Frank Haywood » Check This Out

Why You Shouldn't Use Gmail

Frank Haywood — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:30:35 +0000

I don't have much more to add to what's been said in the comments on this news item on The Register, other than to say what I've said many times before. If you're running a business, then use a BUSINESS email address, not a free one.

Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy
'If you don't want anyone to know, don't do it'

And you should also check out the comments. A few choice words there, but it merely reflects the anger you'd expect would be generated by someone making such an arrogant statement.

Google do no evil? Don't make me laugh.

Updated Blog Software

Frank Haywood — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:48:23 +0000

Just a quick post to say I've updated this blog using this theme and software:-

http://www.frankhaywood.com/go/slp/

I've had my eye on it for quite a while now, but it seemed that development had stopped and the company was being sold, but not any more. Now development is full steam ahead with lots of point releases coming out all building up to a full version 6 release.

It's relatively expensive, but you can get it at the lowest price for at least the next few days – the word is the price is going up when v6 is released.

It's well worth every penny at any price, and I'm gradually upgrading all my niche blogs to this new platform.

When I've got to grips with the over 70 plugins that come with the theme I'll do a proper review of it, but that could take some time as there's so much in there.

In the meantime, the theme itself comes with 27 skins, and I've chosen one that is clean and simple and is very similar to the previous one, so it shouldn't all come as too much of a shock to you.

Update: v6.0 RC1 has now been released, so if the price is going up when the full v6.0 is released, now would be a good time to get it.

-Frank Haywood

Zero Blog Comment Spam With Clickcha

Frank Haywood — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:08:39 +0000

I thought I'd tell you about a plugin I installed a week or so ago that has completely removed all automated comment spam from this blog.

It's called Clickcha and what it does is present a small random clickable image with instructions on where to click such as "click the smallest number" or "click the biggest square".

The beauty of this is only a human would know where to click. So all those spammers using tools that automatically leave spam comments on blogs are out of luck.

Interestingly, it seems that ALL comment spam has stopped. In fact, even those comments I used to get that were what I would call borderline spam have stopped too. I used to deal with those by looking at the URL, and if it was anything to do with herbal remedies or gambling etc, I'd mark it as spam and let Akismet deal with it for other blog owners.

So just stopping to think about that one for a moment, it seems to be true that there's a lot more automated blog comment spam must be going on than you'd think.

In fact Akismet hasn't had to deal with one item of spam since I installed Clickcha.

That's pretty cool and is definitely a plugin worth getting.

Update: I've had a couple of problems getting Clickcha to work properly on another site and I had to edit the comments.php in order for it to work. I've also had a subscriber (hi Larry) tell me that he clicked the smallest number and it deleted his comment from this blog. I've also just found a load of comment spam in Akismet, so Clickcha doesn't quite seem to be doing what it's supposed to at the moment and I've now deactivated it. The concept is good though, so lets keep our eye on that one.

-Frank Haywood

5ubliminal Is My New Hero

Frank Haywood — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:04:27 +0000

While doing research for a report on autoblogging, and looking for a tool that would allow you to post to WordPress remotely, I (eventually) came across this blog by 5ubliminal.

It's well worth signing up to as the owner has released some pretty cool plugins and you'll only get them if you sign up due to his very nice pp:Morpheus plugin which I've just purchased.

If he had an affiliate scheme I'd join it. And if it was a WordPress plugin I'd buy it.

And after purchasing the pp:Morpheus plugin I DEFINITELY want to buy his WordPress store plugin when he releases it, it's just what I've been looking for to use on this site, although I guess I'd want a slight tweak to it. From my recent shopping experience there it allows you access to additional content by adding an access token to your subscriber account on a blog.

The tweak I'd want doing to it is to optionally (on a per-post basis) make some content available to all existing subscribers, but make new subscribers pay for it. Tie that in with an affiliate scheme and it would be bloody awesome. I don't swear often so I think you can tell what I think about that idea.

If you decide not to look at 5ubliminal's blog or even subscribe, then at least take 2 minutes of your time to read this and have a chuckle. 5ubliminal is my hero just for creating this page alone.

http://www.5ubliminal.com/

-Frank Haywood

5ubliminal message: I would very much also like a WordPress plugin that allows me to gather subscribers and email them from within WordPress. It would need SMTP support so I could use a service that I like called AuthSMTP.com to ensure email deliverability. Actually I think a lot of people would like that. Thank you.

Check This Out

Frank Haywood — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:39:25 +0000

I love a freebie don't you?

Jan Evensen has released a nice little ebook called "The Really Easy Web Building Guide" which gives you all the information you need to set up a web site and get your internet business started.