Some are blaming downloads and teh interweb, some blaming music fans, other dolts are playing politics and blaming the current government – for not only this but horse meat being found in Tesco hamburgers.

It’s none of the above. HMV is the reason HMV is in the state it is. HMV is the reason I and probably you haven’t been in an HMV store recently buying anything.

Anecdote time – bloke said he went into an HMV store in the last week, so post Chrimbo sale time and a store in one of the main pedestrianised shopping areas of the city, and there was 3 people in the place, 3 customers that is. No one buying. He went along the road to a second hand record store, out of the way from the main shopping centres, and in it there was 23 people browsing and buying.

There’s still a market out there for “record shops”, just as there was when HMV was facing competition from Virgin and Our Price shops all in the same high street and independent shops around the corner – and lets not forget when getting all sentimental about a big chain going under what they did to those small sellers.

There’s still a place in the market for people to stand flicking through a rack of CDs or vinyl. And that’s what HMV couldn’t figure out.

You went into one of their shops and it was full of the mainstream shite that’s the stuff being downloaded heavily. They were targeting a customer base that wasn’t bothered about owning a physical product, or sound fidelity, they just wanted the crap track on their phone right now. People who are happy to stand flicking through racks of discs because they want a box, they want the artwork, they want to actually own something solid not 0s and 1s on a hard drive aren’t interested in the stuff HMV stocked piled high.

HMV rode the wave of CDs being bought to replace old records and tapes and made a pretty penny out of it. They were never exactly the cheapest and that’s another reason I hadn’t bought anything from them for years, either in store or online. When I first started buying CDs instead of tapes and records – AC/DC “Powerage” was the first – we were told the prices would come down from the £12 to £15 they were then. Well other places over the last few years sell them a lot cheaper than that, yet when I did venture into an HMV shop they still seemed ridiculously high.

I’d forgotten that HMV took over Fopp after the latter also hit the skids. It used to be a cracking shop that I frequented and bought from a lot. Because they sold discs at reasonable prices, especially as I was still to some extent buying stuff I already had on other formats. And when you’ve already paid £5 for the record you’re more likely to buy the CD at the same price rather than HMV’s £12. So that wall of old classic records at a fiver was a regular haunt.

Our local Fopp was always busy, because of price but also because of choice. Even though it was a much smaller store than the local HMV the jazz, blues, country sections were far better. Remember one day all the Calexico albums being at knock down prices – bought the lot. Go along to HMV and they wouldn’t have even the little card that separates the bands in the racks. Fopp went downhill not just because they overstretched themselves but because they cut down on so called specialist sections.

Even then their selections were far better than anything in HMV.

But it was not only in store but also online that HMV prices were non-competitive. Prime example last week I bought a 2 disc set of “Ella Fitzgerald sings Irving Berlin”. It cost me £1.99 from Play.com, where it can also be bought through their market place via other traders for between £1.99 and £3.78. Go to the HMV site, when it was up link is Google cache, and it’s £8. Now even with them having to pay VAT and maybe more tax than an offshore seller I don’t see that being £6. Another “Ella Sings With Her Friends”, less than £3 from Play, £8 at HMV.

Another was the recent reissue double disc of the Masters Of Reality self titled debut album, with “How High The Moon: Live At The Viper Room”. Bought it from Sainsbury’s online store for £10.99 at HMV it’s £18. Allman Brothers deluxe edition of “Live At Fillmore East” was £18 compared to the £8.89 I paid at Play.

So with those four purchase alone – and I had a number more – I saved £27.44.

That’s got nothing to do with a 12 year old downloading One Direction’s latest piece of crap.

Also the local HMV was opened by one Gary Glitter – he didn’t like my comments about his jacket, or indeed wig at the event – so should we cry about it if it disappears?

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

In fact it probably couldn’t have gone worse for them. Revenge, for that’s what the Newsnight investigation they actually showed was.

After the investigation they didn’t broadcast about Jimmy Savile’s abuse of vulnerable young girls and boys on their premises and their dime for the 30 years he was at the corporation, when they were shown up by ITV’s Exposure, there was an immediate fight back.

The first thing you heard out of the mouths of many of the corporation’s apologists – most on the payroll – was Thatcher. Ah yes the wicked witch of the west. Guaranteed to deflect attention. Mention how Savile was at Chequers with the Thatchers, they’re still at it. Of course Thatcher didn’t get the keys to the PM’s official residence until 1979, some 15 years after the BBC employed Savile. 15 years in which he went about his open secret with ease and no hindrance.

But if the can get the focus shifted, it’s a winner. Just it didn’t quite pan out as they liked, wasn’t deflecting enough. But then a new saviour. Tom Watson – fat sweaty, spotty, pig who doesn’t seem to be suffering from not getting that £400 a month food allowance, no questions asked, from MP expenses anymore.

A paedophile ring linked to number 10.

Of course he wouldn’t mean Labour governments, so the BBC were on it like a flash. And so days later we get editor of the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Iain Overton tweeting that If all goes well we’ve got a Newsnight out tonight about a very senior political figure who is a paedophile – unsurprisingly a Tweet that seems to have been deleted since November 2nd.

Only problem was Watson’s allegations were to do with Peter Righton. Which has more links with Labour. As a paedophile ring that had infiltrated all 12 of the children’s homes run by Islington council — then under the leadership of Margaret Hodge. Hodge who would later become Minister for Children under Tony Blair.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. It does sound like a mail order correspondence course you get in the back of a comic doesn’t it. Send 3 box tops from Frosties and a postal order for £3.50 and get a free pair of x-ray specs with your membership.

It is an organisation that was set up by people who were Labour donors.

Anyway Iain Overton didn’t get what he wished for, and has subsequently paid the price at the BIJ, as the Newsnight broadcast didn’t name names. It just mentioned phrases along the likes of a prominent Thatcher-era Tory figure, a grandee, time and time again. The BBC and their apologists see their main enemies, Tory MPs and the Tory press, trying to hold them account for Savile’s activities. Well this’ll get ‘em back for daring such things.

They didn’t need to name this grandee in the broadcast, they pretty much know that most people would do some Phillip Schofield investigative journalism and hit teh interweb. Google the name of the children’s home in Wales and up pops a list of sites with a list of names. Including at least one prominent Tory grandee.

Only problem being if the BBC and the BIJ had conducted a proper investigation you’d think they’d show the victim interviewed, Steve Messham, a picture of this individual, doesn’t seem like rocket surgery or brain science. But of course as he stated last week..

After seeing a picture in the past hour of the individual concerned, this [is] not the person I identified by photograph presented to me by the police in the early 1990s, who told me the man in the photograph was Lord McAlpine Steve Messham

You might think they would also check other things. How he got to the name Lord McAlpine? Because how many out of Westminster at that time do you think would know this bloke or his name, Tory grandee he may have been but how high profile in the real world was he really? He says the police told him the name when showing him a picture of the actual person that abused him. They might have also checked other things stated such as the whether he named McAlpine in the Waterhoue Inquiry. He said he was prevented, transcripts apparently show otherwise. Though in them he states he believes the person is now dead. Which might have raised some questions in a proper journalistic investigation.

No I’m not trying to blacken Steve Messham’s name as a number have shamefully tried to do over the weekend. This poor man was put into care because he was abused, where he should have been safe but wasn’t. Amongst it all he and the others in the homes who suffered the same fate are the victims. People who accused McAlpine have a case to answer – Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *innocent face* Sally Bercow, I looked up Lord #McAlpine on t’internet. It says the strangest things – George Monbiot – but his suffering pales into insignificance compared.

And there’s still a story that needs to be told about the abuse suffered by many in care at the hands of powerful people, that was covered up by powerful people – the police have a lot of questions to answer. Would there have been a broadcast from the BBC because it’s not their main aim to tell the victim’s stories and see justice done but just a smear campaign against those trying to hold the BBC to account for their failures with regards Jimmy Savile’s years of abuse.

And that is the new BBC line of deflection – just have to check the Twitter time lines of the apologists.

We apparently shouldn’t be focusing on the the BBC eating itself. Shouldn’t be gunning after people who weren’t up to their jobs – anyone else surprised George Entwistle knew where the sword was to fall on and that he didn’t miss when trying?

The BBC is reaping what it sewed. Brought low by it’s own hubris. It’s own bias. Now they are pushing the victims forward.

But the BBC ignored the victims during Jimmy Savile’s 30 year career at the corporation.

The BBC treated the victims with contempt when they dropped the Newsnight story about Savile’s abuses while keeping the three tribute TV shows and one radio show in their schedule.

The BBC weren’t too bothered about the victims when they used one of them for a revenge smear campaign in the Newsnight edition that was broadcast.

The BBC are now only interested in the victims because it deflects from the the BBC. Shamefully using them once again.

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

The editor of Private Eye the self-styled “thorn in the side” of the British establishment, was shameless in his rant in support of the B.B.C. on Have I Got News For You as the Corporation face questions over their facilitating Jimmy Savile.

Apparently nobody knew.

Well actually they did. Plenty knew. It wasn’t just rumour and innuendo. It was an open secret, which means it’s widely known just no one talks about it. Though Savile did at numerous times, in his autobiography and in quip after quip. It wasn’t just rumours.

There’s a number at the B.B.C. who walked into his dressing room when Savile was doing something he shouldn’t to an under-age girl.

If this had been going on at say an organisation owned and run by Rupert Murdoch, Hislop would have been all over it. Evidence or not. The most sued man in the land – though notice as he becomes more and more entrenched in the establishment those legal causes are few and far between – would have risked it.

But no you can’t question the sacred cow that is the B.B.C. it never does any wrong.

That’s why it’ll never fess up to the lies it pedals, will never fess up to breaking it’s charter in respect to political bias – it’s an “open secret” the celebrations that went on in Broadcasting House when Labour won in 1997. Just look at how much of the tax payers money – licence fee being a tax, that at times is extracted through threat and intimidation – they’ve wasted on the Balen Report and the hypocrisy of the Corporation in doing so.

A Corporation that’s always banging on about others being open and above board doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it’s spent hundreds of thousands on keeping this report from the public. And the only reason it would have gone to such lengths is because the report doesn’t show them in a good light. It must prove there was an anti-Israel bias in their reporting, or it would have been out straight away with them having look, we we’re right all along shit eating grins on their faces.

But no the B.B.C. has done no wrong.

Savile was at the Corporation in a big way from the start of Top Of The Pops in 1964 to the end of Jim’ll Fix It in 1994. 30 years of facilitating him being around young girls. Management questioned him, seemingly on a number of occasions, they investigated allegations, though not thoroughly. Why not? Didn’t want to come up with answers that would be difficult. Numerous allegations over those 30 years yet none of them said one more Jimmy and you’re out, no matter what. No he was a star of TV & radio, their TV & radio. No rocking the boat.

And I mean back in he 1970s if two girls came up with the same story in different parts of the country then there was something to it. It’s not like today with modern communication technology, where for a long time on teh interweb Savile’s actions have been widespread, well before his death.

Widespread enough for a B.B.C. investigation on Newsnight. An investigation that was dropped. Which again brings the Corporation into disrepute.

Why was this investigation dropped? It seems because they wanted to show three tribute shows about Savile over Christmas and well that wouldn’t go down well if he’s exposed as a paedophile a few days before.

So the head of news at the B.B.C., Helen Boaden , told the then head of vision, George Entwhistle, that the investigation was being spiked. According to him he replied thanks for letting me know and that’s it. A senior executive who is now the director general of the Corporation did nothing but say thanks.

This is either one of two things. Firstly it’s the truth. If so then it’s incredible that he wouldn’t ask why it was being binned. That there is a sacking/resigning offence for incompetence.

Secondly: It’s so incredible because it’s not true. In other words he lied, asked about the investigation told all the gory details and backed the decision for the tribute shows to trump the investigation. Again a sacking/resigning offence.

He buggered himself with one comment because his entrenched in the B.B.C. mindset of never admitting faults or mistakes.

So back to Hislop and well the question is can you blame him for his sucking up to the B.B.C.?

After all a few years back a news reader on the Corporation’s News 24 channel, that you’ve probably have never heard of or would pick out in a line up, let slip she gets paid nearly £100,000 for reading out loud – probably reading from the Grauniad. So if a no one is on 6 figures what would a face of Have I Got News For you, going out prime time on Friday nights with extended repeat later be getting for a run? Then there’s all those cosy public schoolboy documentaries on B.B.C. 2 and 4, the appearances on Question Time, programmes he’s written scripts for. Hislop at imdb.

No you wouldn’t want to have a blast at a Corporation that was handing you all those checks. Better being in the establishment looking out. Play safe, let’s have another Jeffrey Archer dig or how about one at the Daily Mail.

And when the next time the B.B.C. bleats about not being able to afford to make decent dramas and have to show repeats and the like because the nasty government cuts froze the licence fee, think on that a nobody newsreader earns £100,000, think on about all the other disproportionate salaries handed out, to go with all the expenses for things like, first class flights, taxies and chauffeured cars – when they’re telling us to take the bus – that our money is paying for instead of programmes you want to watch.

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

Since posting about Marco Kuiper’s Advanced jQuery Background Slideshow, and the modifications I made to it it’s garnered a bit of interest and a few requests for various additions as you can see in the comments.

Well I’ve changed a couple of things since that first version, to make things a bit easier to use.

First up there’s the latest version of jQuery, 1.8.1, so it works with that – I’ve only checked it with Chrome, so other browsers may require some finessing, or dropping down a version of jQuery.

All the options have been moved from the plugin.js file to the .html file, as it really should be, with some new additions.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/plugin.js"></script>	
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {	
$('headerimgs').bgimgSlideshow({
slideshowSpeed: 6000,
method : "fade", /* slide or fade, default is fade */
fadeSpeed : 2000, /* how quickly one image fades/slides into the next */
contDiv : "#header", /* id or class of div you want the images to appear in. */
imgDir : "images/",
markup1 : '<div id="headerimgs">\
	   <div id="headerimg1" class="headerimg"></div>\
	   <div id="headerimg2" class="headerimg"></div>\
	   </div>',
markup2 :'<div id="headernav-outer">\
	  <div id="headernav">\
	  <div id="back" class="btn"></div>\
	  <div id="control" class="btn"></div>\
	  <div id="next" class="btn"></div>\
	  </div>\
	  </div>\
	  <div id="headertxt">\
	  <p class="caption">\
	  <span id="firstline"></span>\
	  <a href="#" id="secondline"></a>\
          </p>\
	  <p class="pictured">\
	  Pictured:\
	  <a href="#" id="pictureduri"></a>\
	  </p>\
	 </div>',
photos : [{
	"title" : "Stairs",
	"image" : "vacation.jpg",
	"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1271909",
	"firstline" : "Going on",
	"secondline" : "vacation?"
	}, {
	"title" : "Office Appartments",
	"image" : "work.jpg",
	"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1265695",
	"firstline" : "Or still busy at",
	"secondline" : "work?"
	}, {
	"title" : "Mountainbiking",
	"image" : "biking.jpg",
	"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1221065",
	"firstline" : "Get out and be",
	"secondline" : "active"
	}, {
	"title" : "Mountains Landscape",
	"image" : "nature.jpg",
	"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1271915",
	"firstline" : "Take a fresh breath of",
	"secondline" : "nature"
	}, {
	"title" : "Italian pizza",
	"image" : "food.jpg",
	"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1042413",
	"firstline" : "Enjoy some delicious",
	"secondline" : "food"
	}]});
	});
	</script>

The images are now just the name of the image file and doesn’t include the folder path to the file, that’s part of the options imgDir. The value of this needs changed to reflect where the images are in relation to the .html file.

The plugin.js file has also been altered to reflect the image directory path option.

Download version 1.2 – version 1.0.1 is still available, so you can view the changes – there’s also a version 1.2 with thumbnails that was requested v1.2 thumbs.

The latest version is v1.3.1. It has added options for randomising, as asked about below in the comments, along with the thumbnails, which have been made better. And the whole thing has been cleaned up to come up error free when checked with JSHint and checked with the latest version of jQuery (1.9.1)

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

A couple pieces of rock and or roll history up for sale on teh interweb this last week. Both of which I’d really rather like to have but doubt I can justify the expense but then that describes pretty much every bit of GAS a guitar player gets.

First up is Eddie Van Halen’s 1982 Kramer Frankenstrat, which was used as one of his main touring guitar during the 1982-83 “Hide Your Sheep Tour” in support of their ’82 album Diver Down. And then went on to be used in the recording of the last album with the original line up “1984″.

• click for full size

• click for full size

Does it look like the Frankie that Eddie used on the South American dates of the Diver tour as seen in the video below from Brazil in ’83?

click to play

Next up follows on from that final album with the original Van Halen line up as Dave left after “1984″ and hired one of the only people around who could carry the mantle of being Dave’s axeman after Eddie. Steve Vai.

And Mr. Vai’s Marshall JMP amp he used to record Roth’s first solo album “Eat ‘Em And Smile” and the subsequent tour.

For sale: Steve Vai’s Marshall 100 watt 4 input JMP Plexi & matching “white face” 4×12 cabinets used on David Lee Roth’s “Eat Em and Smile” record and the 1986-1988 David Lee Roth tour.

The 100 watt Marshall JMP was given to Ted Templeman by Steve Stevens during the NYC recording sessions for “Eat Em and Smile.” The amp was then modded to Steve’s liking by Lee Jackson, famous for performing sought after custom modifications to Marshall amplifiers for top artists in the 1980′s and 1990′s. It was Steve’s main amp for the “Eat Em and Smile”sessions and used on the entire David Lee Roth tour. The 100 watt plexi head features an extra gain stage, frequency adjust control, effects loop & master volume. The head has been well maintained in Los Angeles and features matching Drake transformers, KT88 quad-matched power tubes & hand-selected pre-amp tubes to Steve’s liking. eBay blurb

Now it says ’88 in there as well. Do wonder if it was used on the tour for the follow up album “Skyscraper” because I saw them on that tour and Steve rocked that night.

click to play

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

I was searching around teh interweb for a piece of jQueried javascript that would rotate background images for the header of a site I’m thinking of redoing.

There’s a number out there but mainly just standard carousel type things for image viewing rather than background changing. The one I kept coming back to was Marco Kuiper’s Advanced jQuery Background Slideshow (demo).

Marco’s work put all the info for stuff like the blocks of text within the .js file, while I required a plugin style where I could have info generated in the html file passed to the script. Luckily Sylvain Papet from Com-Ocean had converted Marco’s script into such a plugin. Unfortunately it still didn’t quite meet my requirements. Couldn’t find a way for it to handle the markup spat out by a WordPress widget.

Anyway the main problem to begin with was getting the plugin to work, lot of people commentating on Marco’s original post seemed to be struggling as well. So after a bit of searching round and some actual work on my part, I think I may have cracked it.

I’ve changed a few things and added a couple. You can check out and download my version from here – this is version 1.0.1 there’s a new version (see below). There are three new options.

options = jQuery.extend({
slideshowSpeed: 6000,
method : "fade", /* slide or fade, default is fade */
fadeSpeed :2000, /* how quickly one image fades/slides into the next */
contDiv : "#header", /* id or class of div you want the images to appear in. */

Method: this is how the images change from one to the next. Default is fade as in the original or you can change it to slide so the images slide out to the left, revealing the next one.

fadeSpeed: This is the speed at which the fade or slide occurs.

contDiv: This is the id or class of the containing div you want the background images, control buttons and text boxes to be in. #header in the original can be changed to what ever you want, just remember the . for class or # for id. As I’ve kept the same css as Marco’s original a different way had to be found for the plugin to add the markup.

The images and text box options have been moved from the script to the html file. So your version of the following should be added below the plugin which is below the call for jQuery.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/plugin.js"></script>
		
	<script type="text/javascript">
	$(function() {	
	    $('headerimgs').bgimgSlideshow({photos : [{
		"title" : "Stairs",
		"image" : "images/vacation.jpg",
		"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1271909",
		"firstline" : "Going on",
		"secondline" : "vacation?"
	}, {
		"title" : "Office Appartments",
		"image" : "images/work.jpg",
		"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1265695",
		"firstline" : "Or still busy at",
		"secondline" : "work?"
	}, {
		"title" : "Mountainbiking",
		"image" : "images/biking.jpg",
		"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1221065",
		"firstline" : "Get out and be",
		"secondline" : "active"
	}, {
		"title" : "Mountains Landscape",
		"image" : "images/nature.jpg",
		"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1271915",
		"firstline" : "Take a fresh breath of",
		"secondline" : "nature"
	}, {
		"title" : "Italian pizza",
		"image" : "images/food.jpg",
		"url" : "http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1042413",
		"firstline" : "Enjoy some delicious",
		"secondline" : "food"
	}]});
	});
	</script>

The images need the path to the folder they’re in from the html file.

You can view/download my version of things here – this is version 1.0.1 there’s a new version (see below) – and check them against the original files found at Marco’s site (link above).

I’ve checked it in the latest Chrome & Firefox and IE9 and it all seems to work but chances are there’ll be bugs somewhere and would be better to move some of the options out of the plugin file.

Edit: there’s a new version of the plugin available see this post.

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

I’m sure there’s something going on today, something I should be aware of. If only someone had mentioned it then I wouldn’t have forgotten.

You’d think with all the media we have these days, TV, radio, print and of course teh interweb, there’s be some even slightest mention.

Oh what is it? April 29th, something to do with April 29th… but what is it?

Ahh that’s right how could I forget…

click to play

…the 30th anniversary since the release of “Fair Warning“.

Just a minute that isn’t what’s been talked about on the telly… what are they up to, who are those people, Kate… Wills… who?

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

The various sections of the site, outlined below, can be reached with the navigation menu above, sub-sections from menus that will be in the right hand column.

The site has been coded with the latest browsers in mind.

You seem to be using IE8 the latest version of Internet Explorer so everything should be fine. Though your enjoyment might be enhanced by a better browser such as Chrome – Links Software section.You seem to be using an older version of IE. We’d suggest you should upgrade to version 8, if you can’t Chrome is a great substitute. You can find links to both in the Links Software section.You seem to be using a non IE browser, FireFoxChromeSafariOpera, hopefully the latest version – at least version 2215511.1 – to get the best out of the site.

Info about the latest updates on the site can be found in the Sites section of the Blog.

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

Though not just one day, seems like every day I’m finding a bunch of spam that has got past all the methods to reduce spam I’ve added to be then caught by Askimet, which makes no sense what so ever.

The comments are full of BBCode (Bulletin Board Code) for URLs [url=] and links [link] but they aren’t real sites just a seemingly random set of letters, well they don’t register any results in a search or a “is it down for me” style check site, I haven’t clicked any of them. Added to that are used for the “author’s site are pretty much the same kind of jumbled mess. As you can see below, click for full pic.

In that lot, small sample, one from India and the rest up and down the west coast of the US.

Strange, you really have to wonder what the point is.

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →

Noticed a few days back that all of a sudden that top of this sites stats everyday seemed to from this weird address I hadn’t heard of before…

qq829.com/web_stat.asp?dn=toxic-web.co.uk

Now being the curious type I started to wonder what it was all about – Alfie – but being the suspicious type I didn’t just click it, like a number of folks seem to have done, to find out, but a quick Google and up comes a number of sites where people are asking the same questions. Where’s it from and what’s it doing.

So a quick squizz at this Google analytics forum thread, looks to have some answers. China is teh answer to the first question but is it just old fashioned referrer spam or is it something more malicious. Well it may look like it’s a good job that I didn’t click the link to check. Much talk of malware. More details on what precisely…

..it seems that this may be a new variant of trojan.adclicker, as reported by Threatexpert, which places cookies on the user’s computer then generates false hits on various websites and displays malicious adverts over the top of a website’s pages…

It is also believed that if a webmaster clicks on the link via their logs, it displays the animated graph and possibly tries to download malicious software onto their computer. Some webmasters have also reported changes to their website upon noticing this traffic such as php-injections. HubPages

…great. A quick look through the files on the site with FileZilla to see when they were modified to find any anomalies, thankfully nothing looked out of the ordinary.

So what to do about it well the IP address isn’t static so individual banning is out of the window, could of course ban the whole of China, but is that overkill some Chinese folks out there might be interested in the crap posted here – I said might be – and my .htaccess file is big enough as it is.

So in the Google thread there’s a post from AurelloSoft suggesting the fix of placing the below in the.htaccess file.

SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^qq829" TOBLOCK=1
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^cnzz" TOBLOCK=1

<filesMatch "(.*)">
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=TOBLOCK
</filesMatch>

I did this but the hits kept coming, until someone pointed out that it works if you put it before the WordPress code in the file and since I did that it does look to have worked. No mention in the referrers stats since.

If it doesn’t work for you AurelloSoft have another possible solution, again for the .htaccess file of…

RewriteEngine on
# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} cnzz.cn [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} qq829.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]

So if you’ve got the site showing up in your stats – the toxic-web.co.uk bit will be replaced by your site domain – then don’t click it and get blocking the bastards…

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →