I'm going to share a link-building strategy (not specific tactics) that has worked exceedingly well for me when it comes to driving traffic to a website. This will not work for everyone because, frankly, few can produce content of high enough quality to make this strategy feasible.

(If you think you're tough enough to hang with this, you need to keep reading.)

It's not like I need another browser. Before installing Chrome, my sweet Fedora 11 rig was equipped with (in order of favorite to least favorite) Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, and the ultra-crappy Internet Explorer (under Wine -- why does anyone use this piece of junk? Oh, right, because they're under some kind of spell that makes them blind to the vast world beyond Microsoftie stuff... anyway...). I also keep Lynx around for fun. To me the true test of good web design is this: It's worth browsing the site in Lynx; the site works.

So anyway, I don't need another browser.

This is very interesting. I'm in my sixth week of not being able to type. While I have been out of the game, some enterprising person has taken it upon themselves to build a bunch of icky links to my sites. These are links from spammy Viagara pages, cigarette vendors and a couple of porn pages that even make me blush.

Do these unwanted "bad neighborhood" links hurt SEO? Yes, it seems. Combined with my inability to add fresh content, it may have been very mildly effective (search engine traffic across my sites is off by 14 percent from the monthly norm).

Another big, beautiful Drupal site... at least these guys got one thing right. Who needs to tax the disgustingly rich or cut defense spending when the people's website is so cool.

This blog is on hold for a few weeks. I injured my hand and can't type. Check back.

Some script kiddy's botnet is slamming the site again this morning. They're trying to make comments, trying to inject something, I guess. Maybe it's just a super-weak DoS attack. I don't know yet.

I think everything is pretty solid right now but I haven't looked at the server. If the site is slow or crashes, this is the reason.

[Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. The following is just one un-educated opinion.]

Everyone who blogs has heard about the new FTC rules regarding endorsements and testimonials by now. I have been reading and digesting this for a couple of weeks. Overall, I would say that the new rules will have a positive impact on the blogosphere, perhaps weeding out some of the more deceptive sploggers. That said, I also think there are some unfair requirements.

All my websites were taken down momentarily by a cracker this morning (11-11-2009). Probably had something to do with the DoS attack the other day. They used that to find and open holes, I guess.

I'm not giving any details about what happened because I want to catch the SOB next time. All I can say is that it's pretty pathetic to waste everyone's time like that. You waste your time taking down the sites because of course I have them backed up and will bring them back up. You waste my time (more of yours than mine). You accomplish nothing, and you put yourself in severe legal jeopardy. What's the point?

A few handy commands

Linux gurus will already know these nifty command line utilities, but newbs and even mid-level users might find them useful.

Remember that if you have questions about syntax or options for any command, just do man [command].

First, commands that webmasters and network admins will like:

whois This is a great one for tracking visits to your websites. You can do "whois ipaddress" or "whois domain."