Author Archive: Sarah King
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True Location exposes the fakes
September 8th, 2011 by Sarah KingOver on Digitalpoint I’ve had the ability to see where people really are for a while and mostly people are where they say they are. Its always a concern when people try to be somebody they’re not and so now at the top of your posts we can now see you “fun” location and your “true location”.
We all have to come from somewhere and its not that we should be proud of it, but we definitely shouldn’t be ashamed. We are who we are and its what we make of our lives that really matters.
In the meantime… have a laugh at these fakers
Edit
I was requested to remove any national bias so I’ve deliberately handpicked equal numbers for India and Pakistan but the rest of the grid shows that they are not alone – and one of the Pakistan fakers isn’t there but wants to be. Actually, India is one up because I couldn’t leave out the Las Vegas example. So much unnecessary detail!
I noticed that the Indians were more likely to give their location as a web address than a fake real world address.
vBulletin: Deleting attachments from a post
September 3rd, 2011 by Sarah KingI just had a query from a forum member about how to delete images from a thread. Its extremely simple once you know how… its just not that intuitive.
First up – edit the post and choose “Go Advanced”.
Under the editing box you’ll see a list of the attachments
Once upon a time there would have been a link beside each letting you control the attachment. Nowaday we have the Attachment Manager with a nice big button above the list.
Once there look right down at the bottom of the screen and you’ll see the attachments that are on the post.
If you put your mouse slowly over one of the items a little x shows up. Click that and the attachment is gone.
When you are finished deleting the attachments which needed to be removed click Done, then save your changes and you’ll find your thread looks just the way you intended.
Followbots make real people look foolish
August 30th, 2011 by Sarah KingI have two twitter accounts. My main one @itamer and another I created for a very specific technical topic that I was working on last year. After the project the account has been all but abandoned. Its only use is in Tweetbot to show me my tweets in isolation. It doesn’t have my real name or anything to identify it as me.
I was amused today to find a client’s client who is actively exploring social media had decided to follow that account?
Why?
Because they’ve been told that if you follow people they will follow you back. And once they’re following you then you may unfollow them and they’ll never know… The unfollow bit comes down to the current thinking on the ratio of follows to followers.
I wonder how 524:260 stacks up?
I wonder how many people will get the notification and wonder why they’re being followed?
I wonder how many idle accounts they are following or if their strategy will actually work.
I won’t name and shame the client’s client because I wish them well. They just surprised me.
Another Twitter Newbie
I’ve just been contacted by another dear soul who’s digitalpoint forum account has been locked out.
After letting him know that he needed to send a tweet to @digitalpoint (no, not a PM, no, not via Skype) he then asked me how to send a tweet.
And this is a guy who sells web hosting! If Twitter is a challenge I hate think how Linux stacks up.
Don’t assume Find My Phone works!
August 15th, 2011 by Sarah KingA quick warning to iPhone users/iPad users to test Find My Phone after installation.
I tested it against an iPhone and an iPad.
The iPhone worked instantly. “OMG Mum, what have you done” howled my daughter.
The iPad (wifi only) however refused to acknowledge the message that was sent until I tethered it to my Android phone. Instantly it was “found” and the messages sent.
Back home on regular wifi the Find My Phone system seems to be able to keep track of it.
So test Find My Phone, check it occasionally to ensure it is keeping track.
Category Sort plugin for wp-ecommerce
June 7th, 2011 by Sarah KingI needed to be be able to sort the entries in a wp-ecommerce site that I am working on and the only plugins I could find were for the pre-3.8 versions.
This plugin tacks a sort order field onto the end of the category edit page. The update to the SQL is a bit rough so I’d be interested if there is a cleaner/safer way to detect which query to change the sort order for but for this version it does the trick nicely.
The sort order of blog posts is unaffected. Each category can have it’s own sort order.
If you have different sort requirements it should be quite straightforward to extend the dropdown options and add to the sql result.
Will TreatFeeder kill TreatFeed?
May 17th, 2011 by Sarah KingOr “How your affiliates can kill your brand“.
We’ve got an interesting situation at digitalpoint at the moment where a bot (or just underpaid, semi literate humans?) signs up for new accounts and posts a handful of identical posts.
Human seems possible when you see them leave in their instructions (should be clickable)
An email to TreatFeed hasn’t elicited any response but you’d have to think all that funding will have to go into marketing to clean up the negative PR associated with all that spam.
Another problem child is DVDrip who try to lure you into downloading a new release DVD from Filesonic – a pay per download site. They’re not happy that their links are being spammed about the place and I gather they are watching DVDrip with interest. Good job!
Akismet
I’m at a loss as to why these posts aren’t ending up in the moderated threads queue reserved for those that Akismet finds dubious. Surely digitalpoint isn’t the only forum being spammed by these two? How long until they reach the threshold and start getting sidelined? Not long, I hope!
Dimwitted Blog Comments shouldn’t be mistaken for genuine interest
November 16th, 2011 by Sarah KingA few months ago I was lucky enough to have VIP tickets to Katherine Wilson’s event in NZ Fashion Week. I’ve since been following Katherine’s blog. Most days I don’t have time to read her posts but for some reason today’s entry caught my attention.
The article, itself, is absolutely fine. What has amused me is that Katherine has been sucked in by the low life types who post comments asking for advice on their relationships and life.
Its not ewhoring, but it is a close relative.
People who want to leave comments in blogs have to get them past spam filters and then blog owners.
First up there are the filters that look at content, sentence structure, links in the post and the IP address. What could be more benign than girly angst about relationships?
Once your comments are being accepted the filters mark your IP address as clean/safe/trusted.
The blog owner might be slightly perplexed by the comments but is more likely to be flattered that their opinion is being sought and that their blog has the kind of reader who will open their heart.
The spammer is now all set to run automated systems to spam links for paying clients over targetted blogs. Comments on posts where the blog is set to auto approve or auto-after-x-comments will go live immediately and the blog owner probably won’t notice. Moderated blog owners will probably see equally benign content and still approve.
When I saw this post I thought I’d make a helpful comment explaining how this situation had come about and all day I’ve watched other comments go up but mine has obviously hit some sort of road bump. It can’t be that I’m not known to Katherine because nor were her help seekers. Is it because the truth hurts?
Where the bloody hell are you
This post this comment was added to is 5 years old, the outgoing link is broken, the image link doesn’t work yet the writer found it worthy of a bookmark? Yeah, right.
And just incase you are doubting that spammers could really be behind this – check out this screenshot from the promo site of one of the software packages (click to enlarge).
Tags: comments, katherine wilson
. Posted in Technical Discussions | 2 Comments »