Computers. Planning ahead, I am again for the nth time looking at my business card database. The idea is mature, what I lack is the know-how to program it on the Internet. It has already become a long-term project because it is just too good of a concept to ignore: the very first legitimate for real home-based Internet computer business that is not a fake rip-off in some way. As a reminder, it will be for sale or franchise. I have no intention of minding the store. I desperately need that working pilot site. (The concept will instantly be copied, but only I can provide the component that allows it to make money by lowering prices to quash the competition.)I had time to delve into the mystery of Active Server Pages (ASP). If you haven’t a clue what those are, you work at a job where your income depends on tips and were born before 1980. (Amazing, how do I do it?) To get informative literature, I had to resort to a textbook published eight years ago. That’s what, forty computer-years? The books written since then are proof that all Journalism students major in “How Not To Explain Things”. However, this brought Craigslist onto this blog today. Keep reading, you CL aficionado-types.
First, ASPs are the functionality that makes most web pages interactive. This means instead of just looking at an unchanging page (like this blog), you enter or click something, and get something else back. The universal example is Google. As luck would have it, the original student owner of the textbook had scribbled the IP address they used for their course material and I saw it was Class B.
B for Bingo, not only is it still active, it has administrator rights. I now know the script used to anonymize Craigslist events. You know, like information about who is doing all the flagging. Javascript was meant to be manipulated. This is not to say the CL system will ever be hacked, but I just took a chunk out of their armor. I don’t get flagged, but I know people who would pay a fortune to know who’s censoring their material. That is a project for another day.
Second, some yahoo on Craisglist posted that this blog is boring. He did not include the URL of his blog, so I am unable to compare but I’m fairly certain he was typing with a crayon. I have no idea how much he read or what he was expecting. Like “Doonesbury”, reading this blog for one day or one week won’t make any sense. It is just that “boring” is such a harsh word. Whoever you are, here are some real examples of boring, so you’ll know the diff:
“My cat is having kittens.”
“Man seeks woman for fun times.”
“My name is Josh and I’m a professional photographer.”
Mind you, don’t let your lack of judgment cloud things, for you did manage to get mentioned here, even if it was for the wrong reasons. To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, “The world needs bad examples, too.”
Getting back to ASP, this is the technology I will use to build the pilot of my utterly brilliant web database. Then sell it 150,000 times for $7,000 a pop, making me the world’s fastest billionaire. But you know, that guy might be right, so I won’t “bore” you with the details. I’ll talk about databases, though.
One difficulty I’m encountering is that the database must be on a remote server, not the customer’s computer. This means I cannot use Access, the database that comes with MicroSoft office. While Access can be split, only the data tables are on the server, the application is still run on the client computer. This has harsh limitations and I know of too many otherwise smart people who made the Access mistake. Why? Because they didn’t want to do the hard part that I am doing. It’s called research.
The other difficulty is more insidious. In this world of so-called whiz kids and computer geniuses, I cannot find anyone who even knows what I’m talking about, much less to partner up with. Or in the other extreme, they want all the information before they’ll start, even what is none of their business. The Ether is flooded by “experts” who know acronyms but are too narrow-minded for new thoughts to co-exist. My question is where are the hordes of computer-savvy opportunists that are supposed to infest the modern world? Should I check for some on Craigslist?
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
