Establishing an online identity is really quite hard. For instance, until around a week ago if you performed a Google search on the keyword “Mitch Malone” I would come up as the top 10 search results. I am unsure of what has changed, but now suddenly someone from a drilling program who shares my name is number 1. Secondly, I had once owned the domain name www.mitchmalone.com and let it expire and now it’s some kind of bogus flower shop. I’m honestly not phased by either of these, but it raises a point; who knows the real me from the other Mitch Malone or some bogus website? Enter ClaimID!
Straight from the ClaimID about page; ClaimID is a service that lets you claim the information that is about you online. That information is then associated with your name, providing folks an easy way to see what is and isn’t about you online. Simply put, you make a page that lists all your pages, simple huh? And once the site grows much larger, it will make it easy to find anyone who wishes to be searchable.
So let’s take a few seconds to have a look why it’s such a big deal to a geek like me by listing websites that are associated with my ClaimID account and the ones that are not my own. Firstly, let’s start with my websites:
And a few sites that aren’t mine, but still show up in the top 10 list of results:
And then the websites about me that I didn’t know existed:
* Denotes a webpage that is listed in the top 10 results of searching Google for my name
** Deontes top 20
So we start noticing some major problems in just punching in my name into Google. Firstly we notice that the most major website, the one that uses my name (http://www.mitchmalone.name/) doesn’t even list in the top 10. This site in my opinion when searching by a name should always come up first, regardless of relevancy since it is a name search and not a keyword search. Perhaps Google will concider this in the future?
So what gives? The solution is simple, check out my Claim ID Profile (http://claimid.com/MitchMalone)! It lists the websites that are about me and that I know of and verify that are about me. Some of the sites are verified for authenticity by me adding code into them, some of them are sites I have no control over the code, but regardless it’s a way of verifying if something you are viewing is about me.
If you want to protect your online security, go register at ClaimID, they are currently allowing free memberships still I believe and it’s a fantastic way to ensure that the next time your boss finds your name associated with a well-hung porn star he knows it’s not you – unless of course that’s your thing.
If you used my RSS Feeds you will not notice that the website looks pretty and new. I was up half the night last night getting it to look and behave correctly, and most of this morning reimplementing the features I previously had on the site.
Firstly you will notice that the main page is much simpler, with things like archives, recent entries, about, blogroll etc. being hidden in a “shelf”. I realise this is either going to be a very big hit or a very big miss, so I am relying on feedback from the readers to tell me if this suits you or not.
Also the color scheme is very different. For the moment I like it, but I also realise it is very plain and I will probably get rid of it. Feedback here is welcome too.
Right now it’s 5:10pm and I am really tired, I’m going to go for a jog to pep myself back up and then I am going to be doing some reading. That’s Mitch, over and out!
That really is the question. I’ve been working on redesign ideas late at night for several weeks now, tossing around ideas and different themes, trying to find one that fits what I want the site to look like, but nothing I seem to do feels right. I usually work between midnight and 4am on nights when I have trouble sleeping and by the time I get close to a design I like I end up disabling it, going to bed and then hating it in the morning.
As of tonight I am beginning to work on some updates to the site. I am pretty confident that the style I am going to stick with is the Hemingway style from Warpspire and the color scheme will probably mirror that of the Ubuntu color scheme. I really love the simplicity of the Hemingay design and I really think the Ubuntu guys have an awesome color palette that I just may steal from.
I will be disabling a lot of the plugins and a lot of functionality will disappear from the site while I work on the updates and reintegrating them, but at the end it will be sexier than ever! So everyone bare with me over the next few days/weeks while I work on getting this site to a new, improved version. It’ll be BonT v2.0 to suit Mitch v2.0!
If you hate waking up as much as I do, you should know it’s always better when you wake up to some good music. I use Citrus Alarm Clock to wake me up in the morning with one of my favorite playlists, give it a whirl!
Flickr boredom buster: fd’s Flickr Toys
Ever lied to a friend you saw Michael Jackson live and they don’t believe you, you lying peice of crap? Well now you can create some fake proof (if there is such a thing) with the concert ticket generator!
There is a lot of the Google universe that is in beta at the moment and invite only, so here is your chance to land an invite to three of their most popular services! All you have to do is comment to this entry and while I have invites I will continue to send them out. I’d really love a link back or trackback, but it’s not required to earn an invite. Just make sure you enter your name and address properly into the fields and let me know which service you’d like the invite to.
Gmail
Gmail is an experiment in a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want.
Search, don’t sort – Use Google search to find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received.
Don’t throw anything away – Over 2753.868460 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you’ll never need to delete another message.
Keep it all in context – Each message is grouped with all its replies and displayed as a conversation.
Writely
Writely is an online word processor and more. It allows for collaboration of documents, uploading of many common file formats, e-mail documents into accounts, all in an easy to use interface.
Orkut
Orkut is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends. Orkut committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests.
AOL Proudly Releases Massive Amounts of Private Data and the data is even publicly downloadable. Seems all those questions about Google can be laid to rest, if you are paranoid about personal privacy, it’s clear who you should avoid!
Dr. DivX looks like a handy way to convert movie files into DivX format!
Happy Birthday World Wide Web! Very cool, considering I’ve been browsing (amongst other internect activity) for at least 12 years of it’s 15 year life. Who remembers that browser called Netscape and Alta Vista? Oh wait, they’re still alive? D’oh!
Spam is a funny thing in a day like today, it makes one wonder about the point. With spam filtration so paranoid that when I send a photo to a friend via e-mail it gets sent to their hotmail spambox, how spammers hope for their e-mail to be read really makes one wonder. I receive, on average, around 100-200 spam e-mails a week to my G-Mail account and approximately 1% actually make it to my inbox. With statistics like that I honestly wonder why spammers bother and what kind of possible success they hope to receive from it.
This morning I looked in my spambox and checked that nothing important had been caught and noticed the trends happening in trying to get the spam e-mails received by the recipient. Things such as “Re:” at the beginning of the e-mail would probably work on a bad spam-protection system, but G-Mail is obviously smart enough to know that the originating e-mail wasn’t sent, so therefor a reply would be impossible.
The next trend I notice was a little dash of l33t-sp34k (elite speak). Obviously no one wants an e-mail about “viagra” but “v1agra” could possibly get through some low level spam scripts. The obvious flaw with this is the fact that most people don’t understand l33t-sp34k and therefor wouldn’t read the e-mail.
Dear Spammer,
No one cares. Take the hint.
Love always,
Mitch
Just a quick question for anyone who comments: Just hot long has it been since you opened a spam e-mail by accident and then you were stupid enough to click a link? Have you ever?
This has to be the coolest link I’ve ever posted into my Asides category. It’s Text Based Star Wars! All you need is a telnet client and you’re watching!
Today marks a change in my life. It’s only change one of a series that will happen over the next few months, but it’s a change for a better, happier person. Today I sold my car, a car I have loved for 5 years now, a 2000-model Subaru Impreza WRX. It was a great car to be sure and I know I shall miss it, but the money it’s given me will help me start fresh and start making some healthy positive changes in my life.
No I’m not broke or in financial trouble, but I do have financial commitments that would be hard to upkeep in the weeks to come without the extra money. Over the next month or two I plan on moving to Sydney and looking for a new job. Moving closer to where some of my friends already are and where some of my friends will be in the future.
I’ve wanted to make this change for a long time now and I’ve always put it off. But I guess now I am at a time where I have different motivations and different priorities. It’s kind of scary making such a big change in life, but I think it needs to be done. So here is my 7-part plan as I see it.
1. Sell my car – completed!
2. Find a house to live with Rachel and Mark, close to the city
3. Leave my current job
4. Going-away / birthday party
5. Make the move to Sydney
6. Find a job more suiting to me and that makes me happier
7. Recommence my university and get it back on track
Pretty simple when you look at it there, but putting it into action is going to be much tougher. I’m going to try and do as much writing as I can and keep the site up to date, but that in itself is going to be even tougher.
Photos from my snow vacation with Claire are on my flickr account, I don’t know if I’ll get much of a chance to go into details. I’ll just say that it was one of the best weeks I’ve had in the last 12 months, it was honestly amazing and very relaxing.
blakespot has written an interesting article the GP2X. Looks like a good bit of fun!
The Perfect Breakfast™ always starts with the eggs. Some like their eggs fried, poached, boiled, but for me they have to be fluffy and scrambled. The biggest trick to making scrambled eggs, and omelettes for that matter, is the ingredients. To quote Preacher from Deep Blue See, “amateurs often add milk for density; this is a mistake.” So let’s start with how to make good scrambled eggs.
Ingredients
Eggs – put in as many as you want to eat.
Salt and pepper – just a little, to taste.
That’s it!
Method
That’s right baby, it’s all about the method. First you put in your eggs and a little salt and pepper and you whip the hell out of those eggs. Use a fork and just pummle the crap out of them for a little bit, you want to make them nice and light. Next you throw them into a saucepan on moderate-high heat and stir continuously – I cannot stress that you shouldn’t leave your eggs, not even to butter your toast, just stir them constantly to stop them from sticking, but to also keep them nice and light. If you want to add any extras like ham, cheese, tomato etc. just do it slightly before the eggs are cooked, but not too early or your eggs will be sloppy.
That’s it! Now, for obvious reasons The Perfect Breakfast™ still needs some wholegrain toast, some strong coffee and a little tobasco sauce on those eggs if you want to start the day with a jolt, but that is really it. Now all this on a day off, like the one I have today, is even better.
“And the clouds opened and God said ‘I love you!’” – Me.
Note: Updates on the ski trip, my life and photos are coming soon I promise!
ZuluPad would be an awesome way for uni students, or pretty much anyone who takes a lot of notes, to keep their information automaticall organised and synch’ed.
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