Sick of these ads? Of course you are… Well what if you could avoid them altogether?

Here’s a simple tip that heps you do just that,- stopping images and pages from a long list of notorious web sites from being displayed on your browser. These particular ones are hosted on the domain “content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net” and link to a url at “ad.adperium.com” – literally just a couple of sites among many which are purely for shoving advertising and spam down the viewers throat.

One easy way to stop such ads appearing is to use customise your HOSTS file. This is basically like a local version of a DNS server (those servers that translate domain names into numbers so your browser can find web sites). In the HOSTS file, you’d have a list of all the sites you want blocked and have them correspond to 127.0.0.1 (also known as “localhost”) – so that your browser would try to load the images and pages from your own PC instead of the actual web site.

Handily, someone’s already written a customised HOSTS file for you to use and it’s pretty simple to install. First things first though, – better safe than sorry.. back up the file you’ve got.

Hello SDLP Youth… How are you?

It was nice to get a link from the SDLP Youth web site.

I only got it because I linked to a video on YouTube where two Canadian radio comedians prank Sarah Palin – and the youngsters in the SDLP saw it (-and apparrently, that’s the kind of thing the SDLP Youth enjoy!).

Quick lesson in “image etiquette” on the interwebs.

If you’re going to use an image from someone elses site (e.g.: mine) – as long as you’re sure they won’t have a problem with it, of course, there’s two things you should do.

1. Download it from their site, upload it to your own – meaning you’re using your own bandwidth, not theirs.

2. Credit them for the image.

Thanks on both these counts to the lovely lecraic.

Boo hiss! on both counts to Amanda’s Growing Pains. Here’s a screenshot. Her blog entry DID have a picture looking like THIS in it:

… and okay, granted- that’s not MY original photo, but it’s hosted on my server and she directly linked to it, using my bandwidth (albeit a small amount) – so I changed the file so it looks like this:

(I also posted a reply there linking her to here). I guess that’ll show her…

ShiteDrivers.com, my the blog about bad driving on the roads of Ireland has moved home.

Regular readers of the site will be glad to know that it’s not gone completely. The address stays the same, the content is still all there, – I’m just not running it any more (this guy is!) and it’s moved server.

That’s all!

As reported on RTÉ News, it’s the end of the road for (unaccompanied) unlicensed drivers as it’s now illegal (as of midnight, Monday night) to drive on your own unless you’re fully licensed – and damn right too.

That’s not to say that Irish people won’t moan about this – sure where would we be if we didn’t have something to moan about?
(… Jersey?) One common excuse is bound to be the old “we didn’t get enough warning” chestnut which, I’m afraid, is bollocks. The longest driving test back-log that I’ve heard of was 6-8 weeks (it’s come down a LOT recently) and this new law was announced over 6 months ago, so the truth behind that excuse was being too forgetful or lazy to bother applying for the test not not having enough time !

As I said last October, I’m glad I have my full license myself. I felt sorry for learner drivers back then, but that was because it seemed as if the laws were going to be introduced very quickly and not in fact many months later. I don’t feel sorry for them now as they’ve had a more than adequate chance to sort themselves out with a test.

We’ve always had one of the most lax “ah sure it’s grand” style attitudes towards learner driver laws in the world. As I said in a recent TV interview, it’s always been a case of “just send away for the piece of paper, it arrives in the post and out you go on the road”. This law plugs a gap that has been open for far too long. I’m sure it’ll reduce the number of cars on the roads (better for the environment!) and will annoy a lot of people – well, unlicensed drivers (who have no excuse anyway…) but as long as it helps reduce the level of carnage, it’s worth it.

In related news, I’m closing ShiteDrivers.com. The domain name is due to expire on July 18th and unless someone takes it off my hands well before that, that’s the end of it.