Communication by referer

Via diveintomark, Gary Burd: Communication by referer.

This is an innocent application of an idea I had after reading Web Sites That Heal. Here's what I said:

Probably the simplest idea would be to, when you get a 404 (or a 302), have your web server automatically "ping" the referring site so that a "hey, you have a broken link!" message will show up in the web server logs. If there was a standard format for this ping, we could automate handling of it to some degree.

Right now, if you send someone off to the void at the end of a broken link, they don't come back from the void to tell you about it. If your site automatically "pinged" them and said "You have a broken link to here (link) on this page (your page)" (I'm paraphrasing) you'd know about it.

Just like there's a (de facto) stardard for favicon.ico, there could be a stardard location like broken.lnk. If enough people did it, stats packages could give you reports, and the web might slowly start to become a slightly less broken place.

Permalink | 2 Comments | id 1788

22:28 (utc-4)

 

The first computer simulated nuclear explosion

Slashdot is reporting that the first simulated nuclear explosions (two of them) have been performed on ASCI White, the world's most powerful supercomputer.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1787

18:57 (utc-4)

 

Mandrake will live

Via Slashdot, Mandrake Linux puts out some good news about their finances. A turn around from earlier when they were running out of money in the short term.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1786

18:53 (utc-4)

 

A unified theory of software evolution

Via Slashdot, Salon.com: A unified theory of software evolution. "Meir Lehman has been studying the life cycles of computer programs since he was a researcher at IBM 30 years ago. One of these days he's going to get it all figured out."

Permalink | Comments? | id 1785

18:47 (utc-4)

 

mini icons

Via web-graphics, a bunch of good looking tiny icons, meant to be used inline with text. Check out their own micro icons, qbullets, and from Michael Angeles, mini icons.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1784

18:20 (utc-4)

 

What an awful, awful day.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1783

17:55 (utc-4)

 

2,000,000 miles?

Via Dane Carlson, This guy's car beats mine by far. "Irv Gordon isn't quite the guy he was back in June 1966 when he bought his red Volvo P1800 for $4,150. His stomach is a bit closer to the steering wheel these days, and getting in and out of the sporty little two-door coupe isn't quite as easy. But the Volvo? Never looked better. Not bad for a car whose odometer is about to roll over for the 20th time. Translated, that's 2 million miles."

I didn't believe it (that's almost 7 times more milage than my car has), but he's going to be in the Guinness Book, and they say the milage is "certified", so I'll believe them.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1782

11:50 (utc-4)

 

Tag-Board

As seen on EvHead, Tag-Board: "The least technologically advanced message board ever." That's awesome.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1781

02:37 (utc-4)

 

I want to play

I really want to try out BlogChat but I just can't doit cap-tin... I don't have the time.

(looks like I don't have the time to fix my stupid nested bold and italic markup either. It'll work someday, you'll see!)

Permalink | Comments? | id 1780

01:33 (utc-4)
edited: 01:49 (utc-4)

 

Testing XML-RPC client

Testing my new XML-RPC pinger again - one more time.

Permalink | 2 Comments | id 1779

00:51 (utc-4)
edited: 00:52 (utc-4)