Compugasm's blog
Comment Spam
Submitted by Compugasm on April 30, 2006 - 09:55
Yesterday, my spam catcher, called Spam Karma, caught over ten comment spams. My blog is still new, but that seemed kind of high to me. In fact, I've noticed the number of spam comments increasing over the last few weeks. I was wondering why. Here is the explanation:
If you don't already know, the goal of optimizing your site for a search engine is to get a website on the first page of search engine results. According to Google, the popularity of a website is measured as the number of links to the web site. For instance, you might give more weight to a link from a generally well rated web site (e.g. Google PageRank). Indirectly, this makes your site more important. The importance of links inevitably led to the link farming business.
Kitty Sniper: Part 4 - Naps Are Good
Submitted by Compugasm on April 28, 2006 - 05:21
My roommate dubbed the orange kitten we just got The Sniper. Kittens would not make good snipers. They just don't have the patients. Besides, they seem to fall asleep very quickly. Ever see your pet fall asleep in the food bowl? We also have a cow colored kitten, I haven't figured out how to work him into the comic yet.
I was looking at the comments left in my blog, and noticed a friend from my old home town is reading my comic (Flavinb2.hotmail). I put his real name on the tombstone in the background, but it was too dark and small to read. So, instead I rhymed his email address "Flavin", with Raven, making a nice tie-in to Rambo. That's brilliant comic writing right there.
Get Paid to...
Submitted by Compugasm on April 27, 2006 - 03:38
Xerxes from Comixpedia:
Coverage in the more general press seems to remain hit or miss with a very rare "hey there are comics on the web!" article in a national publication and more frequent "hey there's a local dude putting his comics on the web" in local or college publications. Why isn't there more coverage? There's almost no "machine" for publicity in webcomics.
Self Checkout
Submitted by Compugasm on April 25, 2006 - 16:06
I was at the store tonight, doing my grocery shopping for the week, and the time came for me to check out. Today, I tried the self checkout. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
There are some serious bugs that need to be worked out of the system. The biggest is the human/machine interface. Currently, it assumes you've never seen someone scan UPC codes before and you might just forget your own name if you didn't carry around ID. Must we all suffer so that the lowest common denominator can use this thing?
I Am A Rocket Builder
Submitted by Compugasm on April 24, 2006 - 04:10
I first found I Am A Rocket Builder back in February 2006. IMO, it's one of the ten best comics being made. In fact, it's the only comic aside from my own that I've promoted. That's how good I think it is, but the site could be better. Great comics on a terrible website is an easy fix! At least, easier than creating a good comic.
Penny Vigilantes
Submitted by Compugasm on April 23, 2006 - 04:05
I found reference in the wikipedia that the comic Penny Arcade was accused of being "Pixelantes" and harassing Attorney Jack Thompson on October 20th, 2005. Thompson defines a Pixelante officially as "sociopath with mouses," and alleged pixelantes used "the name of the First Amendment and freedom of speech" against him.
Kitty Sniper: Part 2 - The Herlihy Boy
Submitted by Compugasm on April 22, 2006 - 05:50
I've mostly been doing "gag a day" comics thus far. To mix things up a little, I thought I'd make some kind of story with a second installment of Kitty Sniper:Part 2 - The Herlihy Boy. I've read that most people have a story planned months in advance, and refine character development. I've got no time to go into that level of detail. What do they call 3-4 comics that follow a theme, and then just end? Anyway, Kitty Sniper is the theme.
Google Sitemaps
Submitted by Compugasm on April 21, 2006 - 03:09
Google has Sitemaps. This is a new way for tell search engines what is on your site. When I was on a windows server, my host had an automatic way to create a google sitemap. Now that I'm linux, there is no automated method. I found this pretty comprehensive resource from Sci7.com.
Google Sitemaps
Google’s website describes the service:
The Sitemap Protocol allows you to inform search engine crawlers about URLs on your Web sites that are available for crawling. A Sitemap consists of a list of URLs and may also contain additional information about those URLs, such as when they were last modified, how frequently they change, etc.
Comic Updating
Submitted by Compugasm on April 20, 2006 - 03:27
In printed comics, the sticking to a deadline or schedule makes sense. It would be disastrous to not have a book ready, by the time you need to print a book and sell it. Is this a practice carried over to the web? Out of all the comics you read, can anyone recall (without checking) what days they actually update?
With webcomics, I belive it's becoming accepted that deadlines or schedules, such as updating on a M-W-F, do not apply. What if you miss a day, or change the updating schedule? I've seen many authors needing to apologize for missing an update. Instead of making the user come to you, the trend is reversing with RSS feeds. People join your feed, and when you publish/update something, they're automatically notified.
Katie Holmes Delivers Baby
Submitted by Compugasm on April 19, 2006 - 03:38
Ya know what I don't get. Everyone I talk to, is sick of celebrity nonsense. But that's all the news seems to report. Why? Do we say the opposite of what we mean? The latest is, Mission Impossible star Cruise vows to eat placenta after birth. Tom Cruise yesterday revealed his latest bizarre mission..to eat his new baby's placenta.
"And scientifically it is proven. Now there are medical research papers that say when a woman's giving birth everyone should be quiet. We've been studying what a woman goes through. What happens to her body. It's just kind of becoming this fun game of learning."
