Category: Web/Tech

Hokay! Got a few items of blog business to do:

1. I just got a new computer and just got it hooked up to the Internet after talking to three tech support individuals, at least one of whom was not a human being.

2. There appears to be no way to conveniently transfer my e-mail from my old computer to my new one.

3. Consequently, this is going to make it harder for me to answer e-mail that has been sent to me in the past. I’ll still try, though, but it’ll be more difficult.

4. Consequently, if you’ve sent me e-mail in the past and are waiting on a reply, you may want to re-send it to make sure I get it on the new computer.

5. I’m also looking at an e-mail address change on the blog. Thus far I’ve been using jimmy01 @ cox.net, and if you check DA RULZ, you’ll note that I say I’ll change it once it gets severely spam-poisoned (see Rule #10). UPDATE: The new address is jimmyakin01@gmail.com. Thanks, guys!

6. It’s now severely spam poisoned. As a result of leaving the address out on the blog for folks to use, the overwhelming majority of e-mail that comes in to it is noxious, foul-smelling spam.

7. So I’m planning on switching it. The question is: To what? One possibility I’m considering is Google’s gmail, but I have a couple of questions:

8. First, how good is gmail’s anti-spam system?

9. Second, can I get a gmail invite from someone?

10. I also have another question. If you look at Rule #15 in DA RULZ, you’ll see that I don’t use names in the main blog area. The purpose of this is to make people feel more comfortable writing to me since they know I’ll anonymize whatever they send in. But there’s a cost, too: Sometimes people might want credit for what they send in, such as the recent readers I’ve cowboy hat tipped without giving their names. Consequently, I’d like folks thoughts on whether they think the current policy is the way to go or whether they think a revision of it might be in order.

Much obliged, y’all!

. . . in the Cyber Catholics 2005 blog awards, that is.

Last chance!

Voting ends at noon  Eastern this morning!

Here are my recommends:

• Apologetics: <blush>JimmyAkin.Org</blush>
• Political: Southern Appeal
• By a Man: Mark Shea.
• By a Woman: Amy Welborn
• Insightful: Secret Agent Man
• Creative: Curt Jester
• Bizarre: Saintly Salmagundi

ENTER THE VOTING BOOTH.

. . . in the Cyber Catholics 2005 blog awards, that is.

Last chance!

Voting ends at noon  Eastern this morning!

Here are my recommends:

• Apologetics: <blush>JimmyAkin.Org</blush>
• Political: Southern Appeal
• By a Man: Mark Shea.
• By a Woman: Amy Welborn
• Insightful: Secret Agent Man
• Creative: Curt Jester
• Bizarre: Saintly Salmagundi

ENTER THE VOTING BOOTH.

. . . that’s what you may be saying in a few years.

Technofolks are concerned that the computer virus problem will begin spreading rapidly among computer-chip-implanted devices including cell phones and automobiles:

Watch out for viruses that spread to mobile phones, handheld computers, wireless networks and embedded computers which are increasingly used to run basic automobile functions, the 2004 year-end "Security Threats and Attack Trends Report" report warns. Then again, the readiness of individuals and companies to confront these challenges has also evolved, the study said.

IBM’s report draws on data from 500,000 electronic devices.

It details a range of challenges that computer users faced in 2004 and extrapolates from early warning signs what sort of new threats electronics users are likely to face this year.

Known computer viruses grew by 28,327 in 2004 to bring the number of old and new viruses to 112,438, the report said. In 2002, only 4,551 new viruses were discovered.

Of 147 billion e-mails scanned by IBM for customers in 2004, one in 16, or 6 percent, contained a virus. During 2002, just 0.5 percent of e-mail scanned had viruses.

The average amount of spam circulating on global networks was 75 percent, the survey found. But during peak periods, spam accounted for as much as 95 percent of e-mail traffic.

As the average new car runs 20 computer processors and about 60 megabytes of software code, the opportunity for malfunctions, wireless attacks and other security threats was multiplying, he said.

What I’d like to know is just how a virus would get into your car’s chips.

Oh, well . . .

GET THE STORY.

. . . that’s what you may be saying in a few years.

Technofolks are concerned that the computer virus problem will begin spreading rapidly among computer-chip-implanted devices including cell phones and automobiles:

Watch out for viruses that spread to mobile phones, handheld computers, wireless networks and embedded computers which are increasingly used to run basic automobile functions, the 2004 year-end "Security Threats and Attack Trends Report" report warns. Then again, the readiness of individuals and companies to confront these challenges has also evolved, the study said.

IBM’s report draws on data from 500,000 electronic devices.

It details a range of challenges that computer users faced in 2004 and extrapolates from early warning signs what sort of new threats electronics users are likely to face this year.

Known computer viruses grew by 28,327 in 2004 to bring the number of old and new viruses to 112,438, the report said. In 2002, only 4,551 new viruses were discovered.

Of 147 billion e-mails scanned by IBM for customers in 2004, one in 16, or 6 percent, contained a virus. During 2002, just 0.5 percent of e-mail scanned had viruses.

The average amount of spam circulating on global networks was 75 percent, the survey found. But during peak periods, spam accounted for as much as 95 percent of e-mail traffic.

As the average new car runs 20 computer processors and about 60 megabytes of software code, the opportunity for malfunctions, wireless attacks and other security threats was multiplying, he said.

What I’d like to know is just how a virus would get into your car’s chips.

Oh, well . . .

GET THE STORY.

This is my first moveable blogiversary!

A blogaversary, of course, is the anniversary of the day a blog went online.

I wrote my first blog entry on February 25, 2004. (HERE.)

So why is this my moveable blogiversary when it ain’t February 25th yet?

Because last year February 25th was Ash Wednesday, a movable feast on the Church’s liturgical calendar.

Today is Ash Wednesday 2005, so by the liturgical (as opposed to civil) calendar, today is my blogiversary.

Rejoice with me!

That’s one liturgical year down. . . . Hopefully many more to come!

. . . in the Cyber Catholics 2005 blog awards, that is!

JimmyAkin.Org has been nominated in the best apologetics blog category.

Your support is much appreciated. 🙂

ENTER THE VOTING BOOTH.

Reached another hits milestone yesterday.

Since signing up with TypePad in April 2004 (the blog itself has existed since February 2004), I’ve had a quarter million hits.

Cool!

(Downside: I’m expected to bust my bandwidth allotment this month. Don’t know what they’ll do, if anything, when that happens.)

As a result of getting rid of the subtitle "Defensor Fidei," I have a favor to ask of the folks who are linking me on their blogs or web pages. I’d be much obliged to y’all if you would consider changing the links to say "Jimmy Akin" or "JimmyAkin.Org" rather than "Defensor Fidei."

(Also, I’d be much obliged if folks who aren’t currently linking me would consider doing so. If you appreciate what I’m doing here, please consider sharing it with others via a link.)

In exchange for your trouble, lemme pass on a bit of weblore that you may find useful:

Up in your address bar or (if you have me bookmarked) next to your bookmark to the blog or (if you’re using tabbed browsing in a browswer like Mozilla) next to the tab for this page, you may see a little picture of me that looks like this:

That’s been there for a while, but not everyone has been seeing it, so one of the changes I made this weekend was to make it more accessible again.

In the past, a number of folks have written me about it and said (a) that they find it cute and (b) that they’d like to know how to do it for their own sites.

No prob!

This image is called a favicon (short for "favorites icon"). Here’s how to create one for your own site (either a picture of you or based on your site’s logo or simply an image that you find interesting), in three easy steps:

1. Create a 16×16 pixel icon. I used the program Easy Icon Maker for doing this, though lots of programs will make icons (.ico files) (HERE, FOR EXAMPLE, IS A FREE PICTURE-TO-FAVICON CONVERTER, THOUGH I HAVEN’T USED IT). Make sure that the name of your icon is favicon.ico. The name is important for how some browsers will handle it.
2. Upload the icon to the root directory of your blog or home page.
3. Then, in the headers of your web page or the headers of your blog template, include the line:

<link rel="shortcut icon"
href="http://WHEREVER_YOUR_ROOT_DIRECTORY_IS/favicon.ico">

And you’re all set!

Now, I should warn you that different browsers handle favicons differently, and they may not all instantly grab it. Internet Explorer, for example, often does not grab the favicon unless you delete existing bookmarks to the site and re-bookmark it. So you may have to do some jiggering (deleting bookmarks, clearing cashes, restarting browsers, restarting the computer) to get it to show up on your own system after you’ve installed it on the site. (I had to.)

A good way to verify that it’s there without all this effort is to call someone who you know doesn’t visit your site and ask him to visit it and bookmark you. If he see’s the favicon, it’s there, even though it may not show up on your system for a while.

There are also other ways to implement this kind of icon, but that’s the basic way.

MORE INFO HERE.

Hope that’s a satisfactory compensation for other webmasters and bloggers (at least for us non-professionals) to consider linking or link-editing JimmyAkin.Org. 🙂

Thanks, folks!

As a result of getting rid of the subtitle "Defensor Fidei," I have a favor to ask of the folks who are linking me on their blogs or web pages. I’d be much obliged to y’all if you would consider changing the links to say "Jimmy Akin" or "JimmyAkin.Org" rather than "Defensor Fidei."

(Also, I’d be much obliged if folks who aren’t currently linking me would consider doing so. If you appreciate what I’m doing here, please consider sharing it with others via a link.)

In exchange for your trouble, lemme pass on a bit of weblore that you may find useful:

Up in your address bar or (if you have me bookmarked) next to your bookmark to the blog or (if you’re using tabbed browsing in a browswer like Mozilla) next to the tab for this page, you may see a little picture of me that looks like this:

That’s been there for a while, but not everyone has been seeing it, so one of the changes I made this weekend was to make it more accessible again.

In the past, a number of folks have written me about it and said (a) that they find it cute and (b) that they’d like to know how to do it for their own sites.

No prob!

This image is called a favicon (short for "favorites icon"). Here’s how to create one for your own site (either a picture of you or based on your site’s logo or simply an image that you find interesting), in three easy steps:

1. Create a 16×16 pixel icon. I used the program Easy Icon Maker for doing this, though lots of programs will make icons (.ico files) (HERE, FOR EXAMPLE, IS A FREE PICTURE-TO-FAVICON CONVERTER, THOUGH I HAVEN’T USED IT). Make sure that the name of your icon is favicon.ico. The name is important for how some browsers will handle it.
2. Upload the icon to the root directory of your blog or home page.
3. Then, in the headers of your web page or the headers of your blog template, include the line:

<link rel="shortcut icon"

href="http://WHEREVER_YOUR_ROOT_DIRECTORY_IS/favicon.ico">

And you’re all set!

Now, I should warn you that different browsers handle favicons differently, and they may not all instantly grab it. Internet Explorer, for example, often does not grab the favicon unless you delete existing bookmarks to the site and re-bookmark it. So you may have to do some jiggering (deleting bookmarks, clearing cashes, restarting browsers, restarting the computer) to get it to show up on your own system after you’ve installed it on the site. (I had to.)

A good way to verify that it’s there without all this effort is to call someone who you know doesn’t visit your site and ask him to visit it and bookmark you. If he see’s the favicon, it’s there, even though it may not show up on your system for a while.

There are also other ways to implement this kind of icon, but that’s the basic way.

MORE INFO HERE.

Hope that’s a satisfactory compensation for other webmasters and bloggers (at least for us non-professionals) to consider linking or link-editing JimmyAkin.Org. 🙂

Thanks, folks!