Category: blogs

Comments

I have to give one particular spammer credit. His comments are often somewhat relevant to my blog. His email and link fields are the give away of course. But what makes me laugh is while the comments are often relevant, they are 99% of the time posted to the wrong post. I’m curious to know what program or bot he uses because the comments are almost comprehensible enough to be written by a live human…almost.

Sadly (for him), the filters are adequate enough to catch 100% of his many comments and they get moved to the trash bin w/o fail. Should you happen to be reading this, maybe if you tried spamming less, your comments would get thru.

Advice

I have a friend who has been in military service for over two decades. He and I met when I was still in my early 20’s and ended up becoming friends. While we don’t talk often, we do catch up from time to time. John (not his real name, duh) has always depended on me to give him honest advice, even if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. It is and has been a strong tenant of our enduring friendship. He knows he can’t bullshit me but he also knows he can be perfectly frank w/o fear of judgment. He often confides in me with details he doesn’t really feel he can share with anyone else.

Being in the military creates a set of challenges for keeping ones work and sexuality somewhat separate. Even now that DADT has been repealed it is not as rosy as some would have us believe. So the other day, I’m busily calling him out on some of his more bizarre, and often conflicting, standards for meeting, hooking up, and/or dating guys when he tells me I should start a sex-advice blog. I laughed so hard I almost fell off the sofa. And he was serious! While I certainly flirted with the idea of giving advice to others via my WWMD [1]What Would Moby Do? posts, I have no plans to start such a blog. I was very tickled by his enthusiasm though and told him I’d also mention it here for all of you.

I think he is just a tad bit naive and gives me more credit than I’m due. Being cooped up the in military his whole life, his views are definitely skewed. lol Lord knows if I was so good I wouldn’t be piecing my own life back together after yet another failed LTR. But of course, it is often easier to be more objective about other people’s problems than our own. I’m certainly no stranger to giving others my opinion and/or advice. Why I could write a whole book on all the advice I’ve given brettcajun over the years. [2]Advice that he routinely ignores mind you.

I do try to follow a solid rule when it comes to giving (or accepting) advice. That is I am hearing said person’s version of events. Their version may not always be the whole truth or even the truth at all. So giving/accepting advice should always be under the proviso that it is based only on the situation as presented. If you are accepting advice based on a limited version of the whole picture, you are asking for more drama IMHO.

The flip side is realizing when we are close to a problem. We all have a tendency to justify our behaviors or actions. We seek advice that coincides with our own desires or wishes. The trick is knowing how to be objective while still maintaining a fair overall view of events. Or at the very least, acknowledge our own short-comings and accept that the advice presented may not be what we hoped. Not always an easy task.

So no, I won’t be starting a sex or even relationship advice blog. I’ll certainly keep blathering away here with my .02 and life experiences so feel free to tag along and glean whatever you can from my mistakes.

🙂

References

References
↑1 What Would Moby Do?
↑2 Advice that he routinely ignores mind you.

Comment

Interesting factoid. Ever since I commented on the other site a while back about the reparative therapy guy preaching how he wasn’t really cured of ‘the gay‘ but was turning his life over to [insert deity of choice] my junk mail has taken on a very ‘christian’ theme. lol Co-weenky-dink or God’s gentle people being a bit bitter? You decide.

Either way, all new comments get held till I can log in to review them. This catches about 99% of the wackos. Sometimes, I read thru them just to get a good laugh.

On a side rant, some of the s p @ m m e r s are getting creative. Some of the comments are relevant to the post but the outgoing links are to junk sites. lol Don’t they know I check ‘sheet‘ before it’s approved? lol

Change

I was looking back over my archives the other day and I was struck by how many bloggers have come and gone in the last 10 years. I miss reading their blog updates. It was a fun & new way to express yourself. And with sites like Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal, Typepad, etc it was easy. For me, it was a natural transition from my attempts at keeping written journals to online. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. One, I could teach myself to be more introspective and two, share my experiences with others.

I know many have succumbed to the pull of Facebook, twitter, etc. I can’t blame them but I find I use FB less and less every day. I’d abandon completely if I could. Every time a new funny saying or fake smart-ass gift card comes out, my stream is overwhelmed with it. No thanks. I still like twitter and Google+ but even they don’t really seem to hold my attentions much. Primarily, it becomes information overload. Important or significant details get lost in the minutia. I’ve been really slow to build circles on Google+ to avoid this. Granted, it keeps my stream pretty bare but thats ok.

Looking back, I got tickled at how often I blogged about absolutely nothing. I’d just sit down and ramble about nothing and make a whole post out it. lolol These days I tend to blog more when I have something to say. I still try to do daily journals to myself but I keep those private as not to overwhelm my subscriber base. I had tried just posting frivolous stuff via FB and Foursquare but I got bored with that too. Honestly, no one cares how many days I go to the gym, what I had for breakfast, what color my last bowel movement was, [1]TMI? lolol etc.

So I find myself coming back to my blog more and more these days instead. This way I can focus on what I really want to share. It may not always be overly important but that’s ok too. I figure if you really wanna know what I’m doing you’ll check here. I always seem happier when I’m blogging.

🙂

References

References
↑1 TMI? lolol

Bounce

Ok, gents. I’m getting several registered accounts on my blog with email bounces. I appreciate everyone who has signed up for subscriptions but you need to either use a valid email account or one that isn’t full.

I don’t like deleting accounts but if it continues I will have no choice. I’ll try to contact you, if I can, prior to deletion but I can’t micro-manage le blog so I am asking for your help. Please, puh-lease update your account if your emails invalid or you use an account where it might be full.

Thanks a bunch! 🙂

New

If you are a first-time commenter or new user, don’t sweat it if if your comments don’t show up right away. Once I initially approve a comment, future comments should show up right away, providing you log-in the same way.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints and the large number of s-p-a-m comments I get in the moderation que, it can take a few hours/days before I get to your legitimate one. I try to log on once a day but I don’t always find the time so bear with me.

🙂

ooops

I somehow managed to delete my last post. I’ll try to repost it when I have more free time. Damn mobile app. lol

Mobile II

I’ve been tinkering with converting my blog to an app on Android. No, I’m not taking up Android programming, you can find a few sites online that will convert and compile it for free, albeit ads included. So far, I’ve created three very basic but different versions. All three are just wrappers. [1]meaning it’s just wrapped in a user interface

The first one is via WP-Appmaker and I like it the least. It renders very well but has no push notifications so you have to manually update it anytime you want new data. IMHO this completely defeats the purpose. The only real option you have is to sort posts by category. Considering it forces ads on you (I understand why) it should include more options.

The second one is with JoeMobi and had the most potential. Creating the app on their site was very buggy and time-consuming. If you forgot to fill out a required field or it didn’t like what you were trying to upload, you’d  get an error. You think have to start all over from the very beginning. This one also renders w/ads but it includes push notifications. Push means the app would update itself anytime I post something new. It was also the only one that supported comments directly from the app vs having to link out to the web and then post a comment. Sadly, I couldn’t get the in-app new comment part to work. However, unlike the other two, you could see existing comments. It also works with a Blackberry if you have one of those.

The third one is thru Conduit. It’s not bad. Choosing or creating your own unique colors and layout were much easier to use for a novice. Unlike the others, it does not force ads on the reader. Conduit was the only free one to offer the option to include your twitter feed as a separate tab. This one would be perfect if they ever added comment support.

There were about 6-7 other sites that do the same thing but they were mostly geared toward businesses and charge some pretty hefty fees. I don’t have the money for such things right now. One worth mentioning was Mippin. It was unique in that you could tie in FB fan pages, twitter, picasa, flickr, etc. They charge a flat $99 fee for a two-device app. Sadly, it still doesn’t support comments.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining about the 3 above as they are free! But, you also get what you pay for. I wouldn’t have minded the in-app ads had they given me the option to make a portion of the revenue after a certain point. Yes, I realize that’s how they make their money but ads for such basic wrappers is kinda overkill IMHO.

I’ve included links to the apk files for all three versions I created. If you’re on an Android device, just select the links below. As mentioned, they are very basic but feel free to play with’em, if ya like. Also keep in mind, you’ll have to click the allow unknown installs on your Android device before it will let you install them. There is NO SUPPORT with the apps. If you don’t like, simply delete’em off your device. They are too basic to cause any problems but I can’t guarantee they’ll work with old versions of Android.

 

The WP-Appmaker version

 

The JoeMobi version

 

The Conduit version

 

If I ever decide to upgrade them, I’ll post a new update.

References

References
↑1 meaning it’s just wrapped in a user interface

Comments

So I’m considering disabling my janrain plugin and switching to Intense Debate. I’m taking feedback from anyone who has used Intense Debate as an end user and/or on your own site.

This really only affects folks that log in via universal log-ins like Google, OpenID, twitter, etc. Those of you who have your  own log-ins here, won’t be affected. [1]This means you still have access to all the “private” stuff I post from time to time. heehee  The janrain plugin is easy to install but the back end setup takes more programming knowledge than I have to keep it running correctly. Plus, every time one of the big players update their api’s I end up having to start over with fixing it on my end. I don’t really have the time to screw with it. I like janrain because everything remains in-house, meaning all my comments are stored in my blog, not on someone else’s servers. This removes any problems with people not being able to comment if afore mentioned other servers go down.

There are a variety of comment management systems out there. I don’t like Disqus as I always have problems trying to use their platform from mobile devices. For whatever reason, the log-in mechanism never seems to go thru. Even worse, the comment box doesn’t seem to come thru as an actual box so I can’t activate the keyboard to type. Since about 70% of how I access blogs these days is thru mobile devices, I sure as hell ain’t planning to shoot myself in the foot. lol

Intense Debate seems to be very tightly integrated with WordPress. Instead of trying to hold all my comments, they sync with my WordPress installation. In simple terms, they keep comments added thru their platform on their servers but they also sync with my WordPress installation. In a nutshell, this means I get to keep my old and new comments. And, if I ever decide to ditch the platform I still keep all my comments. But wait, there’s more! I also don’t have to worry about mobile comments as my mobile plugin uses the WordPress built in comment system, which gets synced! I remember way back when I migrated from Blogger to WordPress, I lost all my comments. They didn’t have an import-comment function then and to do it manually was more headache than I wanted to research. Intense Debate also offers a variety of log-in options built into their platform. That means I don’t have to manage it on my own. You could still leave comments via your favorite universal long-in.

The only problem I can foresee is a user conflict if/when I switch over. Even when using universal log-ins, WordPress creates an internal user account on my blog tied to your email. I don’t know if a different platform like Intense Debate would understand if it’s the same user account or try to create a new one, which would generate a conflict. I sent Intense Debate an email asking how it would work since I couldn’t find anything in their FAQ or support pages.

Wish me luck!

References

References
↑1 This means you still have access to all the “private” stuff I post from time to time. heehee

Banned

Someone got banned by my spam blocker today. lol Apparently, his IP address was being used to hammer my admin account in an attempt to crack my blog. tsk, tsk! heehee I’ve removed the ban as I know it wasn’t him but I’m tickled it was his IP address. [1]A prime example of why you should never use your default admin account in WordPress.

As a reminder, if you find you can’t access le blog, email me and I’ll look into it. A good first-step is to try to access it from a different location or internet connection. Spammers often hijack open wifi points and/or unsuspecting users and use their computers to do all their dirty work. I see it time and time again sadly. While few sites are truly hack-proof, a few precautions go along way to keep out the bad guys.

Don’t randomly open links/files in emails that you weren’t expecting, even if it is from someone you know. If you use Chrome, they do a good job of blocking malware sites but it’s never 100% foolproof.

Don’t fall for “your account as been locked or suspended, here click on this link and verify your info…” scams. You can do like I do and manually type the link into your location field of your browser of choice. That way you know you aren’t being spoofed.

On a follow up to that, most email clients allow hover functions. Meaning if you hover the mouse over a link it shows a tiny pop up window that displays the actual link. If it is different, in any way from the one displayed, don’t click it.

When you aren’t using your computer/laptop, shut it down . The old adage about ruining your pc by turning it off/on too much is really nonsense. You’d have to do this a 100 times more than the average user to really cause a problem.

At the end of the day, do like my Maw-maw always said, “believe none of what you hear, and half of what you see.”  In other words, if it sounds suspicious don’t just click it like an idiot.  lolol

Oh, and welcome back Brett.

References

References
↑1 A prime example of why you should never use your default admin account in WordPress.