Unearthly Tales

This is new!

10-04-87

uh oh

--cycl0ne has hit!

Dealing with Spam

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 07:41:45 MST

Spam email is annoying, and for the most part I do my best to ignore it, just delete it out of hand without getting upset. It's very easy to get worked up, to want some kind of cyber-revenge on the perpetrators, those evil spamsters who make it their business to clog up everyone's inbox with utter crap.

But requesting to be removed from the mailing list does no good. Most replies will bounce back, because the return address is bogus. The spamsters just want you to click their links and buy something, and are not in the slightest bit interested in discussing such things as unsubscribing from the mailing list. Think about it: The most wide-spread spam (for viagra, cialis, even computer software) comes from professional spammers, not lovely caring folks with your interests in mind. I did some digging on one particular spammer and found a whole article about a guy residing in Russia who is paid to send millions of emails all over the world in the hope that a tiny percentage of the recipients will be stupid enough to not only click on the links in the email, but actually buy something!

That's the sad truth: Spam of this nature only exists because of a very small minority of idiots who think, "Oh, a spam email about viagra. Actually, I could do with some of that. I might as well click this link and buy some; saves me searching on the internet." I can think of a lot of words for these types of people, but they're not fit for this page. If a million spam emails are sent and only 1% of recipients respond and buy something, well, that's 10,000 buyers. Cut that down to just a 1,000 buyers (0.1%), or even 100 buyers (0.01%), and these spammers are still making a huge profit for doing nothing more than pressing "send."

Because of spam filters in mail boxes these days, spammers have to work around a number of preset "rules." In other words, "viagra" is a red flag, so spammers write "v1agra" (with a 1 instead of an i) and so on. But the text becomes more and more obscure as spam filters catch on to these tricks:

Hey whats up,
Why R3ent when y0u can Bu,uy?=20
We'll provide you with best service.
$350k for 360 pm, v r Justa Giving away
COPY the Address below and paste in your BROaWSER:
Cahokia.lowestpay.net

Filters even look at the combination of words in emails. If a message has text that doesn't seem to contain known spam keywords, well, then it might get through. So spammers inject some random junk like this:

just talking about heaven..
After she'd done her ledger she would clamber into her hammock and read a book for a couple of hours..
distress merchandising," said Sears..
One picture puzzle piece.
that outpaced inflation for the 24 months ended June 30, 2005,.
See you later,
Jewel Templeton=20

*Scratches head* So okay, this made it to my inbox. But how do these spammers make money? Maybe they don't. Maybe they just want to clog up my inbox. The following example tries to lure sad lonely men into emailing a reply, presumably so the spammer can grab your email address and add it to their list of "hopeless sad idiots are who are likely to buy something from a spam email"...

Dear friend,
I found your picture on one of the websites, can we talk to
each other? I might be coming to your place in few weeks.
This would be a great opportunity to meet each other.
Btw, I am a woman. I am 25.
Drop me a line at mqlnh@uwriteme.info

I have a theory to stop spam mail for good. All ISPs (Internet Server Providers) should allow a maximum of, say, 100 emails a month per account to be sent from their SMTP (outgoing mail server). This means that Joe Bloggs can send up to 100 emails for free. Businesses can send more, say 500 a month. After the maximum is reached, every email beyond that costs 2 cents each. Think about it: A professional spammer sending a million emails would have to pay about $20,000. I doubt they'd make that much profit in sales, so the viagra spam business would flop immediately (pun intended). Of course, every ISP in the world would have to comply with the rule, or else spammers would flock to those without a cap on outgoing mail (and those ISPs would then have a deluge of unexpected business, a good reason not to comply).

I'm of the opinion that you can't beat spam, and there's no point in getting angry about it anymore. Some supposedly reputable companies will send you a newsletter on the basis that you "opted in" (ie, supplied your email address somewhere). Rubbish. They bought a mailing list, that's all. They claim they've done nothing wrong, that they bought the mailing list in good faith, but are they honestly going to question where that mailing list came from? It's no different to Semi-Honest Business Man buying suspicious electronic goods from Slightly Dodgy Bloke, no questions asked.

No Time for Writing

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:07:30 MST

I couldn't help nodding with agreement at Derek Molata's post on 21st February, entitled Time Woe Bitchslap. The gist is that he gets just one hour a day to write, and sometimes when that hour comes around he's burned out and uninterested in writing.

Me too. I actually get more than an hour a day, but it's hard to quantify. Back in November 2005 I decided to give up writing until the New Year; let's get Christmas out of the way first. And because my web business had dried up (nobody wants a website in December) my wife was working on the computer trying to get some extra income. So my available writing hours disappeared as she worked and I babysat.

But now that work has picked up again (everyone wants a website in January) and my wife has quit her work-at-home computer job, I find myself on the computer all day, just as I want to be... only with no time to write! So, in a nutshell, if I have no work, then Vanessa works and I babysit more. If there IS work, then that's what I do: work. And even though I might find a few hours to do some writing, I'm too tired of sitting on my butt at the computer and just want to get up and walk away. It's like the wife of a taxi driver wanting to go for a drive in the country at the weekend. "Yeah, great," he says. "Just what I need. More driving."

Is there a perfect scenario? Yes: earn money without working. But realistically, if I could generate a deluge of business and deal with it all as quickly as possible, then I can take a week off to write. Or set myself hours to work and hours to write, say five hours working and three hours writing. That would be great!

But at the moment, even though writing is on my mind again, and I want to sit down and get on with it, I feel like I'd be grabbing a couple of minutes here and there, not enough to really get stuck in. I'm procrastinating, I think, making excuses for not managing my time properly. I can think of a number of little things I could give up if I wanted, such as being involved with a certain Yahoo group, or writing this post that no one will read!

I need a clone.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 06:55:52 MST

I just finished reading The Giver by Lois Lowry, an award winning novel for children about a community in the future where everything is perfect and orderly. There are Rules, lots of them, but these Rules are followed to the letter by all the citizens, young and old. It's a community of innocence and obedience; there are no memories of the past, and nobody knows (or needs to know) what's outside the community, in the place known only as Elsewhere. Everything is organized and structured, each adult has a single job to do, and each child is taught from an early age the importance of Precision of Language (for instance, to say "I'm starving" is clearly wrong; one must say "I'm hungry," or else be gently chastised by the Elders).

It's a good job everything's so perfect and organized too, because what kind of life would it be if meals weren't delivered to each family dwelling three times a day? If boys and girls didn't receive their life's Assignment at the age of Twelve? If adults were allowed to choose their own spouses and have as many children as they wanted?

But how does a community manage for so long to avoid making the kind of mistakes that might pop their bubble of perfection? Poverty, unrest, greed, crime, and all that bad stuff? Well, that only happens when people get ideas in their heads. Give them a taste of pleasure, for instance, and they start wanting more. That's why each person over the age of eleven or twelve must take The Pills each morning throughout their lives, to avoid The Stirring. And everything else, every other kind of temptation, is simply withheld. No one can desire what they don't know about.

The Elders have the system sown up so tight that even they don't have any desires or needs other than what the sysytem allows. But they have to get their infinite wisdom from somewhere, to avoid deviating from the path... and they get it from a man known as The Receiver, who stores all the memories of the world in his poor old head. There can be only one Receiver, and as a boy named Jonas is selected to take over from the old man, he must receive all the memories from him -- which makes the old man The Giver for the duration (hence the title of the novel).

It's a really nice read, gripping and intriguing, and quite dark for a children's book. A couple of scenes in particular stand out as pretty disturbing. But what disturbs me most is how familiar some of the elements of this book are to my own story, Island of Fog.

In The Giver, we have Elsewhere, that place beyond, where no one ever goes. In Island of Fog, I also have Elsewhere, as well as Out There -- two different places. In The Giver we have a twelve year old boy as the main character, and he is brought up in a community with defined boundaries -- just like Hal in Island of Fog. In The Giver, the boys and girls are assigned varying tasks, which they must undertake for the rest of their lives -- as in Island of Fog (although this is a part I haven't written yet). In both novels there is an air of mystery and a veil of secrecy, and the idea that there's something else beyond the boundaries of the place they've grown up in.

I didn't copy any of these ideas, but of course some of them are not that new anyway. The Giver is reminiscent of Logan's Run and other movies, and I guess many other books follow the same kind of theme.

But since The Giver is so popular at the moment, I suppose I'd better alter at least the name of Elsewhere. Maybe call it Not Here instead...

Homemade Blog

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:33:21 MST

I've always been interested in the style of blogs. Generally speaking they're created by talented designers and clever programmers, and all the user has to do is install a pre-built template and start throwing words in. This means the Internet is filling up with nice-looking websites, and all those horrible, garish, hard-to-read websites with bits flashing everywhere and terrible midi music blaring out unexpectedly are starting to fade away.

At least that's how it seems to me. I think it's because professional blogs are better placed in search engines, so those are the ones I keep happening across these days. So hurrah for blogs in that respect.

I've ummed and ahhed for a long time about having my own blog. The big question I ask myself is: Why? Who's gonna read it? Who's gonna care? And what do I have to say anyway? (That's actually four questions, but they say the same thing.)

Frankly I don't really see the point in having a blog myself, and I'm not sure if I'll have time to post to it regularly anyway. On the other hand, maybe I'll grow to like it. And I can use it as a journal for my writing, to keep track of progress on my oh-so-slow-developing novel, Island of Fog.

But, because I like absolute, complete control of my website, and insist on building everything myself just so I know how, I haven't gone with one of the standard blog installation kits. No, I've done my own version. Creating a small admin is easy, and posting notes to my site is a doddle, but I've also done something I've never done before, which is to create RSS feeds from my posts. That's easy too, as it turns out; once I figured out which bits of code are required in the XML feed files, it was a simple case of writing a bit of PHP that dumps my posts to a carefully constructed template file -- all with the push of a button. So that's where I am today, testing out my new homemade blog and feed.

I'm sure there'll be wrinkles to iron out, but hopefully this blog will help me focus on my writing as well as stay "in the loop" with fellow writers.

Thanks, Derek, for giving me a little push!

AlphaSmart Neo

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 13:45:03 MST

A writing friend, Jeremy Yoder, wrote and said he'd been banging out tons of words recently. He said:

"Wanna know part of my secret? I've purchased a Neo from www.alphasmart.com. It's a dream for writing first drafts whenever and wherever I am. I take it everywhere. Over the July 4th weekend, I wouldn't have been able to write a single word, but with this I pounded out 4000 words. I also use it over my work's noon hour, creating another 500-1000 words then. (And today I wrote 1500 words while watching Raquel -- something I can't do at my desk computer.) Can't recommend it enough for writers that are desperate to find time to get first drafts down."

This was back in July 2005, and I was instantly envious and wanted a Neo of my own. But could I spend $249.00 on a machine that is nothing but a simple word processor? At the time, no. Money was tight. Still is.

Like Jeremy, I have a young 'un to watch over while my wife is working on the computer. Because my web business is slow, she does 25 hours a week to help make ends meet, and I spend that time in the living room and kitchen with little Lily. That's all well and good -- but when she's busy with her toys or watching Playhouse Disney, I could be doing something. I have a laptop, but it's a few years old and, although it runs very nicely, the battery is long-dead and there's no way I'm paying something like $200 for a new one. And laptops without working batteries aren't very convenient around a baby. Besides, what if I want to write "on the road" or on vacation?

So the AlphaSmart Neo appealed to me. It's designed purely for typing, and most writers probably agree it's ideal for banging out first drafts. It has a small gray screen with a simple font, and you can have up to six lines of text. It's a full size keyboard, but the Neo is incredibly lightweight and robust, and doesn't generate any heat at all (so there's no problem using it on your lap for hours on end). Best of all is the battery power. You can get the rechargeable version, but I just use 3 AA batteries -- which last a staggering 700 hours. If you work that out, it means I can use the Neo a couple of hours a day on average and it'll last me almost a year.

Another thing I like is that it switches on and off instantly. Think of a calculator. You press "ON" and after a second or two the cursor appears and you're ready to go. If you walk away and leave it, after a few minutes the thing switches off -- but your work remains exactly as you left it, automatically saved, so that when you switch back on the cursor is right there at the end of your text. It has eight files (eight keys along the top so you switch from one to another with ease) and overall holds around 512 KB. I currently have a simple text file on my PC with around 75,000 words taking up just over 200 KB, so I think the Neo's memory is more than enough!

When you've banged out your first draft, you can transfer it to any computer using the USB connection. You just connect it up, open an empty text file, and press "SEND" -- and your draft starts writing itself into the text file. But it's easier to use the File Manager that Neo supplies. You install it on your computer, then connect via USB, and then you can suck the contents off the Neo in a faster, more versatile manner.

I wish I could get paid for referrals. I've mentioned this to several people now, and can't recommend it enough. Sure, it has a few little bugs and things I'd like to change; for instance, the cursor seems a little slow responding, and because I tend to back up a lot to edit what I just wrote, this is sort of annoying sometimes. And the fixed screen could do with tilting up just a tad more (Jeremy said the same thing, so it's not just me). But these are minor things compared to what you get out of it. It even has some nifty features like a simple spell checker, a word counter, and other stuff.

It's already come in handy for me, and I've banged out a few short stories on it. A lot of people say it's not so good for editing, because you only have six lines of text available. This may be true, but I found it okay. And if I go away somewhere and editing is what I need to do, then I can do it; you just transfer the text from your computer to the Neo and away you go. But I agree that the final edits are best done on a PC. Sometimes you need to step back from the page and see what the text looks like at a glance, to see how one paragraph flows into the next, to check it for overall balance.

Is it worth the $249.00 asking price? I read a comment somewhere that you'd be better off putting it towards a laptop, or even the AlphaSmart Dana, which is a bigger sister of the Neo. It has more features and a big color screen, plus internet capabilities. But the point is that I don't need more capabilities. I'm the sort of guy who will buy the cheaper mobile phone because I don't feel a need to pay a little more to receive emails on it. If I want to check email I'll use my computer. Likewise, if I want the internet, a bigger screen, and less battery life, then I'll get the Dana or just stick with my laptop. The question is: What do you want it for? If you're a writer or journalist interested only in something reliable to bang out a first draft without worrying about batteries, the Neo might be just the thing.

I look forward to when I next take a flight to England to visit my parents. Eight hours on a plane... only this time I can spend the journey writing. Joy!