xposted from my journal:

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

everyone needs to copy this post, and post it in their journals.

---

TECHIE TIP!!
all of you.

do a search on your computer for "hosts" file, no file extension. usually it's in "winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"

drag and drop it into notepad.
at the very bottom of the file, add the lines:

127.0.0.1          kwiz.biz
127.0.0.1          memegen.net
127.0.0.1          ljmeme.com
127.0.0.1          kylereilly.com

now save the file back as it was, "hosts" with no file extension.

there you go! another kewl ass techie tip from valis. as soon as everyone does the above, the world will be much smoother :)

i love you guys, see how much i help everyone out?

---

valis
if you find more of em, add em to the list...

Comments

[mattdoesntcare.livejournal.com]

not being very saavy with the network side of troubleshooting explain the humor of this to me so that I can laugh with everyone.

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

;)

think of the hosts file as the "speed dial" on your phone. before you go to a website, like www.livejournal.com , your browser contacts a dns server to get the ip address of where livejournal.com is. it then goes there, like looking the number up in the phone book.

the HOSTS file, is as i said, kind of a speed dial. before contacting the yellow pages (dns server) the computer checks it's speed dial (hosts file) to see if it already HAS the number (ip address). if it does already have the number, it uses the one out of the hosts file, and doesn't contact the dns server. people on dialup connections can actually see a slight speed improvement.

but there are other ways you can use the host file.

127.0.0.1 is the "localhost" address of your personal machine. those lines up there tell your machine that the websites for ljmeme.com and others are located ON THE COMPUTER. so it tries to access that website ON your personal computer. of course, the website isn't ON your computer, so it just brings up a 404 page not found page.

long story short? if you put those lines into your hosts file you can't get to the majority of the STUIPD ASS websites that people use to do all those dumb ass meme's and pointless quiz's.

:)

[mattdoesntcare.livejournal.com]

in that case let us not forget quizilla!

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

*snerks* Tired of quizzes, are we?

And it's memegen, not memgen.

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

YYEEEESSSSSS< VVVEEERRRRYYYY!!!!

eep, have to fix it :)

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

I actually like to do the quizzes.... I just don't post them unless they're especially funny.

Of course, I also have a real pet peeve with calling them memes... or even worse, MeMes, since people clearly don't know meme is a word. But then, I'm a language freak.

[tsutton.livejournal.com]

Just point it to an IP addy of a web server with a page that says "GO BACK TO WORK!!"

;)

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

or that "i'm rich james bitch" webpage...

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

I'M RICK JAMES BITCH

[mtmtmt.livejournal.com]

or, you know, point it to goatse ;)

[tsutton.livejournal.com]

It's not there anymore.

[teriwyn.livejournal.com]

You know... I'm so paranoid...

I have to wonder if you just said that to get someone to look and see if it's really not there, or if it's honest to goodness gone.

Of course, I'm not going to check...

[spacekadt.livejournal.com]

it's not at the original url anymore... but I *believe* goatse.cc is the active and working url... so I've been told anwyay.

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

http://www.goat.cx

[mtmtmt.livejournal.com]

oh, its not that bad after you've viewed it 30 or 40 times

besides, have you ever seen tubgirl.com or lemonparty.org?

goatses just the tip of the iceberg ;)

[teriwyn.livejournal.com]

Yup, seen them, too. ;)

Of course, I realized if he were trying to Asco me into looking at goatse, he'd probably have said something else benign was up in its place. =P

[tsutton.livejournal.com]

It's true. And I see someone posted a new URL address.

[mtmtmt.livejournal.com]

yeah, but they put it back up at goat.cx


some whineass reported it to the registrars and raised a big stink


asshole.

[tsutton.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, thanks for the new url.

[theobon.livejournal.com]

When I build computers for users (or tech-illiterate friends) I have a large list of quiz, warez and ad sites which I add to the hosts file. Makes my life so much easier instead of dealling with lusers complaining about speed issues due to spyware.

Will work until I can convice IT Head to let me block the sites on the proxy server.

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

aaah, yup, every once in a while i'll have a notepad open, and copy the site names of banner ads or other things, and add them to hosts later, really cuts down on the clutter

[oddball42.livejournal.com]

does the idea of a lj meme offend you that much?

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

no no no, not at all! "A"(1) lj meme is a pittance of a thing!

MILLIONS, is another matter...

[omicron32.livejournal.com]

/etc/hosts does the same thing for *nix's, and it's the same kind of format too.

Can't say I bother with it much. AdBlock extension for Firefox does the job.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

THEY AREN'T FUCKING MEMES THEY ARE JUST SHITTY QUESTIONNAIRES WHOSE FINAL RESULTS ARE COMPLETELY ARBITRARY AND PERSONALLY I'M FUCKING SICK OF ALL OF THEM.

[torkell]

Little warning - if you put too much in the hosts file then it can snarl things up a bit under Win2k (like svchost.exe hogging memory and cpu for a minute or two after restoring from hibernation). Probably also affects WinNT and WinXP.

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

guy I know at work: "AHH!! SVCHOST!! ITS A VIRUS RUN!!"

[codedigital.livejournal.com]

It does. I had a PC come into our shop that had a 550k host file...brought the whole damn PC to a crawl.