Still not getting Twitter. Help me out.
I’ve been on Twitter now for a while (maybe four months?). And this is the second time I’ve joined. And I’m still not fully getting it. It’s extremely time consuming when I use it.
While it might only be little flashes of light throughout the day (using Twirl), it’s still distracting when you are working on a project. Or on the phone with a client.
Peter Patera Strikes Back - at Spam!
A fellow blogger, Peter Patera, took a little time (okay, a lot of time) spam-baiting a Sri Lanka spammer into carrying on the most insane email conversation I’ve ever seen. You should read his account if you can afford the time. As I commented there, “If we all join hands and stand our ground, the enemy will flee back to Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Budapest, and other forbidden territories.”
Peter’s emails are tongue-in-cheek and clearly meant to reveal his true intent. But the spammer carries on the conversation, sending Peter all sorts of files and attachments, and in the end, doing five terrible website mockups - for free. All to try and win Peter’s business at a dirt-cheap rate of $14/hour.
Ron Paul Spam is Real
Despite my being questioned the other day as to the legitimacy of getting Ron Paul spam mail, it has now been fully confirmed. ARS Technica reports that the pattern of Ron Paul spam discovered by the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Computer Forensic Research department was “disturbing”. The story at Digg has been dugg over 850 times as of this writing - with over 550 comments comprising the normal vitriol and banter typical of anything having to do with Ron Paul.
Ron Paul using Spam Emails to Get Out Message
I’ve been receiving spam messages today supporting presidential candidate Ron Paul - all from unreal email addresses. One was even from a fake CompuServe email address. What a throwback. Turns out CompuServe is still in business as part of Netscape. Who knew?
Anyway, the spam messages have no website links, so they are getting through the filters handily. One wonders if Ron Paul’s enemies are behind this - since the messages make him look about as bad as a Presidential candidate can look. Typical of the type of rhetoric Paul supporters rant about, as I recently wrote about, the message is filled with wild claims, poor grammar, and the inability to stop long enough (or breathe) for a paragraph break.
My favorite spam email yet
Yes, it’s true: I actually read some of my spam email. Not the stock investment stuff, or the crazy sex stuff. But occasionally, I’ll get a spam email that has no links to any websites, no graphics or images, no nothing… except rambling text.
This is my favorite one so far that I got back on July 11. I haven’t modified it at all, except by changing the line breaks and adding some punctuation, so it looks as poetic as it sounds. I also got rid of a trailing “the” at the end of the missive. It was from a Lila Jorgensen.
Spam is Beyond Control
One thing many folks don’t seem to fully grasp is that if you want to be available, that is to say, if you want people to contact you, then you must allow spam in your life. I hate these Russian-originated stock quote spam emails as much as you, but it is a necessary evil in order that people can conveniently have an email address.
Often, I’ll see blog postings and various tech magazines give a list of dozens of ways to control spam. It is quite often more time-consuming and frustrating to implement those ideas than it is to just let spam take its course.
Is your Email Response Time an indication of you?
It is pretty easy to get an email address these days. Almost too easy. Yahoo, Google’s gmail service, and MSN all offer free email addresses. Almost everyone has one even if they use another one as their primary address. Recently, I’ve dealt with about a half-dozen people, both in my personal and professional lives, who seem to think email is just for receiving. They either let email pile up and respond at a later day, or more often, never respond at all.
