Think I fixed Wordbook; seems it needs to be completely reinitialized every time it’s reactivated, and since it has to be deactivated to avoid posting new pages and edits to old posts and pages, well, I may try this other FB plugin someone mentioned on Wordbook’s discussion page. Guess we’ll see.

Still can’t add new tags. Don’t know if that’s a Seamonkey incompatibility or a plugin problem.

Not wanting to get caught later by having forgotten to deal with this, I promptly called to cancel my existing cable internet account, effective July 14. That call went something like this:

“How can we help you?”

“My apartment complex is switching cable providers, so I need to cancel effective July 14.”

O.o “Wow, thanks for calling so early. Account number?”

:: gives number ::

:: types :: “You’re renting a modem, and you’ll need to return that. I can schedule someone to come by to pick it up during these daytime hours, or you can drop it off at the local office”

“I’m not available during those hours, I’ll drop it off.”

“Okay.” :: types, gives address :: “Here’s your confirmation number, have a great day.”

See? No problems. Wonderful and to the point. Fast forward to a little over a week ago – when new cable rep finally called me:

“Hello? Chrystalline?”

“Yes?”

“I’m the cable guy…you know, with the new company? I know you said on your questionnaire that you prefer email, but I couldn’t…I mean I didn’t…I mean…it just…I had to call, all right?”

“Yeah, okay.” :: wonders when he’ll get to the point ::

:: continues making excuses a little longer ::

“Yeah, okay.”

“You’ll have to cancel with the other company separately, you know, because we can’t do that for you. Are you using their modem?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, yeah, you’ll have to return that to them…”

:: losing patience :: “Yes, I know, I’ve already called them to cancel. I can handle that.”

:: alarmed :: “You already…but I can’t guarantee that the transition will be exactly on the fourteenth, it might not; you already talked to them? Maybe you can help me, they haven’t told me, did they tell you when the exact transition will be?”

:: puzzled, irritated :: “No, I just scheduled my cancellation.”

“Oh, that’s…I just have to tell you, I can’t be sure it’ll really switch on the fourteenth…”

:: really irritated, interrupting :: “Yes, okay, I GET IT. Just tell me what I need to do to switch.”

“Ah, okay, uh, well, we’ll be setting up in the office for the day to distribute the modems and instructions, but you said you can install your own, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I can probably use a spare modem my mom has.”

“Okay, and I can give you the phone number you’ll need to call; they’ll need a number off the modem…”

“The MAC address, yes, I know.”

“Yeah, tech-savvy, right, okay…” :: quotes rates ::

“Okay. Have to have cable internet, so it is what it is.”

“Right, okay, there’s still paperwork that’ll need to be signed. If you can’t come on that day, maybe we can meet another time, or I could leave the papers with the office, or something?”

“Leave them with the office; I can come by on Saturday and fill them out.”

“Okay, great. We’ll do that.”

See that? Not so good. BUT IT GETS WORSE. It is now past the original scheduled date. My original provider is canceled, on schedule. I have had no further contact with Mr. Trips-over-words. Mr. Original-provider-guy called two or three times to try to “save me a trip” and come pick up the modem, but again, I’m not available when he is. He even suggested calling and coming by before I left for work on Thursday, but the phone never rang.

So, today, I called the original provider’s main phone line, got directions to the local office, and dropped off the modem. Got a receipt, all nifty and short and sweet. Then I went back to my apartment office to deal with a couple of other things, and to see if New Guy had left the paperwork.

The lady in the office handled my other stuff, no problem, but the cable? Oh, see, it turns out, the actual transition has been pushed back to mid-August instead, so there’s no paperwork to be had, yet.

>:|

Now, if he’d called me, even as late as last Monday, I could have called my original provider and probably could have extended the account to reflect the new cancellation date. At this point, there is no sense in trying to set something up to last a mere month, which means I have an entire month of being limited to getting my internet access at work or at my parents’ house. Mom & Dad don’t mind my coming over and using their internet, but it’s just really inconvenient. I’m used to getting back from work, booting up the laptop and downloading email while I fix dinner. I read my email while I eat dinner, and then I go websurfing from there, wherever the mood strikes, and however long the mood takes me. The current situation means I either have to take my laptop to work with me and go straight to their house after, or I have to run to my apartment first and grab stuff, and with the parking situation the way it is at my complex, I generally hate to leave once I’ve gotten in. It’s not a long trip, but it *is* a special trip, and it makes everything take longer.

Yeah, I know, there are some people who never use the internet, or who have never had a chance to use it, but blast it – I pretty much *live* on the internet. I *need* it.

This is going to be a long month.

:: facepalm ::

They sent me (a link to) a survey, and before I even thought about whether or not to participate, I had two more emails. One of them is an automated “I don’t use this email, use this other one” message, and the other is in Spanish, apparently reminding Technorati that not everyone on the web speaks English, and if they want him to understand what they’re talking about, could they please offer a Spanish version?

:: sigh ::

Given how big Technorati’s userbase is, I think I need to set up a separate filter for this. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

I mention this because it’s up to us, the haters-of-spam, to take action to stop spam. We have to work together to take away any benefit they could get from it and block them wherever possible, whether they’re barging into our email inbox or sending messages through instant messengers or using the comment/messaging systems of your favorite social networking site. I freely acknowledge that I’m not the be-all and end-all of internet wisdom, but I’ve been around for a while, so I’ve got some advice on the subject.

First and foremost,
NEVER BUY FROM SPAM MESSAGES. Don’t even click their links. Some of them earn money based on how many people click their links, others only from actual purchases made through their messages. Don’t give them any encouragement. DEFINITELY don’t ever hire them to market anything for you. (Same goes for telemarketers – if nobody ever bought anything from them, they’d eventually give up and go do something else. Basic law of business.) Remember that a lot of the sites you will come across when searching for something will be built solely to snag search traffic and reroute through paid links. You’ll know them when you see them. Don’t click those either; it’ll be a lot of the same type of people.

Be careful what you forward. Not everything is worth forwarding, and sometimes, the pictures themselves are used for tracking. My first computer died an ignominious death due to my ignorance of the viruses embedded in the fun games everyone was passing around by email. The timing was terrible, and I lost a lot of data. There’s nothing wrong with passing along useful advice, though, as long as your friends haven’t already asked you to stop forwarding things.

Verify. Please, make sure things are TRUE before you pass them along (and remember that if anything requires you to forward it before you see the results, the person who sent it couldn’t have seen the results to tell you it worked). Learn to recognize the common methods of tricking people into giving away financial information, so you can protect yourself. Amber alerts without names or contact information are fake, companies do NOT give awards or donations based on the number of emails forwarded, financial institutions will not send important account closure/verification messages to you through email, virus warnings are sometimes treacherous in themselves, hitmen don’t email their targets to offer them a chance to buy their way out of being murdered, and random people with a horrible grasp of English grammar are not going to send you multi-million dollar windfalls just to help them transfer it into the US. Snopes.com is a pretty good first step, and if you still can’t tell, try contacting a friend who’s been around the web a few times.

Use copy/paste. Your friends will be grateful you didn’t send Russian nesting dolls or collections of angle brackets, and if you’re trying to forward the text of a message without useless (or potentially sneaky, data-mining) images, you can paste it into Notepad (or whatever text-only application you have handy) to strip out the non-text data. (Saving the whole message as a text file should do the same thing, if you prefer.) I hate having to scroll back and forth to read short bits of oddly truncated sentences interspersed with >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>, don’t you? Forwarding email as an attachment usually avoids the angle brackets, but then you end up with an attachment to an attachment to an attachment to an attachment… I’ve received emails a dozen layers deep, and that’s just annoying. Please, don’t do that.

Block external images from unknown senders. Many email clients will default to this setting for your safety, so take advantage of the feature. Some of them will even let you bounce the message back at the sender as if your email address doesn’t exist. Doesn’t always stop them, but some ISPs pay attention to how many messages bounce back at a sender, which raises suspicions that the address is being used to send mass messages to unconfirmed addresses – in other words, spam.

Blind Carbon Copy is your friend. Spammers love those mass-forwarded emails because they tend to gather a huge list of valid email addresses, but if you use BCC, there won’t be a list of email addresses added to the top of the message every time it’s sent. This prevents perfect strangers from collecting your personal email address when the message comes their way

Pay attention to where you give your email address. Sometimes what you consider spam is a recurring email list to which you subscribed, whether you realized it at the time or not, and accusing people of spamming you when you asked them to send you email is rather rude. In addition, it makes the tech support people skeptical of all spam claims, because they have to wade through so many complaints that turn out to be legitimate lists, which makes it that much harder to convince them that a spammer is violating the rules. If you remember subscribing, use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. If there is no unsubscribe link, try contacting the sender directly. If that doesn’t work, THEN you can start crying spam and use the other anti-spam methods listed here. If you never subscribed, though, don’t click the unsubscribe link; you’ll only verify your email address for them.

Cooperate with others. Report scams to the financial institutions being spoofed, and report private messenger spam to the site admins. Sometimes you can get their webhost to pull them, sometimes you can get help from their affiliate manager, and sometimes you can go straight to their web connection. Techie types may be able to help you track down the ISPs and get the spammers shut down. Inform your friends and family of the strategies against spam, so they can help you fight it. To that end, you may forward this entry IN ITS ENTIRETY (or quote parts with attribution on your blog) as long as you a) follow the advice in it for sending forwards, and b) include the link to this entry: http://www.chrystalline.com/2008/06/fighting-spam/

Copyright Chrystalline Lauryl
June 1, 2008
www.Chrystalline.com
redistribution permitted only as described above

In the previous versions, comment editing was easy; there was an edit link right there on the comment moderation page. Until I saw the subject line of this post (which is probably the only reason I’m keeping the news section on my dashboard now), I had not found a way to do the same in the new version, which was very frustrating. I’ve also found a plugin that’s supposed to help.

The dashboard editing plugin is helpful, though it feels a bit rudimentary to me so far. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I’ve had more time to play with it and get used to the elements of it. Maybe it’s my non-Widget mindset. I’ve yet to see a good explanation as to why Widgets are better than plain plugins or straight-up code. Clearly, I don’t get it; I just don’t know why. Is it because they’re training wheels, or what?

This plugin is nice, too, because I really hated what they did with the menus in 2.5, and this makes it easier to deal with. I also think it made no sense to split off the settings/users/plugins as if that menu selection were unrelated to the others. This plugin lets you combine it with the others, though it has a weird .! at the end of the menu bar, right before the logout/help/forums links (which really might just as well be included, too, don’t you think?) in my browser. I’ve seen complaints about it for Safari and IE, but I don’t feel like checking that right now.

Unfortunately, that one doesn’t seem to get along with this one, which has some very pretty color options for the admin section, and an option to choose colors, if you don’t like their pre-arranged blends. Wish they worked together, because while I find the menus vital, I’d really rather have it in lavender/purple, and I haven’t had time to rifle through the source code to find all the labels for the CSS yet.

I did find one for moods, but I don’t like the smileys, and I haven’t had time to create my own images. I’d like to get Niaha’s Kittens (from LJ), but while I believe they’re freely distributed with the LJ source code, I’m not sure about that, and they probably don’t mean for people to use them with WordPress instead of LJ. I also don’t like how it displays, which means I’m going to have to take the time to get into the code and figure out how to make it do what I want instead. I’ll have to see what I can come up with.

Also added comment subscription. It’s annoying to try to remember which entries you’ve commented on and not know if there’ve been any new comments; this’ll email you replies if you want them. Not that there’s a lot of comment chatter on my blog yet, but maybe this’ll help.

I’m also thinking about rearranging my websites, combining things differently. This shouldn’t affect anyone but me, as long as everything goes smoothly, but if the changes get squirrely, you may see some weirdness the next few weeks. Sorry in advance.

So much for that. The recovery went through just fine; runs right, says it’s reconfiguring everything right and all, reboots – and dies. I didn’t change the BIOS (the recovery would’ve balked at that) and I haven’t changed the hardware since the *last* time I reinstalled the opsys. I have no idea what’s wrong this time.

Right. Goodbye Sony. Mom’s old VAIO works much better since I overwrote the whole thing with Debian (well, except the part where I broke it trying to install a printer driver, but reinstallation is easier with Linux – no arbitrary anti-piracy measures). It’s time to shop for new hardware and a cheap copy of Elements (already bought a standalone copy of XP Pro, just in case) and build a whole new machine. How much is a membership at Costco again?

Problem : DVD-R/RW drive is failing, so I need to replace it, but I’m worried about whether the System Recovery will still work; already replaced video card and hard drive, may soon have to replace fan. How many pieces can I change before I run into trouble?

tech > Hi Chrystalline. Welcome to Sony Online Support. I’m [tech]. Please allow me a moment to review your concern.
Chrystalline > ok
tech > Thank you for waiting, Chrystalline. I’m sorry that DVD-R/RW drive is not working. I’ll be glad to assist you with this.
tech > Have you made any Hardware or Software changes in the computer?

Are you kidding me? I just said I changed the hard drive and video card, and I’m a geek; I’m always doing something with the setup. Key thing is, I pretty much know what I’m doing there.

Chrystalline > I replaced the video card and hard drive previously
tech > Are you getting any error messages?
Chrystalline > No, the DVD drive just tells me that blank DVD-Rs are audio CDs with one tiny CDA file on them.
Chrystalline > When I searched the web, I found that others have had this problem and it was generally a symptom of the drive wearing out
Chrystalline > To be honest, the DVD drive has been glitchy the whole time I’ve had it, but I just restored the system a few months ago when I had to replace the HD, so I suspect it’s finally worn out.
Chrystalline > I’ve had it since 2001.
tech > Are you able to view the CD/DVD icon in the My Computer Window?

Oh for pity’s sake. Yes, Mr. Computer Man, I know how to use a mouse and keyboard.

Chrystalline > It thinks it’s a CD drive
Chrystalline > Actually, it realizes it’s a DVD drive as long as there’s no disc in it
Chrystalline > When there’s a disc, it thinks it’s a CD drive
Chrystalline > Won’t play commercial DVDs anymore either; says there’s a problem with the DRM
tech > I would like to forward a link to a page where you can view the steps to troubleshoot the issue.
tech > When you receive the link please click on it to open the page and let me know if you are able to view it.
Chrystalline > OK. You’re posting the link here in chat, or by email?
tech > http://www.iq.sony.com/srvs/autoresponsev4.asp?id=382453
tech > Are you able to view the page?
Chrystalline > Yes; had a little trouble at first because my browser blocks popups and the chat window wouldn’t let me copy/paste, but I’ve got it open
Chrystalline > This looks like the relevent line: “If the drive is a multi-format drive and can read a CD disc, but not a DVD disc, or can read a DVD disc, but not a CD disc, service may be required.”
Chrystalline > I can still burn CDs, just not DVDs.
tech > Please perform the steps mentioned on the page. This should resolve the issue.
Chrystalline > Yeah, I’ve already tried everything but another system recovery. My main question is, if I replace the DVD drive, will that be enough change to the hardware configuration to prevent the system recovery from working? I know the installation checks the hardware before allowing the recovery to proceed.
Chrystalline > Keeping in mind that I already changed the vid card and HD.
tech > I am sorry for the delay.
tech > Yes, replacing the Driver may work.

Wait, what? I wasn’t talking about the driver.

tech > Have you performed System Recovery to resolve the issue?
Chrystalline > I performed system recovery a couple of months ago when I replaced the hard drive, but I have not done it since then. I have had minor problems with the DVD drive the entire time I’ve had it, and it would work properly for a while after system restore, but eventually it would get weird again. This is more severe than before, but I don’t want to have to perform a system recovery every two months. Combined with the fact that I have done troubleshooting and research on the problem, the data seems to indicate the DVD portion of the drive is wearing out/worn out. Thus, replacement.
Chrystalline > That’s why I asked about the hardware configuration issues.
tech > I am sorry for the inconvenience that you are experiencing with the Computer.
tech > Chrystalline, I am sorry, if the issue is with the Hard ware it is recommended to contact the Service Cnetr to get it Serviced.
tech > Shall I forward a link to a page with information about locating our Sony Service Center?
Chrystalline > I can service it myself if you’ll just answer my question! I’m wishing I’d put my name in as “Steve.”
Chrystalline > Or do I have to call them to get that answer?
tech > Yes, you can replace the Drive if you have performed all the troubleshooting steps.
Chrystalline > It won’t trigger the anti-piracy blocks, even though I’ve already replaced the HD and video card?
tech > Please replace it with the compatible one to make it perform normally.
Chrystalline > Do you have specifications?
tech > I am sorry, to get the exact information I suggest that you contact them so that you will be clear with the information.
Chrystalline > All right. You have a link for that as well, I assume?
tech > http://eservice.sony.com
Chrystalline > Thank you.
tech > You’re welcome.
tech > Is there anything else that I can assist you with?
Chrystalline > No, thank you.
tech > You’re welcome.
tech > It was a pleasure assisting you.

Oh, I’m sure.

tech > Good bye and take care.
tech > Have a nice day ahead.

Oddly phrased, but okay.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who sees the runaround in this. I asked a simple question; why couldn’t I get a simple answer? The only thing I got out of this is that the tech support didn’t have the answer. This whole exchange was massively frustrating, because he kept ignoring the question I was asking and going back to the baby steps of troubleshooting the symptoms. I get doing that with people who don’t know anything about computers, but I know troubleshooting. I do that before I ever contact support. There needs to be a way to connect tech savvy users with tech savvy support personnel, because this is ridiculous.

Anyway, last night I decided to show my dad the trailer for the new Batman movie; my boss had showed me at work, and I’d written down the URL so I could find it again later. Unfortunately, I wrote it down wrong. It wasn’t ATasteOfTheTheatrical.com, it was www.ATasteFORTheTheatrical.com, which is much more entertaining and less frustrating.

Note I didn’t link the first. That’s because when I visited the site (and in confusion clicked the Batman trailer link), my system slowed down. I admit, I’m not sure whether the slowdown started before or after I clicked, but I suspect that just going to the site loaded everything. Nothing was moving smoothly, so I checked the task manager. Only the programs I’d started were showing, but the performance tab showed 100% CPU usage.

Yeah. Spyware.

AdAware didn’t find anything; whatever they did broke it completely; it couldn’t connect to the update server and couldn’t find anything wrong with my computer. I do have another program, Peer Guardian, that blocks unsavory IP addresses, but unfortunately, it tends to also block commercial media sites. That’s largely because the commercial media sites fill their pages with ads, and because they tend to be anti-P2P. So, I’d deactivated the http blocking while I tried to get to the Batman trailer. Wanting to know what I’d gotten into, I reactivated PG and went back to the site to see what it said. PG did activate blocking on something, and labeled it Direct Information FZC.

So I searched it, and found some interesting results. Like this direct scam, and this odd site-theft-money-laundering scam, and this analysis of their less-than-savory ad practices, and this magically disappearing and reappearing blog [Google cache] entry on domain name front-running (squatters registering domain names because someone searched availability on them the day before). That last I’ve encountered myself; I had a name all thought out for that fandom-related thing I’ve mentioned in passing on occasion, and when I finally decided to go ahead and register the domain, it was registered to someone who’d parked it on an ad page. Registered shortly after I’d searched on it. Unfortunately, I have no way to prove that. Fortunately, I was able to come up with another name I like even better, and I’m in the process of developing the logo and backend.

Anyway, back to the scammers; this page has a comment warning about the organization’s tendency for browser hijacking and points out the irony that the site also claims to want to sell you security software. I can no longer find the link to the message board that claimed Direct Information FZC is/was connected to the Russian crime syndicate that recently dropped out of sight.

Thank heaven for Spybot. I downloaded, installed, and ran it.

That *(&^)*&%$)*@#&%$@*&^$@)*&^ website disabled my firewalls and my antivirus, broke AdAware, put a link in my browser, and installed about twenty various instances of spyware, some of which were marked as a possible risk of password theft. I’d known there was something, but finding proof was both vindicating and infuriating. The violation made me a bit paranoid; after Spybot fixed my firewalls and antivirus and removed the junk, I ran a full virus scan, and logged onto one of my other computers (the one with Linux on it) so I could go change all my passwords. It took hours to clean up everything. I hate scammers.

So, I wanted to see what people had to say about PayPay. Unfortunately, Google thought I meant PayPal, and frankly, given how many of the links were people’s typos, it’s an understandable mistake. I did find one link where a poster commented on the typo, and I’m not entirely certain what s/he meant:

pgreen:
When I asked for paypay I just looked at your headline where you wrote paypay not realizing that this was just a spelling error.

While paypal is an approved payment method with all its pros and cons I would not recommend paypay (which is a payment service too). They seem to be dissolved letterbox company only and not so trustworthy at all.

Just thought I would mention it just in case anybody else is checking out paypay as I did … don’t want to talk down your shop which is a nice one …

When I Googled the term “letterbox company” I found a lot of links to mailbox manufacturers and retailers. I suspect that’s not what was meant, but I’m not sure what s/he did mean, and there’s not a lot of chatter on the subject of PayPay. If they meant that PayPay isn’t as big and corporate as PayPal, well, PayPal didn’t start out huge, either. I was looking for something in the line of PayPalSucks or AboutPayPal with regard to PayPay, because that would be a sign that it was not so good. This was only one person, who hadn’t used it, saying it looked bad.

The only other link I found that was actually about PayPay rather than PayPal was a blog post that essentially introduced PayPay, comparing it to other online payment systems in concept, but not so much the personal experience I wanted to find. Still, it was an interesting blog to find. I’ve been looking for alternatives to PayPal since the name-change debacle, and here’s a blog that covers the whole topic. Convenient, that. I shall have to add it to my RSS feeds.

At any rate, I haven’t decided what to think about this PayPay place yet. Maybe I’ll see what else is out there first.