2009 March | TechnologyInsanity.com

Archive - March, 2009

Does Entrecard Kill Search Engine Traffic?

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

Well, I’ve only just started using Entrecard again, and guess what happened. My search engine traffic dropped over 50% almost immediately. Here, take a look.

This graph shows pure search engine traffic from Google, mostly. I did go and check my ranks on certain keywords and they seem to have DROPPED. So, when I quit using Entrecard my search engine traffic shot up, and when I started again the search engine traffic shot down. I’m not sure why this would be caused merely by using EC or not using EC. Regardless, I know I have a long way to go before I really start to rank in the search engines.

If this is the way it works, I might as well get free traffic from the search engines rather than dropping 300 all the time to get the exact same amount of traffic. Also, the search engine traffic is of a higher quality, showing a 60% bounce rate, where Entrecard has an over 90% bounce rate.

My intentions were to stack the Entrecard traffic ontop of the search engine traffic, not to kill my better source of traffic!

So, I think I’m dropping entrecard. Sorry guys.

Tags: analytics, Entrecard, traffic
Posted in seo | 10 Comments »

Some Site Updates and Announcements

Monday, March 9th, 2009

I like to get comments on my blog, and my search engine traffic really doesn’t seem to do that for me, so I will be going back to Entrecard and dropping 300 a day again. Entrecard users, it might be a good time to buy my ad, before it goes sky high as I see it’s sitting at 64ec right now Also, please join the forums if you can, having only a few members makes us all lonely

Be aware however that I am not professional in any way on the forums. Many humorous or NSFW things are posted in the chat section. Check it out here: http://technologyinsanity.com/forum/

Also, there is a running contest for free ad space on my site for registered users of the forum, check it out here: http://technologyinsanity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=13.

That should be about it. Hopefully I’ll see you in the forums.

Tags: announcements, Updates
Posted in Site Updates, Announcements | 1 Comment »

IRC XDCC Tutorial

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

So I get asked this question a lot, and I’m tired of explaining it. Leeching various (legal) things from IRC is not difficult. So, let’s get started.

Introduction

IRC, or Internet Relay Chat has been around for ages, and many still use it today. If you don’t use it, you’re missing out. This is not a Yahoo chat, nor an AIM chat. Most channels are controlled by bots. (Programs placed on servers) These bots do various things such as automatically banning spammers, holding the operator position in the channel, or maybe even trivia. There are also other kinds of bots, one is called an XDCC bot. They are in certain channels where you may download various things.

What’s needed

First, you’re going to need an IRC client. This could be mIRC, which is probably the most popular, XChat, Irssi, or anything else that connects to the IRC protocol and has DCC (Direct Client to Client) functions. I am going to use XChat for the example, because it pretty much works well with transfers right out of the box.

Start up XChat, click do not display this message again when the first pop up box shows up. Exit out of that.

Basic commands

/server irc.xxxx.tld – Sets the irc server you wish to connect to. (Example /server irc.technologyinsanity.com)

/join#channel – Lets you join a channel while connected to a server. (Example /join #technologyinsanity)

/msg USER <message> – private messages a user on the network you’re connected to. (Example /msg s0uThp4rk what’s up?)

Network Services

Some may require you to register with nickserv or get a vhost (a virtual host, which would be s0uThp4rk@the.cow.com instead of s0uThp4rk@myip.resolvedhost.tld)

In such cases, here are some basic commands for that.

/msg nickserv register <password> <email>

Then, generally you will join #vhost and send the message !vhost your.vhost.tld

Requesting Packs

In order to request a pack from an XDCC bot, you must be in the channel that has such bots, and meet the requirements for the bot if there are any. You may use an XDCC search engine such as packetnews.com or xdccing.com. I would not recommend you use these websites without adblock plus enabled. You can then click on the pack or one of the other links and it will try to automatically open XChat and join the channel. An alternative would to idle in a channel and request a pack you want when you see it. You could also install a script to “catch” xdcc packets and request them from a window within the script.

The general command for requesting a pack is:

/msg <botname> xdcc send #<packnumber>

Then you have to accept the send, or wait in queue until an open slot is available. You can also set xchat to automatically accept sends in the preferences.

Conclusion

That should be about it for this introductory. Instead of leeching things from xdcc channels, maybe you would rather chat? Check out my channel at irc.technologyinsanity.com #technologyinsanity

Packs on XDCC. These are not legal, however..

Tags: irc, Leech, Tutorial, XDCC
Posted in Tutorials | No Comments »

Does Google Own the Internet?

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

I have been thinking, so much is done through Google, what would happen if Google suddenly disappeared. Google owns YouTube, Blogger, Gmail, FeedBurner, and all the other assorted Google apps.

It’s pretty obvious that Google owns a good chunk of the internet. If, suddenly it disappeared, would Yahoo take over again? Or would it be a struggle between Yahoo and MSN? Millions of people wouldn’t have their e-mail anymore. Some might not even know how to find another search engine Where would everyone go that’s currently on YouTube? How about Blogger?

Sure, there’s other places they could go, but would they be able to keep up with the massive new influx of traffic?

I’ve been thinking to myself, is Google a monopoly of sorts? If it is, that can’t be good. A monopoly is never a “good” thing for the users, even if they are free services. Google makes massive amounts through advertisers paying them. There’s very little competition, even from Yahoo and MSN. Everyone uses Google. I’m willing to bet even people that use MSN and Yahoo go to Google occasionally.

Google is everywhere, is it the big brother of the Internet? Google has so much power over anything and everything you see on the Internet, it does become at least somewhat scary.

Here’s a cool video on the subject I found through YouTube (AKA Google)

Tags: google, Insanity, monopoly
Posted in Insanity | 3 Comments »