Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Another clever way to prevent opt-out

Here's another clever way for spammers to keep spamming you.  Legally they have to include a way to opt out, usually via a link at the bottom of the email.  As I wrote a few days ago, sometimes those links cleverly look like phish attempts, so anti-phish measures block them.

Today I got one I could actually click, and did so. It seems the unsubscribe page was (accidentally, I'm sure) so badly written as to crash the browser!  Outstanding!


Friday, July 15, 2016

How anti-phishing is giving me more spam

I hate to write this one, for fear the spammers will learn from it and send more. But really ...

I'm getting spam from a particular sender. Same old thing.  But this one looks sufficient like a phish ..  well, our corporate anti-phish technology is triggering on it and removing the URLs. Which means I can't use the legally-mandated URL to opt-out.  So I get more spam from them.

It kinda sucks.  Protection implemented for the best of reasons, to block phishing, is making spam more prevalent.

Damned if you do.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Mai Tai chez Glen

I've been fiddling with my Mai Tai recipe off and on for a couple of years ... here's what I'm making now, gets good reviews from my favorite tasters (you know who you are).

This makes about 4 tall drinks.

7 oz spiced rum
3.5 oz coconut rum
7 oz pineapple juice
2 oz guava nectar
8 oz orange juice (homestyle - ie. with pulp)
6 or 8 solid shakes of Angostura Bitters
1 oz dark rum
6 or 8 chunks of fresh pineapple

Serve over ice.

If you're being fancy, save the dark rum to the end. Fill the glass 3/4 with drink and 3 to 5 ice cubes. Pour a little grenadine down the side of the glass to layer on the bottom, and float a little dark rum on top.  I can't be bothered, and just mix the dark rum in, skipping the grenadine 'cuz I don't like pink drinks.

Some people have crappy paper umbrellas, and stab the pineapple chunks with them. I don't. I just throw a couple of chunks of pineapple in the glass at the end.  My guests can eat the infused pineapple when they're ready for another. :)

Aloha.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Rude android apps

I'm getting pretty annoyed at the self-indulgence of some Android apps.  Facebook, gmail, and others.

Here's the deal. When I leave my home, I often turn off WiFi ... I've found that if I leave it on, sometimes my phone connects automatically to networks that need a signin, and because I didn't plan to connect, I don't sign in, and for a while any transfers are blocked. Eventually I might notice, but in the meantime an important email hasn't been delivered to me, or something I've sent hasn't actually gone upstream. So I turn off WiFi when I leave the house.

Sometime later, I want to do something that will use a fair amount of traffic, and deliberately connect to the local wifi where I am. Usually at a bar. Just thought you might like to know. :)

However, after I connect, my phone basically stops working for a couple of minutes as every friggin little pissant app I have on my phone decides now is an awesome time to sync. I watch the little traffic icon thing, and the up and down signals are pegged. In both senses of that word. It's really annoying, and all because these crappy apps think their background transfers are the most important thing in my life right now. I couldn't care less about the 39 Facebook updates in my network. Not in the next few minutes anyway. I deliberately connected to a network because I wanted to get something done! And I can't.

I guess what I need to find is some app that doesn't completely disable background transfers .. but maybe delays some of them so they don't all go at once.

In the meantime, if the apps themselves would just wait a danged minute or two - you know, be polite - I'd be a lot happier. Catch the signal that the network is now present, and set a timer for yourself. Wake up in 1 to 3 minutes. Do your sync.

I'm frankly about 5 more episodes of this away from uninstalling Facebook from my phone.