Month: February 2008

Size does matter

There are plenty of excellent t-shirts around, but once in a while a brilliant one comes up, which makes all the differences.  Here is one at ThinkGeek.com – nanotechnology is huge !

nanotechnology is huge

The moment I saw that phrase appearing in my Google Reader (here is some info about ThinkGeek feeds), I wanted to buy this t-shirt.  Even before I saw the actual t-shirt.  Even despite my total ignorance of nanotechnology.  It’s just so hilarious and true and makes so much sense at the same time!

Cyprus web hosting? Really? Think again …

I’m far from honest myself, but at least I don’t charge for my lies. Plenty of people do, however. One of the commonly told lies that I come across rather often these days is the one of Cyprus web hosting. Some companies are telling lies out loud, others are just being overly silent about the truth. But the fact of the matter is that Cyprus web hosting is almost non-existing. There are only just a few companies providing web hosting in Cyprus (PrimeTel and CytaNet, for example), and in most of the cases, their offerings don’t make sense financially. That’s one of the biggest reasons for most of Cyprus web sites being hosted outside of Cyprus, in countries like USA, UK, Germany, and Netherlands.

Still, most of the web design and development companies in Cyprus offer “Cyprus web hosting”. Here is just one example, that I found (ironically, I found it through AdSense block on my own blog) – CyprusWebSpace.com . Here is a partial snapshot of their front page.

CyprusWebSpace.com

If you are using Firefox browser with Flagfox plugin, than you will immediately notice the United States of America flag in the bottom right corner of your browser window. If you don’t have the plugin or don’t trust the information that it provides, or use a totally different browser, here is how you can arrive to the same results:

  1. Go to DomainTools.com
  2. Type cypruswebspace.com in the Whois Lookup form at the top of the page and press the Search button
  3. Scroll down the resulting page to where it says “Server Data”
  4. Find the line with the American flag and a description “Texas – Dallas – Theplanet.com Internet Services Inc”.
  5. Bonus point : look at the map, provided by GeoTool. The area you see is pretty far from Cyprus.

Now, there is always this argument, that the web hosting company runs its own web site on a different server from the one that it uses for its customers. It is a theoretically valid point, but the one I haven’t seen in practice just yet. Most of the web companies offering web hosting in Cyprus only have a single server (usually it is a shared or dedicated server, or a VPS account), which they use for all of their hosting needs.

There is also another argument to this point – what exactly is a Cyprus web hosting? Is it hosting on the web server which physically resides in Cyprus, or is hosting on a web server, which is assigned one of the Cyprus IP addresses? And it is, in fact, an interesting point. There is significant difference between the two. If the server is physically located in Cyprus, then chances are, that it will have a lower latency, meaning that web sites on such a server will appear to respond much faster to visitors who are also in Cyprus. This is what matters for many site owners. On the other hand, Cyprus IP address of the web server might be more important to other site owners, since some search engines use this information in scoring their search results (that is considering, for example, that web sites residing on servers with Cyprus IP addresses are more relevant to Cyprus related queries than web sites residing on other web servers).

Technically, it is quite possible for a web server to be physically located in one country, while carrying the IP address, which belongs to another country. But situations like this, aren’t so common, and that is specifically the reason why search engines (and other tools) utilize the information of IP address location.

So, back to the issue of Cyprus web hosting. How bad is it? Let’s see. Examine the first 10 or so results for each of these queries at Google, using the method above:

Impressed? I am. Results:

  • Companies with web sites physically located in Cyprus: 0 (zero).
  • Companies with web sites hosted on a server with Cyprus IP address: 1 (one).

How do I know about this one company with Cyprus IP address that it doesn’t have the server physically located in Cyprus? Because I am an employee of that company (disclaimer and blah blah blah). And even if I wasn’t, finding this information is rather trivial with any traceroute tool (here is one, for example).

So, keep this stuff in mind before you pay for you Cyprus web hosting next time. Maybe this Cyprus offering is not so Cyprus after all. But then again, maybe you just don’t care…

Recent movies

I have watched a few movies recently.  Here is a quick overview, since I don’t feel like writing a complete separate review of each.

  • Rambo.  I saw it in the cinema, on the big screen. And I have to say that I was impressed.  Really.  It couldn’t have been better than the “First Blood” by definition, but it was definitely better than the third part, and arguably better than the second part.  One of the scenes reminds the beach take over in “Saving Private Ryan”, while there are a couple of other pretty good fights.  John Rambo is still the same – quiet veteran, who is not so easily pissed off, but when he is, you better be on the other side of the planet.  In short: lots of blood, great body count, and an absolutely “must see” for the fans.
  • Inside Man.  I am totally biased here, as someone who enjoys heist movies.  But even if there was no heist, it would have still be an excellent movie.  The story is interesting.  The cast is excellent.  The directing is brilliant. And so is every other part of the film – from music through costumes and make-up to operators.  This is how I think movies should be: a little bit of everything – humor, sadness, food for thought, visual pleasure, and acting.
  • Poseidon. It was a good try at a bad movie.  I mean, there was plenty of effort in trying to make this film good.  Some good actors are in.  There are some expensive scenes.  Or at least some of them looked expensive.  There is a little bit of suspense at times.  But this film was bad by idea, not by implementation.  I mean, there is this Titanic story which can be tolled from a thousand perspectives.  And yet, in this film it was told from a perspective of a really cheap “end of the world” flick.  Oh, and the physics really sucked – from beginning to end.  But that is sort of expected in the really cheap “end of the world” flicks.

Dear Mr.Spammer

Dear Mr.Spammer,

you are the ugliest and stinkiest piece of human trash, abusing the technology, annoying people, and occupying their valuable time with your silly activities.  Please stop. Now.  If you feel like  you have nothing much else to do, feel free to go to the darkest corner of our  planet, and die!  I hate you.  People hate you.  Computers hate you.  The universe hates you. So, pretty please, with sugar on top, cease to exist.

P.S.: None of your comments will make it to my blog.  Thanks to Akismet, Gmail, and PHP and Perl.

P.P.S: I really hate you very much.