Check out this interactive web tool decoding US zip (postal) codes.

Click on the map to start, then click the word ‘zoom’ on in the bottom right area of the map. Now type a zip code in one digit at a time and map will zoom in step-by-step to the place referred to by that zip code. A useful tool, but also a fun demonstration of the power of interactive web technologies.

Ping-o-Matic! is a service that can be pinged when a new entry is added to your blog, and they will then ping a number of other aggregator services.

“So what?” you ask… well, they also have a list of the last 100 sites that pinged them. I spent a very long time just selecting a link, opening a new tab and going to the link. A few don’t work, a few are in foreign languages, but most are blogs to check out. Some personal, some small businesses. The only down side is that they are not clickable links at the moment.

For clickable links, you could try weblogs.com instead (Ping-O-Matic! pings weblogs.com).

Update: Seconds after posting this, I try to go back to weblogs.com and I am presented with a username/password box. I guess that they are having server troubles (it is an MS IIS that they are running on according to the error I got by not giving them a username/password).

The blog spam finally annoyed me enough to switch from MoveableType to WordPress. It took a little while to get everything the way I wanted it.

I started by installing it in a separate directory that I could play in while I got the various things sorted out. Installation was trivial following the 5-minute install instructions. After that I spent a long time working on the style sheet to get it to look close to my old MT one, and a few moments working on the index.php file.

Finally, I had to import all the old entries from my MT weblog. This took a few attempts to get right, but with some patches for both MT and WordPress from DrBacchus’ Journal and a slightly modified version of the Apache re-write engine rules from the same site, I have all the old entries imported and hopefully all the magic in place to fixup old links.

For those, like me, that have to use the .htaccess approach to the URL fixing, here’s the content of the .htaccess file I placed in my blog’s home directory:

# Movable Type -> WordPress fu
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^archives/([0-9]*).html index.php?p=$1 [PT]
RewriteRule ^archives/([0-9]*)_([0-9]*).html index.php?m=$1$2 [PT]
RewriteRule ^index.rdf$ wp-rss2.php [PT]

That seems to allow the links in search engines at least to find their way to the new home for my old entries (if you find any that are broken please send me the link). It also works for links using my sub-domain link mechanism.

Now it is all in place, and I hope working. WordPress has a number of options for dealing with the blog spam too (some of which are available in newer versions of MT too, but there were just too many hoops to jump through to get a newer version of MT).

Yahoo! Mail, my long time free webmail provider has just (literally in the last few minutes) gone live with their improved interface and the huge increase in storage from 6MB (which was sometimes difficult to keep under, especially before they stopped counting the spam folder in that total) to a whopping 100MB. Way to go Yahoo!

The message from the mail team announcing the changes reads:

Dear Yahoo! Mail User,

Thanks for using Yahoo! Mail. It’s our goal to offer you an email experience that makes it easy and enjoyable to stay in touch. Periodically, we make service changes to enhance that experience for our users. As of June 15, 2004, you’ll enjoy the following benefits:

• Increased storage capacity – from your current level to 100MB
• Increase in total message size to 10MB
• A streamlined interface that’s even easier to use

You will continue to access your Yahoo! Mail account as usual. No further action is required, and there will be no interruption of your service.

We hope you enjoy the new features and benefits. If you have any questions, please visit our Help page. Thanks again for using Yahoo! Mail.

Sincerely,
The Yahoo! Mail Team

I’ve had a little spate of blog spam recently (for those that don’t know what this is, imagine the spam you get in your mailbox for adult products, but posted as a comment on a blog entry). I can’t tell if the choice of entry is random, or whether they are picking on specific keywords – they are all older entries though.

I have MovableType set to email me whenever a comment is posted, so removing them so far has not been a major problem (along with banning the IP address they originated from, though that is almost not worth it since they are most often dynamically assigned, and these people jump from ISP to ISP anyway).

Instead, I chose to search out some countermeasures. The goal was to make sure that anybody posting a comment did not have to suffer, but any bots out there scanning for comment posting links would be confused. I found a lot of good information for MovableType users at Yoz Grahame’s blog, and also a reference there to this entry at Burningburd both of which provided some useful suggestions for simple countermeasures. More robust techniques are probably needed for the scum who are posting this stuff manually.

For those interested, here’s the hall of shame to date (i.e. the domains where the postings came from):

Just wanted to post a brief note to thank the support guys at phpwebhosting.com – the folks that host blueDonkey.org. Sometime last week I noticed that the ImageMagick perl plugin, that MovableType uses to create those little thumbnail images, was not working. Nick and Greg tracked down the problem (turned out to be problems with the latest RedHat Enterprise edition of Linux that the servers are running), and then built & installed replacements. All now working again.

I think in the year that I’ve had the site running I’ve only had two or three issues like this, and every time they’ve fixed it quickly. I would recommend them to anybody looking for a hosting company!

The more observant readers might have noticed the syndication link appear down there on the left hand side of this page. Actually, the blog has always been available to RSS headline services, but I’ve never put up the link.

Recently I have been playing with syndication of news services and even other blogs. My office machine has had the kNewsTicker running for some time, but with mostly large news organisations or the popular open-source software sites in the feeds list.

Yesterday, as well as enabling the link on my blog, I also installed the Undercover News applet for Konfabulator on my PowerBook, and I added the beta RSS service to the My Yahoo! portal page I use.

What feeds am I watching? On my Mac desktop I have the following:

• The Register [XML]
• BBC News [XML]
• Wired Daily Top Stories [XML]

On my Yahoo! home page I have the following:

• The Register [XML]
• BBC News [XML]
• BBC UK News [XML]
• BBC Technology News [XML]
• Wired Daily Top Stories [XML]
• Slashdot [XML]
• Bill Maher’s Blog [XML]

I don’t have a good Windows headline viewer recommendation – if you do please leave me a comment. For that matter, if you have a good RSS headline reader application or news ticker for any platform leave me a comment. Oh, and remember to add my blog to your list of feeds.

Check out SFGIS – San Francisco Enterprise GIS. A very interesting site for those living in the city of San Francisco, or thinking of moving there, but also of interest perhaps to people in other cities as a sign of what might be coming (many cities are now using this technology, but just not making it available online).

In particular, look up an address using the SFParcel tool, then when the detailed map appears click the Photos button over the map to add the overhead photo underlay to the map. Very, very cool. For those outside of SF who want some addresses to start with try:

• 1 California Street
• 600 Montgomery Steet (the Transamerica Tower)
• Block 9900 Lot 039 (Pier 39)
• 1047 Lombard Street (the crooked street)
• 280 Telegraph Hill Blvd (Coit Tower)

New York residents should take a look at their city’s system: New York State GIS Clearinghouse. I could not find the same easy access to maps there based on street address, but the Raster Imagery is pretty impressive if you know where you want to look.