Numbers of Spam

Joe posted a comment on the last post suggesting this whole spam thing was a fruitless experiment as it wouldn’t prove anything because you get spam messages in acounts nobody has the address for.

This is a very valid point and I think I mentioned the point before in the last post - either way here is my first update in terms of spam messages per each of the big services.

It’s a useful experiment to see which one attracts the most spam and deals with it the best.

Yahoo!

40 spam messages - 15 were in the main folder and 25 in the Junk folder.

Hotmail

25 spam messages - 8 were in the main folder and 17 in the Junk folder.

Lycos

12 spam messages - 6 were in the main folder and 6 in the Junk folder.

Gmail

No messages at all

So right now in terms of spam messages in total Google is leading the pack followed by Lycos then Hotmail and Yahoo are last with the most spam.

But in terms of the services that deal with the spam best (numbers in Junk folder v numbers not in Junk folder) I’d say Hotmail has done the best but none have done THAT well - letting through some pretty obvious spam messages.

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Goodbye and thanks for all the spam

I don’t like comment spam or comment spammers - they’re horrible horrible people and should be ashamed of themselves - however - one thing I do like about comment spam (as Askimet catches the LOT) is that it gives me a very rough idea of how popular the blog is.

The way I see it - the more links coming in, the more spammers find me, the more popular I am - or something like that anyway.

That’s not the point of the post though, I’ve blogged enough about spam lately and really am not that interested in the subject - the point of the post is to say that there won’t be many posts for a week or so.

I’ll be spending the next two weeks visiting my family, becoming a godparent, turning 25 (ouch!) and generally trying to keep away from blogging, computers and the internet - although I expect there will be one or two posts while I’m away - I’m only human after all.

Ben Metcalf is turning 25 this month as well and where I’m going on ‘holiday’ to Hemel Hempstead, he’s getting ready to move to San Fransisco - still I do get to live year round in Jersey so ho hum.

I do like the concept of a pre-mid life crisis though, I sometimes feel that way and have been feeling it a lot more recently where I’m starting to think of moves to London and getting more involved with developing new media concepts instead of spending my working day writing about ’stuff’ in Jersey for the bbc.co.uk/jersey site.

The problem is leaving Jersey when my wife and two children are Jersey born would be a massive leap of faith AND then to possibly leave the BBC (don’t know how easy it is to get into the more ‘up in the sky’ areas of BBC New Media) would be a tough decision.

But I am desperate to get back into development and new media concept work - I miss the buzz of coming up with a new idea or seeing something you thought up/created being used in the real world -  so might be a risk worth considering (if it wasn’t for the family being so tied to the island).

If you’re really interested I’m going to Hemel Hempstead, back to my old home town - within two weeks I’ll be longing for lunch on the beach in Jersey but I’m going to see the family not the sights - so it will be great fun.

Anyway - Goodbye for now and … thanks for all the spam.

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Video + Audio = Happy Me

OK so I don’t have a video iPod - I use my iPod to either listen to music (becoming less frequent since my podcast listening increased) or to listen to podcasts while I’m doing other things - thus maximising my ’spare’ time.

In fact if this or any of the posts you might of read this evening have been a bit shoddy it’s because I’m catching up on Leo Laporte’s brililant KFI Tech Guy podcast while typing.

Anyway I’m straying - where was I? Oh yeah the video iPod.

I’ve avoided getting a video iPod because the Nano does what I need it to do - hold a few hours worth of music and a few hours worth of podcasts to fill the silent void while walking to work, walking to get lunch - even just walking up the stairs.

Which is why I don’t download video podcasts - or at least I didn’t until all this fuss about Rocketboom, I downloaded tonights Rocketboom to see what this British girl was like.

Unfortunately when it had downloaded and I clicked on it to listen in all I got was the picture and no sound - I might as well have been looking at Amanda Congdon.

I had downloaded a Rocketboom episode before it all kicked off and it was a pleasant break for a couple of minutes while waiting for the publishing system at work to be restarted - she’s pretty, quicky and well…. fun.

The new girl, Joanne Colan, seems to be (with the sound out) more or less the same person - sharing similar manarisms, a similar body type and general persona.

I decided I had to get the ‘video sound problem’ sorted - first step should really have been help but as I’m a man the first step was a big mallet.

Actually the first step was to load Quicktime and see if it worked in Quicktime outside of iTunes - same problem so I played with various settings to see if that worked - nothing.

So to test whether it was a sound card problem (all other sound things work fine) I loaded it into VLC and it worked without a problem - but that doesn’t really help as, if I intend to subsribe to it, I’ll want to watch it in iTunes.

Oh and when I did watch Joanne with the sound up she is very different to Amanda, I think she’s great but as a Brit myself, I don’t think her accent suits that style - I think she could do wonders with the role but it might need a bit of a tweek first.
Back to the story - This is where I finally admitted I was lost and agreed to ask for directions - a quick Google for “no sound in iTunes for Video Podcasts”, a few stupid clicks, a few browser back clicks, another click to Apple, another search for “no sound with video podcast” and I find out that the only way to sort it is to find a mirror for an older iTunes/Quicktime and roll back.

Apparently it looks like the latest version of iTunes and Quicktime (on the PC) stuff up when playing video and don’t play the sound.

I haven’t tried it with anything that isn’t a video podcast as I don’t have any video that isn’t a video podcast to try it with, but according to the Apple Forums it happens with any video including music videos brought from the iTunes music store - which is nice!

I can’t be arsed to roll back so I’m going to leave off the Video Podcasts until Apple release the next version of iTunes and hope that works.

Love and Turnips

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The Spammable

If you read the last post in response to Cameron’s ‘30 day no spam challenge’ you’ll know that I was really struck on the idea and was thinking of a way of taking it on and doing something similar.

Initially I figured I’d do the same thing as him and then compare the results but towards the end of the post decided it would be better to try something different.

What I’ve decided to do is sign up for an e-mail address from each of the four mail free providers, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo and Lycos then take that address and publish it ONCE on this blog post.

After I’ve posted it here I don’t intend to do anything else with it myself other than check the spam volume every few days or so - I don’t even intend to post the e-mail addresses again on the post about the spam volume.

Here are the addresses:

Yahoo: upyouregoblog@yahoo.co.uk
Hotmail: upyouregoblog@hotmail.co.uk
Lycos: upyouregoblog@lycos.co.uk
Google: upyouregoblog@googlemail.co.uk

Although I’m not personally going to do anything other than post the e-mail addresses on this blog post YOU can re-post them anywhere you like.

Post them on message boards, in chatrooms or on your own blog - the goal is two fold…

First - see how quickly something can spread online from a single post on an insignificant blog

Second - see just how much spam can be generated through posting an e-mail address online and which provider generates the most spam.

So go for it - do your worst - post it everywhere.

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‘No Spam Challenge’

Cameron Kollwitz has set himself a new challenge - the 30 day no spam challenge - this challenge involves signing up for a new e-mail address, not publishing it anywhere on the web and singing up for various services that say they don’t sell your e-mail address for a period of 20 days.

The goal is to find out how many of those services actually do sell your e-mail address - he will write about it each day in his blog and eventually will write to each company he signed up for complaining about the spam - or at least that’s what I understand of it.

I love this idea - personally I have my own mailbox through my webhost so don’t really use free email addresses (although I do sign up for them) for anything other than signing up for other services - they do still fill up with spam though - despite not publishing the address or telling anyone other than these service providers.

I actually think this project could go a bit further than just Cameron’s brave attempt - I think we should all give it ago.

Head over to Yahoo, Google or Hotmail, sign up for a free account - don’t publish the address online but do sign up for as many services that promise not to sell your address as possible.

Then after ten days or so document the services you’ve signed up for and publish the volume of spam you’ve recieved.

If I wasn’t about to head off on holiday I would give it a go myself. In fact what I might try is the opposite - sign up and then publish the e-mail address on a single blog post - not tell anyone else or any other service about it and sit back and see how much spam I get in say 1 month.

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Traditional media ‘could crush’ blogs

Victor Keegan writes in the Media Guardian about sites like Digg, blogs and social editing of news stories.

In the article he looks at how the world as a whole and not just the media industry is changing through democratisation - that as technology gets easier and cheaper not only are users creating their own content but they’re publishing it too.

I was with him up to this point, I thought the way he was talking about the wisdom of crowds in editing the stories and how newspapers could do well to look at these sites, was spot on.

However, he then starts to get a bit old media like as he looks back to the Today newspaper and how other more established papers in the UK crushed it by adopting it’s technology.

He’s basically saying papers can do the same to sites like Digg by adopting a similar facility for user editing or by newspapers blogging.

The one thing that did interest me about his article was near the end (get past the crushing references) and he makes some interesting points about how a site with a strong brand (such as The Guardian, The Times & even The Sun) have the ability to survive in a fully democratic media world by adapting to the users desire for control but by playing on their own strong content and the fact that they have a trusted brand.

I basically agree with him in that the established, trusted brand have a strong edge over sites like Digg - mainly because of the fact that they have the content that is linked to most by sites like Digg - but also because they have the marketing budget, user base, brand and content to keep people coming back.

After all if you go to digg, see a story you’re interested in - the most prevelant link is the one to the newspaper, blog or other news site so the users are coming back to you anyway.

If that newspaper than gave the users a similar facility to Digg (let them vote up a story they like and comment on it) you might find them not going back to Digg.

read more | digg story

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Dear Google, Don’t be Evil

Given my latest blog entry about following the trend of the blogosphere creating bigger reaction to blog posts, I figured I’d have a go at this whole Dear Google thing that seems to be kicking off at the moment.

Al Scillitani over at Marketing Pilgrim wrote a blog post a few days ago talking about the annoying changes over at Google Adwords with the title ‘Dear Google, You’re Giving me a Headache‘.

Because of this post Google sent Al a couple of painkillers and a letter with the line “I hope this helps you keep up with the many adwords changes”.

Al says on his most recent blog post “After a meeting at Fortune Interactive, where I was actually discussing Google reporting, I went to my desk and found an envelope from Google. I opened the envelope and a small pack of acetaminophen fell out.”

The letter from Google suggested a visit to the Inside Adwords blog over at Google - Al gave it ago and is now planning his next post ‘Dear Google, I need a Vacation’.

After this being dug over at Digg a whole host of ‘Dear Google’ posts have been cropping up including the obvious ones like ‘Dear Google, Send me money’ or ‘Dear Google, Please pay for College’.

I couldn’t think of anything better so decided to go with ‘Dear Google, Don’t be Evil’.

Around the Blogosphere

Chris Abraham asks if this is a Good PR or a Dick move by Google, Rachel talks about her love for the Blogosphere and Blogger Skills looks at the fact that Bloggers are being listened to.

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Bloggers Blog Blogging

It’s been a while since my last proper new media post so I thought it was time to pull out a blogging one I’ve been storing up in my notebook for a few weeks.

One of the things I’ve noticed over the last few years of blogging is that posts about blogging, the blogosphere and new media things in general get a bigger reaction than the more original posts.

It’s not just posts talking about blogging either, it’s posts that talk about subjects big in the blogosphere right now – the posts that follow the pack, contain ‘hot’ tags or generally do what everyone else is doing get the biggest reaction.

Now this might be because I’m a nobody blogger with hardly any readers but I do thing there is something in the trend.

When I come up with a unique post, even the ones that have a huge number of links out to other blogs and sites, an entry about something new or original it barely gets a look.

When I blog about a current hot topic (look at Technorati, pick a story on the front-page and write about it), it gets a big reaction – comments, links and more views.

The same applies to posts about blogging, blogs, the blogosphere, podcasting or something of that ilk – although this one may be the exception to the rule.

So to try and prove a point I’m going to go to Technorati, find two top tags (that I have a passing knowledge of), write a paragraph long opinion and include a few links to other blogs.

I’ve had a look at Technorati and there isn’t anything in the hot tag words that spark anything inside me so I’m going take two treatments.

First I’m going to click on two, see what the fuss is about and write based on that information. Secondly I’m going to pick two and write based on the word alone – then go through, find a couple of blogs and randomly link to them.

First the list:

1. Israel

2. Lebanon

3. Microsoft

4. Bush

5. ZIDANE

6. Yahoo

7. Online

8. China

So let’s start with Microsoft and Online as the two for further investigation before sharing my opinion on the subjects.

Microsoft

The biggest challenge with the word Microsoft was getting past the obvious advertising blogs, the whole first page is practically full of the bloody things

But when you get past that point you reach talk of Microsoft Live changing it’s name, something to do with Xbox Live (Word 2007 auto corrects Microsoft words to the right branding format) and the bit that interested me the most (and very nearly had a post of it’s own) the fact that MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger will be able to talk to each other.

Online

I had very low expectations for Online as a tag but am pretty pleasantly surprised, it’s given me a few interesting new stories that I wouldn’t have considered looking at otherwise.

The first post that caught my eye was a blogger blogging about a bloggers blog (yes I see the irony) – basically some Blog fan purists are a bit peeved at Nick Denton closing two blogs in his blog media network – it also looks at the monetisation of blogs generally.

There were a load of other things in there as well and for the sake of experimentation here are a few random words and links to click on: RSS, YouTube, Autism, Punch and spam.

The reason there isn’t a link on spam is twofold - first I don’t want to link to spammers as they are good enough at getting hits without my helpd and secondly there are two many spam blogs for me to work out which one to link to.

I thought comment spam was bad but Technorati (under certain tags) is flooded with the bloody things.

Time to go random

Now to the random words with an even more random entry on the subject – here is where I pick another two from the top eight, write something on the word and then link to sites after I’ve written my bit.

Lebanon

I don’t really know what to say here (but that’s why I’m going random with it I suppose), I was listening to a BBC podcast this morning (Today I think) and they had interviews with someone from Lebanon and someone from Israel.

The Lebanon guy was basically saying “we’ll give your guy back if you give our guys back” and the Israeli guy basically said “shut the hell up, we’ll get our guy back anyway, you attacked us and we have bigger muscles”.

Bush

Jersey’s Broncage season is coming to an end soon – Broncage is basically where islanders with bushes facing the road have to go out, trim them back to a certain maximum level and clear the path.

If you’re bush isn’t back far enough you get a fine – they measure the bushes around the island in some weird ceremony. My Mother in Law was out most of the last few weeks on her little stall with hedge clippers in hand getting it clear before the men and women in suits carrying clipboards walk around the roads of Jersey.

Time to publish

In the time it took me to gather all the links together, put them into place (using Wordpress) and get ready to publish the article - Online and China had been replaced in the Hot list by Iran and Sex.

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Two year old terrorist

According to the Thomson Fly call centre we need photographic ID for my two year old son to travel within the British Isles.

Until recently the advice we were given was that as long as we take a Birth Certificate and travel with the child he wouldn’t need photo ID.

In fact, it wasn’t just for him it was for any child under 7 - but we had to call Thomson Fly to double check our flight information and decided to make sure the information on the Photo ID was correct - that’s when the guy told us we HAD to have photo ID or we would be turned away at the airport.

He didn’t respond to well when I said “my two year old might be a little monster but he’s hardly a terrorist”.

I wasn’t convinced the guy really knew what he was talking about so I decided to phone the Servisair handlers at Jersey Airport and they basically told us that the photo ID thing wasn’t true at all, that they didn’t think we needed ID for a two year old.

This wasn’t overly conclusive as the guy sounded like he was about 15 and on work experience so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to double check with Coventry Airport where the vast majority of flights coming in and going from are Thomson Fly flights.

After going round in circles on their phone system for a while, I eventually got through to a wonderful woman called Sarah who couldn’t do enough to help.

Basically she told us the Thomson Fly call centre gave us the wrong information - she said that, as long as the children are under 16 and that they are OUR children we didn’t need, not just photo ID, but any ID for travelling within the UK.

She even went as far as adding a note on our booking so people in Jersey know and calling the call centre to let them know they’re giving the wrong information.

To be honest though I’ve got a big problem with having to carry photo ID when I travel within the UK anyway - I’m a British Citizen and I shouldn’t have to prove it.

Call Centres

I personally have no problem with the outsourcing of call centres to other countries as often I’ve found the people on the other end to be more polite and courteous - less obviously bored with life BUT there are a few downsides to this and one is the lack of local understanding.

Someone within the UK would probably share the sense of anger at needing photo ID for a 2 year old and would look at it from a different perspective (other than the one written on the sheet in front of them).

But then it’s interesting to look at other countries perspectives on things that annoy or excite the British.

I was talking to a German a few weeks ago and he commented on the fact that the Jersey cars didn’t have the blue strip and EU flag and that some British cars in Jersey didn’t have the flag either.

When I said it was because in Jersey we’re not in the EU (States of Jersey decided the Blue Strip wasn’t even allowed and a Jersey Crest should be there instead) and in the UK people don’t want to be forced into something by the EU - he looked genuinely hurt.

It’s the differences that make the world interesting.

Ticket Price

I know I should feel bad about buying cheap airplane tickets because of the impact they have on the environment but it’s a short flight (45 minutes) and I only do it with the family twice or three times a year so I’m sure I can reassure my self.

The flight cost (before taxes and charges) about £12 return for the whole family - add airport charges and taxes and the price goes up to about £180 but that’s not a bad return fare from Jersey to Coventry in the middle of the summer.

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