Here’s a fake email that is purportedly from PayPal… LOL
—————————————————————————————————-

During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedure we have detected a
slight error in your PayPal account.

This might be due to the following reasons:

1. A recent change in your personal information (ie. change of address, email address)

2. An inability to accurately verify your selected option of payment due to an internal
error within our systems.

We have attached a form to this email. Please download the form and follow the
instructions on your screen. NOTE: The form needs to be opened in a modern browser which has
javascript enabled (Internet Explorer, Firefox ,Netscape)

Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account.
We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to temporary suspend your account.

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department.

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address are not monitored.
For assistance, log into your PayPal account and choose the “Help” link in the footer of any page.

—————————————————————————————————-

Pretty funny. I suppose people fall for this. The form asks for my credit card number.

Here’s the header, where the server plainly identifies that it’s forged email…

From – Mon Aug 30 17:48:10 2010
X-Account-Key: account2
X-UIDL: UID2-1282847278
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 10000000
X-Mozilla-Keys:
Return-path:
Envelope-to: info@music-city.net
Delivery-date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:13:58 -0500
Received: from bearcomstores.com ([76.12.88.205]:3765 helo=mail.bearcomstores.com)
by gator1153.hostgator.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from )
id 1OqCc1-00078E-Vo
for info@music-city.net; Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:13:58 -0500
Received: from UnknownHost [71.54.209.101] by mail.bearcomstores.com with SMTP;
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:58:39 -0400
From: “PayPal”
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:57:03 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary=”—-=_NextPart_000_0121_01C2A9A6.67AB01C2″
X-Priority: 1
X-MSMail-Priority: High
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=5.8
X-Spam-Score: 58
X-Spam-Bar: +++++
X-Spam-Report: Spam detection software, running on the system “gator1153.hostgator.com”, has
identified this incoming email as possible spam. The original message
has been attached to this so you can view it (if it isn’t spam) or label
similar future email. If you have any questions, see
the administrator of that system for details.
Content preview: During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification
procedure we have detected a slight error in your PayPal account. This might
be due to the following reasons: 1. A recent change in your personal information
(ie. change of address, email address) [...]
Content analysis details: (5.8 points, 5.0 required)
pts rule name description
—- ———————- ————————————————–
0.0 MISSING_MID Missing Message-Id: header
1.6 MISSING_HEADERS Missing To: header
4.2 FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
X-Spam-Flag: YES
Subject: [SPAM] Negative Balance
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 9.0.851 [271.1.1/3102]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

I got to thinking… Which of course can be dangerous. I am now beginning to wonder how if search engines keep incorporating more, and more and more bits and pieces of websites that make them popular… how can said website can stay in business???

If you can get the basic idea, or the popular video, son or excerpt from a new novel, or whatever it is you are search for right from the search page, why click over? Since websites and search engine have a symbiotic relationship, I personally think that search engines should slow down trying to incorporate everything but the kitchen sink, even if tastefully and cleverly done like Bing… Which I really like, presentation-wise. They rely a little too much on Wikipedia results!

Anyway, can you see the double edged sword? Google on the other hand wants you to go to websites, (so adWords, and AdSense continue to progress and profit) and it’s obvious that Microsoft doesn’t focus on that, but wants to get everyone to their site more so that direct web searchers to others websites. Of course Bing traffic is FLAT, and probably will continue to be, no matter how cute and well laid out their results, features and search results are. So perhaps I’m pondering nothing?

Food For Thought.

Have Search Engine Gone Too Far?

Toolbar Madness

I figured I’d give it a go. After evaluating it for a few days, I think that I don’t like it very much. First of all. if you make a toolbar for Firefox… design it in such a way that it adapts to the theme you may be using. Who really wants all those annoyingly colored buttons hovering at the top of the screen, omnipresent-like. Let’s count them, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple and red.

I mean that’s my first thought as a designer let’s use all the primary colors!@!!

Secondly, when you get a 404, “Page Not Found” document, the toolbar presents you with an AVG 404, featuring you guessed it… ADVERTISING. How exactly is this NOT SPYWARE? Albeit you can disable this functionality. It go’s without saying that the Yahoo logo is prominently displayed in the search bar integrated within the security bar.

To quote a favorite movie of mine, “Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?” I’m sure the creators, programmers and designers of the AVG toolbar believe they have created a real gem, and in fact, perhaps it underlying functionality, the link scanning and whatnot HAS VALUE. However from a purely aesthetic point of view it’s just plain ugly. Also it’s spyware like hijacking of website’s 404 error handling documents makes me rate this toolbar with an Internet Madman “F”.

You know over the years, I’ve installed a lot of software, desktop software, seo software, database software, desktop publishing software, utility software, graphics manipulation software, etc…

Being a software developer I’ve developed many types of software applications for private and public use. Freeware, Adware. I’ve never ventured into creating viruses or trojans or malware.

Which brings me ultimately to the point of this post. The “input focus” In database programs where manual data entry is required, it is often useful to automatically shift the focus from field to field when the desired maximum length is required.

On web forms this technique can be used but is often confusing and a disjointed experience for the end-user.

{Begin Rant}

Every freakin’ toolbar, web page and whatever extension in my browser wants the input focus. You know the problem, you face it every single day. You’re trying to type in an url directly, and the focus of the input device shift to a search toolbar, or a field on a web page.

Everyone is vying for the focus. It’s valuable. Not to mention companies trying to hijack results pages from website who very well may have custom pages in place to handle errors. These types of practices may seem like good ideas at first. (ah-hmmm AVG) but ultimately you simply start to alienate users who will uninstall your little toolbar, your free anti-virus, your WHATEVER…

So stop stealing MY FOCUS!!!

{
End Rant
}

I recently moved this site, and www.music-city.net away from MediaTemple to HostGator Web hosting. Why???

Here’s why… MediaTemple sucks really bad. Below are my reasons.

• Their billing is sporadic, and never the same time, often going months without charging me, then charging me at strange times.
• Their website security had been compromised at least twice over the last six months. I know this because I got emails telling me my passwords were changed due to breaches.
• The server they had be on was uberSLOW – when I sent them a tech support request about it, they suggested I use a “caching” plug in for WordPress.
• It takes at least forty eight hours to get a reply from their technical support staff.

I recently transferred three domains to HostGator, and never had once instance where their staff wasn’t extremely friendly, knowledgeable, polite, and quick. I’m sure their are horror stories out their for every web hosting company.

However, when you are running any site even remotely connected to SEO, you damn well better have a site that responds in under a minute.

I had known for a while I needed to switch, but was dreading making the change. But what do you know? HostGator transferred all my databases, files, and everything for free!

Please note I am not a HostGator affiliate, just pleased with their service so far, and wanted to let whoever might be considering Media Temple hosting to FORGET IT! It’s not worth it! Don’t do it!

Well anyway, I’ve moved to the beach since my last post, and I’ve had to delay a ton of projects, as I’ve gained some meaningful work for a client, and I’m only one Internet Madman and therefore my time must be carefully managed, but I was noticing some meta tags on the New York Times website, (Not a fan of the NY Times) (to lefty for me…) and wondered if anyone had any meaningful insight as to the validity of these tags.

After all they are a newspaper, and not I’m sure they’re more intended as extra data just to have extra data, but Post your comments if you have something to say about them. I’ve posted the tags for your reference. Thanks in advance for any info.

I’ve noticed they have some Trim() or Alltrim() or TrimLeft() or whatever code their content management system might be using issues!

<meta name=”DISPLAYDATE” content=”June 8, 2010″ />
<meta name=”hdl” content=”McDonald’s Offers Cash in Recall of Shrek Glasses” />
<meta name=”byl” content=”By WILLIAM NEUMAN” />
<meta name=”lp” content=”McDonald’s will pay $3, a bit over the top price of $2.49, for each glass.” />
<meta name=”cre” content=”The New York Times” />
<meta name=”edt” content=”NewYork” />
<meta name=”pdate” content=”20100608″ />
<meta name=”ttl” content=”" />
<meta name=”virtloc” content=”" />
<meta name=”des” content=”Recalls and Bans of Products;Glassware;Metals and Minerals” />
<meta name=”per” content=”" />
<meta name=”org” content=”McDonald’s Corp” />
<meta name=”geo” content=”" />
<meta name=”ticker” content=”McDonald’s Corp|MCD|NYSE” />
<meta name=”misspelling” content=”" />
<meta name=”dat” content=”June 8, 2010″ />
<meta name=”tom” content=”News” />
<meta name=”cat” content=”" />
<meta name=”col” content=”" />
<meta name=”dsk” content=”Business” />
<meta name=”articleid” content=”1247468009837″ />
<meta name=”ARTICLE_TEMPLATE_VERSION” CONTENT=”700″>
<meta name=”hdr_img” content=”/images/article/header/sect_business.gif” />
<meta name=”thumbnail” content=”" />
<meta name=”thumbnail_height” content=”" />
<meta name=”thumbnail_width” content=”" />
<meta name=”xlarge” content=”" />
<meta name=”xlarge_height” content=”" />
<meta name=”xlarge_width” content=”" />
<meta name=”sectionfront_jsonp” content=”http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/business/index.jsonp”>
<meta name=”CG” content=”business”>
<meta name=”SCG” content=”">
<meta name=”PT” content=”Article”>
<meta name=”PST” content=”News”>

Please do not try to post any political opinion here as in reply to the fact that I don’t care for the NY-based Newspaper.

I often do keyword searches on the major search engines to determine my current position within them. I noticed that docstoc was embedding .pdf files I had created. Not only were they using my bandwidth, they were redirecting the internal links within the .pdf file to their own site.

How is this anything other than…

A.) BANDWIDTH THEFT
B.) COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
C.) OUTRIGHT LINK THEFT

Outrageous!

I sent them an email, and they removed the content, but what balls! Now I often use the meta information from websites to display information regarding websites I may or may not be linking to.

The difference is, META information is intended for use by bots. PDF files that authors create were never intended to be embedded and have their links redirected to another website. I would imagine someone will be suing the hell out of docstoc fairly quickly.

Anyone else have experience with the same problem from this website???

***Update***

As it turns out, they have a ton of additional files from my website embedded in their website. What’s the difference in my putting an Iframe in my website and redirecting their links with JavaScript? Not freakin’ much I can tell you, and anyone with any REASONABILITY will easily see it.

I’ve had to make an additional requests to them, and will let you know how it turns out.

I got to thinking about how wonderful the Internet would be if high speed internet was really that, HIGH SPEED. If upload speeds were as fast as download speeds, imagine the would be developers and service providers that would come out of the woodwork to produce new services, platforms, software, etc…

Of course the major high speed providers limit us. In turn I think they limit innovation.

Of course you can always use a web host, but upload speed can sometime be a huge factor in whatever your doing.

I am currently uploading a million businesses via RSS XML to http://mybusiness-directory.com – It’s an arduous process due to limited upload speeds.

Wow Only 4934 more XML files to Go!

Then of course they’ll only be around 380,000 businesses available, then another round of export creation. (Which takes just minutes)

Post how you’ve been ,limited by upload speeds.

I don’t know how many times that freaking curly quotes have made my programming life difficult. Not to mention strange characters inserted by popular web building tools.

Give me notepad and photoshop and I can create some great things. Sometimes WYSIWYG is not that at all.

Curly quotes are in no way shape or form a quotation make, or single bracket. What they are is a pain in the ass. Thanks ten years of Microsoft Word having curly brackets turned ‘ON’ by default!

I would like to bitch slap whoever invented that ‘feature’ and notice that I’m using single brackets here in a totally appropriate context.

Curly quote break so much programming around the globe, I bet this guy is on a hit list somewhere. They break WordPress RSS import by the way.

Learn to code without visual editors. CMS systems are great, but WYSIWYG blows.

I do a lot of data mining. I build programs that can extract a variety of data from website, databases, etc…

Sometimes I use an ActiveX control that is basically Internet Explorer. Sometimes I use other HTTP Protocol components, like Indy, Clever Internet Components, etc…

What continues to amaze me is that considering the wealth of knowledge available on the Internet, only a Google search away, is that people putting pages on the Internet, leave their main page (index) titles with text like, “Home Page”, or how about, “New Page 1″, or the famous, “Intro” and yes the ubiquitous, “Flash Detection”

Who exactly doesn’t have Flash? (And yes, I know what Lynx is) So don’t comment about how you do NOT have Flash…

The most valuable piece of real estate on a web page is the title tag. For people to leave this tag with something that is not precise, catchy, and descriptive is ludicrous.

I often watch my data mining programs in action, as they have meters, progress bars, record counters, and a variety of other useful information displayed as they run, including the current title tag.

I have seen some plain Jane titles, and then I’ve seen titles with tab characters in them, end of line characters in them, I’ve seen titles that are way too long, and I’ve seen titles that are way too short.

The whole point of this article is to let potential designers realize that the title is the most important tag on the net. Without having a proper title, you don’t have much chance at being found.

So people, here’s a few quick website design tips for a good title tag.

1. Use your most important key phrase once.
2. Use you site name after a separation character. (if it’s not too long)
3. Don’t use commas.
4. Don’t use, “:::” GEE!
5. Don’t use superfluous words like, “a, at, and, or, plus, etc”
6. Be creative.
7. Don’t use only your company name, unless you’re like Ford Automotive, General Electric, or someone like that (LARGE COMPANY)
8. If you depend on local business, use your city and state. (okay to use one comma)

Alright here’s the best tag of the day, and I mean that in a joking way…

AITC from http://www.alabamaaitc.org/ Wow! four whole characters! Lazy-ass programmers! This site also has no description tag, however plenty of JavaScript and Tables!

Alright, say your website is about widgets. Here is an example title tag… “Large Widget Selection | Ultimate Widget.com” Then as long as you are doing everything else right, at least your site has the Potential to come up in the SERPS!!!