Tyler Nichols Weblog

The new Monster.com website sucks

tyler — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:35:21 +0000

I noticed last week that monster rolled out a new updated version of their website. They added a lot of new ajax stuff on the front, which might seem cool, but obviously they didnt adequately test it. After using it for several days, I have experienced a lot of bugs.

Here is an example:

I find a job I am interested in. I click the apply button and the dialog box for me to enter in my information is off the top of the screen leaving me unable to apply for this position. This is just one of the many user interface bugs I have found. Not being able to apply for a job is a pretty big problem if you are a job site. At this point, I have to say the new monster.com sucks.

Block IP Addresses by Country

tyler — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:25:45 +0000

One of the worst things about being a webmaster is the constant battle we wage against spammers and scrapers. A majority of these creeps have IP addresses which originate from outside the United States in countries like China, Russia, Latvia and Nigeria.

After years of being a webmaster, I have found that a majority of these countries send only bots and other nefarious users to my sites. So I use htaccess IP banning to handle these net-scumbags most of the time.

IP banning in a htaccess file looks like this:

order allow,deny
deny from 202.70.112.0/20
allow from all

There are many services online that will give you IP CIDR block listings by country such as IPDeny, Block a Country and Country IP Blocks. The last two will actually generate the htaccess deny statements for you, which is a huge time saver.

If you ever find the need to block country IP’s, be sure to check out the sites above.

Trevor’s New Swingset

tyler — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:38:42 +0000

We had Trevor’s new swingset delivered and installed on Thursday. We got it from Creative Playthings in Shrewsbury. The installers did a great job with the install. My yard is not level, so I will need to do some landscaping work around the set. Trevor loves it!

Tivo on Comcast Sucks

tyler — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:03:30 +0000

So we have had Tivo on Comcast for a full month now and I have to say, it sucks. It’s terribly slow and often gets a green screen of death. Can you say beta? Seriously, what is Comcast thinking releasing this buggy POS? It give’s Tivo a bad name.

The most annoying bug is the aforementioned green screen, where the entire screen fills with a bright green color and stays that way, seemingly frozen. After many times rebooting when this happens, I have learned a trick to recover from it, at least on my DVR. It usually “green screens” when watching a hi-def signal. I have found if you type a non hi-def channel on the remote keypad, the TV will change to that channel and come out of the green screen state. Then you’ll be able to change back to the HD channel you were previously watching.

Thinking of getting Comcast Tivo? I’d wait…

View Youtube at Higher Quality

tyler — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:36:51 +0000

Here’s a tip for you. The next time you watch a video on youtube, simply append “&fmt=18” to the end of the video url to see a higher quality version of the video.

Of course, the original quality of the video is also a determining factor in how much better the video look