Here’s a little trick to help you keep your books from getting lost forever. If you’re like me, you get a ton of snail-mail spam, what we used to call “junk mail”. Lots and lots of companies — especially those concerned with getting your money to save the whales, the environment, the lives of endangered pets, etc. — put a few sheets of return address labels, with your name and address on them, in their pleas. (I think the theory is that you’ll feel guilty for using the labels without sending them a donation.) Instead of throwing them immediately into the trash, grab those return address labels and stick them on the inside covers of your books. It might not help you keep them on your shelves, but at least your friend will remember that it was stolen from your library.
Posts tagged as:
spam
Cell Phone Spam
I have gotten over a dozen phone calls today from (949) 374-5125 and (208) 650-4253. I had been answering the phone on the first or second ring and there would be nobody there. At first I assumed it was just some moron repeatedly calling the wrong number. But just now a call from the first number yielded a telemarketer asking me which free gift I wanted to receive.
{ 1 comment }
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0
If you’re getting that annoying message telling you that your copy of AVG Anti-Virus is about to expire, you can get the new version here.
{ 5 comments }
Akismet Works
I installed Akismet here at the beginning of the Fall of 2006. I really don’t know how I lived without it. I emptied the queue about seven hours ago, and when I got to the office this morning there were already almost 1500 comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks flagged as spam.
Akismet has protected your site from 380,243 spam comments already, and there are 1,471 comments in your spam queue right now.
{ 0 comments }
A Chick with Problems Big and Small
Wow. You have got to feel bad for Kaitlin Corcoran. She’s got identity issues; she’s unclear on what her middle name is. She’s dating two guys at the same time, and they both have drastic problems with their anatomy. And she feels the need to tell me — a complete stranger — all about it. See for yourself.
{ 1 comment }
Turn On Links
One of the world’s worst, most-annoying spam-prevention systems is the one in my current version of Outlook — Microsoft® Outlook® 2003 (11.8002.6568) SP2. I’d say about one out of every three times I attempt to click on a link in an email, I get a warning telling me that all links in the message have been disabled to help protect me from ones that may be “harmful”. As far as I can tell there is no way to globally deactivate this, so I have to continually enable links before I can click anything. It is obnoxious and insulting and I hate it.
{ 3 comments }
AmericanGreetings Valentine Virus
If you get an email with the subject line “Valentine’s Day eCard !” that looks like it came from AmericanGreetings <services@americangreetings.com>, it’s most likely a virus. I’m not even going to take a chance by clicking the link. The link appears to be to the americangreetings.com domain, but if you hover your mouse over it you’ll see that it’s really going to a different URL. Trickery!
{ 3 comments }
Akismet and Comment Spam
Since I installed it 143 days ago, Akismet has killed 23,683 spam comments on this blog. That’s an absurd 165 pieces of spam per day. And the number is definitely increasing daily at what I consider an astronomical rate. I have no doubt that in the time it takes me to write this post I will have earned another dozen. What’s amazing is that I’ve only encountered 3 “false positives” in all that time. (A “false positive” is a valid comment that Akismet incorrectly identifies as spam.) I am quickly approaching the point where I no longer even bother to review any of what Akismet catches. Be warned: If you’re daring enough to mention a drug for erectile dysfunction, any possible gambling topic, or any type of less-than-conservative sexual practices in a comment to my blog, you can safely assume that I won’t see it because Akismet is going to just kill it for me.
Update: As of 03/27/2008 the number is over 370,000.
{ 1 comment }
Weight Spam
I receive an incredible amount of spam. I have a dozen or so email accounts and I manage about two dozen websites. Plus I run the IT department at my office. I get about 500 spam comments and 1500 spam pingbacks and / or trackbacks on blogs each day, and that’s with Akismet and a captcha installed. If I had to guess I’d say I get somewhere around 1500 spam emails each day. I have both Outlook’s internal spam-catcher and SpamBayes running, but some still slip into my Inbox. I’ve gotten quite good at scanning and realizing instantly if something is for me or for the trash.
This morning a piece of spam managed to make it into my Inbox and it momentarily shocked me. I hardly ever look at the subject line of email these days. The part that I noticed said, “This is not meant to be an insult or anything but people are talking at work about your weight.” Whoa! I mean, I’m not carrying around a spare tire or anything, but I’ve been knocking back M&Ms and Almond Joys like a madman since Halloween so when I saw that I freaked. Sure it was only for just that millisecond before my brain realized it was spam, but still. Talk about a way to catch someone’s attention!
I really don’t understand how this particular message is supposed to fool anyone. I don’t have anyone at my office named “Mark” and even if I did there’s no way he’d mail me at the completely obscure alias of a domain nobody at work even knows I own. This guy must be sending millions of these if he expects to get any sort of response.
{ 2 comments }
Wordpress Captcha
The spammers finally broke me. I’ve gotten well over 3,000 spam comments since Monday morning. It was becoming such a pain to delete them all that I have now implemented Nio’s anti-spam comment captcha WordPress plug-in. It seems to be working pretty well so far. Please let me know if you have any issues.
NOTE: I AM NO LONGER USING A CAPTCHA ON THIS SITE.
DreamSEO and SubmissionShark
I get a lot of spam. A lot. No, really. I get a lot of spam.
I am directly or indirectly connected to the whois / registration of dozens and dozens of sites. I get a.lot.of.spam.
So. Tonight I happen to notice a piece of spam directed towards a URL that I own that nobody should know I own. It’s interesting because it actually includes my full name (along with the URL) in the body of the message. How the spammers got this is beyond me. (I intend to learn, though.)
{ 0 comments }
Is There Anybody Out There?
What are the chances that after two+ years of little-to-no posting that anybody will be interested in visiting this site again? I’m guessing pretty slim. In my defense: I’ve been extraordinarily busy. Poor davidgagne.net here was also deluged with about 100 spam comments each day, which is one of the main reasons I finally switched to WordPress. I loved MovableType, but sometimes a man’s gotta bite the bullet. I’ve also learned more than most could hope to care to know about PHP and SQL (and Apache, and Linux, and ASP, and IIS, and …) in the last two+ years, so I’m seriously digging WP.
{ 3 comments }
m4o cece records money4opinions
We all know that Critical IP sucks. I’d also like to make it known that money4opinions sucks. There are dozens of comments at that link about how these cretins are running an on-line scam. Please feel free to spread the word. Here’s the HTML:
< a title=”read about bad experiences with this company” href=”http://www.davidgagne.net/?p=4800″ >money4opinions</a> sucks.
{ 0 comments }
FingerTouch
I’ve been getting some really funny spam lately. Has anyone else received this one?
No one likes to touch the toilet seat. Why else would public restrooms offer those little paper liners? Fingertouch brings you that type of service at home. You never have to touch your toilet seat again.
{ 2 comments }
