HALOSCAN

At the advice of "Josh", I added HALOSCAN trackback and commenting today. This is a dramatic step for me, because I don't know how well it's going to work or how (or whether) it will affect commenting on this site. It's nice that it adds trackback capability to the page, but mainly I added it to get better control of Blog Spamming (See below.)

If there are no obvious negative repercussions, I'll see if I can remove the code-word filter from the comments. I've not had any complaints about this security feature, but I just don't like to put speedbumps in the path of people who have something to contribute to the various topics hosted here.

With HALOSCAN, I should be able to identify blog spammers and prevent them from ever again spamming the blog. We'll see how this works out.

In other news:
the blog which made IPSC videos was so well received, I plan to offer videos from the 2005 CROC match here in the near future.

Also, I'm working on establishing web-pages which host these and other videos. There are two possibilities:

1. I install PHOTO GALLERY software which can host both *.JPG and videos, perhaps expanding the service to provide a gallery for, at least, the Columbia Cascade Section so others can contribute their own photos. This way, we're not limited to the photos and videos I provide.
2. I install a real website on the ARPC-IPSC server (hosted by Brian B.) and put the photo links there. Then I can make the blog entries shorter, include a link on the sidebar to the gallery, and only use the blog to announce the addition of new photos and videos. That way, the connection to the videos doesn't 'drop off' in a couple of weeks when the 'announcement' blog-article goes into the archive. The downside of this it that it's going to cost Real Money, either because the best available FreeWare (Blue Vue) mandates webhosting at eight bucks a month . . . the webpages don't actually create HTML coded pages, but are encrypted so that they can only be hosted by Blue Vue . . . or I have to buy a decent web-hosting software package such as MS FrontPage at around $200.

There's a third possibility: I do both. The photo gallery software I've tentatively selected requires the Host to do the actuall installation, and I haven't talked Brian into it yet. That makes gallery hosting a reduced possibility, but it's still alive.

The web-authoring is also still an attractive option, because I don't need to convince someone else to do the work. Just to pay the bills! Fortunately, I work on a university campus, so there's a possibility that I can but web-authoring software at 'academic' pricing, which represents a significant reduction in cost. This actually supports my professional geek-ism, because the skills I would learn in web-authoring might directly be applied to the things I do every day in the office, and I would be using the same tools which are available at work. (I obviously can't use the tools available at the office, because there are departmental policies which preclude using university resources for personal projects. The university has no restrictions on HOW or in WHAT projects I use the software which I buy through them at 'academic pricing' because it obviously increases my professional expertise . . . which is all to the good for them.

Note: Today I spent a lot of time at work learning how to make a mainframe program format fonts in reports. It's a geek thing, don't worry about the details. But the point is, as I exclaimed delightedly to my boss, "this job requires me to learn all these nifty new things, and they pay me to do it. How kewl is that!"

Way kewl.

Some days, I REALLY like my job.