Come to the Dark Side; we have cookies

[rolanni]

Man, sharonleewriter.com is getting hammered (with a small hammer, relatively, but it's a small site) by gibberish spam. None of it comes from the same IP address, none of the addresses are the same; the links are all different.

Every one of them has "rel="nofollow" Well. Anybody with security training willing or interested in seeing this stuff and trying to figure out how to block it?

In other news: Do not forget that there is an eBay auction going on right now for a rare and pristine copy of the hardcover edition of Pilots Choice, which includes Local Custom and Scout's Progress -- just in time for the release of Mouse and Dragon! The current bid is $75US, which is a steal. Go on, just go over and take a look. You know you want to. The auction goes over tomorrow, Friday, May 21 at around 2:00 p.m Eastern.

The day-job today encompassed shredding, and throwing stuff away, and visiting the mail room several times, and filing all the stuff on my desktop, now that I'm done with working on them, and then backing up the desktop, for, lo! I am in line to get a new Mac this summer. Which is good, because mac the Mac is getting to the point where he's crashing two, three times a day -- more, if I do something Morally Reprehensible, like use the scanner, or open, and then try to enter data into, an Excel file.

Poor mac, he taught me how to use a Mac (IT, offended that someone coming on-board in January didn't want to wait until the usual time (July) for a computer, handed me the box -- "Here. Secretaries get Macs." -- and cut me loose. Good thing I hadn't actually expected to get any training). But, still, he's been good to me, has mac. Mind you, I still don't know how to download and install a program, but, the new one will, as the old one did, have programs that Come With, and I'll make do with whatever those may be.

Pretty day. Hot, though. Over 80F/27C.

Comments

[sleary.livejournal.com]

WordPress adds rel="nofollow" to comments automatically, so that's not unique to the spam (or at least, it shouldn't be).

Do you have Akismet activated? It's the best. If it's already on and it's not taking care of the problem, you might try adding Bad Behavior (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bad-behavior/) from the Plugins -> Add New screen.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Do you have Akismet activated?

Well, I thought so, but it turns out that I only had it installed. Sigh.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

Yes, activation involves a somewhat annoying but benign process of signing up for a key. :)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

...which has now been obtained and plugged into the box. I really shouldn't be allowed to drive on the internet.

Thank you!

[sleary.livejournal.com]

Not at all! The internet, it should be easier. :)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

You'll appreciate this. We recently went through getting new optical service from our telephone company. Guy came in, installed the various boxes, connected our WiFi, and left me with an illustrated guide to finishing the connections. So I set in. I mean, I've designed network protocols, installed switches, and so on, this should be easy, right?

I walked through the process. And... no connection. Try it with the other computer. No connection. Try it via direct cable without WiFi in the middle. No connection. Repeat from zero. No connection.

The next day we called their help desk. I've got ping data, ipconfig data, and all that. The guy suggested, "Let's just walk through the process." So we went through the steps, one by one. Yep. Yep. Yep. "And now the button shows available, right?" I answered, "Yep, just like the guide shows." "Okay, now click it." "Huh? The guide doesn't..." "Just click it." Click. The message that should have appeared beside the button comes on, and... I try out Firefox, yes, we have connection! Er, ah, thanks. No problem, call if you have any other trouble.

I wondered just how many times he has had to tell people to click one more time. Apparently "available" in this case means potential -- and you have to click it to make it actually do something. Aargh.

ebay bids up to $90!

[(Anonymous)]

I have bought lots and lots and LOTS of stuff on ebay. You'll probably see the most activity on the last day, especially in the last hour and the last few minutes as people try to be sneaky and get their bid in last!

~Lizah C

Saltation has a home in MN

[(Anonymous)]

Just wanted to let you know that the Hennepin County Library system in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) area has 7 copies of Saltation and they are being circulated with 17 users waiting for the chance to read your book.
Just wanted to let you and Steve know!
Thanks for your continued endeavors in the Liaden Universe.

Re: Saltation has a home in MN

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Wow! A waiting list.

Thanks for letting me know!