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Richy's Random Ramblings

Search: Google Cache oddity

December 17, 2002
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[Google Pigeons]I’ve just noticed a slight “oddity” with my favourite search engine Google. Basically, Google has a cache facility which enables your to see what the page was like when Google indexed it using their Googlebot spider. Extremely handy if the site you are trying to access is unavailable for some reason.

Google also offer the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer users (a Mozilla version is also available) which makes available certain items such as “Search From Toolbar” (saving you going to the Google homepage) and direct access to the cache.

Now, here’s the oddity: Accessing the cache of my blog via the Google Toolbar gives me a URL in the format of http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fblog.rac.me.uk (ok, there are a few more parameters, but I’ve reduced them to “bare minimum”). That link currently shows my blog with the latest entry dated November 13 2002 at 12:31am (entry “Game: Fling That Cow!“) – however, performing a search and then clicking on the ‘Cached’ link produces a URL in the format of http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:QGa9rQIfcj0C:http%3A%2F%2Fblog.rac.me.uk – with a “last entry” date of December 15 2002 08:11pm (entry Movies: Films I’d like to see again) – just 2 days ago.

So: why has Google got two cached copies of the same page? Obviously the search system is using the “fresher” copy, but it’s still given me a reason to stop and think. And what does the QGa9rQIfcj0C bit mean? A bit of playing has shown to me, so far, that it’s a unique identifier for the page in Google’s cache: searching for other pages from my blog resulted in the code “OdxOQ8hwqvMC” (November 12th: Pick On George Bush). “Adjusting” the cache URL to read http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:OdxOQ8hwqvMC:blog.rac.me.uk still shows up the individual entry page instead of the front page (which you would have thought by the format of the URL). fEJraafpn4cC is the code to my Games and Fun category page

Someone else has noticed this at Webmaster World, but no useful information came from that discussion.

Oh well – if I find out anything more (it’ll be interesting to find out if the “cache IDs” remain static over time), I’ll let you all know 🙂

Movies: Films I’d like to see again II

December 17, 2002
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[Weird Al Yankovic Troll]Continuing on from Sunday’s post of which films I would really like to see again, here’s another couple of movies.

Basically, Weird Al Yankovic’s “UHF” and “Troll” are two movies I’d like to watch again: but there’s a slight problem. Both films are only currently available on DVD – NTSC Region 1 (US and Canada). These means that my Region 2 (UK and Europe) PAL players just will not play them. Therefore, thanks to the regionalisation of DVDs, the makes of those movies have lost a potential customer who would have happily paid shipping from the States to the UK…

Anyway, on with the rambling:

Continue ReadingMovies: Films I’d like to see again II

Personal: Thoughts about my GESF

December 16, 2002
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[Someone Likes You At Desk]*sigh* I’ve just been speaking on the phone to my GESF (Green-Eyed Southern Friend: see previous entries). Second time in two days and fourth or fifth time in a week. She really knows how to brighten my day – I just called her to see how she got on earlier today (she had to go for a Doctors checkup) and we chatted for around 30 minutes or so (yesterday we talked for around an hour). I was laughing most of the time at the things she was coming out with.

At one point I managed to steer the conversation over to the emails I’ve had from Someonelikesyou.com. A bit of background about SLY (good acronym really 🙂 ) As detailed elsewhere on the net, this service works by you entering basic details about yourself (name, age, hair colour/color, eye colour, email address) and then 5 email addresses of your friends who you have a “crush” (yuck!) on. They then get an email pointing them towards the site and have to enter in 5 email addresses of people that they think may have a crush on them – and so on. After entering 5 email addresses in, they get 1 clue – another 5 and another clue and so forth.

SLY therefore gets a whole heap of marketing data and a list of verified email addresses (as they send the emails to your potential “crushes” before giving you your clue: if the email bounces, you don’t get your clue). Very “spammy” way of doing business…

What’s this to do with my GESF – well, let me explain…

Continue ReadingPersonal: Thoughts about my GESF

Game: All Look The Same?

December 16, 2002
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[All Look The Same]I’m aware of a long standing “joke” that all Chinese, Japanese and Korean people look the same. But how alike are they really?

Well, know you can find out thanks to All Look Same (and just try not to say that in an Chinese or Japanese fake accent: especially when an entry on the page starts with “Gleetings” – sorry, “Greetings”). Just pop over there and then entry the All Look Same Competition (you only need to give a username/identifier, age, country and gender: don’t bother with your email address) and you’ll be able to “guess the race” of 18 people.

I only got 3 right.

Movies: Films I’d like to see again

December 15, 2002
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[The Worst Aphyx]I’ve just been speaking to my GESF (Green-Eyed Southern Friend) again – we’ve spoken quite a number of times this week in fact, but due to some potential confusion over what was said earlier in the week I decided not to write anything down as I might have been thinking the wrong thing and “jumping the gun”.

Anyway, as we were finishing the conversation, I promised that I’d send her the link to the Naked Quidditch Match, but she complained that she had no idea what Quidditch was as she hadn’t read any of the Harry Potter books as she thought it was just a blatant rip-off of Jill Murphy‘s “Worst Witch” books (and film and, more recently, the TV series).

That then started me thinking which films (that I haven’t already got) I would really like to see again. Ok, it’s now getting a little bit late for Christmas and some of them are “really oldies” or didn’t “take off” in a big way – but this is my blog and I wanna blog about these so there 🙂 I’ll just do two for tonight and two another night…

So: Why do I want to see “The Worst Witch” and “The Asphyx”?

Continue ReadingMovies: Films I’d like to see again