out fox the net

Today, June 28, 2007 at about 5pm, Out Fox the Net enjoyed its 100,000 page view. Thanks for everyone who has come to visit.

OFtN (Out Fox the Net) started about 2 ½ years ago. Here is how it happened.

I met someone online who was interested in a certain web based marketing tool. Being a programmer and having been involved with the web for a long time, I understood just what he wanted and why. In essence the tool, when given a list of websites, would determine and rank which of them were most popular i.e. had the most traffic, highest page rank etc. I registered the OFtN domain and put the tool up in a password protected area.

The guy was very happy with it and suggested that we open a “for pay” service with it. That didn’t sound like a bad idea at all so I started to develop a better interface for it and some supplementary tools to go along with it. That also was working out pretty well until one day…

…completely out of the blue, the guy accused me of “stealing” his ideas and cutting him out of the business he had developed… and on a public message board we both visited frequently. Total paranoid delusions coming from this guy who had been so friendly up until then. Keep in mind that no one except he and I had ever even seen the tool at that point – it was never opened to the public and hadn’t made 1 cent.

Well anyway, to cut a short story short, I posted a calm reply and told him I was done working on the project and was returning “his precious ideas” unused.

But I still had the domain and nothing to do with it.

Over the next year or so, I would occasionally come up with an idea and make a half-hearted attempt at implementing it. Webmasters tools, news aggregator and nothing much of interest.

And then. I bought World of Warcraft.

After disappearing into WoW for several months I came back with some unique techniques for making money in the game. Hmm, Out Fox the Net and crazy money making scams, hmm, goes together like peanut butter and chocolate.

So I wrote up my World of Warcraft money making guide and posted about it on the official WoW web forums. Bam, 100 people showed up and read every page. Then people started to link to it from their guild boards.

Then it got 'ed.

Then it got posted to Digg.

Then Dan Hunter from Terranova contacted me to do an interview.

Then a BBC reporter contacted me to collect information for an article.

Final run down:

• Age of Site: 2 ½ years
• Unique visitors: 27,856
• Page Views: 100,004
• Time spent correcting spelling mistakes: 312 hours
• Number of times site has been completely deleted: 3
• Most unusual visitor location: Greenland
• Number of pages average visitor reads: 3.6

The site has cost me about $239.85 in domain name registration and web hosting costs. Altogether I have made about $196.38 from it.

Prices exclude my blood, sweat and tears

I know I am way behind the times, but this video kind of blew my mind. Many of you have probably played this game at one time or another. If you are anything like me, you will probably learn things about Mario 64 that you never knew before.

My motor reflexes stand in awe.

Vonage is a well known, low cost VoIP provider. You can read a little more about VoIP here. I have been using them for more than a year and find the service to be very good. It has saved me quite a bit of money on long distance (its free!) and has cheap rates internationally.

Recently the company hit a bit of trouble when Verizon claimed that Vonage was infringing on their patents. Verizon won in court. However Vonage is appealing (of course) and there is a stay on enforcing the patents for the time being. Today Vonage revealed that they had a new technology ready to go that would not be infringing on the patents at all.

The Vonage claim is a little dubious since it was conveniently revealed on the same day that it had to report on the company’s finances. As well, their claims have not been evaluated by an objective source.

We can only hope that Vonage can work something out. Vonage and VoIP in general is a great way for phone customers to save money and add interesting features to phone service. Let's hope for either a technology fix that is free of infringement, Vonage cuts a deal with Verizon or the Verizon patents are overturned.

You can read more at Ars.

One of the things I dislike about Windows (and MS software in general) is its unquenchable desire to think for you. Sometimes it is not obtrusive but other times when you just want to do something a little differently it can drive you nuts.

The Windows "language bar" is one of those components that I just don't need. I have turned this feature off so many times but yet it just seems to reappear on the task bar for no reason. You can disable it by right clicking on the taskbar, but it will come back on its own at some point.

I finally got sick of it and did a search for a solution. As it turns out, it is quite simple.

• Open Control Panel
• Select "Classic Mode" (if it isn't already selected)
• Double Click on "Regional and Language Options"
• Click "Languages" tab
• Click "Details" button in the "Text services and input languages" section
• Click "Language Bar..." button in "Preferences" section
• Disable the Language Bar by un-checking the "Show the Language bar on the desktop" checkbox

I found this solution at the following site:

Turn off the Language Bar

Nike Defining Moments Package was recently released. Basically they are shoes but with 110% added media hype, 127% cult following and 232% cool. They were released today and apparently sold out in a few hours.

The Nike defining moments package is a re-release of the Nike Air Jordan XI and VII shoes. Also included are lace locks, dog tags and a photo booklet. Throw it all into a cool gold box and you have the over-the-top Nike DMP (Defining Moments Package).

Along with the shoe release, the DMP will have other apparel including a zip up hooded sweatshirt, and tee shirt. If you buy the sweatshirt you might be lucky enough to find a woman's thong in the pocket... no I am not kidding.

And with many things of this nature, not too surprisingly they are only available here... SURPRISE ONLY RIGHT HERE

Ok, it isn't a surprise at all. Normally I couldn't care less about shoes like this, but in this case they are pretty cool.

Will the Nike Defining Moments Package make me a cool nerd?

Don't answer that.