A Quick Note About Comments And Spam

Just so you know – when you post a comment and get a message from WordPress telling you –

Sorry, your comment has been blocked because it contains one or more of the following words: cool.

Please confirm that you really want to post this comment. Note that if you post this comment, it may not show up immediately because it might get flagged as spam and/or moderated.

All you need to do is click on the “Yes, post my comment” button. You simply have to prove you are human, and not a computer script. Okie dokie? You don’t need to go back and edit your comment. :)

This is a part of the TanTan Noodles spam filter – which as of right now has caught 325 spams since the blog has opened – 234 of those since my post on Friday.. I’ve taken a few of the words out but there are a few like “cool” and “sorry” and “great” and “nice” which appear in a lot of spam and they will trigger the filter which then asks you to prove you are human. It tells you what word it is concerned about, so you might just want to avoid that word in the future, but once you click the yes post my comment button your comment will be posted and everything will be fine. ;)

You might want to test it out on this post – use one of the words in a comment and then go through the process.

Back in about 30 minutes with today’s post.

blog housekeeping

Weekly Wrap Up 21/10/07

Tomorrow I am going to post what might be the most important blog post I ever write here on the blog. Some people may be insulted by it. Some people may feel guilty. Some people may shoot the messenger. The message is important and I am going to ask all of you to help me in getting the message out there by stumbling the post, digging it, posting about it on your blogs and anything else you can do to get the word out. Please don’t blame me for being the messenger or making you feel insulted or guilty. We all have a responsibility to our fellow humans to try and do the right thing but sometimes convenience and “what we’re used to” and “what seems easy” is what we do, instead of what is *right*.

I’m struggling with the wording of it right now because it is something I feel very strongly about and as it reads right now, it could be seen as.. well.. venomous. I’ll try to take the venom out, if ya’all promise you’ll read it with an open mind.

On Friday I posted about blog spam – when I posted there had been 91 spam comments in the Tan Tan Noodles spam filter. Would anyone like to take a guess at how many there are now, Sunday evening, just 2 days later? Not you Sephy, you have admin access and that would be cheating.. :)

And now onto the wrap up!

Funny Search Terms This Week –

Britney Naked – Oh come on, we’ve all seen her meat purse already! Why are you still looking for this? Seriously!

western uniuon – Looks like I’ll be getting all the mis-spelt searches for this – and it might be a great idea to create a page for the search engines..

girl who made a million dollars with adsense – I don’t believe anyone did. I’m firmly anti-adsense. Bloggers and webmasters deserve to get paid more than adsense pays. It really is that simple. Google are making a shedload out of it, I’m sure – and they need to give more back to the people supporting it.

Here On The Blog –

Tiffany Guest Posted and it was a moving read, so if you missed it check it out now.
I spoke about things I am doing to stop Online Scammers

Coming Up –

As I said at the top of the post, tomorrow a post I’m a little worried about posting – but it is important information. So I’ll grit my teeth and do it. The tech topic for this Tuesday is Skype and I’m going to show you how it can save you money – and Sephy will tell you how it works. The rest of the week may come to you as a surprise. ;)

weekly wrap up

A Quick Note About Blog Spam

Right at the bottom of the page, there is a little Akismet icon which tells you how much spam Akismet has caught. However a lot of the spam that arrives here Akismet never even sees it. I’m using a great plugin called TanTan Noodles Simple Spam Filter. It works by taking a lot of the common words used in spam and checking comments to make sure those words don’t appear. If you use one of the words in my spam filter, you will see a message from WordPress which says –

Sorry, your comment has been blocked because it contains one or more of the following words: upskirt.

Please confirm that you really want to post this comment. Note that if you post this comment, it may not show up immediately because it might get flagged as spam and/or moderated.

You then have to manually click on a button to confirm you are human and not a spam bot.

Why am I mentioning this? Obviously because I don’t want you to be surprised if you get that message. Though I think it is unlikely you will be using the words in my spam filter as most of them are drug names and pr0n related words.

I am also mentioning it because on top of the 60+ spam comments caught by Akismet, TanTan Noodles has caught – 91 spam comments. I checked it this morning and 40 of those were from today alone. If you’re on WP and you’re not using the TanTan Noodles plugin, I highly recommend it.

I don’t know why the spammers do it – I just don’t get the point. But while they do it I am grateful for these plugins. I was very anti-Akismet before moving to wordpress after some bright spark put ME in the Akismet spam bin and I kept landing in there when I made comments. I don’t like the idea that one or a small group of people can classify someone as spam, it is open to all kinds of abuse. However now I understand how it works and that I can pull comments out of there easily I’m ok with it. I just have to keep on top of it regularly.

Those of you on Blogger using word verification – you can turn it off and keep your commentors happy, because you’ll never get spammed the way WordPress users get spammed. You don’t need word verification to protect you on Blogger.

blog housekeeping

Weekly Wrap Up 14/10/07

It has been a HUGE week with a new redesign and moving to wordpress. This week’s wrap up is a little shorter than usual because I have been too busy to keep up with my reader. Sorry about that everyone! ;)

Just before we get into the wrap up, I got an email from Neerav about the election being announced. If you’re in Australia you will want to read this post – Enrol and Register To Vote: You Can Make A Difference

Funny Search Terms This Week –

ways to get back at my sister – Now this is just sad. You don’t need to get back at her – it is bad karma for yourself. Take the high road. Be the better person, build a bridge and walk over it. ;)

what country does romeo and juliet born – Now I have to search to find out. I don’t think Shakespeare said a particular country.

picture of big jersey cows milk under – Do you mean udder? Is this some new weird kind of pr0n?

Coming Up –

This Tuesday we’re wrapping up some Blogger stuff on the Think Tank, I’m going to tell you a bit about the house as well as my plans for a housewarming party and hopefully we’ll have a men we love to watch this week, just for fun.

I’m so exhausted after a long day of chores so I’m off to bed, be good ya’all!

weekly wrap up

Welcome To My New Home

I’m hoping you made it here safely.

You may be seeing this on the feed but when you click to the site you may not be able to see the site yet. Never fear, it will happen sometime over the next 24 hours.

When you make it here, please leave a comment to let me know that you can access the site.

You might also want to mention what you think of the new look. I like it, but I am biased. ;)

There is still some work to do on the sidebars and a few other little things like the background color when you leave a comment. Keep checking back over the next few days. If you find any errors can you please shoot me an email.

You can register as a member of the site by clicking on Join This Site, just under the Subscribe icon. Registering means you will not have to enter in your information every time you want to leave a comment.

Today is Tuesday Think Tank day, and I would be posting that before going to bed in a few hours if I were not utterly exhausted. It will be posted tomorrow, which will be Wednesday here but it will be Tuesday somewhere in the world I’m sure.. ;)

Later this week I will talk about the inspiration for the color scheme and the process of changing to WordPress that should have been simple but turned into a trip to Las Vegas with Satan without any cash to get a hotel room or bet on roulette. In other words, very little sleep – or fun – was had by all.

It has been a long week of struggling with code, struggling with servers, struggling with plugins, struggling with importing the blog from blogger only to find that the permalinks were not the same, and having to work out a fix for that. And now, there’s going to be a long couple of weeks going back and editing every post individually – because there is no simple way to bring the photos across, and I figure I might as well redo the categories at the same time. The theme was the simplest and easiest thing we did – it was also the first thing we did. Each time we got a problem sorted, a new problem appeared. The Other Half’s holidays disappeared into a void of trying to make this blog work. I cannot tell you the amount of hours it took. Far too many for something that should have been simple, right?

Still, we survived it with only one major meltdown by me earlier today when I felt like giving up entirely, and now here we are. I am sure I will look back on this one day and laugh, but it’s going to be a long time.. I love the blog design. I’m not as keen on WordPress as I was when I started this process, though. It is better than blogger, but a technical nightmare I hope to wake up from in the morning. Please, let me wake up from a decent nights sleep and let everything be working!

Edit to add – Ok, for now I am turning the math plugin off, until I can work out what is wrong with it. If you had a problem with it can you please comment with exactly what was happening? I edited it to be simple numbers only because I did fail maths and I didn’t want it to be too much work for people..

I’m off to bed – I’m putting the blog into the capable hands of Sephy once he wakes up, and he’ll approve your comments. It is only the first comment which needs approving, after that you’re all set. ;)

blog housekeeping

Important – Your Attention Please

I am about to move the domain to the new blog, this may mean you are unable to access the site for the next 24 hours or so – it may work right away, it depends.

Those of you with the feedburner feed, you will not have to change anything.

Those of you on the old blogger feed, you may find you get a few messages from me saying the blog has moved over the next few weeks, just to remind you to go and pick up the new feed.

I hope to see all of you at my new home shortly! When you get there, can you leave a comment to let me know you got there ok?

This may be the end of the internet as we know it.. ;) hehe

blog housekeeping, moving forward

Weekly Wrap Up 07/10/07

This week has been huge for me in terms of learning about WordPress. This time last week I was quite frankly terrified about switching to WP. Now, I am thrilled and excited about it. I can’t wait to switch over and show you guys what I have created. ;) Hopefully that will be early this week – I’m just trying to break it now, making sure everything works.. :) I will let you know when it is happening. And now, on to the wrap up.

Funny Search Terms This Week –

is there a picture of alf with an oxygen mask on – Do you mean Alf the tv alien? I don’t know.. ;)

pregnant woman driven crazy by barking dog – I don’t think pregnancy increases your chances of being driven crazy by a barking dog. I think a barking dog is annoying to all – other than the owners of said dog – regardless of their gender or whether or not they are pregnant. ;)

aussie pie shop wont go halal – And nor should they have to, if they don’t want to. This is Australia in the year 2007, not Australia back in the days when it wasn’t safe to eat Pork. We have refrigeration here. We have a thriving pork industry. Halal is a hangover from about 2,000 years ago. Just because it says something in a book, and that applied back in those days, does not mean we all have to obey it now in a different age entirely. It’s your choice to eat Halal, and it is a shops choice to go Halal. That’s up to them. Customers can choose to go there – and if they wont because it is not Halal, the shop loses out. Pies include meat, and often bacon. Build a bridge. Eat somewhere else.

neil diamond wig – There’s no doubt, the man has some great hair.. ;)

sexist designer advertisements – Allrighty then..

spoiled country bitches – Yeah, that’s me. You’ve come to the right place! ;) hehe

belly dancer confessions sex owner tips – I am thinking of taking up belly dancing actually. ;) They have lessons here where I live.

where sequins come from – Is it the same place babies come from? ;)

Here On The Blog –

It’s been a busy week here on the blog.

Thomas from Technical Blogger got out of his niche with a great kitties post. If you missed it be sure to check it out!
I did my second ever CD review – Madonna – Confessions On A Dance Floor.

The Tuesday Think Tank was about HTML this week and I wrote – Basic HTML for Bloggers.
I answered some Questions.
I posted about one of my scammers thinking Heidi Klum is just “okey”.

Past Snoskred –

Travel back in time and read my thoughts about – saving wildlife in Australia

Coming Up –

Another huge week – possibly the biggest ever because sometime this week I will be migrating to the new blog. So far it is looking good, even if I do say so myself. ;) Hopefully it will all go well.

weekly wrap up

A Quick Bloggy Update

If you commented over the last week, I’ve just finished replying to all the comments. Apologies for the delay – it’s been a huge week of learning WordPress for me.

I have a test blog up and running and it looks fantastic – no, you’ll have to wait till I launch it ya’all! WordPress is much simpler than I expected and after just one day of playing with it I’m feeling very comfortable – and about ready to flick the switch over to the new blog. I’m going to take some time to play with it. I’d say next Monday will be the moving day.

Let me now admit how terrified I have been about this process. Several times over the last few days the voice in my head has been screaming “RUN AWAY run away! Stay with Blogspot, don’t switch to WordPress. You’re not smart enough. You don’t have the technical knowledge for this”. Well that’s a load of baloney. I am smart enough, I do have the technical knowledge. It turns out all my fears were simply because I did not know how things worked – and now that I do, I can honestly say WordPress is simpler and easier to use than Blogger is.

I did not know how easy it was to modify templates – it is a snap. Just yesterday I was considering paying some big money to get my own unique template built. I completely believe you have to invest in your blog and I’m happy to pay for something that is great and that I was happy with and would never want to change. However I can take a good looking template and switch the colors, change the graphics, just tweak it to suit myself.

I was worried about plugins. I was worried about security. I was worried about a lot of things. Now, I have faith in myself that I can deal with whatever happens. Confidence is a great feeling.

Back in a few hours with a CD review. ;)

blog housekeeping, wordpress

Weekly Wrap Up 30/09/07

Another busy week. I have two boxes left to unpack, and that is us all moved in. My office is now completed, most of the pictures are up on the walls, and I’m almost done washing, drying and ironing, for now at least. :) Onto the wrap up!

Funny Search Terms This Week –

pictures of fishes off of finding meno – Meno, I think they’re on to you.. do you need a place to hide out? :)

song with the lyrics:i’m your buck a roo, i’ve been watching you – I hope these were not the same people. ;) What scary lyrics!

why plympton rent is less cheap adelaide – Because of the tram line. Everyone loves the tram! ;)

girls needing sex in brisbane – Ohhhkay then. ;) And you think you’re the one who can provide this service?

prince harry hardon – Yes, it is here on the blog – check my past Snoskred section below for the link. ;) He has some family jewels all right.

747 plane crash images for myspace blog – That sounds like a lovely my space blog you’re putting together there. No really, people can’t resist a good plane crash image. People love to be reading a blog and then have death and unpleasantness come to them as a surprise. I’m sure it will be a huge success.. NOT!

niche oops oh my song words – I have no idea what you’re looking for but I hope you found it somewhere.

dazzleland myer what happened – Bizarrely, making the top two floors of a shopping centre into a mini theme park complete with rollercoaster didn’t turn out to be a success. I can’t understand why. I went on that rollercoaster enough times to keep it going all on my own. Sad but true.

opal tribble beauty products – Someone from Trinidad and Tobago is looking for you and your beauty products, Opal. I hope they made it to your site!

Here On The Blog –

– I said goodbye to a good thing

– First it was the big cat, and now the little kitty has taken the keyboard

– Liv took the chance to jump out of her niche.

Think Tank Tuesday was about Google Reader

I mentioned why when it comes to Spam and Scam Emails – you should Never Unsubscribe and Never Reply to them.

Past Snoskred –

Travel back in time and read my thoughts about – Britney Spears Is A Bad Dresser and only because someone searched for it – Prince Harry’s Family Jewels. Shocking past posts!

Coming Up –

Get your notepads out ya’all, because the Tuesday Think Tank this week is HTML, and I’m going to give you some great code to grab and squirrel away to use on your blog. ;)

I do have the next two weeks planned out and mostly written, because I’m taking some time to learn WordPress and start the process of switching over. Rather than spoil it all, I’ll let it come to you as a surprise. ;)

weekly wrap up

Weekly Wrap Up 23/09/07

Another busy week. There’s a lot of linkage here this week so drop by and check it out – have I linked to you? :) Get clicking and read some wonderful posts I found lurking around the BlogOsphere. ;)

Funny Search Terms This Week –

windex does everything – Wasn’t that one yours, River? :) Things said in the comments section get googled too ya’all! ;)

aluminum underpants – Ok I know why I wrote it, but why are you searching for it? A new fetish? ;)

how can i cut my hair the feng shui way/and view it – I have absolutely no idea. ;)

missile launch codes – I’m still getting a lot of hits for this. Do these people have access to missile launch panels where you type the codes in, is what worries me? ;)

ask questions about black and white cows – is this racism for cow questions? What’s wrong with asking questions about the brown and white cows? The all one color cows?

Here On The Blog –

I spoke about my Miele Condenser DryerFacibus guest posted in my new Jump Out Of Your Niche Friday feature – I began to see The Light At The End Of The Tunnel – I spoke about how I make a difference with Internet Scams – I talked about my Fear Of Dogs.

Think Tank Tuesday was about Technorati and one of the crew from Technorati dropped by and left a comment on both my post and Sephy’s post – The Ups (and Downs) of Technorati

Past Snoskred –

Travel back in time to November 2006 and read my thoughts about – My Funeral and what I would like to happen to me when I *ahem* leave this planet. I want to be made into something sparkly!

Coming Up –

Think Tank Tuesday is about Google Reader this week. Sephy and I are going to swap roles, I’m taking the technical side because I have found some AMAZING and wonderful tips to make your blog reading faster. Well, Sephy told me about them, so.. ;) But I can tell you how wonderful they are, and it’ll have screenshots and everything! Yay!

The Jump Out Of Your Niche feature is booked up till the end of October now but I still want to encourage anyone reading this to get on board.

I’ll be back tomorrow with an as yet undetermined post. ;)

weekly wrap up