Update 4th Feb 2005: Looking for a solution to deal with Trackback spams? Take a look at my TrackbackAntiSpam?

Apparently, there are some automated bots which has been spamming comments on movabletype blogs. While it is easy to ban the IP and remove the posts, it takes a lot of time and effort to play the cat and mouse game.

To cut the story short, I wrote a plugin to MT that will verify if it is a human before it allows comments to be posted. The idea is pretty simple: Display an image with a Security Code and demand the user to enter a Security Code manually before allowing posting to go through.

To see how it works, try posting some comments on this site. [Update 4th July: This is running Drupal but I ported this plugin to Drupal so it works on the site again :-)]

If you like it, you can download it here. (It is pretty rough since I skip my sleep to do this. But it should work. I hope I have covered most of edge cases…)

Update 15th Oct 2003: I wrote another MT plugin which allows you to train your MT to automatically identify spam comments. And it works for trackback too!

Update 2nd Nov 2004: scode-0.1b.tar.gz is available with instructions on MT 3.x and also answering several commonly answered questions.

Update 11th Dec 2004: This entry is now a spam magnet (see today blog entry). At least one comment spammer is attacking this entry to test their technique. I am going to leave this open however so I can use this opportunity to learn their tactic so as to know how to fight them better. In the meantime, don’t be surprise to see this entry get flooded with spams if they got through. (Werid that they choose to attack this entry which is no longer running on movabletype :-)

Update 13th Dec 2004: scode-0.1c.tar.gz is now available with additional script to test your GD installation if you can’t get the image working properly.

Quick Links:
– Download latest mt-scode
– You need GD for this plugin to work
– You also need GD.pm

People who has offered to help with installing the plugin:
– a littlegroup.com

For all those found their SCode suddenly stop working, read this from Elisabet’s provider:

Hi Elisabet,
there was a problem with the way cPanel was installing GD. The developer created a script to “clean” any buggy GD installations and re-install. Once I cleaned the installation the script worked ok.

Christine

From Singapore BusinessTimes:

The Asean Economic Community (AEC) is an ambitious plan to create a stable, prosperous and competitive Asean economic region in which there is free flow of goods, services, investment and skilled labour and a freer flow of capital, equitable economic development and reduced poverty and socio-economic disparities by the year 2020.

This is another milestone for the ASEAN community towards the “many countries, one economy” vision for ASEAN. Are we heading the path like European Union?

Woolstar suggested I should put my investment portfolio on Marketocracy.

Marketocracy is a virtual mutual fund. Members are given 1,000,000 virtual cash to invest in stock market. If you perform well, they might actually hire you to be a fund manager! Interesting…

One problem however, my current portfolio is not compliance with the diversification requirements for mutual fund. (Did I mention I do not believe in diversification?)

I have another interesting discussion with Steph and Antoin in #joiito on privacy, racisim and sexism yesterday. Yep, how much more difficult can it be?

The symbols for privacy and racisim is “1984” and Rosa Parks respectively. But not many Asian could relate to these primarly western concepts.
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I just received the formal invitation to speak at the the Association for Communication of Transculture (ACT) Seminar in Zao, Miyagi, Japan from Oct 27 to 29. The theme for the seminar is “Exploring New Cooperative Era in Asia-Pacific”.

Apparently, it is an annual event organized by ACT Foundation to bring young people who will be leaders in the coming generation around this region together for sharing and discussions. It is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Maynard, Melvin and me went to the Palm Resort in Malaysia yesterday. We played on the 18 holes Melati Course, the easiest of three courses at Palm Resort.

Oh man, if this is easy, I couldn’t imaging the difficult one. Okay, perhaps this is my first 18 holes game so I shouldn’t complain. Anyway, I learn I need to spend time to brush up my short game, something that cannot be done at driving range.

Here are the results. As usual, Maynard plays pretty well.

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I started stock investment seriously in 2001. I resisted buying anything in 1999 and 2000 because I just couldn’t find any stocks to buy using my investment strategy.

The .com bubble burst in 2001 opens some opportunities to invest. I remember I couldn’t sleep for a few days the first time I bought some shares. It was quite a substainable portion of my net worth then and the market is swingly crazyly. Nevertheless, it works out okay and I achieve a net gain of 37.97% compared to S&P (-13.04%) and NASDAQ (-21.05%).

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I started speculating stocks after my junior college in 1993. But that is pure speculating (or gambling) and I buy and sell without knowing why. I remember I made a bit of money but I did not keep track of my performance then.

In 1999, I read about the effect of inflations and taxes on wealth accumlation in my study on financial planning. I made up my mind then that I will study stock investments seriously and started reading books on or by Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffet and Philip Fisher etc. The usual suspects.
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There is an interview with Bill Joy in Fortune magazine called Joy After Sun. While it does not really say much what he wants to do next, the interview reveals his views on the challenges facing Sun, Microsoft and the Internet.

It is a frustrating two weeks. I was bored and tweaked my portfolio two weeks ago (selling off CHRT at 7.35 and it close 9.16 today) and I pay dearly for my mistake.

It is not that I am angry with the lost gain. I mean I didnt lose any money on the trade and the money, really, it’s no big deal. I am angry at myself because I violated one of my own investment principles: “buy and forget it“.

I decided to blog this to remind myself of this painful mistake.

Current stock portfolio: CSCO (14.8%), FRE (19.4%), ISIL (29.2%). RSAS (5.6%), Cash (31%).

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