Over the years, you have repeatedly made unwanted advances, and I have repeatedly turned you down. Regardless, you keep at it, and it really needs to be addressed. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
One of my email clients noted that email they are sending to one of your email clients is being blocked because of some violation of your terms of service. Of course there’s no indication of the violation, but your email points out that you MIGHT be blocking my server’s IP address and that I am welcome to visit https://postmaster.live.com/snds/index.aspx to check. When I visit the page, I click the link offering “just a few clicks later you’ll see a wealth of historical data on those IPs’ mail volume, spam-related and other statistics”. I typed in the IP I wanted to check and it asks me to log in with my Windows Live ID. I don’t have one and I don’t want one.
This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to force yourself on me, either. Over the years, I’ve tried to sign up for MSN a handful of times and each time, it has been a horribly designed, cumbersome process. It’s not the fact that I have to have a Live ID that bothers me. It’s the face that you keep trying to force me to use hotmail.
Hotmail? Really?
You already cram the widely hated Internet Explorer down everyone’s throats. Isn’t that enough? Do I really need to sign up for Hotmail just to check the history of my IP in your spam rules? Then I’ll never use the account and in six months or a year I’ll have to get a new one because I never wanted the old one in the first place, so I promptly forgot the information.
Just let me use my own email address. I like it, I’ll remember it, and it doesn’t waste your resources. See. Isn’t that easy? Oh. Wait. I forgot I was talking to Microsoft, here. Nevermind. I’m sure you’ll just keep doing it your way until everyone just gives in.
There’s a lot of grumbling in the MySpace community about “hacking”. Technically, the problem is really phishing. More on that below. The amount of spam floating around in MySpace (in large part due to compromised accounts) has also been a big concern. Keep reading to not only protect your own account, but to help put an end to MySpace spam in general.
Dont be a Phishee: Don’t log in again if you’re already logged in and always type a site’s URL into your browser if the site requires you to log in.
I keep company with some pretty smart people, yet a few of them have given their login details away to spammers. This is an easy trap to fall into if you’re not looking for it. Some of the specifics would only help other spammers learn how to do it, but here’s the general idea: The spammer adds you as a friend or otherwise entices you to click on something within MySpace. The page you end up at is designed to look just like the page shown below, telling you that you need to log in. If you enter your account information in this page, it goes to the spammer and you are redirected back to content on MySpace, letting you think you’ve just logged back in.
Use a secure password: A mixture of upper and lower case characters as well as symbols and numbers works best.
If your password is “password”, “1234″ or the same as your username, stop reading for a second and go change it right now. A password should be hard for anyone else to guess. Don’t use your first, last, or middle name. Don’ t use a series of consecutive numbers or your address. The name of your child, spouse or pet is also forbidden. From now on, your password should be a mixture of upper and lower case characters, numbers, and symbols. Your password should also be at least six characters. An example of a secure password is “23sp@mSuxx” or “D13SPammeR$”. If you want more examples of BAD passwords or just want to read up on it some more, take a look at this article
Don’t turn a blind eye: Report anything that looks wrong to MySpace and others.
It’s easy to just delete spam or not fall for a phishing attempt, but we need to make the attempts stop. Next time you get spam from a stranger, report it. If it’s from a friend, call that friend and tell them about it. After all, you would want your friends to tell you if your account was compromised and sending spam to everyone, wouldn’t you? Finally, if you are ever sent to a page outside of MySpace that is made to phish your information, report it to MySpace, to the site’s hosting provider and to authorities. Usually, an email to abuse@myspace.com and abuse@[the host's domain name] will take care of it. If you have a minute, take the extra step and report the abuse at http://www.ic3.gov/, too.
Don’t encourage spam: Stop clicking on spam and/or signing up for stuff.
So you get spam for “free money answering surveys” or that “free Macy’s gift card”, and maybe you think it’s worth doing even thought it’s spam. Don’t do it. Don’t visit their sites, buy their goods, or sign up for their free offers. When enough people respond to a “marketing campaign” of any kind, it lets the person running that campaign know that it is working and they will continue that campaign until it no longer provides the profit they require. If nobody responds to the spam campaigns the way the spammers would like, they have no reason to continue those campaigns.
Leaving? Leave for good: If you no longer use your account, delete or disable it.
Sick of Myspace or just don’t have the time for it anymore? Disable or delete your account. If you aren’t logging into your account, nobody should be able to.
In summary, if you memorize these five rules, you will be part of the solution.
1. Dont be a Phishee: Don’t log in again if you’re already logged in and always type a site’s URL into your browser if the site requires you to log in.
2. Use a secure password: A mixture of upper and lower case characters as well as symbols and numbers works best.
3. Don’t turn a blind eye: Report anything that looks wrong to MySpace and others.
4. Don’t encourage spam: Stop clicking on spam and/or signing up for stuff.
5. Leaving? Leave for good. If you no longer use your account, delete or disable it.
It should be noted that these rules can be applied to most sites that require you to log in.
If you want to really make this work, Digg or Reddit this article and then copy the HTML below and post it in a bulletin on MySpace so others can read it, too.
UPDATE: MySpace bulletins keep breaking my link, so just forward the URL along:
http://www.joetech.com/2007/10/11/5-easy-ways-to-end-myspace-spam
Before I get started, I should thank Dan and Sherree for this article that saved me the headache of trying to go enter my wife’s Dell Inspirion 1100 from the bottom only to find that would be a waste of time. Now on to the destructions.. er.. I mean INstructions.
First, I like to label the screws I’m going to remove on a piece of paper to avoid confusion. If there’s a lot, I like to use scotch tape to keep them all apart. In this case, we only have five screws, so no tape.
Also, you’ll need a slotted screwdriver and a Phillips head as well. The Phillips head should have a small point on it. Needle-nosed pliers will also make unlocking the ZIF CPU socket easier.
Diving in, you want to pry up the top plate with a slotted screwdriver. Remember to open the laptop all the way (push the screen all the way back) to let the plate come up easily. There’s four or five plastic slots that will pop out as you pry the thing up. Go from right to left.
When you pull the top plate off, you’ll see four black screws. You’ll need to remove these to pull the keyboard up. I’ve pointed to them with my screwdrivers, but I’m sure you’ll see them.
Remember. The keyboard should remain attached, so use care when lifting it out of the way. On the right side, you’ll see a metal cover protecting the heat sink, CPU, and other vital stuff from, well, you. Just remove that. It has only one screw, so they want you in there, anyway.
With the metal protective plate removed, you should see the heat sink / fan assembly and probably some dust. The assembly has four screws. Hold on. First, unlock the ZIF CPU socket before trying to pull the heatsink out.
Now throw the new one in there and lock the ZIF CPU socket again.
While some of you may not care, I thought the solution to my TV/Computer woes was interesting enough to post.
For three days, my dedicated TV computer has been failing to get past the XP Logo seen above. Given my schedule this week, I’ve barely been able to look at this for an hour or so a day. Still, this has been frustrating. Searching Google on my laptop, I found plenty of possible solutions, which include removing hardware, drivers, etc., and I’ve tried all of the options that didn’t involve opening up the box.
After 3 days, I found a forum post that suggested that a USB device that had been plugged in caused the issue. Well, when my cat took a flying dive into my hardware, the USB wireless adapter came unplugged and had gotten plugged back in without any further thought. Having tried everything else, I decided this morning to give it a shot. I unplugged it, rebooted, and everything seems to be back to normal. It just goes to show that Google is an important resource for troubleshooting, because you never know when your problem will have a completely unexpected solution.
