Category: Internet

How often in the past have ignorant ivory tower government officials tried to impose supposedly inane IT security measures, which on closer inspection are completely infeasible in terms of the existing technologies? Going overboard along a single front line of defense is not the right answer and is plainly insane. As even more draconian measures are imposed, following a just-in-case mentality, there remain much easier and less obvious means to hack into a given corporation. Remember the Maginot line which was simply bypassed by the Germans during the first world war? We should learn from our mistakes in the past and just get along with our work without unnecessary barbed wire, trenches and imaginary Maginot lines.

Despite the huge hype about ChatGPT these days, I still entertain a negative feeling towards all of the so-called amazing promises that this wonderful new technology has to offer us.

However, before I go too far sticking my neck out spewing negativities, I figured it would be better if I first learn more details about what this new technology is under the hood and what it has really to offer. For me, for my surroundings and for the rest of society.

That's why I have signed up for for a course and am following it now.

ChatGPT - The Complete Guide to ChatGPT & OpenAI APIs

@kiffin

There are a number of important life changes that affect who we are and who we try to act like we are. That means that it is time to select a new avatar for my various rampaging adventures in the virtual world. Therefore, I hereby introduce you to my new and improved avatar. As I have observed on the Internet, a proper avatar should reflect your essence, distinguish itself from the crowd such that people will remember you, protect you from abuse and defend you from attacks from others (note my helmet by the way), and finally the proper avatar should provide you with some magical qualities that will make you a winner wherever your virtual soul shall travel. Taking all of that into consideration, I am very pleased with my new avatar and look forward to embalming myself in its essence as my life goes on. While perusing all these strange thoughts, I spotted the innocent trash can over there under my desk, and that is when it hit me. Wish me luck.

This blog is more than twenty years old, can you believe it? I was one of the first pioneers in those days who dared explore the rough seas of the emerging Internet by setting up my own personal website. In all that time, I have been able to sustain things just fine using an old version of Movable Type which back in those days was quite the hype and advanced tool.

Since then much has happened in the wonderful world of Internet, but I have never felt a need to change anything about this old-fashioned blogging tool. Built, configured and up and running. It's been working just fine, so why change it?

Famous last words. A couple weeks ago, my Internet savvy daughter warned me that this website was not safe. She noticed that the lock icon was missing. Still using plain vanilla http as it was meant to be back in the good old days. Now we have to be overly cautious and secure everything we do on the Internet, especially including websites.

I ignored her warnings (sorry Sabien) figuring that no one would want to hack such a boring website like this. But lo and behold, no more than two days later it happened, hacked and broken real good.

Okay I get the hint now, so it was high time to do something about it. The big bad world of Internet is going to pot.

Purchased and installed an SSL certificate, and as you can now see by the little lock in the url, the connection is secure and the certificate is valid:

I managed to find an old article (2010) explaining how to do this, which was very helpful. Without this archaic information, I'm sure that I never would have been able to figure it out on my own.

See: Secure the Back End of Movable Type 4 (or 5): SSL and Mod Rewrite.

Not too long ago the buying price was only around $1000, and at the time I found it way too expensive. Even offered first $50 and then $200, but to no avail. Now the price has sky-rocketed for some strange reason, the going price exploding to more than $32,000. What am I supposed to do now?

Ironically, this domain name was originally owned by some old guy named Gilbert who lived in North Virginia at the time. He had a minimalist website dedicated to none other than Kiffin Rockwell. The website consisted of two pages, a landing page stating that this website was dedicated to Kiffin Rockwell, with a single link to the About page which was blank.

I contacted him on several occasions explaining that my name is Kiffin and that I had dedicated a whole section to Kiffin Rockwell on my website. Would it be possible to purchase the domain name kiffin.com from him? No no, he was not willing to do that. He gave me the same no answer each time I tried to explain things. Now I am pretty sure that he has passed away and my chance at ever-lasting fame has gone up in smoke. Which is all kind of ironic, considering that his so-called dedication to Kiffin Rockwell was a sick joke in comparison to the loads of information and links I had researched and collected on my KYR webpage.

Life swings from one extreme to the other without taking good guys into account, and I will just have to accept this and get on with my life.

They say that web components is the future of web development, so it is important to learn more about it so that I will be better prepared for this upcoming technology.

Therefore, I purchased the Web Components & Stencil.js - Build Custom HTML Elements and am currently sawing my way through it.

Some interesting references to get a head start:

• MDN | Web Components
• Google | Building Components
• Webcomponents.org

Yesterday I was lucky and by chance happened to discover that the domain name kiffin.nl was available. So without blinking an eye I claimed it immediately.

For the time being until I figure out a better way to use it, this future famous website can now be reached using that domain name as well.

I've been waiting a long time now for the kiffin.com domain name to become free. Currently it points to an ugly and boring website which hasn't changed in ten years and doesn't do justice to my honorable name.

I have to wait patiently and hope that I can claim it in the not so distant future.

Decided to nuke my facebook account and get out of there before it was too late. Obliterated every last remnant of my mind and soul from that evil place. Hopefully, at least. The idea that they can freely abuse my personal information, chop up my DNA and redistribute it randomly, and then make money off of it behind my back is not only unfair but in my view unethical as well. The sad part is that so many poor souls out there still do not realize what they are getting into. Like giving candy to an unknowing and naive kid. Tracking my behavior, saving information about me and analyzing who I am is a repugnant thought. Maybe I am exaggerating and sounding overly emotional, getting slightly paranoid in my old age, but I feel much better now. What a relief, it feels as if I've been liberated just in the nick of time from some entangled web of doom. Good riddance facebook ...

Permanently delete your Facebook account in four easy steps.

Remember when the Netscape Navigator first went public and how much in awe you were with such an amazing feat of new technology?

At the time it was the most advanced web browser around and for me it's appearance in my life became an instant eye-opener.

That's when I started to become addicted to HTML, reading those cryptic specifications, and then taking the high ideals of sharing information openly to heart, being able to make a difference on your own.

When I learned about this new-fangled markup language, I tried it out myself. Low and behold, I could point my browser to the local file and it worked effortlessly. Better yet, I could even put it on a remote server, give it an url, and allow my family and friends to view it also.

Pictures of the kids so my mother could see them, some boring pieces of poetry I had written or an interesting blob explaining what I had done that day.

Just when things were becoming bright and dandy, that's when Microsoft came along and dashed things, party-pooper.

That was a little over fifteen years ago, and Internet technology has become alot more complicated since those naive days of yore.

All of sudden kiffingish.com was no longer available, and for the life of me I could not figure out what was wrong. It had simply vanished into thin air.

After several days of investigating this most ornery of problems, I was finally able to figure it out.

Turns out that when I upgraded to a faster subscription, my ISP decided to switch my IP address without notifying me, those jerks.

I never realized that there were so many other Kiffins out there.

Just for fun I did a search on Facebook for other people also named Kiffin, and I came up with a whole list of folks sharing my first name.

There are even a couple of girls named Kiffin. Never would have expected that but why not?

When I was a kid I always wondered if there was another Kiffin on the planet and hoped and prayed that some day I could happen to meet this person.

Something else that I didn't quite expect is that almost all of them are much younger than I, some still in high school.

I'd be very curious to find out how they got their first name and what life is like for them sharing this unusual name.

Here's a cool game and it's for free. It's called Battle of Wesnoth, and it definitely worth trying out.

I've played it for many hours now and am afraid that I am slowly but surely becoming addicted to it.

Good stuff while commuting on the train and there is nothing else worthwhile to do.

Are you getting just as worried as I am about the future of Internet radio and all those crazy rulings that the government is trying to impose in favor of the greedy and unrealistic music industry monopolies?

If your answer is YES, then perhaps you should help do something about it.

Save Internet radio now!

Finally got Internet up and running after all these boring weeks without being able to surf the web, changing service providers is no easy task that's for sure.

In the meantime, have a fun and relaxing 2007 if possible.

A network's usefulness is proportional to the square of the number of its users, meaning that its value grows exponentially as the user population increases.

One equals one, two equals four, four equals sixteen, sixteen equals two hundred and fifty six, two hundred and fifty six equals sixty five thousand five hundred and thirty six, and so on.

"As the demand for voice, data and video applications increase, delivering higher bandwidth, lower cost and value-added services to the users becomes a major challenge to Internet Service Providers. Today, a brand new type of competition is emerging: Voice over IP (VoIP) has become the killer application for ISP to challenge established telecom operators. This not only means huge saving of communication cost to users, but also helps service providers to generate new revenue, new subscribers, and even gain a stronger position in the shuffling new market..."

Got my ZyXEL P-2602H-63/63C ADSL 2+ VoIP IAD¹ over ISDN plugged in, installed and up-and-running in no time. Never thought it would be no hassle at all. Just tossed my current modem overboard, hooked in the new one, fiddled with a couple settings, and there it was.

This modem is known as a so-called Voice/Data Integrated Access Solution for Residential Users, including the following features:

• ADSL, ADSL2/2+ support
• SIP (RFC3261) Support with 2 phone ports for VoIP
• Support QoS to prioritize voice and data traffics
• Auto Provisioning for easy deployment

Telephone calling over the Internet could not be easier. So far the quality seems almost if not just as good as fixed line, even when the kids are chatting away with MSN Messenger and/or playing Battlefield 2 online.

¹ Oh yeah, IAD stands for Integrated Access Device (in case you were wondering).

So why the heck would anyone in their right mind want to choose SOAP over XML-RPC?

Well for one thing, SOAP has more capabilities and supports a document model which is less restrictive than the more typical request and response call patterns typical of XML-RPC. For example, there is no easy way in XML-RPC to return error codes of different types.

Also, SOAP conversations can be designed around multiple service nodes, splitting up and divvying out the various message parts to be taken care of by the most relevant server. Later all of the responses are collected and passed back in a unified message response, just like magic.

Finally, messages can define for themselves what encoding they want to use, e.g. the one that they know is the most appropriate for a given conversation.

Yes, but what about all the extra amount of overhead? Isn't there a big performance hit?

Actually, SOAP is nothing more than a thin additional envelope around XML-RPC. What most people do not realize is that XML-RPC is already based to a large degree on the core elements of SOAP architecture.

The truth of the matter is that XML-RPC was split off from the initial design when someone became impatient with the slow progress of moving on with the original SOAP specifications.

For those of you still awake who find this tantalizing stuff, here is another interesting reference.

One big advantage of VoIP over traditional telephony is that the call-management functions are decoupled from the voice transmission functions.

This means that when offering new services it is no longer necessary to alter the core network anymore thereby greatly speeding up time-to-market.

One disadvantage however is that some form of quality-of-service must be supported in the protocol in order to make VoIP as reliable as good old telephones are.

We become what we end up finding, and the complete randomness of this pursuit is much more powerful than we now realize.

In the good old days, this was a relatively simple process which we pretty much had under control.

Now with the advent of Internet this responsibility has been put in the hands of others.

Be careful out there.

Since I am absolutely convinced that Internet Telephony is quickly becoming the name of the game, I have decided to give it a go myself by building my very own ultimate hacker's PBX based on Asterisk.

That's why I was so happy when the doorbell rang and the smiling mailman greeted me with my latest shipment from Amazon which included the book Asterisk: The Future of Telephony.

Here is a a reference guide to all things VOIP in case you are interested.

Wish me luck with this noble pursuit (not that I am busy enough with other stuff).

The triple play to which I am referring has nothing at all to do with baseball. For the sake of clarity, here is simple recipe you can follow in order to create this interesting challenge.

Slowly but surely broadband Internet is becoming cheaper and faster. Take for instance ADSL which in Europe is becoming very popular at the moment. This is no different from other Internet technologies in that it is improving in leaps and bounds.

English  Dutch

Normally I have alot of patience, but now I am raising my hands and giving up, that's it, I've had it.

"... lose weight while you sleep, pharmacy with smart prices, hydrocodone and vicodin, software cheaper than cheap, buy viagra lowest prices, horny teen girls, save hundreds of dollars, mortgage at even lower rates, make your penis bigger and harder, you won't believe it, no pumps, weights or exercise ..."

As of today there will be no more kiffin@gish.demon.nl email address. Close it down, see you later, oh well.

I have decided to remove this fine email address, because it is completely drowning under spam. I have now reached an all time high of more than 250 spam mails a day and am completely unable to swim through it and filter out the "real" messages for me.

Thanks alot all you abusive and inconsiderate jerks!

[Note: Family and friends can still contact me via my personal email of course. For those others still wanting to contact me, you can always send me a message via my email page]

Do you spend much of your time surfing around the Internet endlessly trying to keep updated and get the feeling that it must be easier?

Well then, you are certainly in luck!

That's because FeedDemon 1.0 is now available!

This is a MUST buy for anyone serious about overcoming the cumbersome never-ending pursuit of all that information out there hoping to become better some day.

For a mere $29.95 this state-of-the-art product is a true steal, so get it now.

The FeedDemon RSS Reader is now part of my Windows startup. So every morning I take my first sips of coffee perusing this wonderful world of information which has opened up for me.

So addictive though, and where does one stop?

Give it a try and you will just love it, I'm sure.

Whatever you do, you cannot miss this. Spam Radio! This web site is a very hilarious parody on all those awful unsolicited emails which have been flooding the Internet.

"Using a complex arrangement of pipes and funnels we turn the junk mail that we receive into a streaming audio broadcast that can be enjoyed from anywhere on the Internet..."

Pretty darn funny. My favorite is 13ft ejaculation.

According to the NetGenesis (SPSS) Glossary of terms:

"Churn measures how much of your customer base 'rolls over' during a given period of time. To calculate churn, divide the number of customers who attrite during the given time period by the total number of customers at the end of the time period."

You can then see how important it is to track the churn-rate and if it is becoming too great then you must do something about it or else.

Here are the most recent top searches on the Cyber-Gish web site:

• 3 switserland
• 2 bag of bones
• 2 etom
• 2 mother treaser
• 2 polls about nervousness
• 2 timeline
• 2 toilets
• 1 beau
• 1 beaucourt
• 1 bugs
• 1 comment leaders
• 1 dhtml
• 1 drinking cofee statistics
• 1 grand mere
• 1 gsus
• 1 history of the origin the yellow rose of texas
• 1 hp deskjet 720c software
• 1 karssemeijer
• 1 kathleen
• 1 medieval total war

Special thanks goes to the fine folks at Atomz from whom I receive these search reports on a regular basis.

I finally figured out that problem that has been bugging the heck out of me for many months and months now.

You see, for some reason certain hyperlinks just would not work any more within the Internet Explorer browser. Completely dead links gone and turned to extreme nothingness. You click on them with the mouse and nothing happens! Which links exactly was impossible to predict.

This just popped up one day on my Windows XP Pro desktop. Everything was working just fine and dandy until then. If I am logged into it everything works just fine (of course, because I have administrator rights), but when anyone else is logged on or if the good old guest account is being used, the links just would not work (of course, because these accounts have limited user rights). Dead links deader than a dead door nail.

This has been a real drag, because ideally our desktops in the new room are used for browsing the Internet. In a mad attempt to seek out the problem and destroy it I tried everything imaginable. I tried reinstalling the latest browser versions and Windows patches, disabling the startup programs, unchecking the running services, uninstalling various suspicious programs, but nothing helped. Not a single darn thing.

So I did yet another search via Google, which I had already done a million times without any leads. But this time around I did a search for something ever so slightly different, like "my links do not work on internet explorer for some weird reason." Lo and behold I happened upon a question by some other poor fool who had the same problem. The very same problem. can you believe it!?

And you know what the cause of this problem is? The answer: a third-party downloader piece of junk called Star Downloader! Watch out and beware, remove move it immediately. This program has an option you can check to enable the so-called Internet Explorer integration. It runs ever so quietly in the background and secretly hooks into the links. You click and it sees if the link is a download link and then if it is it pulls this download event into its own program which fires up for you. Pretty neat, huh? As long as it works. Destroy that piece of junk.

Now everything works just fine and I fell pretty relieved. Really and really relieved. Like there is still hope out there. That the world can be saved in small and integral ways, bits and pieces. At least I am still capable of being productive once in awhile.