Who?
Steve Coates is - among other things - a web developer, parent, wannabe muso and anal spelling nazi from Bellingen, one of the nicest bits of Australia.
He has a keen interest in the spams and scams that are a part of modern life and in a perverse way sees a kind of beauty in a perfectly clumsy and transparent attempt to trick us out of or into something.
Luscious Juicy Delicate Ceramics Exhibition, Bellingen July 3 2010
Bellingen-ites – don’t miss this fantastic group exhibition, opening at Infusions on Saturday July 3. Ceramics by Nicole Stenson, Jennifer Chadwick and Annette Rogers, paintings by Beth Gibbings.
Here’s some shots of Annette’s work from this morning’s photo shoot. (Had to get some pics before they all get snapped up!)
read on »Skype Spam
Has anyone else noticed an increase in Skype spam via instant messaging of late? I’m getting lots of instant messaging Skype spam now as opposed to the calls/contact requests that seem to have been the first generation of Skype spam.
What I’m talking about is unsolicited Skype chat messages that pop up offering links to the usual types of spammy websites – viagra/cialis/wonder herbs, ‘male enhancement’, stock market stuff, porn, dating.
The penis enlargement/sexual stamina spammers often make use of Skype’s animated chat emoticons to, um, ‘enhance’ their spam.
There’s not a great deal you can do to stop getting spammed on Skype but if you do I recommend you immediately click ‘Block’ and then tick the ‘Report abuse from this person’ checkbox to stop the person from contacting you again.
(More detailed instructions for both Windows and Mac versions of Skype is available on the Skype blog).
read on »Are you a professional journalist? You write very well | Sneaky blog comment spam
Another kooky type of spam I’ve been getting a bit of lately is blog comment spam. This is where comments are left on a blog in the hope that they’ll be published and will then leave a link from the commenter’s name – which will always be keyword-heavy, something like ‘cheap viagra’ – to their dodgy website.
By writing meaningless, vaguely legitimate sounding and usually mildly flattering wording (“You write very well”, “I’ll add you to my favourites”) in their comments these spammers try to trick comment spam filters like the excellent Akismet (34, 769 spam comments caught on my eeny little blog in the past six months).
Here’s a sample of some of these spam comments left on this blog recently (all caught by Akismet). Of course I’m not going to publish the links but I will put the names left with each to give you an idea.
I read blogs on a similar topic, but i never visited your blog. I added it to favorites and i’ll be your constant reader.
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Are you a professional journalist? You write very well.
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There’s a wealth of information here. I’ll be back again.
read on »
Business …
On being a tragic obsessive completist weirdo about authors, musicians and directors
After a recent discussion with a friend about the film of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road – which we’d both seen recently after reading the book – I recommended she read McCarthy’s excellent Border Trilogy novels (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain).
I admitted in a text message later that when I find an author, musician or director I like I can often succumb to a kind of pathological need to track down their entire output and consume it in some obsessive kind of frenzy.
Tragic, obsessive, the best way to live life!
she texted back, making me feel like I wasn’t quite so weird.
It did get me thinking about how often I do this and have done since childhood. To prove it here’s a heavily edited list of highlights of some of the artists for whom I’ve had ‘periods’ (as in ‘my Scorcese period’). In roughly chronological order:
Authors
Tom Wolfe
Hunter S. Thompson
Kurt Vonnegut
Aldous Huxley
Roald Dahl
Peter Carey
Tolkien
(E.) Annie Proulx
Andrew McGahan
JK Rowling
Ian McEwan
Jasper Fforde
Musicians
The Beatles
This was definitely the first time I got obsessed with something from popular …