Comment Spam on Increase

Posted on 01/10/2010 by editor

Maybe it is related to the holiday season, buy the comment spam on Mac5 blogs has increased. In the past, automated spam was blocked with some special code I installed. I know there are businesses in poor countries that have rooms full of low-paid labor doing all kinds of things to manipulate Google searches. Manually posting comments with links is one such strategy

I have made some changes in the spam protection settings that will, I hope, intercept this new wave of spam. The example shown here was a spam that was caught in early December. It was caught for two reasons: 1) Too many links in the comment and 2) the IP address of the commenter was listed on a spam notification service. I have turned up the scoring to be more aggressive.

Our friends and family should not get blocked when we are not including links. And even if we include links will typically get posted because we get positive credit with a known email address. Let’s hope the spammers don’t figure out our email addresses.

iGroove for the iPod Touch

Posted on 01/09/2010 by

After much research, I decided to get the iGroove SXT by Klipsch. Someone described it as “Bose at half the price.”

The iPod Touch has become a well used device in our household. It basically acts as a small wireless tablet that floats around the house but mainly lives in the family room. I’ve been watching a growing collection of games that the kids download. Other apps used frequently:

Mail – quick way to check Gmail
Facebook – ditto
Time – why subscribe?
USA Today – I read in the morning
Music : Podcasts – NPR Market Place and News from Lake Wobegon
Pandora – streaming music based on channels you build

The challenge was keeping the Touch charged. It has long battery life, but it is awkward to hook up to one of the other computers in the house to charge, in part because each Mac wants to sync the iPod.

I went looking for a docking station, perhaps one that could sit next to our stereo and plug into it. I had a hard time finding a solution. There were mixed reviews on whether various docks would work with the newest “Gen 2” iPod Touch. So when I read about the iGroove on Apple’s website, I decided that was the one.

I was able to pick an iGroove up at Best Buy for the same price as the Apple Store. Now we have a great sounding, compact speaker system that can play streaming music from Pandora. Listening to my “Banjo channel” right now. (Bluegrass.)

Order yours today on Amazon!

Note: Also works fine with the several Nano’s in the house as a charging / play station.

Write Like an Architect

Posted on 01/01/2010 by

I couldn’t believe the author used a square to draw every vertical of every letter. He must only do this when doing formal notation on projects. The quote at the end begs the question, “Why not use a computer?”

In memory of John Horky. Wherever you are…

Stagecoach Takes Over ATM

Posted on 12/27/2009 by

It has been a year since Wells Fargo acquired Wachovia. This showed up on my Wachovia statement for the first time….

Edit link

Posted on 12/26/2009 by

I inserted this code in the Entry Meta template to show an edit icon next to the Permalink and Comment links. Allows for quick access to re-edit a published article.

| <a href=”<$mt:CGIPath$><$mt:AdminScript$>?__mode=view&_type=entry&id=<$mt:EntryID$>&blog_id=<$mt:EntryBlogID$>”><img src=”/images/edit_icon_14x14.gif”></a>

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Good Day Citizan

Posted on 11/28/2009 by

Found this in the Notepad app on our iPod Touch.

Snapshot….

Weee!!!!

Five Forks Food

Posted on 09/27/2009 by

Introducing (or really re-introducing) Five Forks Food, a recipe database that is a special “community blog” format supported by Movable Type. In theory, any member of Mac5 can contribute recipes or add comments. I’m still figuring it out.

You will find a link titled “FOOD” in the upper right corner of Mac5.

These are recipes Kathy typed into our Macintosh many years ago in a Hypercard Stack. She references them all the time. Later I converted them from HyperCard to a Lotus Notes Domino database that could be used on the web. (It is still here for the moment.)

A random set of recipes is published on the home page every 10 minutes.

Lost in translation are the 1 – 5 Fork ratings. I likely will have to key those by hand. You can look by category, look by name under the “All” link, or do a search on a word using the search field. For example: Search for bourbon.

If you make any of these, take a picture and send it to me. I’ll embed the photo in the recipe!

New Office (Mac’s view)

Posted on 09/10/2009 by

I’ve moved out of the legendary “Sam’s office” and into an office around the corner. I needed to let Heather take the helm and oversee grand central station.

My MacBook has a built in camera. This is the “Mac’s view” of my office. I have my desk against a bare wall for now. As you can see… I could use some color. Kathy’s “401k” is the most I have so far.

Movable Type 4.3

Posted on 09/10/2009 by

Upgraded mac5 to Movable Type 4.3 primarily to support a random entry plugin for Five Forks Food.

Looks like Image::Magick (default thumbnailer) is working with this upgrade. I had mt-config set to use NetBPM.

Image test:

Mac5 on Touch and BlackBerry

Posted on 08/15/2009 by

In 2006 I wrote about getting my first BlackBerry that enabled internet viewing. My current BlackBerry 8830 is brighter and crisper, but internet browsing is put to shame by the “free” iPod Touch we got with Kathy’s new MacBook Pro. The ability to scroll, pinch-zoom in/out, and navigate is amazing. (An iPod Touch is basically an iPhone without a camera or phone capability.)

BlackBerry 8830

iPod Touch

Hello astronaut Carol!