Nom de plume: Rivrdog

The Samsung Sucks post

First, there was a Samsung Sucks post in which I wrote about my hapless ownership of a Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone, but I mishandled the Blog Editor after I published it, and the post went away some hours after I had published it.

So next, I wrote a proper explanation of why it went away, and the TypePad blog editor STILL hates me, so THAT just went away as well.

BenC, your appropriate comment on what I should do with my Samsung phone and the wireless service it is contracted to also went away, sorry about that, no offense intended. Ben told me to "root" the phone. If you are an Apple Phreak, that's known as "jailbreaking", and basically, you instruct the Android IOS that YOU are the master of it, not the phone company. It voids your phone warranty, but you gain control over your phone, it's apps and it's memory. I'll think about doing that, but I might also upgrade, or I might buy out of the present contract and have a complete do-over to an ordinary dumb-phone, saving myself $1000/year if both I and the gudwife do that.

Comment FUBAR - UPDATED

Comments are F.U.B.A.R.

I just beat down a spam-comment attack of several dozen spam comments.

I can't determine if Six Apart, the blogging parent of Typepad, has let down their spam-shields, or whether somehow it's connected to Yahoo!, which seems to have turned up it's toes just now.

My only recourse at this point is to do maximum anti-spam actions, which include the dreaded "Captcha" system again, and comment moderation.

I hope that this will be temporary, so if Typepad gets it's act together and blocks most of the spams again, I can relax these restrictions, but if not, they'll have to stay. Having to sit here for long periods deleting dozens of spam comments is not my idea of the fun that blogging is supposed to be.

If prospective commenters really don't want to mess with Captcha, just email me at perspacatyahoodotcom and I will publish your comment directly from my computer, smartphone or tablet, I always have one of those nearby. Unless I get REALLY distracted, I will publish moderated comments no less than three times per day, and likely more. When emailing, please give the permalink of the post you want the comment to go to. Just click on "permalink", right next to where you clicked on "comment".

##########################################

UPDATE: 110212 PDT: Okay, no further spam, one of the two measures, either the Captcha or the moderation is keeping it out, and since I haven't had any spam accumulating in my email box, I will remove moderation and see if the Captcha will keep the spammers at bay. BTW, Six Apart admitted that they were overwhelmed, it wasn't just me, so there's a new spam-bot out there that's getting by their initial shields.

widgeting

If you're fidgety, get widgety. Slick app to a publishing widget for my blog. Works, too!

Droid publishing test

Short test One, Two, Three, SHORT!!!!

Blog Housekeeping

I just dumped "Captcha" authenticating for comments to this blog. I used to be able to do just about every one of them myself, so figured that commenters wouldn't have all that much trouble, either. Lately though, the words are so badly distorted that sometimes I have to call for 15 new ones before I can see one that even looks doable. I still have decent vision, and use the very best computer glasses on a 22" screen to blog with, so if I have this much trouble, it's got to be driving other commenters away.

No more Captcha, I'll just have to deal with the spammers.

BTW, any tech advice on this issue is welcome.

Will YOU be the 5,000th commenter? No, Rifleslinger is the one!

We're within a dozen comments of a significant milestone for this blog: Five thousand comments (that I've kept, I flush all spam comments and comments from advertisers thinly disguising their ad as a comment).

You WILL get your name in lights here if you are the 5,000th...

Take keyboard under hand and get to it!

*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*

STRIKE UP THE BAND (band plays Hail to the Chief, Rifleslinger deserves the music more than the current CIC, anyway).

CUE THE KLEIG LIGHTS, and they stab the night sky, dancing their  pattern in the summer smoggy night.

BRING OUT THE MC, and with my immortal writer's licence, I resurrect Johnny Carson, the premier MC of my time, anyway....Ed McMahon gravely intones, "annnd, Heer'es Johnny!"

Carson walks to center stage, dressed in a tux and sporting his "Carnac the Magnificent" turban, and carrying the famous unmarked envelope. The crowd goes crazy, screaming, but then chanting in unison, "who is it, who is it, who is it"

Carson raises his hand, quieting the crowd. He puts the blank envelope to his brow, closes his eyes for a second, then speaks softly, "it's number Five Thousand, the five-thousanth commenter on the famous Rivrdog web-log." With a flourish, Carson pops open the envelope, and with the best surprised look that the stage veteran can summon up, "it's...Rifleslinger, a man of great persistance".

#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*

So, what does Rifleslinger win? The Rifleslinger wins a post, to be either written by himself and published here or ghost-written by the Rivrdog editorial staff to be published here. 

Let us know, Rifleslinger.

 

 

 

This blog

...is created on a Fedora machine! Still a newbie, but I think this is doable.

Just hit 3500

...posts on this blog, that is.

Plus, I'm only short 130 comments of 5,000.

Not a big dog, but a Rivr dog, heh!

Typepad bleg

I wrote a Help Ticket to Typepad, the blog engine I use, but they did not give a satisfactory answer.

Does anyone know how to "root" or "jailbreak" their templates so as to present a cleaner, more uncluttered look to the Dashboard (the first page you get after logging in) and the Compose page, which also has their ads on it?

Of late, Six Apart, which also presents the various forms of Word Press, seems to be on an advertising kick, but they do it on MY pages. I didn't agree to let them advertise to me, and said so in my ticket, but I got no answer to that.

As I understand it, some things with their pages can be changed via customizing the templates, but I have no clue as to how to do that.

Any advice welcome. I used to have a guru who advised me on all things Typepad, but I guess he doesn't do that anymore, since I haven't heard of him in a while and his blog, Light and Dark, hasn't been updated in 38 moons.

Woo-hoo! An "Uncle-lanche"

...over at Straight Case gunblog. Uncle was kind enough to mention my post on Bore Snake, the new versus the old, and my tip about the surplus Bundeswehr (German Army) gun cleaning kits out there (at Cheaper Than Dirt and other places) which sell for far less than Bore Snakes. The post has almost 800 page views as I write...