Month: July 2007

The Trouble with YouTube

| Richard

Well it’s all very well and good being able to easily upload videos and set various options for comments and the like, but what happens when there’s a feature you don’t understand?

Some of my videos on an alternative profile are quite popular and as a result of that a lot of people are subscribing to the video ‘channel’ which I presume is partly responsible for introducing more subscribers viral marketing stylee.

But with that comes the issue of Comment Spamming, mainly for those tacky webcam pr0n sites. Now, all comments for my videos are moderated so they don’t actually get seen until I go along and approve them or otherwise. There’s also a “Spam” link which seems to hide the content but the username is still shown, at least to me, but reloading the video page shows the full comment to me again, so I then have to delete it. So what exactly does the Spam link do? Try searching for “spam” or “comment spam” or whatever in the Help Centre and you’ll see there’s nothing at all about that.

I also had to raise a query about “Bulletins”: do they go to all your subscribers or just your friends? I’m still not entirely sure, but I suspect the latter.

Maybe they should spend some of those billions of a proper, full FAQ?

Another Domain Name Renewal Scam

| Richard

I’ve recently received some e-mails sent to the Admin. contact for some of our .com domain names from “Domain Renewal” (reminder@domainrenewalonline.com) stating that:

“It is time to renew your domain name  {domainname.com}

Your domain name {domainnname.com} will expire within 90 days.

You may renew your domain automatically with Domain Renewal. Click on the link in this e-mail to renew the domain for another year. You should renew your domain as soon as possible in order for it to continue to be registered in your name.

Click here if you wish to renew your domain
 ——–>http://www.domainrenewalonline.com/for.php?d=domainrenewalonline.com

As soon as we have received your payment, you will receive a confirmation that your domain  has been renewed…”

It’s not until further down the e-mail that you read – if you get that far through the last, large paragraph – that “you may also request your Internet Service Provider to renew the domain for you” which is the first point at which you might twig they are unconnected to your ISP or actual domain registrar.

If you do venture onto their web site, it’s been cleverly designed to feature logos from major technology firms like Oracle, Cisco Systems, IBM and Microsoft for no apparent reason (other than to presumably make you think you’re dealing with a reputable firm in the Internet sector).

Prices? Well how does $59.95 for one year grab you?

RAC Using Known Spammer Frankdata

| Richard

Another Spam presumably paid for this time by the RAC who should know better. They appear to have bought a list of spammed e-mail addresses from well-known spammer Frankdata International Marketing Limited and are thereby helping to keep this spammer in business.

Well I’d just like the RAC to know that I will never buy any of their goods or services as a result of this. If you hate spam, why not do likewise and boycott firms who use spammers.

[Update]

Well the RAC called me back a couple of times, but refused to get their Marketing Department - presumably the ones who paid for the spamming campaign and made arrangements with Colin Franklin to send it - to discuss it with me as they don’t deal with the public.

In view of that, a formal complaint has now been made to the Information Commissioner’s Office - see the link at the foot of this page.

Soho Consulting Redux

| Richard

I received more Spam today to an e-mail address I used exclusively to register domain names through Soho Consulting, so I thought I’d close that e-mail address down.

A quick check first that there were no remaining domain names to worry about with that e-mail address following the debacle with a simple transfer request, so I tried logging into the Soho Control Panel:

STATUS MESSAGE

Although your username and password were found on the system, your account has been suspended.

If you feel there has been some mistake, please contact our support department.

support@sohosupport.info

Bless them… 

Recording My Lap Times with a Calendar

| Richard

Calendars.

A necessary evil these days.  I can’t be bothered with paper ones in the same way that diaries never worked for me.

No, I prefer my good old Outlook Calendar. In the latest version, it can also be set up to synchonise with a webdav-enabled web server which is nice, except that you can’t then simply go to the URL and view your calendar online, for instance in an Internet café or on your mobile. No, the .ics file can be downloaded and imported by applications like Entourage or Outlook, but you can’t really read or amend it when you’re out and about.

When I can be bothered, I can synchronise my Nokia phone with Outlook when I’m back in the office, just as I can my iPAQ, so that’s useful, but it means I have to be around the base PC and have to manage the connection.

I can also export my Outlook calendar and import it into Google Calendar. That’s all very well and good but it’s a slow, manual process.

No, what I want is a calendar that I can amend at my desk. It’s automatically published at regular intervals to the web where I can choose to keep all or part of it private or restrict who can view it online. I want to be able to add to it or change it on my mobile with any changes being made to all the versions automatically the moment I’m in range, either of a decent high speed GPRS link or a 3G one. And I want to be able to update it through any web browser and have those changes propagated immediately to the PC and phone versions.

Surely that’s do-able? 

Search and Ye Shall Find

| Richard

…depending upon what you use to search.

Or so it would appear.

When I “upgraded” to Office 2007, Outlook “suggested’ I download and install Windows Desktop Search which they suggest is “Best in Class”.

Now I am already running Google Desktop and have been impressed with it.

Yesterday I tried out some Nero software (before removing it again as it didn’t do what I wanted) and that installed another search program that looked exactly like a re-badged version of Windows Desktop Search.

Anyway, I’d had ‘mixed’ results with Windows Desktop Search noting how the number of items searched would sometimes count down, or that the number of items to index would also count down without a corresponding increase in the number of items searched and indeed noting that it would continue to index my PC even when supposedly snoozing.

Couple all that with the way that it only seemed to want to know about the current Outlook post file and it began to take on the usefulness of a chocolate teapot; especially when you take into account the need to keep Outlook post files to an absolute minimum size in the latest version unless you want your system slowed down to less than crawling pace. Outlook 2007: bst avoided!

So the other day, I needed to find some access details I’d e-mailed a client a while back. I knew I wouldn’t find them in my current Outlook post file, so I opened the job-specific post file archive and asked it to search only to find that it hadn’t been indexed and none of the other search facilities in Outlook could help either. So I fired up Google Desktop and instantly found the details I needed…

I looked at the Windows Desktop Search preferences and manually added .pst files – curiously omitted by default – and made sure that the Archives folder was ticked to be searchable and after allowing Windows Desktop Search to catalogue everything unhindered – at the expense of it slowing down my system – I decided to run a little test.

I sent myself an e-mail from my Gmail account (excluded from my Google Desktop search items) with the name “Persephone Winterbottom” in the e-mail body. This came via a POP3 account into MailWasher Pro and thence into Outlook. I then opened an archive .pst file and dragged the new e-mail into it before closing it once more.

After both programs indicated they were up to date, I ran a search for “Persephone Winterbottom”. Now, you need to bear in mind that Google Desktop needs Outlook post files to be open to be searched whilst Windows Desktop Search shouldn’t if it follows the preferences.

And the results? Google Desktop returned a positive on the e-mail within the main Outlook post file. Not so good if you want to actually locate the e-mail in its archive but the program does return its contents within the browser window (which is good enough for me).

Windows Desktop Search still doesn’t seem to acknoweldge the e-mail’s existence whatsover, even days afterwards, so it’s been uninstalled here now.