Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 01:15:33 GMT From: "Dexter J" <lamealameadingdongnospamlamelame.org> Subject: Re: Calling Dexter J, I need to e-mail you the Saabvideo logs
Salutations: While I don't think I would be quiet as forthright as brother Grunff, I feel that I should point out that at 500g a month, you don't really have time *not* to look at your logs. I suppose it is of very little passing interest to most normal people like yourself with real lives more than 25 feet away from a stinking ethernet jack - but I have better than four years into Radio Free Dexterdyne (my hobby solution) and all the hoopy things it turns out it can do. As you don't know me from Adam, I feel I should also tell you that I've actually been at this i-net thing since the late 80's here in Canada when it was still a 300 baud TTL University network us geeks used to pass French Postcards around on between systems dumps for the chem labs. I'm not trying to brag or anything - but I want to set some context for the comments below. I fear sir that you are making a mistake that *so many* good basic ideas for websites make early on. While I may be dead wrong - I'm pretty sure that less than 30% of your total transfer represents real human beings in front of a computer at your actual site. Don't feel bad though - that was what the whole 'internet bubble' was really all about anyway. So what advise I have provided, which I'm afraid you pretty much have all of until you can make some time to analyze your own logs and come back with some deeper questions not normally available through google, is as posted here so far. Now, all that said, please don't feel I'm trying to be rude or that I am being dismissive of your work. More than most people, I know exactly how tough (and expensive) it is to get actual honest new content online in the any context (hobby or professional). Which is exactly why I think your content is being piked by the pirates, most of whom have much better advertising sales staff than you and why I have been trying to give you some real leads before you throw up your hands in disgust and walk away from it all. All this said - my grandfather never allowed a radio or television in the house on the deeply held premise that furniture shouldn't speak or sing. He lived to be 75 on a pack of filterless Craven-A and a pint of Gin a day all his adult life. This internet thing isn't for everyone despite, as I previously mentioned, the common wisdom that any 6 year can slap up a full on Multi-Media portal and become the next iTunes without ever really trying. Sadly, like most things in life, that is just no longer true - because several of the 6 year olds have figured out how to hijack other people's content before the site owners can ever make a profit on it themselves. -- Radio Free Dexterdyne Top Tune o'be-do-da-day Martin Sinatra Davis - Me and My Shadow http://www.dexterdyne.org/888/064.RAM all tunes - no cookies no subscription no weather no ads no news no phone in no sign up required - all the Time On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 20:12:47 -0300, Saab Guy <nothingnospamo.com> wrote: > > Dexter, > > I don't have the time now to read the logs, I thought you were offering > your time to help given that I have spent approximately 280+ hours to > create www.saabvideos.com for each respective video for you folks. :) > > SG > > > On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 16:09:25 GMT > "Dexter J" <lamealameadingdongnospamlamelame.org> wrote: > >> Salutations: >> >> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 22:28:56 -0300, Saab Guy <nothingnospamo.com> wrote: >> > >> > Dexter J, >> > >> > I need to e-mail you the Saabvideo logs. I just received them from the >> > system administrator in what seems to be a .gz compressed archive. >> > >> > SG >> >> Actually - all you need is to pick up compression tool for the file. GZ >> is >> a type of zip file that should have your logs inside. Have a poke around >> here for an app to decompress: >> >> http://www.gzip.org/ >> >> Once they are decompressed, use a text editor (word wrap off) or spread >> sheet to review transactions with the server. Here is a fairly good >> start >> page regarding how read raw Apache Logs: >> >> http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/logs.html >> >> .. don't worry about the server set-up detail outlined above just yet, >> you >> just want to get a handle on visit patterns and from what IP ranges. >> There >> is some good detail above on what each item in a given log line means as >> you scroll down a bit. >> >> Most folks wimp out and go for a 'web log analyzer' - I don't recommend >> them until you at least have enough basic literacy to understand the raw >> log. The features on most log analyzers make *much* more sense if you >> understand what they are doing for you. >> >> So, very basically, each visit should generate several log lines as each >> page item is passed to the visitor. You are looking for anomalies in the >> pattern where the visiting IP *doesn't* read the top page and all it's >> images first - and/or - repeated visits from the same IP on any kind of >> schedule - but most importantly - video downloads without any >> corresponding top page visit. >> >> Towards the end of each log entry the 'user agent' is listed. You should >> see visits from google, yahoo et al (relatively useful bots/slurpers). >> They usually only take the page text body - but not always. Pay >> attention >> to the detail here, because I'm still betting you are seeing a pile of >> visits from things like Wget, DA, psbot and a bunch of others. Here is a >> good page for reviewing bots and their place in your universe: >> >> http://www.kloth.net/internet/badbots.php >> >> Finally - as to tightening up your site security after you figure out >> what >> is going on - that unfortunately is where we get back to the question of >> my per diem and your personal responsibilities as a 'webmaster'. >> >> As I have said previously, I don't think it's worth your money to hire >> me >> for what is simply a hobby site on a shared server. I dearly wish you >> had >> a fat sponsor and it was worth the cash because I like the idea of your >> site, but I guess the best you are going to be able to do is enough >> reading to stop the obvious packet leaks like most everyone else. >> >> I will again repeat my advise as regards your basic architecture though. >> >> You should at least look at a teaser index page with several video >> specific sub-pages as your top page now runs better than 1.2 megs every >> time it's viewed without downloading any videos. While you are at it - >> you >> might want to look at changing links to specific video's you have >> already >> posted out here - it will help you narrow down who is swiping your vids >> (they will now appear in the error logs as dead link attempts) and it >> should slow down the transfer totals for a while. >> >> -- >> >> Radio Free Dexterdyne Top Tune o'be-do-da-day >> Martin Sinatra Davis - Me and My Shadow >> http://www.dexterdyne.org/888/064.RAM >> >> all tunes - no cookies no subscription no weather no ads >> no news no phone in no sign up required - all the Time
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