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Leeching images and the leechers who leech them

Posted on June 29, 2005 at 01:24 AM

Being the stat whore that I am, I was going through my logs for this website tonight and found something a bit unusual. At first it looked as though JoeSchmidt.com had a great day for site visits. But delving further into my stats found that not to be the case. It appears that one of the most popular blogs on the internet is leeching a teletubbies image from my site.

For those of you who don't know, leeching is the practice of linking to an image on someone else's site instead of having the image reside on your own server. In other words, let's say Dick has a picture displayed on his web page, but that picture doesn't reside on his server, it sits on Joe's server. So when someone visits Dick's website they see the image but the bandwidth to download the image is being unknowingly provided by Joe. What this boils down to is bandwidth theft. A practice which is looked down upon heavily on the internet.

This mess all started with my post on computer pranks to liven up the cube farm. I had found a teletubbies image via Google and downloaded it to my site. I went on to talk about how it would be funny to mess with someone on April Fool's day by replacing their computer's desktop wallpaper with something like an image of the teletubbies. Accordingly, I provided a reasonably sized image for the reader to download and use for that purpose.

What I didn't expect was the popularity of people searching for teletubbie images on the internet. I began to notice an increase of people finding this site based on the search string teletubbies. In an act of desperation to find the source of this new found interest in my site, I blogged about the teletubbie phenomenon. For the life of me I couldn't locate my site in any search engine results for the query teletubbies.

Since then the situation has only gotten worse. The top referrers to my blog are web forums in which people have leeched the teletubbie image from this site. (you can see for yourself by clicking here) So tonight when I found that the Daily Kos is leeching that same image from me in a post on their site, it truly was the straw that broke this blog's back.

So what do I do in a situation like this? Do I email the sites and ask them to politely stop leeching the image from me? That route could take days and would most likely not even garner a response. I find that it's much easier (and amusing) to be an asshole and take matters into my own hands.

Since the image is on my site, I have complete control over it's content, meaning I could add something to the picture to change it's appearance. So by modifying the image, people who go to those sites and see the leeched image will find it to be in it's new, modified form. What I ended up doing was taking that teletubbies image into photoshop and added the words "THIS IMAGE LEECHED FROM JOESCHMIDT.COM" across the image and then uploaded it to my site. So now when someone goes to a website that leeches the teletubbie image from me they will find a little surprise.

An example:

Here is what the teletubbie image leeched from my site looked like on Daily Kos before:





And here is the newly modified teletubbie image on the Daily Kos:

You can go to the page and see my handy work for yourself, but I thought I should also provide some proof. Reason being is that once they see the new image I'm sure they will correct the mistake.

Now, I can't hold the Daily Kos entirely accountable for the leeching because the article was written by someone named Grand Moff Texan. And, as it happens, the post that they wrote also appears on their own site momentoftriumph.blogspot.com. So it seems that I'm killing two birds with one stone.

Here's what the momentoftriumph site looked like before and after I modified the image.

There are of course other anti-leeching tactics out there, many of them involve using an .htaccess file to stop the leeching or having it replace the leeched image in question with a predefined error image when viewed on the leecher's site. The only problem with this solution was that I found some negative feedback involving this tactic. The two reasons being that it may not completely stop the leeching and it could prevent someone who is legitimately viewing my site from seeing any of my images. I'll try my solution and see what happens.

Hopefully by doing this all of this I may finally put an end to this teletubbie nonsense I've been dealing with for the past few months. So if you're looking for a teletubbie image, do a Google image search, because you won't like the new and improved teletubbie image found on JoeSchmidt.com.

And to think, I was all prepared to blog about taking the head of my legal department to see Tony Hawk's Boom Boom Huck Jam tonight and tell you what a great show it was. And even throw some video I took of it up on this site. Looks like that post will have to wait for tomorrow. Damn you, leechers!

In closing, I don't own the trademark to the teletubbies or the image that sits on my website. I found it just like anyone else would via a search engine. I'm not mad that they found the image on my site, I'm just thoroughly pissed about my bandwidth being stolen (if you couldn't tell). All of this could have been easily avoided if the author of that post would have copied the image from my site instead of taking the easy route and leeched it.

To be nice, I would gladly email the owner of either site the original teletubbie image to host on their OWN server if they requested it.

See, I'm not a total asshole.

Posted by joeschmidt at 01:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

Happy Birthday

Posted on June 22, 2005 at 01:30 AM

This blog extends it's warmest birthday wishes to the head of our legal department. Today marks his 6th anniversary of being with the JoeSchmidt.com team. We couldn't be more proud of what he has accomplished in just 6 short years with us and look forward to his future achievements.

A special cake was prepared by the Department of Culinary Arts here at JoeSchmidt.com with great care in order to commemorate this event.

If you couldn't tell, the legal department is big into Star Wars.

Happy Birthday Nick.

Posted by joeschmidt at 01:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

Shake it like a Polaroid

There's just something nostalgic I find about Polaroid pictures. It harkens back to a time where having a snapshot in your hands just minutes after the moment happened was a feat to behold. So the pictures weren't up to the standards of today's modern digital photography. Who cares! It was an easy way for millions of people to create instant memories without the hassle of developing costly film. (Besides, who really needed all those doubles anyway?)

So how can you recreate that old school feel without having to go out and buy a Polaroid camera? The polaroid-o-nizer lets you create authentic looking Polaroids out of pictures you find on the internet. Just enter the web address of a picture you've found, select a rotation angle, add a few remarks, and Polaroid-o-nize!

For the tech savvy amongst us, you can also adjust the background color by entering an RGB color (Here's a good Hex to RGB converter) and define the area of the picture by giving the polaroid-o-nizer a few coordinates.

Here are a few examples I created:

A memo to all you Polaroid camera wielding hipsters out there, stop shaking your Polaroids.

Posted by joeschmidt at 01:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

How to add a del.icio.us link to your Movable Type blog post

Posted on June 17, 2005 at 07:38 AM

Some of you may be thinking,"What is del.icio.us? Is it some kind of food related web site?" I'm not going to go into great detail here explaining what del.icio.us is and why you should use it, but basically Del.icio.us is a social bookmark manager as you will note in the quote from the del.icio.us about page:

"del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others."

If you're still in the dark, Wikipedia's del.icio.us entry is a good resource for further reading.

A few days ago I added the following code to my Movable Type main index and date-based archive templates:

<a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<$MTEntryPermalink$>&title=<$MTEntryTitle$>" target="blank">post to del.icio.us</a>

This code will produce a link that will allow your reader to create a del.icio.us link that points directly to your article. The Movable Type <$MTEntryPermalink$> keyword creates the link and <$MTEntryTitle$> creates the title in the del.icio.us link. So all a user has to do is click the link, log into del.icio.us (if they haven't already done so), add a few tags to the entry, and they're done.

Here's where you want to add it in to your main index template (click on image for a larger view):

The above code is the portion of the MT main index template that creates the permalink, author, comments and trackbacks at the end of each post. You could also put the "post to del.icio.us" link under the subject of your post, but for usability sake it would make sense to leave it at the bottom. Reason being is to not make your reader have to scroll back up to the top of the page in order to add your post to their del.icio.us.

Once you've added the code to your main index template, you will also need to add it to your date based and category archives as well. Just remember to rebuild your site when you're finished entering the code into your MT templates if you want the del.icio.us link to appear on every post.

The final result is a neat little tool that allows readers to quickly add your blog post to their del.icio.us link list. The hard part for you will be creating good content that would prompt someone to add you to their del.icio.us. I struggle with that every day.

For all you del.icio.us gurus out there, here's a great article I found detailing everything you ever wanted to know about del.icio.us but were afraid to ask.

Posted by joeschmidt at 07:38 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

Skipping class 21st century style

Posted on June 14, 2005 at 12:51 AM

In the current edition of Wired Magazine, they have a section devoted to Nextfest, Wired's World Fair inspired technology convention, which highlights new and innovative technologies of the oh-so-near future. Items of note would be the Moller Sky car, self-healing polymers, or optical camouflage. But what really caught my eye was Pebbles, a teleconferencing robot designed specifically for sick/bedridden/hospitalized children to participate in school and feel more connected socially with their peers.

Now with all seriousness, I think any type of technology that can be used to help children who spend a lot of their childhood in hospitals due to illness feel more like a normal child is wonderful. But I couldn't help but notice the image Wired used to illustrate the Pebbles technology:

Do you see what I mean? Let's take a closer look.

Now do you see it? Just imagine the scenario.

Little Suzy thought she could skip school today and enjoy the beautiful weather outside with a relaxing dip in the pool. Next thing she knows she's in a teleconference with her classroom. Still in her pink swimsuit and donning wet hair, she zooms the camera in close on her face to hide the fact she just got out of pool, er *cough* *cough* I mean bed. The uncomfortable look on her face completely gives away the fact that she knows she is totally busted and is quietly thinking to her 9 year old self, "Damn you pebbles robotic teleconferencing. Damn you!"

I think this definitely qualifies as one of those "What were you thinking?" moments to the person at Wired Magazine that slapped this picture together. The thought of photoshopping a picture of an obviously not sick, not bedridden, look-at- me-I-just-got-out-of-the-pool-girl (still in her swimsuit) into a device used to help seriously ill children probably never crossed their mind.

I'd submit the picture to Jay Leno's Headlines but I'm way too lazy and after all it's probably not that funny.

Posted by joeschmidt at 12:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

Napoleon Dynamite released one year ago today

Posted on June 11, 2005 at 11:30 PM

I wasn't fortunate enough to see Napoleon Dynamite in the theater and only saw it for the first time about 6 months later. I received it on DVD as apart of one of those white elephant gift exchanges. The main reason why I didn't see it sooner was because the CEO wasn't too keen on it as she didn't think the trailer was all that funny. After all, running a corporation as large as JoeSchmidt.com doesn't afford one the kind of time where you can see any movie out there. You have to pick and choose the movies you want to see carefully, because if it's a stinker it could be 3 months before you get a chance to see something else.

For those of you who have seen the movie, you know it's always a wise move to vote for Pedro:

For the rest of you who don't have a clue as to who Pedro is or why you should vote for him, buy the movie so you too can know what all the cool kids are talking about.

Posted by joeschmidt at 11:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

This blog hits a hole-in-one

Posted on June 08, 2005 at 05:25 PM

Posted as a collaboration of the Day Late and a Dollar Short and Broken Scanner departments here at JoeSchmidt.com

Some of you may have heard about this already. I wanted to post about this feat the day after it happened but two events prevented it from happening. The clip of my hole-in-one didn't appear in the newspaper until two days after the fact (Saturday). Once I had the newspaper clip I wanted to scan it in, however my scanner had other plans. So here we are about 6 days after the fact. Better late than never I guess.

Last Thursday (June 2nd) I was playing in our weekly golf league held at the Johnny Goodman Golf Course here in Omaha. I approached the par 3, 145 yard, seventh hole having played pretty well up until that point. Yet a hole-in-one was the furthest thing from my mind at that moment. I am the type of golfer who is delighted to fix a ball mark on the green, which for you non-golfers out there means that the ball must have been hit from pretty far a way in order to make a "dent" in the green.

The tees were playing a little up so I decided to hit a pitching wedge. I struck the ball solidly and it turned out to be a good looking shot as it tracked towards the pin. At this point I am thinking about how I usually average about a 5 on this hole due to the undulating green and the water that lay in front of the hole (On in two and three putts is the norm for me) but this time was different. My shot landed in the middle of the green, and started rolling towards the pin, which was tucked back a little behind the sloping front edge of the green.

It was a little hard to tell from the tee whether the ball went in or not, I figured it either dropped or trickled on past. But judging from the reaction of the guys on the tee next to the green I could safely assume it went in. I was just happy I didn't have to look at a birdie-putt-turned-bogey-three-putt scenario.

Here's a clip from the local newspaper:

The ball was a Titleist, just not a PRO V1. Because at the rate that I lose golf balls it would be akin to throwing money out the window. See below:

Some Interesting facts about this round:

• If you look at my scorecard, you'll notice that I shot a 43, which is the lowest 9 hole round this year for this blog. My score was comprised of an eagle, 4 pars, a bogey, a double bogey and 2 triple bogeys.


• On the par five, 2nd hole, I was on the green in three shots and putted for a birdie. I ended up four putting for a seven.


• Not a single shot from this entire round was struck while the ball was resting in the fairway.


• Total putts for the round: 17


• Total amount of beer purchased by me after the round: $40.

A common question I received was this my first hole in one? No. This would be my second in about 14 years. I went into the JoeSchmidt.com media archive and pulled this newspaper clipping from Saturday April 13th, 1991:

For the year to date, I have as many birdies as I do hole-in-ones. Not many people can make that statement.

Other Hole in One Trivia

Most Holes In One

Norman Manley - 59 "Aces"
His first ace was in 1964. In 1979 he hit 4 holes-in-one.

Longest Hole-In-One

Michael J. Crean of Denver, CO- 517 yard par 5 9th hole at the Green Valley Ranch Golf Club on July 4, 2002.

Former Longest Hole-In-One

Robert Mitera - 447 yard 10th hole at Miracle Hill Golf Course on October 7, 1965 in Omaha, NE.

Oldest Player

Harold Stilson, 101 years old, from Boca Raton Florida, is the oldest golfer to have ever hit a hole in one. He used a 4 Iron on the 108 yard, 16th at Deerfield CC on May 16th 2001. He died on Feb. 2nd, 2002.

Posted by joeschmidt at 05:25 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

Teletubbies?

Posted on June 02, 2005 at 01:55 AM

I must confess that ever since I started this blog I have become somewhat of a stats whore. Periodically throughout the day I will check the traffic stats of this blog to see how many people have visited, how they got here, or what search terms they used to find my blog. It's quite fascinating really. And after reading Min Jung Kim's Lifecycle of Bloggers I can relate somewhat with step 3, which is where I currently stand in my blog lifecycle. Sure there's been subtle traces of steps 4, 7, 9 in the evolution of this blog, but with only 4 months into it, the verdict is still out.

So after looking through my May stats, I found one search query in particular that has me baffled. Teletubbies. 23 people last month found this blog by searching for the term teletubbies. I have used every major search engine known to man looking for this blog in the results for the search query teletubbies. I have even taken the time to search 20 pages deep in Google and still haven't found one result linking to my site. I know it's within the realm of possibilities to find teletubbies within this blog's content. I mentioned teletubbies in my post about April Fool's computer pranks in which I linked to an image of those vile beasts.

So if you've stumbled upon this blog looking for teletubbies, please do me a favor and leave a comment stating how you got here, and why on God's green earth are you looking for teletubbies.

Thus far, only two days into June, I've had 3 people find this blog looking for teletubbies. The only comment I can muster at this point is damn you Tinky Winky, damn you.

Posted by joeschmidt at 01:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

My Gapingvoid.com shirt arrived (3 weeks ago)

Posted on June 01, 2005 at 12:28 AM

From the day late and a dollar short department

Back in April, Hugh MacLeod of Gapingvoid fame announced that he was going to sell limited edition t-shirts based off of his blogcard designs. After reading this I knew I had to have one, but was a little scared by the price. $19.90 isn't a bad price for a t-shirt, but realize that's in GBP not U.S. dollars. Some 5th grade math told me that the conversion figured to roughly $37.50 which was a little more than I wanted to pay, even for a "limited edition" Gapingvoid shirt. I had to figure out a way to sneak this purchase past the JoeSchmidt.com CFO so I wouldn't get a carpet call.

But wouldn't you know it, as soon as I got home from work I found the aforementioned JoeSchmidt.com CFO up stairs in the command center (I.E. computer room, A.K.A junk room) on the Gapingvoid t-shirt site ordering a shirt for me. She was going to surprise me with it but needed some help ordering from the site. After we completed the order the total came to a little over $42 US. Which isn't bad, considering shipping charges only ran about $5 for an overseas order.

Fast forward to May.

May 3rd was the shipping date for shirts that had been pre-ordered. Knowing that Gapingvoid is based out of the U.K. I realized that it would probably take some time for it to arrive. So for the next week or so, I diligently checked the mail with the enthusiasm of an 8 year old waiting for an Ovaltine secret decoder ring to magically appear in our mail. Finally on May 11th it arrived, and I couldn't have been more pleased with the finished product.

The shirt is made of a high quality cotton that looks like it will hold up well to many future washings. I feared that it would be of a lesser quality, but I've got to hand it to Hugh, he really delivered. The shirt tag is also custom made and bears a gapingvoid logo which states that is part of a limited edition lot of 200. And to top it off, each shirt comes with its own certificate indicating its place in the series. I was lucky enough to get the 9th shirt out of 200 available.

I really wanted to get the shirt based on the C.F.A. blogcard (some of you might even say it describes my personality) as I love the use of the Venn Diagram in the illustration. But alas, $37.50 for one shirt already took the JoeSchmidt.com revenue stream into the red, $75 for two shirts would have created an insurmountable void.

A side note: If any of you are feeling philanthropic, feel free send a C.F.A shirt my way. I would proudly wear it to the grocery store or the zoo (if I ever happen to patronize such places).

Posted by joeschmidt at 12:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us