As long as I have brought up the dreaded X-10 camera pop-ups, allow me to share this awfully nifty trick for getting rid of them. On a mac, make thee a text file, include in this file this line "ads.x10.com [tab] CNAME 127.0.0.1" and, for good measure "media.fastclick.net [tab] CNAME 127.0.0.1", call the file "Hosts", save the file in thy preferences folder (don't use the quotes, by the way). Restart.
Here's the scoop. You will have told your web browser the domain "ads.x10.com" (and so on) is to be found on your very own computer whose IP address is, not at all coincidentally, 127.0.0.1 (this is, by convention, the IP address for "this very computer"). Of course, your very own computer stores no annoying pop-up ad and the browser very properly shows what it finds: nothing at all.
Of course, you can extend this little trick quite a ways, thereby blocking all sorts of annoyances and saving your employer from paying for the network infrastructure to transport a bunch of unwanted ads to you. Good and good for you. For more on all this including a really big list of hosts to block, and for instructions for other operating systems, see these sites: one, two, and tip your hat to Dean Allen, That is all.
Posted by Mike Green at July 17, 2001 03:11 PM