So, not really understanding exactly what it was, I signed up and configured it for the Fake Name Generator.

After some poking around and letting it do its thing for a few days, this is what I’ve discovered it does for me:

• Provides a free DNS management. This is included for free with many registrars, but it just so happened that the domain I’m trying this out on didn’t come with DNS management so I’ve been paying $10 a year for it. This alone makes CloudFlare worth using for me.
• Serves my content on a CDN-like intrastructure. This makes my site faster to some users, which is always a good thing.
• Caches my static content (like images and JavaScript). This dramatically reduces my server load, and makes my site faster. My LAMP server with only 1GB of RAM is currently serving about 100,000 pageviews per day and running millions of queries in offline processes. With CloudFlare, my load average rarely goes above 0.10.
• Blocks bad guys. This is a huge deal for me. Everyone and their mom thinks it is okay to scrape my site for data. Bots love to hit my site to try to find exploits. CloudFlare does a great job at identifying these people and blocking them for me, or providing a way for them to enter a captcha to prove they aren’t a bot.
• Provides geolocation data on all visitors. I haven’t started using this yet, but CloudFlare adds a request header with the visitor’s geographic location. This makes it easier to target content to visitors from certain parts of the world.
• Makes me more profitable. All around, CloudFlare has made my business more profitable. My site requires less server resources, which means I can keep my site running on my relatively cheap tiny server. Fewer bots are loading my ads, which means my click thru rates are higher, which means I get paid more. My pages respond faster, which means I’m ranked higher in the search engines, which means I get more visitors.

One problem I ran into, however, is occasionally a screen scraper gets through their blocks and starts hitting my site. In the past I would use iptables to block them, but the way CloudFlare works makes that impossible (at least with my limited knowledge of iptables). CloudFlare provides a way to block a specific IP, but it can take several minutes to go into effect.

The solution I came up with is to use Apache to give visitor’s from the offending IP a 403 error:

<VirtualHost *>

 SetEnvIf CF-Connecting-IP 98.17.241.185 GoAway=1

 <Directory "/path/to/your/website">
 Order allow,deny
 Allow from all
 Deny from env=GoAway
 </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

This snippet, properly placed in the Apache config file, will cause Apache to look at a header set by CloudFlare, and if it matches the offending IP (in this case 98.17.241.185), it denies access to the site. You can add a nearly unlimited number of SetEnvIf statements to block any number of IPs.

Anyways, if you get an invite to CloudFlare, check it out! It is definitely worth it!

Disappointingly, I couldn’t find anybody that was scraping my site, which means I had to dig deeper. The next step was to use top to figure out what processes are stealing all my resources. To my surprise (and exceedingly great alarm) I saw that there were about a dozen sshd processes running. For those that are not Linux server savvy, there should not be about a dozen sshd processes running.

SSH is the protocol that Linux server admins use to connect to their servers. When connecting, an sshd process will run. When a dozen are showing up, that means a dozen people are connected or trying to connect, which is very very disturbing for a server like mine where I’m the only one that should ever be on it.

I quickly turned to the logs and found thousands of failed login attempts. Someone was trying to hack my box. Yikes!

I quickly used iptables to block the most flagrantly offending IP, but I knew that wouldn’t hold back a committed attacker. Enter my hero: DenyHosts!

DenyHosts is a free chunk of code written in Python that periodically scans your log files, determines if someone looks like they are trying to break in, and blocks them. If you are really paranoid then you can even have it talk to other servers to find out who is trying to hack them, so you can preemptively block the bad guys.

Installation and configuration literally took about 3 minutes, and is even easier to setup if you are using Ubuntu or Linux Mint because it is in the repos. As soon as I started it all the bad guys were blocked and my load averages started to drop. I highly recommend it for anyone that administers Linux servers.

Built on Drupal, this “intranet in a box” is the perfect solution for my company.

These are the things I love about it:

1. Works without a lot of configuration, but is still highly configurable in case you need it to do something special.
2. Allows you to define groups and limit access to each group. This means I can have a “The Awkward Turtle” group and only allow myself and my wife (we’re the only ones working on it) to even know the group exists, and I can also have a “Creative Barcodes” group and allow myself, my wife, and our graphic designer Anthony to see it.
3. Gives you a dashboard with all of the pertinent information from all of the groups that you are a member of. You also have a group dashboard that only shows you the important information for that specific group.
4. You can, on a group-by-group basis, enable several awesome included features:
   1. A blog
   2. A notebook (sort of like a wiki)
   3. A calendar (even supports iCal)
   4. A case tracker (for keeping track of feature requests and bugs)
   5. A shoutbox (good for microblogging)
5. It looks great and is very easy for an end-user (or an admin) to figure it out.

There are, however, a few things I’m not terribly excited about:

1. Documentation is a bit lacking, but that isn’t unexpected for beta software.
2. Doesn’t work on PHP 5.3. I had to setup Apache to run both 5.3 and 5.2 to get it working. This wasn’t really surprising though, as a lot of Drupal stuff has problems with PHP 5.3.

Is it perfect? Not yet, but I think someday soon it will be.

For an example Open Atrium site, check out their own community pages.

Because I like Oracle and I know they aren’t going to do anything nefarious with my data, I promptly gave Curtis and Oracle permission to use the data from the Fake Name Generator under the CC license without the “Share Alike” condition. This basically gives them permission to use it however they want as long as they give me credit.

As a “thank you”, Curtis sent me a couple fun goodies: an Oracle pen, hat, t-shirt, and coffee hot cocoa mug. I’m looking forward to the next casual Friday at work!

Just one more reason I love Oracle. :)

If you are anything like me, you may be asking yourself what makes Songbird special or worth your time. Why not just keep using iTunes, VLC, or Windows Media Player? Here are my reasons for choosing Songbird over the competition:

• It runs on my Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 computers with the exact same interface and feature set.
• Highly configurable playlists. For example, I can make a dynamic playlist that only shows songs that: have been rated 3 or more stars, haven’t been skipped more than 5 times, are at least 3.5 minutes long, and were produced between 1990 and 2000.
• With a minor tweak, Songbird will save my song ratings in the MP3 file itself. This means I can put a song in my Dropbox, rate it at work, and by the time I get home the rating will be there, too.
• Speaking of tweaks, Songbird is as tweakable and configurable as Firefox. You can get extensions, themes, adjust internal settings that most people don’t care about, change how the title bar works.
• Has an internal web browser that knows when you’re on a page with music. This means you can quickly and easily download free music from places like Last.fm and have your new songs instantly imported into your music library.
• Also because it has an internal web browser, I can open Slacker or Pandora in Songbird and save myself having an extra tab in Firefox. (Bonus: If Flash starts acting up in Ubuntu, I just have to restart Songbird and not my whole browser)

Okay, so now you are all stoked about Songbird. You want to load it up in Ubuntu 9.10 and get grooving to your awesome Vanilla Ice collection. “Oh no,” you say to yourself, “Songbird isn’t in the Ubuntu repository!” That is where GetDeb comes in.

GetDeb is a third-party, unofficial repository of Ubuntu packages. It allows you to get updated software for Ubuntu sooner than waiting for it to make it through the official channels, and saves you hours of trying to get random software to compile from source. I love it so much that Corban Works has become a €5/month supporter.

Installation of GetDeb is easy and well-documented. If you aren’t a current GetDeb user, please follow the installation instructions.

Once GetDeb is installed, pull up the terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install songbird

That’s it! You now have Songbird!

Unless you are using Windows. Or a Mac. Or Fedora. Or some other OS. If you are one of those people, you’ll have to go to Songbird’s site and download it straight from them.

I recommend a few addons to make your experience better (these work on any OS!):

• Adblock Plus: Blocks ads while using the browser part of Songbird.
• Amazon Fetcher: Automatically downloads album art from Amazon.
• Birdtitle: Lets you configure what shows up in Songbird’s title bar (so you can, for example, have the artist and song title instead of “Songbird”).
• ubuntu-notifyOSD: Ties in with Ubuntu’s notifyOSD library so you can see little bubbles in the corner of your screen whenever you change songs.
• MMKeys (32-bit) / MMKeys (64-bit): Makes the multimedia keys on your keyboard work. If you didn’t explicitly download the 64-bit version of Ubuntu, then you are probably using the 32-bit version. But don’t worry: if you install the wrong one it won’t break anything, it just won’t work.

If you want Songbird to save your ratings in your MP3 files, then you need to make one more tweak:

1. Open a browser tab in Songbird, then go to about:config
2. Click the I’ll be careful, I promise! button
3. In the filter box, enter songbird.metadata.ratings.enableWriting
4. Double-click false to change it to true
5. Close the tab

Oh, almost forgot! If you want Flash to work in Songbird on Ubuntu 9.10, you can run this command in terminal:

sudo cp /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* /usr/share/Songbird/plugins/

Do you have a Songbird tip I missed? Please leave it in the comments!

I signed up a few weeks back when there was an offer to waive the normal registration costs (the offer may still be valid). After a week or so of waiting, a test kit arrived containing 3 swab sticks. I rubbed them in my mouth as instructed, attached the included bio-hazard label, and dropped it in the mail. A few days later I received an email letting me know that they received my swabs.

Then nothing for a few weeks.

Finally, today I received an email letting me know that I’m officially in the registry and am eligible to donate if called upon.

My wife was is a little concerned. However, the website has a myths about donating section that clears up some of the misconceptions that many people (including myself) have about donating bone marrow.

For example, the actual procedure is painless due to anesthetics. No bone is removed, just the marrow. Full recovery from donating is about 3 weeks, but the worst experienced by most donators is over after a day or two. The procedure is completely free for the person donating (except for the time commitment).

Anyways, I’m pretty comfortable with the situation and I’m not forced to donate even if I am found to be a match, so my wife and I can cross that bridge when and if we ever come to it.

No you don’t, you live in Suffolk, she replied. I was like, no, I’m pretty sure I know where I live. I live in Williamsburg. She was like, oh, well we’ll give you $50, too. And a 3 day/2 night vacation you can use somewhere else. I was like, oh really? What do I have to do? She said I just have to listen to a 90 minute presentation about Colonial Crossings of Williamsburg.

Ah hah! A timeshare! Becca and I are saving for a house, so I had no fear of getting talked into purchasing, so after talking it over with her, we decided to go for it.

Then the “gotchas” started showing up. They required a $10 reservation fee. And $5 hotel tax (which actually ended up being $7.50, and almost $15 if we didn’t catch the billing error). The additional vacation was just another timeshare. And although we were led to believe that we’d be staying at the resort, we actually were put up in one of the shiftiest hotels in town. The carpets had dirt clumps on them, we found a child’s toy next to the bed, and the towel rack literally fell off of the wall. Shifty.

I later discovered (thanks to Google) that this is a sales technique. Once at the presentation, the salesperson can say somehing like, “Now, wouldn’t you rather spend your vacation here instead of a hotel?” at which point you think “wow, my hotel room really did suck” and you plop down $35,000.

Oh I didn’t get to the $35,000 part yet? Well, that is how much your fancy 1-week at the resort will cost. Plus quarterly maintenance fees that can go up in price without notice. Plus a yearly fee if you want the book that lets you trade your week at different resorts. Plus a few hundred dollars if you do want to trade your week at another resort. And that is just for the place you sleep. What about food? Souveniers? Admission to attractions? Trust me, it is not cheaper to buy a resort (at least not at the retail price).

But yes, we got our $50, so we came out ahead. I had to sign for my money, and was able to see what others got. Some were being paid as much as $120 to come listen to the presentation. I guess I should have held out for more money.

ABA Number Lookup is super easy to use and can be incredibly useful. Lets say you need your bank’s routing number, but they have a thousand help pages and the routing number is buried deep within them. Go to ABA Number Lookup, punch in the bank name, and voila! Every routing number used by the bank is displayed. An ACH services phone number for the bank if displayed as well in case you need/want to call to verify the number.

I am also working on a free API that will go along with the site. The API will allow you to make a query against my database for a specific ABA/routing number. If the routing number is found, it will return the appropriate bank information. If it isn’t found, then you know the number is invalid. Many places charge as much as $0.50 per query for this data! Insane, right? The data is free so we are going to provide access to the data for free, too.

Have a suggestion or find a problem? Please leave a comment!

NuRide

According to NuRide’s website:

NuRide is the nation’s largest online ridesharing community where members are rewarded for sharing rides. NuRide is free to join and free to use and is supported by sponsors who reward NuRide members for reducing global warming, traffic congestion and energy consumption.

Since I started using NuRide in June, I’ve received the following awards:

• $5 Starbucks gift card
• $5 Starbucks gift card
• $10 Old Navy gift card
• $10 T.G.I. Friday’s gift card
• $5 Burger King gift card

That is $35 just for carpooling! That isn’t even counting the savings in wear and tear on my vehicle because I only drive every other day now.

In addition to the gift cards, I was entered into a drawing for a $250 gas card (I didn’t win), and am currently entered into a drawing for a $500 Visa gift card.

MyPoints

According to Mypoints’ website:

Earn Points when you shop, book travel, play online games, take surveys, search the Web, and do other easy, everyday things.

Redeem your Points for gift cards, online certificates, gas cards, travel, dining and more– all from your favorite brands. It’s easy, fast and free!

I’ve been using MyPoints since 1999, and have earned dozens of rewards without spending a dime more than I would’ve already have spent. Just in the past few months I’ve earned:

• $50 Wal-Mart gift card
• $25 Wal-Mart gift card
• $25 Wal-Mart gift card

That is $100 in free money just for going through their website when I buy stuff and for responding to emails.

My Coke Rewards

I started using My Coke Rewards a few months back when I started buying Fresca on a fairly regular basis. Basically, you buy Coke products (Coke, Fresca, Minute Maid juice, Poweraide…), get the code from the bottle, enter it online, and claim a reward.

I’ve since stopped buying soda almost entirely, but even with the few points I pick up now and then from friends and family, I’ve earned the following:

• Free 12-pack of Coke
• Free 12-pack of Coke
• $2 Subway gift card
• $2 Subway gift card
• $2 Subway gift card
• $2 Subway gift card
• $2 Subway gift card

Again, that is around $18 of free stuff just by being slightly annoying and bugging my co-workers, fiancee, and friends to give me their bottle caps.

Work

At work I jokingly said that I should get a reward for performing a task that is outside of my normal job requirements. I wasn’t expecting them to actually get me anything, but they got me (and everyone else that participated in the task) a:

• $25 Shell gas card

Summary

Individually it may not seem like a lot, but for just a tiny bit of effort I’ve managed to get around $175 in gift cards.