Data Transfer Rate Conversion

I managed to get time during last weekend to develop two more conversion pages. The first one was mass flow rate conversion, it completes the flow rate theme. The second one is conversion of data transfer rate.

I have almost forgotten that I once wanted to make data transfer rate conversion. After finishing with the mass flow rate (it took me less time than I expected) I found an old "to do" list in a file and there was it -- data transfer rate. So I went ahead and created that page too, which took me much longer. I had to look for the info in the Internet, search Wikipedia, etc. I hope there are some people out there who need this new conversion page. Well, we'll see.

Looks like convert-me.com is now being developed much faster. That's good. Hope I'll be able to keep it going like this.

Flow rate conversion added

Finally I've found some time to add flow rate conversion page to Convert-Me.com site. Actually there should be at least two conversion pages for flow rate: volumetric and mass. I've started with volumetric, mass flow rate will follow soon.

The biggest problem with this conversion page was the decision which units to include. As for all composite units, there are just too many possible combinations of volume and time units, such as "cubic kilometers per year" or "pints per month". Including all of these would produce a many pages long list with little practical value.

So I decided to only take the most often used units. I'm ready though to include more units to the conversion if anyone asks me to.

Excited about DMCA

Yes, I am excited about the law that allows me to protect my copyright. Since my previous posting on the site theft there were some more good news. The links to the illegals site disappeared now from Google, Yahoo and MSN. The site has been forced to change its hosting provider.

I was contacted by Jonathan Bailey who runs the site www.plagiarismtoday.com. We have exchanged a few e-mail messages and Jonathan gave me very valuable assistance in my fight to get the illegal site down. The www.plagiarismtoday.com site itself is definitely worth reading.

Speaking of my excitement, there is a fact that impresses me most about DMCA. I am not a U.S. citizen and live outside of U.S. The designated owner of the domain where illegal copy of the site is placed is also not a U.S. citizen and also lives outside of the U.S. Moreover, we both happen to live in Russia. The only tool though that I could find to protect my copyright was the U.S. law. And it did the work for me. Well, I did not actually get the complete success yet, but the situation has improved significantly.

It is a bid weird that the U.S. law works to protect copyright of one Russian citizen infringed by another Russian citizen. I wish there were a law in Russia that could be used in this situation. And I am really happy there is DMCA that I can use.

Winter came instantly

Looking through the window to snowy trees and roads it is now hard to believe there was no snow at all only a week ago. The snow fell in one night and covered everything. Not a small amount of the first light and shy snow like it usually happens in November. This time the winter came instantly. The temperature fell from zero to -26^oC in one day (that's from +30 to -15 degrees Fahrenheit). I don't remember ever having such a cold weather in November. It's not January after all! In January you know the winter is in the middle, the daytime is growing and the spring is going to come soon. In November when the long winter is all ahead, such a rapid start frightens.

My car behaved perfectly in the cold. It started fine on the coldest morning when many other cars could not. That's good. I don't like public transport at all and I especially hate it when it's cold. My wife asked when we were going to finally move somewhere to a warmer place. I said that would not be until our retirement. She did not look very satisfied by the answer.

They say it will go warmer by the end of the week -- up to -10^oC (15^oF). That'll be better. I still hope the coming winter is not going to be as cold as the last one when we used to have -35^oC (-30^oF) for over two weeks. I wonder where's there the global warming everyone is talking about?

First results after mailing DMCA notices

I faxed DMCA notices to search engines and the hosting company of the infringing site on Sunday. The law requires action to be taken within 72 hours of receipt of the notice. By this time (it's Friday) I only received two replies so far. Looks like the law is not quite working. Not that I really need the action to be taken in 72 hours, I can wait longer. I'm just curious now whether the rest are going to reply at all.

What about the replies I've got? The one (from Yahoo) is a success -- they removed the illegal copy of convert-me.com from their search results. I'm really excited about it! The DMCA worked for me. So far it helped to exclude the illegal site from Google and Yahoo -- the two search engines that are being used most often.

The second reply (from the hosting company) was only a partial success. They replied the infringing site had been removed. I checked and found I am still able to access it. It took me less than 5 minutes to find out that the illegal site had simply moved to a different hosting company. Now I should probably mail them DMCA notice too, but the site will probably move again. Fighting content theft may take much longer than I expected.

Another bad thing is the new hosting company of the illegal copy of our site is an InterCage - an ISP known to host spyware. Their website is down, there is no information where to send DMCA. That's a strange company and the Internet search on InterCage returns mainly articles on SPAM, hacking, spyware, etc. I guess at least the illegal site went where it should belong. :)

Foreign people in Yekaterinburg

I can't explain why I decided to use Goodle blog search to search for Ekaterinburg. But as a result I found two blogs that I couldn't stop reading. These blogs belong to two foreign students studying in Ekaterinburg now -- Betsy from the U.S. and Josefina from Sweden.

Reading these blogs made me very vividly remember the time when I was an exchange student in Belmont University, Nashville, U.S.A. Many feelings were so familiar - the excitement, the homesickness, etc. Well, I hardly believe now it was so long ago. Twelve years has passed, my English became much worse without much practice, but I am still very happy I had that opportunity to spend a year in a different country.

I believe temporarily living abroad for a relatively long time teaches one to understand different people, different cultures and accept different points of view. Unfortunately too many people believe there could be only one truth. They accept the fact they may be wrong sometimes themselves but refuse the idea that there might be many different points of view all being true.

Well, back to the blogs of Josefina and Betsy. When I was reading them at some moments I had a feeling of entering a private space without an invitation. Nevertheless I decided they didn't mind anyone reading their posts or they wouldn't put them in the Internet after all. I also hope they won't mind me posting links to their blogs here.

I thought for a moment about posting a comment to the blogs offering to contact me in case they needed any help here in Ekaterinburg, but decided not to do it. Such an offer from a stranger might look suspicious and I probably can't really offer anything more than friends of Josefina and Betsy can anyway. So I'm going to simply enjoy reading their blogs.

Fighting site theft. Episode 2. DMCA.

I decided to try fighting the theft of my website. A search in the Internet showed content theft being a common problem. I found a good article on what to do when someone steals your content by Lorelle VanFossen. As I already tried to contact the people who stole my site (got no reply) and their hosting company (they were not very helpful), I decided to go official and send DMCA notices to the hosting company and major search engines. A good article on sending DMCA notices to search engines is also available in the Internet.

So I created several DCMA notices and faxed them. Now I'm waiting for the responses. So far I only got a response from Yahoo, they requested additional information from me which I provided. The law requires that the content infringing my copyright is removed within 72 hours after receiving correct DCMA notice. I hope by the end of the week I can have the results. Let's see if I can fight the thieves with the law.

Psychological test is back after many years

Yesterday I received an email from an Australian guy asking me about psychological test. I didn't even understand at first what he meant. Only after some time I suddenly remembered that I used to have a funny test on my old home page that I created more than 10 years ago. It has not been working for a while already and nobody ever complained about it. Some time ago I removed my old home page as it was very outdated.

However it looks like people still get to this psychological test somehow. I guess there direct links in the Internet to that page. So today I fixed the broken test. Now it works. If it is still able to entertain anyone, I'll be happy.

How to fight website thefts?

Our units conversion website was stolen many times. People simply copied the whole content as it was and placed it elsewhere. Sometimes they kept copyright information intact, sometimes they simply removed it. I never knew how to react. Should I try to complain? But I do not have enough time and money to try to sue them. So I always endured.

Finally there appeared to be a new kind of thief. The new illegal copy of convert-me.com was different. They copied all the content and the conversion programs, they removed all copyright info, but they also changed the look of the pages. The "new" website appears different at first sight, but a closer look reveals all the content being the same.

The bad guys did not stop by having a copy of our site with a new look. They started to promote it, so the site is gaining its audience. The people who visit the illegal copy don't even know it is a copy. The original site has been developed since then, new units were added, some errors were fixed. Of course, the illegal copy is not being developed.

I'm now in doubt what to do. The illegal copy of the site does not even give any contact information. I guess I can only ignore the thieves and hope people could eventually find the original site.

P.S. I intentionally do not give a link to the illegal copy of the site as I don't want to give it extra promotion. However, it's not a secret. I can give a link to those who are interested.

P.P.S. As a proof of authenticity of convert-me.com, here's a link to web archive, showing how our site looked in 2000. And here's a link showing how it looked in 1999 before we moved to convert-me.com domain.

Being a tourist: first real, then virtual

Finally I went ahead and registered with VirtualTourist.Com. My wife and I very much enjoyed the helpful tips on this site when planning our vacation in Spain. Now when we're back I wanted to add a couple tips of my own. We managed to explore some beautiful places not much described there yet.

The beautiful mountain village of Siurana is one of them. A small town of Montblanch is another. We spent half a day there, watched several local wedding ceremonies, had some good coffee in a cafe and walked around the old town. The old town walls, small streets and the cathedral were beautiful.