Showing posts with label James D. Brausch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James D. Brausch. Show all posts

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Profitable Prices - Glyphius Pricing Digits Scoring

Profitable Prices - Glyphius Pricing Digits Scoring.

Pricing digits are the digits used in setting prices for various products.

The question is: Which are the best digits to use? It depends.

For example, which, in general, should give a better response: $19.95 or $20.00?

Well, according to Brausch's Glyphius (version 2.0b2), yes $19.95 is better than $20.00. But, $25.00 is better than $24.95. And $24.50 is better than either.

I've gone and tablulated a large list of prices and their Glyphius (version 2.0b2) scores.

For a big list and comments, go to
Profitable Prices - Glyphius Pricing Digits Scoring.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Brausch Relusi Resource Directory: Hackable, Corruptible.

I will be gradually, as I get to it, removing affiliate links on my sites for the James D. Brausch Relusi Link Exchange Directory PHP script software.

Not that taking space to promote that P.O.S. did me any good, anyway.

FWIW, I am still offering my Relusi data file packer PHP script, for those who may still want to "fight the good fight" trying to keep their Relusi Link Directory straightened out.
Update 2009-06-18: No longer offering that. Relusi -- fuggedaboudit!

WHY?!! Why do I no longer recommend the Relusi PHP scripts?

I have discovered that the Relusi PHP script and data directory construction allows hacking or corruption of the data (the link files). That is a huge pain in the ass to fix.

If I still thought that having "Resource Directories" on web sites was worthwhile, maybe I would try to figure it out and fix it if I could. I would offer a fix, as I have previously, including offering the Data File Packer script. But I do not think it worthwhile to bother.

If Brausch doesn't think it worthwhile to fix his product, why should I? It would be a much more major endeavor for me to fix it, and then if he did fix it and sell an upgrade, that would mean I would have wasted even more time on it for nothing.

Maybe an even more important reason is that it seems to me that Google does not really value you and I having link directories on our sites. Anymore. If ever.

Look at it this way: Did you ever happen across a link directory and say to yourself, "Oh, goody, a link directory -- with all kinds of completely unrelated links -- I wonder what I will find here -- I'll just browse at random instead of going to Google or Ask.com to look for something I'm specifically interested in..." Well, I sure don't say that to myself.

Here's a basic question which I should have asked myself a year ago when I got all enthused about link directories in general, and Relusi in particular: "Why would Google think they are a good thing for Google to consider in providing the best search results to a browser's search query?" I don't think Google thinks they are.

Anyway, here is the major problem with Relusi in particular:

Previously accepted links mysteriously become "not reviewed." Even more dangerously, the "confirmed" status of many links becomes "not confirmed". This is due to corruption of the emailconfirm.txt and moderate.txt data status files. Running my packer script then removes what were previously accepted links, because the status files now say they are no good (unconfirmed),

For awhile, I thought maybe that corruption was due to new link requests not in proper format (the Brausch script has no format checking of what goes in each submission form entry box). Or maybe it was because someone who previously submitted a link resubmitted with the same a-mail address or URL and something in the code got confused because of that.

Now, since I no longer value the directories, I thought, "Just in case these directories really are of some value, I'll just fix up the directories. I'll keep them for now, but I'll disable future submissions (and changes) so I don't have to waste more time cleaning them up over and over." As a test, I edited the submission form script file for one of my directories to disable submissions/changes. I then cleaned up the data status files, moderated new submissions, ran my packer script to delete rejected links, and then verified manually that the files were all OK.

Everything was OK as of last night when I finished. This morning, the status files were once again corrupted, along with one new (spam) link request. That new spam link request was not formatted correctly. It got into the data directory, and the data status files in the data directory again got corrupted, even though I had disabled new/revised submissions. I can only conclude that the James D. Brausch Relusi PHP software is wide open to hacking.

My next step is to remove all Relusi files not directly used in displaying existing data (link files). If I get any comments to this post, I'll let you know what the results of that is. If the data status files again get corrupted, that will be a definite indication that the data files are hackable - being hacked - that it's not just the bad formatting of link requests that is the problem. (But I still am not going to try and fix it.)

Monday, July 9, 2007

I Just Dumped 37 Rejected Articles from My Articles Directory...

I just dumped - permanently - 37 rejected articles from one of my Munius Articles Directory moderation screens - and my site hosting server. With just one click. How I did it is detailed below. But first...

Having article directories on your sites where people can contribute articles seems to be a win-win. You get content on your site. And the contributors get links back to their sites.

Many of the articles have some good ideas and are worth keeping in your directories. But there are a whole lot of jerk-offs who figure that your directories are a good place to get links without providing any content.

Now, with James D. Brausch's Munius Article Directory PHP script files, you can reject those articles. Rejected articles don't show to viewers, but they are still on your host server, and more importantly, they clutter up your moderation screen. I wanted to dump them PERMANENTLY so I would not have to wade through them each time I went to my moderation screens. So I developed an add-on PHP script to use with Munius to dump those articles PERMANENTLY.

That's what I used to dump those 37 articles.

And, while I was at it, I included a provision to dump junk comments, spam comments, and unconfirmed e-mail address comments. I don't even bother to count how many of those I dumped.

Update 2009-06-18: I no longer use Munius and am no longer offering this product.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Relusi Link Exchange Data File Packing - New Version

The Relusi Link Exchange Data File Packing Script has been updated to version 2.0. (Update 2009-06-18: I no longer use Relusi, and have discontinued this product.)

In addition to permanently deleting rejected links, the php script now also allows the permanent deletion of link exchange requests by those submitting a bogus e-mail address, or who do not reply to the confirmation request e-mail. While I want to have a lot of links in my resource directories, I don't want junk links. In addition to the obvious junk link requests marked "rejected", I consider unconfirmed requests as junk also.

Permanently deleting the rejected link requests and the unconfirmed link requests makes your moderation task much simpler. With all the bogus links still showing, it takes much more time. After using the Relusi Link Exchange Data File Packing Script, you see only good links and the latest unmoderated requests on your moderation page.