Archive for 'Spam'
One Month With Google Branded GMail
Posted on May 31, 2007, under Email, Search, Spam, Tools and Services.
So it has been one month since I converted my personal email over to Google Apps. There were several phases in this process, the initial being research and testing different setups. I knew what my ideal end goal was going to be, but did not know which of the many ways of accomplishing that I was going to go with. In the process I was and am still converting my machines over to Linux, where the software compatibility with my Windows Mobile device are lacking. I ended up trying a bunch of different software to sync my desktop with my mobile device and then Google. None worked in such seamless manner as I wanted. Give it a couple more revisions and I am sure the software will be mature enough, but not at the moment. So ended up just going completely web based, something that is very foreign to me as I have used Outlook for most of my life. I am still looking for a good solution to backup my GMail, because the thought that “in case something happens my mail would be gone” kind of has me worried. I am no syncing my calender and mail right on my device to Google, bypassing the desktop.
So how has Google scored in this whole transition? Well here is the break down.
Pros:
- Google is fast!: I am not just talking about from the web application side. But from receiving and sending a message, it is lightning fast. It’s even faster when you are going from a Gmail account to another Gmail account.
- Shared calenders: I have my better half setup so we can share our Google calenders together, which has really been a great feature. This is one of those features that once you use it, you wonder how you ever survived with out it.
- Features: I am not going to go as far to say that Google’s webmail application sis flawless, but it is dam good. Features like Address Completion, Spelling, Tags, are easy to use and just as convenient as a desktop application.
- Load: Less load on my server, which means it can do what is does best: serving up web pages.
- Spam Filter: The spam filter is not perfect, but much better than what I previously had.
Cons:
- No API: I am really not sure why no API has been created yet, but it leads to being less in sync with your email. Applications to syncronize, applications to notify; are the applications I needed and wanted, but are cumbersome because there is no official API.
- Tags not Folders: Coming from an Outlook background, as mentioned above, getting used to tagging mail and not putting mail in folders was a change.
- Trash is not Storage: With Outlook I would keep my trash, it was a place i could reference if I ever needed. With GMail you use “Archived Mail” and anything in the trash is deleted after 30 days.
- Setup: If you have basic knowledge or a will to learn about of DNS and MX records, you can setup Google apps. It’s not too difficult, and the turn around was quick.
Overall I am very pleased, and it;s good to just have it work and not have to worry about managing it. Best of all when new features roll out, they will be implemented with no effort from me. Meaning I will not have to go and update the web mail software just to get the new feature I was waiting for.
Popularity: 7% [?]
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Download of the Day: Synergy
Posted on April 18, 2007, under Software, Spam.
Synergy is an open source, cross platform, solution for those geeks that have too may computers and monitors on their desk. Synergy allows you to share your mouse and keyboard across two or more computers, much like a KVM switch, but completely with software. You setup a server, or main computer, and your other computers are clients to that main machine. Synergy has great features like clipboard sharing, but unfortunately lacks the ability to cut and past files across machines.
I have Synergy setup between my main desktop and my laptop that sits beside my three monitors. There are other products that do the same thing, but I have found Synergy to be the easiest to use and does the best job.
Popularity: 5% [?]
1 Comment
How To Remove the Nofollow Tag From WordPress Comments
Posted on April 3, 2007, under Blogging, Code Snippets, Development, How To, Spam, WordPress.
Mitchell Harper recently posted an interesting article on the nofollow link in blog comments. If you are not familiar with the nofollow tag, it tells search engines not to count the link back the the users site which in turn increase page rank and all that fun stuff. So your visitors are leaving a comment, but not reaping any of the benefits of it. The reason for this tag is mostly to discourage spam, but it really doesn’t discourage any spam as the spammers still get their URL to the users viewing the comment.
I have been waiting to remove the nofollow tag from my comments here at Code and Coffee until I was comfortable that no spam was getting through. There is no spam here on Code and Coffee, and if some slip through the cracks and make it onto the site it’s removed quickly. My spam solution consists of Akismet and Spam Karma 2, which does a great job of filtering our spam.
So today I removed the nofollow link from the authors URL in the comments, nofollow tags still remain in the URL’s inside the comment text for the mean time. I will keep it this way as long as this does not get abused. So how can one do the same to their Wordpress blog and spread the link love? Easy, here’s the plug in.
[ftf]
/* Plugin Name: Remove Nofollow
Plugin URI: http://www.seopedia.org
Description: This plugin will remove the nofollow attribute from the comment author URL, but will leave the nofollow to any links withing the comment's body.
Version: 1.0
Author: Cristian Mezei
Author URI: http://www.seopedia.org
*/
function remove_nofollow($nofollow)
{
$nofollow = preg_replace("/rel='external nofollow'>/”,”rel=’external’>”, $nofollow);
return $nofollow;
}
add_filter(’get_comment_author_link’, ‘remove_nofollow’);
?>
[/ftf]
Happy commenting!
Popularity: 7% [?]
2 Comments
Get Ready To Convert Your HTML Email For Outlook 2007 Recipients
Posted on January 15, 2007, under Development, Email, Software, Spam.
With Outlook 2007 Microsoft is making some major changes, some are for the better and some are for the worse. The biggest change that pops out, and that can probably be files under the “worst” category is the way Outlook 2007 will render HTML emails. Up until now Outlook has used Internet Explorer for rendering HTML emails, but starting with Outlook 2007 Microsoft is using Word to render HTML images.
To most this isn’t a problem, and will go unnoticed. To others, including those who product HTML newsletters this will be a big problem. The Word HTML rendering engine is far less feature rich and compliant than Internet Explorer is. This means your HTML emails and newsletters will have to go through a huge design changes in order to be compliant with Outlook 2007. The Active Campaign Monitor Blog has a great write up on the biggest changes to look out for. You can download a tool from Microsoft that will help you in validating your HTML for Outlook 2007.
Being a Firefox user, what gets me about this change is that apparently this change comes because of security issues. This is pretty much Microsoft saying that Internet Explorer still isn’t secure enough. There is not a better way to insult the security of your product than to remove it from the most widely used Office suite.
Popularity: 3% [?]
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