Akismet

October 28, 2005

Since Deane insists on directing traffic my way, I guess I’m obligated to provide some updated content, so here goes…

There has been a lot of talk the past few days about Akismet, the new blog comment spam filter service for WordPress. It sounds like a very promising solution to a really annoying problem.

Automattic Kismet (Akismet for short) is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again.

Actually, comment spam on this site (of all sites) was what really kind of made not quit blogging several months ago. I got tired of digging through dozens of spam comments which was time that I could have been using to post.

As far as Akismet goes, the actual solution is not to far from how SpamStopsHere works. All messages/comments are routed through a centralized server that maintains the spam rules for all subscribers. No more do you constantly have to train your bayesian filter to recognize spam. It is maintained by someone whose sole job is to filter spam and it is done at a central location that benefits everyone as it becomes smarter. As much as some people like to maintain control (or don’t want to be bound to someone else’s solution), I think it just make good sense to have a centralized effort to try to combat such an annoyance.

So, am I going to try out Akismet? Nope. I solved my comment spam problem several months. It was pretty simple and very effective. It’s so easy, I’m not sure why it isn’t advocated more. Right now, even as my site is getting a little bit more exposure, I deal with one spam comment every couple of days. Actually, I’m almost to the point of getting more legitimate comments than spam! (That probably says more about how low volume and un-interesting my site is, than it does about the spam volume).

Enough already! What did you do? All you need to do to effectively deal with comment spam is to change the name of the file that handles comments and then update any references to that file. Most spam is auto-generated and is directed at the most common blogs. The spammers know that the interfaces are to submit comments and everything is rigged up to hit those sites that are built out of the box with no changes. However, by changing the name of the comment processor file, their scripts/bots/whatever they use, don’t work. Pretty simple. Of course, there is someone out there that is either automating posts via the interface, or they have gotten smart enough to check for the comment post action and modify their scripts accordingly. At this point in time, it is only a comment every couple of days, but it is the same type of comment.

One way to improve this solution for everyone would be to pull the references to the comment processor filename into one variable. Then, during installation, the user could be prompted for a unique name, or better yet, a random name could be generated and stored. The downside is that would provide the motivation to the spammers to get smarter about actively trying to determine what address comments are posted to which would then ultimately render this solution moot.

But for now, I’m one up and quite happy with my solution! If you need specific details about what I changed, drop me a comment and I will write something up.

Popularity: 11% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under Plugins, WordPress | 3 Comments 

Swag Disclosure

October 20, 2005

In an effort to maintain my credibility with everyone who stumbles across my favorable opinions of SpamStopsHere, I have a confession. On Tuesday, I received an unexpected package from SpamStopsHere. Did Deane’s review (that is now the #3 entry for SpamStopsHere in Google) direct a ton of new customers their way and they were sending me a little something to express their apprecation?

I couldn’t make up my mind if it was a new laptop (too small), or a new iPod nano (too big), or a pair of round-trip tickets (it was a box, not an envelope), or perhaps a T-Shirt so that I could be a walking billboard for them (how would they know what size I wear?). Actually, it was none of the above. Rather, it was a pair of stop sign shaped stress relievers (as pictured here, but actually manufactured by Prime Line).

So while the monetary value is minimal, I felt the need to disclose the gifts before I was outed by a co-worker and accused of being bought. This could very well happen since a couple have been on the receiving end of my stress relief throws with my new stop signs.

I do appreciate the acknowledgement (and their service). Thanks guys!

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General | 1 Comment 

More CSS on eBay

October 20, 2005

Yay! My Using CSS to markup eBay auctions post is finally getting some traffic. Granted it was somewhat self-generated. I was looking for other articles on the same topic and found some people asking CSS + eBay questions on other forums. I posted responses to their questions and also sent them to my original post. Now it’s time to follow up with some details.

Since my original auctions have long since rolled off eBay and are no longer viewable, here are the three different auction templates that I was using (View Source to see the underlying HTML):

So, the first question I have been asked is:

I�m wondering what portions you actually pasted into the ebay editor?

Since you don’t want to include HTML tags in your post that might potentially cause issues, you want to avoid any markup that should only occur once and is already in the eBay HTML. So, I paste the following from my template into my auction code:

Basically I am taking all of my HTML code that exists between the ‘body’ tags on my template page.

To get the reference to the external CSS file, I add the following line to the top of my auction code:

Ideally, the sytlesheet link should be in the ‘head’ tag at the top of the page. However, since we don’t have access to that section since it is part of eBay’s output, we put it at the top of our auction. I have not seen any issues with this approach. As long as the reference is before the code that we want to style, there shouldn’t be any issues.

That’s all for now. Post questions and I might write a follow article.

Popularity: 20% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General | 31 Comments 

Arthur Ravenel Bridge

October 18, 2005

Every year my family goes to Isle of Palms, SC, which is just east of Charleston across the harbor. The quickest way from the island to downtown Charleston is to take Hwy 17 from Patriot’s Point across the harbor and into downtown.

With modern day bridges, this wouldn’t be that big of an issue. However, the bridges connecting Patriot’s Point and Charleston are not modern by any stretch of the imagination. They were old, steep and very narrow. Since we usually went to downtown as a group, we would always be in the biggest vehicle. The ride up and down the bridge was always white-knuckled as you tried not to bump into the railing or the can next to you.

Of course, that was before the opening of the new Arthur Ravenel Bridge. The new bridge opened up in July 2005. The original bridges have been in the process of being “unbuilt” for the past two months.

The unbuilding (which I prefer to demolition) processes have captivated my curiosity just as the construction of the Ravenel bridge did. These photo essays reflect not only my curiosity but the curiosity of many others. What started as a personal story has evolved to be a community project that is enabled by many of you.

You should definitely visit the site for more information. There are a ton of pictures of the entire process. And most interesting to the geeks in all of us, they are using Google Maps to help with the documentation details.

We use Google map resources to facilitate visualizing progress with the Unbuilding (demolition) of the Grace and Pearman Bridges.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Chain email and Snopes.com

October 18, 2005

I’m not a fan of chain mail, snail (mail or email). Therefore, I am a big fan of Snopes.com. Early on there was no one good source for debunking chain emails. Now there is Snopes.com. It comes in handy when a friend or relative continues to forward the chain emails your way. Usually, for their first offense, I will reply back and tell them to visit Snopes to see for themselves that the email has been debunked. If they didn’t learn their lesson the first time (either to quit sending the chain emails or to remove me from their distribution list) then I will usually reply back to all of the original recipients and remind everyone to verify things before they blindly forward junk to their friends and relatives. This usually works pretty at reducing the chain mail coming my way and also educates a large group of people at one time.

Of course, I still get chain emails and I was beginning to wonder if the message was even getting through to anyone. Until today. Today I received my first chain email that began:

I checked this on snopes.com and it is a true scam.

And it even included a link to the article! Slowly but surely, it appears that the message is getting out about using snopes.com to verify any dubious emails. Yay!

Popularity: 2% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Updated SpamStopsHere Stats

October 12, 2005

I’ve been wanting to post a little more info on my SpamStopsHere stats but needed some motivation and since I might be getting some additional traffic due to Deane’s latest post on Gadgetopia, I figure I better post some updated content. So here goes:

The reports in and of themselves aren’t all that impressive but the numbers are pretty staggering. I’ve had smitty.net for 8 years as a personal domain name shared by about 10 other members of my family. You wouldn’t think that one low visibility domain name would get much spam, but you’d be wrong. So far this year, smitty.net has received 773,017 email messages. Of that, 765,587 of those emails were spam (99.04%)!

SpamStopsHere 2005 Summary

Here is a screenshot showing the breakdown of where all the emails get filtered. It’s pretty crazy to think that there are people out there just throwing every name combination they can automate. So while we as end-users may see a lot of spam (before SpamStopsHere), the reality is that there is 100x more being sent out by spammers in the hopes of catching real mailboxes.

SpamStopsHere 2005 Totals by Filter

These last two charts show the email to my domain by month for 2004 and 2005. Two interesting things to note about what these put into perspective.

  • First, the amount of spam from February 2004 to December 2004 increased ten-fold. I was getting 40-50 spam emails a day before I signed up with SpamStopsHere. I can only imagine how miserable it might have been at the height of the deluge.

    • Second, and somewhat promising, is the fact that things have been on a downward slope since December 2004. I don’t know if it is a general indication that spammers are slowing down (due to low returns or laws), or if it is a side benefit of using SpamStopsHere where my domain no longer looks like an attractive target.

SpamStopsHere 2004 Totals by Month

SpamStopsHere 2005 Totals by Month

So, if you haven’t already, go try out their service. In regards to Deane’s comments about passing the referrals on to me: I’d be delighted to take the credit (not sure what I get out of it, have to do some research) but this is something that I believe in so much that I really don’t want to compromise my vote of confidence in any way by providing a referral link back to them.

Here are some of my other earlier posts about SpamStopsHere:
- Spam Filter
- SpamStopsHere.com Stats
- Spam is out of control

There! More info about SpamStopsHere and a new post to push that stupid “United Airlines has ducks” post down the page. Thanks for visiting. You probably won’t find too many other interesting posts here on the site since I’ve been busy with our online family calendar.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

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