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Add Iconator icons to your website May 9, 2006

Posted by Owen in : Website , comments closed

I’m testing a new feature of Iconator–the ability to add Iconator icons to your website. Please take a look below and let me know if you can’t see these icons or if they’re all the same: [Removed. Problem with my blog software?]

Avatars! April 29, 2006

Posted by Owen in : Website , 2comments

Get down with your bad self!The big news is that Iconator now has avatars. Avatars are like giant icons that are used in web forums, Xanga, MySpace, LiveJournal, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and Skype. Phew. That’s a long list. The coolest thing about avatars is that they’re larger (96×96 pixels) so people create more expressive artwork. I’ve been really impressed by the quality of avatars submitted to the site. My goal is to have the largest avatar website on the Internet by the end of next month. We have had over 2000 avatars submitted in the first 3 days, so I think it’s an attainable goal. As far as I can tell the largest display picture / avatar site has around 5000 icons, so we might achieve it after just 1 week! So check it out and let me know what you think.

To sum it up, here’s an email I got from a user:

Thanks so much for putting avatars, I have msn and there are no good sites with cool images. Thank you so, so, so much, keep ‘em coming! Iconator rocks!

Buddy4u vs Spammers Round 2 March 28, 2006

Posted by Owen in : Website , add a comment

In the continuing saga of Sanity versus the Spammers, war has been declared. The spammers have decided to spam my “Contact Us” form with hundreds of “comments” a day for soma (the drug from Brave New World?), Xanax (yes, the spam is making my anxious, thank you), paxil weight gain formula (a big seller, I guess), and cheap hgh (so I can be fat and young looking). Now since the comments are emailed directly to me and no one else can read them, I don’t think it’s a very effective method of advertising. Even worse, every single damn submission comes from a different IP address. Now I really can say that spammers are out to get me using a fleet of zombie’d computers. Where’s my Xanax?

Spammers 2, Me 0

Buddy4u vs Spammers March 24, 2006

Posted by Owen in : Website , add a comment

Buddy4u SearchesRecently, Buddy4u has been the target of a spam campaign. Someone has been making a lot of profiles, pumping them high in Google’s rankings, and redirecting users to a spam page when they click through. For example, Buddy4u is in the #6 position for a search on “tmobile”, #6 on “bcbg”, #5 on “rockport shoes”, #4 on “free nextel ringtones”, and so forth. See my screenshot from the Google Sitemaps website.

Now, of course, I’ve taken steps to prevent the spammers from registering more profiles and deleted all the spam profiles I could find, but the damage is done. While my reputation is (slightly) tarnished, at least these particular spammers won’t see any further benefit out of their illegitimate profiles. I have no idea how they got these content-free profiles to such a high ranking in such a short time, but I’m sure it wasn’t kosher. Sigh. Spammers 1, Buddy4u 0.

Why do my servers always crash and burn at 2 AM? March 20, 2006

Posted by Owen in : Website , 1 comment so far

And how the hell can tech support be so chipper at this hour?

Iconator Animator March 9, 2006

Posted by Owen in : Website , 1 comment so far

Check out this new tool I made: You upload some images and it creates an animated buddy icon out of them. You can then use drag and drop to reorder the animator and there’s lots of size and compression options. It’s like having a copy of GIF Animation Studio right on the web! It’s really a cool tool with lots of little hidden features. For example, if you upload an image that’s already animated, it’ll decompose it and let you remix the frames. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Worst Error Message Ever February 24, 2006

Posted by Owen in : Website , 1 comment so far

I was reading the dmesg logs on one of my webservers and I saw this:

TCP: Treason uncloaked! Peer 202.174.132.25x:51883/80 shrinks window 794751974:794751975. Repaired.

It’s not fair! How come I have to have the treasonous TCP/IP stack? All I’m going to say is that if my webserver ends up in Guantanamo I’m going to be very mad.

Google Widget January 30, 2006

Posted by Owen in : Website , add a comment

Like Iconator? Have the latest iconator icons appear on your customized Google homepage.

Iconator is #1! October 29, 2005

Posted by Owen in : Website , 1 comment so far

According to Alexa, Iconator is the most-popular 3rd-party Instant Messaging related website! Right after the MSN, ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo IM websites is Iconator. Buddy4u rounds out the list at spot #10.

The next step is to be more popular than the official AIM website. Now that would be something!

Most Popular In Instant Messaging

Owen Update September 8, 2005

Posted by Owen in : Website, Work , add a comment

Well it’s been over a month since I’ve moved to SF and it’s been a lot of fun. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m having trouble working for myself. I get up at 11 (it’s like being in college all over again) and I don’t work many hours every day (2 if I’m lucky). But what I have been doing has been very exciting and I’m involved in some interesting business deals. What I lack in time working, I make up for in quality, or at least so I tell myself.

There’s some exciting changes coming to Iconator which I think everyone will enjoy. My TODO list, using the excellent Tasks software, is over 60 items long–and I’m making steady progress in completing them. My list contains everything from performance upgrades for Iconator to new features. I’ve recently discovered some nifty JavaScript libraries that will help me make more interactive websites: Prototype and Script.aculo.us. The special effects and interactivity one can do with these libraries is amazing. It’s almost like creating a desktop application on the web, without having to get into DOM minutiae.

I also have some ideas for new websites, but I’m not ready to go public with what they are or what they’ll do… but suffice to say they’ll be so-called Web 2.0 applications. This web 2.0 stuff is so exciting I stay up late dreaming up new ideas.