Zamanta Attracts Malware
February 8, 2010 by tony · 5 Comments
I like WordPress and use it on most of the websites I have, not just this Blog, but as a Content Management System on our rental site for our home at http://VillaRoquette.com. I use Google Webmaster Tools to try to keep my sites in order, one of the services they give is to tell you about any Malware or Phishing hacks that appear on your site – the disadvantage is they tell you after you are attacked and that your site is blocked by Google. but at least they tell you where the problem is and how to fix it and get re-established.
I have lost a couple of successful businesses from being hijacked and hacked on the Internet – I suppose this is some sort of reverse success as usually these evil scumbags only hack successful sites – but by keeping software up-to-date and using good passwords as well as monitoring the sites daily I seem to be holding back direct attacks on the sites.
However two weeks ago I seemed to have opened the door to a whole new problem – it is as if I saw this big wooden horse outside my home and decided that I must bring it in – I loaded a Plugin to WordPress called Zamanta – the idea is that this helps give relevant links and information, pictures etc to make the content more interesting. What it did do was insert a link which then had other code inserted and as flagged as Malware, getting an immediate ban from Google.
Thanks to Google they mailed me, told me the problem page and I could fix it in seconds, they then re-spidered my site and gave me a clean bill of health.
There is no doubt it was this Zamanta link which I put to software called Drupal – I am sure that neither Zamanta nor Drupal are the villains, but as Drupal is very popular, it looks as if hackers have corrupted the links, possibly via Wikipedia, for references that Zamanta uses. The page with this bad link on only had three lines in it and one link – so there is no doubt.
Mobile Phones In France
January 27, 2010 by tony · Leave a Comment
I get a lot of questions about bringing and using mobile phones from visitors to France – a website I have just found is JustLanded – it has, I believe, some good and relevant information about how to get connected and what works in France
Related articles by Zemanta
- Cell Phone Reverse Lookup Finally Possible Thanks To New Service (prweb.com)
- Mobile Blogging For Road Warriors (yearn2blog.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=04290698-8d49-4b41-b346-d0e7a96b0d2a)
Househunting in France
December 17, 2009 by tony · Leave a Comment
I received a comment this morning which is prompting me to do some worK.
A reader sent me a question on my About Us page, asking how to find the name of an owner of a property when they know the address.
First this is reminding me to put some up-to-date photos on the pages – Jack is a young man now and I am older, Carole seems to be getting younger though, so it all balances out.
I have also been reminded of my idea to create a website service to identify, map and give owner’s details of all properties for sale in France.
In most countries there are services giving multiple listings and full details of properties for sale. In the United States sites like Trulia.com and Zillow.com plus blogs like futureofrealestatemarketing.com, or using trade aggregators like Realtor.com can give a buyer some good indications of the total proeprties for sale in any area.
In France it is different. There are several ‘groups’ and trade associations of estate agents. However, most properties for sale do not have any kind of central listing and the advertising done by agents selling properties give very little information, usually never the address and often not even the general area of the property. This is because most properties are listed with many agencies and the agent would lose their (huge) commission if a buyer went direct to the owner to through another agency.
As the purchase and sale of every property, by law, must be done by a Notaire, there is a fixed charge and tax on every purchase. This is around 6 percent of the purchase price (less for a new property) – add to this the estate agents commission, usually around 6 percent again and there is a big incentive for a buyer to deal direct with the owner of a property, if they can find out first which properties are for sale and second, contact details for the owner.
There are a few websites which list properties for sale direct from owners in France – probably the largest is pap.fr/, this site also has some tools giving indications of the values of properties sold recently by department and town.
Privacy and secrecy are taken seriously in France, but there are ways of finding information, addresses and names. The most obvious one is the online telephone directory, there is a reverse look-up facility for individuals at PagesBlanches
By using other Internet tools like Google Maps the local French property rating maps .cadastre.gouv.fr and information about towns from sites like linternaute.com and FallingRain – a researcher can, with a lot of work, find out information and clues as to what properties are for sale and local values.
For a couple of years I have been wanting to make a ‘mashup’ of services and create a site which can use search tools and come up with a list of property for sale, owners and values services etc about any area. I believe I could target over 90 percent of all properties on offer – bearing in mind that many are still not offered through real-estate agencies, this would be a useful application for a mobile phone.
One day soon it will be done, it would be nice if it was me doing it, I could do with the money.
google wave
November 9, 2009 by tony · Leave a Comment
For anyone who has not seen this yet – here it is earlier this year direct from the big “G”
Can anyone give me an invite 
Now I have Stopped Working – Not
October 17, 2009 by tony · Leave a Comment
Now that I have stopped working (well almost) on the house, I am back to marketing and getting guests for our apartments and BandB. We first started this in our old home in Nizas 12 years ago and did all our marketing through the Internet – hopefully I can get back into the same flow as before, there is a lot more actiity on the internet now and the days of getting to the top of Alta Vista in a couple of hours are long gone – the tricks I used then would get me banned from Google for life. I am looking at what is on offer for help in Internet marketing, the rules and ruses seem top be the same, just follow the Google motto of ‘Do No Evil’ – a good website I found is http://www.nikkipilkington.com/about-us/ – Nikki looks good too! (plus she’s a biker)
Hopefully my 20 years experience of Internet marketing will get me started, but I will always look for good skills and help. I don’t have the strong websites I used to own, which got to the top of all French accommodation listings, but I will – Start All Over Again –
If you are thinking of coming to France – stay with us – I will try to make you an offer you cannot refuse.
Villa Roquette
A Plague Upon Their Houses
October 13, 2009 by tony · Leave a Comment
I had a mail from an associate asking about real-estate advertising websites and earning commissions – I have been deeply involved in this over the last ten years and have strong feelings about it.
In my blogs, I have been less than polite about realtors dealing in France, I have had some of these parasites threaten me with legal action – but I have also met a few, very few, (in fact one), gentleman I would recommend .
Here is a reply to an email today, it is at the end of a thread about realtors etc, but it has encouraged me to set out a little more clearly what I am trying to do – Vlad, if yo are reading this we must get this software sorted, if you don’t have time then Richard and Raj, please work with me to make this your next app !!
===
Hi Steve,
My feeling is that real-estate dealing, and all aspects of property sales in France, is, at present, a “commoditised” business and is only attracting a rats-in-a-cage scenario. People will always make money out of selling what is to be sold, but, for-me, this is a bad/dead business.
As all property in France has to be sold through a Notiare, the value of an immobilier is zero – they do not act as true brokers, they do not assist either the buyer or seller, their only interest is to get a mandat and/or get a bon de visite and ensure an immoral level of commission for nothing – a plague on all of them and away with the scoundrels.
What is needed is a true brokerage service (buy it and resell it) or a true marketing/sourcing service (act for the buyer/seller) which clearly sets out the service offered and charges a fair price for the work.
However, to be able to offer any sort of viable and useful service in this area in France, a universal listing facility is needed and the corrupt and disgusting cartels done away with. Dream on.
I am working (too slowly) on software to scrap the useless listings of myriads of agents and simply give a complete “mashup” of all properties listed from existing Internet sources – then use techniques to identify these properties and give information about the seller/owner/agent dealing with it.
So in simple terms, anyone looking in a specific area or for a particular property can see, in one search, all properties, in detail, with full contact information, everything on the Internet which is relevant – this will represent about 80 percent of the relevant search criteria and be many mny times more relevant, efficient and time saving than trawling through the thousands of uninformative agency sites and for iPhone or Facebook would cost a user a very small amount. This concept is an “app” costing from zero to perhaps 4 euro. There are over 500,000 target clients for this.
OK, that is my aim – I cannot see any viability in any “new” listing site, only heartache and wasted time – those early Internet days are nearly gone.
Fractional Ownership is mostly marketed for the “almost” rich people who want a slice of something they cannot really afford – interestingly, in my opinion, it does have a place and is a good product and I would like to find the right marketing angle for this.
Without a license or correct registration, any commission you get on a sale is discretionary – 10 percent is the usual for a non-registered person, you can only do this two or three times with impunity – as an agent commercial I would demand 50 percent of the commission, most gave me 60 to 75 percent of their commission.
Lots to talk about
Nanocrystalline titanium dioxide photoelectrodes
September 27, 2009 by tony · 6 Comments
Titanium Dioxide – interesting stuff. Google tio2 and get a glimpse of what photovoltaic technology might be morphing into.
I am spending a quiet Sunday thinking about this as I was shown some interesting technology last week which is making me mull over some of the ‘indispensable’ things in our lives today. I see from my email that more people I already know write to me through Facebook than direct to my email address – more – the majority of these people are emailing me from their iphone or blackberry.
I have a problem with phones, I find it difficult, often impossible, to use one. I am happy to meet anyone any time anywhere – I have met and spoken to Princes, Dukes, gangsters and muggers – I have even argued with bank managers in their marble pleasure domes and enjoyed the experience – but, I cannot talk to people on the phone.
I liked my iphone as it could do most stuff without me actually having to speak to someone. Texting should be the answer, but I like the clunk and speed of a keyboard (as long as it is an Apple one) – I know I am a tiny minority (read stupid) there must be a word for phone phobia – just looked it up, it is called phone-phobia or telephobia, about 20,000 googlies) – so the melting together of technologies is great for me.
What I saw is a pocket sized solar powered Uninterrupted Power Supply – this would energise a phone, laptop, kindle etc – although small, it has lithium batteries, so is not feather-weight. What i am sure is eveloving is just one product – basically a phone, with keyboard (laser projection perhaps) – all my applications and storage in a “cloud” – a screen which emulates a book, like the Kindle and a detachable cover which acts as a solar panel/collector/back up battery.
I doubt I will like speaking on phones though.
Kwiqq me a Tripbod
September 27, 2009 by tony · Leave a Comment
The Internet is fascinating – it is like watching a million years of evolution condensed into a month with a time-lapse camera. I have been writing on the Internet, one way or another, for over ten years – before broadband, wifi, ADSL or even ISDN – my first communications were with an acoustic coupler (ask your grandmother) – writing had to be economic and efficient, like the first computer games, and sending an image was a rare treat taking many minutes and crashing phone lines. What I wrote was short, simple and, hopefully, relevant. Ummm – like Twitter I suppose – so we go full circle
As things speeded up and storage got plentiful and cheap, we could send out newsletters – blogs evolved – advertising was added – the Internet society generously gave open source blogging platforms, Drupal, Spip Typepad, WordPress – then came, the naming of names, social networking – MySpace (remember that), Youtube – now Facebook and Twitter are the el-supremos.
Two years ago I spent a lot of time researching the social networking scene – I planned a site of sites – a mashup of services and joined over 150 different social networks – I still get charming ladies asking me to be their very best friends ever – tongue in cheek, I called the site Portable Soup – a satisfying mixture of nourishing ingredients – (OK 200 years old and tasted horrid) – I still believe the next step or three in Internet development is a mash of information, you put in a couple of pointers and are delivered a total, correct and relevant result from the zillions of extant infobytes gleaning your wishes into a virtual hamburger.
Meanwhile a lot of very nice and clever people are already supplying parts of this future – I picked up on a Facebook comment from Raj Anand
from his bog at Kwiqq about Tripbod .
I love the idea – for the price of a Starbuck (OK two Starbucks) visiting somewhere will be more real and your valuable time wisely used. if you are traveling is is worth visiting Tripbod and if you want to get a glimpse of the future, follow http://blog.kwiqq.com/ – I am not associated with either in any way.
Bonne Route
Do No Evil
August 31, 2009 by tony · Leave a Comment
I think “do no evil” is a catch-phrase Google had as a motto for their service – today I am happy that Google have reinsted this blog as a “safe” site and give credence to their slogan. Google were helpful and fast to react to my problems – my thanks to them.
Early this year my web-hosting service was attacked and, I believe, thousands of websites were hacked and malware code inserted in them including three of mine.
The attacker put code all over the place, hidden in database files, in .htaccess, even in Googles own verification code – it took me days to clean up the mess and I still l see hundreds of other people’s sites if I search which are still “hacked” – luckily I have a little knowledge of site construction and code, but many people have just given up and lost millions of hours of work and effort.
In the great scheme of things, hacking websites is not the greatest evil, illness, accidents and violence are the real sorrows, but I cannot get my head around why many, obviously talented, people wish to create such misery and spend a huge amount of time and effort doing so.
It is a lesson and I am securing my sites netter, but the problem was the hosting company, it was their server infiltrated directly allowing thousands of people to lose, in some cases their living, income and dreams.
Google must be the prime target for these brain-warped hackers, the security team at Google must have a very low opinion of human nature.
Â
A lost Sunday in my cgi-bin
August 30, 2009 by tony · Leave a Comment
Â
- help -
Earlier this year I had a big problem as my hosting company was attacked by hackers from hell who hijacked thousands of websites and inserted “malware” into them – this has resulted in some of my sites still being listed as “dangerous” by Google.
I have had to search through thousands  of files and check pages and pages of code to find the tricks and traps which had been inserted.
Google have some tools to help me with this, but it is a game of “cat and mouse” and I am not a programmer or remotely expert in this sort of thing.
Amongst the debris I cleared out and the corrupted files I corrected, I have noticed that every site had a file “altered” in the cgi-bin on the 2nd of January this year – all the files are identical and it is a 6.3 megabyte file – to me it is unreadable and without it none of my sites, including www.twiku.com, will work – any help or ideas are welcome, I am looking for some diagnostic software or service which can pinpint the bad pages or problems on my sites and let me get the Google blacklist lifted.
Can anyone explain the reason why a person will do this sort of thing – the misery and expense is enormous.
Â