue must somewhat widespread.

I don't know if it applies to home computers - I assume they can just download the add-on that allows them to view the crystal without the browser closing.


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 Post subject: Re: Website problem - Head's Up (didnt know where to put thi
PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:43 am 
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Kyriakin wrote:
I don't know if it applies to home computers - I assume they can just download the add-on that allows them to view the crystal without the browser closing.


Hi
i had some little problems on other pc where the java applet wasn't installed but, altohugh fonts were displayed in a different shapes there wasn't no problem about crashing.. :roll:
ciao
alberto

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:06 am 
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memorize this: http://www.gemologyonline.com/Forum/phpBB2/index.php

:D

I often don't get to see the colourchanging tourmaline crystals but get a 'this is a hotlinked image' bladiblabla... The image is indeed a bit heavy for a frontpage IMO... I can imagine it causes more bouncing then neccesary.

2 euro cents


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 7:54 am 
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Might try downloading Mozilla, if you are using MS IE currently. It might not do well displaying some things, but usually does not take everything down. It has a smaller "footprint".
The price is right..ZERO.

Another possibility is the the net cafes may not allow some scripts, or the hotlink is not available and the browser waits till the server times out.

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:02 pm 
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Gearloose wrote:
Might try downloading Mozilla, if you are using MS IE currently. It might not do well displaying some things, but usually does not take everything down. It has a smaller "footprint".
The price is right..ZERO.


Another nice feature of Firefox (Mozilla) is the Adblock Plus plugin, which I use to block the oversize image in question. When I'm on dialup, it speeds up the initial load noticeably.

It displays all well-formed standard pages well, but some web designers like to use non-standard Microsoft features. Not a wise move, considering the current market share of Firefox.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:50 pm 
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When I first set up this site I was really annoyed that so many people were stealing my graphics and hotlinking to them, I added some code so that the pictures would not appear when hotlinked, a warning message would.
I may look into removing it as I have noticed that sometimes I'll log into the site and all the pics will appear as warning mesages. It goes away with a reload, but that wasn't my original intent. :x

I'm fond of my color changing tourmaline on the homepage. It loads quickly as long as one has a reasonable, non dial-up connection.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:57 pm 
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When I first set up this site I was really annoyed that so many people were stealing my graphics and hotlinking to them, I added some code so that the pictures would not appear when hotlinked, a warning message would.
I may look into removing it as I have noticed that sometimes I'll log into the site and all the pics will appear as warning mesages. It goes away with a reload, but that wasn't my original intent.


It can be quite a bit more fun to discourage hotlinking if once in a while, you remove the original link and take something horrible and rename it to the same name as the plundered file.

Autopsy pictures are great for this.

After a while people get the message. Some of the worst offenders are kids with those horrid ad-infested free websites.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:27 pm 
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How do you ever find out that people are hot linking to your images?

And can you find out who it is?

Curious.....

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:34 pm 
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Quote:
How do you ever find out that people are hot linking to your images?

And can you find out who it is?


Just look at your server logs. Single file hits on *.jpg, *.gif, etc. are usually a tipoff. Usually anything from geocities, angelfire, etc. is kids using images.


xxx.jpg 1 0.07% s010600179a23xxxxxxxx.shawcable.net


yyy.gif 1 0.07% blv-proxy-xxxxx.com


zzz.jpg 1 0.07% dialup-4.245xxxxxxx11111.level3.net


AAA.jpg 1 0.07% pool-71-242-xx.xx.----.east.verizon.net

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:47 pm 
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It can be very frustrating when you find out how and where your site is being used and abused.

I have found sites overseas that copied huge sections of this site and represented it as their own.
There is at least one site in Turkey who posts this forum within their site as a pop-up.
:x
I try to be clever and trick the no-goodniks, but they are usually more clever than I and find ways to easily circumvent my attempts.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:18 pm 
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I have found sites overseas that copied huge sections of this site and represented it as their own.
There is at least one site in Turkey who posts this forum within their site as a pop-up.


You can block access to entire countries if you have the patience and a BIG .htacess file. I do. All they get is a 403 Forbidden returned. Any IP Adress trying to look in Perl or CGI directories never gets back into the site, if I see it in the logs.

On thing I wanted to mention in my previous is that someone using a pretty stone once in a while is not enough bandwidth to freak out about.

What calls for DEFCON 1 is the use of images by a competitor or commercial interest- A competitor or Ebay site that was constantly pulling down a picture, for example. But most plagiarists will simply right click (And if right click is disabled,) screen grab a picture and call it theirs. Often a DMC Complaint to their web host makes it go away, unless it's some pesthole with no laws. Makes one wish oil tankers dragged their anchors more often.....

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:10 am 
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Gearloose wrote:
Barbra Voltaire wrote:
I have found sites overseas that copied huge sections of this site and represented it as their own.
There is at least one site in Turkey who posts this forum within their site as a pop-up.


You can block access to entire countries if you have the patience and a BIG .htacess file. I do. All they get is a 403 Forbidden returned. Any IP Adress trying to look in Perl or CGI directories never gets back into the site, if I see it in the logs.


Managing a forum (although on a quite another topic) I am indeed aware of the abuse that eventually will happen, and the method of preventing hotlinking is one way of dealing with it.

With all respect, blocking entire countries does not sound so good (my opinion), and one should have in mind that many IP's are shared out there amongst the Internet users.

If the IP address is static and can be connected to a certain person or organisation that would be another point. But I think it depends on what kind of site and who your target groups are. The GO community is a worldwide one and that makes "more specific blocking" difficult. In my case I run a forum in my native language (swedish) and if I get a lot of traffic from lets say Russia (and the traffic cannot be correlated to any member) I do bannish the IP-addresses (even IP-blocks).

But those who seek info or want to do harm, have several other ways of doing this so... for sure its complicated (the idea of Internet was free information at start) so where are we now?

I mean why do people take for granted that anything that is published on Internet (or made available) is free to use? One example, how many of you are using gemcad without a valid reg key? I wanted the gemcad and I paid for it, someone had put some effort in making a good program so why not support it.

"...you shall not steel" someone said a while ago (grandma said it to me, wonder where she got that expression from?)...

I mean, perhaps if you write a book, lets say gemmology related, and you put severeal hours into it (or years rather), and you publish it and you do good. Suddenly someone has made that book into a pdf, freely distributed on the Internet. Does the availability on the Net justify you to download it? I dont think so, it shouldnt be. But if I myself make the decision to make the info available and free to use that is another issue, dont you think? But as the general morality seem quite low when it comes to copyright thinking, we will never see this kind of activitiy pass out...

What do you think of this issues I just put forward? Would be interesting to see some thoughts on them?

(excuse me english its not that good)


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:38 am 
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Quote:
I mean, perhaps if you write a book, lets say gemmology related, and you put severeal hours into it (or years rather), and you publish it and you do good. Suddenly someone has made that book into a pdf, freely distributed on the Internet. Does the availability on the Net justify you to download it? I dont think so, it shouldnt be. But if I myself make the decision to make the info available and free to use that is another issue, dont you think? But as the general morality seem quite low when it comes to copyright thinking, we will never see this kind of activitiy pass out...


Another issue is taking something that was freely given, such as plans for hobbyist equipment, or free gemcutting designs, and having another person archive them, base a product on them, or put them on a CD for sale. This is called "Theft by conversion", and goes beyond Copyright issues. Basically, someone is selling and profiting on someone else's work and property.

We have a problem teaching people that "If it is not yours, you can't sell it." -Or use it, or publish it as yours.

As to blocking entire countries with the publicly available list of netblocks, it does "Throw the baby out with the bathwater" in that some good people are penalized. But we count on these good people to get their countries to clean up their act.
If they do not do so, then they can talk to themselves all day on their local intranet, and send the 409 scams, etc. to themselves.

Contemporary Society's morality is that everyone seems to think they have a right to someone else's property, and become indignant when called on it.

As to the Internet being an open, universal medium of the exchange of information, sometimes this information exists in the forms of malware such as trojan loaders, etc., and there is no law that says I have to accept packets from them. It is the same thing as living in a bad neighborhood and locking your doors...or even putting up a barbed wire fence and buying a big mean dog.
In a perfect world we should not have to. At one time, the internet was a "Small Town". It has turned into a dangerous city.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:15 am 
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Gearloose wrote:
Demantoid wrote:
I mean, perhaps if you write a book, lets say gemmology related, and you put severeal hours into it (or years rather), and you publish it and you do good. Suddenly someone has made that book into a pdf, freely distributed on the Internet. Does the availability on the Net justify you to download it? I dont think so, it shouldnt be. But if I myself make the decision to make the info available and free to use that is another issue, dont you think? But as the general morality seem quite low when it comes to copyright thinking, we will never see this kind of activitiy pass out...



Contemporary Society's morality is that everyone seems to think they have a right to someone else's property, and become indignant when called on it.

As to the Internet being an open, universal medium of the exchange of information, sometimes this information exists in the forms of malware such as trojan loaders, etc., and there is no law that says I have to accept packets from them. It is the same thing as living in a bad neighborhood and locking your doors...or even putting up a barbed wire fence and buying a big mean dog.
In a perfect world we should not have to. At one time, the internet was a "Small Town". It has turned into a dangerous city.


Yes, another example is a jewellerydesigner that made up a pretty nice collection of jewellery and of course wants to display it to the public and take nice pictures, very detailed, and publish them on Internet (their homepage - with appropriate copyright claims and terms of use so forth)... the plan is to look for retailers.... whoops :evil: within a couple of months you find that your design already is on the market (low jewellery market)... that is tough and IRL example of the backsides of Internet. Do I need to tell you where those copies came from?


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:13 am 
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within a couple of months you find that your design already is on the market (low jewellery market)... that is tough and IRL example of the backsides of Internet. Do I need to tell you where those copies came from?


I can tell by the emoticon you used!

20 years ago, strikeoffs used to be when someone bought a piece, then made a silicone mold and cast wax copies of it and invested them. Now they do not even have to buy the piece to copy.

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