Continue reading »]]> 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

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.

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

Continue reading »]]> Well, my listing today on Amazon and I have ten, yes count them, 10 whole subscribers! lolol I didn’t really expect anything major mind you.

On a side note, I’ve been checking my site analytics and after filtering out FB, Google, and twitter, Large Tony is still the number one referal to my blog. And ironically enough, brettcajun was a distant second. I guess I should pop over and thank them for having such loyal blog jumpers. hehehe And speaking of Brett, he is ever the attention whore of the blog world. It seems he and Jimbo are having a war to see who can flame the other the most.

1. or not
2. jumping from blogroll to blogroll exploring friends of friends of friends, so to speak

Continue reading »]]> People really crack me up sometimes. They say perception is 9/10′s reality but there are also times when you need to use your head for something besides a hat rack. I just had a rather odd email conversation with a distant Facebook friend who was pissed at me for not knowing what was going on with him. Apparently, he’s been going thru some drama and updating FB with it. It was somehow my fault for not knowing. I saw him online, sent a polite message, and proceeded to get attitude because I was being jovial. Excuse the hell out of me!

On a similar rant, a while back I had another FB friend (who found me thru twitter) get pissy with me because I didn’t want to have cyber sex with him over cam. I first politely explained it wasn’t my thing even if I thought he was attractive. Sex over cam is so 90′s and boring to me. I realize it may be fun for some but that doesn’t mean everyone is into it. Finally after like the 4th or 5th push to show my junk, I got rather direct and let him know it was never going to happen. He has since unfriended me, to my delight.

So yes, all these sites can be wonderful mechanisms for communication. But lets face it, none of us only friend people we actually know in real life. Hell some folks have thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of friends on these sites. It is unrealistic to think every one of your “friends” keeps up with your every update. Frankly, it borders on impossible for anyone who has a life offline. For myself, I’m not so foolish to think everyone on my list knows everything I post. Most of what I post on FB and such is absolute drivel anyway. lol That’s when I’m even on. Most of my updates on FB come from my Google+ account (or twitter).

Yes, I have some nice friends online whom I’ve never met. I have some I’d love to meet someday as well. That still doesn’t mean I’m all up in their grill 24/7. If I’m a real friend to you or vice versa, then I’ll take the time to talk, text, email, or see you. in person. In person isn’t always possible but a friendship is only as good as the effort you put into it, not what you get out of it. And posting online is not what I would call effort.

The sex thing is funny. But again, don’t get all twisted because not everyone is into the same thing. I clearly have no problem with sex and/or hookups. That doesn’t mean every profile I have online is filled with a insatiable desire to get laid. Even still, if I politely decline 2 even 3 times, take the hint.

At the end of the day, just use your brain people. Don’t get pissy because some random stranger doesn’t know you’re having a bad day/week. Be happy someone actually took the time to reach out to you in the first place.

/ rant

Continue reading »]]> Well, after 30 some odd texts, emails, comments, etc from my last post, everyone seems to be curious as to why. Why I listed with Amazon. Lawd, you’d think I announced my blog was ending! lol There are several reasons actually. What? You think its an easy one-liner? Pssshaw! When am I ever that one-sided? lol

One, I feel a little bit guilty for dropping off for so long in my regular blogging. I know I probably shouldn’t but I do. In the last few months I’ve had quite a few folks¹ stop me in person or comment online to tell me how much they really missed my blogging. It was very flattering and humbling after all this time to still have complete strangers stop and share their love of my blog. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling deep inside.² I had one guy stop me in Starbucks, he was visiting from out-of-state, and share how much he enjoyed my blog. Two different guys came up to me at Folsom (and I was only there about 2 hours) to tell me how happy they were I was blogging again. I even had a a couple guys on Scruff message me to introduce themselves and tell me they liked my blog. There have been others but the point is I started feeling guilty. Primarily because I know exactly how they feel. I’ve been very disappointed at times over the last 10 years when some of my favorite blogs ended. Whether I knew them in person or not didn’t matter, I had spent a chunk of my life getting to know them thru their blogs and it was disappointing to lose that contact. So to realize I’d sort of done the same thing made me feel a bit guilty.

The irony here is I don’t really follow that many personal blogs anymore. Primarily because so many of them have ended. I have a very small dedicated group that I still read. Most of the blogs I follow these days are news/tech sites. I still keep up with some folks via FB, twitter, Plus, etc but even that is losing it’s appeal for me.

I am truly flattered and humbled that people care and listen to what I have to say. It makes me feel honored and proud that you take the time to follow me when there is so much content (in so many places) out there these days. I’ll admit the desire had sort of left me for awhile but I’m finding that I really missed it. I get such a sense of well-being when I settle into blogging mode and being back in the saddle has really made me see how much I missed it.

My free-time is always a factor but I’m finding ways around that as well now. I can’t promise I won’t have lapses again but that’s life. Life first, blog second has always been and continues to be my approach.

Another reason is flat out geekiness. I love the idea of having my blog content being so readily available in such a cool format as the Kindle. For someone like me, its a bit awe-inspiring seeing my blog on an Amazon page. Never in a million years would I have ever dreamed I’d grow up to actually have people pay attention to what I say. For you long time readers, you get it I know.

Three follows closely behind reason two. Its not so much adulation as appreciation. One person asked if I wanted fame. I’m sure there is a small facet of that mixed in but honestly, I don’t feel its a driving force. It isn’t so much that I want people talking about me as much as I like knowing that people care enough to follow me. I guess that’s sort of the definition of fame but in a different context. I’ve never been a popularity blog.³ And frankly, I prefer my attention up close and personal. lol Aaaaanyway…I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Of course, I write knowing people are reading but my content is usually for me and I’m simply sharing with you. I don’t think I’ve ever sat around and just tried to think up ideas to blog about. Often times, I forget many of my ideas because I don’t take the time to jot them down when they pop up. Lawd knows I’m rarely w/o something to say.

On a funny note, one lurker called me a sell-out. I’m a bit surprised by that because my blog is still completely free on the web. And $0.99 a month is hardly big business for the convenience of getting my madness on your Kindle device. lol Hell, who knows if it will even go anywhere.

Lastly, since my blog readership has dropped off somewhat, I’m hoping to revive it with a new avenue of distribution. Hopefully, over time people who have drifted away will realize I’m back at it and tune in for their weekly dose of my nonsense. Looking forward, you can definitely expect some discussions about Spike, work, my life in general, and probably some stuff dealing with my most recent break-up. No, not dirty details but definitely about things I learned and am still learning from it. Of course, my random and unexpected nonsense will be ever present.

Thanks again for those loyal folks who have stuck with me. I hope to not let you down.

Moby

1. mostly unknown to me at that
2. No, not there, get your mind out of my gutter!
3. Unlike another blog I shan’t mention. heehee

Continue reading »]]> Well, I’ve gone and done it! My blog is now officially available thru Amazon.com for download to your Kindle device of choice. For the amazingly bargain basement price of $0.99 per month you can now get my madness automatically downloaded every time I post an update. Yes you read it right, per month.¹

First, I didn’t choose the price, Amazon did. While you can still (and will always) get my blog perfectly free on the web, you can now fork over a measly dollar a month for the convenience of having it updated automatically for you if you wish.

Second, this was not about money but exposure. For such a small fee I’m clearly not looking for profit. It is my hope to increase my user base. I’ve only been back at it steadily a short time now, yet I’ve already had several people reach out to me and tell me how much my blog has meant to them. It’s been a humbling experience to say the least.

Depending on how well it goes, I may at some point decide to disable my internal subscription service. It’s become very laborious to manage and keep up with. For now, nothing has changed. My RSS feed is still available directly from my blog for free. The Kindle route is about convenience and hopefully, more exposure.

Last but not least, my content will still be my normal ramblings, opinions, ideas, pet-peeves, etc. From what I’ve seen, nothing I post or write about comes anywhere close to violating any of Amazon’s TOS. I don’t foresee any need to censor myself. If it does, it is easy to manipulate what enters my RSS feed.²  I am not sure how pictures translate to Kindle devices so I will still need to work that out.

As for content, from what I’ve seen on some of the listings so far, most of my content is perfectly acceptable. The only real difference you might notice is reposting content from my old blog. Since my old blog isn’t tied to the new one, I may from time to time repost some of my older more significant posts.

That’s it. A big welcome to any new readers and a big thank you to anyone else subscribing thru!

1. It is only available on actual Kindle devices vs. the Kindle reader app than can be installed on many mobile OS’s.
2. Amazon loads my blog via the RSS feed.

Continue reading »]]> Ok, I think ( I THINK ) I got the damn log in for Facebook to work now. If you are on FB, please click the log-in link in the sidebar on the right, under “universal log-ins”, and attempt to sign into my blog with your FB credentials. Don’t worry, I’m not culling any data. Its strictly to allow FB’ers to log in. I’m not sure if it will post back to your FB page or not. I’m tinkering with code that is beyond my understanding.

Please post your success rate along with any error messages you might encounter in the comments.

Thanks!

**Update – I found an error in some of the code I was using and have changed it. anyone who hasn’t already tried or tried and failed, please try again. **

**Update II – After tons of hours tinkering and no support from the site provider, I’m removing the FB option for universal sign-ins. It only works randomly and with no explanation of why it fails. If you wish to use universal log-ins, you’ll have to use one of the others provided. **

Continue reading »]]> I deleted over 100 user accounts from my blog today. Most were sp*mmers. On the odd chance I deleted a legitimate account in error, you can just re-register. I only block IP’s for known baddies. This is becoming a chore so if things continue on this vein, I’ll have to remove the 3rd-party log-in plugin. I had to adjust the security controls in wordpress for it work properly and now I’m getting a weekly hit of fake accounts.

I’m also taking suggestions/recommendations for a new sp*m blocker plug-in. My beloved SK2 is no longer supported. Its held up for over a year of newer and newer versions of WP with no problems but lately, cracks are showing. The WP code is changing so much I think its time to move on. I have akismet loaded but no running.  I’ve read good reviews but I’d love to find another plug-in as good or better than SK2. Suggestions?

Continue reading »]]> If you’ve tried to log-in to my blog via Facebook recently you’ve probably noticed it ain’t working. Apparently, they changed the api for that shit and I don’t have the time or patience to go back and figure it all out again.

All of the other log-ins work though. Amazing how simple of the others were to setup but Facebook’s is a nightmare of BS. Why am I not suprised?

Continue reading »]]> Considering more and more people are consuming their news, blogs, etc on the go these days, I am irritated at the lack of sites that still haven’t upgraded their sites to include a mobile version.

And considering most platforms already include free templates, not switching is just laziness.

Upgrade your damn sites already!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. . .

/rant

Continue reading »]]> I’ve been weaning myself off Facebook and twitter as of late. Its just too time-consuming. And frankly, the energy invested is almost never returned. lol   If it wasn’t for my moto group, I think I would abandon FB all together. Filtering, while still possible, is way more complicated than it used to be and trying to sort thru the lists of people just gets old after awhile.

Access to social aspects is great but the onslaught of “friends” is often too much and/or eventually waters down the entire experience. I’m leaning toward leaving parts of my profile, normally restricted, open and just weeding down my friend list to people I actually interact with on a regular basis. This way people who are just dying to know what I’m up to can. Ok seriously though, I’m not a celebrity or social icon. One really doesn’t need thousands of friends that never interact w/you but feel slighted the moment you remove them. Seriously. It all becomes very high school-ish after awhile. Apple guy de-activated his account completely the other day.

Even my blogging has suffered. I still have plenty to say but my free time is limited and I have to pick and choose where I waste it. heehee  As often happens, by the time I actually get time to sit down and blog, I’ve already moved on to other topic or forgotten the topic I wanted to blather on about.

Shifting my priorities away from FB and twitter will give me more time to ramble incessantly on my blog anyway. This way I can feel validated and still get my online time in.¹

1. Yes, I’m being sarcastic here. duh!