Julio Garcia

Defeat Comment Spam // June 8th, 2007

If you use WordPress for your blog or CMS and experience a lot of comment/trackback spam even with Akismet, you may want to check out a new plug-in, Comment Timeout.

I added Comment Timeout to my site because Akismet was not catching some obvious trackback spam. Also, I was getting tired of checking my queue and see hundreds of obvious spam and wondering why they could not be deleted instantly & automatically in WordPress. Akismet doesn’t delete the spam for 15 days. Why wait two weeks? Get rid of it now. Comment Timeout does just this with the following options

• Reject all comments that contain BBCode links (WordPress does not normally use BBCode so genuine comments are very unlikely to contain these, although they are common in spam comments)
• Reject all comments that contain more than X hyperlinks
• Reject comments when the user agent differs from the original page request

And like that, zero comment/trackback spam. Comment Timeout has even more options than those listed above. You can also close comments by how old the post is or by how many days have passed since the last comment to name just two. If you’re on Wordpress, check out Comment Timeout.

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Encouraging // June 5th, 2007

It has been about two months since I started handicapping horse races as a new hobby, and I am encouraged by the results so far. This past weekend I took part in round one of the National Handicapping Championship Qualifying tournament. The winners of round one contests face off in round two, where the winner will head to the national tournament in Las Vegas. In this year’s tournament, the winner won $400,000. Next year’s prize money should be a lot higher.

In this tournament, players must pick one horse to win each race. There are 10 races and you have a mythical bank role of $40. When a player chooses a horse, it is actually a Win/Place wager, meaning $2 to win and $2 to place. If your selected horse wins the race, you receive the fictional winnings for both win and place bets. If the horse comes in second (place), you only win the place bet, which is less what the win bet paid. But you still win something, which adds to your fake profit. Higher the profit, the higher your ranking. All things considered, I did pretty well (see image).

To advance, I needed to place in the top 20. I finished in 68th place.

I am certain I would have advanced if the horse I picked to win the last race did so, but ended up losing by a nose instead (see image). A win would have paid out over $50 dollars total, pushing me to over $80, enough to make it to round 2.

There is another tournament I am playing at Public Handicapper. This tournament has a different format, you only have to pick the winner of 4 races. If you are incorrect, you lose a mythical $2. The goal is to get the highest profit after 60 races. At Public Handicapper I am currently placed #661 out of about 4,130 participants. This tournament and ends in October.

I’m ready to try again this weekend in the other first round contest with NHC. I am encouraged enough to believe can improve on this past weekend’s results. While 68th place out of 200 entries and #661 out of 4,130 might not sound encouraging, I think it is very much. Remember that I have only been handicapping races about once a week for 2 months. As well as competing against other that have a lot more experience and they have most likely been handicapping this for years, if not decades. I missed advancing closer the national tournament by just a nose. And I’m still learning.

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Kentucky Derby Pick // May 5th, 2007

I am picking Nobiz Like Shobiz to win the Kentucky Derby, beating out the favorites Curlin and Street Sense. I also like Hard Spun, but I think he’ll tire in the stretch.

Later: Wow, Street Sense comes from second to last about half-way through the race to win it, over Hard Spun. Hard Spun didn’t tire and proved he belonged. Street Sense wasn’t lucky to get traffic to clear, other horses had great placement but didn’t do anything, like Nobiz Like Shobiz. Preakness in two weeks!

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Past Performances Tutorial // May 3rd, 2007

The 133^rd running of the Kentucky Derby is this Saturday and if you’re a beginner horse player like me, then you’ll want to be prepared with your picks. The Daily Racing Form has a great Flash-based tutorial to help people figure out how to read Past Performance(PP) data. The problem beginners have with PP data is that it needs to present so much information in a limited space that the numbers and text, at first glance, seem to be simply thrown together. This tutorial reveals the method to the madness.

Later: Equibase and NTRA are providing free Past Performance data sheets (scroll down for the banner, under ‘Race Entries’) for the Kentucky Derby.

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Becoming an Amateur Horseplayer // April 27th, 2007

Over the past several weeks I have upped myself from a casual horse racing fan to actual horseplayer. I have always made an effort to watch the Triple Crown races, with my first being the Sunday Silence/Easy Goer battles. This year will be no different, the only exception being I’ll wager money on the races.

Each time I watched one, two, or all three legs, I wished I knew more about the sport, but never took the time to learn. That all slowly changed, first, about a year ago I discovered TVG on Comcast and I was able to watch many more races (and without the annoying human-interest pieces on NBC or ESPN) and gain a sliver of knowledge of the ins and outs.

Not being satisfied with little knowledge, I picked up a copy of the aptly titled book Betting on Horse Racing For Dummies by Richard Eng and my understanding has vastly improved, and a new hobby has been born.

In his book, Richard writes, “The type of mind that does well handicapping excels at crossword puzzles, riddles, or problem solving. You use your mind in an analytical manner.” As well as, “Horse racing is a puzzle in wich the pieces change shape, and the asembly is different each time.” That’s exactly what I like about this sport. I enjoy looking over racing programs or the Daily Racing Form to analyze all the information to make my picks. Another great thing is you get to see how your picks fare right away, not in 3 hours like other sports, and the next race is about 20 minutes away. There is a great challenge in handicapping that I am not able to accurately describe. But being able to look over all the information, know what it means, analyze it to the best of your abilities, select the horse you think will perform well, and then see them perform close to or exactly as you predicted is a lot of fun, because for that race and for those horses, you were able to figure something out, able to solve the puzzle, meet the many challenges.

I have already experienced minor (micro?) success in the short amount of time since reading Richard’s book, whether it be $175 Pick 3 win, $40 on a $5 ticket, or even over $1100 won in “Play Payout” at TVGFree.net.

But sometimes it’s not about money. One funny thing I have noticed is that I think I would still enjoy horse racing and attending horse races if I never won. The last race I attended I had a net loss of $57, thats wagers plus food and drink. Compare that to one decent seat ticket to a baseball game which costs about $30, add $10 for parking, and another $10 for one hot dog and one drink. That is $50 right there, and you’ll most likely have another drink and snack. And I bet the experience won’t be as entertaining as live races.

Another funny thing I realized is that I am now turned off to all other forms of wagering and gambling, even the lottery. I see betting against the house as throwing away money, but in pari-mutuel wagering, you bet against the other bettors. And if the other bettors aren’t as skilled as you, I think you have a good chance to make some money. Just like poker, except it isn’t lame or boring, and you don’t have to sit on your ass for 5 hours surrounded by men just to determine the winner.

If you’re interested in learning more, or already have an in-depth knowledge, feel free to leave a comment sharing your thoughts.

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Where have you been, CodeIgniter? // March 9th, 2007

For the past several months I have have been trying to use several different web application frameworks. None of them were a right fit for me for several reasons, either they lacked in documentation, were slow, required other software libraries, or were built in other languages that would take took long to learn.

For example, I tried Ruby on Rails for a majority of the time. I had the books, checked the blogs, installed it on my development server, but it just didn’t work out. The lack of sufficient documentation is the primary reason I jumped from the Ruby on Rails bandwagon. I also didn’t appreciate the “don’t worry about the magic behind Rails” because I need to know how things work to debug errors. And sure enough when errors came, I spent most of my free time searching for the answers. It doesn’t live up the hype, like most fads.

I decided it would be best to stick with PHP, a language I’ve used since 1999 and take a closer look at the PHP frameworks. This crop wasn’t much better than Rails, each one of them lacked in one or more areas; immature code and or configuration, lacking in documentation, or requiring annoying PEAR libraries. All this caused me to lose interests in these, if not all, frameworks.

It was time to put up or shut up and I went to the drawing board with plans on creating my own framework for my own projects. Less than 24 hours later, as luck would have it, I came across Code Igniter, a fast open source PHP web application framework with more than enough documentation and no need for any PEAR libraries. Installation is quick and simple with the configuration requiring more time, about 3 minutes.

I had been using CodeIgniter for several days, creating simple scripts to get a hang of the system. Then on Sunday night I decided to jump right in a create my first project, a fully functional administration web site for my sister’s jewelry business. Here it is late Thursday night and I am about 80% complete, and that is with me traveling to southern California Monday morning and returning Wednesday evening.

CodeIgniter is the framework I have been looking for since this time last year. It is fast, simple to use, elegant, well documented, stands on its own, open source, and powerful. Now all the projects I had to clear off the table because developing other ones would take too long are back on.

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Radio Station Channel 104.9 Returns // February 28th, 2007

On December 31st 2005, San Jose “alternative” radio station Channel 104.9 held a New Year’s Eve/Listener party. By morning Channel 104.9 was gone, replaced with a spanish language format. On Tuesday at 5 p.m., nearly 14 months after that New Year’s Eve, Channel 104.9 returned.

In an interview with the San Jose Mercury New, program director Justin Wittmayer said “For a year we’ve been hearing that listeners want their station back. We just had to look at it. When something is slapping you in the face, you have to address it.”

This public outrage was due to 104.9 being the second casualty of corporate radio moving to spanish format, long-time Bay Area rock fixture KSJO was the first to go. My outrage was that they took away the only rock station that seemed to play the least amount of commercials, employed DJ’s that would shut up and play music, and had my favorite type of morning show: all music and no talk.

But a lot has changed since 104.9 went off the air. I realized I would rarely be able to hear music I enjoyed over the radio. I also started listening to my iPod during all my drives, no matter the distance. I downloaded an exponential amount of new songs. As a Christmas gift, I received a Bose SoundDock which allows me to listen to music I enjoy when & how I want (This is something all old media, not just radio, fail miserably to understand). And finally, I realized most new music out these days is just crap. I just tuned into 104.9 again for the first time and had to turn it off after 3 songs.

I don’t see how Channel 104.9 and radio in general can compete with my, or anyone else’s iPod. But they will try; “Wittmayer said the new format will include new and older alternative songs, and will draw heavily from listener requests, a way to keep it competitive with iPods and Internet music.” In theory that sounds great, but I already know who is going to be jamming the request channels and what type of bands and music they want to hear. That is something I can’t compete with nor do I want to. It is bad enough that same demographic destroyed music television.

When I first heard of this comeback, I thought it was a victory for the alternative rock format, but now I see it as only a win for the corporation. This wasn’t about the old 104.9 listeners and going back to them. The spanish station’s ratings were poor and the fastest, cheapest, and easiest way to improve ratings would be to switch back instead of trying to grow the listener base of the spanish format.

What is the result of all this? Simple, another group of avid listeners are screwed over when their station changes format and are left to find a new way to listen to music they enjoy. Where will they go? To another station only to worry if this happens again or rely on themselves for a better listening experience with the help of technology?

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