I have created a number of websites for friends and family over the years using WordPress, and as these projects were all private websites I used Akismet to block spam. Akismet is without doubt the best comment spam prevention tool out there and I would really recommend it for any personal sites you may be building. Unfortunately Akismet carries a charge for commercial projects and not wanting to pass any additional cost on to my client I started to search for solutions.

I quickly discovered (and I must stress I am not an expert in this), that you can modify a servers .htaccess file to allow certain privileges dependant on IP address. Quite simply, if you are receiving WordPress spam you can take a note of the IP and deny it from hitting the server.

Here is how I am doing it…

<Limit GET POST PUT>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from 69.197.28.105
</Limit>

So every time I get more spam, I add the IP, like this…

<Limit GET POST PUT>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from 69.197.28.105
Deny from 65.55.3.211
</Limit>

Sounds pretty simply right! Well yeah it is, but be careful as the .htaccess controls the access to all parts of your website and one incorrect key-stroke could take a site down or parts of a site down completely. To be safe I would always take a copy of the original .htaccess and save it somewhere just in case!

Conclusion

I suppose there is always the potential that you could be blocking some legitimate users but so far I have only seen the spam to my sites improve while traffic stays the same, and hey it’s FREE!

The recent court verdict regarding Pirate Bay makes me wonder if it will make any difference to the download world, this also begs a new question, whether illegal file downloads are actually damaging to the music industry like the major labels would have you believe.

I don’t think I know one person who doesn’t own some music downloaded via P2P or torrent, it has become a normal part of life for a whole generation and will only increase even though the authorities are frantically trying to strike the fear of god into people.  The Pirate Bay verdict is in my opinion futile, there are an infinite number of torrent sites offering the same services as Pirate Bay, all this recent verdict and any future verdicts will do is force change within the download community.  For example before torrent there was Peer 2 Peer, and after torrent there will be something else and so the cycle will go on.

At the heart of all this is the music labels fear of users getting MP3s for free, but hasn’t that always been the way of things, from vinyl to tape, Mini-Disc to CD  there has always and will always be a way to copy and share; what is it that makes the industry assume illegal MP3 downloads will suddenly put them out of business.  The industry lays blame for the drop in revenue on download culture but surely it could be simply that media is just more accessible and cheaper than ever before, even if downloads have increased I don’t believe for one minute that would stop people purchasing music they really like; there is just something more human about wanting to own the music you really like.

I mean, am i missing something , surely MP3 downloads are only making music more accessible? If music is more accessible then you can hear a wider range and if you can hear a wider range then I believe the user is likely to buy more music not less.  In my late teens I would purchase an album every few months, Cd’s were expensive back in the day and I wanted enough cash left to go and get blitzed at the weekend!  These days I purchase music monthly and instead of having the weekend to worry about I have a house, 3 kids and car to maintain which are not cheap, yet I purchase more regularly, the music business is missing the point I think.

The internet has always offered things for free, google are a prime example of how giving users something they want for free can make you money (they are after all one of the richest companies in the world!), and in recent years a number of bands have chosen to give fans the option to put a price on what they feel the music is worth, immediately you would expect that to be a mistake but Radio Head were said to have made more money on their recent album than their previous offering, surprising?, no not really, if you offer something for a low price then interest will be considerably bigger. A good example of offering music for free is spotify where you can listen to music through there website, although you cannot download the music to own, but you just never know what may happen.

If the authorities and industry fail to realise that free isn’t always a negative then I will start to worry for the Internet, the ethos of the web has always been the free communication and sharing of information between people, to try and control this would be to change it for ever and that will be the worst crime of all.  I am not saying that illegal downloading is right but maybe there is something in the idea of free downloads that could be controlled by the music labels, and maybe, just maybe it would increase sales and restore people’s faith in the music business.

Since my iphone arrived way back in August I have had plenty of time to download and test a wide range of apps available.  So I thought it was high time I recommended a couple more excellent free options that you just wouldn’t want to be without.

MMS Photo Messaging

One of the main problems with the iphone has been the lack of built in MMS capability which the majority of other mobile phones have as standard.  Well just maybe that problem has been resolved for FREE, MMS Photo Messaging (by Ed Lea) is a great little app that allows your iphone to receive pictures directly without the need to visit that annoying 02 website. 

The way it works is simple, a four digit code is within the standard notification SMS that you receive when a picture has been sent, take this code along with your phone number and add it to the MMS application, once this has been added the app will happily download the images directly into your inbox at no charge.  Beware however, that sending messages is still a little expensive and you will need to purchase credit for this unless your contract already allows MMS.

There seems to be only one small problem with this app, every few weeks 02 change the four digit key that is required to download your pictures, so you have to remember to update this in the app which is more of an annoyance that a major issue.  Even with this small draw back I still think this has helped overcome my concerns regarding the iphone’s lack of MMS capability and I would recommend that you give it a go.

Social networking

As MMS Photo Messaging makes the iphone do a job it should have done all along, the next two add something extra that I personally can’t live without, I’m talking about Twitterrific and Facebook.  Twitterrific by The Iconfactory and Facebook are exactly what you would expect, great conduits into the social networking world.  Between them they offer everything you should need to keep up-to-date with friends and let your followers know what you are doing. 

As with most free apps there are a few draw back.  Twitterrific doesn’t seem to have the functionality to search for people or the abilility to clear the list for ease of navigation, but this is more than likely available through the premium edition if you are willing to pay £5.99.  Facebook on the other hand doesn’t have any obvious major flaws, although being able to have multiple accounts saved would be a nice addition.

There are many more apps that are worth a look, here is a short list of others I am using:-

• Remote – Allows you to control your Apple Mac itunes via a WI-FI connection
• Ustream – Watch live video broadcasts on you phone
• Seadragon Mobile – Microsoft’s high resolution gallery

I will post again soon with a detailed overview of the 3G iphone, and maybe some more apps that you should pick up.