My pages have apparently all reverted to posts with the latest database upgrade… please stand by while this problem is fixed.
(0)Author Archive for Matt Van Dusen
Page 3 of 7
Due to repeated abuses from someone styling themselves as “George Obrien” (relating to my two previous posts about my bad experiences with Bill Smith Auto Parts, ebay ID billsmithautoparts), and my anti-spam defenses not being crafted to work against manual spam, I am now requiring that all comments are approved by me before they can appear on my blog. I am hoping that the WordPress setting isn’t overridden by Spam Karma 2. If it is, I’ll have to investigate moving to a different anti-spam solution on my blog.
If you are curious about the type of spam I have been receiving, it began with comparing me to devices used to introduce water to the human body, various comments of a sexual nature, a few racist and bigoted remarks, and of course the ever-popular name calling. In practice, these comments have only been degrading to the one posting them, as well as the company they work for. I realize anyone could type an arbitrary email address and name into a form on the internet and think they could get away with it, but with the multiple abuses including the particular email addresses used, the IP addresses used, the comments received, and other info, I feel confident in saying that these are mostly, if not all, from the same human being, presumably one who works for Bill Smith Auto Parts.
If you have anything constructive to say about this situation, I am open to hearing it. If not… your comment will hit the dung heap. I’m sorry that’s the way it has to be, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Well, as I explained on my other blog, I’ve been neglecting my blogging. I’ve ignored my blogging so much, in fact, that I didn’t even notice my 101 in 1001 list expired on February 11th – Heck, I thought it might have been the 19th, that’s how long it’s been since I’ve even looked at this site. Continue reading ‘I didn't even notice…’
I have cleaned up the posts on my site – it has gone from 375 public posts to 29. There are a couple reasons for this cleanup – 1, I noted that there was some fairly strong language in most of my “angry teen years” posts from High School and shortly beyond, and I wanted this to become a more family-friendly blog. 2, it was a necessary step for me to realize my vision for this blog, which does not involve complaining about school or jobs which I do not have any more, or be riddled with lame memes.
I also plan to move the blog to a different address, and this will cut down the work – don’t worry, when I do change addresses, I’ll make sure the current blog.mattfast1.com address redirects to the new one.
In addition to this blog being automatically updated from the WordPress Subversion Repository on a nightly basis, installing new features almost as fast as the WordPress team adds them, I have changed the \’default\’ avatar that appears when a comment is made from someone who doesn\’t have their email address tied to a Gravatar account. It used to be the \’mystery man\’ default avatar, that everyone\’s probably used to seeing on blogs that have Gravatar enabled.
Now, I\’ve changed that \’mystery man\’ to Wavatar, which will automatically generate an avatar for you, based on your email address. As an added bonus, any other Wavatar-enabled sites will give you the same avatar!
If you want to hear something bizarre, simply play Rhianna’s Disturbia over ICP’s Let’s Go All The Way. Weird.
(0)Recently, the T9 dictionary on my phone (which is a LG LX550, also called the LG Fusic) has become flooded with bad entries, coming from turning off the dictionary and forgetting to turn it back on or other PEBCAK errors on my part (entries such as Hmy, Gdt, and other gems are among the offenders). So, since I had problems finding out how to do it myself, I figured I would share how I reset my dictionary. Continue reading ‘Quest to reset T9 Dictionary [ LG Fusic (LX-550) ]‘
I have created more security measures for my domains. Now, any access to mattfast1.com, mattvandusen.com or vandusens.us (and their subdomains) by those in certain troublemaking countries will be denied. While in the interest of security I\’m not going to reveal my exact methodology for these filters, let\’s just say it\’ll take a bit of effort for them to break through. Continue reading ‘New Security Measures’
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