internet

Why The Rolly Eyes Is Evil.

7 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Emoticons. We all use them on the internet from time to time, but there is one emoticon that should never be used, in my opinion. Unless you want to offend someone.

Imagine I am sitting across from you, and I said “I really like your shoes”.

Now imagine I am sitting across from you, and I said “I really like your shoes” and as I said it, I rolled my eyes like this.

icon_rolleyes

Doesn’t that give an entirely new meaning to what I said? As in, I’m being sarcastic here, I don’t mean what I am saying, I am making fun of you or I really *don’t* like your shoes.

Now imagine there are three of us. I say to you “I really like your shoes” and when you look down to remember which ones you are wearing, I look at the third person and roll my eyes. You don’t see me do it.

Now imagine that same situation, except this time you DO look up in time to see me do it. Have I just offended you? Have I just turned something that seemed to be a compliment into a slap in the face and an insult? I think so..

I can’t think of a situation in real life where it could be taken as a *nice* thing to do. Unless you’re a stand up comedian, perhaps.

I’ve known people who use the eye roll on various forums on the internet, in fact one forum where one user made it their trademark to always be using it in every post – needless to say, that person and I did not get along. I find it puts me off balance a little – as if I’m not really sure if this person is being sincere. It disturbs me, makes me wonder about that person. It often reminds me of bitchy girls in school who would use the eye roll constantly as a put down.

When you use the rolly eyes on the internet, I see it as you actually rolling your eyes like you were talking to me and you did it – and if you’ve just said something you intended as a compliment, I’m seeing it as an insult. I try really hard not to take it that way, but I wonder, how do people actually mean it? Am I supposed to interpret it otherwise?

I know not everyone interprets this the same way, but emoticons on the internet are really all we have to add tone to our writing. My advice is to think carefully before you choose the rolly eyes, and use it sparingly, if at all. There are better emoticons available out there.

I’ll be back soon with a photo blog. ;)

internet

Great How To Guide – Feeds & Feedburner

Leave a comment Posted on by Snoskred

Please note -update 23/08/2014 – Snoskred suggests that you DO NOT use feedburner anymore. :(

Sephy wrote a great how to guide with screenshots on how to integrate your Blogger RSS feed with Feedburner so that you can get detailed stats about your blog’s feed. Right now most blogger people probably don’t know how many people are reading their feed and this is a really good way to find out.

It’s also great because I really struggled with the layout of feedburner and kept having to ask him “what do I do now?” and I bet it got a little trying for him because every time I went there I seemed to have forgotten how to navigate around. Now I can just refer to this guide, which I have bookmarked YAY!

I find that some websites on the net are intuitive – as in, very easy for people to use. Some just don’t click for me. I’m lucky Sephy is my technical guru and always willing to help me even when I keep asking the same questions over and over. I can be a technical low wattage light bulb even at the best of times. This will probably come to people as a surprise – I seem like I am a technical master of things but what I am is more of an idiot savant – if you show me how to do something a couple of times I can remember it and even tell other people how to do it.

If there’s anything computer or blogging related that you want to know how to do, Sephy is offering to make a guide on that especially for you – and others. All you have to do is ask him – either in the comments section of his blog, or shoot him an email via the link on his blog. If you want him to keep it quiet that you were the one asking, he will happily do that and just pretend like I asked him. Its likely I did at some point anyway. ;)

Do you have a technical guru? Are you good with technical things, or do you struggle like me? Leave a comment and let me know.. ;)

blog housekeeping, feed readers, internet

Calling All Lurkers..

10 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Recently I merged all my RSS feeds into one feed and discovered that there’s a LOT of people lurking out there reading my blog via RSS. I’d like to take a moment to thank you for reading, and to ask you a few questions – if you could answer them in the comments or send me an email I’d be very grateful. :) I’d like to know a bit more about you.

Where are you from – you don’t have to give specifics, just which country is ok.

Do you have a blog of your own – if yes, do I link to it and if I don’t link to it would you allow me to link to it in the sidebar? If no, what would it take for you to get a blog of your own?

Is there anything I could do here on the blog to encourage you to comment more often?

Is there any particular topic you would like to see me blog about more often?

Could a how to post (with screenshots) on any particular topic help you? Is there something either blogging or computer related that you’d like to know how to do but have no idea how to go about it? If yes, which topic(s)?

I could ask a lot more questions but I don’t want to scare you off. :)

This post was also partly inspired by slouchingmom who mentioned on Blogrhet that she had asked lurkers to delurk. I thought that was such a great idea.. :)

blog housekeeping, internet

Alexa "Sparky" now works with Firefox 2.0.0.5

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Yesterday I got word that Alexa had finally released an official toolbar “Sparky” for Firefox users. I installed it right away but then two hours later Firefox told me it had an update – and the only extension that would not work with the update would be Sparky!

Just now Firefox popped up a box and told me that there was a new version of Sparky available that works with this version of Firefox, so I now have it back. Yay!

So if you want it, go and get Sparky. Finally Firefox users can have their voices (and their traffic) heard! Given that over 50% of the readers here use Firefox I’m hoping many of you will install it so a truer reflection of your visits here can be seen by the world.

blog housekeeping, internet

Please bear with us – technical difficulties

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

If you are viewing this with Firefox, it will all look fine. That’s because Firefox rocks. If you are viewing this with Internet explorer, you will see one entire sidebar missing which is now at the bottom of the site somewhere. That’s because Internet Explorer is pure evil.

Let me not get into my.. hmm, how can I word this.. prejudiced view of people who use Internet Explorer. I’m not racist or sexist or any other ist, except for *browserist*. ;) It’s wrong of me to think like that, it is unfair and I know I’m a browser snob but I can’t help it! I just don’t know how anyone could use Internet Explorer when Firefox exists. I know a lot of people end up using it by default and switch over when they know more about the interwebs.

I know a lot of workplaces make people use Internet Explorer but damnit, people, RISE UP and fight such stupidities! It’s pure discrimination in the work place, forcing you to use one kind of browser. In my opinion, this is just as bad as saying “you have to be heterosexual to work here”. But they’re saying “you have to use an evil piece of software to work here, and compromise everything you know to be right and good in the world”.

And no offence intended to you if you’re using it by choice. But if you are, this site will look pretty bad until Sephy and I figure out how to fix this. May I recommend..

Mozilla Firefox – get it here.

blog template, internet, work

Best free stuff on the net.

6 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

This post is must read, even if I do say so myself. Why is that? Because there are some things out there on the internet which are generally secrets unless someone tells you about them. I’m about to spill the beans on 5 things I use every day, things I cannot live without, things that make my life easier and they might make yours easier too. Let’s get started. I’m saving the best till last though, so read the whole thing.. ;)

Open Office

What is it?

They say – “OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.”

I say – a god send, manna from heaven, much better and easier to use than Microsoft Office but documents and things you create using it are compatible with it and similar programs and 100% free. Legendary. Download it, you will NOT regret it.

NVU (pronounced n-view)

What is it?

They say – “Finally! A complete Web Authoring System for Linux desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. Nvu (which stands for “new view”) makes managing a web site a snap. Now anyone can create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML.”

I say – The above is ABSOLUTELY TRUE! It is the easiest program I have ever used for designing a website and unlike other free web editing software, the code it produces does not make The Other Half break into a sweat to look at it – clean and good html.

Skype

What is it?

They say – “Skype is a little piece of software that lets you make free calls to anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world. And even though the calls are free, they are really excellent quality. If you and your friends, family or business contacts are using webcams, you can also make free video calls. You can even call landlines and mobile phones at really cheap rates.”

I say – the best of the instant messaging programs out there, with the added benefit of being a telephone and Skype In – phone numbers you can get in different countries that people can call you on. Say for example you had relatives in the US who didn’t have a computer. You could get a Skype In number in the USA and they can call you on it – saving much money in long distance phone calls.

Skype In is not free -it’s about 30 euros last I checked – but for me as a scambaiter it is worthwhile. I have two Skype In numbers (one in Australia and one in the UK) which I give out to the scammers and they can call me, I take the calls right here on my computer. Skype call credits are reasonably priced and I use it to call the scammers from time to time – usually just to say “It’s (character name) call me back RIGHT NOW” and then hang up on them. ;)

Gimp for Windows

What is it?

They say – “GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. ”

I say – looking for free photo editing software that is easy to use? This is it. Like any photo editing software it does take some learning to know how to use it but if you put in a little bit of learning time and effort you’ll be a master of photo editing in no time. And the good thing is, people love it so much they write excellent articles on how to use it, a good example is this article by Martijn Weisbeek.

EditPad Lite

What is it?

They say – “EditPad Lite is a general-purpose text editor, designed to be small and compact, yet offer all the functionality you expect from a basic text editor.”

I say – If it were possible to marry a computer program, this would be the one I would choose. Being the queen of disorganization I NEED this program to survive. It is as vital to me as breathing. Without it, I would be sitting in a corner somewhere rocking back and forth sucking my thumb. It is that essential to me. Some of the best things about this program include –

– you can use tabs, so you can have several text files open at once and flick back and forth between them. LEGENDARY!
– there is a reopen feature which I use, it tells you the last 16 files you had open. For someone whose text files folder contains over 500 text files and for someone who never names them in a way that makes any sense this is like oxygen. You won’t know how you lived without it once you have it.
– best of all, when you minimise it, the program goes to the system tray instead of being a little window at the bottom of your screen. I wish all programs did this.

What I have written here makes no mention of Firefox or Thunderbird, two other programs I use daily. I think that’s because they deserve posts of their own, it is just finding the time to write them. But just in case you are reading this and using Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook because you did not know you had other options, you want to take a look at Firefox and Thunderbird ASAP. You can do that at Mozilla.com – if you are anything like me, it will change the internet as you know it. There’s a lot of people who fight over which of these programs is better. I don’t get into arguments over it, I’ve used them both and I know which is better for me. To each their own but if you aren’t aware these programs exist it is worth checking them out.

I’m hopeful this was a useful post and if you have downloaded any of these and use them let me know what you think.

What free things on the internet do you use all the time?

I might like to use them too.. ;)

internet

Internet Safety Part 4 – Use BCC

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

From yesterday’s post, Em had a question –

What is your opinion of spam filters. My gmail one seems to work quite well and the spam doesn’t bother me because I don’t see it…

I’ve got about 40 gmail accounts actually. ;) Being a scambaiter, you tend to have a lot of email addresses. The spam stuff, like viagra and cialis and people trying to sell you stuff, gmail does reasonably well with. However, they do NOT do as well with the *scam* emails, and also phishing gets through on a regular basis.

You might not be getting much in the way of spam as yet, but if you have an email address which is anywhere out there on the internet, it will be coming to you as a surprise some time in the future. WHich leads me to an important point – *always* protect your email address by writing it like this – emailme at email dot com – mine you can see in the sidebar and it looks like this –

snoskred {at} gmail {dot} com

Here’s a screenshot from one of my email accounts which is on a scam blog. The people emailing it do not know it is on a scam blog because they use an email extractor program to get the addresses.

scamspam

The emails you see there arrived over the space of less than an hour. That account regularly receives around 40 emails per hour. That’s 960 emails a day. Can you imagine how this would mess up your inbox? ;)

For most people, a single gmail account with a spam filter might work just fine – until someone gives out your email address somewhere. It’ll start out being 3-4 spam emails a day, and keep going upwards until you want to throw things at people you’re getting so much of it. If you have one email account which you use for everything, it’s a real nightmare when that happens. And you would be surprised at whom is doing what with your email address as we speak.

I’ve done a lot of email warnings to scam victims over the years, and many times some of these people have decided I am their friend and added me to their forwards list. They then send me any “joke” or “inspirational” email that they stumble across during their interweb travels. The trouble is, they add all the email addresses as “cc” – carbon copy, which means me and everyone else who got the mail can see who it was sent to! That means, if a scammer or spammer gets their hands on it, they have a bunch of new targets to email.

So there’s the lesson for today – use BCC when you want to email to more than one person. *Blind* carbon copy – it means nobody else can see who you sent that mail to.

The reason I am suggesting the email plan rather than just one gmail account is because if you break it down into groups it is much less of a hassle when that account is compromised. I say when because it is highly likely to happen. :( Spam and Scam is getting worse, and there really isn’t much that can be done to stop it, so it is much better to be prepared. ;)

I hope that answers the question. :)

email safety, internet, Internet Safety, scams, spam, www safety

What you need to know about scambaiting.

Leave a comment Posted on by Snoskred

So as you may have heard, a little article was published in the Sydney Morning Herald as well as The Age..

It’s the same article as far as I can tell. And yes, I am the Taryn responsible, though of course Taryn is not my real name and may I just point out, if you’re using your real name on the internet, that’s not a good idea. People can track you down. Seriously. Don’t do it. It’s dumb-itty dumb and very dangerous.

Someone linked to the article on a discussion forum I hang out at and for some reason a mod there thinks it’s not ok to scambait so therefore has denied discussion which encourages scambaiting or tells people how to do it. Which is akin to handing people a loaded gun and refusing to give them instructions on how *not* to shoot themselves, in my opinion. If you want to scambait, you need to be doing it safely, and if you want to do it but nobody is allowing you to find out how to do it safely, that’s putting people’s personal safety at risk. And so the reason for this post. Sorry if the mod concerned doesn’t like it, but this is my blog and you have no power here. ;)

Scammers are criminals. They have been known to kidnap, torture, and murder victims. If you give them any personal information that they could trace you with, you could be in danger. So you need to make everything up. Fake names, fake addresses, and in fact make them somewhere far from where you really live. When I first started out baiting, I was pretending to be in the USA.

Secondly, the internet uses things called IP addresses (our little anonymous friend from yesterday will enjoy this bit) and those can actually identify your computer. For example – click here – every time you send an email your IP address goes with it, and someone who knows what they are doing can look at the headers of the email, and see your IP address.

But wait, there’s more, because every time you visit a website, your computer tells that website all kinds of information – such as your browser type, what kind of operating system you use, even right down to your screen resolution. People like me use trackers which take a copy of all of that information each time you visit here. That’s no problem if you’re a nice person who just wants to read my blog, but if you want to leave a nasty comment, you’re screwed, because all that info is right there just waiting for me to send it to your ISP. ;) which of course, I already have. So look forward to what Karma is bringing you, my little anonymous mate. ;) So you don’t visit scammer websites without knowing how to *hide* all that information.

Scambaiters need to know a few technical things in order to be able to do what we do. We’re pretty smart, it’s really not a good idea to mess with us.

Angry Snoskred, anonymity, internet, Internet Safety, scambaiting

Scambaiting in a nutshell

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

What is scambaiting? This one’s for the non-scambaiters visiting here.. ;)

Basically it is where someone pretends to be a “victim” – ie someone who is going to pay these scammers money.

You play along with their scam for as long as you can, wasting their time and hopefully their money – by getting them to make calls to you, of course you have to play it safe and not give them any real details.

Thanks to the internet and Skype In, you can get them calling you and you can talk to them. That is something I used to do a lot, but these days I am mainly a text baiter.

The more scammer time wasted by a scambaiter who knows it is all a scam, who will never send any money, and who will ask simple yet idiotic questions designed to make the scammers do actual work answering those questions, the less scammer time can be spent on real victims.

internet, scambaiting

Exposure.

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the girl with the one track mind saga. It’s a blog on the internet where a girl has been pretty intimately blogging details of her life. Somehow it got turned into a book and the girl decided to release it under a pseudonym – however, she may have forgotten for a moment that she lives in the UK, and that is the home of tabloid journalism. A newspaper found out her real name, who she really was, and then published those details.

I feel really sorry for her – I can’t imagine blogging that sort of stuff, let alone having everyone from your parents to everyone in your entire country then finding out you wrote it, and reading that kind of personal stuff.

That and another incident which I have been reminded of have led to this blog about baiters and our potential exposure. I personally would feel *safe* if my real information got out on the net, because I live in a country where there’s not too many lads, but I would be plenty not happy all the same. For some of the baiters reading this who live in the US, Canada, UK, Amsterdam and possibly even South Africa, there’s a lot more potential for harm actually finding its way to a baiter who is exposed.

So when any of us tell other people information about ourselves, we *trust* that information won’t be given to others. There’s been a couple of occasions where I have *deliberately* led fellow **baiters** astray about who someone actually is. Once it was for a joke, which the baiter himself came up with, and several of us went along with. I believe there are still some baiters who are completely unaware that it was a joke – I do not believe the baiter involved ever got a chance to dispel the myths about himself. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he got busy. And they *were* brilliant myths.. that was a heck of a lot of fun, that joke.

Once it was because unknown to other baiters, we have an incredible secret in our midst, which myself and only the baiter involved are actually aware of – as far as I know. There’s very good reasons to keep it secret and I certainly do not intend to share the secret here but the reason I mention it is.. underlying everything there has been a fear that it will get found out somehow. Looking at the One Track Mind blog, I cannot imagine the aftermath if it were to be exposed.

Those of you thinking you know what it is, you’re dead wrong. To make sure you realise this, I will now state that the secret is who someone is in real life, not who they are on the internet. Just so you know.

And now to other topics of lesser import.

1. Pride and Prejudice. I read it again. What a surprise, huh? I love this book. I actually have a big book with all Jane Austen‘s books in there – Sense and Sensibility, P&P, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan and Persuasion. I bought it for $20 a couple of years ago. The amount of times I have read it, I would hate to think. This is the book I always read in between other books. This is the book I always pick up when I go to bed, want to read a little, but am too tired to start a new book. The language is so soothing. It is almost as good as Shakespeare but my Shakespeare book is way too heavy to hold up in bed. :(

2. Indiana Jones and the temple of doom. I was playing this at work today and a kid who was about 8 years old got scared by it. Hello? What closet has this kid been sheltered in? So his Mother says to me “You should have something a bit more kid friendly on”. I said, this IS kid friendly, it’s PG rated, and most of the other movies I have which “look” kid friendly are packed full of swearing. I can’t play animation because it makes the screens look terrible and we’d never sell any. So while I was doing the invoice, she kept telling this kid not to look but he was mesmerized, and he was starting to get a bit freaked out, so I said to him, hey mate, don’t worry, he’s Indiana Jones and it all turns out fine in the end. It makes me wonder what kind of movies (if any) this kid is allowed to watch at home. It was the bit of the movie where the little kid has the voodoo doll and is stabbing it while Indy is fighting some guy. If something as simple as stabbing a voodoo doll makes this kid freak out.. I fear for his future in this world. BTW I am gonna order this, too.

3. I just watched Girl with a Pearl Earring. There’s never enough Colin Firth. Even the 6 hour Pride and Prejudice did not contain enough of him. The movie was good though.

That’s it for now, off to bed. Night all.. :)

Angry Snoskred, anonymity, books, internet, Internet Safety, movies, pseudonym