Bing.com, formerly Live Search (live.com), formerly Windows Live Search, formerly MSN Search (msn.com), went fully online June 3 2009.

It sports some cool new features (specifically with video and image searches) but I just don’t get Microsoft. I’ve read the history behind this decision and I have a decent grasp on the business reasons behind it. But seriously, isn’t this just another example of Microsoft throwing a bunch of money at something needlessly? They are spending $80 – $100 million to advertise this ‘new’ search engine which, when it comes down to it, is just msn search with a new skin and some cool new bells and whistles. Why not just keep the branding they already have?

Business decisions and branding aside, I thought I’d give bing a try (the proof being in the pudding and whatnot). So far, I haven’t found a reason why it is any better than Google or Yahoo. I will continue using Google as my search engine of choice and don’t see switching any time soon.

If you would like to read more about this, Wikipedia is a good place to start.

jQuery for Absolute Beginners from ThemeForest.net

Here are some great examples of the technology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
http://www.truveo.com/augmented-reality-magic-10/id/2847581887
http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/?c_id=FM#/augmented_reality
http://www.stijnzeeman.com/post/117047307/is-this-real-bmw-augmented-reality

Things should be looking schnazzy again in no time

I ran across some panoramic virtual tours I did a few years back. These are of my parents house from back when I was first learning the technology.

Here are a few more I have created since then:

Warehouse Condos
Rabbit Rock
Witches Gulch
241 Parkview
Ray Kretz Industrial Forest

Enjoy.

If anyone has a link to the Holy Grail of USB Flash Drive Autorun please comment below

Here is what I used
(used it to autorun a Flash Windows Projector file):

Create an Autorun.inf file and place it at the root of your flash drive along with your program files.

Here is the link where most the info I used was found.

Change to the directory you want changed, then run these;

Will set permission for all files to 644 and all directories to 755.

This works for pretty much any Linux server.

As business increases I have recognized the need to use a project management and CRM software solution. Keeping track of 3-4 concurrent projects can be done in your head, but increase that to 12-15 and things start slipping through the cracks! I recently started using the solutions offered by 37signals.com and I am very impressed!

This may sound like a paid review, but trust me it is not. I do get 50% off my monthly fee if you click the links on this post and sign up – but that is not the reason I have written this. In the short time I have used these solutions I have become more productive, things are getting done more efficiently and my clients are happy. At first the monthly fee put me off, but if being more organized means getting even one more project in a month its paid for itself many times over.

I reviewed many other solutions from open source (www.opensourcecms.com look under ‘groupware’) to paid solutions (www.activecollab.com) and ended up back at 37signals.

Both these solutions are highly recommended.

If you run into this issue you have 2 choices.

1. Change mod_security
2. Use a simple workaround

I opt for #2. Changing mod_security is complex and the inability to use these words is there for a reason. They are commands that can cause some serious havoc to your server if abused. So, instead of gimping your security simply do the following:

use   (non-breaking space HTML element)

To use these words in this post I did the following:

Title: curl & wget in WordPress posts
In a sentence: “…the word wget in my code examples…”

Just make sure you never have the problem word, then a normal space, then any text. It will cause the 403 error.

Originally posted at www.jaguarpc.com by thisisit3

- START

Contrary to popular belief, spam is easy to combat. All it takes is a well configured SpamAssassin running on the server. Unfortunately the definition of “well configured” is very loosely defined in this context as its completely different for every domain/server.

One such example is the average person who blocks emails that contain the word “viagra”, but an actual medical doctor may use that word rather regularly.

So here is how to make SpamAssassin block 99% of spam:

STEP 1 – Raise score for Realtime Blackhole lists (RBL)

The default scores for RBLs are set too low. For example, if an email is marked as spam by SORBS then there is no reason giving it a score of 2. Based on my tests over a two year period RBLs are very safe to use. There are some issues with SpamCop but those always resolve after a few days.

Edit your “/etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf” and add:

Code:

STEP 2 – Raise score for BAYES

The default scores for BAYES are set to the lowest possible. These scores are automaticaly generated by a special script used by the developers of SpamAssassin and its generates the score based on all the rules. Unfortunately the high probability scores are too low, for example a 90% probability is a definit spam, so there is no reason why its score should be 2.

Edit your “/etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf” and add:

Code:

STEP 3 – S.A. Rules Emporium (SARE)

There is a special team of commandos who track daily spam. These guys have sat down and written rules that target specific strings within spam. One such tick is to scan for telephones and addresses used in spam, thus they don’t need to look for “viagra” in all its different variations instead they look for the phone or address of the guy selling them. As a result, their rules allow a doctor to get emails with “viagra” in them, while blocking spam at the same time.

These guys go even further, they have rules for:
- Rules to detect commonly abused redirectors and uri obfuscation techniques.
- Addresses and phone numbers harvested from spam
- Bayes poison using lists of words with equal length
- HTML coding rules that detect various spammer tricks applied through HTML coding within messages
- Header rules that are not found in other SARE rulesets.
- Rule set which flags specific spam and/or spam from specific spammers
- SARE Adult rules are designed to catch spam with “Adult” material.
- SARE “BML” rules are designed to catch “business, marketing and educational” spam.
- SARE Fraud rules are designed to catch “Nigerian 419″, “International Lotto”, etc. type scams.
- LOADS OF OTHERS…

Their website is at: http://www.rulesemporium.com/

Below are the safest rule sets which can be used everywhere. Just go to your “/etc/mail/spamassassin/” directory and run the following commands from the shell, thats all you need to do, they are automatically included when SA scans that directory.

Code:

STEP 4 – Final step

Finally, make sure your required score is still set to the default 5 because all the above rules expect that it hasn’t been changed.

Code:

Once you’ve run your system with the above and you are comfortable with the results, you may automaticaly delete spam with a score of 8 or more. The safest way is to create a filter rule in cPanel (Mail -> Email Filtering):

Code:

The result is this:

$message_headers contains “X-Spam-Level: ********”

- END

I’ll add that if you have PLESK you can make this last change by editing the ’spam filter’ setting instead.