Author: Richard

The Trouble with YouTube (Redux)

| Richard

I have received a reply to my support query about marking comments as spam from YouTube:

“Thanks for your email. The “Mark as Spam” feature is there to help us recognize messages which are spam. If you see any comments which are spam, please click on “Mark as Spam” and the comment will be removed from the site. This helps us keep the site clean and spam free.”

Now, maybe it’s just me, but when I upload videos I allow comments but only if they’re approved by me, i.e. I get a notification of a comment, go to the video and approve or delete them or indeed mark them as Spam. In my case, the reply that “the comment will be removed” doesn’t appear to be correct. When I mark a comment as Spam, it shows as being marked that way, but as soon as I reload the video page or log out and log in again, the comment is still there awaiting approval and has to be manually deleted.

So what’s the point in marking the message as Spam, especially as they’re almost exclusively from “fire and forget” YouTube accounts? All it does is make more work for me.

Bloody Hell! “Silent” Rob Posts!

| Richard
Good grief! “Silent” Rob Labatt has finally broken his near nine month silence to post on Yuku - maybe he has to give birth to each post? Of course, it’s a tad lacking in factual accuracy, but no change there:
“…Well done to the entire Yuku team for a fantastically smooth release…”
Who knows? Maybe having every single Yuku message board offline all morning is smooth by their standards?

[Update]

Oh dear! It appears that they didn't actually bother testing it in Opera before the code push. Smooth...

The Trouble with YouTube

| Richard

Well it’s all very well and good being able to easily upload videos and set various options for comments and the like, but what happens when there’s a feature you don’t understand?

Some of my videos on an alternative profile are quite popular and as a result of that a lot of people are subscribing to the video ‘channel’ which I presume is partly responsible for introducing more subscribers viral marketing stylee.

But with that comes the issue of Comment Spamming, mainly for those tacky webcam pr0n sites. Now, all comments for my videos are moderated so they don’t actually get seen until I go along and approve them or otherwise. There’s also a “Spam” link which seems to hide the content but the username is still shown, at least to me, but reloading the video page shows the full comment to me again, so I then have to delete it. So what exactly does the Spam link do? Try searching for “spam” or “comment spam” or whatever in the Help Centre and you’ll see there’s nothing at all about that.

I also had to raise a query about “Bulletins”: do they go to all your subscribers or just your friends? I’m still not entirely sure, but I suspect the latter.

Maybe they should spend some of those billions of a proper, full FAQ?

Another Domain Name Renewal Scam

| Richard

I’ve recently received some e-mails sent to the Admin. contact for some of our .com domain names from “Domain Renewal” (reminder@domainrenewalonline.com) stating that:

“It is time to renew your domain name  {domainname.com}

Your domain name {domainnname.com} will expire within 90 days.

You may renew your domain automatically with Domain Renewal. Click on the link in this e-mail to renew the domain for another year. You should renew your domain as soon as possible in order for it to continue to be registered in your name.

Click here if you wish to renew your domain
 ——–>http://www.domainrenewalonline.com/for.php?d=domainrenewalonline.com

As soon as we have received your payment, you will receive a confirmation that your domain  has been renewed…”

It’s not until further down the e-mail that you read – if you get that far through the last, large paragraph – that “you may also request your Internet Service Provider to renew the domain for you” which is the first point at which you might twig they are unconnected to your ISP or actual domain registrar.

If you do venture onto their web site, it’s been cleverly designed to feature logos from major technology firms like Oracle, Cisco Systems, IBM and Microsoft for no apparent reason (other than to presumably make you think you’re dealing with a reputable firm in the Internet sector).

Prices? Well how does $59.95 for one year grab you?

RAC Using Known Spammer Frankdata

| Richard

Another Spam presumably paid for this time by the RAC who should know better. They appear to have bought a list of spammed e-mail addresses from well-known spammer Frankdata International Marketing Limited and are thereby helping to keep this spammer in business.

Well I’d just like the RAC to know that I will never buy any of their goods or services as a result of this. If you hate spam, why not do likewise and boycott firms who use spammers.

[Update]

Well the RAC called me back a couple of times, but refused to get their Marketing Department - presumably the ones who paid for the spamming campaign and made arrangements with Colin Franklin to send it - to discuss it with me as they don’t deal with the public.

In view of that, a formal complaint has now been made to the Information Commissioner’s Office - see the link at the foot of this page.

Soho Consulting Redux

| Richard

I received more Spam today to an e-mail address I used exclusively to register domain names through Soho Consulting, so I thought I’d close that e-mail address down.

A quick check first that there were no remaining domain names to worry about with that e-mail address following the debacle with a simple transfer request, so I tried logging into the Soho Control Panel:

STATUS MESSAGE

Although your username and password were found on the system, your account has been suspended.

If you feel there has been some mistake, please contact our support department.

support@sohosupport.info

Bless them… 

Recording My Lap Times with a Calendar

| Richard

Calendars.

A necessary evil these days.  I can’t be bothered with paper ones in the same way that diaries never worked for me.

No, I prefer my good old Outlook Calendar. In the latest version, it can also be set up to synchonise with a webdav-enabled web server which is nice, except that you can’t then simply go to the URL and view your calendar online, for instance in an Internet café or on your mobile. No, the .ics file can be downloaded and imported by applications like Entourage or Outlook, but you can’t really read or amend it when you’re out and about.

When I can be bothered, I can synchronise my Nokia phone with Outlook when I’m back in the office, just as I can my iPAQ, so that’s useful, but it means I have to be around the base PC and have to manage the connection.

I can also export my Outlook calendar and import it into Google Calendar. That’s all very well and good but it’s a slow, manual process.

No, what I want is a calendar that I can amend at my desk. It’s automatically published at regular intervals to the web where I can choose to keep all or part of it private or restrict who can view it online. I want to be able to add to it or change it on my mobile with any changes being made to all the versions automatically the moment I’m in range, either of a decent high speed GPRS link or a 3G one. And I want to be able to update it through any web browser and have those changes propagated immediately to the PC and phone versions.

Surely that’s do-able?Â