Zeropings.com: Live Stats!

Under a Zeropings.com / rjsNetworks.com collaboration we have developed live stats for our Zeropings users! The stats give detailed information from accuracy rates to rank... anything you could imagine is logged and displayed.

Please click on the banner above to view a sample of the live stats!

Zeropings.com Staff

Watch Streaming Multiplayer Games, Zeropings, and more!

Imagine being able to watch a 2 vs. 2 online tournament using simply your web browser. Coming soon to ZeroPings will be just this. You will soon be able to without purchasing any games watch a live stream of your friends' game online.

ZeroPings will also soon be offering many other games such as: Battlefield 1942, Quake 3 and Quake 2, Wolfenstein, etc.

We support additional services such as Roger Wilco, which allow players to talk to other players using their own voices ingame. Additional plans have also been added. Our company name is ZeroPings and we are true to our word. Ping test can be done at: HIS to prove our extremely low ping rates.

FYI - Research has been done to reveal that gaming every now and then can be "good for you".

For more information, please visit ZeroPings.com

Sending Spam? A Tech Epidemic

Sometimes hosting companies really do not care if you send SPAM through their network. In such a case, the ISP hosting and sending the spam quickly gets blocked from major ISPs due to black lists aorund the internet. But why SPAM in the first place?

Sending email is free and herin lies the problem. Marketing products online with SPAM is simple enough, but how can web hosting companies and ISPs alike decpiher between SPAM and legitimate opt-in lists? Here is a quick example of the issue:

Spam Shuts Down Legitimate Websites

An interesting comment by Larry Donahue stating that "The blacklists don't care, and backbones cannot process opt in lists. Larry says, "For example, one backbone called us and gave us a 5 hour disconnect notice, accusing us of being a spammer. They would have shut us down. They had 20 false positives and 3 legitimate complaints. Of three legitimate complaints, 2 were fraud websites that we shut down. The third was a site selling religious symbols and beads, and sending out newsletters. That was a customer we wanted to keep but the backbone provider made us ditch them. Companies like us are under constant pressure to not apply due process."

Imagine, a large hosting provider, with almost 25,000 clients gets shut down because 4 people complain to a backbone provider. Of the complaints 1-2 are legitimate. With a straight stat comparision, 1-2 website represent only 0.00004% of the total business. Is hosting this client worth it? Well, no. Of course not. But the problem is larger than that, approx 10-15% of the customer base get away with spamming every day.

Imagine if the US postal service cost 0.00 cents to send mail....we would be all of our mailboxes would be flooded. Maybe charging per email is a solution...maybe.

Googles Failsafe Infrastructure

Linux in enterprises - A brief look - Cover Story - Network Magazine India

Linux steps in
The company decided to go in for Linux and now operates its search engines and computing functions on a cluster of approximately 8,000 Red Hat Linux servers. All the Google servers are unbranded PCs that include an array of Intel CPUs—400 MHz to 533 MHz Celeron processors, and 400 MHz to 466 MHz Pentium II processors. Each server has at least 256 MB of memory, with some going up to 1 GB. The cluster of Red Hat servers is composed of several sub-clusters, each comprising 200 to 300 servers.

Spam Protection

So you are still getting the latest advertisments on the web for the fastest way to loose weight. Technology has it that there is no better way for marketing companies to advertise than free spam emails. These days, even Opt-in email is considered SPAM; don't ask!

Well how are spamvertisers getting your email address? Simple. They use programs to harvest and scroll web pages across the internet looking for email addresses. Simply put, email programs read web pages and follow links just like humans do. When they see a <something>@<somewhere>.<someextension> format, they recognize it as an email address and store the email address in a text file or database. Harvesting email like this can be targeted using and abusing search engines.

So how do you protect against SPAM? There is no defined method, but there are some techniques you can use to limit the spam your email address receives.

1. Use a fake email address or Hotmail address to sign up for newsletters or newsposts.

2. Do not use your personal email address on your own website. Use sales@ or info@ better yet, use the following format for real human intelligent parsing:

support at rjsnetworks.com

Now this may be hard to read at a quick glance, but it is quite easy to decipher if someone really wants to contact you.

3. The best suggestion, use an image to represent your email address. Much like those new "Type in the code you see below" for Paypal transactions/signups, using an image for your email address does not allow it to be parsed by any simple crawler.

Let's say you get some spam even after the above suggestions, well, get the rjsSpamFilter and setup your Outlook client to dump these into your "Waste of Time" folder.

Microsoft vs Linux - Mail Servers

OK, so we are Microsoft adovates, but recently, I have been exploring Linux and open source implmentations of new products/devices we are currently developing. While surfing, I found a post claiming Linux costs more if not the same as a Windows OS. I keep the my opinion to myself, but I seriously believe that quantifying hours on learning Linux [a free OS] is unreasonable. Yes time is money, but the sometimes the objective is to find the best solution, and sendmail is another quality software evolution that has stood the test of time. See for yourself

GMAN: On Linux vs Microsoft: Linux is NOT FREE

And here is a real cost analysis

Learning ASP.NET

Most of our customers are Microsoft junkies (if there is such a thing). The latest technologies to come of Redmont typically are trend languages and or weak implementations; later to be altered every quarter by Microsoft themselves. The languages that have persisted through time were never developed by Microsoft. Languages like C++, C, and Java are languages that have tested time and evolved as standards in true OO design. However, last year, Microsoft revelead its most compelling language, C#. I personally believe VB has been the worst language produced and makes code sloppy and coders lazy (VB programers do have a better sense of personal fashion than C++ coders).

As a developed high level language, C# is easy to understand, Java-like, yet built for the web in mind. Software as a service (probably best invented by JSP) has become mainstream with C# and its advocates. Best of all, this is probably the first language that can be used, compiled and debugged without buying an expensive IDE/License from Microsoft. For more information, see the Web Matrix project, a free ide for developing rich C# web applications. Then again, dropping a bunch of money on VS.NET [Visual Studio .NET] can also bring much rejoicing....

Google: Back Again In The News

I have been posting articles on increasing page rank etc recently; however the next one takes the cake. Basically the NY Times charges for content on their website. Google caches pages (yes that cool cache hyperlink you push everytime the site you visiting is down...'they are are not hosting with rjs' should go through your mind!). Anyway, back to the point, Google caches their premuim content and many pages with popular content makes a good page rank due to inbound links. That is, people have started linking to the inbound cached pages, and sometimes, this cached pages has a higher page rank than the real content.

In news posted by CNet, the NY Times is trying to talk to Google and find out if Google would please stop doing this....whine whine. I mean as content providers and with Blogs become syndicated RSS feeds, the NY Times has a tough case with Google. People like the cache, it is fast, predictable, and there all the time with 100% reliability.

Humor: But Flawless Google Ranking

As I was scouring the Internet this morning, I noticed Seth's Blog.

Here Seth points out a funny little Internet joke:

> Go to google, type in "weapons of mass destruction" and hit "I'm feeling lucky".

Read this page, it is not an error (took about 4 times for me with immediate reactions at a 404-like error message). What is important here....the #1 placement in the Google rankings. You can only imagine how many times the words "weapons of mass destruction" are mentioned on the Internet yet this site has the top spot. Another reason to review Google's pagerank.

Page Rank: The Ins & Outs

Sure you can go and pay for advertising. You can even pay-per-click. But if you want the maximum return on your web application, there is acheiving the holy grail of web development: search engine ranking.

Being number 1 or 2 can make or break your site popularity. We have found that many large companies dont stand a chance against a well structured and 'engineered' site. In essence, your site's page rank, with the #1 search engine is probably the best place to start when re-engineering your web presence.

Here is an excllent article, slightly older article, that provides the ins and outs of how to improve your site ranking yourself (this page has a site ranking of 5/10 right now, we'll watch it over time to see how it changes).

rjsSpamFilter - Part 2 - Using the Spam Filter with Outlook

Spam as we have talked about many times before can be a problem [see Part I of this article series]. As you know, rjsSpamFilter helps fight the Spam frenzy that every email user experiences everyday.

Most spam messages will be tagged [rjsSpamFilter: This message may be spam], so you know you can most likely go ahead and delete the tagged messages. However to maximize your use of the rjsSpamFilter, you can filter out these messages in a quarantined folder in Outlook.

Here is how you can do this:

1. Right click on any tagged message and click Create Rule.
2. Click on the second condition, "with [rjsSpamFilter: This message may be spam] in the subject."
3. Click next.
4. Click on the first option under the "What do you want to do with the message?" screen.
5. Click next twice.
6. Then click on "Run this rule now on messages..."
7. Click Finish.

Now, all your mail is sent to the folder you specified and all future mail will be sent there as well.

For more information on configuring your email visit our KnowledgeBase article here.

Web Based SQL Server Enterprise Mananger

We just installed our web based SQL Server solution with help from an old office colleague of ours Jason Jennings. Jason has been hard at work with a c# implementation of a Web based SQL Enterprise Manager. We installed it with no glitches and highly recommend it for its speed and convenience. It is great to know that open source software still exists in a Microsoft world. Good job guys.

To start the Enterprise Manager click here

Windows 2000: Recognizing Dual Processors

Ever upgraded from a single processor to a dual processor and swore the bios settings were correct, but still Windows 2000 is showing one proc? When you install Windows 2000 initially with one processor it installs only the HAL and system files needed for the one CPU. Therefore, when you install the additional CPU the system still recognizes only one unit.

Here are step by step instructions on updating the HAL / Kernel files on your system to pick up the new processor. (Provided by TechTV, Inc.) - Full article here. It is strange how Dell does not (who just introducted a new server line) provide instructions in their whitepapers on how to "successfully" add the dual proccessor.

1. Click on the Start menu, point to Settings, and select Control Panel.
2. Open the System control panel.
3. Click the Hardware tab.
4. Go into the Device Manager and select Computer.
5. Whatever entry is there (Standard PC, ACPI), right-click on it and select Properties.
6. Click on the Driver tab and then on Update Driver. This will start the Driver
7. Upgrade Wizard.
8. Hit Next.
9. At the "Display a list of the known drivers for this device" window, hit Next.

In the next window, there should be a multiprocessor driver in the selection box. Select it and hit Next. If there isn't one, you can select "Show all hardware of this device class" and several multiprocessor and uniprocessor drivers will appear.

Visit rjsNetworks Weblog tomorrow for further details on the new Dell Server line.

Image Hosting Launched

Our image hosting features are second to none. Not only can you create intuitive slide shows for your online album or Ebay Auction, but you also get vital stats about each of your images. That is, everytime someone view your image, your impression count increases. This will give you the ability to measure how effective each of your images really are. In addition, the images are hosted on multiple clustered servers; giving you fast, reliable images, with no downtime or slow downloads. With our connectivity to the backbone of the internet, your bandwidth is only limited to your connection to the internet!

Image Hosting & Ebay Hosting Details

Image Hosting & Ebay Hosting Overview

Mac Switch

Not only does Mac make a stylish computer like the G5, but many users are thinking about switching back. In a world were gadgets and the latest cell phone determine the have and have nots, Apple seems to me making a mark. Rishi wrote about the new G5 and his experience with Virtual PC, here Lab mistress has is perplexed, switch or not:

LabMistress' Blog

Update: Web Attack

On July 2, 2003, an article was posted by Jai regarding a mass web attack that would/did occur this weekend. The results of this attack were not predictable; however, they ended up being an attack on small-scale web servers. The "Defacer's Challenge" started roughly at 0600 GMT with instantly about 300 site attacks. The reward for this was 300 mb of webspace and free web hosting.

The web's biggest sites including Amazon, Ebay, and Yahoo were left untouched, contrary to previous attacks where they were hit the biggest.

Smallest Server

Ok, so we are server crazy. In this business, you have to be. Here is a link to the smallest server in the world. It is remarkable to say the least. Imagine how many servers we could fit into a rack now! We could probably fit Google.com into a rack the size of a kitchen sink (google has roughly 10,000 servers).

Last Post Comments

Well looks like Zone-h.org learnt their lesson on making comments about hackers etc. The site is down right now; but this might be by the actual owner of the site himself. Our advice, hackers are friends and definetly worth hiring. In fact, two of our employees were ex-hackers that came onboard to tighten our network. Our take, be nice; hackers hate being provoked.

New Site Discovery - Response to Hacker Challenge

While browsing the web, we found a great site with internet security advisories. Zone-h.org provided a response to the hacker attack that is supposed to kick off this weekend. We at rjsNetworks.com are all on 'high-alert' this weekend due to the elevated level of network security threats this Independence Day weekend.

Web Attack Planned this Weekend by Hackers

Thanks to Ken over at RainFall.com we were notified about a series of web rumors of a planned attack this coming weekend. In preparation of this rumor, we will be doing maintenance to our core network on Friday early morning at 2am EST. Ken did send over some articles about government warnings regarding the attacks. All customers are recommended to update your own anti-virus files/software before Thursday evening and again on Monday morning. In addition, customers are encouraged to copy their web content onto local drives and store these offsite....a good time to do this would be now :)

"The Office of Cyber-Security and Critical Infrastructure Co-ordination warned Internet providers and other organisations that the goal of the hackers was to vandalise 6,000 Web sites in six hours."

We will keep you posted of addiitonal news if/when it becomes available.

Game Hosting: Launched

rjsNetworks and ZeroPings have officially begun fully operational Game Server Hosting available at the lowest prices as of July 1, 2003. Visit us at the Game Server website at ZeroPings.com

You can look for us over at our affiliates website: CSNation

We currently host two major games: Counterstrike and Day of Defeat. We can provide you with custom dedicated solutions as well with any game of your choice.

For more information visit ZeroPings or call 407-484-3458

Coming soon to the rjsNetworks product lineup: rjsEbayImageHosting, rjsCRM, and many more.