It took me almost six hours today to realize why I didn't get any mail today (was expecting some NetFlix movies to come in): it's another stupid US holiday that no one gets off except government workers.
Columbus Day.
What the hell is the point to calling it a holiday when the majority of the people don't get the day off? Not much of a holiday, if you ask me. More of a nuisance than anything. It's a lame-ass excuse for retailers to have a "sale" and for me to be stuck without Samurai Champloo.
You want to know what would be a great holiday? Kill a Spammer Day. Everyone gets the day off from work and gets to hunt down a spammer and murder them. Not that I'm annoyed at waking up to almost 400 comments spams in my blog since Sunday afternoon. I usually average about 100 a day, but lately the pace has been quickened. What I find fascinating is that they still try, even though I haven't had a comment spam actually get through in about 1.5 years. Wouldn't be so bad, except I'm scared of losing true comments in the mix. I'm half-tempted to require users to register to be able to comment on my blog, but I hate that option almost as much as I hate captchas.
In other news, I was productive at work today. Solved a handful of nagging bugs that were too scary to check in fixed for in r4. So I'm excited to see how things come out for r5a1.
I attempted to make camping reservations for my upcoming trip down to Texas. Got hung up on by the automated system three times before deciding that I didn't want to give Texas Parks and Wildlife any money anyhow. Worst. Service. Ever.
I've been looking at cruises online... dreaming. I've never been on one, but I've always wanted to go. Anyone been on one (aside from Lis) and have experiences to share?
I made a wonderful batch of pumpkin bread on Friday, and boy is it delicious! I've already consumed one loaf and given another to my parents (traded, really, since I got a bunch of homemade soup from them in return). So I only have one more loaf left... but it's trivial to make, so I'll probably end up with some more by the end of the month. :-)
Oh well, I'm done prattling for the day. Enjoy!
Hi Aaron. I'm actually hoping for an interim release with some bug fixes. I've had more crashes from RB with the latest release than ever before -- several a day! This occurs with or without plugins, so I can't blame it on them. Crashes happen mostly if I run or build a project. It also doesn't happen immediately; it can be the second or third build. I've found myself editing a couple of lines of code then saving, over and over again, so I don't risk losing any code changes before the next crash. This is completely atypical. Usually new RB releases (and betas) are fairly solid for my purposes.
I use Spam Karma 2, Akismet, and Spam Nuke on my WordPress blog. Then, it is a one-button click to delete the spam. Works great!
I don't see what's wrong with a simple captcha like "five + 5" or "how many letters are in the word cat?". I've seen them on WordPress blogs, so it shouldn't be too hard.
mmm pumpkin bread!!
r4 is a few days out and I already hear about r5....
I have been on a cruise. It was great. Try new food, as you can send it back for something different, without worrying about the cost: you already paid! They offer lots of interesting stuff to do, and lots and lots of food. If you are one for "soft drinks" aka, sodas, etc. you want to see about getting a pre-paid card that allows unlimited drinks, as some charge for these (but allow water, teas and some other things for free). Do something different. Even though you would be going do new places, do something you wouldn't have though of before. Dolphins, stingrays, climbing waterfalls, ancient ruins... That kind of stuff.
Shoot, I almost forgot! Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian friends! :-)
Love the idea for Kill a Spammer Day - except they should make that everyday! Wonder if killing cans of Spam would count...
Never been on a cruise, so I can't help you there. Also never had pumpkin bread. Both sound good about now, though...
(Sorry, haven't had lunch yet... 2 more hours - this is why I shouldn't be late! LOL)
How come you cant have one of those random number generators with obfuscated picture shown for confirmation entry thingamajings ??
Based on all of these rants about 2006r4, I am scared to install it :-(
Yay! Aaron wishes us Canucks a happy Thanksgiving! To be honest, kinda a little suprised you knew :)
One thing I did think was funny as of late is all the "Canadian" offices of various American-born companies offering us "Columbus Day" sales. LOL... Even BestBuy.ca sent me an email about their Columbus Day sale :P
About SPAM:
Image captchas have a big accessibility problem: visually impaired people will not be able to comment. Also some people have images turned off, so it will not work for them.
There's a text based captcha that I see in some very popular blogs and that is the "Did You Pass Math" wp anti-spam plugin:
http://www.herod.net/dypm/
Try it and let us know if it helps - from what I read is very simple to install.
I dropped WP a while back because it had -- IMHO -- piss-poor handling of spam. I hate making people register for a site, so instead, I my solution (when I get a free 15-minute chunk of time) will be to verify human interaction by way of randomly-generated characters placed into an image. I've used this on some of my customers' sites (as well as on my own business' site), and it works exceedingly well.
I just find out a better version of the "Math" captcha that is based on the above one, but it seems it works better and does not need cookies or javascript enabled:
http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/math-comment-spam-protection-plugin/
HTH
The randomly generated images (aka, "captchas") are not suitable for my needs. As Carlos pointed out, the visually impaired have a helluva time with them. And there are auditory solutions as well, but honestly, I find it to be too large of a barrier for people to deal with. I know that when I'm presented with a captcha, I'm much less likely to comment. And if I have to register, I'm almost certainly not going to comment.
What's more, the problem has nothing to do with people actually typing and hitting the reply button. It's with automatic spammers, so the majority of wp plugins won't work (since wp gleefully lets people just call it's PHP code directly).
I'm looking into other blogging software just to see how well it works.
@Scott P -- I lived in Canada for a very short while, so I recall Canadian thanksgiving. :-) Plus, living in Minnesota, I yearn to be a few miles further north so I can just be a Canadian again. ;-)
And that's damned funny about getting Columbus Day sales from Canadian stores. Wow.
Yes, but from what I read the one I posted will check if the answer is correct before storing the comment - so, I presume that direct comment submitions to the php file will not work.
Anyway, it does not prevent Trackback Spam and if you have this enabled you might want to check the available plugins at:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Spam_Tools
Personally, I have no problem entering a couple characters into a form if it means filtering out automated spam. I'll gladly do so without second thought, though I very, very rarely will register at a forum if it's required to post.
While I'd like to be all-inclusive with spam-filtering solutions (ie, not preclude visually impaired visitors), the only other viable alternative - requiring registration - I think would turn away more people than you'd gain by staying away from visual solutions.
I agree Adam, but the current solution only hurts me -- no one sees any spam because it doesn't make it to the blog, and no one has to register or deal with captcha. The only annoyance is that I wake up to hundreds of moderated comment spams that I still have to sift through to see if there's a legit post in there somewhere. Granted, a lot of it is pretty easy to sift thru, but it's still annoying.
Easier to just shoot a spammer. ;-)
I'll support Shoot A Spammer day. What prizes would b e appropriate for shooting a spammer? A year's supply of Viagkr@? ;-)
I've never been on a cruise, but I'd really love to go on one, too. One thing that I've heard from people is to do research to get the best deal and the best places...all-inclusive is the way to go, too. So, yeah.
You sound busy. We've been talking bowling lately...you in sometime? Wait...of COURSE you are! LOL. I'll let you know if we decide anything.
Columbus Day is relevant to Canadians too... it is celebrating the discovery of the New World. The funny thing is, according to Wikipedia, the state of Minnesota doesn't officially celebrate Colombus Day since it is common knowledge the Vikings got here first. :)
About cruises... they are pretty fun. Pretty much everything is included except the drinks (alcohol or soda), shopping, gambling and the extra activities you can choose. For the cruise we went on, even the child care was included. There are parties, dancing, shows (two broadway style shows on our cruise), movies, in-room tv, swimming pools, all-you-can-eat, and so on. If I ever get an extra $110,000 I would seriously consider taking my wife on a 4 month around-the-world cruise.
About the REALbasic 2006r5 fixes... any chance that one of those were the thread 100% CPU consuption issue?
Hurry up and watch those Samurai Champloo before I work my down my queue to them!
@Brady -- I'd love to, but it didn't come AGAIN today! I'm starting to get desperate.
@Phil M -- there might be a chance, you should join the betas program... ;-)
We get Columbus Day off from school here! Yay for celebrate-killing-off-all-the-natives day. We had some interesting discussions in US History class about whether Columbus day should be celebrated.
@Aaron -- I got an email notification about the 100% CPU issue... but it doesn't say who did the fix. What does that have to do with the Beta program?
@Phil -- so you can verify that the fix works for you. As for the notification, we don't really say who fixes what since we're a team and all. But that was a bug that Mars, Jon and I all worked on.