November 22, 2006

About Logging in to Leave Comments . . .

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 2:08 pm

I've been thinking . . .
I got this picture in my head this morning. Here’s how to make people in the 3-D world log in to leave correspondence.

  1. Move your mailbox inside your home.
  2. Lock the door.
  3. Place a sign where your mailbox was that says, “You must come to the door, ring the bell, and show identification to leave a message here.”

Is spam mail really that much of a problem — at home or on your blog?

Liz's Signature


Filed under Customer Think, Successful Blog |



C'mon. Let's talk!

61 Comments to “About Logging in to Leave Comments . . .”

  1. November 22nd, 2006 at 3:42 pm
    Leon said

    Unfortunately I think it is. Long before I got into computers I was used to throwing out 98% of my “mail” because it was all flyers. We could only opt out of all flyers, and some were useful, so I chose not to.

    I got an answering machine so I could work shift work and turn off the bell. That way I could sleep when the telemarketers made their nightly phonecalls.

    When I started blogging I found out about comment spam and tried to find a way to control it.

    We live in a culture that believes in aggressive advertising. We never learned to control it in realspace and things have only gotten worse in cyberspace.

  2. November 22nd, 2006 at 3:46 pm
    Mike said

    Liz,

    I was asking myself this very question today. Some live spammer from Lamba, India has started to leave droppings all over my blog. I gave momentary thought to requiring a login, but then I remembered what a hassle I went through getting cleared to add a comment over at Kent’s blog, and I thought “Nah. Not worth it for my audience.”

    Mike

  3. November 22nd, 2006 at 3:52 pm
    Kian Ann said

    Haha… At home here, we live in high rise apartment flats, and our mailboxes are locked by the postman, so it is impossible to spam our physical mailboxes unless you take a crowbar to wedge open the box. ;) Only the postman has the keys to unlock the flap to insert new mail.

    Blogs and email wise… spam can be quite a headache! Well, you have spam filters, which lessens the headache, but I guess there are bound to be stuff that shouldn’t be categorized as spam going into the spam box… and this can be annoying!

  4. November 22nd, 2006 at 3:53 pm
    Carolyn Manning said

    Liz,
    Actually, no junk mail seriously affects my life. What comes to the house can be tossed and what comes here can be clicked away. The thing that bugged me most were the calls from the telemarketers, so I used the DNC.
    Carolyn

  5. November 22nd, 2006 at 4:58 pm
    Scorpia said

    When I first opened the Lair, registration was required before anyone could post.

    However, commenting was at something of a minimum, which I found a bit disheartening. So in late September I took off the requirement and allowed open commenting.

    This has worked well so far, although, oddly enough, a lot of the comments come from those already registered (ah, sweet mystery of blog!).

    Spam does show up on a daily basis, but most of it has multiple links and so gets stuck in the moderation queue.

    There is the occasional “one-link” spam post, but that usually shows up in the “recent comments” section (which I expanded from five to ten because of the comment growth). And if there are many new comments, there are some older posts I check where spam seems to show up.

    Overall, right now I’m glad I moved to open comments. The spam, so far, has been easy to handle. I just hope it stays that way.

  6. November 22nd, 2006 at 5:06 pm
    Whitney said

    I’ve not had a huge problem with spam on the blog that I run for a non-profit animal rescue. I see a few spam attempts in my TypePad control panel, but they’ve all been blocked by their blocker/blacklister.

    Spam to my e-mail address (for the rescue, likely picked up from the main Web site) is a problem. Sundays seem to be especially bad, with nearly 60 e-mails flooding in each afternoon. My spam filter weeded it all out, until recently when some jerk somewhere fell upon the idea of using variations of the “Undeliverable Mail” subject line to get spam mail around filters.

    You open the first one because it is conceivable that one address on the distribution list you just mailed to might have been shut down. The e-mail turns out not to be one of those auto-generated server/admin messages and turns out to be spam. Within 24 hours, you get blitzed by a dozen more spam messages just like this. And they just keep multiplying. Sometimes, the sender name is clearly not someone you know and it’s easy to mark them as spam without opening them. Sometimes, it’s not so easy to tell (or they mask as someone else). I’ve gotten to the point where I’m gambling that all of these messages now ARE spam and am just not opening them.

    It baffles me that the spam problem keeps growing. These people all know no one wants to hear from them, no one is interested in what they have to “sell,” and that nearly everyone (those, at least, that understand the notion of “spam filters” and how to set them up) is trying their damndest to block them out. So why do they keep on? Why don’t they find something less annoying to do with their lives, careers, time?

    Of course, we’ve been asking the same thing about telemarketers for years and still there are companies that think telemarketing is the way to find customers.

  7. November 22nd, 2006 at 5:43 pm
    MamaDuck said

    No, I use Spam Karma and it catches 99% of the stuff. I know I have only registered on a few blogs (less than 5) and otherwise just don’t comment, it’s a lot of hassle and even on the ones which I HAVE registered for, it’s a pain to log in and comment so I don’t do it unless I really feel I must say something terribly important ;).

  8. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:10 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Leon,
    I agree about the intrusion. In fact, I have a whole post on spam drafted inside my blog. But I moderated my spam I don’t think I could make readers log in. I go through every comment every day just to make sure you’re not there. . . .

  9. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:12 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Mike,
    No one would mind if you turn word verification on. Everyone will know why. It is a pain to hunt down spam all over your blog. In fact, I’m always amazed when I don’t bump into a verification or a capcha. :)

  10. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:15 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Kian Ann,
    What a sensible thing that people can’t add to your mailbox. Unfortunately, people can pay to send mail through . . . :) And when you’re blog grows a bit bigger, as it will in the shortest while, don’t ask folks to log in find another answer. :)

  11. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:16 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Carolyn,
    I’m with you on those telephone calls. Now they’ve started one where the number that shows on my caller I.D. says “CELLULAR CALL.” I find that particularly irritating. I feel I have to answer on the chance it’s a friend in trouble. :)

  12. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:20 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Scorpia, of the newly designed lair!
    Aren’t we an interesting species? We don’t want to login, but we’re loyal. I think bloggers are fiercely independent sorts. I think it speaks highly of you and your blog that you have an audience who logged in to start with. :)

    Attributing low comments to the log in barrier was never better proved than when I mentioned this post today to a brand new blogger who answered, “We keep on going. Right/” I wasn’t the one who had given him that advice.

  13. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:24 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Whitney!
    Thanks for telling your story. It’s important that folks hear about such things and know that they’re happening.

    I’ve begun to think that our readers are only the spammers secondary audience and that WE are their primary audience now. That WE are the ones most likely to be reading spam as we sort through to look for false positives. WE know that it’s X% porn and what type of companies use it.

    I think they’re marketing to US.

  14. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:25 pm
    Kian Ann said

    Yeah I guess there isn’t a postal service that supplies “spam mail filter” yet eh… The good thing is that paying does deter spam (until today).

    The mechanism actually works quite well - we used to receive a lot of junk in the mailbox before that.

    Thanks for your advice once again! I’ll note never to get people to login! I dislike it myself!

  15. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:30 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Mama Duck,
    I’m like you. I’ll log in if I REALLY have something that needs saying. OR in the rare case that I know that the blogger is getting slammed with spam because of a post he or she wrote on a topic that’s controversial the way net neutrality was for a while.

    Oddly enough, however, the places I see the log in requirement most often is on blogs that are either

    1. Brand new and haven’t figured things out yet — so a word to the writer usually helps, if there is a contact email

    2. Blogs that are around six months or so. I have no idea why these blogs are like that — I can think of two that call themselves marketing blogs. You might think they would understand that the log in is a barrier.

    That perplexes me, or at least makes me wonder at their purpose for blogging.

  16. November 22nd, 2006 at 6:33 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Kian Ann!
    I’m not so certain I’d trust the Post Office to decide which of my mail to keep and which to toss. Spam filters aren’t perfect, but I suspect that they might be better. :)

    Your last sentence says something important. I’ll note never to get people to login! I dislike it myself!

  17. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:18 pm
    Kian Ann said

    Haha… that’s true - the part on getting post office to decide. :mrgreen:

    I think the best way to evaluate the user experience of a blog or website is to really go through the experience as a user yourself (or even better, get a friend who fits into the “typical user profile” do it!)

    If something irks you, then its probably going to annoy your readers too. :)

  18. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:23 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Kian Ann,
    You are wise. Don’t ever lose track of your first experience of anything and always invite a friend who can help you figure out how readers will respond.

    PS Here’s a question for you: Are you a “user”? Is that how you think of yourself?

  19. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:40 pm
    Kian Ann said

    I think I am a “user” in a sense that I feel that my blog readers (at least for my blogopreneur blog) would probably be as Internet savvy… so, I don’t have to explain every single term on the page like “blog”, “blogosphere”, or “search engine”.

    However, I know I will need to note that some things are just different for a real user.

    For example, if I put the link to RSS feeds right at the bottom, I know that the link to RSS feeds are right at the bottom, so I will scroll to the bottom and “find it easily”… however, the real user who just surfs on by will be totally lost! :)

  20. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:45 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Kian Ann,
    Really? I hear what you’re saying that “user” means someone who knows his or her way around the Internet. That for you it is a word that is a compliment.

    Maybe it’s because I’m a writer. I don’t really like to be that word. I’d rather be a reader, a visitor, or a customer. Those terms feel more human to me.

  21. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:45 pm
    Kent Blumberg said

    I’m convinced. I made log-in optional on my blog today, after reading your post. We’ll see what happens.

  22. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:47 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Kent,
    Metaphors are powerful, aren’t they? :)

    Turn on your moderation or verification no one will mind that. They’ll expect it from a high-powered guy with the readership that you have. :)

  23. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:47 pm
    Carolyn Manning said

    Liz,
    I’ve (so far) only had one spam comment and it’s not worth hassling everyone with the word verifications. They’re not only a tad insulting, they’re often hard to read.

    I thought cell phones were off limits to telemarketers
    Carolyn

  24. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:50 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Carolyn,
    Yeah, many of the spams I get are undecipherable.

    Sorry, I didn’t mean to mislead you. I wasn’t talking about getting spam on MY cellphone. I mean they call my land line and the I.D says THEY are calling from a cellular phone, instead of giving the name of their company.

  25. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:51 pm
    Kian Ann said

    Haha… maybe its also because I used to do more of software programming :mrgreen: yeah, reader and visitor sounds much nicer.

  26. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:53 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Sure, Kian Ann,
    That’s probably why. If you had been in marketing, you might call yourself “eyeballs.” Hae-hee.

  27. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:53 pm
    Kian Ann said

    Talk about cellphones - is SMS spam an issue there? I think it’d be terrible, and I’m already receiving (very occasional) SMSes on marketing promotions.

  28. November 22nd, 2006 at 7:57 pm
    ME Strauss said

    You know, Kian Ann, I don’t know if SMS is a problem here. I don’t think it is, because cellphone numbers are unlisted. When I got my cellphone I told my company even THEY couldn’t text message me.

  29. November 22nd, 2006 at 8:10 pm
    Kian Ann said

    Well, that’s great.

    I guess the same way that emails get spam, mobile numbers are starting to get spam too.

    Its not about listing them in the directory, but things like when you sign up for lucky draws, buy movie tickets online and stuff - they’ll just conveniently use the number for promotions.

    Because of that, I’m starting to get very careful where I leave my number, omitting it if ever possible - considering that getting a new mobile number is not as easy as registering another email account!

  30. November 22nd, 2006 at 8:12 pm
    ME Strauss said

    You would think that they’d get the idea that you don’t want to pay to hear from them about something you don’t want. :)

  31. November 22nd, 2006 at 8:26 pm
    Kian Ann said

    Haha… well, at least for us its still okay because we don’t have to pay for incoming messages.

    Its just annoying, just imagine you are halfway through a nap and then you have to drag yourself out of bed to read your message, only to realise its a useless message. heh.

  32. November 22nd, 2006 at 8:33 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Yes, I see it. SPAM is spam. :)

  33. November 23rd, 2006 at 2:04 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    I wish I could make all the local takeaways login before they put leaflets through my letterbox.

  34. November 23rd, 2006 at 4:10 am
    V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[ said

    Yes. Spambots are a huge problem. Have you never spent an entire day searching for spam comments to remove? I did once, prior to the comment moderation w/delayed posting and captchas of Blogger.

    I got email notification of comments, but the comments were posted automatically and I had a ton of comments to delete. Very time-consuming and I had to look at all these porn words and disgusting things.

    It’s not hard for a user to pass a character verification test, then wait a few hours to see their comment published. It’s no big deal.

    In fact, if a blog does NOT have comment moderation, I tend to consider it less credible, more amateur.

    Spam comments link to malware, virus and spyware attaching sites, porn sites, con artists, and when users click on spam comment URLs, it boosts the traffic hits for a splog.

  35. November 23rd, 2006 at 4:14 am
    V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[ said

    P.S. Come on people, wise up. NEVER open a spam email or click on a spam URL in a blog comment. Sheesh.

    When you open a spam email, like one reader has mentioned, you send a message back to the spammer that your email is a valid and active account, so the spammer sells your email to other spammers.

    I refuse to visit blogs that contain spam comments, since the spam URLs can be destructive or criminal.

  36. November 23rd, 2006 at 6:14 am
    ME Strauss said

    Thanks Steven,
    For your comments, the last thing anyone wants to do is encourage spammers into thinking that their spambots are working. I find it interesting how spambots seem to latch on one post of mine on my baby, brainy blog and pound it daily with their trash.

    In the case of the spam email, give my reader some slack. She admitted she’d never seen or heard of anything like it — a message using the “undelieverable return address” — how can we know what we don’t know? Not fair to tell her she shouldn’t have done that. I think she already said so. :)

  37. November 23rd, 2006 at 9:43 am
    Rico said

    From personal experience, I don’t think spam is too much of a problem. I check all my spam at the beginning of each day, seeing if any valid messages or comments were falsely incriminated, then delete them. I guess spending a little time each day managing it will go a long way.

    There’s a problem with this approach though: I fear the day I come back from Christmas vacation! :(

  38. November 23rd, 2006 at 10:08 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Rico,
    I check my spam about 17 times a day or more. It’s a problem that I have to stay on top of. In the morning I’ve had as many as 500 spams to go through. Happy sunrise that! :)

  39. November 23rd, 2006 at 10:22 am
    Rico said

    Gah. The price of fame (and fortune?) I guess.

  40. November 23rd, 2006 at 10:26 am
    Whitney said

    Sigh.

    I hate it when strangers jump to conclusions about each other’s intelligence. The tone of Comment #35 above really was unnecessarily impolite (the P.S.) and condescending. Good information (for those who read it and didn’t know it before then), bad tone.

    I’ve worked in the tech sector since the early 90s. You’re not talking to a newbie here.

    In the past, I’ve received the occasional, perfectly credible, “Undeliverable mail” e-mails…those auto-generated messages that come from servers when an e-mail address had been shut down (or can’t be found because the sender put a typo in the recipient’s address). These auto e-mails have “System Administrator” in the Sender field.

    So when I send several e-mails out in an afternoon and a message appears in my inbox from System Administrator and the Subject line is a perfect copy of one of the “Undeliverable Mail” Subject lines I’ve seen on CREDIBLE messages, I’m going to open it. To that point in time, I’d no reason to believe it was spam because, to that point, it had never been spam. Considering when it came into my inbox in relation to the e-mails I’d just sent out, it was perfectly plausible to think one of those e-mails had been kicked back. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing and, as you’ve noted, it only takes opening one to turn on the floodgates.

    Fortunately, the e-mails that have made it through my spam filter since are often easy to spot and tag as frauds without opening them; the senders are not very smart with their Sender names, or their Sender name is legitimate looking but something is off with their Subject. The drag is that I’m still having between 12 to 24 of these slipping through every day, despite how much I tune my spam filter, and it’s getting old. The other drag is that I no longer open the ones that DO look legitimate, because I no longer trust that they are.

    I feel bad for the people who are newbies who do get tricked into opening these messages because they haven’t yet learned (or been told) how to spot them. Maybe the whole discussion thread in response to Liz’s posting will be a *start* in getting the info to them.

    Liz, since you got everyone hopping with your post about spam, maybe you should move on to the other topic that gets people going — chain letters, jokes, hoaxes, and all the other e-mails that most of us have seen multiple times in the last decade but which are new to our friends who are just now finally getting active on the Web and, thus, feel compelled to share all this crap with us. As if I don’t have enough coming in from those friends, I even have some coming to me from people who read the rescue’s blog. ARGH!

  41. November 23rd, 2006 at 11:38 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hey, Rico, fame among spammers at least. :mrgreen:

  42. November 23rd, 2006 at 12:01 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Whitney,
    I totally understand your frustration. I would have opened the “undeliverable” email message too — to tune my list and ended up right where you are. Thanks for sharing your story so that folks like me can check more closely for jerks like them.

    As for chains, jokes, rumors, and hoaxes, I’m with you on those. I don’t send them; don’t pass them on; and don’t appreciate them. Rare is the one I think was worth interrupting someone for. Even then the list I would send it is no more than 4, but then, I don’t have so many friends. :)

    I’ve written about them in the past. You might be about it being time to write again soon. :)

  43. November 23rd, 2006 at 12:15 pm
    V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[ said

    I’m sorry, I did not mean to jump on any particular person, I never attack individuals, and especially in a such a friendly and compassionate forum.

    My anger is directed to the spambots and spammer humans. And I seemed to detect a kind of cavalier attitude about spam prevention.

    I feel we owe it to our readers (users, participants, visitors, whatever) to prevent spam from appearing. Just removing it from your blog periodically is not enough. If a porno, con artist, malware or spyware attaching spam comment sits in your comment field for even a few minutes, you are exposing your readers to potential harm.

    As far as the “Undeliverable” message spam, that’s a new one on me too, and it would have tricked me easily, so I am on no high horse here. I make idiotic mistakes all the time. It’s hard to keep up with the evil people and their schemes.

    :^)

    Be merciful. Give your smiley a nose to breathe and smell with!

    As far as “user”, this is a perfectly acceptable word technically and professionally, but some people may feel it’s cold or demeaning. We often use “user” to refer to someone who “uses” people as tools, or someone who “uses” dangerous legal or “illegal” drugs.

    Good debates here. Again, I never meant to be some bully or know-it-all. It is just a very serious error to allow spam comments on your blog, or to not prevent them.

  44. November 23rd, 2006 at 12:23 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Steven,
    We know you’re a good guy with a great brain who sometimes crusades away. No harm and no foul. Thanks for letting us know your intentions.

    I understand about “users” and though I like you and Rico, it’s the Google think that reduces people to numbers that I don’t like about that words. They don’t have the word customer anywhere in their company lexicon. I think that’s reflected in how well they serve their “users.” :)

  45. November 23rd, 2006 at 12:36 pm
    V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[ said

    Another reason I kind of flipped out is the whole issue of frivolous forwarded emails in the workplace. I”ve been debating that pretty hard at a bunch of IT blogs, including the IT @ Intel Blog, which has some guidelines for corporations.

    Chain letter emails, “forward this message to 5 people or be cursed”, and frivolous political joke or cartoon emails can potentially open an intranet up to viruses, loss of productivity, time wastage, etc. Especially when attachments or HTML email is involved.

    I never accept HTML email, and I don’t open emails or attachments from unknown senders. HTML email can have malware embedded that you cannot see, if I remember my malware-prevention training correctly.

    Where a family member works, employees who never get an company email messages feel left out. They want to play with email too. So, to compensate, they tend to be the ones who forward anti-Bush or anti-Hillary Clinton cartoons and chain mail emails to everybody else.

    Some say that it helps moral to allow employees to do such things. I disagree, but I’m no Einstein, and this whole web thing is so complex, isn’t it?

  46. November 23rd, 2006 at 1:45 pm
    ME Strauss said

    I’ve never heard that, Steven, about helping morale. Holy cow! There’s a rationalization for goofing off at work if I ever heard. I think there are better ways to boost morale than that.

    Too funny that people actually say that. Even worse that some believe it to be true. How does an environment have to be to rely on junk email to boost morale.

    I must go to a T-day event. Happy Day to you! :)

  47. November 23rd, 2006 at 4:20 pm
    candice said

    Vaspers, I used to never accept html mail, but I almost never read it outside of the shell (Shell tools are still faster for mail for me.) Crippling the html and still getting to read it works, and I don’t have to get annoyed at my customers for sending it to me. ;) Not seeing the stupid background image keeps me from getting annoyed at it.

    (Haven’t seen you arguing in your usual places lately. Good times.)

  48. November 23rd, 2006 at 9:09 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hey Candice,
    Even I’m getting cranky about HTML email these days. Does that mean I’m becoming a grownup?

  49. November 23rd, 2006 at 10:57 pm
    candice said

    Liz, be careful so you don’t turn into one of us cranky old programmer types complaining about all the stuff people use that they don’t need to. :)

    I just use a thingy that makes it look like formatted text instead of colors and blinkies and pictures and stuff. Thing is it’s a nerd email system. (But it is really good for managing the hordes of stuff I get from machines all day long.)

  50. November 23rd, 2006 at 11:00 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Candice!
    Are you really concerned that I’m going to turn into a programmer type? How hard are you laughing? . . .

    blinkies . . . Is that a technical term? :)

  51. November 23rd, 2006 at 11:53 pm
    Whitney said

    I’ve clearly been spoiled with my low-profile, small-niche animal rescue blog on Typepad. Few spam comments come in and what has attempted to come through got blocked by Typepad’s filter. The lack of spam comments there sort of balances out the amount of spam that comes into the rescue e-mail account.

    Stories of everyone’s travails with blog spam sent me into the WordPress documentation this evening to read up on the anti-spam tools/plug-ins that installed with my software. Then I went into the control panel for the blog I’m in the process of setting up for my business and tightened settings for links in comments and, taking a cue from several posters’ suggestions, turned on comment moderation.

    I followed Steven’s reference to the IT @ Intel blog; my workplace is sorely in need of guidelines for forwarded e-mails (chains, jokes, etc.). Used the search tool to look under topics like “productivity”, “security” and “enhancing productivity” to try to shake loose the guidelines he mentioned…but wasn’t coming up with anything that fit what he was talking about.

    Perhaps, Steven, you could point us to what you were talking about? I have a feeling there’s quite a few readers whose workplaces could use the information!

  52. November 24th, 2006 at 12:49 am
    candice said

    Yes. Also blinkenlights or blinkenlightzen…

    http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article09-100

    That looks like a good reference.

    I’m not at all concerned about you going programmer on us, either.

  53. November 24th, 2006 at 2:34 am
    V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[ said

    Guess what everybody? I just changed my comment spam prevention policy. I have removed Word Verification, or I should say, I am trying to do so. As luck would have it, Blogger is having technical difficulties in settings alterations.

    But Jim Estill at CEO Blog - Time Leadership tonight sent me an email suggesting I kill the word verification since I already have comment moderation. I am going to obey his advice. I just hope my Gmail inbox is not flooded with spam comments awaiting moderation every day, but then again, it’s not hard to click on them and hit Delete.

    As for corporate email policy, I debated this extensively at TechRepublic a while back, and the IT @ Intel Blog has links in some very recent posts that go to explanations. I’ll check the Intel Blog again and get back to you on that one, or give you my own list of recommendations.

    I’ve been performing blog surgery on my blog today also, slashing all my ads, the Amazon widgets, Digg feedroll, sidebar photos, etc.

    Whew! I’m full of turkey and totally burnt out. I work harder on holidays than normal days. No time off…ever. And I love it.

  54. November 24th, 2006 at 2:55 am
    V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[ said

    Okay: yes, at IT @ Intel Blog the most recent post, “Information Overload VI: JIT Coaching Redux” has a discussion of “good email behavior”, eMailAdvantageAssistant, Email Effectiveness Coach, and BP’s Outlook Analyzer.

    Read the post, click on the links, download the PDFs (I loathe PDFs, but they exist despite my hatred of them), and read the comments.

    I’ll be posting something myself on this issue, and I’ll get back to you all on it.

  55. November 24th, 2006 at 3:08 am
    V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[ said

    Here’s a good report link:
    http://www.marketinghire.com/careers/surveys/1105/corp_email_personal.htm

  56. November 24th, 2006 at 6:21 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Whitney,
    It looks as if you’ve gotten some response to help you out. :)

    I’m sure you knew they weren’t going to come from. :)

  57. November 24th, 2006 at 6:23 am
    ME Strauss said

    Candice,
    :) Thanks for help with my techical vocabulary. I like improve my ability communicate with those who speak other languages. :)

    I’m glad understand my vast lack of potential in the area of becoming a programmer geek (in the few months anyway.) That makes me feel understood. :P

  58. November 24th, 2006 at 6:28 am
    ME Strauss said

    Steven,
    I agree with your move to choose one — moderation or verification — verification on Blogger is a pain. (They really to drop about 6 of the typefaces they use. I think went to find my 8th grade teacher who believed every test should have 50% trick questions on it.

    Meanwhile, this whole is getting dangerously close to prompting me to write some bad poetry about it . . . Purposely bad poetry about tech stuff is one way I deal with my frustrations. An ode to Technorati Tags was the last one.

    Also thanks for leaving the helpful links.

    PS. I wish you’d find company in Peoria who wants to use the corporate Perfect Virtual Manager — Then I could come have dinner with you. :)

  59. November 24th, 2006 at 9:33 am
    Whitney said

    An interesting article about the recent influx of spam, titled “Pump-and-Dump Spam Surge Linked To Russian Bot Herders.”

    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2060235,00.asp

  60. November 24th, 2006 at 9:36 am
    ME Strauss said

    Thanks Whitney, for adding information to make this thread even more interesting and useful!

  61. January 28th, 2007 at 11:09 am
    Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Holy Spam! Batman! said

    [...] Related About Spam in my Spam Filter About Logging in to Leave Comments . . . [...]

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