News Corp., that is of the biggest and most widely acclaimed media empire has announced that, it will shortly be blocking Google Bots’ access to its websites, meaning that, websites run by News Corporation will no longer be indexed by Google. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder of News Corp., has stated that, he believes Goggle might be doing more harm than good to the websites by diverting millions of users to thew sites and thereby increasing the website traffic.

Mr. Murdoch believes that, the websites would do a lot better if they are turned entirely into a paid subscription services, thus limiting the exclusivity of the sites to those who are truly interested in visiting the website for academic purposes. Some of the major publications run by News Corporation are, The Sun, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal etc. The results of the latest shift in Google’s importance is being seen as two fold by many experts.

The impact of the exclusion of Google indexing services from News Corp. websites could have dire effects on these sites, as even though there are dedicated paid users, yet like every website, such sites also heavily depend on advertising, a feature that Google has mastered in. An alternative to the current decision could be to segregate the paid and free sections of the websites, where excerpts can be shown in the free section and the paid sections can carry the entire article.

via Media Tycoon Rupert Murdoch To Block Google Access To Its Sites | Trends Updates

Audible and Search Engines

This week in my continuing blogs on the Audible e-commerce site, I will analyse to what ease a user can find the Audible service when going through search engines. I will perform queries relating to the Audible service without mentioning their name and see where in the results they appear. This is important in terms of marketing as it helps users find their service on the ever growing internet and to increase possible points of sale.

I will search for “audiobooks” in the following search engines and will be using, where possible a UK specific locale to ensure consistent results.

• Google
• Bing
• Yahoo

Google

My first search engine will be the most popular, Google. Most users depend on Google for their searching needs and as such is the homepage for many web browsers. Below is an image of the search results;

From the above screenshot we can see that Google has shown up Audible as a first hit and have also shown the correct locale of the site for users in the United Kingdom. It’s interesting to see other traditional book stores offering this service such as Waterstones as can be seen from the Sponsored Adverts section in yellow. This is stark evidence that traditional retailers have had to modernise so as not to lose customers of the digital era. It also has to be noted that Audible also makes it to the top of the sponsored adverts section showing their dominance in the market.

Bing

Bing is a new search engine from Microsoft that takes the common practices of a search engine and adds to it, turning Bing into what’s become known as a decision engine. Using this concept, Microsoft aim to cut a hole in Google dominance in web searches. Below is an image of the search results;

New search engine to the market Bing brings up a similar situation to Google. However, it does not pick up the correct locale, perhaps as it is still in Beta it has not been regionalised yet. The rest of the picture is very similar to Google and shows Audibles’ large market share in terms of being the first search result and first Sponsored result. It should be noted that Amazon are the parent company of Audible after a buy out in mid 2008 so a link to Amazon audiobooks will integrate with Audible. Again, the sponsored results differ in that another competitor is shown, in this case Play, an online store working mainly in the digital product market.

Yahoo

Yahoo is one of the longest running search engines on the internet. Many still use and depend on it’s service and its integration with its popular mail service. Below is an image of the search results;

The Yahoo search yielded similar results to the two previous engines and like Google, shows the correct locale version of the Audible site in its first search result. Audible is shown as the only sponsored link in the yellow bar with other sites including Play in the right hand side. The next search result, under the Wikipedia reference, is for Amazon which of course, own Audible meaning that Audible shows up in 2 or the top 3 search results making them the resounding winner in terms of high precedence in search engine databases.

Conclusion

From the above results we can see that Audible is the most popular audiobook store. This can be seen from consistently topping the results over the three search engines and appearing in several other numbers within each search engines top 10. They also consistently appear as the first Sponsored advert ensuring users will be tempted to click on them over other rivals.

80legs.com provides a service for web crawling.

We put over 50,000 computers to work for you to deliver exceptional crawling performance at incredibly low costs. Our service is easy to use and completely customizable, so you can crawl and process web content however you want, whenever you want.

They announce a possibility to process “up to 2 billion web pages per day“. So this opportunity is pretty cool if you want to get and process large amount of data from dozens of web sites. But it will not work well in case when you need to scrape data just from one site. Moreover in this case you could establish a really DDOS attack for that lonely web site.  Not very good, isn’t it?

Another question is: what is the nature of their machine network? It maybe not very easy to establish such a big network at once. Even if they could the next problem is to create that network to be spreaded geographically. Because if not they should have a really high bandwidth channels. Maybe they use a zombie machine network? Anyway, it’s just my supposition and nothing else.

One more positive challenge they can propose you is an anonymity for you crawlers. Really if some web site takes care about forbidden of scrapping its own pages 80legs network could broke this at once. Because if each machine in their network has its own IP address it would be look like just dozens of common human-like users! Thus if you have some programming skills and some money you can establish highly secured and anonymous access to the WWW.

Services includes crushing and screening from all kind of products like mercedes-benz 4150 8×8 with low/smallbed trailer, caterpillar 966H, 740, 966, D8, D8R, 950, CS76XT, ZX350LC, Volvo A40D, L150E, L180E.

Visit:

http://www.bigmachinery.nl/port_services

*Click the images to buy

Number of 3Racing RC Hop Ups Parts and Accessories back in stock @ rcMart.com. Including parts for Tamiya, Axial, Traxxas and more. Please check the following list for the recently restcoked items:

Where to buy?
http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/3racing-m-46.html

For more than 20 years, BIG Machinery has been building the world’s leading distributor and supplier of heavy construction and mining equipment.

BIG Machinery stock of heavy equipment, consisting of more than 150 new and used machines. We have the largest fleet in Europe, and consequently, we can deliver the equipment you want at very short notice.

We supply equipment for very varied applications, from mining, construction and road construction to screening and crushing directly from stock: Articulated trucks, rigid frame trucks, back hoes, dozers, excavators, wheel loaders, mobile excavators, graders, generator sets, telehandlers, trailers, trucks, mixertrucks, concrete pumptrucks, asphalt plants and concrete plants.

BIG Machinery delivers heavy equipment of all leading brands as: Caterpillar, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Komatsu, Scania and Hitachi.

We are a global company, with locations on almost every continent of the world to serve and support you, and respond quickly to needs.

BIG Machinery B.V.
Schiemerik 1
5334 NL Velddriel
The Netherlands

P +31 (0)418 674 545
F +31 (0)418 633 108
E info@bigmachinery.nl
W www.bigmachinery.nl

Un paio di settimane fa Google ha pubblicato un articolo sul suo blog riguardante l’indiicizzazione di Ajax, nel quale azzarda una proposta per rendere Ajax scannerizzabile dagli spider dei motori di ricerca.

Gli spider web non sempre vedono tutto ciò che vede l’utente, come ad esempio i contenuti JavaScript creati dinamicamente che per essi sono “invisibili”.

Perchè questo problema va risolto?

• La maggior parte dei contenuti sul web viene creata dinamicamente (circa il 69%)
• Nel corso del tempo, questo nuoce alla ricerca
• Gli sviluppatori sono scoraggiati dalla costruzione di applicazioni dinamiche
• Non risolvere la questione dell’indiciazzazione Ajax frena i progressi sul web!

Alcuni degli obiettivi che Google vuole raggiungere con questa proposta sono:

• Sono richieste modifiche minime come il sito cresce
• Gli utenti e motori di ricerca vedono lo stesso contenuto (no cloaking)
• I motori di ricerca possono indirizzare gli utenti direttamente sull’URL AJAX (non una copia statica)
• I proprietari dei siti hanno un modo per verificare che il loro sito web AJAX sia reso in modo corretto e quindi che lo spider abbia accesso a tutti i contenuti

L’idea che sta alla base è che invece di avere un URL come:
http://example.com/page?query#state
Google propone di aggiungere un simbolo per rendere possibile il riconoscimento di questi URL:
http://example.com/page?query#[FRAGMENTTOKEN]state.
Basato su una revisione dei correnti URL sul web, propone di utilizzare “!” (un punto esclamativo), come simbolo.
L’URL proposto che dovrebbe essere visualizzato nei risultati della ricerca sarebbe allora:
http://example.com/page?query#!state.

Es ist schon erstaunlich wie derzeit in den Medien über die “schwere Datenpanne bei SchülerVZ” (Berliner Zeitung – nein ich meine nicht B.Z.) berichtet wird.

Für technisch nicht bewanderte hört es sich so an als ob Hacker durch eine Sicherheitslücke (oder so eine Fisting-Attacke *g* ) an geheime Benutzerdaten gekommen wären. Dass die Daten nicht geheim, sondern für jedes SVZ-Mitglied offen zugänglich waren, ließt man noch – wenn man den Artikel dann ließt. Dass es sich bei den finsteren Hackern um Mitglieder von SchülerVZ handelt, ist erst heute herausgekommen.

Was bedeutet das? Es bedeutet, dass die Täter wahrscheinlich selbst Schüler waren. Denkt man darüber nach und sieht das ganze mit etwas technischem Hintergrund sieht man, dass die beiden Buben eigentlich garnichts besonderes getan haben.

Sie haben ein Programm geschrieben (oder benutzt) , das sich in das soziale Netzwerk SchülerVZ einloggt und dann einfach Links zu anderen Profilen folgt. Die Informationen, die in den Profilen stehen haben sie einfach gespeichert. Überträgt man das ganze in die analoge Welt, ist das als würde man mit einem Notizblock am Rechner sitzen und die Profile abschreiben. Wo bleibt also die Datenpanne, der Skandal? Das einzige was an der ganzen Sache an finstere Hackereien erinnert ist, dass das Programm, welches die Daten aus SVZ ausgelesen hat (ein sogenannter Crawler) wahrscheinlich CAPTCHAs erraten hat.

CAPTCHAs sind kleine Bildchen, die von Maschinen schwer zu lesende Texte enthalten. Ein Mensch soll nun den Inhalt der Bildchen eingeben. Die Annahme, die gemacht wird ist, dass nur ein Mensch die Inhalte richtig erkennen kann. Allerdings gibt es eine Vielzahl von Programmen, die die Inhalte von solchen Captchas automatisch erraten.

Fassen wir also zusammen – Ein paar Schüler haben ein Programm geschrieben, das den menschlichen Notizblock-Abschreiber und Linkklicker ersetzt und ein paar Buchstaben in Captchas errät.  Es gibt also eigentlich keinen Skandal. Seine Daten kann man in den meisten -VZs schützen, so dass sie nur die eigenen Freunde sehen können. Überhaupt sollte man keine schützenswerten Daten im Internet preisgeben. Beachtet man das – und ich glaube das tun immer mehr Leute – so kann einem nichts passieren und man kann über so eine “Datenpanne” nur müde lächeln.

der VZ-scraper ist jetzt wofür genau verhaftet worden?
Captcha-Erkennen?!  (…)

Timo Hetzel via Twitter

Hi, kali ini saya akan mencoba menjelaskan bagaimana cara membuat web crawler sederhana. Oh ya, web crawler adalah program seperti robot yang akan menjelajahi dunia web dan kemudian mendownload halaman web tersebut.

Secara garis besar sebuah web crawler memiliki 3 bagian, yaitu:
1. Penentu url (alamat web) tujuan
2. Downloader web
3. Pemarsing (pemroses) hasil downloadan

Mari kita bahas satu persatu.

1. Penentu url(alamat web) tujuan.
Bagian ini akan mengambil 1 url dari database yang belum diproses.

function db_get_url()
{
	$sql = "SELECT id, url FROM tbl_url WHERE status='0' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1";
	$rs = mysql_query($sql);
	$url = '';
	if ($data = mysql_fetch_array($rs))
	{
		$url = $data['url'];

		$sql = "UPDATE tbl_url SET status='1' WHERE id='". $data['id']. "' ";
		$rs = mysql_query($sql);
	}
	if ($url == '') $url = 'http://planet.terasi.net';

	return $url;
}

2. Downloader Web
Fungsi getURL dibawah ini akan menerima $url berisi url tujuan dan akan mengembalikan html nya, sebenarnya kita bisa menggunakan fungsi file($url).

function getURL($url, $delay=0) {
	$result	= "";
	$url	= trim($url);
	$delay	= intval($delay);
	if ($url != "") {
	    $ch     = curl_init();
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS, 5);
	    if ($delay != 0) {
	        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 60);
	        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $delay);
	    }
	    else {
	        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 60);
	        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 60);
	    }
	    $result	= curl_exec($ch);
	    curl_close($ch);
	}

	return($result);
}

3. Pemarsing (pemroses) hasil downloadan
Fungsi parseHTML akan menerima string html kemudian mengekstrak semua link yang ada di string tersebut. Link tadi akan diambil domainnya saja untuk kemudian disimpan ke dalam database.

function parseHTML($html)
{
	if (preg_match_all("/<a href=\"(.*?)\"/i", $html, $match)) {
  		foreach ($match[1] as $row) {
  			$domain = getDomain($row);
			if ($domain != '')
			{
				db_insert_url($domain);
			}
	  	}
	}
}

Berikut ini adalah source code lengkapnya.

<?php

$db = mysql_connect('localhost', 'phpkita', 'phpkita');
mysql_select_db('db_phpkita', $db);

//loop terus aja
while (true)
{
	$url = db_get_url();
	$html = getURL($url);
	db_update_html($url, $html);
	parseHTML($html);
}

mysql_close($db);
exit;

/*
 * fungsi-fungsi
 */
function db_get_url()
{
	$sql = "SELECT id, url FROM tbl_url WHERE status='0' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1";
	$rs = mysql_query($sql);
	$url = '';
	if ($data = mysql_fetch_array($rs))
	{
		$url = $data['url'];

		$sql = "UPDATE tbl_url SET status='1' WHERE id='". $data['id']. "' ";
		$rs = mysql_query($sql);
	}
	if ($url == '') $url = 'http://planet.terasi.net';

	return $url;
}

function getURL($url, $delay=0) {
	$result	= "";
	$url	= trim($url);
	$delay	= intval($delay);
	if ($url != "") {
	    $ch     = curl_init();
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
	    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS, 5);
	    if ($delay != 0) {
	        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 60);
	        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $delay);
	    }
	    else {
	        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 60);
	        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 60);
	    }
	    $result	= curl_exec($ch);
	    curl_close($ch);
	}

	return($result);
}

function parseHTML($html)
{
	if (preg_match_all("/<a href=\"(.*?)\"/i", $html, $match)) {
  		foreach ($match[1] as $row) {
  			$domain = getDomain($row);
			if ($domain != '')
			{
				db_insert_url($domain);
			}
	  	}
	}
}

function db_insert_url($url)
{
	$url = mysql_real_escape_string($url);
	$sql = "INSERT INTO tbl_url (url, html, status) VALUES ('$url', '', '0')";
	$rs = mysql_query($sql);
}

function db_update_html($url, $html)
{
	$url = mysql_real_escape_string($url);
	$html = mysql_real_escape_string($html);
	$sql = "UPDATE tbl_url SET html='$html' WHERE url='$url' ";
	$rs = mysql_query($sql);
}

function getDomain($url)
{
	$result = '';
	if (preg_match("/^(http:\/\/[\d|\w|-|_|.]+)/i", $url, $match)) {
		$result = $match[1];
	}
	return $result;
}
?>

O, jangan lupa untuk membuat table nya juga.

CREATE TABLE `tbl_url` (
  `id` int(8) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `url` varchar(128) NOT NULL,
  `html` text NOT NULL,
  `status` int(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  UNIQUE KEY `url` (`url`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM;

Demikianlah cara membuat web crawler yang sederhana. Untuk tahap selanjutnya, kamu bisa menambahkan fungsi filter untuk menentukan url mana saja yang akan disimpan dan mana yang akan diabaikan.

Salam PHP.

Gerade las ich, dass es in einem Netzwerk, ich glaube es war SchülerVZ, wieder ‘ne Datenpanne gegeben hat. Die Betreiber können natürlich nüscht dafür, klar! Wie darf man sich das vorstellen? Da kommt also irgendein Heini und kopiert Daten, die vom Umfang ungefähr so groß wie die Brandenburger Seenplatte sind oder was? Gut, der Vergleich hinkt, aber er soll ja auch nur anschaulich rüberbringen, dass es sich hierbei um eine große, riesengroße, mordsmäßig, galaktisch, monströse Datenmenge handelt. Ist mir gelungen, oder?

Manchmal frage ich mich, was sich diese Leute, Wahnsinnigen – vielleicht sollte man sie besser naive Ahnungslose nennen – dabei denken, wenn sie sich in unzähligen Netzwerken anmelden. Ich will jetzt nicht ins Detail gehen und alte Debatten über den Sinn von StudiVZ oder Jappy rezitieren. Dafür erzähle ich eine Geschichte. Damit hab’ ich es ja. … Sollte vielleicht lieber am Manuskript weiterarbeiten.

Die Geschichte beginnt so:

Es war einmal vor langer, langer Zeit, als ich in einem Kongress–Center gejobbt habe. Ich war sozusagen in der “Schnittstelle zwischen externen Dienstleistern und internen Vertretern” des Hauses tätig. Wie das genau gemeint ist, versteht zwar keine Sau, stand aber so in meinem Zeugnis. Ich würde die Tätigkeit treffender mit dem Satz: „Verena saß am Telefon“ bezeichnen, aber mich hat ja damals keiner gefragt.

An einem schönen, sonnigen Tag; ich hatte Dienst mit Pamo aus Paraguay, stand das Telefon still. Folglich hatten wir nichts zu tun. Während ich auf Gala.de via “Style–Check“ den Stars erst Vokuhila–Frisuren verpasste und dann über Til Schneider lästerte, nutzte Pamo die Zeit, um ihre Studi–Dingsbums-Seite aufzupimpen. Es war sehr interessant, was und vor allem wer auf ihrer Seite zu sehen war. Zuerst schockten mich ihre Freunde. Sie hatte nämlich ziemlich viele und zwar an die fünfhunderttausend oder so. Dann zeigte sie mir ihre Fotoalben: Pamo auf der letzten Party, in der Badewanne, mit lasziven Blick unter der Dusche, Pamo im Suff, mit Lippenstift und Lidstrich, Pamo als Brigitte Bardot und knutschend mit dem in Vergessenheit geratenen Viva–Moderator Nils Bokelberg. Hast du keinen Schiss, dass dir mal jemand ans Bein pissen will und deine Schlüppi–Fotos an die Zeitung oder zum Chef schickt, fragte ich, aber sie konnte meine Sorge weder verstehen, noch einordnen. „Du bist aber spießig!“, antwortete Frau StudiVZ und schob ihr Fast–Oben–Ohne–Foto ins Bildbearbeitungsprogramm. „Weichzeichner muss schon sein, sonst wirke ich zu streng!“

Zu streng? Hat sie zu streng gesagt, fragte ich mich selber. Pamo sah auf dem Bild aus, als wäre ihre Ausbildungsstätte die Oranienburger–Strasse! Aber ich schwieg und guckte Bildchen. Nach der Ausbildung wollte sie in der deutschen Botschaft in Paraguay arbeiten, hat sie mir erzählt. Ich hatte natürlich, mit dem Wissen um diese Bilder, ernste Bedenken, aber sie meinte, dass sei überhaupt kein Problem. … Muss man sich mal vorstellen: Da sind Pamos Partyfotos vielleicht schneller in der Botschaft, als sie selber. Meine Güte. Wir leben in rasanten Zeiten.

Ich finde, das Bild hat irgendwas von Jonathan Meese.

After a period of refactoring, Spidr 0.2.0 (code-named “solid”) has been released. Many things we’re added to this release, along with some very important bug-fixes and optimizations.

Major changes

Spidr, along with many of my other projects, has moved to YARD based documentation. YARD’s tag based documentation format really helped me annotate every method within Spidr. The new YARD docs can be found in the usual location.

Also following suite with many of my other projects, you can now find Spidr on the awesome and easy to use gemcutter.org.

Spidr should be a little faster now. Thanks to the work of justfalter, HTTP sessions with unique hosts/ports are now cached and resued. HTTP sessions no longer have to be re-initialized upon every request. Also, the history and failures lists are now Ruby Sets, yielding improved lookup times for checking if a link has been previously visted.

The code-base of Spidr should be a little more organized. Many methods within Spidr::Agent were grouped by functionality and moved to separate modules (Events and Filters) which are included back into Spidr::Agent.

The Spidr::Actions module was also added, which adds action methods that control spidering from within every_url, every_page, every_failed_url, all_headers event hooks. The pause! method will pause the spider, while skip_page! and skip_link! can manipulate the processing of pages/links.

The Spidr::Page#search, Spidr::Page#at, Spidr::Page#title methods were also added. These methods should make Spidr::Page feel alittle more like WWW::Mechanize::Page, allowing one to search the DOM (parsed by Nokogiri) with XPath/CSS-path expressions.

Lastly, many new examples which highlight some of the less-than-trivial things you can do with Spidr have been added to the website and docs.

Important bug-fixes

Spidr::Agent should now properly handle the spidering of SSL protected websites. Also thanks to justfalter, HTTPS sessions are now properly initialized and stored in the HTTP session cache; so the SSL-handshake only need be performed once per unique host/port.

Spidr::Agent#get_page will now correctly send the URI query along with the URI path for HTTP requests. Thanks go out to Damian Steer for reporting this.

Spidr::Page#doc now returns a Nokogiri::XML::Document object for RSS/RDF/Atom pages, allowing one to properly search RSS/Atom feeds.

Spidr::Page#code will now return the HTTP Status code as an Integer.

Spidr::Page#links now properly handles the HTTP Location header.

The URI expansion/normalization performed by Spidr::Page#to_absolute was greatly improved. Spidr::Page#to_absolute will now properly preserve trailing ‘/’ characters on URI paths.

Shout Outs

A big thanks to everyone who helped with Spidr 0.2.0 by reporting bugs and testing new code. I hope this release will help users get more out of Spidr.

Are you looking for a durable RTR cralwer for long???  You can now stop the pain for waiting as the new Axial SCX10 – Trial Ready (#AX90012) and AX10 Scorpion (#AX90011) RTC has jsut arrived rcMart.  With the excellent quality as usual Axial brings you the best crawler with hassle-free.  Just plug in the battery and you can start enjoying the fun of crawling.  Don’t wait, order this new kit and have fun now.

Where to buy:
Axial SCX10 – Trial Ready (#AX90012)
http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/rc-axial-ax90012-scx10-p-29934.html

AX10 Scorpion (#AX90011) RTC
http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/rc-axial-ax90011-ax10-sorpion-rock-crawler-p-29933.html

]]> http://rcmart.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/jconcepts-tires-bodies-wheels/ Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:40:11 +0000 rcmart http://rcmart.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/jconcepts-tires-bodies-wheels/

*Click the image to buy Jconcepts products

JConcepts is a Florida-based R/C design and manufacturing company. Owner and president, Jason Ruona, has been involved with Radio Control cars since the 1980’s. Early beginnings include building and driving such vehicles as the Tamiya Clod Buster, the Team Losi JRX-T and Associated RC10 and RC10T. The 1990’s were spent as a Team Associated travel team driver racing at events all around the world. Now, decades later, Ruona is proudly selling quality kits, bodies, tires and accessories to R/C racers around the world.

Being the winners’ choice from different major events, JConcepts strives to bring consistent top-quality products to all RC fans. This is exactly the same vision as rcMart who attempts to bring the world top brands to our valued customers. Today we are glad to announce JConcepts products are available in rcMart. Don’t miss the chance of getting the latest JConcepts products.  More products are coming so please be reminded to check rcMart for latest products.

Where to buy?
http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/jconcepts-m-338.html

Where to buy?
http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/jconcepts-m-338.html

Bayangkan indahnya bisa mengumpulkan semua informasi yang ada di dunia ini. Semua informasi yang ada di internet, bisa kita simpan menjadi milik kita pribadi… wow.. luar biasa bukan!

Bagaimana caranya? simple… cukup buat 1 program PHP untuk jadi web crawler jalankan, tunggu beberapa saat dan nikmati hasilnya

Bagaimana cara kerja web crawler?
1. Program crawler akan mendownload html dari url target
2. Program akan menyimpan html tersebut, kemudian mengekstrak semua url yang ada di html tersebut dengan menggunakan filtering yang kita kehendaki
3. Url-url tadi kemudian disimpan dalam sebuah list
4. Program akan mengambil 1 url dari list tadi yang belum didatangi, kemudian kembali ke langkah 1.

Dulu saya selalu membuat web crawler dalam bentuk PHP-CLI. Masalah yang timbul jika menggunakan solusi ini adalah:
1. Proses download html berjalan lambat, karena bandwith VPS saya sangat terbatas
2. Sewa server dan bandwitdh nya mahal euy
3. Bandwitdh server cepat sekali habis, karena download html yang sangat banyak

Bagaimana cara cerdas untuk mengakalinya?
Pergunakan web hosting biasa!
Ya.. web hosting biasa, saat ini saya lagi menjalankan crawler menggunakan web hosting nya godaddy yang bahkan diberi gratis oleh mereka.

Ok, dengan pendekatan web hosting seperti ini, program crawlernya saya bagi 2.
1. Invoker yang berjalan di vps, tetap dalam bentuk PHP-CLI
2. Downloader yang berjalan di web hosting, dan berbentuk PHP web script biasa

Program invoker tidak lagi mendownload html, mengekstrak dan menyimpannya, tapi hanya bertugas untuk menjalankan script downloader yang berada di web hosting saja.

PHP web script yang berada di web hosting akan mendownload, mengekstrak dan menyimpan hasilnya.

Ada satu lagi trick cerdas untuk membuat proses ini semakin cepat dan cepat.
PHP web script yang dipanggil oleh invoker akan memanggil PHP web script lainnya sebelum dia berakhir.

Dan dengan cara seperti ini, hanya dalam waktu 15  menit, telah tersimpan hampir 1000MB data website dalam database. Berapa cost yang harus dikeluarkan untuk mendapatkannya? hampir Rp.0, karena web hostingannya gratisan!

Apa kendalanya?
Jika web hosting provider nya tahu, sepertinya hal seperti ini akan dilarang hehe.

Salam PHP.

Die Informationsmenge im Internet ist für Normalsterbliche kaum noch zu bewältigen. Das Start-up-Unternehmen 80legs aus dem texanischen Houston hat nun eine recht pfiffige Lösung entwickelt, um Schneisen in den Datendschungel zu schlagen: Die Firma vermietet Suchroboter, die nach persönlichen Vorgaben Teile des Web durchkämmen. Riesige Server-Farmen, wie sie bei Google und Co. stehen, sollen dafür nicht mehr nötig sein; stattdessen wird verteilte PC-Technik eingesetzt.

„Suchroboter, auch Spider oder Crawler genannt, sind Programme, die automatisch Seiten im Web aufsuchen und diese dann in einen Index aufnehmen. Das Problem: Die Größe, die das Web inzwischen angenommen hat, macht es zunehmend schwierig, alle Seiten in ihrer Gesamtheit abzusuchen – das kostet schlicht zu viel Rechenleistung. Genau deshalb muss etwa Google seine Infrastruktur ständig ausbauen“, schreibt die Technology Review-Bloggerin Erica Naone.

Mit dem 80legs-System kann man einen anderen Weg einschlagen. So müssen Firmen nur dafür zahlen, was der Crawler tatsächlich leistet. Bei 80legs erwartet man sich neben Nutzern, die sich für Suchverfahren und Web-Semantik interessieren, auch technische Laien. Marktforscher könnten 80legs beispielsweise einsetzen, um die Erwähnung bestimmter Firmen und Themen im Web zu untersuchen – und zwar viel schneller als bei Google.

Den gewünschten Crawl-Durchgang kann man über ein Web-Interface einleiten. „Dort lassen sich Parameter einstellen oder auch eigener Programmcode hochladen, der dann bestimmt, wie der Suchroboter vorgeht. Beispielsweise könnte jemand 80legs benutzen, um auf die Jagd nach urheberrechtlich geschützten Bildern zu gehen. Dann würde der Crawler alle gefundenen Aufnahmen gegen eine Datenbank mit Copyright-Informationen checken“, so Naone.

Nach Angaben von 80legs-Vorstandschef Shion Deysarkar könne die Technik der Firma bis zu zwei Milliarden Seiten am Tag bearbeiten. Dabei werden für jede Million gecrawlter Seiten 2 Dollar fällig, plus drei Cent pro Stunde für die abgerufene Rechenleistung. „Statt ein Rechenzentrum einzusetzen, wird eine Software verwendet, die auf einem verteilten Netzwerk aus einzelnen PCs läuft, ähnlich wie man es vom SETI@home-Projekt zur Jagd nach außerirdischen Signalen kennt“, schreibt Naone. Ein Dienst wie 80legs könnte auch für universitäre Forscher spannend sein. „Im großen Stil zu crawlen, ist eine teure Hürde, wenn es um experimentelle Suchprojekte im akademischen Bereich geht “, meint Kevin Chang, Dozent für Computerwissenschaften an der University of Illinois. Es fehle an der Infrastruktur. Er ist der Auffassung, dass der verteilte Ansatz von 80legs eine „interessante Richtung” sei. Die Idee könne die Kosten für Crawling-Durchgänge verringern.

Il prossimo 10 ottobre i Verme~Robots presentano il loro album d’esordio (su etichetta I Make Records). Nati dalle ceneri dei Crawler, Antonio Senesi, Pasquale Aliberti e Francesco Tedesco, saranno sul palco del MD-Music Auditorium Jazz Club di Angri, Salerno ed inaugureranno il loro tour 2009-10.

Ecco le prime date, ed a seguire, la recensione di “Crawling In The Rush Hour”:

07-11-2009 | @ Shakti Club | Pomigliano D’Arco (NA)

30-10-2009 | @ Mamamù | Napoli

22-10-2009 | @ Doria83 | Napoli  [I make records NIGHT - guest dasAuge]

10-10-2009 | @ MD Music – Auditorium Jazz Club | Angri (SA) [Presentazione - ingresso gratuito]

08-10-2009 | @ Moshpit [RadioBaseAgro] | Pagani (SA) [Intervista in anteprima e set acustico]

C’erano una volta i Crawler, seminale crossover-metal band a metà strada tra Napoli e Salerno. Dopo due lavori, rivoluzione in casa con l’ingresso di Francesco Tedesco (dei Da’namaste, altra band underground salernitana) che si affianca ad Antonio Senesi (voce e chitarra) e Pasquale Aliberti (basso, direttamente dagli Underscore). Nuovo nome, Verme~ Robots, sound più diretto ed essenziale, avvicinamento a sonorità che virano al prog (stile Mars Volta) ma senza abbandonare la “mamma crossover-metal”.

Il nuovo corso coincide con la neonata etichetta indie “I Make Records” che si occupa del management e della promozione. Nasce così “Crawling In The Rush Hour”, dieci brani che dimostrano la nuova strada intrapresa dai Verme~ Robots. “Psycho-City”, secondo brano dell’album, è lento con la giusta dose di chitarre, descrivendo una tormentata storia (d’amore?) tra bugie, falsità e sofferenze. “The Animal” è ossessiva, come i videoclip dei Tool (l’artwork dell’album sembra ispirarsi anche a loro), “New Skin” sottolinea il buon lavoro fatto in fase di produzione, “Frenetic Quite” è una corsa verso l’abisso, con la doppia voce che riporta ai Linea 77.

“Just Let Me Scream Like burning inside my mind” invocano in “Emotive”: ancora amore nero, tormentato e convulso. In “Change” è la voce sensuale di Teresa Tedesco che avvicina la band a dei Lacuna Coil meno dark. Chitarra e melodie, grawl e hardcore: “Crawling In The Rush Hour” mette a fuoco una provincia assetata di rock, di “sensazioni forti”. Aspettiamo anche un album in italiano.
Luigi Ferraro

il sito dei VermeRobots

il sito della I Make Records

Anything that’s posted online may be available long after you’ve deleted it from the original source. That’s because search engines and other web crawlers move around the internet indexing websites and making copies. Some sites reprocess online content without your knowing about it. So just because you delete something, it may still be available on the internet somewhere. A software that tracks your postings and deletes not just the original but all copies of it on the web would be very useful. You never know when you might post something you want to delete later.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Anything that’s posted online may be available long after you’ve deleted it from the original source. That’s because search engines and other web crawlers move around the internet indexing websites and making copies. Some sites reprocess online content without your knowing about it. So just because you delete something, it may still be available on the internet somewhere. A software that tracks your postings and deletes not just the original but all copies of it on the web would be very useful. You never know when you might post something you want to delete later.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I was configuring SharePoint search service. when I started full crawl , it started and 1 second later ( after refresh ) it stoped and gives me this error in error log :

Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content. (The item was deleted because it was either not found or the crawler was denied access to it.)

I searched and found the solution is : Disable the loopback check

How ?  Follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3. Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.

After doing this and restarting the server, nothing happened !!

So I stoped both Windows SharePoint Services Search & Office SharePoint Server Search and then restart them again.

after I started the again, I started full crawling and it didn’t stop soon … and no error happened .

In SEO field, sitemap is the biggest chapter and still there is a big discussion on this subject. Still, there is much confusion among SEOs about sitemap. What is it? How it works? What is the importance of sitemap in SEO? These are the basic question about sitemap.

At first, I want to share my thought about sitemap. I think there are two types of sitemap – Sitemap XML and sitemap. You will ask what the difference between both is. Yes, this is the right question. At first, we should know about sitemaps. Sitemaps are the list of URLs and pages that tell search engine to crawl them. It means if a search engine crawler is not able to discover all the pages of a site then the sitemap gives the way to discover all the pages in single file. It is an XML sitemap that is known with capital “S”. The Sitemap tells to Google or other search engine crawler to discover all the pages of a site that is not discoverable.

Importance of Sitemaps:

This is helpful for dynamic site. If your site is based on dynamic pages, sitemap can guarantee to crawl all the pages by search engines crawler.

Your site has use of AJAX or images; Sitemaps is able to discover all the pages for search engine crawler.

If your site has large archive then Sitemaps are necessary to discover all the pages for search engines crawler.

Basic Rules for Sitemaps:

Search Engines don’t guarantee to crawl all the pages which are in Sitemaps. You should not put images URL in Sitemaps however, you can add that URL on which your images are added. Google adheres to Sitemap Protocol 0.9 so; you should crate a Sitemap using Sitemap Protocol 0.9.

URL Guidelines for Sitemaps:

A Sitemap always contain a list of URLs. A Sitemap can’t contain more than 50000 URLs and file can’t be longer than 10MB when uncompressed. A Sitemap can contain a list of Sitemaps with no more than 50000 Sitemaps. You should never include session IDs in URLs. If your site begins with http then don’t include www. Never use image URLs in Sitemaps.

You can create Sitemaps manually, through Sitemaps generator or from third party. Most of the blog has already RSS and Atom as feed that is used as Sitemap. Google is familiar with RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 feeds. You should know these feeds are able to show only recent post URLs however, a Sitemap is able to show whole URLs of your site.

yes, he has been crawling left, right and center. Just when I think I’ve gotten used to a particular pattern of his, he learns something new and enters a new phase and I’ve to adapt to it. So, the crawling phase is really keeping me and everyone at home in their toes. Bcos he goes and grabs every piece of dirt in the doormats, dustbins and all things that fit into that kind of category.

So today, I’ve been trying hard to write something on my laptop and he goes fast towards my shoe rack. I try to distract him with something without getting up from my seat. The only thing I’ve next to me is my TV remote and I try to entice him with that, hoping that he’ll try to come and get it. He looks at it for a minute, as if evaluating which was a better choice and after careful thought, finally moves towards the shoe rack Ohoh! my baby has started making decisions as well ..

Tamiya RC (58414) Mercedes-Benz Unimog 406 – CR01 Series U900 has been Restock!!

*Click the image to buy

About the Model

• The Mercedes-Benz Unimog’s body is made from lightweight polycarbonate material.
• CR-01 chassis features a heavy-duty ladder frame with strong lightweight pressed aluminum channels and cross channels.
• 4 link coil suspension provides the flexibility needed to conquer difficult rocky terrain.
• Center gearbox features planetary gears with a compact design enabling the battery to be mounted lower for a better center of gravity.
• Newly designed 3-piece beadlock wheels mounted with massive 125mm diameter and 56mm wide rock crawler tires are ready for any terrain.
• Powered by a 540 motor.
• Can be fitted with Yellow (Front) and Red (Rear) TLU-01 LED Lights (ITEM 53909)
• The Unimog is compatible with a wide range of Option Parts

• Full Ball Bearings
• Planetary gearbox comes with20T pinion gear for a 40.5:1 gear ratio
• Requires ESC and 2ch Radio w/1 servo
• Requires Paint and Assembly

ELECTRIC KITS REQUIRE:
(unless stated differently above)
Radio: 2-Channel with servo(s)
Battery: 6-cell flat with standard Tamiya connector
Charger: AC/DC timed or peak for 6-cell battery
Paint: PS for Polycarbonate/TS for ABS
Misc. Items: Building and track equipment

Source: Tamiya USA
Where to Buy CR01?
http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/rc-tamiya-58414-mercedesbenz-unimog-u900-p-27656.html
Where to Buy CR01 hopup & Pasts?
http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/tamiya-cr01-hopup-parts-c-595_744_1158.html

06-11-2309

We woke up late and didn’t even hurry to get ready. We felt confident we’d make it in time. 9 o’clock rolled around and, sometime after breakfast was served, we finally got around to getting on the road. Our party of three set out in the 4-wheeled crawler down the last stretch of our journey before our main destination, the Bonnaroo festival.

It was at this exact same time that my brother pulled his SUV into the parking spot a volunteer in an orange vest waved him into. He had waited so long in line, following the slow moving trail of vehicles, all honking and hollering with excitement constantly for the past hour. On and on it went, to the middle of a grassy field, beside hundreds of others, and enough space between to comfortably fit a tent for each group.

His behemoth of a crawler lurched one last foot forward and came to a rest in the soft, rain fresh soil. He killed the engine and removed the key, his seat automatically un-adjusting to allow him more room to exit. After he set down the keys and remained seated, Zech Lane turned slowly to the rest of his group.

“Now bitches, we are here. Let‘s get high!” he said dramatically, and to much applause and cheer from the others.

Within thirty seconds all four members of their party had stepped down out of the navy blue beast and begun stretching and moaning. Minkus Grambel was the first out; he cracked his back, flinched his head to side a few times and pulled out a cigarette, tapping on a pack that matched the color of his shorts before lighting it.

Rip Gozo was soon after, slipping out of the passenger’s seat on the same side as Minkus. He stretched his arms together, giving out a strange, high-pitched grunt, and patted himself down for a pack of cigs. Finding none, he turned around to face the other Earthling.

“Hey Minkus, can I bum a Red from you?” he asked in a curious tone.

“You say it like we could possibly have another type of cigarette with us,” he retorted quickly, being on the road had made everyone a little edgy.

“I know that’s all we have, I was there when we bought the carton…so, can I have a cig?” he inquired again.

“Oh, right. Of course, man,” Minkus said apologetically as he pulled out the red and white box. “A cowboy killer for you.”

“Thanks,” Rip said as he lit it, and only taking a little puff of it. “I really hope buying all 200 of these will be worth it by the end of this.”

“More like…175. That was one long line, man,” Eli interjected. Mr. Bayer was a dopey looking Earthling in baggy jeans and a ball cap pulled low, but always had an ability to seem inconspicuous; the man would be downright unnoticeable in a crowd of garishly dressed hippies, let alone the likes of Rip and Minkus. “I’m sure I smoked a pack by myself,” he exaggerated, but lighting another as he joined them, walking around from the other back door.

“Guys, we really need to focus on setting up the tent,” my brother, Zech, reminded everyone as he rounded the front of his truck.

“He’s right, we have to stake our claim before the next car moves in, otherwise we won’t have enough room for everything,” Rip confirmed. He had been to every one of these festivals here since the year after I first went. I may have gone first, long ago in the day, relaying tales and fragments of what my memories revealed to anyone who would listen, but Rip was seasoned in the experience of Bonnaroo, this would be his fourth.

“Yeah..that..and I need to sleep,” Zech explained, glaring at Minkus for not getting behind the wheel at any point. He had made the 10 hour trek from Northern Dominia in one long stretch, and sat in line for another two; he desperately needed rest. He held out three fingers, putting them down one at a time, saying “Tent. Blunt. Sleep.”

“But I want to go out and…find something,” Eli moaned to himself, holding his elbows as his eyes searched far off.

“We can go out and find anything we want later,” he assured everyone, though he too looked off into the distance, longing to discover what palpable offerings there were at hand. “Also, it’s gonna be, like, way easier once everyone is done setting up, too,” he said, telling himself more than anyone else.

Zech was removing the nylon sack containing a 4-person tent that belonged to the Grambel family. “Mink, you’re really gonna have to help me with this. Eli, stop rolling that and…well…on second thought, roll it. I think we’ve got this.”

We were still elsewhere in Appalachia about two hours later. After an embarrassing, and downright soaking, stop into a Uber-Mart to stock up on last minute supplies and food to fill up whatever room we had left, our car had reached the end of waiting line for the festival. Ahead of us it seemed to go on infinitely, everyone pulled over to the shoulder to let local traffic through, and quickly behind us, as far back as we could see, it continued on, endless.

The police would roll by occasionally to assist, though that was mostly added up to shouting cryptic messages on the megaphone and getting our hopes up by continually saying we were almost there. They couldn’t be bothered to stop and inform us how long we actually had, better to just ride on by and squall at anyone standing in the middle of the road.

Brick, Leona and I waited about 15 minutes before becoming restless, eager to get in and get set up, knowing we were just around the corner from the entrance. It was about this time we started noticing pairs and groups of people bailing out from their vehicles and making a run for the tree line, sneaking in a quick pee break. We scoffed at their impatience, thinking we were mere minutes away from being let in.

“That’s it. I’m gonna get out and start making friends with the neighbors,” Brick said, unfastening his seatbelt.

“By neighbors you mean the car in front of us in line?” I asked, with a slight bitterness since I could have used a tree myself.

“Yep. Looks like a good enough time,” he said, opening the door as he snatched the pack of the cigarettes out of the console. The door slammed behind him, followed by a moment of silence.

“Well, I guess that means we get to be friends,” I said turning to Leona, taking the first opportunity alone with her to have a nice conversation.

Two hours later, at Zech’s campsite, Rip and Minkus returned from a browse through the shops along the thoroughfare to the event center. They managed to lose Eli somewhere along the way, but felt confident he‘d find his way back. Zech was still passed out in the tent, so the two present members opened up the tailgate of the behemoth, sat down and shared a bowl together.

“This is so astro, dude,” the blonde Earthling said, hitting the pipe out in the open, in broad daylight. He passed it back to his pointy eared companion, making no efforts to conceal it.

“Yeah, it’s always really nice here,” he responded flatly, well aware how awesome it was from the past three times he attended. He picked a curl of his dark hair out of his face and hit the little pipe they just. He glanced down at the tiny glass piece with a sour face as he exhaled, saying “Man, I should have bought a bigger one…I guess I’ll just give this one to my mom.”

“How many pipes that you didn’t want anymore have you given to your mom?” Minkus asked, facetiously.

“How many has she given to me?” Rip smirked.

“Hey, you guys wanna hang out over here?” a young woman’s voice called from another campsite. “We’re about to play a game of pong.”

Rip and Minkus looked at each other and nodded, turning to say in unison “Hell yeah!” They walked over with the unfinished pipe to the adjacent camp.

“Oh look, she’s making friends already,” their neighbor said to his brother. His girlfriend turned and gave him a face, sticking out her tongue.

“Shut up, now you have a team to play against,” she explained to him. None of them seemed too bright to Rip, Minkus just thought the neighbors were funny. They handed their new friends the bowl as they joined their game.

At nearly the same time, after two hours of waiting in line, I was finishing up the last pages of my tlog. Well, not the whole thing, just this ‘best of’ collection I have; the highlights, if you will. Realizing these last pages were all about Lou, I cut it short, making an ending out the middle of a random paragraph.

No one noticed, so I put my computer under the seat and picked my texti out of the console to check how long we’d been in line.

“That’s it, time for a beer,” I said to the back seat, holding my hand out and waiting for it to be filled.

Leona obliged, handing Brick and I a red and white can, then getting herself one. As we each cracked open a beer we noticed a crowd of hippies, and other brightly dressed folks our age, out frolicking and playing in the field we were parked beside. The traffic was remaining static in long enough intervals for people to start a game of ultimate or soccer between hobbling from point to point.

The best toy we could find was a beach ball Leona brought for the concert. As quickly as we could, we inflated it and ran out to the field. We soon learned how difficult it was to control such a light object in the breeze, which added a whole lot of unpredictability to the game, but frustrated the hell out of us.

Sometime around 2 in the afternoon Zech awoke, bathed in blue light and sweat, on top of his sleeping bag. All around him were the sounds of celebration: people laughing and shouting, beers popping and fireworks screeching, and music–music coming from more directions than he could count. He stretched, yawned, and unzipped the door of the cerulean tent they’d assembled some 5 hours ago, crawling out into the real world.

He was instead astounded by how surreal it was; standing up in a pool of vivid colors and sounds. He seemed to be treading in a sea of tents and cars that spanned as far as he looked in any direction, the horizon spiked with masts and waving flags, alive and brightly adorned. Giant balloons floated off in the distance, tethered to the ground by massive lines, and bottle rockets exploded in the sky nearby.

Rip and Minkus returned from another neighboring camp, waving goodbye to the pierced lesbians they just met. Minkus had a smitten expression on his face his companion was more than eager to wipe off.

“Just cause you’re extra feminine doesn’t mean they’ll find you any bit attractive,” Rip said, popping his bubble.

“Shut up. A man can dream, damn it.” He paused a moment to think, then said to himself “she kinda reminded me of LZ.”

“Well, look who’s finally alive. I mean, huh-what?” Rip quickly deflected, lest anyone notice how snarky he is all the time.

“Mornin’,” he responded, letting the joke roll off his back. What happened to Eli?” my little brother asked, noticing that his crew was short a member.

“Eli?” asked Minkus in a tone that made it seem like they’d been joking about him for a while.

“Yeah,” Rip continued, glancing at him with a smirk. “We haven’t seen him in hours..

“The man completely disappeared after we smoked and you passed out,” Minkus expressed with concern, but not enough to go out looking for him.

“Oh, but come on. We’d never find him out there; it’s, like, too insane,” Rip interjected with a swish of his hand.

“You’re right, it looks crazy from here,” Zech agreed, peering about for a second.

“If you really want to see something, check this out,” Minkus said, leading everyone to the side of the resting beast, where he climbed to the roof by stepping up the ladder and the wheel cowling to the hood. “The view’s amazing, guys. C’mon up here,” he waved to the others to follow. “And bring that fire, Rip.”

In a minute they were passing around the bowl, sitting 2 meters above everyone else’s heads, atop the blue back of the sleeping behemoth. To every direction there was excitement and joy; festivities raged to the horizon line. They could see the pulsing veins of fellow concertgoers between the other tents and vehicles, flowing like blood to the core of the several hundred acre event. They trailed with their eyes until they were all looking forward in amazement, jaws open.

“Holy gork!”

“My gorking heavens!”

“Shit, we can see the main stage from here,” Zech said, finally starting to wake up a bit.

“Wow guys…this is going to be a good year,” Rip said humbled, thinking it may be his best trip to this etesian Elusian so far.

An hour later, I was seated where I had been for what already felt like an eternity, head on my hand as I stared out the window of Brick’s crawler. I sighed, lit another of the non-menthol cigarettes I bummed from one of my neighbors. We’d started to get friendly with the adjacent cars in the few past hours.

To my left were the guys who drove down from New Tros, ready to take their X as soon as it got dark. On the right, behind us in line, were the guys from some other part of New Ganymede who debated whether or not they should fire up the grill the next time we come to a stop. And directly in front of me, knife-kid was at it again, beheading any wild flower he saw.

“That kid who seems to despise flowers is back,” I reported lazily. Leona hardly stirred from her book but Brick opened his eyes at least gave him a glance.

“That guy’s still choppin’ away, huh?” the Martian muttered, rolling his head back over where he was resting.

“I wonder what those poor, white flowers ever did to him,” I said to myself as I turned back to him, exhaling slowly. After another moment, I suddenly felt very fed up and started to climb out of the window as I exclaimed “That’s it!”

“How many times are we gonna go through this, you’ll never make it in on foot,” Brick hardly opened his eyes as he spoke.

“No-No, not again. I’m just gonna sit on the roof,” I said as I pulled myself out and up onto it.

From here I could see further ahead than I had before, and I definitely didn’t like what I saw. Nothing but the same thing over and over: tie-dye and technicolor crawling along the side of the road at a slug‘s pace.

I leaned over the driver’s side and pounded on the roof. Brick stuck his head out and stared at me irascibly. “Hey-” I started.

“What?” he snapped quickly.

“We shouldn’t have smoked the last of our weed last night.”

“I know, I realized that already,” he said glaring, “or sacrificed the last of it for luck last night, you Callitian.”

“Yeah, my bad. Look…we should have slaughtered a goat…or Leona,” I said jokingly.

“Haha,” his mood changed a bit. “No we’re trading the blonde for hallucinogens, remember?”

“What’s that?” she finally interjected, sticking her head out the window too.

“Nothing, go back to reading, hon,” I said, dismissing her. She gave me a puzzled look and shrugged, withdrawing back inside. Brick chuckled again and retreated as well. I remained on the roof, finishing my cigarette as I stared at the anxious line, slothing its way along.

Another hour later and Rip was just getting back to the camp, excited to smoke what he just bought. He was almost frolicking by the time he bounded into the site, greeted by two pairs of confused, blue eyes that only said goodbye to him a minute ago.

“Guess what I got, like, three camps away.”

“What, what?” Minkus asked, hoping it was something better than the brick weed he’d brought from up north.

He removed a baggie that contained a black, lumpy substance, and held it aloft, shouting “Mmmm-opium!” This lit up the eyes of the other crew members, excited to add the first exotic drug to the list for this trip.

“Did somebody say opium?” an optimistic voice called from around the car. Eli Bayer stepped out of nowhere, as if summoned by the tarry stuff.

“Yes, in fact, I did…Where did you come from, El?” Rip asked, feeling most confused of all.

“Huh? Oh, I was just in there,” he said, pointing to open driver’s door of the 6-wheel’d truck everyone was currently seated on the tail of.

“Really?” Minkus turned in amazement, obviously not even knowing he was there. “How long?” Eli just shrugged and joined them, sitting on a cooler with a jacket on top for a cushion.

“Now if only we had another pipe to smoke out of,” Rip started to mutter, staring at the little blue one. Not even a minute later, a large hippie came roaming passed the camp with a massive black case.

“Blown glass pieces! Finest Quality! Get them while they last!” he shouted in all directions, unashamedly. The crew just looked at each other a moment before, responding.

“Yo, over here!” Rip said, acting as representative for them. The salesman came over and displayed his wares: truly the finest of triple blown glass they had ever seen.

“I made these myself; all the ones you see here in blue don’t change color because I blew them with silver,” the artisan explained. Rip immediately gravitated to one of these metallic blue pieces, particularly such with what seemed like a sidecar-handle. Zech locked eyes with a different, sturdy one shaped similarly to a gavel. Both had strange honeycomb patterns that seemed to sweeten the deal. They noticed the prices though.

“I really won’t have enough for other stuff this weekend if I spend a hundred on this,” Rip complained. Zech was getting his wallet out.

“But it’s so gorkin’ awesome, man. You have to get it,” Minkus pleaded.

“It really is a pretty one,” Eli even added with his mysteriously present southern drawl..

“I can throw in one of these chillums here for free,” the man offered, still holding the case with one arm as he pointed to a series of short one-hitters in the front. Rip spotted a white one that looked surprisingly like a squid and snatched it up.

“Yea, ok. I’ll take these too then,” the dark curly haired Earthling said, bowing his head as if in defeat.

“And I’ll take this one for 75,” the light curly haired one said, handing over the money immediately.

“I appreciate it, pleasure doing business with ya’ll,” he thanked them and disappeared, but could still be heard, continuing to advertise himself nearby for a few more minutes.

“Wow guys, that was real lucky,” Minkus was still in a bit of shock. Rip and Zech continued eying the new pieces of their arsenals.

“I really wish I had some dank weed to christen this thing properly,” my brother said, seemingly to no one. Some force seemed to beck their call, as another, even brighter dressed hippie came trading through.

“Headeez! I‘ve got Orange and Purple!” he bellowed as he rounded another site and entered theirs.

“Yo, over here!” everyone yelled.

The clock in the HUD of brick’s crawler showed a few past five o’clock. I grumbled as I looked down into the pack of cigarettes I’d bought this morning. I at least consider myself lucky that I’d bought two, but that meant I’d really only have one the weekend. As I lit it, Brick turned to me.

“Hey, put your tuni back on, I’m getting sick of my playlist.”

“Uh, I exhausted mine hours ago, but I guess I could find something obscure,” I said, spending the next moment in complete silence, spare the click of the selector wheel. I sat, running scroll-wise for what seemed forever, eventually forgetting what I was doing and just absent mindedly spinning my thumb around as words streamed by unintelligible.

“Pick something, the click is maddening!” Brick had been getting impatient.

“Huh? Oh, sorry,” I picked the next thing I saw, something we’d listened to on Luna, but it was long enough ago by now. “Damn it, why aren’t we at the shows yet, we’re missing out on so much right now.”

“Its ok guys, I’m sure we’ll be there soon, I mean…how much longer could this line be?” Leona asked rhetorically.

“It’s just we’ve been in this car for so damn long,” Brick moaned. “I think this is the longest we’ve been in these seats consecutively this entire trip,” he stated, looking to me to confirm.

“Well considering that we’ve gotten out and to play on every rocky out cropping along the way, or at least sat down in a restaurant for a good portion of time each day, even if it was a fast food joint, I’d say yea, this has been unbearably long and I hope it ends soon,” I said to two nodding heads. We had no idea how close or far we were from getting in.

It was about the same time, only a couple of miles away, that Rip, Minkus and Eli left the camp to go on another excursion into the vibrant world that surrounded them. Zech remained behind to mind the camp, an activity that wouldn’t require too much of the already fatigued lad. The others attempted to establish a viable path out of the three rows of other camps that impeded them from reaching the closest lane.

When they’d reached the already well trodden path, they came to join the gaudy, surging mass making its way to the junction between the event center and camping areas; a giant arch constructed in the middle of the farm with the words ‘Bonnaroo’ illuminated for all to see, though it was only slightly visible unless you were quite close by.

Rather than tag along the column of slowly moving bodies to the stages, the gang became distracted by the glittering attractions of the thoroughfare vendors. All sorts of baubles and trinkets dangled from leather thongs on the posts holding up the blue tarps of their shops.

Belly dancers and fire jugglers played in the street to bring attention to the shop, some waving about smoldering bunches of incense that filled the entire avenue with a pungent but memorable aroma. Brightly colored fabrics woven of natural fibers were sold alongside wood carvings and incense burners; screened tee shirts beside music memorabilia and ash trays. Every manner of smoking device available on display for all to lust for sat at their fingertips, and all could be theirs for the right price.

“This is what heaven is like, right,” Minkus asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

“No, not at all,” Rip argued, “this is so much better!”

A roar of excitement filed its way back through the line to us, catching my attention and stirring me from my daydreams. It was just after 6 by the clock in the dash, and it looked like we were moving a considerable amount, compared to the last hours of drudgery that amounted to very little.

We suddenly came around a corner, a sharp right off the street with which we’d become sickeningly accustomed, onto an even more secluded, backwoods road. This really looked like the home stretch, and by the applause of all ahead and behind, there was no reason to believe it wasn’t.

We watched people in other vehicles climb out their open windows and sit, sideways on the door as if on a railing. It looked like a good idea, so I grabbed my guitar and followed suit, hanging onto the wooden instrument as we crept along at a few miles an hour. I tried to play anything but the same song I had been for days, the one I wrote right before this trip started, but eventually launched into a 6 minute rendition of it. And still, we kept crawling.

“We’ll be set up in no time, guys!” I shouted with glee, though my excitement began to wane when I looked ahead again to see red break lights flowing at us.

An hour later and it had begun to rain over the 700 acre and its surrounding areas. Hard rain; heavy and unrelenting to those improperly covered or prepared for such an occurrence. Three individuals, particularly so, began their withdrawal back to the car. A slow retreat though, none seemed to be too bothered by the downpour.

The one with strong Ionian features (dark curly hair and pointy ears), a brand new tie-dye shirt, and a new blanket wrapped around his shoulders, woven of coarse pink and grey fibers, lead the way. Behind him, the Earthling with blue eyes hid his buzzed blonde hair and slightly pointed ears under a brand new blue hat as he nestled his arms, warm underneath his favorite sweatshirt. Trailing in rear was the dopey looking one with dark hair and blue eyes who wore nothing but a t-shirt, but was too busy staring the new piece he had bought himself, the little blue chillum he imagined he’d get to use plenty.

Surprisingly, the fourth member of their crew was awake when they returned to the camp. The youngest one, skinny and pale with light blue eyes and long, curly blonde hair sat in the wide open cargo bay, noming on a box of cookies, dry and safe from the storm underneath the large hatch, swung up above him. He scooted back to let them in, seating himself on top of someone’s luggage.

Rip simply shook out his blanket and folded it up, the material dry as he was underneath it. Minkus swapped sweatshirts and wrapped the hood of his wet one around the inner handle of the large hatch to let it dry. Eli took off his soaked t-shirt and put a sweater on over his damp back, muttering something to himself as he hung his only shirt over a seat‘s headrest.

“Alright, who wants to get high,” Rip said, removing his tool kit and some freshly purchased supplies. Three eager faces responded by huddling up close to where he sat, the glow from the dash illuminating them all from behind.

At that same moment is when I noticed it beginning to rain. I was just thinking to myself that it had gotten dark all of a sudden when tiny points of moisture began to strike the windshield and my arm hanging out the window. I saw, already, that there was no one left playing outside or hanging out on someone else’s hood and started to roll up my window, the others doing so as well when they realized why.

We obviously weren’t at the gate yet, the short cut or whatever we thought we had taken ended up being just another lengthy leg of the line. There was no considerable end in sight and we sighed as the drizzle became a rain and then a downpour.

Two hours later and it was still coming down hard on the exterior of the vehicle, pounding arhythmically for what seemed like forever on this already infinite day. There wasn’t even music playing anymore, we only ran the engine to keep the air circulating while the windows were closed. Brick feared if the line kept going any longer that we’d run out of gas before reaching our camp. I tried to reassure him we’d never be able to burn the rest, but words like ‘never’ ‘could’ and impossible meant very little in these conditions.

“I wonder how the others are enjoying the festival so far,” I grumbled as I looked back out the window into the dark, wet nothingness.

“This isn’t so bad, you know?” Minkus said, turning to the others. “In fact, I think it’s kinda cool. As long as we’re dry, I don’t care if we’re missing any of the bands.”

“I wouldn’t want to be out at any of those shows in this weather, anyway,” Rip decided, pausing a second to think if any of them would even be worth getting soaked for. “No, it always seems like a good idea, but it only gets more and more miserable as the show goes on.

“What do you mean, that doesn’t sound like a good idea at all,” Minkus objected, turning to see Rip wasn’t being the slightest bit serious.

“You think Klay and his friends made it in ok?” Eli spoke from where he sat in one of the forward seats.

“I hope so,” Rip answered. “I thought they would have called the second they got in, but maybe they’re too tired or all their phones are dead,” he reasoned.

“Ok, look. There’s no way that all of their phones are dead. No, I think they just haven’t gotten in through the gates yet,” Minkus stated pessimistically.

“Well that sucks because they’re gonna have to cut the line off eventually,” Rip began thinking to himself. “Man, I hope they get in soon.”

“Seriously, I dunno how much longer I can stay awake,” Eli said groggily, obviously already starting to doze off.

“All we can do is wait I guess…” Rip said to the rain still falling outside.

Another two hours later and the rain had let up. At this point, we’d been in line nearly 12 hours now, and half a day of this monotony had worn on us greatly. We were, without a doubt this time, certain we were approaching the final stretch.

The locals were out here, set up all the way on the other side of the lawn from their trailers and track homes–front row seats to the freak show passing by. In folding chairs with a can of beer in their hands, they watched the procession march on ever slowly from the edge of the road. An entire day of amusement just came to them, better than anything they’d be able to find on teli.

One particularly hairy Earthling, seeming to barely have had a cut or trim since the turn of the millennium, decided to thrust himself into the spectacle. He made his way down the line of foreign vehicles, meeting and greeting every single one of the ill humored, brightly colored individuals with his beer-free hand. He informed us we were in Asbury, a promising detail according to what I’d remembered seeing on the map. Then he was on his stumbling, stuttering way to the next car down the line, the odorous oaf.

Next there were even vendor tables; unofficial, redneck-run kiosks offering everything from cold beer to ponchos and bug repellent, and all for three times the price that we saw them for anywhere outside in the real world. But this was a trap from here on in, no way to get out now so we’ll jack up the prices. Welcome to our amusement park–hope you enjoy the ride.

Less than half hour later and we were finally at the gate, one of the last cars before the cutoff. Suddenly, after hours of seeing nothing but other vehicles on either side of us, looking back we saw nothing but an empty road. We look forward and we’re the next car to show our tickets and get our bracelets. They also gave us garbage bags, which we brought plenty of, but they were out of event programs, which could have been really useful to have at the time.

We joined the last pack being led to their camp sites, and sat tangled with it for mere seconds compared to what we’d just been through. We wanted nothing more than to wait and rest a short while after we’d pulled into our lake front property, but we knew time was against us, and it could start raining again any second.

We started to set up our shelter, stomping out a square of grass large enough to lay down a tarp and then stretched out nylon construction. The tent up easily enough, and we were just getting inside for the first time to assess how much space we‘d have when the deluge resumed.

“Wow, good timing, guys,” Leona said, shocked at how well that worked out.

“That was pretty near perfect I must say,” and I did, sighing with relief.

“Eh…not too perfect,” Brick interrupted in an unsettling tone. “We’re leaking,” he said, pointing up.

We could see that the seal on the fly was weak, very weak. Water began to pour through all the seams of the hexagonally shaped top-piece of the tent, and the main layer wasn‘t designed to hold back moisture . We futilely held towels up above our heads to stop the flow until it lightened up enough to go out and do something about it.

I cut up one of the ponchos I bought at Uber-Mart for 50c and we used duct tape on the other seams, making it as waterproof as it would ever get. Brick and I made a ring around it twice with our rolls and covered every single spot and crack we could find, Leona helping by doing the same inside.

We all prepared to call it an evening, deciding it was probably too late to try to find anything to smoke, and that we should cut our losses and try early in the morning. That’s about when I realized that Zech was bringing my sleeping bag and ground mat, and none of our crew had brought a real blanket with us.

I called him up immediately, he answered the third try. “Hello?” his groggy voice crackled from my texti’s speaker.

“Hey bro, we’re in, where are you?”

“Uh..I dunno,” he paused a moment, “do you have a map?”

“No? No, they didn’t give me one.”

“Oh, well…I don’t know how I can be helpful right now,” he admitted.

“Ok…is there anyone still awake who could be more helpful than you?”

“Uh…no.”

“Well…thanks?”

“Night,” he said, his voice disappearing with a beep.

I ground my teeth together for a second before giving up, letting out a regretful sigh. “Guess I don’t get a sleeping bag tonight,” I shrugged.

I ended up using a giant hippie tapestry as a blanket, and a genuine, Venusian poncho as a sheet on top of the inflatable pool floatie I was offered as a mattress–luckily with a pillow built in to it. And, at least, I was given the middle, more comfortable of the three spots and least likely to roll up against the damp side of a tent in your sleep.

Unfortunately, like each other night of the trip, Brick began to snore heavily once he passed out. Each of the other times I had been stoned enough to ignore it, or was given a separate room entirely. Instead, I was sober, uncomfortable, and not properly covered. I rolled over and looked at Leona, deep in dream already with self-molding earplugs nestled deep enough to even drown out one’s own voice. I leaned back over, flat on my back, staring up at the top of tent until, finally, a kindly bullfrog serenaded me to sleep.