New web site up and running

The new web site has been uploaded. I also updated the Google sitemap. I need to fine tune it all a little. There is some redundancy in the code and I will rename some of the smaller images that act as spacers and background pictures so they download first. I will reduce the file size of some of the images too. So far, so good.

The Lancet critical of John Howard and his government

It is pleasing to read in local newspapers here and also here that the internationally respected journal, The Lancet, is critical of John Howard and his government. The focus of the editorial is upon the Howard government's neglect of health and the silencing of critics. The editor also criticises the conservative outlook of the government with critcisms not only of Howard and the health minister, Tony Abbot, but also Malcolm Turnbull and his dismissive attitude towards the UN's intergovernmental panel on climate change.

As the editorial in the Lancet concludes "This year provides an opportunity at the ballot box to bring a new enlightenment to Australian health and medical science" and an a new direction in the way Australian governments handle immigration, asylum seekers, refugees and the worker. It is time to vote John Howard and the Liberal ~ National Party coalition out.

David Bowie ~ Station To Station Full Colour Artwork

Bowie released Station To Station in 1976. The release number was RCA APL1-1327. The album released to the public had artwork with a black and white still from the Man Who Fell To Earth movie. Apparently plans had been made to release a full colour sleeve and some artwork had been undertaken. The colour artwork attracts considerable debate among collectors as to what was printed and what was not printed. It seems that in the UK RCA had 24" X 12" flat mock-ups printed. In the USA RCA printed proofs of the sleeve. Some collectors glued the proofs together to make up the sleeve.

This was further complicated in the late 1980s when an English collector obtained one of these US full colour proofs and had counterfeit copies made, possibly by a printing company in Japan. They were then sold by record dealers in England. Occasionally these counterfeits are now sold to unwitting collectors as authentic RCA USA sleeves. I think that is patently unfair. Check out this link for photographs of the UK 24" x 12" mock-up and one copy of the aforementioned counterfeit.

Anyway, Ryko reissued the album with the full colour artwork in 1990. Subsequent issues on CD have also included the full colour artwork. This year Toshiba reissued the album as a Mini LP CD with the original 1976 black and white artwork. In many respects the original 1976 black and white RCA album sleeve (especially the UK pressing) in mint or sealed condition would be a valuable acquistion.

David Bowie ~ Young Americans reissue

Listened to the re-issue of Bowie's 1975 album Young Americans. It was remixed by Tony Visconti. It sounds brilliant. I was disappointed with some of the remixing done with the Ryko reissue of Young Americans 15 or so years back. I missed the original rippling stereo saxohpone mix on Win for example. This 5.1 remix is luxurious. Win sounds wonderful. I have mixed feelings about the strings on It's Gonna Be Me. The video stuff from the Dick Cavett show is nice. Why they left off 'After Today' from this special edition is a mystery.

Modified the template

Modified the template to look a little more like the new site which I may upload this Saturday. I was creating the web site using iWeb but the downloads were far too slow. I am doing it all in Dreamweaver. The new home page will be up soon.

I was hoping to replicate the new site on this blog template but that was taking up too much time. I should get someone else to do that coding.

Cheers

John

iWeb experiment

Well, I thought i would give iWeb a go but I have changed my mind. The site created by iWeb takes ages to download. An equivelant looking site created in dreamweaver downloads much more quickly.

I am going to see if I can create a blogger template that looks something like the new web site. The old home page is going to stay the same for a while longer.

Referrer Spam

My home page has been plagued by referrer spam. I have done research on the net and came up with a few sites that provided useful ideas:

Referrer spam
Using .htaccess to block referrer spam
How to combat referrer spam
htaccess tutorial

Following some research and advice from the excellent support of my hosting provider I have done the following.

1. Protected the stats files generated by my hosting provider for each domain and sub domain. The referrer spam would be listed on those files. Now they cannot be viewed or accessed unless authorised. They are invisible to the web so to speak.
2. I know this is redundant but I also created a robots.txt file for each domain and sub domain so that access to the stats directory was denied to any robot.
2. Created htaccess files for each domain and sub domain. These list the urls of the sites that I wish to deny access. This is a tedious process. I have updated these htaccess files a few times. I suspect it will take some time to settle down.
3. I updated my sitemaps.xml file and resubmitted to Google so it no longer includes the references to the stats files.

The htaccess code advised by my provider looks like this:

setenvifnocase Referer "^http://(www\.)?unwantedreferrer.com" spam_ref=1


Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=spam_ref


I protected the htaccess file by setting permissions for the to 644 or RW-R--R--.

The sources of the spam are the usual suspects (porn, medicines, finance, etc). They are using sites to promote themselves. It will add unwanted traffic to your site and in fact your site could be filtered or blocked by educational institutions if the words used in the urls are suspect.