Introducing the end of comment spam: Jobolito Turing Test

**w00t!** Putting an end to comment spam troubles. Now, this website sports new technology to combat the lurid zen-like spam comment messages that accompany URLs to poker and gambling websites, namely Jonas Bohlin‘s great freely available WP plugin called Jobolito Turing Test. Jonas says:

This plugin distinguishes beetween human posters and machine posters. It does this by creating an image with a random code (an md5 hash) and obfuscating the text. The text can, in most cases, be read by human being but not by machines.

So, as seen on the internet, Jonas brings us the clever **obfuscated text in an image**, for the potential commenter to interpret and type into a text field. Thus, the commenter’s humanity proved and all right, the comment will land in the database. If not, nothing will be posted on the site, and some wicked quip about not being a human being is displayed. Handy!

Inside sources says the creator of the plugin not fully content with it yet, and that he is planning to change the way the image looks, to render it *even more* impervious to sophisticated spam attacks. WordPress stops comment flooding by default, by setting a time limit on comments: only one comment per ten seconds. Jonas Bohlin’s new plugin strengthens this protection further.

As for future development, he personally intimated that a configuration file was in the planning stages, so as to make the plugin more accessible to the rest of us.

Tofu: App to solve the problem of your eyesight

Tofu is a MacOS X app that does a few things to text, to make it more readable:

In Tofu, text is arranged in columns, and each column is only as high as your window. So lines are nice and narrow, they don’t move about vertically, plus your text is now in easy-to-digest chunks. You just scroll from column to column horizontally, and feel more in control.

Linux Dist of Choice: Damn Small Linux

OK. I went and did it: got a Linux live CD ISO file, burnt it, and ran it on an old laptop.
Toshiba 2520CDS
It all started with an old Knoppix CD I had lying around (thanks Erik in Lund!), and late one evening, I inserted it into the old laptop, which by the way is a Toshiba 2520CDS. The thing ran, but very unwillingly, and slowly. But the spark was there: a real functional OS on a CD! So, I dreamt about live CD Linux distributions that night, and today I got me my first dist, after my last bout of fiddling with Debian.

My starting choice is Damn Small Linux, which is based on Debian. The homepage tells us:

Damn Small Linux is a business card size (50MB) bootable Live CD Linux distribution. Despite its minuscule size it strives to have a functional and easy to use desktop.

It just ran, out of the box, and rather fast, too.

There is an option to make a “hd install” the OS on the computer. When I’ve read enough of the documentation, which is only available as a web forum, in the shape of FAQ threads, I’ll endeavour to do a hard drive install. That will speed things up, I guess, and add the possibility to edit config files, and **save** things. That’ll be a hoot.

See you around, one of these days I might call on your help with a Linux beginner question.

How-to: Moving from Thunderbird to Apple Mail

When Luisa got an iBook, I was the guy to handle the data move from the PC Thunderbird over to the tightly-integrated Mail application in Mac OS X.

The article Export Outlook @ MozillaZine Knowledge Base, I edited it.

The docs were an illegible mess, but I got through them. I like wikis, and I was glad I’d found *some* hints on what to do.

When I was half-way through the instructions, I started to edit them.

**Update**: It seems that the more recent Thunderbird 0.8 sports some snazzier export functions (for instance to Outlook and Outlook Express). Maybe the aforementioned problem is gone by now. Good.

PyGoogle

PyGoogle, a Google API wrapper for Python was made by Mark Pilgrim, and it looks so sweet I just exclaimed “aj, vad läckert”, at first misspelling the word, in a Danish fashion.

SUMMARY
-------
This module allows you to access Google's web APIs
through SOAP, to do things like search Google and 
get the results programmatically.
This API is described here:
  http://www.google.com/apis/

Soon we shall have to do some stuff with this. You and me.

Spicy Kitchen

Location: Christianshavn.

Style: Pseudo-Indian

Price range: Cheap.

Me and the SO are regulars, and we make it a point of honour of tipping the staff.

They serve the cheapest “Indian” food, so we can all afford it. Olle’s pick is the **Spinach Curry** and extra rice. Damn, makes me hungry right now!

Eating vegan in Copenhagen restaurants

OK, this is the Olle Jonsson vegan survival guide to Copenhagen, Denmark. I will try to add, update and revise as often as I can. Each post in this category will be a review/guide posting, with pointers on what to order, where and when. Please comment, revise and heckle with the use of commentary functions here.

The more you participate in heckling and praising eating places in Denmark’s capital, the more the readership can **savour the flavour** and **not eat the meat**. (Good thing I’m not a rapper. *Involuntary shudder*.)