Monthly Archive for June, 2006

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First RubyOnRails seminar @ I.T.Works

Published on June 21, 2006 in Belgium. 1 Comment

RubyOnRailsI.T.Works, one of Belgiums leading technical training organisers, has cooked up its first RubyOnRails seminar on Thursday July 6th. Alain Ravet and Werner Ramaekers, both experienced Rails developers, will talk about the advantages of this application development framework.

If you want to understand the logic behind “convention over configuration”, “flexibility is over-rated”, “constraints are liberating” or even “PHP is the devil; Ruby on Rails is the angel”(*): be sure to attend and learn why RoR is so successfull. I, for one, was already quite thrilled to discover Python some years ago, but getting to know RubyOnRails has been a way more exciting experience. It really lets you do cool stuff in less than 15 minutes (see numerous screencasts). Also, if you want to meet some of the early adopters (developers as well as agencies) of RoR in Belgium, the seminar is a good place to start. I will also be there!

Mark Hostetler, Austrian spammer

Published on June 16, 2006 in spam. 16 Comments

(This is a blog post about an Austrian spammer. The reason I did not put anything more offensive in this post’s title, is because there is another Mark Hostetler, a Florida-based Wildlife Ecology professor. He’s probably a nice guy. I’m talking about a scumbag who lives in Vienna)

Belgian spammers?

I was just looking at today’s catch by my Akismet comment spam filter. BTW: the existence of spam filters like Akismet and Spam Karma is the only reason blogs can still be interactive. I already have more than 2600 detected spam comments since I migrated to WordPress: that’s 2600 in 3 months or 30 a day on average. Since it’s an accelerating thing, I guess I must be at 100 spams per day now.
I noticed a lot of .be domain names, which seemed kind of new to me:
Akismet: spam detector for WordPress
Are there really Belgian spammers, with Belgian addresses that you actually could go to and throw bricks through the window? Not really. The first traces went to Poland:
Pikod Darek - Poznan - PolandPikod Darek - Poznan - Poland
A Mr Pikod Darek from Poznan (Poland) has registered a load of .be domains on Dec 7th, 2005 through EuroDNS. The DNS registration was last updated on May 29th, 2006, probably because they were ready to start spamming then. All these .be sites are hosted at theplanet.com with 70.87.15.* IP addresses. I doubt Pikod hired multiple dedicated servers himself, he probably just bought a minimal shared hosting from a reseller. Why minimal? Because the only thing the .be domain does is forward you to an URL like http://www.find.fm/?aid=4077. Who is behind this ‘search engine you trust’? Enter Hostetler!
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More fun with Myers-Briggs

Published on June 16, 2006 in Society. 14 Comments Tags: , , , .

I’ve been reading quitea lot on Myers-Briggs for my previous post “Myers-Briggs typology“, and some of it is too good not to post it here, so here is my second MBTI post! I’ve also made an new MBTI web tool for my web tools collection, that you can use to quickly check the facts for each type.

MBTI at first sight?

Get this: according to socionics, it is possible to do Visual Identification (V.I.) of the Myers-Briggs type. They prove it by showing 4 pictures (Malcolm McDowell, Sting, and two familiar actors-I-can’t-name) with -granted- similar features, and they’re all ISTJ (Sting a duty fulfiller?). I’ll be honest, I don’t buy this. I know that you can sometimes guess character traits from someone’s face (e.g. a ‘kind’ face vs. a ‘hard’ face), and I can understand how your physical attributes (pretty/ugly, thin/chubby) might influence your behaviour and consequently your MBTI type, but I’m not sure this method would withstand a critical scientific eye.
MBTI: visual identification
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Myers-Briggs typology: I’m an ENFP

Published on June 14, 2006 in Society and tool. 16 Comments Tags: , , , .

Background

I have never been a big believer in astrology. I am not convinced the location of stars at the moment of your birth is that important to your personality. I’m a Virgo, but I don’t feel that defines me that much. But some years ago I discovered a ‘labeling’ system that was based on the actual behaviour of a person, whose result was much more significant: the (Jung) Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI):

According to Jung’s typology all people can be classified using three criteria. These criteria are: Extraversion/Introversion – Sensing/Intuition – Thinking/Feeling
Isabel Briggs-Myers added a fourth criterion: Judging/Perceiving
from humanmetrics.com

A good explanation of each criterium is:

1. Where, primarily, do you prefer to direct your energy?
If you prefer to direct your energy to deal with people, things, situations, or “the outer world”, then your preference is for Extraversion. This is denoted by the letter “E”.
If you prefer to direct your energy to deal with ideas, information, explanations or beliefs, or “the inner world”, then your preference is for Introversion. This is denoted by the letter “I”.
2. How do you prefer to process information?
If you prefer to deal with facts, what you know, to have clarity, or to describe what you see, then your preference is for Sensing. This is denoted by the letter “S”.
If you prefer to deal with ideas, look into the unknown, to generate new possibilities or to anticipate what isn’t obvious, then your preference is for Intuition. This is denoted by the letter “N” (the letter I has already been used for Introversion).
3. How do you prefer to make decisions?
If you prefer to decide on the basis of objective logic, using an analytic and detached approach, then your preference is for Thinking. This is denoted by the letter “T”.
If you prefer to decide using values and/or personal beliefs, on the basis of what you believe is important or what you or others care about, then your preference is for Feeling. This is denoted by the letter “F”.
4. How do you prefer to organise your life?
If you prefer your life to be planned, stable and organised then your preference is for Judging (not to be confused with ‘Judgemental’, which is quite different). This is denoted by the letter “J”.
If you prefer to go with the flow, to maintain flexibility and respond to things as they arise, then your preference is for Perception. This is denoted by the letter “P”.

from teamtechnology

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