Caydel’s SEO Blog

Now, before I go any further, let me make a few things clear:

• Spiceworks is an ad-supported program. By removing the ads, you are depriving the development team of their funding. In essence you are stealing the software from them.
• Spiceworks is not open source software. This means that you are not allowed to modify the code for your own uses.
• Removing the ads is probably illegal.

So, why am I posting this? Well, for a few reasons:

• I was having issues with the ads loading - they were timing out, making each page take 30+ seconds to load, and making the software somewhat unuseable.
• Many tech people have adblocker software that is blocking the ads already.
• This is to illustrate a point that I plan to make in an upcoming post.

That said - here is a quick way to remove the ads in Spiceworks. What tools do you need? Nothing. You need notepad, and the Windows Explorer.

An immediate observation I made when first looking at Spiceworks is that it is written in Ruby on Rails. All other things inside, that immediately indicated that somewhere, there was an .rhtml file which contained the layout code to include the ad block.

So, immediately, I performed a serach of the program directory, and found all the .rhtml files.

The two which you need to edit are:

• C:\Program Files\Spiceworks\ruby\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\gems\spiceworks-0.8.3616\app\views\layouts\common\_ads.rhtml
• C:\Program Files\Spiceworks\ruby\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\gems\spiceworks-0.8.3616\app\views\layouts\common\_sidebar.rhtml

To remove the ads, simply open both the above files in notepad. Remove all the contents from _ads.rhtml, leaving it completely empty. Remove everything within the “adbox” div tag.

If you would rather place your own ads in the sidebar, or the other content of your choice, perhaps links, or other content, you can also edit

C:\Program Files\Spiceworks\ruby\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\gems\spiceworks-0.8.3616\app\views\ads\adiframe.rhtml

replacing the contents within the tage with whatever you want to appear there. You could even place your own ads into the spiceworks install if you wanted.

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It appears that Microsoft is starting to get protective over their digital property rights. Recently, they have begun a new set of lawsuits against companies, and individuals who have registered large numbers of domains that may possibly infringe on Microsoft-owned Trademarks, such as WindowsLiveTutorial.com and HaloChamps.com.

Once again, a company getting retarded over digital rights. Don’t get me wrong - if someone had a website corresponding to a product name of mine, then I would push to get it back. In Microsoft’s case, I could understand if the were pushing for XBox.com, Windows.com, MSN.com or similar names. But bu targetting sites such as HaloChamps.com, they are shooting themselves in the foot.

While the vast majority of the sites which are being targetted in the lawsuits are merely parked domains which contain Microsoft trademarks, think about what Microsoft is accomplishing with this - in essence, they are killing of their communities.

How many community websites do you see which contain game or product names in the domain or title of the website? I can think of hundreds! By scaring people from using their trademarks, Microsoft is going to stink community support of their products. Who wants to open a website, if they have to be afraid of using certain names and titles in their site lest the Microsoft monkey jumps on their back?

Now, if someone was pretending a direct association with Microsoft ont their site, that would be another story alltogether. And I don’t think they are going after existing, growing community sites. Rather, they are targetting cybersquatters. Nevertheless, I think much of what I have said above with respect to community acceptance holds true.

I am tempted to purchase a Microsoft trademark-infringing domain, and see what type of a response I get - it could be fun to get a C & D notice. As it is, I wonder what will happen to IE7.com… In one of my favourite ironies of the year, some smartass registered it and placed an oversized Firefox banner on it, pointing to the Firefox website….

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According to a , Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt is hastily reassuring their users that they would not have the type of security breach recently experienced by AOL.

“Our number one priority is the trust our users have in us,” Schmidt said, speaking at a press conference during the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose, California. “The answer is, it won’t happen.”

Of course Google is making a statement like this - people are worried, with their deep, dark secrets held out to dry. The data released by AOL exposed the darker intents of many people - there were searches for the effects of incest, related to searches of teenage motherhood. There were searches for pictures of dead people, and searches for how to murder a wife or lover. And beyond all this, these searches are occasionally linked to real people, through searches for social security numbers, or searches for the names of themselves or people they know.

Now, I wouldn’t never say that I prefer that data which could help prevent a murder from becoming available, but there were hundreds of thousands of other searches in there, many which people would rather not have made public.

But I won’t get into this too much farther - millions of other blogs have already been over it. Rather, to get back to Google’s statement, two thoughts come to mind.

1. Google can’t predict it. AOL’s move was so stupid, I am sure the people in charge would have said they wouldn’t have made such a move either. It only takes a small subset of employees to make something like this happen. In a company as large as Google, their are many thosands of sets of employees. For Google to claim that they will never experience a similar security speach is mighty pretentious.
2. This really seems like a subtle dig at AOL. Of course, it is well deserved by AOL. Underneath Schmidt’s political words, there is a sharp edge. Every positive thing he says is aimed to also subtly imply the opposite about AOL.

At any rate, we can only hope nothing like this happens again; Google, with it’s vastly superior search volume, could potentially expose even more user’s private matters.

If you are interested in viewing the AOL data, it is available here.

Digg.com is a service used by us all. For some of its users, it is a quick way to promote the news that concerns them . For some, it is a way to promote products. For others, it is a way to quickly achieve a large burst of traffic, if the can make it to the front page.

The best thing about it is, it is free!

But what does that really mean? How can that be interpreted in light of the ‘Open Source/Free Software’ ideal expressed by such organizations as the Free Software Foundation?

‘Free’ as a term can be understood in two ways, each best described in the statement taken from the Free Software Foundation website:

‘Free Software is a matter of liberty not price. To understand this concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech’, and not as in ‘free beer’!”

It can be argued without a doubt that the digg.com service is free in terms of ‘free beer’, in that you pay nothing for the privilege of using the service. But is it free as in ‘free speech’?

Digg allows you to use it’s service, regardless of your motivation. Digg does not really care about your politics, or your religion, or your social and ethical views. You may use the service whoever you are, and you may promote whichever news items you would like to see on the front page. Of course, this is subject to their terms and conditions which generally say, ‘Don’t break the law, and don’t do anything that could get you, or us, sued, or arrested’.

Of course, there have been issues with people using digg to promote their stories using tracking software, and forming groups to mass promote Digg stories of members. This kind of activity has been punished by Digg.

But is it really within the ‘free speech’ methodology to ban users for use which you disagree with? I won’t argue that it was Digg’s right to ban such users. But does it fit with ‘free speech’?

I would argue that it makes sense with managing a proper community. But, I do not think it can be reconciled with ‘free speech’. Order is necessary, especially when dealing with a website which has over 250,000 accounts. If Digg were not to retain order by banning individuals who do not work towards the continuance of the site.

I would argue that there is nothing wrong with submitting a story on your own site for some Diggs, and the chance to become popular. This is a way for webmasters who have really good ideas to break out. If the story is good, it will become popular. If it isn’t, it will fall, and no harm done.

Of course, it galls a little to see users cheating the system. But I cannot condemn them. If free speech is supported, then they are also allowed to promote what they wish to promote, regardless of their motivation. If they group together to game the system, it is a shame. But in terms of free speech, I would not be able to condemn them.

That is the root of why Digg could never exist as an Open system. In order to maintain it’s own existence, Digg is forced to lay restrictions and enforce policies on it’s users. And banning users for what they say and/or do is not reconcilable to free speech.

So is there any system or place where free speech the way it should be interpreted is to be found? I would argue that there isn’t.

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So, how would you feel if all of your online moves were filtered through FBI wiretaps and filters, looking for any suspicious activity?

The suspicious among us might argue that such is the case already. However, from a recent CNET article, it appears that the FBI is drafting new legislation that would require providers of backbone networking gear to build in ‘backdoors’ for eavesdropping on what is going by.

Now, a small part of me can understand the rationale behind this. The modern day criminal knows that the internet is a fairly viable source for secure communications. If there was no way for law enforcement agencies to tap their communications, all hell could break loose. This is already a requirement for modern telephone routing equipment providers. Why not the Internet equipment providers as well?

What worries me more is the other side of the legislation: The FBI is majorly expanding it’s powers to tap such items as instant messaging, in game chats from video games, and any other source it deems necessary, without so much as yearly notice to the public giving statistics on their tapping habits. In other words, they are expanding their legal power while removing standing measure to increase their accountability.

What can we think about this?

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