Every so often I check through my website’s stats looking for hotlinking. Mostly it isn’t a big problem but sometimes websites or forums can really put a strain on my server, particularly if it’s a site with a lot of traffic such as Fark forums or another busy website. At other times it just annoys the crap out of me that a website would rather hotlink an image on my server instead of uploading it to their own.
If you know how, you can implement techniques that either
prevent hotlinking entirely, or serve up a different image to the offending site, as many who have inadvertantly displayed the infamous
goatse picture can testify
.
It was while checking for hotlinking I discovered I’m a ‘weather expert’. Imagine my surprise upon learning of this hitherto unknown talent!
During May of this year I wrote a blog post about how to predict summer weather using the leaves of garden shrubs. As it turned out, this year was the wettest summer on record but I digress…
A guy called Pat Timm, who, according to his website, weathersystems.com (Notice the link, Pat, should you happen to be reading this), is a free-lance writer, columnist, and a recognized expert on Pacific Northwest Weather, decided not only to rip-off my images and bandwidth but also my theory and make out like it was devised by an expert!
The one on the right is a new leaf that has grown this year. So, according to some experts, it would be a warmer than average summer
There are no other experts - I came up with the method! And I’m not an expert!
I really don’t know what has bugged me more about this - the fact that he’s hotlinking my images and stealing my bandwidth, the fact that he’s ripping off my homespun weather prediction method without any credits or the fact he’s claiming the method was devised by experts. Probably the latter, now that I think about it. At least now I’m an expert. 
Some screencaptures:
The hotlinker:
Hotlinking 1
October 13th, 2007
What if your business was buying and selling domain names? How good would it be for your overheads if you could cut the cost of renewing domain names to zero? Pretty darn good, right?
Here’s how it can be done on TDNAM.com, Godaddy’s domain name aftermarket where you can buy domains that are droppping because they have expired, or you can buy domains from sellers reselling privately.
Firstly, forget about domains held by Godaddy that are simply dropping. This free renewal technique will only work with private sellers.
Here’s what you do - find a $10 domain listing and check when it is due to expire. If it’s a Godaddy listing of a dropped domain it will show as expired so you can ignore it and move on. What you are looking for is a domain that has a few months left to run before it is due for renewal. This tells you it is being sold by a private seller and allows you to set up your free renewal.
For our purposes here, only bid $10 - there are plenty that go for the bare minimum price so don’t bid any higher. If you win the auction, you are halfway towards getting your domain renewed for free by the seller!
Here’s how. Ignore the seller’s attempts to contact you about the domain. What you want is for the seller to still be in possession of the domain when it comes time to renew it. Now the seller has two choices - renew the domain for you for free or allow it to expire when the time comes. If the seller renews the domain you then claim the domain you bought along with your free renewal (hopefully, the seller renewed the domain for more than one year) or you file a dispute with tdnam and ask for your money back. They will do all the work for you! If the seller refuses to refund the money, tdnam suspends their account!
In the meantime you can of course, try flipping (selling) the domain name. Either way, you either don’t spend a penny or you snatch a domain name with a full year or more left to run! Best of all, it’s all perfectly legal!
The seller is the one who ends up out of pocket either because they have unwittingly renewed your domain for free or have had to refund tdnam the cost of the sale plus fees - in effect, the full $10 selling price of the domain, even though the seller only received $5 from the sale.
By now you probably think I’m some kind of scammer. You would of course be wrong. I found out about this the hard way. Bringing it to light is the only way I know of to force a change to the way things get done and bring an end to what I believe to be unsavoury practice.
Update - tdnam refunded me $5 of the $10 I had to pay them to reopen my tdnam account. At least I’m not out of pocket any longer.
September 12th, 2007
