Blackhat SEO - Esrun

Amsterdam here I am

I didn’t get a chance to go online last night but I did make it to Belgium.. I stayed in Brussels. To be honest I didn’t think much of Belgium. It was okay I guess but it just seemed a bit … I dunno just not that Great.

I have literally just pulled into Amsterdam and there are hundreds of open wifi points which beats paying 4.50 euro an hour! Looks good, I think a lot of places are closed though because its sunday and/or because its early. Oh well I’m off to explore now.

I’m in Paris!

I left for Dover (UK) at about 7pm thursday evening and boarded the ferry at about half 9. The ferry departed at about 10-10:30pm and arrived at around midnight in Dunkerque (France). My initial idea was to drive straight from Dunkerque to Germany but I decided that since I was pretty tired then maybe I’d go for something a little closer to start with and sent an SMS to a friend back in the UK asking for the postcode of the eiffel tower in Paris.. Over 200 miles later I’m in the centre of Paris at about 3:30am and decided to get some rest at a ‘rest stop’ and got a couple hours sleep in my car. I set off to find a hotel at about 9am.

Let me tell you, driving in France is madness! The roads are generally poorly maintained and most have no lighting nor cats eyes in the ground. Many roads don’t even have lane markings so traffic kind of just merges into one big lump with everyone trying to fight for some space. I supose I got the raw end of the deal being in Paris because its obviously going to be one of the busiest parts of France but its just so crazy I cannot even explain it. It’s just dangerous.

Anywayyyy, I managed to find a hotel and had an nice shower and change my clothes then I went and spent today at the eiffel tower (it was SO SUNNY!) where I met a lovely little ladie who taught me the tradition of kissing goodbye… whoooo lol.

Right now I’m using a wifi at 4.50 euros an hour which isn’t too bad I guess. I’m trying to decide what to do next. No matter what; I will be sleeping in Paris tonight but I just don’t know about tomorrow. If I don’t leave for Germany early in the morning then it’s just not going to be possible to make it there, do something and make it back to Dunkerque by Monday. So I have to decide whether to stay in Paris for a couple more nights and check out some museums and such like… maybe even disney land LOL I like crazy rides OR find something to do in germany.. Or a whole different country!

Edit: Oh bollox! I thought going to Paris would actually bring me a bit closer to Germany but its added about an hour!!!!

Edit2: With the help of a mate I have decided on going to Belgium and then Holland and then back to Dunkerque. Wahey let the good times roll!

Mac speedcamera detector

I tried my hand at a bit of C programming a good few months back and it was a bit of a nightmare. It reminded me of when I use assembly on PICs; having to declare everything and be so strict. This really makes you realise how slack your PHP code is!

Anyway it was coded for use on mac os X and basically reads data from a bluetooth gps device and then compares the data against a speed camera database and prints out how close you are to a camera and what type of camera it is. It is ran within the terminal.

All I wanted to say is I hope people who code in PHP realise how fortunate they are to use a language which is so laid back lol.

I have attached the code just incase anyone wants to see it. I am certain it could have been coded better but it was the first thing I had written with in C.

Download: mac speedcamera detector

France to germany…

I am thinking about going away to france and then drive through to germany. My idea is to leave Dover(UK) and get a ferry with my car over to Dunkerque(france) and then drive through to germany. I’m just curious if anyone can offer an insight into any potential problems and the time it will take.

I intend to leave tomorrow evening and return Monday night.

Any ideas readers!?

Google maps suggests just over 6 hours..

Update: I have just booked my ferry tickets and ordered a new sat nav. Way wah woo wah!

I <3 Wales!

Lately I have felt that things have been building up on my mind and when I got home friday I decided that I needed a break. A couple of weeks ago I went swimming at one of my friends indoor pools and one of the girls there was welsh and I absolutely loved the accent. I decided pretty much then that I wanted to goto Wales at some point!

So I got home at about 6pm friday and started looking around online for things to do in Wales. I found a lot of sites that suggest activity breaks in Wales and decided that I’d do something like kayaking or quad biking or just something a bit exciting! I started calling several different places but most either didn’t answer the phone(out of hours) or couldn’t help me at such short notice until finally I got through to a guy in north wales who runs an activity place and said he had some people doing some activities on the Saturday and that I could join in with them if I wanted and stay at the place on a B&B scenario.

So I went and got a sat nav unit from someone I work with and left Essex at about 8pm. I arrived in North Wales at about half past midnight which is pretty quick. I drove into St Asaph and asked a couple of local lads for direction, unfortunately they didn’t know the way but I couldn’t help but smile when they started speaking welsh to each other lol. I ended up talking to a couple of girls who had been in the pub and we drove around a bit looking at stuff like ‘tha vallaaay’ lol. In the end they showed me where the place was and I took them home and then arrived at the adventure place at about 2am.

Where I was staying was a big mansion type place which was so large that I kept getting lost walking around it! On Saturday I did some quad biking, mountain biking, archery and in the night I went up into the caves with one of the guys(staff) I made friends with.

Wales is an amazing place! The water and air are just superb and the people are amazingly friendly. I will definitely be going back but for a longer time, maybe a week.

I dropped a couple of people off in Birmingham on my way home which unfortunately added a couple of hours to my journey, taking about 6-7 hours to drive from north Wales to Essex.

I’d highly recommend that if you have never been to Wales before you should go!

Kitesurfing

Most people who know me will know I like to spend my free time doing exciting stuff… rally driving, paragliding, kite surfing… anything where there is a bit of excitement involved really!

I usually go abroad a couple times a year kitesurfing because it’s so much nicer abroad. The weather is hotter, the wind is more reliable and the sea is much cleaner and warmer! But now and then I like to take the kites out locally although generally not in the cold dirty UK sea :p

We were using a 10m kite with 30m lines.

We started today by the coast and my friend kept moaning about it being too windy and dangerous but I wouldn’t agree and we carried on setting up. The launch was sketchy at best and he was right, it was FAR too windy! I was holding the kite above my head which is where there is generally no power but it was lifting me into the air and holding me there! I asked him to hold onto me and it was lifting both of us! I have to admit, at this point I did start getting a little nervous and started to shout “GET IT OFF ME!” referring to where the kite hooks onto the harness you have to wear.. luckily we managed to disconnect it and the kite crashed down to the ground.

After this we decided to relocate to a less windy place and it was much safer although there were some very odd rising winds to start with.

Edit: Oh and usually you have a safety release system which lets the power lines go slack and therefore if you get into trouble you can make the kite loose power instantly… I just haven’t got around to setting that up yet!

Anyway got some cool pics

PIC 2

PIC 3

Macbook Pro

Well I decided it was about time I tried using a Mac system. I have always made snide little comments about Macs yet I have never really sat down and used one properly so I went out and got myself a Macbook Pro. I didn’t buy the mac purely because I wanted to test one out… I also heard they’re quite stable :p

I have to admit, the design on these laptops is just superb! They’re slim and just “work”. The built in iSight webcam is just superb. I love the fact they’re the new macs are dual core and have built in wifi and gigabit ethernet. A backlit keyboard which brightness is based on the light you’re in… so if you’re in a dark room the keyboard will be lit bright compared to being outside in the sun when it wont be lit up at all.

The quality of the sound and screen is just amazing.
It’s going to take me awhile to get used to the new operating system, I find some things really useful such as the scrolling using two fingers on the mouse trackpad but find other things quite confusing like the random use of the apple key VS. the CTRL key… why couldn’t they just use one or the other!?

Overall I’m pretty happy with it so far, it’s just going to take a bit of getting used to.

How does a Mac get used in blackhat? Well hopefully I will finally be able to edit the latest video which release date has been pushed right back because I need to edit something out of it!